In the Light Between the Lines

Wanda woke up immediately after disintegrating. Her body was stiff, but her mind was stronger than whatever magic held her down. She sat up, hands clenched into fists. Her breath came in quick, short bursts. As her eyes adjusted, she took in the vast, dull gray landscape. She blinked; the tears clinging to her lashes fell onto her cheeks. She wiped them away and pushed herself to her feet.

Beside her lay three others. She recognized T’Challa, King of Wakanda, and Sam Wilson, the Falcon. However, the third figure was unfamiliar—it looked like a creature out of Greek myth, some cross between an oak tree and a human boy. She stood staring down at the three silent, unmoving bodies for a long minute. And then she knelt beside Sam, the one she knew best, and shook him gently.

Sam’s eyes opened slowly. Wanda leaned back on her heels, giving him some space. “Sam,” she said, in the calmest voice she could muster, “can you hear me?”

Sam blinked. His eyes focused; he turned his head to look at her. “Wanda?” His voice was rough, gravelly. Confusion filled his expression, his eyes widening as they fixed on the endless gray-orange sky overhead.

Wanda nodded. “Here.” She held out a hand, and he took it. She pulled him upright; he stumbled, and she nested her shoulder under his arm to keep him standing.

“What is this place?” Sam stood perfectly still as he took in their surroundings. Only his head moved. His eyes, when he looked down at Wanda, were full of shock. “What happened? Did we beat Thanos?”

Wanda’s eyes filled with tears. She used her free hand to wipe away the wetness. “No,” she whispered. “No, we didn’t.”

Sam’s expression hardened. “Then what did happen? Where are we?” He gestured aimlessly at the sprawling, endless gray plains and dull, bloody sunset.

Wanda shook her head. She covered her mouth with one hand, pressing her lips to her palm to keep her voice from shaking. Tears threatened, blurring her vision. She took a deep breath in, releasing it slowly. With her arm around Sam’s torso, steadying him, she knew he could feel her trembling. “I think,” she began, her voice as tentative as a baby bird learning to fly, “we’re inside one of the Stones.” She wasn’t sure how she knew this, she just did. Her intuition was tied to the fate of the Stones, her power inexorably linked to them.

Sam was silent for a long moment. “You mean,” he said, speaking with measured intent, “that we’re trapped in an Infinity Stone?”

Wanda nodded mutely. “Thanos killed half the world. All those souls—all our souls—had to go somewhere.”

Sam blinked, taking another careful look around. “So this is the afterlife. I don’t know what I expected, but I guess I’d hoped it would be more exciting than a million miles of poorly-poured concrete and a mediocre sunset I could see in D.C.”

Wanda smiled slightly. She wiped her eyes again, trying hard not to think about what it meant that Vision wasn’t by her side. Despite what everyone had said, she knew Vision had a soul. She’d seen it in his eyes when he’d caressed her face, smiling gently down at her like she was everything in the world.

“What’s up with them?” Sam jerked his head at T’Challa and the humanoid tree. “Why aren’t they awake?”

Wanda sighed. “I had to shake you awake,” she said. She slipped out from under Sam’s arm, sensing that he was steady enough on his own. She was right; he stayed stubbornly upright. “Maybe they need the same treatment.” She gestured to T’Challa. “I’ll try him first.”

“What about, uh, the tree?” Sam raised an eyebrow. He crossed his arms over his chest. Surprisingly, Wanda noticed, his Falcon suit was fully in-tact, wings and all. She could see the metal edges sticking out behind his shoulders. Thanos’s spell, or whatever it was, hadn’t just disintegrated living things, it seemed.

Wanda knelt beside T’Challa. “I’ll try him next,” she said, with a glance over her shoulder at the motionless, wooden-skinned creature.

Wanda reached out with her mind and her hand. T’Challa was dressed in the Black Panther suit; the material was oddly soft, yet ridged and metallic, when she touched his shoulder. “King T’Challa,” she said, in the same soft voice she’d used with Sam. “It’s Wanda Maximoff. Can you hear me?”

For a moment, T’Challa remained motionless. Wanda was about to shake him again when his eyes snapped open. In half a second, he was on his feet. He looked around, blinking in surprise. Then his shoulders fell, his expression relaxed, and he sighed. He dropped into a half-crouch, hands braced on his knees as he regained his strength after his initial burst of energy. “We lost the battle,” he said. “I don’t know this place, but I know what it means.” He looked up, meeting Wanda’s gaze directly. He was looking to her for confirmation, she realized.

Swallowing hard, she nodded. “Thanos got the Mind Stone,” she said. Her voice nearly broke; she cleared her throat, straightening her spine and lifting her chin. “He has all the Stones now. But that doesn’t make him indestructible.”

T’Challa’s expression shifted from resignation to determination in point-one second. “You think we can still beat him. How?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, uncrossing and re-crossing his arms. He fixed Wanda with a slightly skeptical look. “Look, I get that we’re dead. What I don’t get is how you expect to, I dunno, bust out of an Infinity Stone-grade soul-prison and kick that grimacing purple alien’s ass.”

Wanda shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said. “King T’Challa.” She turned to address the Wakandan ruler with a respectful tilt of her head. “You have much more battlefield experience than I do. And you, too, Sam,” she added, shooting him a small smile. “If anyone’s going to come up with a workable strategy for getting us out of here, it’ll be you two.”

“And what about you?” Sam made a broad gesture at the endless gray landscape. “You’re the one with the magic mind-powers. I think that counts for something, regardless of your lack of battlefield experience.”

T’Challa turned toward the prone figure of the tree-man, still lying motionless on the gray plain. “Have you tried waking him?” he asked Wanda. “I saw him fight off dozens of the invading creatures at once. He could help us.”

Wanda approached the sleeping creature. She crouched beside him, reaching out hesitantly to touch his barky skin. “Hello,” she said softly. “My name’s Wanda. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The creature’s eyes opened. They were deep and dark, full of light and soul. The creature sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily. He looked around, then up at Wanda. “I am Groot?”

Wanda frowned. “Um… are you?” She looked back at T’Challa for confirmation; he shrugged one shoulder noncommittally.

“I am Groot,” the tree-creature said, more forcefully this time. He pushed himself upright, stumbling and nearly falling. Immediately, a long, twisted root slid out of his hand to stabilize him. He looked around again, eyes wide, frowning.

“Groot,” Wanda said, with another glance back at Sam and T’Challa. “I’m Wanda. Do you know what happened?”

“I am Groot,” Groot said. He shrugged his narrow, branch-like shoulders. “I am Groot.”

Wanda bit her lip, unsure how to respond. She had the distinct, sinking feeling that Groot wasn’t going to say anything else. If that was the case, she would have to rely entirely on tone and inflection to understand what he was saying.

“Thanos won,” she told Groot. He turned to stare at her, his expression blank and his eyes full of sudden terror. “I think…” she swallowed hard, “…well, I think we’re dead. But it’s okay,” she added, when Groot’s eyes widened, and he stumbled again. Instinctively, she reached out to grip his shoulder. He didn’t flinch away from her touch. He looked up at her, silently beseeching her to explain how this could possibly be okay. “Thanos won this battle,” Wanda said, trying to sound as strong as her words, “but the war isn’t over. Not yet.”

Sam came up beside her. He laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezing once—a comforting gesture. “That’s right,” he said. “There’s still a chance we’ll kick Thanos’s ass, take back the Infinity Stones, and destroy them once and for all. Right, Wanda?”

A pit opened in Wanda’s stomach. She swallowed hard. “That’s right,” she agreed softly. She smiled at Groot, straightening up. “But first, we need to find the others. They have to be here; it can’t just be us.”

T’Challa lifted his head, looking out over the gray plains with a faraway look in his eyes. “You said Thanos destroyed half the world,” he said. “I’m sure many Wakandans fell in the culling. If I can find them, we can regroup and find a way out.”

“Okay then,” said Sam. “First order of business: find the others. See, everything is so much better when you have a plan. Even if it’s just one tiny piece of a not-super-viable plan.”

Wanda smiled. “True.” She turned in a circle, scoping out the flat, unending landscape. She reached out with her mind, her awareness spreading like a net over the gray plains. Closing her eyes, she focused all her energy on sensing the space around her. “This way,” she said, after a long moment. She pointed toward the brightest point on the horizon. “The way out is in that direction.”

Sam and T’Challa exchanged a somewhat wary glance. Groot looked at the horizon, then back at Wanda. With a shrug, the tree-creature started walking in the indicated direction.

“Alright, Wanda,” said Sam. “Whatever you say goes. But you better not lead us on an unnecessary twenty-mile hike and then realize it’s in the opposite direction. I don’t care if I’m dead; the blisters I get from these boots might literally kill me.”

“I can’t make any promises,” Wanda replied, “but I’ll try my best.”

Sam started walking after Groot. “That’s all I ask,” he said with a smile.

T’Challa nodded. As he walked past Wanda, he paused to lay a hand on her shoulder. “Back on the battlefield, I saw what you’re capable of,” he said. “As long as we stand together, we are not defeated.”

Wanda smiled, blinking back a fresh wave of tears. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For everything.”

T’Challa returned the smile. “Of course,” he said. He began walking again, his regal silhouette wreathed in a dull orange glow.

Nebula found Tony standing amid the wreckage of Thanos’s ship. It took her a moment to adjust to the glaring brightness of midmorning on Titan, but when she did, her heart launched into her throat and stuck, beating furiously.

It was Mantis. Not only Mantis, but Drax, Peter Quill, and the wizard from Earth. Tony, who seemed shaken but not in any immediate danger, appeared to be having a lively conversation with the wizard.

Nebula approached cautiously. She couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t hallucinating; maybe it was the heat, or something she’d eaten on the Guardians’ ship. She wouldn’t put it past them to lace their food with recreational drugs.

“Look, Doctor,” Tony was saying, gesturing animatedly at the wreckage, “I don’t exactly have the tools—mental or physical—to deal with this right now.”

“I already explained to you, it’s called a Projector.” The wizard—doctor?—crossed his arms over his chest, his expression caught between exasperation and determination. “It’s not complicated. Essentially, it allows souls to manifest physically in the living world. This one is acting as a bridge between the Soul Realm and Titan.” The wizard gestured to a large, glowing stone hovering in the middle of the wreckage. “The farther I get from it, the less connected I’ll be. See, if I move over here, then you can’t…” The wizard took ten steps away from the stone, his voice and physical form fading almost at once. He returned to the Projector, every step bringing him closer to full visibility. He laid a hand on the stone. “Point proven.”

“So it’s like a ghost cellphone,” said Tony. “If you move out of signal range, it cuts off your call.”

The wizard nodded, his expression thoughtful. “That’s… actually a pretty apt metaphor.”

Nebula leapt nimbly down into the clearing where the other were gathered. Unlike the wizard, Mantis, Quill, and Drax seemed unable to speak. Their mouths moved, but no sound came out. Their eyes seemed focused on something far away—it was like they wouldn’t, or couldn’t, make sense of the world around them. Their bodies kept shimmering, adding to the mirage-like feeling. Nebula got the sense that, unlike the wizard, they weren’t entirely present in the land of the living. They had strayed much farther from the glowing stone; she guessed that had a lot to do with it.

Tony ran a hand over his face, turning to Nebula as she approached. “Good to see you,” he said. “I thought you might’ve taken their ship—” he gestured to the faded, wandering ghosts of the Guardians, “—and left me to fend for myself.”

Nebula frowned. “How do you know about the ship?”

Tony shrugged. “I dunno. They had to get here somehow.”

Nebula’s eyes narrowed. “I found water,” she said. “It’s back by the dry fountain.”

She watched relief cross Tony’s face like light breaking through the clouds on a spring day. “Great,” he said. “Because Dr. Exposition here won’t tell me anything actually useful, and I’m starting to get a serious headache from listening to him.”

The wizard looked indignant. “If you don’t want my help,” he said, “then just say so. I have much more important things to do than stand around explaining things to you.”

“Important things like babysitting a bunch of useless aliens?” Tony raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Yeah, hard pass on listening to any more of your charming explanations. Just tell me the bare essentials of this plan of yours, and I’ll see what I can do.”

The wizard looked at Nebula, then back at Tony. “She’s about to offer you safe passage off Titan,” the wizard said. “Go with her. Take the Projector with you on the ship. Try not to damage it in any way—I’m not sure what would happen if you did.”

“Don’t crack the ghost cellphone, got it,” said Tony.

The wizard turned his attention to Nebula. “I’m not sure of Thanos’s location yet, but as soon as I find out, you’ll be the first to know.”

Nebula narrowed her eyes. “I’ve known Thanos all my life,” she said. “What makes you think you’ll find him before I can?”

The wizard half-smiled. “I have my ways,” he said.

Nebula wasn’t convinced, but she nodded once, keeping her expression carefully blank. “I won’t stop until I find him,” she said. “And then I’ll kill him, no matter the cost.”

Tony and the wizard exchanged a quick glance. “Just wait ‘till I’m out of the blast radius before you go nuclear on him,” said Tony. “I’ve got like, a quarter of a working suit and a pile of rusty scraps to build a new one with.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” said the wizard. He took a step back from the stone, his form and voice fading. “Good luck, Stark. You’re gonna need it.” And then, with a dramatic swirl of his cloak, he and the Guardians disappeared.