Comet Trails

Prolouge

I am six years old.

Sat in my room with the door closed, I watch the alarm clock beside my bed tick slowly. Time drags. I am aware of every blink and breath I take. My parents have been asleep for hours, I can feel the muggy breath moving slowly around their mouths. A car sending airwaves in all directions screeches past. It jerks me out of my trance. The clock still ticks.

After what feels like hours, midnight comes. With a twitch of my fingers and a single thought, blue light spirals around the room. A small portal opens in front of me and I quickly reach in and close my hands around my prize. A small 8-ball. Swishing my hands once more, a glowing blue cloth settles over the seemingly insignificant trinket as I shake it vigorously.

"Will I ever be normal?" I whisper hoarsely.

A thought later, the glow diminishes as the portal closes and the cloth vanishes into oblivion. My fingers light up the room once more as the ball rises out of my hands, enveloped by my soft blue light. It turns.

"Cannot tell now? Oh come on!" Hurling the 8 ball at the portal that I made on the other side of the room, I curled into a ball. With miserable tears running down my face, I was surrounded by light as the shield which often came when I was in need slowly formed.

That was how I spent the first hour of my seventh birthday.

Sam Wilson slumped groggily in the Quinjet as it soared over southern New York. He was incredibly tired, as was everyone else there. Steve had fallen asleep on Bucky's shoulder again, and Pepper was trying not to nod off. Scott, Peter and Morgan had never really woken up, just agreed to come in a sleepy haze then immediately passed out again when they sat down. Hope and Clint were standing at the front, watching the landscape fly past while discussing something in swift, hushed tones.

With a pained grunt and a grimace, Sam stood and ambled over to the latter. He made out a little of their conversation before he was noticed, but was thoroughly confused by it.

"....multiverse...."

".....farther.."

"....saw Beck's interrogation..."

"No shit, van Dyne."

Sam adjusted his standing position to look more alert and cleared his throat.

"What the hell are you two on about?" He stated.

Hope and Clint snapped upright and whipped around. They looked haunted, afraid. Sam was taken aback. They stared at him for a few seconds, a deer in the headlights expression all over their faces. Glancing back to one another, a million thoughts seemed to pass between them in the few moments they were looking at eachother. Eventually, they turned back to Sam.

"You'll see when we get there." Hope said flatly; somehow she seemed, concerned, amazed and frightened at the same time.

A while later, the Quinjet touched down. Perking up, nudging the sleepy ones awake and even a few standing, they stared in shock at where they had landed.

The Avengers Facility.

Decimated in the attack against 2014 Thanos, a massive crater still lay in the middle of the grounds. Cracked pipes dotted the edges of it, along with hanging wires and various pieces of building debris. Lingering pieces of insulation blew around, along with a large amount of nondescript brown dust. Despite it being 2 months since the event, water still dripped down into the cavernous hole. Sam turned, to see Bruce standing nearby.

"Thank you all for agreeing to come."

"What the hell is this for?" Bucky called, standing next to Steve and crossing his arms. He definitely wasn't pleased about being called out here at three in the morning.

"I kind of second that, I have a physics quiz tomorrow.." Peter added softly, seeming shy to be speaking in front of the others.

Pepper placed a hand on Peter's shoulder in an almost motherly way, while Morgan clutched at his hand with a finger in her mouth.

"Now I know this seems out of place, but I wouldn't have called you all the way here at this time of night unless it was for a really good reason."

Bruce pulled out a small, DVD box sized object. He pressed a few buttons, and a hologram of the Earth was pulled up. The few who had not seen this device in the Facility before gazed at it in wonder. Bruce, with a serious face, pressed one more button. Suddenly a white wave seemed to spread across the hologram, originating from the US. Clint's face hardened, and Hope's eyes were like knives.

"Oh my god.." Pepper's eyes widened. She clapped a hand over her mouth, tears welling in her eyes.

Sam was confused.

"What does that mean?" He declared, looking the former Hulk right in the eyes.

"The stones, they've been used again."

Anyone who was not in the know already was floored. Scott looked like he was about to cry, Peter let a small squeak of shock or terror (Sam couldn't tell) and Bucky glanced at Sam with a terrified look on his face.

"I thought that they were destroyed?" Sam questioned, worry edging into his tone.

"The actual term was 'reduced to atoms', but nobody could have brought them back without the Pym particles, which we have stored safely on Earth." Bruce glanced toward Hope, who nodded. So that was how she knew already.

"How could this have happened then?" Sam accused, feeling suspicious.

"Observe." Bruce gestured toward the crater with a sad look on his face.

The small gathering collectively drew closer to the edge, peering in.

Lying, seemingly dead, in the base of the pit, was the form of a young woman. Her hair was dark chocolate brown and splayed out around her head, a halo blending into the sodden mud. She was surrounded, in almost ritualistic placements, by the six infinity stones. Space lay above her head, Reality at her feet. Time sat above Soul on her right, Power sat above Mind on her left. Splayed out around her were many metal pieces resembling feathers, glowing in a dim colourful light emitted by the stones.

Even from this distance, the slight twitching of her limbs was easily visible.

"She's still alive...."

Sam stepped right up to the edge of the crater and stared with cold fury at the body. How dare she bring the stones that nearly destroyed their universe back. Nobody knew what her intentions were, so she had to be questioned.

"Separate her from the stones. Let's bring her in."