In the Light Between the Lines

Of all the shitty situations, being stranded on an alien planet in some unknown sector of space with no suit, a broken ship, and the bone-deep panic that comes with watching your friends and teammates turn to ash in front of you was probably the shittiest. In the moments before realizing that Nebula had also survived, Tony was convinced he was utterly alone. Kneeling on the dead, burnt rocks of a foreign land, every particle in his body on fire with grief, he closed his eyes and waited to dissolve.

Nearby, Nebula stood staring out over the wasteland. She’d already concluded that she had survived the culling. As soon as the others began to fade, she knew what it meant. Thanos had won. The Infinity Stones had been assembled, and now, against the invincible power that the Mad Titan wielded, there could be no victory.

And yet somehow, she had survived.

Nebula clenched her fists around air. She inhaled slowly. She started down the side of the rocky incline, toward the ruined, sun-baked city that had once been a thriving civilization. Thanos had won, but that could be undone. She was stranded, but she was not yet dead. Titan was a dead planet, but perhaps some of its technology had survived. If she wanted to live long enough to face Thanos again—and she did; in fact, it was the only thing keeping her going—then she’d need resources and a working ship.

Holding her head high, she made for the dead city.

Tony heard the gentle fall of rocks as Nebula started down the hill. He looked up, but remained kneeling, his hands covered in his own blood and Peter’s ashes. His face felt wet. Shaking, he pressed his hands hard against his eyes. His palms came away slick with tears. The sight of bloodstains mixed with dust and tears broke something inside him. The grief and panic disappeared. A hole opened in his chest, hollow and hungry, and swallowed every shred of feeling in one gulp.

Standing up, Tony wiped his hands viciously on his ruined shirt. There was a tear in it where Thanos had stabbed him. With shaking fingers, he lifted the material and ran his fingers over the site of the wound. It had all but disappeared. He knew that he should feel scared then, or relieved, or even disappointed. But he felt nothing at all.

“Thanos will be back,” Nebula called from the bottom of the hill. She had reached the edge of the city. Unkempt, chipped, and crooked stairs led to what had once been a thriving city square. “Now that he has unlimited power, who knows what he’ll do.”

Tony didn’t reply. He stood on the crest of the hill, staring out over the dead surface of Titan, past the ruined city toward the far horizon.

Nebula left Tony alone. She knew what he was feeling. That emptiness, that hopelessness that she’d felt during years of suffering at Thanos’s hands, the hollow echoing pain when she’d learned of Gamora’s fate. But instead of falling into the void, instead of giving in to despair, she’d embraced the emptiness. Over time, she had built it up around herself: an impenetrable armor of carefully-cultivated recklessness. Thanos would pay for what he’d done. He’d crafted her into a weapon, torn her apart and rebuilt her a thousand times. Didn’t he know what he had made?

Well, she thought bitterly as she stepped through rubble and the dust of old bones, he would soon find out.

“Steve.” Natasha reached down and touched Steve’s hand. A gentle brush of fingers, telling him she was there. “It’s getting dark. We should go inside.”

Steve stared out across the bloodstained field. The grass was thick with blood and the bodies of the fallen. Well, not all the fallen. Not the ones who had disappeared, smoke rising and drifting away into nothing…

“Rogers,” said Natasha, moving around to block his view of the carnage. “I’m serious. This isn’t healthy. It’s been 28 hours. If we want to fix this, we’re gonna need a plan.”

Steve looked down. He met her gaze for a moment, but the intensity was too much. Swallowing hard, he looked away, off over the sweeping grasslands toward the glittering city of Birnin Zana. His hand rose to his neck, touching the two tiny vials hanging against his chest, resting in the absence of a star. Glass cylinders full of ashes. All that was left now of the best and bravest men Steve had ever known. His fingers closed around the vials, holding them so tight he was afraid they might crack.

Colonel Rhodes, who had come with Natasha to check on him, stood a few feet away, watching the sunset. Red and gold lined the horizon. A great upward sweep of warmth fading to navy blue. “She’s right,” Rhodes said. His voice was low, strong. Determined. “It’s no use standing around doing nothing. The universe won’t save itself, that’s for damn sure.”

Natasha put a hand over Steve’s, resting against his chest. “Look at me, Rogers,” she said, and despite his reluctance, he obeyed. Her eyes were dark and stormy: lightning reflecting off seafoam crests. “We will get them back. And that is for damn sure,” she added, with a glance at Rhodes. She half-smiled, and Rhodes half-smiled back.

Steve exhaled slowly. There was a pit in his chest, a hole where his heart should be. It felt like he’d swallowed a black hole. Everything he was, everything he cared about spiraling down, down, fading to dust and smoke. Why am I here, he thought. Why am I still here?

It was like Natasha had read his mind. “We need you, Steve,” she said. “Bucky needs you. Sam needs you. And, although I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this, the world needs you.” She cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head to one side. The half-smile was back. “So yeah, it’s not an ideal situation. But we’ll handle it. We always do.”

Steve looked at her. Really looked. And for the first time since the battle began, it struck him that she was only human, no serum, no radiation, no super suit. Just Natasha Romanoff, fighting because it was the right thing to do. Because she cared.

“Alright,” he said with the last of his breath. He inhaled deeply, savoring the smell of drying blood and sun-baked, trampled grass. “Alright.”

In silence, the three Avengers made their slow but steady way back across the battlefield toward Wakanda’s Golden City, silhouettes against a dusky, blood-red sky.

“I’m telling you,” Shuri said, spreading her hands and causing the glowing blue outline of a diagnostics screen to appear midair, “these readings are legit.”

Bruce Banner frowned. He sat heavily on the edge of the nearest desk. Shuri’s lab had been overturned by Thanos’s soldiers; it wasn’t like he was going to damage anything that hadn’t already been broken. “But it’s impossible,” he heard himself say, even though it wasn’t. At this point, was anything impossible? Probably not.

Shuri shook her head. She cast the diagnostics screen into the center of the room, magnifying it to five times its size. Ever since the final battle and Thanos’s victory, she’d been working non-stop to establish exactly how much damage the Mad Titan had caused. Working was the only way to distract herself from the raw, aching pain of losing her brother and mother, and thousands of her fellow Wakandans. Forcing her hands not to shake, she used one finger to zoom in on three particularly important numbers at the corner of the diagram. “These readings are off,” she said, “but they’re not inaccurate.” She pointed to the first number. “This is the average length of Earth’s annual orbit based on data collected two months ago.” She moved down to the second number. “This is the length of Earth’s orbit right after the battle, sometime yesterday afternoon.” She pointed to the most recent number. “And this is Earth’s orbit right now.” She turned to Bruce with an expectant look on her face. “See what I’m saying?”

Bruce leaned in for a better look. “The readings are increasing,” he commented.

Shuri raised one eyebrow. “Exactly. And what’s that mean to you?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged. “These changes in readings are increases by mere millionths of an AU. It’s probably normal fluctuation in the trajectory of Earth’s orbital path.”

Shuri turned back to the screen. “Using big words doesn’t change reality, Dr. Banner,” she said. “Something’s causing Earth’s orbit to become more elliptical. It’s right there. My data doesn’t lie.”

Bruce ran a hand over his face. He felt the ache behind his eyes growing, tension bringing on a headache the likes of which he hadn’t had in years. He pressed his fingers to his temples and rubbed hard. “Am I right in guessing you have a hypothesis?”

Shuri was silent for a moment. She zoomed the screen back out, then swiped left to reveal a perfect 3-D model of the solar system. Perfect, except for the fact that two planets were missing. “Well,” she said, “at this point it’s more of a theory.”

“Where’s Jupiter?” Bruce asked, frowning. “And Venus?”

“Exactly,” she said. And in that moment, Bruce finally understood.