𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐄𝐓 || 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐋

𝟒𝟑, 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐁𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬

Chapter Forty Three.
"It's been five years."

[The Other Side]
Athena walked through the abandoned streets of Queens. She had been on the Other Side for five years. She felt every day go by. It felt painfully slow as she had been deserted away without a single trace of humanity for five years. Although she was well aware of how long she'd remained trapped inside this dimension, Athena hadn't age a day. She remained fifteen, almost sixteen, years old the entire time. She wondered why that was, but only assumed that since she was technically dead that she couldn't get any older now. Nonetheless, Athena had a sixteenth birthday for herself for the past five years. She only imagined her family and friends there with her.

All she had was the small scenes that would play out in front of her. These would end up teaching her more about her friend's lives from before it all went to hell. She learned for about Lexi, Noah, Aspen, and even Marcellus Augustine. She had taken in a lot of that information, but had nothing to do with any of it. It had come in slightly useful so that if she ever someone found her way to Peace, she'd be able to finally get it all out of her head. She felt slight at ease knowing more about certain scenarios.

Things worked somewhat different here. For example, everyday feels like it's repeating itself. Everything happens at the exact same time every day. The sunrise, sunset, wind. Anything. Another thing being hygiene. Since you're technically dead, it's only your spirit that's trapped on the Other Side. While you still have you physical body while trapped here, you're body remains in the exact condition it was in when you died. So even though Athena had been there for five years, every cut, bruise, and scar she had remained the exact same. Nothing was able to change. So whatever condition you were in when you died was the same you remained in for however long you stayed on the Other Side.

Another thing, it was only the fact that with the upcoming events, Athena would be brought out of this dimension, but would remember nothing from her time inside it. All the knowledge she'd taken in from seeing the past would be taken away from her. Not only that, but with every day that passed Athena lost a tiny piece of herself more and more. It came to a point where if she were to return, she may not remember much of anything... Again.

***

[Earth]
Everyone except for Tony was now aboard the Benatar. Rocket said, "Okay, who here hasn't been to space?" After a few seconds.Natasha, Steve, and Rhodey raised their hands. "Why?" Questioned Rhodey. "You better not throw up on my ship." Rocket told them. "Approaching jump in 3... 2... 1!" Nebula chimed in.The ship jumped forward into a wormhole, and Steve was seen holding onto his seat for dear life. His eyes show widened slightly at the exhilaration of this new experience. The ship slowed down, and hovered in orbit of the planet seen in the hologram previously.

Carol hovered in front of the Benatar. "I'll head down for recon." She told them through comms. "This is gonna work, Steve." Natasha told him. "I know it will." He nodded. Natasha didn't see this, but Steve had been holding a compass with an image of Peggy Carter. "Cause I don't know what I'm going to do if it doesn't." Steve then said.