Link's POV
I'd never really cared too much for the quinjets or the home of the Avengers. But after just flying in one and now being inside the compound, I gotta say that they're pretty damn cool. Me and Ryan were literally just looking all around as Natasha and Steve lead us through the place.
Eventually we arrived in a large room. There was only one person inside, but he was talking to the hologram of another man. I knew the guy who was physically there. War Machine. James Rhodes.
"Isn't that the one guy that (Y/N) said he'd give a slow death to?" I pointed to the guy, looking at Ryan next to me. He also took a look at the man, then nodded to me.
"Yep. That's him." He agreed with me.
"Mr. Secretary." Steve said his name. Ross stared over us all, apparently upset that we were here? I couldn't really tell.
"You got some nerve. I'll give you that." Ross stepped towards Natasha at a slow pace. He wasn't talking specifically to her, it was to everyone here, I could tell that.
"I think you could use some of that right now." Nat responded, causing Ross to click his tongue and turn to Steve this time.
"The world's on fire. And you think all is forgiven?" God, I wanted to hit that man. Now I see why (Y/N) hates him. He's a dick.
"I'm not looking for forgiveness. And I'm way past asking for permission," Steve replied. Oh, I'd pat that man on the back if it wasn't a wildly inappropriate time to do so. "Earth just lost two of her best defenders. So we're here to fight. But if you wanna stand in our way... we'll fight you too."
I assumed that the two defenders were Tony Stark and (Y/N). I'd seen the news. I'm pretty sure we all had. Considering he left with Tony, too, and now Tony was missing.
"Arrest them." Ross turned to Rhodes. It was like he knew he just got his ass handed to him verbally, and now he was going to try this card to have the last laugh. Such a poor soul.
"I'm all over it." Rhodes swiped his hand, making the hologram disappear and leaving us all just staring at Rhodes. "That's a court-martial." He looked to Steve. "It's great to see you, Cap." Both Steve and Natasha walked over to him, with Steve shaking his hand.
It felt out of place to be here. Glancing behind me, I took a quick look at Wanda, Pietro, Vision, and Sam. Pietro and Sam were holding Vision up and Wanda was stood next to them.
"Looks like you guys had a rough couple years." Rhodes pointed out, looking over the others before me and Ryan. "Found more newbies while you were out, too."
"Please. If I was a newbie, you'd be terrified to see me at my best." Ryan spoke up. Big words considering he got injured during the last fight.
"Big talk. You're sounding like (Y/N)." Rhodes smirked at him.
"Yeah... I kind of agree." A voice said from further behind Rhodes. Looking over, I could see Bruce Banner. Didn't this guy disappear like 3 years ago? All eyes were on him, now. "Yeah. I'm back." He chuckled, slowly stepping a little closer.
"Hi, Bruce." Natasha stared at him. Not at all weird. There was a brief pause before Bruce made a response.
"Nat." He said. The silence was incredibly uncomfortable.
"This is... this is kind of awkward." I said aloud, making Ryan nod to me, and I swore I could hear Sam mutter in agreement.
"So, we're just assuming that they're coming back, right?" Rhodes asked.
"And apparently they can find us. So that's nice." I shrugged. Didn't know how they did it. Didn't care how they did it. It was an issue either way.
"We need all hands on deck. Where's Clint?" Bruce asked, giving me a few seconds of stupidity as I tried to figure out who 'Clint' was. The archer. Clint was the archer.
"Dead." Ryan said bluntly, causing Bruce's eyes to shoot open and stare at him. The rest of the team just looked at Ryan in confusion, including me. "I'm kidding. You think that I know who the hell 'Clint' is?" Hey, at least I wasn't the only one.
"After the whole accords thing, he and Scott took a deal. It was too tough on their families. They're on house arrest." Natasha explained with a glare towards Ryan. Great, we were fitting in perfectly.
"So, while the rest of you got to hide away, those two got to chill at home? That sounds fair." I said sarcastically. It was a good point in my opinion.
"They got dragged into the whole thing. They weren't with the Avengers when the accords became a thing. Therefore they weren't in as deep water as us." Sam told me. It was starting to make a little more sense.
"Wait, who's Scott?" Bruce looked around the room to show he was asking everyone.
"Ant-Man." Steve answered him.
"There's an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?" Bruce just seemed confused about literally everything. Where the hell had he been for the last 3 years? Because I was leaning towards him living under a rock.
"Quick. Someone tell him about the Moth-Man of West Virginia." Ryan called out quickly, making both me and Pietro contain a laugh. Literally everyone else rolled their eyes at the joke.
"Jesus. It's like having another Tony." Rhodes pinched the sides of his face. He wasn't the one who'd been putting up with it for months.
"Wow. Now that's just rude." Ryan mumbled, sitting down on a nearby table.
"Dude, can you not? Don't sit on the tables. We're not animals." Rhodes shooed him off the table, causing Ryan to light up. Great. We were supposed to be brainstorming, and now we had an argument coming up.
"Oh, my apologies that you're so proper. It's a table not a fucking thin sheet of glass. Don't throw a tantrum." Ryan shook his head and stood up like he was told.
"Throw a tantrum? Have you heard yourself?" Rhodey looked at the man in amazement at what he was hearing. Before Ryan could make a response, I practically dragged him away from the conversation, while Steve asked Rhodes to knock it off.
"This is no time to be fighting over stupid things." Wanda sighed. Pietro put an arm on her shoulder and leant against the wall, voicing his agreement to her quietly, but not quiet enough to at I couldn't hear it.
"Thanos has the biggest army in the universe... and he is not gonna stop until he gets... until he gets Vision's stone." Bruce informed, making a few of us look over at Vision.
"Then we have to protect it." Natasha said, which I myself thought was wrong in so many ways.
"No, we have to destroy it," Vision spoke up from across the room. All of our heads slowly turned towards the guy, expecting him to add more. "I've been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head. About its nature. But also its composition. I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source... something very similar to its own signature, perhaps... its molecular integrity could fail." I surprisingly understood most of what he just said, but I knew the rest of the room were confused. Except for maybe Bruce.
Vision looked over at Wanda, expressing that he meant her powers could destroy it.
"Yeah, and you'd go down with it." Wanda told him, knowing he'd die with the stone.
"If you're looking for someone with a similar power to destroy it. You could always try get (Y/N) back here to do it. He seemed pretty comfortable with the idea of murder when he heard about-" Ryan began before I punched his arm, making him yelp and shut up.
"No, we can't just destroy the stone. (Y/N) himself has already said that." Bruce said, gathering everyone's attention. He'd said that?
"What do you mean?" I looked to him.
"If a stone is destroyed, it could have a significant effect on the universe itself. The stones are the foundation of everything." Bruce swiped his hands outwards to show just how he meant "everything". "The stones think. They're alive... they have consciousness. We can't just destroy it."
"Then what do you suppose we do?" Vision looked at him warily.
"I say that we remove the stone from Vision's head. That way Vision won't be a priority target. Then we actually gather our forces and fight back." I answered. It was all I could think of, but it probably wasn't the best.
"Well, where would we remove it? We don't have the technology for that here." Bruce called out. I could see Steve with an expression on his face that read "yep, I know".
"I know a place." He answered, making me mentally cheer at knowing I was right.
Y/N's POV
"Tony... Tony!" I shouted at him as I could see the ship was about to smash into some massive structure. Both me and him just barely managed to swerve to the side, only just scratching the building.
"This isn't easier for me than it is for you!" Tony called back. The sound of breaking at the back of the ship was heard by us all. Strange quickly used some kinda shield spell to protect us all in case anything happened.
"We're still flying half a ship." Peter said, noticing that we just lost the back of the ring.
"Peter, the Star Wars references are my thing!" I told him, looking back as the ground was fast approaching. "Bro, we're about to crash!"
"Thank you for the commentary!" Tony shouted through his mask.
"Ay, bro, watch your jet! Watch your-" Before I could even finish trying to be funny, my head ricocheted off the metal steering thing as we hit the ground. The ship slid through the stone for a good 30 seconds, then came to an abrupt stop.
I fell back onto my knee for a second, while Tony flew straight onto his spine. Strange helped Tony up and Peter helped me. Without that magic spell, we probably would've been half way across the ship.
"I owe you one." Tony told Strange. What an odd change of attitude.
"Can I just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something and I eat one of you, I'm sorry." Peter looked at us all.
"I don't want another single pop culture reference out of you for the rest of the trip. You understand?" Tony narrowed his eyes at Peter, ignoring that his previous "predator" plan had saved us. Then a feeling hit me, and my head swivelled around the room.
"Something's coming." I stated, sensing the presence of more people. The sound of clattering reached our ears, and looking down I could see a small metal ball roll between us before exploding in a shockwave that would separate us.
Strange hit a wall and fell onto his back. Tony did the same. Peter did the sam- why the fuck am I the only one who landed upright?
"Thanos!" I looked over, hearing and seeing a green guy shouting Thanos' name. Was that a war cry or something? He proceeded to throw two daggers towards Strange, which he blocked with a shield before sending his cloak to go bully the man by wrapping around his head.
The second guy wore a metallic mask and he took off with some sorta rocket boots. He fired down at Tony, who responded with his own shots. I blinked up to them, bouncing off of Tony and slashing my claws through the other guy's left boot, temporarily disabling the booster in it.
As he fell, the man threw something which hit Tony and stuck to his chest. He landed down on the metal walkway, retrieving an activator of some kind and pressing the button. Suddenly Tony was pulled to a nearby piece of metal, trapping him against it like some crazy magnet. Had to give it credit. It was cool.
I jumped down, squaring off with the masked dude. "What even are you?" I raised an eyebrow, not able to tell the species of them.
"What are you?" He replied, raising his gun to start firing. I swiped the shots out of the way, firing back a blast of energy that sent him flying into the wall. Looking over I could see Peter just kind of scurrying away from a woman. What the hell was wrong with aliens... why did she have antennas?
A kick suddenly hit my side, causing me to roll across the floor before standing back up. The same guy was after me. I jumped forward and just decided to use my claws, only to have some sort of electrified rope be thrown and entangled around me. Again, I hit the floor, this time with a little bit of trouble as I couldn't use my arms.
I could see Tony finally free himself before flying over to the first alien and pointing his repulsor down at them. Then the second guy just sort of grabbed and dragged me to my feet, placing his gun against the side of my head. How the hell did we get into a double hostage situation?
"Everybody stay where you are. Chill the eff out." He called from behind me, making everyone pause. He moved his gun wielding hand to deactivate his helmet, similar to how Tony's worked.
"Bud, in a hostage situation you're supposed to keep the gun pointed at the hostage." I quietly told him.
"Shut it, kid." He responded, making me raise my eyebrows. Why does everyone call me that? "I'm gonna ask you this once. Where is Gamora?" He pointed his gun at Tony.
"Yeah. I'll do you one better. Who's Gamora?" Tony retracted his helmet.
"I'll do you better. Why is Gamora?" The guy below Tony said, making me contain a smile. Okay, I kind of like aliens.
"Tell me where the girl is or I swear to you I'm gonna French fry this little freak." My "captor" stated. What a funny idea. I'd kill this guy if I had my sword.
"Bitch, I will tear your arms off your body." I warned him with a fake smile.
"No, no. Let's do this. He shoots you and I'll blast his guy. Let's go!" Tony's repulsor turned into a full on laser cannon from what I could see. Nice to know that if someone threatens me then he'll threaten them.
"Do it, Quill! I can take it." The green man said. Okay, no. He wasn't being funny earlier. He was being a dipshit.
"No, he can't take it!" The woman called out. I couldn't see her from this angle, but I assumed Peter had probably webbed her up.
"She's right, you can't." Strange agreed. Two against one. Three if you include me. Therefore, he can indeed not take it.
"Oh, yeah? You don't wanna tell me where she is? That's fine. I'll kill all three of you and I'll beat it out of Thanos myself. Starting with you." He pushed the gun back to my head, and I sighed. The rope that was around my person was snapped by my energy, and I very calmly grabbed his hand, twisting it and forcing him to drop the gun.
"You're not even with Thanos, are you?" I asked him, ignoring the look of pain on his face as he crouched down and silently begged for me to stop twisting his arm.
"No, we're not with Thanos. I'm here to kill him. What kind of question is that?" He whined, tapping the floor as if this was a bloody wrestling match and I would release him if he did so.
"You're from Earth." Tony pointed his other hand to him.
"I'm not from Earth, I'm from Missouri." Quill responded, making me throw his hand back to him. He bit his lip as he shook his wrist to try remove the pain in it.
"Missouri is on Earth, you fucking idiot. Why are you attacking us?" I looked at him bewildered. What was this guy's issue?
"Wait, who are you guys?" He stood up and looked between us in confusion. Well, at least that meant we weren't enemies.
"We're the Avengers, man." Peter told him from behind. Good that he was still alive after the 20 seconds I took my eye off him. Though I wouldn't really call myself an Avenger anymore.
"You're the ones Thor told us about." The woman pointed out, making my ears stand at attention. Thor was alive? No way...
"Thor? You guys know Thor?" I looked at Quill as I assumed he was the leader. Then again, they all seemed like idiots, so there was no telling which could actually be in charge.
"Yeah. Tall guy, not that good looking, needed saving." He mocked. Guess those two have bad blood, but I won't miss a chance at starting an argument.
"Not that good looking? Look who's talking." I crossed my arms, a smug expression on my face.
"Have you looked at yourself?" Quill tilted his head. So... he just stole my joke and re worded it? Bastard.
"Buddy, I have a girlfriend. Don't come at me with that." I raised my hands in a joking surrender. I could've sworn I heard the others scoff at the fact I was debating this.
"So do I!" Quill squinted.
"I don't see her anywhere." I looked around the ship, showing that I saw no woman besides the webbed girl. "Unless you mean her." I pointed.
"No, because Thanos took her. I don't see your girl." He copied me in looking around, placing a hand above his eyes as if it would help him see someone who wasn't here.
"That's because-" I bit my lip mid sentence. After a few seconds of pause, I began turning and slowly walking to Tony with my head held low.
"Son of a bitch."