When I woke up and made my way to the living room I saw dad was sitting in a wheelchair. I hadn't noticed how much thinner he had gotten compared to Nebula and I. Which was all because he made sure I had enough to eat. Even when I told him he shouldn't give me parts of his food, he still did. And I felt guilty seeing him like that, with a UV bag connected to him.
" They need us in there." dad told me, looking at the research room. So I pushed him in there and sat down on a chair beside him. " What do we got?" Dad asked.
" It's been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth." Nat explained " World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census, And it looks like he did... He did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out... fifty percent of all living creatures."
" Where is he now?" Dad asked.
" We don't know. He just opened a portal and walked through." Steve told him. Just like he had done on Titan, meaning he could be anywhere.
I saw Thor sitting in the other room, not taking part in the conversation. " What's wrong with Thor?" I asked.
" He's pissed." Rocket told me " He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but there's a lot of that goin' around, ain't there?"
" Honestly, at this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear." Dad tried to get a joke in.
" Maybe I am." Rocket told him, making me pretty sure he didn't know what that was.
" We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep space scans, and satellites, and we got nothing." Nat explained to us.
" Tony, Odette you fought him." Steve said looking at us.
" Who told you that?" Dad asked him " We didn't fight him. No. He wiped my face with a planet and knocked her out while a Bleecker Street magician gave away the stone." Dad said aggravated " That's what happened. There was no fight, okay."
" Did he give you any clues? Any coordinates, anything?" Steve asked. But I could see that dad was not having it.
" Pfft! I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming. But then Odette started to get dreams." Dad started.
" Tony I'm gonna need you to focus." Steve said.
" And I needed you." Dad said " As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late, buddy."
" Sorry." Steve got in.
" You know what I need? I need to shave." Dad started to get out of his chair. " And I believe I rememeber telling-" He was too weak, he almost couldn't stand.
" Dad." I said holding him up.
But he didn't stop talking " Why that otherwise, that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world. Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms, or not. That's what we needed. Well that didn't work out, did it?" He was attacking Steve personally " I said we'd lose. You said, 'We'll do that together, too.' Well guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren't there. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers? We're the Avengers? Not the Prevengers?" He was going on, he was clearly hurt.
" Okay. You made your point." Steve said "Just sit down, okay?"
" No, no. Here's my... She's great, by the way." I couldn't get him to sit down.
" Dad, sit, sit down!" I told him, but he was looking at the new woman now.
" We need you. You're new blood." He told her " Bunch of tired old mills...I got nothing for you, Cap. I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options... Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust, you liar..." He started to get closer to Steve. " Here, take this." He said pulling the suit compartment off of his shirt. " You find him and you put that on. You hide." He started to lose stability again.
" Dad!" I said trying to get him to sit down.
" I'm fine. I..." He fell to the floor, he was still to heavy for me to hold up. Rhodey and Steve rushed to my side and carried him to one of the hospital beds we had in the compound.
Pepper was sitting by dad's side while we all came together again. " Bruce gave him a sedative. He's gonna probably be out for the rest of the day." Nat told us.
" What happened to you guys up there?" Rhodey asked concerned.
" We had to ration. But by the end we were out of food, and almost out of oxygen." I told him.
" You guys take care of him. And I'll bring an Bezurian elixir when I come back." The one, I now knew was named Carol, said walking past us.
" Where are you going?" I asked confused.
" To kill Thanos." She said, like it would be a piece of cake.
" Hey." Nat stopped her " You know we usually work as a team here, and between you and I we're also a little fragile. We realize up there is more your territory but this is our fight, too." She said.
" You even know where he is?" Rhodey asked, which was a good question. They had been looking for him for 23 days and she would just be able to find him?
" I know people who might." She said.
" Don't bother. I can tell you where Thanos is." Nebula told us " Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. Then when he worked, he talked about his great plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I'd ask, where we would go once his plan was complete? His answer was always the same. To The Garden." The garden? To do what, grow some flowers?
" That's cute. Thanos has a retirement plan." Rhodey joked.
" So where is he, then?" I asked her.
We went back to the research room and Natasha pulled up a hologram of Earth. Thor was sitting there, eating bread. " When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions." Rocket started to explain " No one's ever seen anything like it... until two days ago. On this planet." He showed us another planet. " Thanos is there."
" He used the stones again." Nat said looking at the hologram.
" Hey, hey, hey...We'd be going in short-handed, you know?" Bruce stated a great point.
" Look, he still got the stones, so..." Rhodey reminded all of us.
" So let's get him." Carol stated " We use them to bring everyone back."
" Just like that?" I asked her.
" Yeah. Just like that." Steve told me.
" Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this... I mean, we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try." Nat said.
" If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?" Bruce asked. Which was again, another good question. We had lost big time, how were we gonna win this one?
" Because before, you didn't have me." Carol told him. Which didn't go by Rhodey very well.
" Hey, new girl, everybody in this room is about that superhero life. And if you don't mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?" Yet again, another good question. Where did she come from all of the sudden?
" There are a lot of other planets in the universe. And unfortunately, they didn't have you guys." She fired back calmly.
Thor got up from his seat, I hadn't heard him speak since we were on the refugee ship. He walked up to Carol and held out his hand right beside her face. He was gonna summon his new hammer I had heard about the night before. The massive hammer/ax hybrid flew past her face at full speed, and she didn't even wince. That was, impressive. They looked at each other for a second, then for Thor to say " I like this one."
We all looked at each other. Were we really gonna do this? I looked at Steve, who was looking at the hologram. And he said something I never thought was gonna come out of his mouth " Let's go get this son of a bitch."