Steve stood at the front of the room, the screens Tony had set up illuminating the entire room.
"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 said.
"Well, I'd substitute the word encounter for damn well near been killed by one of the six Infinity Stones," Tony spoke up.
"Or, changed our lives entirely by mutating our genes and giving us powers we never asked for," I said. "Uh, speaking from personal experience."
" Well, uh, I haven't, I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about," Scott said, almost sheepishly. As if he was the only one not included in the cruel joke that the infinity stones were playing on our lives.
"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," Bruce explained to all of us.
"Our history. So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in," Tony concluded.
Great... our history. I instantly felt panic at the idea of a glimpse of the past. My past. Who knew how far back in the past we would need to go. I, through several memories coming in going over the last few years, had had my own fair share of run-ins with the stones. Some of them were me having to hunt them down for Hydra and engage in some questionable stuff. I didn't want to go there, to be reminded of who I used to be. She was nothing like who I was now.
"So that means we need to pick our targets?" I asked Tony.
"Exactly," he confirmed.
"So let's start with the Aether," Steve began. "Thor, what do you know?"
We then all turned our attention to Thor, who was sitting in the back corner of the room, sunglasses on, possibly snoring.
"Is he asleep?" Natasha asked what we were all thinking.
I still couldn't believe the Thor that was in front of us now. We have all clearly had a hard time dealing with it, but to see someone who was so strong so defeated, was heartbreaking.
"Nah, I'm pretty sure he is dead," Rhodey replied, trying to lighten the mood a little.
Thor then got up, lazily walking to the front of the room, burping as he went.
"Umm the Aither, where to start. First, it is not a stone, someone called it a stone before. It's more of a... an angry sludge thing, so... someones gonna need to amend that," Thor began as he put eye drops in.
I looked over at Steve, mouth slightly open, not really sure what was going on. Steve sort of shrugged, as if he saying what can we do? He needed to process however worked for him.
"Here's an interesting story though, many years ago... My grandfather had to hide the stones from the Dark Elves..." Thor then wiggled his finger, imitating a ghost noise, which caused me to chuckle nervously. Clint met my eyes, both of us having worried expressions.
"Scary beings they were. So Jane," he continued as a picture of Jane popped up on the screen. "Oh, there she is. 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 then began to get this far away look in his eyes, as each sentence continued to trail off.
"And oh you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, these things happen though you know, nothing last forever," Thor's voice then began to break even more.
Tony then quickly goes to the front, trying to push Thor back towards his chair. "Why don't you go sit back down?
"I'm not done yet, the only thing permanent in life is impermanence," Thor finished as he gave a dry laugh.
Tony clapped for him, "Awesome. Eggs? Breakfast?"
"I'll take a bloody mary," Thor requested.
"And I'll take a shot of vodka," I muttered to Clint, who gave a short laugh.
"Let's move on to the Power Stone," Steve said, trying to get everything back on track.
Rocket then moved to stand on top of the table, so he would be eye level with everyone as he began to explain the Power Stone. This was one of the stones none of the Avengers had any contact with. Or at least I didn't know we did at the time.
"Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag," Rocket told us, as he paced on the tabletop.
"Is Morag a person?" Scott asked. I was relieved someone else was confused by what a Morag was.
"Morag's a planet, Quill was a person," Rocket explained irritably.
"Like a planet? Like in outer space?" Scott asked in disbelief, excitement clear in his voice.
"Oh, look. It's like a little puppy, all happy and everything, "Rocket said, patting Scott on the head as he stuffed his face with noodles. Rocket then started talking in a puppy voice, "Do you wanna go to space? You wanna go to space, puppy? I'll get you to space."
As we continued to discuss the Power Stone, things started to trigger something. A memory flashed in my mind.
I was lying in the training room, my view was hazy, the room was filled with a purple haze and there were people in weird suits holding an empty syrige, looking expectantly at me. I looked around the room...
Suddenly I was pulled out of the memory, everyone was looking at me.
"Are you okay?" Steve asked me, his hand on mine. I could feel my cheeks burn up as everyone eyes were on me now.
"Uh yeah fine, just waiting for Rocket to finish yapping," I said quickly, trying to sound normal.
"Lucky for you sweetheart, I just wrapped things up before you made everything in the room start shaking," he replied.
"I was just dozing off, you're not a very captivating story teller," I shot back. This made everyone chuckle, except for Steve who was looking at me skeptically. I only squeezed his hand, trying to reassure him. He relaxed a little, but I could tell he was still worried. I gave a small smile, trying to make sure he knew I was fine.
I didn't know what the memory was. It was probably nothing. So why worry him over something I didn't even understand?
Besides, there were still four more stones to talk about.