Water Or Wine

Chapter 9

"Let's start with the Aether." Steve says once everyone is gathered together with notebooks and pens, ready to gather information "Thor, what do you know?" I have my feet up on the desk casually with my own notebook eagerly awaiting some news. Thor, who is sitting in the corner begins to snore heavily and I sigh, I feel bad for him. He has lost so much, more than the rest of us but he is also a mess that needs help. "Is he asleep?" Natasha asks as we all stare at him expectantly.

Rhodey then answers "no, no. I'm pretty sure he is dead." I hit his arm and scowl at him angrily. He raises his hands in surrender as Steve goes over and wakes him up. "What!" Thor says with fright, jumping up and spilling his drink everywhere. "We need your help with this," Steve says patiently, gesturing towards the board. Thor looks over to where the reality stone is on display and nods. He belches before moving over to the front of the table.

"Uh, where to start?" He says wiping his mouth and taking off his glasses "the Aether, firstly, is not a stone. Someone called it a stone before. Um, it's more of an angry sludge sort of thing.. So someone's gonna need to amend that." We all watch as he puts eyedrops into his eyes casually as if the world isn't at stake right now. "Here's an interesting story though, about the Aether. My grandfather, many years ago had to hide the stone from the Dark Elves. Oooh," He chuckles "scary beings. So Jane, actually." He swipes to a picture of his ex-girlfriend "oh, there she is. Yeah, so Jane was an old flame of mine. You know she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time and then the Aether stuck itself inside her and she became very very sick. And 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 and I got to introduce her to my mother... who's dead and um oh you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore so."

Natasha and I share a look as Thor keeps speaking "yes, these things happen though, you know? Nothing lasts forever. The only thing that..." Tony makes his way over to our friend and touches his shoulder gently, guiding him away "why don't you come to sit down?" He suggests quietly but Thor pulls out of his grip "I'm not done yet." He states drunkenly "the only thing that is permanent in life is impermanence." He laughs crazily before we manage to sit him down. I clear my throat before asking "food anyone?"

We move on swiftly as Rocket starts telling us about the next infinity stone "Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag." He says confidently. "Is that a person?" Bruce asks between bites of his food, we ordered Chinese when we realised we will probably be here for a while. Rocket looks at him like he is stupid "no, Morag's a plant." He answers "Quill was a person." Scott looks up, like an amazed puppy and asks him "like a planet? Like in outer space?" I chuckle at how adorably naive Scott is as Rocket replies sarcastically "oh, look. It's like a little puppy, all happy and everything." While patting his head ''do you wanna go to space? You wanna go to space, puppy?"

The next one is the soul stone "Thanos found the Soul Stone on Vormir." Nebula tells us as a bright yellow stone appears on the screen. "What is Vormir?" I ask patiently and Nebula replies so casually "a dominion of death at the very centre of celestial existence." Just after she says that I hear Druig in my head replying 'well that's just charming' I almost spit out my drink at the unexpectedness of it and thankfully no one notices. "It's where Thanos murdered my sister." Nebula continues, Steve sighs and Scott quietly says "not it." I nudge him playfully at that.

We move swiftly on "that Time Stone guy." Natasha says as a green stone appears on screen "Doctor Strange." Bruce adds. It is currently just me, Bruce, Natasha and Tony. The others have given up. I and Natasha are lying on the table while Bruce and Tony are on the floor, the entire room is a mess. "What kind of doctor was he?" I ask as I swirl a pen around in my hand "ear-nose-throat meets rabbit-from-hat." Tony replies and Natasha and I pull the same face trying to figure out what that means. "Nice place in the Village though." Bruce muses conversationally "yeah, on Sullivan Street?" Tony asks and Bruce then corrects him "Bleecker Street." Natasha asks "wait, he lived in New York?"

Tony adjusts himself on the floor "no, he lived in Toronto." Bruce and Tony start talking over each other until Natasha gasps and says "guys if you pick the right year, there are three stones in New York." I look at her wide-eyed and the other two sit up, suddenly interested. "Shut the front door," Bruce says in amazement and to be fair it is a pretty amazing discovery.

Wr gather everyone together to tell them about the discovery we, well Natasha, made. On the screen we have all of the stone under different categories for where we can find them. Reality Stone on Asgard, Power and Soul Stone in space (Morag/Vormir) and Space, Mind and Time in New York. "All right." I say "we have a plan." Steve starts pacing and takes over "six stones, three teams, one shot. Let's go."

We get changed into our suits, nice white ones and make for the time machine. "Are you nervous?" I ask Natasha as we head for the machine and she scoffs "absolutely not, we are going to places we've been before. We know what we are doing. You?" I shake my head "not nervous either." We share a smile before climbing onto the machine. As we get ourselves sorted and fix the watches to the time we are each going to Steve says "five years ago, we lost. All of us. We lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. Today we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams. You know your missions. Get the stones, get them back. One round-trip each. No mistakes... no do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. That doesn't mean we should what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives and we're gonna win. Whatever it takes."

I suck in a breath and glance at everyone one last time, my heart racing in my chest. "See ya in a minute," Natasha says confidently, with a small smirk on her face which makes me feel better. Before any of us can reply we are all sucked into the past.