We all arrived back at the same time. For us, we'd been gone for hours at least, but in real time it wasn't more than a few seconds.
"Did we get them all?" Bruce asked, looking around at all of us. Everyone was either holding a Stone or looking pleased with themselves.
"We did it?" I asked, a smile creeping onto my face. "You mean this actually worked?"
Jessica rolled her eyes, clutching the Soul Stone. "We don't know if anything worked. All we know is that we have the Stones. We have no idea what will happen when you guys snap your fingers."
"Can you just be optimistic for, like, five seconds?"
"I just threw you off a cliff and had to be optimistic about whether or not you'd be here when I got back," she reminded me, scowling. "That's about as much optimism as I can take."
I crossed my arms. "Don't be so dramatic, I told you I'd be fine."
"Because you know everything that's gonna happen?" she asked rhetorically, pushing the Stone into my hand and storming off in the opposite direction.
I sighed, handing the Stone to Tony and following her footsteps. I found her in a stairwell with her head in her hands, breathing heavily.
"What is it?" I asked, my tone not as sympathetic as it should have been. "You got the Stone, the hard part is over."
She looked up at me, raising an eyebrow. If I didn't know her better, I'd swear she was about to cry. "'The hard part is over'?" she repeated. "Did you seriously just say that to me? Did you honestly just try to diminish everything that you made me do?"
"That I made you do?!" I asked incredulously. "No one asked you to come here, Jess. No one asked you to volunteer yourself to get thrown off a cliff. But I find a way to save your life and suddenly I'm the bad guy here?"
She shook her head. "You know, the worst thing about this whole situation isn't that you don't understand, but that you're not trying to." She breathed out, wiping at her face with her sleeve. "Do you have any idea what it was like to kill her?" she looked me in the eye. "To stare at your friend and know that you're about to take everything away from her? Because let me tell you, Rogue, it freaking sucks!"
"She wasn't your friend," I tried to reason, sitting on the steps below her. "That girl... that Rogue... you never knew her. She was a completely different person to the girl that you met, and the girl that you met is a completely different person to the friend that's sitting in front of you right now."
She nodded, acknowledging me. "I know that. But I also know the person that she becomes. Do you know how it felt to kill her, knowing that she was gonna turn into the only friend I have left?" she asked, her eyes red. "I don't care what you say, Rogue, her eyes were your eyes. Her voice was your voice. And... when I grabbed her and she had a change of heart and tried to fight against me, it was you that I was fighting." She sighed. "It wasn't a sacrifice, Rogue. She wanted it to be, but at the last moment she couldn't go through with it. She wanted to live... so I had to push her. I had to grab her and fight against her electricity. I had to convince myself that this was the only way. And when she was falling, I had to watch you go and face the possibility that I might have killed you. I have the image of you falling from a cliff etched onto my brain, and I can't let go of the fact that I pushed you."
I let her words sink in, retreating further into myself as I thought about what it would have been like the other way around. If I'd had to kill her... could I have done it?
"You were with Kilgrave when I found him," I told her, causing her eyes to widen in surprise. "He ordered you to kill me, and of course, you had no choice. You tried to kill me. And I had to fight you, just like you had to fight me." I sighed. "I get it. I understand. When I was there, in that situation, I couldn't kill you. There was no reason not to, the timeline won't exist soon, the real you would have been fine. But even back then when you didn't know me, I couldn't stop seeing you as my friend. And I couldn't do that to my friend. So I'm sorry," I told her. "I'm sorry for having the idea. I'm sorry for making you go through with it. And I'm sorry for not understanding the effect that killing a friend has on someone."
She looked away from me, nudging me with the toe of her shoe. "You're not sorry for having the idea. It worked. And you wouldn't be sorry for anything that could bring your sister back – neither would I."
My face stretched into a smile and hers soon followed.
"I'm gonna hug you now," I warned her, still smiling. She rolled her eyes, feigning annoyance, but her arms held me as tightly as mine held her. "Oh, and you didn't ask, but I killed Kilgrave. He's gone."
She nodded. "I didn't ask because I knew that you wouldn't have come back unless he was dead," she correctly informed me. Because she knew as well as I did that Kilgrave wouldn't get the best of me again.
I stood up, pulling her along with me. "Wanna go watch those guys save the world?"
She pulled a face. "It's more likely that they're about to end it."
We walked back into the room to see Tony, Banner and Rocket putting the final touches to our version of the gauntlet. Everyone else was standing around, watching them.
"All right, the glove's ready," Rocket announced. "Question is, who's gonna snap their freaking fingers?"
"I'll do it," Thor immediately volunteered, walking up to the gauntlet despite the fact that we all tried to talk him down. "It's okay," he ignored us.
"Wait, wait, wait, Thor, just wait," Steve stopped him. "We haven't decided who's gonna put that on yet."
"Oh, I'm sorry. What, were you just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?" Thor asked snidely, automatically dismissing our apprehensions.
"We should at least discuss it," Scott tried to reason with him.
"Look, us sitting here staring at that thing is not gonna bring everybody back," he said. "I'm the strongest Avenger, okay? So this responsibility falls upon me. It's my duty."
"It's not your duty," I shook my head. "Thor, just because you feel responsible for not taking down Thanos doesn't mean that it's your sole responsibility to bring everybody back."
"Just let me," he pleaded in a shaky voice that sounded like tears weren't far behind. "Just let me do it. Just let me do something good."
"Look...It's not just the fact that that glove is channeling enough energy to light up a continent," Tony told him sympathetically. "I'm telling you, you're in no condition."
Thor scoffed, looking around at the rest of us. "What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?"
"Beer?" I suggested.
"Pizza?" Jess added.
"Bloody Mary's?" Scott joined in.
"Lightning," Thor spoke over us, as determined as ever.
But despite his semi-sound reasoning, Banner shook his head. "Lightning won't help you, pal. It's gotta be me." He walked towards the gauntlet. "You saw what those stones did to Thanos. It almost killed him. None of you could survive."
"How do we know you will?" Steve asked, never one to leave a soldier behind.
"We don't," Banner admitted. "But the radiation's mostly gamma. It's like...uh...I was made for this."
"No one was made for this," I disagreed. "Banner, if you put that thing on... you have to accept that you might not survive it. Are you prepared for that?"
He looked up at me. "I've been preparing for that for a long time." Grabbing the gauntlet, he held it in his hand, examining it. Glaring at the thing that could be able to end his life. "Let's do it."
Tony nodded. "Remember... everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago and everyone that died because of Kilgrave, just bringing them back to now, today," Tony reminded him. "Don't change anything from the last five years."
"Got it."
We all stood around him, everyone protecting themselves with whatever armour or powers they had at their disposal. I used a force field to shield myself and anyone directly near me.
"F.R.I.D.A.Y., do me a favor and activate 'Barn Door' Protocol, will you?" Tony added as a last resort. Immediately the Compound went into lockdown, trapping us and whatever damage we caused inside.
"Everybody comes home," Banner reminded himself, slipping the gauntlet onto his right hand, where it altered its size automatically in order to fit.
Immediately the energy feedback caused Banner to fall to his knees, grunting and groaning in pain as power surged through the glove and attacked his entire arm.
"Take it off! Take it off!" Thor warned him worriedly.
"No, wait," Steve jumped in. "Bruce, are you okay?"
Banner continued to groan, in too much pain to answer coherently.
"Talk to me, Banner," Tony commanded.
"I'm okay. I'm okay," Banner reassured us, fighting to bring his fingers together. We watched with bated breath as he fought against the power of the gauntlet.
Finally, he snapped.
And immediately fainted.
"Bruce," Steve ran to him as he hit the ground, the gauntlet slipping off his hand. Clint kicked it aside.
"Don't move him," Tony commanded.
As Bruce started to come around, Clint's phone began to vibrate. He stared at it in horror, before rushing to pick it up, shaking.
"Honey?" he asked in a low voice. "Honey?"
Tony looked up at me, his face full of the same hope that was causing tears to well up in my eyes.
"Guys..." Scott said in a wistful whisper, staring out of the window. "I think it worked."
I stood up and walked over to where he and Clint were standing, just in time to see the missile that was headed straight for us. I tried to call out a warning, but there was no time. No time for a force field or any other protection, no time to warn or help anyone, no time to do anything but watch as an unknown enemy invaded the Compound, plunging us all into darkness.
******************************************
A Snap has occurred and everyone might be back - but who is attacking the Compound?
Please vote and comment if you liked this chapter!