Frostbite

Seven

Our large group was seated around the conference room table, the infinity stones hovering on the screen before us. Steve, Tony, and Bruce were pacing around at the front of the room.

"Okay, so the 'how' works. Now we gotta figure out the 'when' and the 'where'. Almost all of us has had an encounter with at least one of the six infinity stones," Steve spoke, running his hand through his hair as he did.

Tony waved his coffee cup in his hand as he mused, "Well, I'd substitute the word encounter for damn well near been killed by one of the six infinity stones."

This got a few chuckles of agreement from around the room. I snorted from where I was sprawled halfway across Natasha. She glanced down at me in amusement.

"I haven't, I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about," Scott admitted with a wide-eyed glance around the room.

"Regardless, we only have enough Pym particles for one round trip each, and these stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history," Bruce interjected, lazily walking to the front of the room.

"Our history. So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in," Tony added.

Clint spoke from the corner of the room, "Which means we have to pick our targets."

"Correct."

"Let's start with the Aether," Steve suggested, glancing back at our Asgardian friend, "Thor, what do you know?"

There was no answer, and I swore I heard snoring from behind Nat and me. I stretched myself to peer over the side of the chair and I snorted when I realized Thor had passed out while still sitting upright.

"Is he asleep?" Natasha asked in disbelief.

"No, I'm pretty sure he's dead," Rhodey snipped, he and Nebula laughing quietly. I kicked my foot out and hit his chair, to which he protested. "Hey! How old are we?"

"Leave him be," I warned, turning back to him, "Thor! Get up."

He jolted awake, realizing what had happened. With a grunt, he clambered to the screen up front, pausing as he thought.

"Where to start? Umm... The Aether, first, is not a stone, someone called it a stone before. It's more of a- an angry sludge thing, so someone's gonna need to amend that," he began, taking off his sunglasses to put eyedrops in his eyes, "Here's an interesting story though, many years ago- My grandfather had to hide the stones from the Dark Elves." He wiggled his fingers to imitate a spooky ghost. "Woooo, scary beings. So, Jane," an image of Jane popped up on the screen with a small swipe from him, "Oh, there she is. That's Jane. She's an old flame of mine... She- she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time and then the Aether stuck itself inside her... And she became very, very sick. So, I had to take her to Asgard, which is where I'm from. And we had to try and fix her. We were dating at the time, you see. I got to introduce her to my Mother... who's dead."

Thor's face fell at those words, obviously still broken over the loss. His eyes glistened for a moment, but he quickly blinked the tears away.

"And oh, you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, these things happen though you know, nothing lasts forever," he rambled as Tony stepped forward to try and push him back to his chair, "I'm not done yet, the only thing permanent in life is impermanence."

"Awesome. Eggs? Breakfast?" Tony suggested, trying to get him to calm down.

"You need to eat something, Thor," I agreed.

"I'd like a Bloody Mary, thank you," he smiled dopily. I sighed, flopping my head back down. He moved to the door, not waiting to see if someone would volunteer to make it. I pushed myself up and patted Nat's arm as I stood.