I lay on my bed in the abandoned SHIELD compound. It had been five weeks since the snap happened. The day after Thanos killed half the population, Captian Marvel showed up. She helped us kill Thanos, but it was too late. He had already destroyed the stone. Fury had gone in the snap, so had agent Hill. So much had happened since the snap they didn't even get a funeral. Shuri and Peter were also missing and presumed dead. The first people to really understand what I was going through were dead. I was too afraid to go back to the wizarding world and see how I failed there too. I didn't write any letters or read any that were sent to me. I would rather just assume all my friends were alive. Maybe Thanos followed through on his weird comment and left the wizarding world alone. Who knows.
Mom had taken over as the head of SHIELD. Under different circumstances, I would be thrilled. Dad had left, going to who knows where. He had become a sort of vigilante. Mom said the death of his sister hit him really hard. I couldn't help being bitter anyway. Mom also said I shouldn't wallow in self-pity. I called her a hypocrite but I began training hard every day. Something about these past few weeks reminded me of third year. Every time I had a bad thought, I went to the gym. Every time I was angry I went to the gym. Every time I was alone, I went to the gym.
I heard some commotion downstairs. I figured it was Steve Rodgers stopping by. He was about as lonely as my mom, so they talked a lot. After a few minutes, I hear the door open and assumed he left. I wandered downstairs and into the kitchen. I hadn't had dinner yet and was craving a PB&J. I wandered into the living room with my sandwich and stopped dead. Sitting in the living room was Steve Rodgers, Mom, and the Ant-Man guy. They all turned to stare at me.
"Shouldn't you be you dead?" I blurted.
"Shouldn't you be in school," he replied.
"Kendra, come sit down," said Mom. "He was just explaining to us that there might be a way to get everyone back."
"Really?" I said incredulously. I sat down next to mom.
He nodded. "All we would need is a time machine of sorts."
I sighed. "Look I already thought of that, but all the time turners were destroyed last year."
Scot Lang just looked at me. "What's a-- nevermind. We don't need one of those. If we could just figure out how to use the quantum realm."
Now it was my turn to look confused.
"Just before the snap I was in the quantum realm, but the person who was supposed to pull me out..." He stood up and began pacing. " anyway, I got out. To all of you, this has been five weeks. To me, it has been five seconds."
"So are you saying--" I stood up to look at him--"That if we could just calculate when to enter and when to exit, we could go back in time and save everyone."
"Yes."
"Scot, are you sure?" asked Steve, his voice shaking a little.
"It could work."
We all looked at Mom.
"Let's go talk to Tony," she said.
The car we shared pulled up to Stark's and we all stepped out. He was sitting on the porch, talking a baby in his lap. His face fell when he saw us. We walked up to him and sat down on the porch. Through the tension, I couldn't help but notice all the beautiful nature up here. I tried to catch Stark's eye. He looked everywhere but at me. I realized that I reminded him too much of Peter.
For once in my life, I sat quietly while the adults explained what we had discovered.
"Tony after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible..." Mom asked.
"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck scale,which then triggers the Deutsc proposition. Can we agree on that? Thank you. In Layman's terms, it means you're not coming home."
"I did," said Scott.
"No. You accidentally survived. It's a---It's a billion-to-onecosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull a...What do you call it?"
"A time heist?" I offered, smiling a little.
Tony Stark was not amused. "Yeah. Time heist. Of course. Why didn't wethink of this before? Oh! Because it's laughable? Because it's a pipedream?The stones are in the past. We Can go back and we can get them. We can snap our own fingers. We can bring everybody back. Or screw it up worse than He already has, right?" snapped Tony.
"I don't believe we would," said Steve.
"Gotta say this. Sometimes, I miss that giddy optimism. However, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible, way for me to safely execute said time heist. I believe the most likely outcome will be our collective demise." Tony laughed dryly.
"Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel. That means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sporting events..."
I sighed.
"I'm gonna stop youright there, Scott," said Tony. "Are you seriously tellingme that your plan to save the universe is basedon Back to the Future?- No.- Good. You had me worried there. 'Cause that'd be horseshit. That'snot how quantum physics works."
"Tony...We have to take a stand," said Mom.
"We did stand. And yet, here we are."
"I know you got a lot on the line.You got a wife, a daughter. But I lost someone very important to me. A lot of people did. And now, now, we have a chance to bringher back. To bring everyone back. And you're telling me that you won't even..."
"That's right, Scott. I won't. Leave it."
There was a pause as we all looked at each other.
"Anything else. Honestly, I missed you guys, it was...- Oh, and table's set for seven.-"
"Tony, I get it. And I'm happy for you. I really am. But this is a second chance," said Mom.
"I got my second chance right here." He stood up and shifted his baby to his shoulder. "I can't roll the dice again. If you don't talk shop,you can stay for lunch."
I couldn't take it anymore.
"What about Peter?" I said standing up. "I get that you got a second chance, and you know what, that's really great for you. But everyone else didn't. Peter is still gone. Half of the world is still gone, but yeah, you got a second chance so everything is fine."
The words poured out of my mouth like fiery poison. I took a shaky breath. I stared him down, refusing to break eye contact.
"Kendra." Mom put a hand on my shoulder. "It's time to go."
"Yeah," I said. We turned and walked back to the car.
"He's scared," said mom.
"He's not wrong," added Steve.
"Yeah well what are you going to do? Are we going to stop?" asked Scot Lang.
"No, I want to do it right," said Cap. "We are going to need a bigger brain."
"Bigger than his?" asked Scot.
Cap nodded.
"Lets go," I said.
"We are going to need a bigger brain,"
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Hey Everyone, so obviously the canon timeline in Endgame was not going to work, so I spread it wayyy up. Sorry it took so long, I had to wait for clips to come out on YouTube so I could get the dialogue right.
Forever and Always,
Me.