I give you... my legacy
To see the 2014 version of herself, Nebula felt weird. She looked identical to her except Nebula was wearing a golden head plate designed by Peter and her arm was a titanium alloy from when Peter had to scavenge the last few plates of his late father.
2014 Nebula was more brutal than current Nebula. She was less caring and always carried envy in her heart to kill her sister. But this Nebula was vastly different. She didn't want to kill Gamora anymore. She grew to be sympathetic and the jealousy left even before the snap. But this is 2014 Nebula. No growth. 2014 Nebula was angered by the fact that the older Nebula betrayed her father but unknown to 2014, betrayal was on its way if things went the right way.
2014 Nebula punched current Nebula. She was about to punch back, show her who's kind of the boss, but then she saw her.
Gamora.
Dressed in her armor with purple and black hair and green skin. Gamora. She looked at two of the Nebula's and raised her brow as if to question which was her sister. Nebula glances at Gamora. The future entity of the soul stone is right in front of her; unaware of her future and her merciless end towards the one they call father. "You can stop this," Nebula warns to Gamora, "You know you want to. Did you see what happens in the future? Thanos finds the Soul Stone. You wanna know how he does that? You wanna know what he does to you?"
But 2014 Nebula didn't want to hear the future, "That's enough. You disgust me. But that doesn't mean you're useless." With a smirk, she grabs a flat knife and carefully lifts the golden plate. She takes her own off and puts it on. Now 2014 Nebula looks like current Nebula. If she wears the jacket, the discrepancy wouldn't be noticed. She wears the jacket which contained her Pym particles.
2014 Nebula leaves.
Which left current Nebula and 2014 Gamora. Two different sisters who are currently on diverged paths.
May 4th, 1976
"I didn't mean to do that." Peter mutters to himself as he and Steve walk into SHIELD, an old man driving shouts to them both, "MAKE LOVE! NOT WAR!"
"I forgot it's the 70s." Peter says gloomily, "Did they have Doritos at this time?"
"No idea." Steve replies.
"You weren't born here, right?" Peter asked.
"The idea of me was born here, so technically... I have no idea."
Peter chuckles as he fixes his suit and briefcase and looks at Steve who looks good in camo green. They walk in SHIELD, undetected because security in the 70s wasn't at it's strongest. "Right. Well, imagine you're SHIELD, running a quasi-fascistic intelligence organization. Where do you hide it?"
"In plain sight." Steve quickly answered as they go inside an elevator and meet with a woman. She's petite, chubby, has walnut-colored skin, brown hairs and a hairdo that didn't fit in the 2000s. She had on a striped blue dress carried files all while smiling awkwardly at the two Avengers.
They both press buttons and wait in silence. Where was the elevator music when you need it? Peter asks himself. The woman who's last name is Willis stares at Steve who was timidly (but also stupidly) staring back and if she recognized Captain America, the mission would've been compromised the minute her eyes widened. So, he steps into her vision and glances at Steve.
He puts his eyes somewhere else and Peter was grateful.
The elevator opens, signaling that it's time for Peter to leave and get the tesseract, "Good luck on your mission, Captain." He says and did a salute.
"Good luck on your project, doctor." Steve said and the elevator closes.
Peter walks fast but not fast enough to be suspicious. He knows where the lab is at. Hell, Steve even drew on his hand remembering his visit while on the run from SHIELD who was secretly HYDRA. He goes to the lab and waddles around, careful not to cause any noise despite being the only one here.
Then, he sees the glowing cube and it was blue. Of course, Peter was going to take it, "Got ya." He whispers and puts the cube in the suitcase he had which came with the outfit.
CHILD!
Peter's spidey-senses made him look to the right and he sees a child who looked to be about six. Similar to Morgan he looked. With chocolate hair, brown eyes, pants and a baseball t-shirt with Chuck Taylor shoes. He stares at Peter Parker with curiosity and confusion.
"You're not Armin Zola." He voices timidly.
"I am not Armin Zola." Peter replies with a sweet smile. He was such a softie for kids.
"Dad sent me to look for him," He said, "Have you seen Mr. Zola?"
"Nope. Haven't even seen a soul, little guy."
"Do you work here?"
"No. I'm a visitor... from college. MIT."
"I heard of MIT! Dad says that's a really good college!" The kid said and examines Peter, "Who are you?"
"I'm..." Peter tries to think of a name, "Peter... Stark."
"COOL! WE HAVE THE SAME LAST NAME!" He shouts excitedly, "Nice to meet you, Peter, I'm Anthony but Jarvis calls me Tony!"
Oh... OH.
"Nice to meet you, Tony," Peter greets, his hands beginning to sweat, "How are you and your old man?"
Tony's excited look about meeting someone soured, "Dad is... okay. Just looking for his old friend. I don't like his old friend."
Peter forgot that his dad always wanted to find Captain America. Peter didn't know why at all. Peter is a dad and he would quit (or at least make finding a frozen friend a side job) to raise his son. And he did. He quit grieving the losses of those around him in replacement for focusing on the greatest blessing in his entire life: Benjamin. "That's very understandable, kiddo. I don't have anything to say except your dad... is something. Just focus on yourself and those who love you, okay?"
Tony tilts his head, obviously confused by the saying but replied nonetheless, "I want to make a robot to make my dad proud of me."
Like Dum-E? U?
Peter smiles fondly at the memory of Dum-E and U. They're still in the lab, making noises and being fun. He doesn't even remember if his Tony mentioned Dum-E or U, but the big robots made themselves present the second Peter stepped into the lab. He doesn't want to say anything that'll spoil the mood but he'll say something that will lighten it, "Maybe the robots will love to be built. You know how to program already?"
Tony nods.
"That's awesome!" Peter exclaims, "Who knows? Maybe you'll save the world one day or become a serious competitor."
"What's a... com-pet-tit-it-or?"
Peter chuckles, "Com-pet-it-or Tony, and it's you being against someone."
"I don't wanna be a competitor with my robots," Says a frowning Tony, "I want to be their friend!"
"No, not that bubba," Peter said, "Like to other people who want to sell robots."
"Oh..." Tony says and looks down, thinking about it, "No!"
Peter shrugs, "Why not?"
"Dad sells guns! Not robots!"
Oh right.
"You do a good job then, kiddo. Just... be yourself and don't be afraid of... when life gets heavy, okay?"
Tony nods and does a salute. Peter doesn't want to stick around, though. His sticking abilities had activated and the suitcase was glued onto his hands. Peter smiles at Tony and bends down to the future before him. Ironic how the tables turned because of Tony suddenly looking at him as if he were the stars.
"I'll see you around, Mr. Stark." Tony says to Peter and Peter nods.
"I'll see you around... too." He says with another fond smile.
With a sticky suitcase, he walks out and was just about to go to the elevator when he was stopped, "PETER!" Tony shouts and grabs him by the pants, "You forgot your thing!" And in his hand was the Spider-Man mask. He bends down again and examines the mask that was supposed to be in his pocket.
He contemplates it for a little. Should he?
Peter hands the mask to Tony.
"You have my thing." Peter says with a grin, "You deserve it. A little memento of our friendship."
"We're friends?!" Tony asks, his jaw-dropping and his eyes looking at him as if he were God himself, "AND I CAN KEEP YOUR THING?!"
Peter puts his finger up to his lips. A signal to be quiet, "Yes you can. But promise me one thing."
Tony looks at him eagerly.
"Promise me that when bad comes, you won't let it consume you."
Tony raises his eyebrows, "Are you like some Peter Pan?"
"Not at all, kiddo. But... Knowing the hard and bumpy road, I don't want you to... shut down like those old-timey computers."
"Oh... Well, okay," Tony accepts the words with a smile, "I won't do whatever you just said!"
Peter's cheeks had to hurt from all the smiling he did. How did Howard not love his kid? He doesn't know, he'll be beguiled with this little Tony. He's just so adorable and very much a kid. Not the current Tony who focused on how he could've done better on something or how the nightmares of his father still come in. It hurt Peter and if he had to raise Tony, he'd do it the right way. If there was any right way to parent a child at all, of course.
He'd raise little Tony just like how he'd raise his kid.
But he can't. He wants to bring his Tony and Natasha back with his Aunt May.
Oh, you guys have no idea how much I miss you all.
He finally leaves the lab and goes to the elevator but Tony follows him, "Dad is upstairs." He explains to Peter and Peter nods.
They both talk about random subjects and Peter was delighted to talk about Benjamin at some point.
Steve was outside Pym particles in his pocket. They were more potent from what Pym had said over the phone. He looked out for Peter, anxious to leave. He didn't want to stay, but every second that grew made him want too. To stay with Peggy and have a family. To stay where he was supposed to be.
But fortunately for himself, Peter walks out with a kid following close behind. The kid didn't look the part for the 70's look but who was he to judge? He's supposed to be an old, wrinkly guy and he still looks good and not wrinkly. Peter who spots him, holds the suitcase and taps it. Steve gives him a thumbs up, then he could see the kid drag Peter down with awful strength. Peter playfully falls and they share a laugh before the kid whispers in his ear and Peter answers to it with another whisper. They both hug before Peter finally departs from the kid. But for one second, Peter looks at someone achingly familiar and glares at them.
Says something towards them and leaves.
Right behind that, the kid beams and the man gets in the car.
"Who was that?" Steve asked.
"Someone special." Was all Peter said before they walk out of SHIELD, plugin Pym particles and go back to their time.
"Wow... Under different circumstances, this would be totally awesome." Clint mutters upon looking at Vormir.
And Clint's right, Kate thinks. Vormir would've been awesome if they hadn't come to retrieve the stone. With it's purple/blue aesthetic and nice sand, it would've been a cool vacation spot for the Hawkeye's to lounge on. Nothing to worry about except the weird planet itself.
They both walk to the mountain, the only thing there besides the miles of lavender sand. There was nothing but silence while climbing the mountain, the atmosphere changing little by little every step they took. It wasn't like the air leaving their bodies. It was like if bigfoot was inevitably going to meet you on top of the mountain and asked which one of them was going to jump and which one of them was going to leave empty-handed.
Kate swallows the bile.
"I bet the raccoon didn't have to climb a mountain." Clint grumbles.
"Technically, he's not a raccoon, you know." Kate explains. Raccoons don't just magically talk and give sass.
"Whatever. He eats garbage-"
They were finally at the top when someone greeted them, "Welcome."
Kate and Clint both draw their weapons to the thing. They didn't even warm-up for the flight of stairs, not socializing with a deity that can float and has the style of a reaper.
"Kate, daughter of Derek. Clint, son of Edith." They say. He finally emerged from his weird jacket and Kate widened her eyes.
"Red Skull?"
Red Skull looks towards Kate and nods, "I once was but consider me a guide. To you, and to all who seek the Soul Stone."
"Oh goody. You tell us where it is. Then we'll be on our way, Mr. Nazi." Clint quips.
Kate shrugs. Can't pinch him for this one.
"If only it was that easy." He murmured and he floated to the edge, Kate and Clint in tow.
Kate bites her lip, avoiding to look at the floor for the view in the sky. A lovely Periwinkle sky with little stars sparkling. Vormir had their own clouds and it was just rolls of them. Contrast to the admiral blue on the floor, something green coating one area and a skeleton at the end of the corner.
"What you seek lies in front of you......as does what you fear." The Red Skull says. He sounded solemn.
"So, the stone is down there?" Kate asked.
The Red Skull nodded, "For one of you. For the other... In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. An everlasting exchange. A soul, for a soul."
Huh. Okay.
Kate didn't know how to take that. One of them had to leave and one of them had to stay and die alone. This time, Kate lets the bile surge up and vomit. She can't let Clint die. He doesn't have a biological family, but he has a dog and a family in a little apartment he now owns. She sits on the log, her legs not being able to handle the information given.
Clint was watching the Red Skull and Kate didn't know why. But Kate let him as she thinks in any scenario where they can acquire the stone without dying. If he's telling the truth, then, one of them has to die to bring back the trillions dead.
What felt like hours later, Clint goes and sits next to Kate, putting his arm around his shoulder as if to comfort her, "He can be faking, you know."
"But he isn't."
"How do you know?"
"How does he know our parent's names, Clint?"
Clint stays silent.
"Nebula said Thanos murdered his daughter here. Meaning, he left here without Gamora but with the stone. The correlation can't be a coincidence." Kate looks at Clint with tears threatening to leave her eyes to show her fear and grief. She didn't want to leave without Clint.
"Whatever it takes?" Clint asked.
"Whatever it takes." Kate answers.
They both stand and look at each other, "If we don't get that stone, trillions of people stay dead."
"Trillion and Lucky."
Kate nods with a laugh, "Trillion and Lucky, the pizza dog."
"Sooooo... Both of us know who's it gotta be?"
Me.
"Yep."
Clint goes to hold her hand and Kate reciprocates by holding and squeezing his hand. The simple gesture lifted weights off of her shoulders. "I'm starting to think, we've been different people here, Kate."
"We are different people, circus boy."
"Wow, the first time you don't call me an idiot and it's close to death? Wow, we're... best friends."
"You ruined the moment, Hawkeye."
"Sorry."
"I am-" Kate was pushed by Clint, "You big asshole!"
Kate recovers quickly and tackles Clint, "No way you're dying!"
"There are several ways and I'm choosing!" He pushes Kate off and gives her an electric disc which hurt. "The easiest! Tell Lucky and my family that I love them."
The tension was beginning to build as Kate gets up and sees that Clint (with his explosive arrow) shoots somewhere to distract Kate but she runs straight through the fog to see Clint almost there. Kate grabs him by the hook of his pants and gives him a suplex. "You tell them yourself, Hawkeye." She says and jumped.
She expected to fall. Fall to her death and not return. Fall and hear the crack of her head open as she looks up to the sky that she wasn't familiar with and bleed out in a foreign place. She expected to hear Clint sob and how it got less and less loud every second of that dreadful fall.
She expected to win the final fight and die. To let Clint live and return home to Lucky and his family. She expects for that myth to come true where she revisits her entire life as it flashes through her eyes before finally drifting away and seeing the afterlife.
Kate may not have had children or have done a college application, but she was okay with it. Her future will forever outweigh the trillions that didn't get to experience their future.
She was okay with dying and not fulfilling her life as she intended because one life was nothing compared to the trillions of lives.
But that isn't how it happens at all.
In fact, she was stopped short by a grappling hook and caught a Clint Barton who was smiling and it would've been a true smile if it hadn't been for the tears and fear in his eyes. He looks at Kate and Kate looks at him for what could've been forever.
"Let me go."
Kate feels a shiver crawl through her spine, "No."
"Kate, please." He pleads, his gloved hand covering her pale and warm ones, "I need to... I need to atone."
Kate shakes her heads, tears spilling, snot beginning to show, "NO!"
"It's okay." He attempts to comfort her as if she wasn't the one dying.
"No, it isn't!" Kate shouts, her voice breaking, "I don't want you to die, Clint! PLEASE!"
But Clint smiles. He smiles as if they weren't going through a life-and-death situation. He smiles as if they were just battling over who loves Lucky more? Clint or Kate? He smiles as if this wasn't going to be one of their last words to each other.
He smiles.
Kate sobs.
"please..." She whispers, oh so brokenly, "please let me do it."
Clint shakes his head, "I give you... my legacy... Hawkeye."
He smiles.
Kate doesn't smile but tries to hold onto his hand tightly as he kicks the wall and instead of the hand being with Kate, it was the glove.
With wide and scared eyes, She watches as Clint plummets to the ground. A smile gracing his lips as if to reassure Kate for the last time he could do it before she can hear the crack of his skull and blood seeping out. She inhales sharply, her eyes becoming glossy as she can hear Vormir accept the sacrifice and with a bright white flash, she wasn't with Clint.
She was in a river. She sits up and sees the glove on her hand. His glove. His glove with a glowing infinity stone.
Kate sharply inhales, a scream waiting to be revealed to this wretched world but instead, she blankly presses the button and she shrinks, going into the quantum realm.
Without him, but with the stone she was sent to get.