HIDDEN ─ marvel

XLII. The Time Heist

Chapter Forty-Two
Soroya

"Okay, so the 'how' works," Steve begins. All of the screens behind him show the different Infinity Stones. I never realized how different each of them look. It's strange how such seemingly tiny objects were the cause of such destruction. "Now, we gotta figure out the 'when' and the 'where'. Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones."

"Or substitute the word 'encounter' for 'damn near being killed' by one of the six Infinity Stones." Tony remarks, getting a smirk out of me.

Tony is standing on the other side of the screens while the rest of us are sitting at a long table. We each have a cup of coffee, needing to stay awake to plan and pay attention to the topic at hand. Thor, however, is sitting on a couch in the corner, starring off into space.

Scott leans back in his chair, which is right next to mine. "Well, I haven't. And I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about."

I remember feeling that way when Thanos came to Earth, but in the past five years I've been caught up to speed about him and the other stones. I don't think any topic of discussion has ever terrified me more. I remember feeling chills go up and down my spine as Nebula detailed her father's conquests from planet to planet, seeking out these infamous stones. It was just as terrifying hearing Steve detail his encounters with the Tesseract and Rocket talk about the power stone. It makes me wonder why the universe created such powerful ingots of destruction in the first place.

Bruce, who can no longer sit in the chairs, walks to the other side of the room and paces as he says: "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."

"Our history," Tony adds, walking over towards the rest of us. "So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in, yeah?"

"Which means we have to pick our targets." Clint says sternly, leaning against the glass wall.

"Correct." Tony replies, taking a large gulp of coffee.

"So, lets start with the Aether," Steve continues, looking over into the corner at Thor. "Thor, what do you know?"

We all look over towards him and he is indeed just starring off into the distance; his beer can in hand and his chest silently rising and falling. Maybe he's asleep, but it's hard to tell with the sunglasses on.

"Is he asleep?" Nat asks.

"No, no," Rhodey says. "I'm pretty sure he's dead."

Thor comes out of his beer induced trance after a moment and begrudgingly gets up, squeezing a bottle of eye drops into his one good eye. He clears his throat and begins to give us an interesting explanation about the Reality Stone.

"Uh, where to start, uh..." Thor begins, taking off his sunglasses, using them to point at the screen. "The Aether, firstly, is not a stone. Someone called it a stone before. Um, it's more of an energy sludge sort of thing...so someone's gonna need to amend that and stop saying that."

Steve and I share a look of worry. I truly wish I could help Thor get passed the obvious trauma he's been going through the past few years. Seeing Thor like this breaks my heart.