章 1535: 34
Chapter 34Summary:
Time's up with the Norns, it's time to go home.
But first? Thor? Time for you to remember.
Hello Captain Marvel, welcome to the madness.
A debriefing for Fury.
And why is Sitwell asking for Agents Barton and Romanov?
Chapter Text
"Just the Tine Stone left." The Ancient One's voice was barely a whisper and the visitors could clearly see the Well through her, she was little more than a shadow, now.
The portal again moved but this time, it showed the root of the Tree above the Well. If it weren't for the ragged cracks and peeling bark, the visitors wouldn't have guessed that the portal was anything more than a circle of fire. The Ancient One's fingers moved and closed around the Time Stone and her shadowy form crossed to the portal, her hand pushing the Stone into the bark and watching with a smile as its green light filled the cracks and crevices of the root.
She turned to face the visitors, her smile soft and warm. "It is done." She sighed before looking at Tony.
"Morgan…" He gasped, eyes wide in shock.
"Love her, as you did me. She is me, I am her." A tear ran the Ancient One's face, down Morgan Stark's face. "I love you, three thousand."
A whisp of air and the shadow that had once been a person faded into the broken light that filled the room.
~~~
Unnamed planetoid – approximately June 5th 2012
"It is time you returned to your people." Verdandi said. "They miss you, greatly."
"But first… you…" Skuld pointed a finger at Thor.
"There is much you should know, Prince of Asgard." Urðr pointed a finger at the Well.
"A past you do not remember." Skuld added.
"And you not knowing, causes pain to others." Urðr agreed.
"Look into the Well." Verdandi said.
Thor looked from one sister to another before nodding. "As you command, so shall I obey." He stepped up to the Well and looked at its shimmering surface.
He blinked twice and fell to the ground, as would a puppet whose strings had been cut. Loki and Jane both leapt forward and dropped to their knees at his sides.
"He is well, Lady Jane, Prince Loki." Verdandi said.
"Although, he will not wake for a number of hours. When he does, he will remember the future that you have sought to change." Skuld assured them.
"The past that you all share, the actions and decisions taken. All are in his mind, he has but to assimilate them." Urðr added her own assurances.
"But as he won't wake, someone is going to have to carry him." Verdandi warned.
"How truly inconvenient…" Loki sighed.
"I mightn't have the strength of an Asgardian," Quill said, "but I'll help you carry him, if you'll help us with dealing with dear old dad."
"Odin?" Loki blinked in confusion.
"Nah, not your dad, mine. Ego. He's a celestial and he wants to remake the universe in his own image." Quill said. "We dealt with him last time, but I don't know that I can do that again." He sighed. "We could do with some help."
"You have helped us, we'll help you." Nat said.
"Not sure who will go with you, just yet, but the Avengers will help, don't worry about that." Coulson added. "I'll take a leg, Quill, you grab his other leg. Loki, that leaves you with his head and shoulders." Coulson reached down and slid his fingers into the gaps around the silver trim of Thor's left boot, a heartbeat later and Quill was doing the same to the other boot.
"Thank you, Son of Coul, Son of Meredith." Loki paused as Bucky left Tony's side and stepped over to join them.
"I've got his left arm." Bucky said.
"What of Stark and… him…?" Loki asked, tipping his head towards the being now slumped against Tony, as he knelt on the ground.
"Darcy and Nebs have got Tony in hand and Nat and Jane will deal with … Huh, we're going to have to come up with a name for him." Bucky replied.
"We can deal with that later," Coulson said, "for now, our time here is up."
Reaching the Salus, they were quite surprised to see a glowing being resting against a landing strut.
"Captain." Nebula and Quill spoke at the same time.
"Avengers." The being nodded back at them. "Tell me, who is responsible for twisting time, the way it has been?"
"Ah… that would be The Ancient One." Loki said.
"We think it's the result of a spell she cast, one that went badly wrong." Nebula corrected. She was doing her best to stay focused but the thought that the Ancient One was a version of her little sister, Morgan? That was, to use a Tony-phrase, 'freaking her out'. "It was… not the result she intended…"
"I see…" Carol Danvers drew the word 'see' out for a few seconds. "So why are you here and not dealing with Thanos?"
Tony barked a bitter laugh. "Done that, Cap." He shrugged, the horror of seeing his precious daughter, all grown up and sacrificing herself for them, still filled his mind.
"What?" Carol blinked.
"Queen Frigga of Asgard suggested that we seek the assistance of the Norns." Nat explained, even though she didn't stop at the base of the Salus' cargo ramp, just walked past Carol and up into the ship. "With their help, we've placed the Stones where Thanos can't get them."
"How can you be certain that they're safe?" Carol asked as she stepped onto the ramp and calmly followed the redhead as she and a smaller brunette half-carried-half-dragged a tall blonde male into the depths of the ship.
"The Soul Stone is in a mirror dimension that is only accessible to one person and the Norns tell us that he will never speak of it." Loki and the other three males eased Thor to the bed in the cabin that he was sharing with Jane. "He takes that secret to his grave."
"And the other Stones?" Carol asked.
"The Power Stone is now the Heart of Nidavellir. And has been such for millennia." Loki stepped out of the cabin and moved to the commonly shared area of the ship. "The Time, Space, Mind and Reality Stones have been placed in the roots of Yggdrasil, but not in this time, they have been sent to an unknown time in the future. Just after a time that The Norns call, the Great Winter. Apparently, they'll be fertiliser for the Tree of Life." His voice was dry and his expression was bland.
Carol blinked at him. "That's all six of them, where Thanos can't get hold of them."
"And the Sight Stone is staying with the Norns."
Carol blinked again. "Excuse me?"
"Yes, that was our reaction, too." Loki snorted. "No matter what he thought, Thanos never had the entire set of Infinity Stones. He was always missing one."
"And yet, the damage he did with six…" Carol sighed.
"And now, he can't get any of them." Loki said.
"Good." Carol nodded. "What's the plan in dealing with him, anyway?"
"Ronan the Accuser is dead." Gamora said. "I saw to it just before I re-joined Peter."
"Good." Carol nodded again. "Couldn't happen to a more deserving person… unless it was Thanos, himself."
"We've been in discussions for a while, now." Tony said, from the seat where Darcy and Nebula dumped him. "We've got allies on Asgard, Xandar and Earth. If he's got no Stones, we think that we'll be enough to take him down. We're not sure about killing him. Not sure whether we can, whether it was the Stones that made him so powerful, or whether he's naturally that strong."
"He's strong." Gamora said. "But I remember seeing your armour holding against him, as did both the Captains, even the Guardians were able to hold him for a short time. With Mantis' help, we should be able to hold him long enough for him to either be killed or chained."
"We've got some Uru chains from Asgard if we can't kill him." Darcy said.
"We have a little time." Gamora said. "Right now, he's in too distant a place for us to act. His staging post for the Terran offensive was out beyond Nowhere, too far from Xandar and Asgard for us to reach him without careful planning and by the time we put that planning into action, he won't be there. He will have realised by now that Loki failed in his attack on Terra and will be making his plan to retrieve the sceptre. In two Terran Solar Rotations, he will be ready to attack Terra via his bastardised version of a created being."
"What?" Darcy frowned.
"We've already displaced the Stones, he can't use the Mind Stone to subvert Ultron." Tony said.
"He didn't last time," Gamora corrected, "he simply downloaded an electronic version of his created being into your computer system and left it to take over one of your armours."
"And here we were blaming the sceptre…" Tony muttered.
"Nah, that was just a convenient scapegoat." Peter Quill flopped down beside Tony. "Handy for him, hiding his involvement but a crapshoot for you guys."
"Yeah…" Tony sighed, remembering how the loss of JARVIS nearly broke his spirit.
"So how do we stop that?" Darcy asked.
"The only way I can think of, is to shut down almost everything, all the Iron-Man suits that is, all bar on with very limited capabilities and wi-fi range." Tony muttered. "Maybe Bruce, Darcy, Vis, JARVIS and I can create a flawed suit just for Ultron…"
"You've got two years to work on that, Tony." Nat cut in. "But we have to have a name and history for Vis worked out and established before we get back to Earth."
~~~
June 19th 2012
Yelena stood beside Wanda and Pietro as they waited for the Salus to land. Yelena, alone, knew what they were bringing with them. Or rather who… She just hoped that he would be as welcome as Nat and Tony expected.
The waft of heated air that heralded the Salus' landing came as a surprise, even though they were expecting it. The ship's cloaking system and Nebula's cheeky attitude meant that it hadn't landed where they'd expected it to. By the time they'd turned to face the ship, the cloaking had faded and the deep blue ship was visible and the loading ramp was already lowering. It was a few seconds before they heard the sounds of footsteps, which quickly grew into the sight of their friends and family entering the cargo area.
"Hey, 'Lena. Wanda." Nat practically danced down the ramp towards her sister and foster sister.
"Nat." Both young women gave her a tired smile, it was a little after two in the morning, after all.
"We brought you something, Wanda." Nat sidled up to Wanda as she spoke.
"Yeah? Did you go shopping on Nowhere?" Wanda's eyes brightened at the thought of getting her hands on alien goodies.
"We did." Nat nodded. "But that wasn't what I meant."
"I… I don't get it." Wanda frowned at the redhead.
"Check it out." Nat nodded her head in the direction of the Salus.
Her timing was perfect, as Tony and Bucky assisted a still-unsteady Vision down the ramp.
Wanda's eyes widened and her jaw went slack with shock. "Viz…?"
"Hello, Wanda…" Vision's voice was rough and tired. It was enough to have the young woman dart forward and wrap her arms around him, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"How…?" Pepper looked from Wanda to Vision to Tony and back.
"The Norns don't like not being able to See some things." Tony shrugged. "So they showed…" He trailed off, not ready to say it out loud.
Bucky took over the explanation. "They showed the Ancient One how to use the Stones to hide them in all sorts of weird places, but before they did that, they used the Stones. They brought the soul(?)… yeah, soul… of Vision from our original timeline and used it as a… a 'seed', they called it. To grow a body for him. He's really, fully, human, now."
"Oh, God…" Pepper whispered.
"There's more…" Tony whispered back. "The Ancient One? She was… was…"
"She was Morgan." Bucky said quietly. "Morgan from another timeline. Possibly ours, but it's also possible that she came from another timeline. She never said, either way."
"Morgan?" Pepper gasped. "Our Morgan?"
"Yeah." Tony finally let the tears fall. "She… She gave her life to hide the Stones for us."
Pepper whimpered and nestled closer in Tony's arms, too shocked to cry.
~~~
June 21st 2012
Nick Fury, Maria Hill and Phil Coulson emerged from the SUV and entered the lift at the end of the underground carpark. A few seconds past before there was a subtle 'ding' and the doors opened.
"Director Fury, Agent Hill, Agent Coulson." JARVIS greeted them. "Welcome to IT. If you'll turn to your left, the team are meeting in the first room on the left."
"Thank you, JARVIS." Maria Hill let her voice warm and a smile crossed her lips, as she followed the directions. A few more seconds and they joined those around a large table.
"Hey, it's the Dread Pirate." Tony's normal exuberance was subdued. "Welcome to the Round Table."
"Round Table?" Fury looked at the large rectangular table. "Doesn't look all that round, to me."
"Physically, it's not." Tony agreed. "But we go round and round until we come to a decision that we can all work with."
"Ah." Fury nodded. "That makes more sense." He paused. "So, why are we here?"
"Debriefing." Tony shrugged. "We took Coulson with us, so we felt that we should give you an official debriefing on what happened."
Fury grunted and waved a hand. "Get on with it, then."
"Right." Tony turned to Bucky. "You first."
"Got it." Bucky laid down his coffee mug and took a deep breath. "As soon as we left the meeting with you, Steve and I headed for the Salus, we spent an hour loading up on supplies. While we were doing that, the others on the away list were getting personal supplies together, clothes and that sort of stuff…"
For the next hour and a half, the team broke down what had happened and provided as much detail as they could. Finally, Fury sat back and let his head rock backwards and forwards in a 'thinking… thinking…' motion.
"Summarising…" He said. "The Norns used the Stone to retrieve The Vision's 'soul' from your original timeline, then used the Tree of Life to grow a body for him, before showing the Ancient One, who was an alternate version of your six-year-old daughter from another timeline, how to use the Stones to place them where no-one, not even Thanos can get to them?"
"In a nutshell?" Tony shrugged. "Pretty much."
"And The Vision?" Fury asked. "What are you going to call him, now? He's human, right? He needs an Id."
Before anyone could answer him, JARVIS spoke up. "Excuse me? Jasper Sitwell has entered the building and is asking to speak to Sir or… in his words… Agent Barton, Agent Romanov or Captain Rogers." Silence met his words. "If I May, he seems quite upset, I would say almost on the verge of a panic atta-"
"JARVIS?" Tony looked sharply at a corner of the room.
"I apologise, Sir, Agent Sitwell's comments caught me off-guard." JARVIS replied. "Oh, dear… He says that he had information regarding a threat against international security. He mentioned Thanos, Sir."
Clint stood up. "We'll go get him. Steve? Nat?"
"Coming." Both stood and joined Clint as he stalked from the room.
"Right, that's going to be awkward." Sam muttered.
"Oh?" Tony asked.
"Yeah. Nat and Steve threw him off a building to find out about HYDRA in the leadup to the Triskelion thing." Sam grimaced.
"Ouch…" Tony winced.
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