Will and I sit next to each other with his arm wrapped around me as the twelve of us are assembled in a room. We were looking at different screens that revealed six of the Infinity Stones. "Okay, so the how works. 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." Steve says.
"Or substitute the word 'encounter' for 'damn near been killed' by one of the six Infinity Stones," Tony says.
"Well, I haven't but I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about," Scott 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." Bruce says.
"Our history. So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in, yeah?" Tony says.
"Which means we have to pick our targets," Clint says.
"Correct," Tony says.
"So, let's start with the Aether. Thor, what do you know?" Steve asks. We turned our heads to see Thor sitting on a chair with his sunglasses on. We couldn't tell if he was awake or asleep. I roll my eyes.
"Is he asleep?" Natasha asks.
"No, no. I'm pretty sure he's dead." I say. "Hey, Thor!" Thor suddenly wakes up and walks to the screen with the Aether on it.
"Uh, where to start? Um...The Aether, firstly, is not a stone. Someone called it a stone before. Um, it's more of an angry sludge sort of a thing so someone's gonna need to amend that and stop saying that." Thor says, using eye drops. "Here's an interesting story, though, about the Aether. My grandfather, many years ago...had to hide the stone from the Dark Elves. Ooh." Thor chuckles to himself. "Scary beings. So, Kaitlyn, actually...hi, Kaitlyn..." Thor waves at me. A picture of me pops up on the screen.
"Yeah, so, Kaitlyn got infected with the Aether and she became very, very sick. And so I had to take her to Asgard, which is where I'm from and we had to try and fix her. She got to meet my family. She met my mother...who's dead and, um...Oh, you know, and Kaitlyn, she died but came back, which I'm still wrapping my head around that..." Thor started to trail off, and I frowned at him as Tony walked up to him.
"Why don't you come sit down?" Tony asks.
"I'm not done yet. The only thing that is most precious about life is life itself." Thor says.
"Awesome. Eggs? Breakfast?" Tony asks.
"No. I'd like a Bloody Mary." Thor says.
•
•
•
"Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag." Rocket says as the image of the purple Power Stone appears on the screen. The twelve of us were sitting around the table eating Chinese food while Rocket was standing on top of the table.
"Is that a person?" Bruce asks.
"No, Morag's a planet. Quill was a person. He is also Kaitlyn's brother." Rocket corrected.
"Like a planet? Like in outer space?" Scott asks.
"Oh, look. It's like a little puppy, all happy and everything." Rocket says, ruffling Scott's hair, making Will and me laugh. "Do you wanna go to space? You wanna go to space, puppy? I'll take you to space."
•
•
•
"Thanos found the Soul Stone on Vormir." Nebula says. We were all facing Nebula as she explained what she knew about the yellow stone. Natasha was sitting next to me on the couch, and she was taking notes.
"What is Vormir?" Natasha asks.
"A dominion of death at the very center of celestial existence. It's where Thanos murdered my sister." Nebula says. Natasha and I look up.
"What? Gamora is dead?" I ask, shocked at hearing this revelation.
Nebula just nods her head. "Nebula, I'm so sorry," I say. Nebula doesn't say anything and lowers her head. Soon, an awkward silence fills the room. Natasha continues to write in her notepad.
"Not it," Scott says, breaking the silence in the room.
•
•
•
"That Time Stone guy," Natasha says as she, Tony, and I lay on the table while Will paced in the room and Bruce was on the ground next to the table.
"Doctor Strange," I say.
"Yeah, what kind of doctor was he?" Will asks.
"Ear-nose-throat meets rabbit-from-hat," Tony says.
"Nice place in the Village, though," I say.
"Yeah on Sullivan Street?" Tony asks.
"Bleecker Street." I corrected.
"Wait, he lived in New York?" Natasha asks.
"No, he lived in Toronto. Have you been listening to anything?" Tony asks.
"Guys. If you pick the right year, there are three stones in New York." Natasha says.
Will stops pacing, and Bruce, Tony, and I sit up, looking at Natasha in surprise. "Shut the front door," Bruce says.
•
•
•
"So what happened to the Tesseract after that?" Will asks after Steve explained everything that happened in the 40s. Thor was sleeping on the couch while I sat on the edge of the table.
"It's at the bottom of the ocean. It fell out of the plane after I had to crash it." Steve says.
"You know, I've been meaning to ask, why did you have to crash the plane, anyway?" I ask Steve, hopping off the table and standing next to him. Steve looks at me.
"Bombs on board," Steve says.
"And you couldn't have jumped out of the plane before you crashed it?" I ask. Steve thinks about what I said and wonders if that is what he should have done in the first place.
"She does have a point," Will says. Will and I fist bump behind Steve's back.
•
•
•
Now, we were all watching video footage of our battle from New York. On the screen was me facing off one of Loki's creatures and burning my hand, in the process, with one of their weapons.
"How long did you fight these guys?" Rocket asks.
"Uh, two or three hours," Natasha says.
"Hours? The Chitauri is the suckiest army in the galaxy. Why didn't you just blow up the mother ship?" Rocket asks.
"We didn't know that was a thing," Steve says.
Rocket starts laughing. "You didn't know that was a thing?" He asks. "Everyone knows that..." He is cut off when Tony stands over him and uses an electric shaver on his head, making all of us laugh.
•
•
•
•
Once we were able to figure out everything and where each of the stones were, we met up again. The holographic screens were showing all six of the Infinity Stones. Soul Stone in Vormir, Power Stone on Morag, Reality Stone on Asgard, Time Stone, Mind Stone, and Space Stone in New York.
"All right. We have a plan. Six stones, three teams, one shot." Steve says. We all changed into our Quantum Realm suits before making our way to the time machine in the hangar.
"Five years ago, we lost. All of us. We lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. Today, we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams. You know your missions. Get the stones. Get them back. One round-trip each. No mistakes, no do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. That doesn't mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives and we're gonna win."
Tony looks at Steve, and they both smile. "Whatever it takes. Good luck."
"He's pretty good at that." Rocket says, looking up at Scott.
"Right?" Scott nods in agreement.
"All right. You heard the man. Stroke those keys Jolly Green." Tony says. I looked over at Will, who was going to Asgard with Thor and Rocket. He had never been, and after telling him everything about Asgard, he wanted to go and see what it looked liked. I take his hand.
"You be careful out there," I say.
"You, too," Will says. I was going with Clint and Natasha to Vormir. He and I share a kiss. "Hey, you know, maybe after all of this is over, we should go on our first date. Your favorite pizza place, next Saturday, say 7:00?"
"I'll be there," I say with a smile.
"Can't wait."
"Trackers engaged," Bruce says.
In his hand, Clint holds a shrunken version of the Benatar. "You promise to bring that back in one piece, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll do my best." Clint says.
"As promises go, that was pretty lame." Rocket says.
"Don't worry Rocket. The Benatar will be safe with us." I say. Bruce joins us on the platform.
"See ya in a minute." Natasha smiles excitedly.
What I didn't know was that this would be the last time we saw Natasha.
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A/N: Get ready guys! We're about to enter the time heist! Ugh, that part where Natasha says see you in a minute always gets me because you know what's about to happen.
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