Chapitre 1247: 37
Chapter 37: save your tears for another day
Notes:
1) Ahhhhh so I had to ask if you guys wanted a longer or shorter update since it determined when I would upload! After an overwhelming response from the last chapter, here is the update!!
2) Fun fact: ITS MY BIRTHDAY! Completely crazy that this is still ongoing!
3) Enjoy the chapter and leave a kudos and comment!
Chapter Text
( Five years later )
He blinked.
Thump.
The vibranium ceiling stared at him.
Thump.
The chill from the floor radiated up his back.
He breathed.
Sitting up, he looked around to see Loki standing near the column, confused but quickly gaining his bearings. Looking at his hand, he realised his mask had remained in his deadly grip.
Right, he had taken it off as he had staggered towards Tony, panic encapsulating his being as he had realised they had failed for the second time. All their preparation had been for nothing.
Looking forwards, a red cloak entered his vision-
Stephen.
Jumping to his feet, he faced Stephen as the sorcerer turned around, his lips downturned but not a full frown. Dried blood remained on his temple from when Thanos had thrown him into the columns surrounding them. He looked the same before.
His body felt the same as before. His ribs ached from when Thanos had pinned him under a beam and he knew there would still be dried blood in some places.
…how long had they been 'dead' for?
Wait! Tony must have figured out time travel and collected all the Infinity Stones from the alternate timelines! Did his videos send or did Tony work it out again? Did his videos even get sent to Tony?
"Sorcerer!" Loki growled, striding towards Stephen as his eyes burned with fury. "Was this your grand plan? Get us killed by Thanos and do what only the heavens know?"
Stephen stared at Loki wearily. "Well, we're back here, aren't we? You resurrect often enough that you should have expected to come back."
"This would have been permanent."
"You can resurrect?" He asked, slightly startled.
He thought Loki had been taken back to Asgard with Thor after he had attacked Earth with the Chitauri, but he didn't know why Stephen said he had resurrected. He had been killed in the other timeline by Thanos on Thor's ship -Thor's short reminiscing episode at the funeral about his brother had given him a new insight into the God of Mischief's life- and hadn't benefitted from the Time Heist. At least, he thought he hadn't. Pepper had said Tony hadn't gotten the chance to tell her much after, with the battle and all.
"No," Loki replied, irritation colouring his voice. "I faked my death multiple times."
Ah, that made sense.
The familiar crackling of a portal sounded and he turned around to see Stephen standing in front of one.
"Time is of the essence. Let's go," he said, stepping through the portal. He put on his mask and jogged through, unsure of what would be on the other side.
Stepping onto grass, he observed what had been their battlefield. Warriors in red armour mixed with warriors in black armour, confusion emanating from all of them. The plains looked like they had been rejuvenated with life, the lack of humans over however long the timespan they had been gone benefitting the Earth.
Hopefully Tony had seen the videos he had left.
(Was he forcing himself to repress all the guilt that had buried itself in his chest like a dumbbell? Absolutely. If he even considered thinking about it then he would implode.)
"Doctor Strange!" He turned around to see T'Challa a few metres away from them. "What happened?" Confusion swam in the king's eyes, reflecting how his troops were in disarray.
"Thanos completed what he set out to do," Stephen replied grimly. "There is a battle that will happen at the Compound within half an hour. Is that enough time to ready your troops and head into battle?"
T'Challa's eyes steeled over as he looked at his troops, many of the warriors heading towards the Palace, probably with hopes that someone could explain what had happened.
He nodded. "Let's go."
Stephen closed the portal they had used to get to the plains and opened a new one to the Palace, letting them enter before going through and shutting it.
"My king!" A shocked voice cried out. Swivelling around, his eyes widened as he realised Okoye stood in front of them, her eyes wide with disbelief as she took a step backwards.
"Okoye." T'Challa smiled at his general, crossing his hands over his chest like an 'x' as she did the same and bowed. "How long has it been since the final battle?"
Her eyes narrowed but she replied steadily. "5 years."
Shit.
He nodded. "There is little time," he said seriously, "and we must prepare for battle."
"How soon?" She asked.
"Within half an hour."
"Then there is no time to waste." She pressed her bracelet -'Kimoyo beads,' he thought- and she must have sent a command because she nodded to T'Challa. "Where will they assemble?"
T'Challa looked expectantly at Stephen.
"The edge of the plains. I will contact Wong and Kamar-Taj and they will join us."
He didn't know what to expect other than what happened in the previous timeline and he guessed Stephen was following the same events. The combined forces of the Wakandan warriors and sorcerers from Kamar-Taj had entered the ruins of the Compound faced the Chitauri army from 2014.
A sudden coldness hit his core as he realised that for him to be there alongside the other half of the universe, someone had needed to die for the Soul Stone.
Fuck.
Natasha had sacrificed herself in the previous timeline.
Had she sacrificed herself again?
Oh no.
Pepper had told him that Tony and the remaining Avengers had killed Thanos a month after the Snap, taking the remains of the universe-changing event with him. He had destroyed the Infinity Stones so no one could reverse his ultimate decision.
The weight in his chest increased to the point it felt like he was struggling to breathe. He didn't know if anyone could tell since they were working out the logistics of bringing the armies to one battlefield, but he wanted to disappear for a couple of seconds and panic in peace.
"We will meet you in twenty-five minutes at the edge of the plains. Everything should be ready by then." T'Challa nodded at Stephen before walking with Okoye into the Palace, leaving him, Stephen and Loki together.
"I can trust you not to do anything reckless while I'm gone?" Stephen asked, raising a concerned eyebrow when he jolted in surprise.
"Huh, uh, yes," he stammered, somewhat recovering. "Twenty-five minutes to prepare. Gotcha." Stephen frowned but didn't say anything, instead turning around, opening a portal, leaving and shutting it within a few seconds, leaving him with Loki.
He hadn't fully comprehended his situation and the pressure was starting to get to him way too early. Failing in the previous timeline was one thing. Failing in the next timeline with the miraculous chance he had been given was another.
How the fuck did everything go so wrong so quickly? Thor had been knocked out, then Loki and Wanda, then Stephen and Tony had been knocked and he had been pinned down by a beam and-
He had become a liability.
He had become the liability that made Stephen give up the Time Stone.
They couldn't end up in a position where Stephen had to trade the Time stone for Tony's life, not when it was the key to letting Thanos turn back time and bringing the Mind stone back into existence. He had sworn to stop that from happening, but he had ended up being the person who Stephen had needed to keep safe.
How had he failed so badly? Had he been too confident in himself, too arrogant? Had he thought his knowledge of the future made him invincible? Had he ruled out the possibility that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have been in that final battle in the Vault? He had been in the presence of two gods, a witch, a sorcerer and one of the most intelligent men on Earth. How had he contributed aside from helping with the Soul Stone? The pressure in his chest pulsated, making it more difficult to breathe.
"Mortal, I can hear your thoughts." Loki sighed, irritated.
"Wait, can you actually do that? I thought Wanda was the only one who could mind read?" He asked, startled out of his thoughts. The pressure in his chest dissipated quickly, and he realised he had been holding his breath.
Loki rolled his eyes. "It was a figure of speech. You looked like someone had stolen your autonomy."
He frowned. "Nah, just thinking about the battle."
"The one coming, or the one in the past?"
"…the one in the past." He didn't bother trying to lie. Why lie to a god who could call him out easily?
"Regrets will get you nowhere." He blinked at the god's blatant call out. "You can drown in your doubts later, but not before a battle. It will keep you off balance and affect your ability to fight; you'll become a dead weight."
He raised an eyebrow at Loki's attentiveness. "How come you're giving me advice?"
Loki scoffed. "It's hardly advice. The last thing anyone needs is another dead human."
He couldn't say Loki was wrong. No one wanted a deadweight.
The final battle would ultimately decide the fate of the universe. It would decide whether Thanos succeeded a second time and killed them all again or if they won and the resurrected half of the universe stayed alive.
Slinking away from the entrance of the Palace, he wandered further into the Palace until he found an alcove to sort out his thoughts in peace. He couldn't think of any other way to be useful to the troops since he had no idea how their military system worked and didn't want to be a nuisance. T'Challa, Okoye and Shuri would be preparing and he didn't want to bother any of them. Loki had probably wanted to be left alone to do whatever he wanted to do and he trusted the god enough to guess that he wouldn't wreak any havoc just before a battle.
He needed to be somewhat composed before he went into this battle.
Clenching his jaw as he remembered the fight in the Vault, he wondered how everything had gone so spectacularly wrong. They'd had the upper hand for the first half of the fight, overwhelming Thanos with attacks and keeping him occupied until he took the Soul Stone.
Why had he taken the Soul Stone? It had been the stone that Thanos had used the least – firstly, to communicate with them in the ship and then to identify Stephen out of the clones he had made. Then he used it to kick Thor and Tony's souls out of their bodies and finally to turn half the universe to dust.
Why couldn't he have chosen any of the other stones? If he had taken the Space Stone, Thanos wouldn't have had an escape route or been able to manipulate gravity so that he wouldn't have been pinned underneath that beam. What if he had taken the Power Stone and stopped Thanos from using half of the attacks he had used?
In the heat of the moment he had taken whichever stone had been closest to him. It had been a better option than coming away from that attack with no Infinity Stone and wasting the others' efforts.
Then again, he and Ned had been cautious about taking the Space Stone out of the Tesseract since they hadn't known what could happen to them. Judging from Red Skull's banishment to Vormir, they had been right about being careful. What could have happened to him if he had taken any of the other stones?
Why had he been the one Stephen had kept with the group full of people who were definitely more powerful than him? Thor and Loki were gods! They were centuries older than him and had much more experience in battle, had more powerful magic and were an obvious pick.
Wanda was a telekinetic witch who could mind control people at will and use her magic however she wished to. Again, enough said about why Stephen kept her around for that fight.
Tony had been the smartest person within the group and the best strategist alongside Stephen. They had devised the plan and it had been their best shot at winning at the time.
What part did he have to play in the grand scheme of their universe?
"It was the only way."
Stephen's last words haunted him. How was that the only way? How was losing during the first battle with their best chance the only way to win? Did they never stand a chance against Thanos in the first place?
He shook his head. He couldn't go into battle with low morale. It would end up with him dying if he thought like that. They had a second chance! He would see Tony again and be able to stop him from using the Infinity Stones because he had seen how the future deteriorated, how devastating everything could become.
The world had been lost without Tony Stark. Yes, he had slipped into the shadows and hidden away from the public eye for five years, but at least the public had the comfort of knowing he was there. After Tony's funeral, the world had gone into disarray over many weapons and energy laws, the Accords had been in a state of limbo and crime had risen considerably.
He was partially guilty for crime rates increasing post-Blip. It had taken him and May a while to get back up on their feet with the help of Pepper, Happy and FEAST. He hadn't been in a good enough mental state to go out as Spider-Man, often struggling to get out of bed and getting disorientated at school.
A lot had been going on and it took him two months to push himself out the window as Spider-Man and deal with all the criminals. Thankfully, New York hadn't been left unchecked. Daredevil had been cracking down on every criminal within Hell's Kitchen and around the border to Queens.
He had encountered the vigilante for the first time in 5 years one night. It hadn't been a long meeting. All he had done was nod at Daredevil, thanking him for keeping the area safe while he had been out. At the time he had assumed Daredevil hadn't been dusted, but he had looked on a news article recording which vigilantes had been dusted and he and Daredevil were both on that list.
It made more sense to him once he realised Fisk and Scorpion had been taking advantage of the chaos of the Snap. Fisk had bought himself a construction company with several sites where his drug deals could take place without prying eyes and Scorpion worked alongside him, selling more alien tech than ever. Both of them were filthy rich and knew they could get away with whatever they wanted.
He sighed. It looked like he had a lot of work to do when he returned to New York.
…if he returned to New York.
He wanted to live through this battle. He needed to help their side win and make sure someone on their side managed to use the gauntlet to turn Thanos and his army to dust.
Maybe…
Maybe he needed to be the person to use the gauntlet.
He would be willing to sacrifice himself if it meant the universe survived.
He would do it if it stopped Tony from dying.
Tony had done so much to save the Earth multiple times. He had stopped his weapons production after Afghanistan, he saved the Earth from Loki's invasion and saved New York from a nuclear attack. He had good intentions with the Accords to hold the Avengers and anyone else responsible from any damage in other countries even if it had all promptly gone to shit.
Maybe he would have had a different opinion of Tony if he had known what the Accords had stood for and what they would mean for him and everyone else on Captain America's side. He didn't hold Captain America guilty for that. It was what happened after that he held a grudge against.
Tony had spent so much time with him in the lab and around the Compound after Homecoming, making up for the mistakes he had made before. They had spent countless hours improving suits, making robots, improving codes and sometimes goofing around.
He had gone in headfirst after Stephen had shown him the future.
The memory Stephen had shown him had come true in the end. They had fought against Thanos and turned to dust, even if it was on Earth instead of Titan.
Tony had created time travel and brought everyone back.
If the rest of his amazing feats didn't prove him, using time travel to save the universe before entering the most decisive battle ever and sacrificing himself to make sure everyone survived definitely did.
Tony deserved to be with his family. He deserved to live, which was why Peter would sacrifice himself if it came down to it, because he couldn't fail again. He couldn't let their miracle of time travel result in nothing changing.
Fear grappled at his heart, its freezing fingers paralysing him.
There was nothing scarier than doing everything he could only for it to ultimately fail by the end.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone