Hope For The Best . . .
Sol System - Outer Boundary
The Statesman’s Bridge
The entire team stood about the bridge, mutely watching the repaired forward screen. Most of them seemed stunned by the level of destruction; even Rocket was at a loss for an appropriately snide comment.
The only ones present that didn’t seem sick were Gamora and Nebula. Then again, it was not the first world they’d seen broken by Thanos. At the other end of that spectrum were those from Earth. They’d clearly never anticipated the level of destruction Thanos was capable of. They all had people they cared about down there. People they desperately wanted to make sure were okay. And there was no way to check on them. Stark had Friday combing the reports for specific names. Everyone hoped she wouldn’t find any. No one was naïve enough to believe it.
Every country seemed to have borne its weight of fire, but Wakanda had received special attention. The massive hologram that had hidden them from the world for so long was absent, revealing a pockmarked landscape of fire. The entire country seemed littered with the varying sized remains of that great country’s weapons of war. The most advanced weapons of war that could be found on that entire planet.
And that was just the start. As they watched, the signs of resistance became synonymous with the signs of desolation. Anywhere that had not surrendered had seen massive retaliation. Nowhere on the planet reached the shear massive devastation visited upon the United States, although China and India came close.
The newscaster finished updating the estimate of the dead and wounded, including military losses. Then the report switched back to the heroic last stands those militaries had fought less than twelve hours before. When it rolled back to Wakanda’s defiance T’Challa turned away, a look of obsidian on his face.
The last estimate of enemy casualties was just over a hundred thousand. But, when compared to the losses to the people of the Earth, losses creeping worryingly close to one billion, it couldn’t even be considered a Pyric victory.
“We’re too late,” Scott breathed, more to himself than anyone else.
“Really?” Falcon snapped, turning an incredulous look on the former thief. “Is that you’re expert opinion?”
“Well, I’m sure some of us needed it spelled out for them,” Rocket snapped. “I mean, we’re not really going down there are we?”
“Thanos is still here,” Natasha said. “That means he hasn’t found the time stone yet.”
“What difference does that make?” Rocket protested. “The guy just wrecked a planet in twelve hours. And, the last time I checked, we didn’t have anyone that could wreck planets at all.”
“Rocket,” Gamora said slowly, trying to keep a lid on her temper “if he gets the last stone, he’ll kill us all wherever we are.” She didn’t want to go down there any more than anyone else. More so really. Of all of them, she and Nebula were the only ones who knew exactly what failure would mean. If they were lucky it was a simple death sentence. If they were lucky.
“Fine, but-” the racoon started before the entire argument was preempted by breaking news. They turned in unison to see Thanos’s massive face on the screen.
“There they are,” he sneered. “It’s about time. I was getting bored.”
Tony was the first one to gather himself together. “Oh, I’d think you’d be quite busy,” he said.
“What, you mean looking for this?” Thanos replied, holding up the gauntlet. In its second to last socket rested a green gem. Despite their best efforts, every one of them displayed varying expressions of dismay. Thanos’s grin widened slowly as he gloated over each and every one. “Did you really think I didn’t know where to find it?” he asked, continuing the gloat. “Who do you think entrusted it to Agamotto?”
“Aga-who?” Sam asked.
“Strange,” Tony breathed in trepidation. Steven Strange had mentioned a great sorcerer to him once, named Agamotto. Tony suddenly felt chilled as if by a blast of wind from the arctic. Strange was supposed to be their ace in the hole, the guy no one was supposed to see coming. But if the Time Stone had been Agamotto’s, that meant Steven knew about it. And if Thanos now had it then Strange was either dead or worse.
“What’s strange?” Thor asked, keying on the sudden loss of blood to his friend’s face.
“Doctor Steven Strange,” Tony explained, watching Thanos carefully, praying that he was wrong. But all he saw on the monster’s face was smugness. “He had the Time Stone.”
“Wait,” Natasha said, striding over to Tony “are you saying you knew this whole time where the last stone was?”
Tony finally broke eye contact with Thanos to look at her. “No,” he said. “Strange is the sorcerer that repaired Mjolnir. He’s mentioned the name Agamotto a couple of times.”
“Wait, Earth has sorcerers?” Quill asked.
“That’s exactly what I said,” Thor replied.
“You knew about him too?” Steve asked.
Thor shrugged. “He’s the sorcerer that trapped my brother in free fall for thirty minutes when we were searching for my father,” he explained as a bittersweet grin flashed over his face.
“Oh, I’d have loved to have seen that,” Tony muttered.
“Should have just left him there,” Bruce agreed.
“Really?” Thor asked defensively. “If he had Loki would not have shown up in the eleventh hour to save my people. And he wouldn’t have been able to sacrifice himself to keep the Tesseract out of Thanos’s hands.”
“Oh yeah, he did a great job of that,” Quill said pointedly.
“Excuse me?” Thor demanded, stalking over to him. He stopped, mere inches from Peter’s face. “What did you say?” he demanded. Quill matched Thor’s gaze, jaw set firmly. He wanted desperately to back his statement up, but he found that one small part of him was holding him back. And it wasn’t his conscience; he hadn’t said anything false. It was something else. Some part of him that knew it would just make matters worse. Apparently, the constant stream of disappointed looks he’d been getting from Gamora had taken its toll.
Not that his restraint made any difference to Thor. He’d listened to his brother’s name get dragged through the mud for a month now, as if everyone on this boat were an expert on his brother, or in any way understood what his brother had gone through.
“At least my brother tried,” Thor continued menacingly. “Could you say the same, Thief?” he asked, placing special emphasis on that last.
Whatever Peter might have said in return was preempted by Widow. “Are you enjoying this?” she asked. The two men exchanged confused glances and turned to her. They quickly realized that it was not they that she had been referring to; she was staring at the forward screen.
The forward screen where Thanos’s amused face was still hovering. “Very much,” the purple space gorilla said. “The idea that this disjointed band of nonconformists ever believed it was a threat to me is quite amusing. Look at yourselves; you cannot conform, even with each other. You fight and squabble like children. You lack a unifying will. It is why you fail. It is why you shall always fail.”
“We kicked your ass before,” Tony pointed out.
“A pointless skirmish,” Thanos said with a dismissive wave of his left hand.
“Huh,” Bruce said suddenly as he watched the gauntlet pass in front of the screen. He gave the room a sheepish look as he realized he had suddenly become the center of attention.
“What?” Tony asked impatiently. “I know that ‘huh’.”
“Well I just noticed -I should have seen it before- the Mind Stone is missing. I’m guessing this Strange guy has it.”
Thanos’s grin increased in magnitude. “Don’t you worry your angry little head,” he said. “It’s in a safe place. And, at the allotted time, it shall be delivered to me. Then you will all die,” he assured them, with an air of a prophet.
“Really? You afraid to do it yourself?” Steve asked, sounding almost disappointed.
The Titan’s grin faded. “As I recall, you were the ones doing all the leg work when last we met.”
Steve shrugged. “Maybe. But that’s not how it looks now. What’s the matter; You afraid we might take it from you?”
Thanos’s grin returned as he leaned closer to the pickup. “Are you attempting to goad me, little man?” he asked, with an air of stark superiority.
“No,” Steve replied “I’m just calling it like it is. You’re afraid we’ll take that fancy gauntlet from you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you ran when we caught up to you.”
“I do not run,” Thanos bellowed.
“Now, that isn’t exactly true,” Thor countered, stepping up to stand next to Tony and Steve. “You ran from my father.”
“Your father was a coward,” Thanos rumbled “a coward hiding in his stronghold, afraid to risk stepping out where I could kill him.”
“Strange,” Quill said, stepping into the center of the room with the others “does that description remind you guys of anyone we might know?”
“Yeah,” Steve said, turning pointedly to stare at the screen. “I can think of a guy that fits that description.”
Thanos’s face seemed to swell with anger. Gone was the gloating superiority. It its place was something murderous. For a moment there was hope that he would suffer a fatal aneurism. It was a fleeting thought, quickly dismissed; Thanos had not lasted millennia only to die of such a simple malady.
Not that they would have complained if that were the case.
Thanos regained enough composure to speak. “You will all be ground beneath the heel of my destiny, just as your pathetic armies have been.”
“Just give us a time and place, Chucky,” Tony said.
Thanos’s glare shifted to the engineer. There was a brief moment of nonverbal threat before he replied. “There is a coliseum in the place you have twice named New York,” he said. “You have until my destiny is fulfilled to present yourselves to me.” He made one more glared threat to the room in general, slowing only for Gamora and Nebula, then cut the connection.
The room was still a moment longer. Then everyone seemed to remember to breathe all at once. Their postures loosened almost imperceptibly. All except the two sisters, who seemed to be standing even more rigidly than ever. Their faces were a mask, but beneath that mask was fear in its most raw uncontrollable form.
“Well, you got him angry,” Rocket commented. “Not sure if that was a good idea,” he added.
“We needed him to agree to give us one last chance,” Steve explained.
“But, will he actually grant it?” T’Challa asked. By common consent the entire room turned to the two sisters. But it was clear that they weren’t really there. They were still in the same physical location. Actually, they were still in exactly the same positions they’d been in when Thanos had cut the connection.
“Gamora?” Quill prompted. She blinked, and seemed to shake herself back to the present from whatever hell she was remembering. Nebula followed suit, like one dog shaking the water out of its fur after the one next to it.
“Um, I . . . yes, he’ll be there,” she said as she went through the process of reviewing her short-term memory for the question.
“You’re sure?” Tony asked.
“What else would he do?” she asked.
Tony shrugged. “If it were me, I’d blow the stadium up the moment we arrived,” he offered.
“He won’t,” Nebula affirmed. “You might be willing to be seen as a coward,” she added, turning to Tony. “He can’t. He can’t be seen to be running away from a challenge.”
“I’d hardly call sound tactics being cowardly,” Tony argued. “If I had an orbital death ray ready, I’d be perfectly happy to destroy the entire stadium to end this.”
“Wait, you mean you don’t have an orbital death ray?” Wade asked, sounding both surprised and disappointed at the same time.
Tony shrugged. “The U.N. objected,” he added, leaving everyone unsure of whether he was serious or not.
“Alright, so we know he’ll be there,” Quill said, bringing the conversation back on topic. He was not the only one to note the irony of that. “Where exactly is ‘there’?”
“Yankee Stadium,” Steve said.
“And you know this because?” Rocket asked.
“The place ‘twice named New York’ is New York city, New York,” Steve said. “Yankee Stadium is the biggest arena in the city.”
“Okay, problem,” Tony said. “We can’t land this boat in the center of New York City. With this kind of damage, I don’t even want to try and hover over it.”
“Alright, what do you suggest?” Natasha asked.
“We land at the Avenger’s Facility in upstate New York and take a Quinjet to Steve’s old stomping grounds.”
“Is there enough time for that?” Wanda asked.
Tony shrugged, looking up at the ceiling in thought. “An hour to get into low Earth orbit. Another ten minutes to reenter and land. About fifteen to get a Quinjet operational from cold status. And another ten to get down to The Bronx.”
Steve squinted at that. “It usually takes a few minutes to get a Quinjet off the ground,” he pointed out.
“We usually have a couple of planes on hot standby, too,” Tony replied. “But I had the entire complex shut down when we left. That includes storing the jets.”
“Why?” Natasha asked.
“Would you rather the facility look like a set of secure warehouses, or a command and control facility?” Tony asked.
“You mean you were planning on Thanos getting to Earth?” Lang demanded.
Tony turned to the younger man. “I planned ‘for’ it, not ‘on’ it,” he corrected. “The facility was hardly any use to us while we were galivanting through the cosmos.”
“Whatever,” Quill cut in. “How long do we have before Thanos’s ‘destiny’ is fulfilled,” he asked, emphasizing the word ‘destiny’ with a foolish tone while encasing it in air quotes. “And, seriously, why am I the one keeping us on topic?”
“As to your second question: because people keep interrupting with stupid questions,” Tony said sparing a look for Lang. The target of his ire shifted indignantly, but remained silent. “As to the first: assuming Monkey Chucky was able to socket the Time Stone as soon as he arrived on Earth, we should have about an hour and thirty-seven minutes before he can socket the Mind Stone.”
“One hour, thirty-seven minutes, and sixteen seconds to be precise,” Friday put in.
“Great, two minutes,” Quill muttered. “Cause it’s not like getting the gauntlet off of his forearm was going to be difficult,” he added sarcastically.
Tony shook his head. “He still has to re-add The Mind Stone.”
“If he has it,” Steve pointed out.
“He has it,” Natasha replied.
“Why did he remove it?” Mantis asked.
“Timing,” Rocket replied. “If he’d left it in, he’d still have had to wait to socket the Time Stone. But then he’d have had to wait about six hours before he could use the gauntlet.”
“How long will he have to wait now?” Gamora asked. Tony and Rocket shifted uncomfortably. “An hour; two?” she guessed, glancing between them.
“Four and a half minutes,” Parker said.
They all turned to look at him. “Four minutes? That can’t be right,” Gamora protested. But the looks on Rocket and Tony’s faces spoke otherwise.
“Four minutes and thirty-nine seconds,” Friday corrected.
“Fine, whatever,” Gamora snapped. “Six minutes isn’t enough time.”
“Six minutes, fifty-five seconds,” Friday corrected again.
“Friday!” Tony snapped with a glare to the ceiling.
“It’s more like seven minutes,” the AI protested petulantly.
“Oh, well that extra minute makes all the difference,” Lang said.
Tony turned a glare on him. “Do you have a better option?”
“Could we land in the Hudson?” Parker asked.
“We might be able to get her in there, but we still have to get out of the ship,” Steve said. “The undertow would be killer.”
“There’re several fields near it. Couldn’t we land there?” Parker asked.
Tony shook his head again. “Some of them are big enough, but they’re surrounded by multi-story buildings.”
“Alright, so land on the buildings,” Quill stated.
Tony turned an incredulous eye on him. “And just hope that our exit doesn’t get buried under tons of steel and concrete?” he asked. “That’s not even to mention the three hundred plus years of substructure built into the city. There’s no guarantee that the surface could hold this ship.”
“Look, its academic anyways,” Steve cut in. “There won’t be any running away this time. This fight won’t last five minutes. We either win or we lose.”
“Anyone laying odds?” Rocket mumbled.
“There is also the possibility of intercepting the Mind Stone,” Jarvis pointed out. “Thanos made it clear that he does not have it with him,” he explained to their doubtful looks. “It will be delivered to him. If we can intercept the courier we have as long as we’ll need. We may even be able to lure him away from Earth.”
“Okay, we’re getting ahead of ourselves,” Steve replied, cutting that short. “Let’s focus on the fight.”
Tony shrugged. “Given the choice, I’d rather smear that smug bastard against a cliff.”
“Now that’s arrogance,” Gamora said. “Thanos has been a menace to the galaxy for thousands of years. You think he’ll just fall down and expire because you showed up?”
“I prefer to think of it as optimism,” Tony replied. “Someone has to get lucky sometime. Why not us?”
“Now that’s a new outlook for you,” Natasha said sarcastically.
“I’ve been reading a new self-help book: Better Actualization Through Visualization,” Tony replied off handedly.
“Wait, is that the one that comes with a lollipop set in the inside cover? The one you aren’t supposed to open until you have some great success?” Wade asked. Tony turned enough to give the mouthy merc a quizzical glance before deciding to drop the fact that, as far as he was aware, there was no such book. “I read that one,” Wade continued, apparently oblivious to the look. “Ate the sucker too,” he added proudly.
“Anyway-” Tony started before Wade interrupted him again.
“-It only took two weeks,” he continued, clearly quite pleased with himself. Tony refrained from asking which person he had to kill to get his free treat. Instead he waited just to see if there would be any more interruptions.
“As I was saying-” Tony started again.
“-Killed the leader of a Yakuza clan,” he elaborated, gaining an emphatic eyeroll from Tony. The engineer was beginning to regret his quip entirely.
“Are you done?” Tony asked, fixing him with a glare that mixed annoyance and irritation. Wade shrugged, but remained silent. For a change. Instead, someone else spoke up.
“And I suppose you have a plan on how to beat Thanos at a game he’s played for more than a thousand years?” Quill asked.
Tony shook his head. “Not my department,” he replied. “It is his though,” he added, indicating Steve with a nod of the head. All eyes turned on the super soldier.
“Um,” Steve said, clearly caught off guard. He spared a quick glare for Tony then turned his attention to the question at hand. “Well, Vision’s got the right idea,” he started “but I think we should focus on capturing one of the stones he’s already slotted.”
“I’m sorry, isn’t that harder?” Lang asked.
“Extremely,” Thor muttered. No one seemed to pay any mind though.
“Harder, but definitely more worthwhile,” Tony agreed.
“How do you figure?” Quill asked.
“Because we could reset his clock,” Parker explained. “Sorry, Jarvis,” he added sheepishly to the construct “but the Mind Stone is the last one to equip because it creates the shortest delay before use. But if we could remove one of the earlier ones, we could force him to start the process all over again.”
“That does make sense,” Jarvis admitted. “Why didn’t I see that?” he murmured to himself.
“Okay so we want the Tesseract,” Steve said, mind working up a plan.
“I hate to dampen your spirits,” Thor interrupted “but it’s only a better plan if it’s possible. I tried,” he added. “Getting the stone from him is nigh impossible. For one, the gauntlet is on his arm, which is constantly in motion when he fights. Just grasping one would be like catching a bullet. For another, the stones are held in place by some force. And they are round. And, as soon as he recognizes the intent, he starts using the stones as bait to lure you in,” Thor continued. “We must intercept the Mind Stone.”
Steve gave Thor a hard look, but remained silent. It was true that Thor had tried to remove the stones in their last encounter. It was also true that Thanos had enjoyed holding them tauntingly within reach, luring Thor into desperate grasps that ended poorly for him. But it was also true that Thor had been alone, and unsupported during those attempts. Not to mention he fact that he’d been far from his best before the tactic had occurred to him.
Not that that was a surprise. It was always the demi-god’s impulse to destroy his enemies as expediently as possible. Attempting to deprive them of their weapons was a tactic of last resort to him. Steve decided not to say as much at the moment.
Others were less tactful. “Just because you couldn’t, doesn’t mean we can’t,” Quill said pointedly. “I mean we as in all of us,” he added quickly, realizing how that statement could have been taken.
“I would point out that we cannot fit ‘all of us’ around one even so large as Thanos,” Jarvis said softly.
“Alright,” Steve said, before anyone else could jump in “both goals have merit, and honestly we have enough people to pursue both. But before we get into that how is the tree?” he asked, turning to Rocket.
“His name’s Groot,” Rocket replied. “I would think that would be easy to remember, being that the only words he speaks are ‘I’ followed by ‘am’ followed by ‘Groot’,” he added sarcastically. “Seriously, this is the guy we’ve got strategizing for us?” he asked.
“Rocket!” Gamora snapped, bringing him up short.
For a moment it appeared that the talking racoon was about to argue. But, as he looked from face to face in the room, he realized it was a waste of time. “Fine,” he muttered. “The tree,” he added in the most moronic voice he could muster “is mostly healed. But he’s not ready for combat. That bastard did quite a number on him,” he added in his own voice.
“Alright,” Steve said, a plan of sorts starting to form. “I suggest three teams. Team One: aerial; Tony, Falcon, Wanda, Rocket, and Quill. Keep to the sky. Provide support. And keep an eye out for the Mind Stone. When it shows try and capture it.”
“And then what?” Sam asked. “We had it once before and had to give it up because Thanos could sense it.”
“We get it off world,” Steve said. “Try to hide it in the galaxy somewhere.”
“But if he can sense it-” Mantis asked slowly.
“It’s very a very close-range sense,” Gamora explained. “Otherwise Nebula would never have been able to hide one on Ahl Agullo.”
“Okay, so we get it into interstellar space, somehow,” Sam said. “I remind you that we’re leaving our ship fifteen minutes flight time away. And it’s ‘eBay: slightly used’.”
“I can take care of that,” Tony said.
“How?” Gamora asked curiously.
Tony shrugged uncomfortably. “Let me worry about it,” was all he would say.
“Why not give it back to Jarvis?” T’Challa asked. “With his phasing ability he could keep it out of Thanos’s hands indefinitely.”
“And Thanos would slaughter everyone on your planet until it was surrendered,” Nebula replied harshly, Gamora nodding in agreement.
“Okay, we’ll call that plan B,” Steve said, with a glance at Tony. The other remained uncharacteristically silent. “Team Two,” he continued “Jarvis, Brunnhilde, Thor, Drax, Wade, and myself; we’ll keep Thanos busy, and try to either disarm him of the stones or destroy the gauntlet.” Thor still looked dubious, but nodded.
“Team Three: Romanov, Lang, Barnes, Parker, Banner, Gamora, Nebula, T’Challa; deal with Thanos’s remaining generals and children.” He glanced around the room for dissent. There was none. Except for Tony, but sometimes it felt like there was always dissent in that man. Still, he kept whatever he was thinking to himself. “Any questions?” Steve asked.
“What about me?” Mantis asked quietly.
“I think it’s best if you remain here,” Steve said.
“I can fight,” Mantis argued.
“There is no room for empathy on the battlefield,” Drax answered.
“Drax’s right,” Steve said. “You may be able to fight, but you’ll never be a fighter. You’d spend as much time fighting yourself as anyone else.” Mantis looked as if she wanted to protest. Instead she looked at the ground in defeat. They were right; the battle simulations had proven that. Every hurt she inflicted registered in her perception. She couldn’t block it out. She couldn’t hide from it. She wasn’t even sure she could kill.
“No, she has to go,” Banner stated firmly, surprising everyone. He shrugged as their eyes turned to him. “She’s the only one that can wake the Hulk,” he explained sheepishly.
“Funny, I don’t recall that ever being an issue,” Natasha said. Bruce glanced at her, mouth opened to explain, but his embarrassment at his alter ego’s cowardice got in the way. He looked away again, wondering why he should be ashamed. Was it because the Hulk had lost his courage? Or was it because he’d always relied on it?
“He’s right,” Tony said into the silence. “But she should stay on the ship.”
“A getaway driver?” Steve asked.
“In case we can get one of the stones away from him,” Tony replied.
“Can you fly?” Steve asked Mantis.
“Yes-I mean, I have been learning,” came the sheepish reply.
“I’ve been teaching her,” Quill said. “She’s a natural.”
“Well, that settles that,” Steve replied. “Everyone clear on their assignments?” Again, he swept the room a question. Again, there were no takers. “We have about forty minutes until planet fall. I suggest everyone do what they need to prepare.” The room quickly cleared, leaving Tony and Steve staring across the table at each other.
The uncomfortable silence stretched itself out between them. Neither wanted to breach it. Both knew it must be breached. The tension between them had relaxed somewhat in the last month, but it was most definitely present. Both of them respected each other. Both of them would die for each other. Neither of them was quite certain how they’d come to be on opposite sides, but that gulf still lay between them. And both were afraid that if they spoke the inevitable argument would widen it. But they also knew it was a mistake to leave anything unsaid between them.
Steve finally took the plunge. “I suppose you have some issue with my plan?” Steve prompted. Tony glanced up at him, then back to the table between them. He tried to figure out how to say what needed to be said. Delicate phrasing had never been his forte; that was what secretaries and personal assistants were for.
“Not the plan itself,” he said eventually. “It’s the assignments.”
“You want to fight Thanos?” Steve asked, one eyebrow arched in surprise.
“I don’t think anyone here wants to fight Thanos,” Tony said with a tight grin. “And no, I think you have me where I need to be. It’s the sisters,” he said with a pause. No matter how hard he tried he could not figure out how to pad what must be said. Steve undoubtedly could have, or Banner, or even Romanov. But they weren’t here, and it needed to be said. “You’re wasting resources by assigning them to crowd control,” he said finally.
“Oh?” Steve asked, inviting expansion.
“They have the most experience with Thanos,” Tony explained gamely. “They were raised by him, trained by him. They’ve undoubtedly seen him in action at one point or other. They know how he moves and how he thinks. They are probably the most capable people on the ship to face him . . . except maybe for Thor,” Tony added.
“I’m sure Thor would appreciate the distinction,” Steve said with a tight grin of his own. Tony grinned back, despite himself. “And, as to the sisters, I agree,” Steve added seriously.
Tony’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Then why did you assign them to team three?” he asked.
“Because they’re not ready, Tony,” Steve said bluntly. “You saw how they reacted when Thanos cut into our feed here,” he added, gesturing to the blank screen.
“About the same as the rest of us?” Tony hedged. In honesty, he hadn’t been watching the group. He’d been trying to work their current problem, get Thanos to agree to give them one last chance.
Steve shook his head. “We were startled. They froze like deer in the headlights.”
“They were caught off guard,” Tony protested. “That doesn’t mea-”
“And they always will be,” Steve cut in. He took a breath and tried again. “Tony, part of leadership isn’t just about knowing what your people are capable of. It’s also about knowing what they are able to accomplish.”
Tony’s eyes narrowed. “What’s the difference?” he asked.
“We agree that they have probably the best capacity of any of us to fight Thanos,” Steve said. Tony nodded. “But between that capability and the ability is a lifetime’s worth of terror, and pain, and helplessness. Yes, they know him best of all of us. But only because he’s spent so long terrorizing them. As long as that stands in the way, they’ll never be able to face him. They must find some way around their history before I’d ever pit them against him.”
“And how will you know if they take that detour?” Tony asked.
“We won’t’ know,” Steve said. “They’ll show us.”
Tony considered that. “Well, let’s hope they don’t take too long navigating it,” he said as he got up. He pushed the chair in, paused and looked back at the other man. “Good luck Steve,” he said with a novel sincerity.
“Good luck Tony,” Steve replied, matching his gaze. They held it for only a moment before Tony turned and left. “Good luck to us all,” Steve whispered more in the tone of a prayer.
Earth
Upstate New York
The Avengers Facility Control Room
“You’re request poses significant issues,” Irani Rael’s image on the screen said. “First, we’ve never been able to negotiate with the Kree Empire for the secrets of sending capital ships through warp points. And our own trials in that manner have been . . . less than encouraging,” she added.
“Then get these Kree to send you,” Tony said. “Have them send their ships too.”
Her face hardened. “Do you understand what you are asking? It took ten years just to end our last conflict. They refused to lift a finger when one of their own accusers went rogue and began destroying our colonies. They would rather-”
“-I didn’t say it would be easy,” Tony cut in “I said it was necessary. And their fat’s in the fryer just like the rest of us.”
She opened her mouth to protest, closed it instead. “I will try,” she agreed. “But Thanos’s ship is a fleet killer. I am unsure if even our two fleets would be enough to destroy it.”
“Then find others,” Tony said simply. “There must be more than your two star empires.”
“There are a few others,” she conceded. “But the more fleets we bring in the longer it will take to coordinate.”
“Half an hour,” Tony said.
“Are you out of your mind?” she demanded. “Our last offensive against the Kree took six months to plan.”
“Half an hour is the time you have,” Tony said simply. “Look, they don’t need to be flying in formation, just get them here.” She hesitated before giving a curt nod. “Good,” Tony said. “And one more thing,” he added, pausing her mid-movement to cut the connection. “There is every likelihood that we will fail to retrieve one of the stones. If so . . .” he said, hesitating.
“What are you asking me?” the Prime asked, already aware of what he was asking. But this was not the sort of request where inference alone was enough.
Tony hesitated another heartbeat before turning to tap on his console. “I’m sending you the exact coordinates of our attempt,” he said. “If we fail, the galaxy’s last hope rests on your fleets. Bomb him to dust.”
“There is no guarantee that such an act would injure any person wielding a fully assembled Infinity Gauntlet, let alone Thanos,” Rael replied dubiously.
Tony shrugged. “Do it before the Gauntlet comes online. If nothing else you may be able to break it, or the stones,” he added.
Rael assumed a thoughtful look. “There is historical evidence that the stones can be destroyed,” she said.
Tony assumed a quizzical look. “Wait, if one of the stones has been destroyed in the past then how do they exist now?” he asked.
“They are a part of this universe,” came the explanation. “When one is destroyed it manifests somewhere else, anywhere in the galaxy. According to legend, the last time Thanos tracked them all down, members of a race known as the Wynx destroyed one -the records are contradictory as to which- starting his quest over.”
“Great, can you find out how they did it?” Tony asked.
She shook her head somberly. “For their intervention Thanos wiped the entire species from the universe,” she said, clearly having drawn the conclusion that, should the Nova Corps succeed in this last-ditch attempt, they too would undoubtedly be subject to the same fate.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Tony said.
“Agreed,” Rael replied before reaching up to cut the connection.
Tony nodded to the blank screen before calling up a music list on his console. He needed something, some music that might crystalize the tenuous nature of their combined groups. Something . . . he wasn’t sure what. But they needed it. They needed something that made them part of a whole. He scrolled faster and faster, looking for that one thing. But nothing seemed right. The situation was not helped by the fact that the others considered his music to be noise.
“You didn’t really believe we had a chance, did you?” Steve’s voice called from the entrance to the stairwell.
“What?” Happy snapped, flipping towards the sound. “How did you get up here?” he demanded.
“You seemed lost in thought,” Steve said, as if that explained everything.
“More to the point,” Tony added without turning “how long have you been up here?”
“Long enough,” Steve said simply.
Tony turned at that. “I suppose this is where I get the ‘acting unilaterally: bad’ speech again?” he said, leaning back in his chair, as if to brace himself.
“No,” Steve said surprisingly. “That was the right call. Thanos has to be stopped no matter what.” Tony examined Steve’s face. It was as if he couldn’t quite believe they were in agreement.
“I suppose you want to tell the team,” he guessed, turning back to the console. His tone alone made it clear that he thought it a bad idea.
Again, Rogers surprised him. “No,” he said. “They don’t need to know they’re working under a loaded barrel.”
Tony looked up from his lists in surprise, as if checking his memory to ensure that he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. “So, what brings you up here?” he asked as he went back to scrolling through his lists. “Or are you just practicing your Nick Fury impersonation?”
Steve shrugged. “Honestly I was a bit surprised by your sudden conversion to optimism back on the ship,” he said. “I suspected it was a front; I see I was right.”
Tony threw a glance over his shoulder before turning back to his lists. “What difference does it make,” he asked at last.
“It makes a difference, Tony,” Steve replied in earnest. “This isn’t the same pick up group that went up against him a month ago. We’re a team now. And we’re a team that is quite possibly better equipped than then, thanks in no small part to you.”
“It kept me busy,” Tony said with a shrug.
Steve nodded to himself. “I thought as much. But Tony, there is always a chance. Some of us might not make it to see that chance, but it’s there,” Steve said. “Never lose sight of that.”
“I know,” Tony said. “But we’re betting against the house on this one. And, honestly, we’d have better odds putting it all on double zero at the roulette table thrice in a row.”
“I’m surprised you kept that to yourself,” Steve observed. Tony paused in his scrolling.
“It’s what they needed to hear,” Tony said finally.
“That they had a chance?” Steve prompted. Tony nodded, not making eye contact. “Why?” Steve asked as if he already knew the answer.
Tony searched for the words to explain it. The realm of motivations and morale just wasn’t his normal playing ground. “Because,” he said at last “a hopeful underdog might work miracles where a despairing man accepts his fate.” He glanced up at Steve as if to ask ‘was I right?’.
“So, you gave them hope so they would fight with everything they had,” Steve said. Tony nodded slowly. “You probably should have kept some for yourself,” he added softly.
“It doesn’t work that way when you know the odds,” Tony said wistfully.
“Tony, I have no doubt that you’ve analyzed each of us over the course of this month and created a series of projections on the outcome of this mission. No doubt those simulations are too complex for most of us to understand all of the factors. The truth is I don’t need to understand them to know that there is one person here that you’ve undervalued.”
Tony’s face turned quizzical. “Look, I’ll grant that Banner’s alter ego is very powerful-” Tony started before a headshake from Steve stopped him.
“I wasn’t referring to Banner,” Steve said. “I was talking about you.” Tony’s face automatically expressed his complete denial of that. “I’m not messing with you Tony,” Steve said, a hard edge to his voice. It was probably the first time he’d ever used a command voice on his friend. “You’re fighting skills have improved immeasurably. I saw that even before this insanity had begun, back when we were on opposing sides. It was getting harder and harder for you to pretend you weren’t letting us escape.”
Tony gave a surprised look. “You certainly gave me enough opportunities to practice,” he said wryly.
“Yeah,” Steve agreed. “But my point is,” Steve continued “that you are one of the most effective people we have on this tub. You’re certainly the most versatile. And we need you at your best. You have to believe you have a chance too.”
“I get what you’re saying Steve,” Tony said “but I don’t need hope; I’ve got you guys.”
“I’m sorry?” Steve asked, not following.
“I’m just saying you don’t have to worry about me giving my best,” Tony said. “Anything less would be betraying you.”
Steve blinked in surprise. He never thought he’d hear a soldier’s mentality spoken so well, so simply, and from Tony Stark. And yet, as he considered it, he couldn’t say it was out of place. Tony was not a man to do things by halves. He might not have always made the right choice, but whatever he did was always done the best it could be done and with the best of intentions.
Now it was Steve’s turn to search for the appropriate words. “Tony,” he said slowly “there’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a while now. But it never seemed the right time. I never seemed to figure out how to say it without sounding . . . arrogant or presumptuous. And then the whole Accords thing happened . . .” he said, trailing off.
“Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad,” Tony prompted.
Steve nodded, took a breath, and tried again. “I didn’t really know your father well, Tony,” he started, focusing on Tony’s face. “I only worked with him three times. Hell, the first time we didn’t even speak,” he added, thinking back to his pre-capsicle days, as Tony liked to put it. “But I can tell you this: Wherever he is, I know he couldn’t be prouder of you.”
Tony blinked with his entire head, as if he’d been hit right between the eyes. The compliment had been completely unexpected. More to the point, the way Steve had delivered it left no room for doubt. It was as if, for that moment, his friend had been channeling his father.
He’d never realized how much he’d needed to hear that his father was proud of him. He’d thought he’d left that behind. But deep down, there was still that little boy inside of him, learning integrated circuits at his father’s knee.
He opened his mouth to say something, but for the first time in as long as he could remember he wasn’t sure of what to say. Before he could correct that Steve was gone.
Tony turned back to his console, stunned. It was almost like he’d lost his father a second time. But this time . . . no bitterness or regret. It was a bittersweet feeling, and one he couldn’t have been happier to feel. He felt like crying. His eyes watered. Nothing fell.
Eventually he realized he was looking at his lists. And suddenly he knew which song to play. A song that he’d passed by on his first pass as too melancholy. But now, it seemed to be the only choice. He scrolled back up the list and punched it. The Sound of Silence as reimagined by Disturbed spread through the entire facility.
He sat and listened for a moment, before getting up to don his suit. Throughout the facility it reached the ears of the various team members. Each stopped momentarily in whatever they were doing. Those that knew the song smiled at its choice. Quill immediately placed it above the original version he’d heard all his life. Those that hadn’t, listened for the first time.
“Friday, I’m leaving the rest of the playlist to you,” Tony said as he headed for the elevator. He exited it at the ground floor to find Quill and Steve waiting for him.
“You ready for this?” Quill asked.
Tony gave a short nod. “Let’s kick his ass,” he said, actually feeling for the first time like they might. The three of them started across the lobby to the door. As they went, the rest of the team fell into line in ones and twos.
Up in the control room Happy went to his security station. He had to stop his hand from instinctively hitting the alarm as he realized what he was seeing on the screen. But what was displayed was not a threat. There was no need for an alarm.
Instead, as the main door opened to reveal the team, he hit the exterior floodlights. A sea of desperately hopeful faces blazed into the night. Hundreds of people of every race, every age, every gender spread out between the facility and the waiting Quinjet. Many could be seen mouthing silent prayers. Many more simply looked upon the team, almost begging them for a sign of hope. There was no telling where they’d come from, or how they’d arrived so quickly.
It hit them all equally; it didn’t matter if they’d never set foot on Earth before. It was like a tidal wave of emotion. For a moment they simply stared at that see of anticipation. Then Tony stepped forward, followed closely by Steve and Quill. The others followed suit.
In many ways that walk was the hardest any of them had ever made. Yet it was also the easiest. There was an overwhelming feeling of anticipation, but also of acceptance. For the Dark Avengers it was almost more than they could bear.
But the one it hit the hardest was Nebula. That sense of acceptance, of people depending on her, was almost more than she could stand. She’d always been the monster. She’d learned to embrace it. She’d had plenty of people look upon her, desperately begging for mercy she didn’t dare give. But this was different, and she wasn’t sure why.
One little girl at the edges of the crowd seemed to sense her internal struggle and reached out to grab her metal hand as she passed. Nebula turned hastily, to see her. But she didn’t really see that girl. She saw herself. She saw Gamora. She saw every boy and girl that had ever been corrupted by the great monster. Then Nebula’s progress forward slipped their hands apart and she continued forward, yet another feeling she could not describe warring within her.
The team passed the rest of the way to the jet without incident. The iron legion was there ensuring the crowd maintained a safe distance. They filed past that barrier and into the jet in silence. In fact, the entire passage had been conducted in utter silence. A few moments later the jet lifted straight into the air before heading for New York city.