Chapter 7
Chapter 7
In the laboratory of the Avengers compound, a portal springs out of nowhere, and Kara, Oliver and Diggle emerged from it. Steve, Tony and Nat came to greet them.
"Hey, guys, look who I brought back," announced the kryptonian proudly. "Remember Oliver and John Diggle?"
"Oliver," greeted Steve, as if he was greeting a soldier.
"Cap," said the archer from Earth – 1.
"Hi Oliver," said the billionaire.
"Tony," Oliver said neutrally.
"Hey guys," said Natasha."Kara, we found Clint Barton."
"Oh yeah ?" said the kryptonian.
Clint Barton aka Hawkeye came to the group of heroes. Finally, Kara met a former Avengers. She could see that the Avengers archer had suffered the consequences of the decimation. He had become a violent activist who was fighting over the members of the drug cartel.
Kara came to shake the man's hand.
"Clint, nice to meet you, despite the circumstances," she said.
The archer contented himself with a simple nod as he watched the newcomers. Then came Scott Lang, still smiling.
"Hi everyone !" if he announced. "I'm Scott Lang… Ant-Man."
Kara had him introduced to Oliver and Diggle.
"It's him, Scott. Oliver, John, it's Scott Lang. Scott, it's Oliver and John."
Oliver and John nodded to him, while Scott seemed excited at the sight of the newcomers.
"So, you too, you are aliens from another universe?" He asked.
"No, no, Scott. Me, I'm an alien," Kara explained. "They're just human like you from another Earth. A different Earth from mine."
Scott looked lost.
"The Multiverse, the Earths, I really have to look for that on the Internet."
Embarrassed, Oliver turned to Kara, murmuring in a low voice:
"So it's him, Ant-Man? Great !"
Then came Professor Hulk. At the sight of the green giant, Oliver unsheathed his bow, while Diggle pulled out a gun.
"What the hell is that ?"exclaimed John, stunned.
Kara hastened to calm the two men.
"Woh, woh, calm down boys! Easy! Do you remember Bruce Banner? Dr. Banner?"
"Banner?" exclaimed Oliver, stunned.
"Hey guys," Bruce said jovially.
"Before, it was Bruce Banner and Hulk, now is Professor Hulk," explained Kara.
"Best of both worlds !"
The two men lowered their weapons, still with stunned eyes.
"I wonder if I wouldn't have done better to stay at Lian Yu," Oliver said.
"And me at Star City," Diggle said nervously.
Both of them were not used to dealing with incredible phenomena on their Earths.
Later, Kara saw Thor walking through the compound's lab, wearing a hoodie, wearing dark glasses, drinking a beer, much to her chagrin. Tony walked right next to him.
"Drifting left. On the side there, Lebowski," said the billionaire.
Then he headed for a gigantic glass platform, where Rocket was tinkering underneath.
The time machine was being prepared.
Further, Bruce, Rhodey and Nebula were assisting Scott Lang, who was wearing a new white suit for the Quantum Realm. Clint looked at them from afar with a thoughtful look, then Oliver joined him.
"Hello, you're Clint, are not you?" He asked.
"Yeah, it's me," said the archer.
"You're Hawkeye, then," Oliver added.
"I was Hawkeye, before Thanos made my whole family disappear."
Oliver could see that the man seemed destroyed, like someone who had been through a long tragedy.
"So it's a thing that we have together," replied the archer of Earth – 1, shaking his head. "I lost my wife, my son. I had a team too. John is all I have left."
Clint finally turned his head towards Oliver, retorting him:
"Are you archer, from what I understand?"
"Yes."
"I saw you unsheathe quickly. You've very fast reflexes. I'm impressed."
"Thank you. It's a pleasure to talk to an archer who is part of the Avengers. If I can ask you a question, how do you don't to be overwhelmed? With a guy like Tony, Banner, Rogers and a God!"
"Before Thanos, I had retired from superheroes to devote myself to my family. I was happy with my wife and children. Until one day they're gone."
"I'm sorry, I know how you feel. I spent five years fighting against the darkest parts of my life. I left my city, my mission lost… to take refuge on a desert island for five years. I didn't want to soil the memory of my loved ones."
Clint was very upset after these revelations. He looked at Oliver with admiration:
"You're stronger than me, Oliver. Me, it's exactly the opposite. I killed… a lot… I stopped counting… I did things I'm not proud of… I know it was immoral…"
Oliver nodded understandingly.
"I know what it's like to have blood on your hands. Like all of us, you found yourself facing the consequences of Thanos, and you reacted in your way. My city has been besieged by criminals for a long time, and I have abandoned it to its fate. I'm trying to convince myself that it wasn't to become a cold-blooded killer again, but maybe it was cowardice. And I'm not really proud of it. I became an archer for obscure reasons."
"It was not cowardice, I would have liked to do as you do," replied Clint, with sad eyes.
Kara joined the group that was standing next to Scott in his white suit.
"Time travel suit? Not bad," Rhodey said admiring the combination.
Professor Hulk put a glass tube containing a Pym particle, when Scott tore it from his hands.
"Easy, easy," he exclaimed. "You're being very Hulky!"
"I'm being careful," said the green giant, offended.
"These are Pym particles," Scott explained, shaking the tube up. "And ever since Hank Pym got snapped out of existence, this is it. This is what we have. We're not making any more."
"Scott, calm down," Kara said, fearing the man would drop the glass tube.
"Sorry. We've got enough for one round trip each. That's it. No do-overs."
"We'll be careful," the kryptonian promised him gently.
"Plus two tests runs."
He narrowed, but immediately resumed his normal size, agitated.
"I'm not ready for this," he replied.
"I'm game," said a voice behind them.
All turned to see Clint, who was still with Oliver.
"I'll do it," said Avenger.
Oliver looked at him with round eyes.
"Are you sure you want to do that?"
"Yeah, I'm sure," replied Clint determinedly.
Shortly after, it was Clint Barton who wore the quantum combination. Nebula was doing some touching, while Bruce explained what was waiting for him:
"Clint, now you're gonna feel a little discombobulated from the chronoshift. Don't worry about it. "
"Wait a second," Rhodey said. "Let me ask you something. If we can do this, you know, go back in time, why don't we just find baby Thanos, you know, and…"
He makes a hand gesture suggesting that they strangle baby Thanos with a rope which shocked Kara. Even Oliver seemed stunned by this idea.
"I'm not into it!" replied the archer of Earth – 1, taken aback.
"I don't kill a baby, no way," exclaimed Kryptonian. "Thanos or not, I refuse to kill a baby. It's too horrible!"
"First of all, that's horrible, as Kara said…" Bruce replied.
"But it's Thanos!" exclaimed Rhodey.
"And secondly, time doesn't work that way. Changing the past doesn't change the future." Professor Hulk said.
"Look, we go back, we get the stones before Thanos gets them… Thanos doesn't have the stones. Problem solved,"suggested Scott.
"Scott, it's not that simple," Kara replied.
"And that's not how it works," Nebula added.
"What? Who told you that?" asked Bruce.
Then, Rhodey resumed his speech:
"Star Trek, Terminator, TimeCop, Time After Time…"
"Quantum Leap," Scott said again.
"A Wrinkle in time, Somewhere in Time…"
"Hot Tube Time Machine."
"Hot Tube Time Machine, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Basically, any movie that deals with time travel."
"And The Butterfly Effect, did you see it too?" replied Kara, who didn't approve of the two men.
"Die Hard? No, it's not one…" Scott replied.
Oliver rolls his eyes as he hears all those movie names that made him angry. How could they take that to a laugh? The time travel was something serious that you should not joke about.
"You watch too many movies," exclaimed the archer of Earth – 1. "Time travel is real, and it's beyond from your movies. I'm not a scientist, but what I'm sure of is that there are terrible consequences when you want to play with travel time. And trust me, these consequences hurt a lot."
"I don't know why everyone believes that, but that isn't true," Bruce explained. "Think about it: If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past. Which can't now be changed by your new future…"
"Exactly," Nebula replied.
Oliver and Kara were confused, while Scott bowed his head.
"So, Back to the Future's a bunch of bullshit?" if he cried.
Oliver turned to Kara.
"Did you really spend five years with these people?" he asked, stunned. "How did you don't go crazy?"
"Said the one who stayed alone for five years on a desert island," replied Kara ironically.
"You have islands where you come from? The Bahamas? Aruba?" Scott asked, eager to know.
Exasperated, Oliver looked up at the ceiling again, and walked away from the group.
"Why did I come back here?" he muttered in a low voice.
"I hear you Oliver," Kara told him. "I have a super-hearing."
Later, the group was gathered around the huge platform to assist Clint Barton for the time travel. Kara saw Thor in his corner, sitting on a huge crate, drinking a beer, which annoyed her. She joined him immediately.
"Let me guess, is it Rocket who gave you this beer?"
"If I want to drunk, I drunk," grumbled the God of Thunder. "Whether you like it or not. If you want to fight against me, I don't care."
Kara took a moment to calm down and finally sat next to Thor, gently picking up his beer.
"Thor, I don't want to fight you, I just want to talk to you. Because you're not fine. I know you are suffering. Like all of us, we have all suffered during these five years. If you went fine as you say, you wouldn't be sitting in your corner drinking and ruminating. And I know exactly what you feel, more than you think."
But Thor remained neutral, barely listening to her. Kara decided to change her strategy.
"When my planet Krypton exploded, I thought… I'd never be whole again. That I will never heal. My mission was to protect my cousin on Earth, but when I arrived, he became an adult and Superman. So I had to find another way. I had to adapt to a world that was not mine. I had to learn to master my powers. Fortunately, I had a family who was there to help me. Good people. Jeremiah, Eliza… and Alex… (She smiles sadly at the mention of her adopted family.) I built myself a whole life. And one day, I became Supergirl, I was happy. I had found my reason to exist. A new mission. When Thanos destroyed half of the universe, it was like I was reliving the end of Krypton. Everything I had built was gone forever. I'd nothing left. Neither loved ones, nor identity, nor even an Earth where to live. At my home, there is a green substance that can kill me. And this substance has spread throughout the atmosphere. If I go home, I die. I have nothing left, and there, now, I feel like dead from within, like an empty shell. I am broken."
"Still, you look strong," Thor pointed out.
Kara blushed a little, before answering:
"I'm flattered, but I'm not as strong as you think. I didn't tell Steve, Nat or Bruce… but one day I wanted to kill myself. I wanted everything to stop for me. I wanted to die. I took my extrapolator that allowed me to return to my Earth. And I was determined to activate it to go home and die."
"And you're still here. Why?" exclaimed the surprised God of Thunder .
"When I was going to activate it, I thought of my sister Alex. To what she would have told me if she had been there. She would have begged me not to commit suicide, and to continue living, even if it's hard. She would never have wanted me to do that. It was as if Alex was really there, and that she had saved me. So I gave up and tried to continue living, but my suicidal desires were still there. I don't know how I did to hold on until then. Perhaps because deep inside me, I continue to believe that there is still hope for this world. Reverse what Thanos did."
Thor picked up his beer and started drinking again.
"For me, there is no hope," he replied. "You're strong, Kara Zor-El, but I'm not."
Kara was moved at the evocation of her old name, then kept a supplicating glance at her friend.
"I'm sure there is still hope for you too, Thor. You're always a hero. You must be able to believe in yourself again. And I know you can do it. If I could have avoided committing suicide all this time, you can fight, too."
But Thor continued to drink, which annoyed the kryptonian.
"I'm sorry for calling you fat," she said in a sincere voice. "It was cruel, and I don't know what came over me."
"Apology accepted," replied Thor, drinking his beer.
Then Kara left her friend and joined the others. Clint Barton was in the center of the platform. Bruce was at the helm with Oliver, Diggle, Steve, Natasha, Rhodes, Nebula and Rocket at his side.
"Allright, Clint," Professor Hulk announced." We're going in 3… 2… 1…"
A visor helmet hid the archer's face and the archer narrowed and disappeared into the Quantum Realm through the platform. Everyone held their breath. After a short time, Bruce had the archer brought back to the platform.
Clint reappeared screaming Lila's name, and breathing noisily.
Oliver and Natasha ran to him.
"Hey look at me, you okay?" Nat made him, taking his face in his hands.
"Calm down, Clint, breathe deeply, relax," Oliver interjected, helping the archer get up.
Clint was shocked and then came to his senses. He showed a baseball glove to Nat.
"It worked! It worked!" he exclaimed, throwing the glove at Oliver.
All seemed happy. Kara finally saw a new hope appear to her.
Time travel works! We only have to find the Infinity Stones!