CopyCat | Bucky Barnes

78

"Okay, so the 'how' works. Now we gotta figure out the when and the where. Almost all of us have had an encounter with at least one of the six infinity stones." Steve explained, standing next to one of the monitors which displayed everything we knew about the stones.

I hadn't even seen one until we retrieved Loki's scepter from the Hydra base. My first mission with them too. But I learned quickly when I discovered what Thanos's plan was.

"Well I'd substitute the word encounter for damn well near been killed by one of the six infinity stones." Tony says walking past him. I sit down at the edge of the table next to Dimitri, reading over the information.

"I haven't, I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about." Scott comments.

"Regardless," Bruce redirects us. "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. So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in." Tony says.

"Which means we have to pick our targets." Clint observes.

"Correct." Tony nods.

"So, let's start with the Aether." Steve suggests. "Thor, what do you know?"

We all turned our heads to Thor, who was sitting in the back corner. He was relaxed, and had his sunglasses on so I wasn't even sure if he was conscious.

"Is he asleep?" I ask no one in particular.

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

Bruce rouses him, and after a minute manages to get him on his feet and over to the monitor. He still doesn't really seem awake, maybe he's still drunk. But, he slowly started talking.

"Where to start? Umm... The Aether, first, is not a stone, someone called it a stone before. It's more of a... and angry sludge thing, so... someones gonna need to amend that. Here's an interesting story though, many years ago... My grandfather had to hide the stones from the Dark Elves..." He wiggles his fingers, like he's trying to convince us they're scary. "Wooooh, scary beings. So Jane, Oh, there she is." He says as an image of a woman appears on the monitor. "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 becomes increasingly emotional, and on the verge of crying. "And oh you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, these things happen though you know, nothing lasts forever,"

Tony steps in, and begins to push Thor back to his chair. "I'm not done yet- the only thing permanent in life is impermanence."

"Awesome." Tony simply agrees, still trying to get him to sit down. "Eggs? Breakfast?"

"No," Thor shakes his head disapprovingly. "I'd like a Bloody Mary, thank you."

Steve and Scott brought out food for everyone, but we didn't stop the discussion of the stones. I was barely interested, and stayed focused on listening to Rocket tell us about the Power stone.

"Quill said he stole the Power stone from Morag." Rocket explains.

"Is that a person?" Scott asks, confused.

"Morag's a planet. Quill was a person." Rocket says slightly irritated.

"A planet? Like in outer space?" Scott asks excitedly.