Steel Hearts

- 31 -

Without hesitation, everyone changed into their respective uniforms and Bruce brought along the Hulkbuster armor onto the ship with us. Steve, who had changed into his stealth suit from many years ago, waited for me outside the door of our room until I had changed. Taking my hand in his own, we walked out to where Rocket's ship was. The two of us took up the rear of the group as we hiked up the ramp, we buckled ourselves into seats next to each other.

The ship rumbled underneath us as it roared to life.

"Okay," Rocket and Carol were sitting at the front to pilot the ship, "Who here hasn't been to space?"

Rhodey, Nat, Steve, and I all raised our hands. Thor smirked at me, poking my arm to tease me.

"You better not throw up on my ship."

I swat Thor's hand away from me and grasped onto my seat roughly. Nat and Rhodey's knuckles were white from their grip on their own seats while Steve spared a glance to me, checking on me and I sent him a small nervous nod before his hands gripped his seat.

"Approaching jump in three... two... one," Nebula announced as we were all thrown back into our seats and the ship soared through the millions of colors surrounding space. The change in scenery was jarring and within seconds we went from staring at the blue sky on Earth to hovering on the outskirts of another planet. The hundreds of hues of colors swirled together like food dye in water, although much more graceful.

The yellow planet in front of us floated and turned in the twinkling blackness of the space around us. My stomach was doing flips, making me queasy, but I refrained from throwing up along with the others. Carol had left and flown down to the planet's surface to check things out, leaving the rest of us up on the ship.

Everyone unbuckled their restraints and I stepped closer to the front of the ship, my eyes glossed over in awe until I heard a small breath from Nat, as if she had scoffed at something she knew but I didn't, and Steve place something back into a pouch on his belt, "I know it will. 'Cause I don't know what I'm gonna do if it doesn't."

Looking over my shoulder to him, Steve's face was set and he meant business. Truly, none of us knew what would happen if we couldn't fix this. Our friends and half of the universe would be gone forever without a way of even having said goodbye.

A flash of light caught my eye as Carol flew back up to us, "No satellites. No ships. No armies. No ground defenses of any kind. It's just him."

Rocket pilots the ship down onto the surface of the planet, landing at the base of a mountain. Carol had let us know there was a small shack on the other end of the field. We were quiet as we walked, weary that we might be headed straight for a trap of some kind.

"I'm going to in first to distract him," she announced.

Steve nodded, "Ella, you go with Bruce, Rhodey, and Thor to restrain him. The rest of us will follow."

Thor was very much uninterested in the conversation as we came upon the back end of a garden, the stalks of produce were taller than me. He had grabbed ahold of me so that he could fly closer to the shack without having to wait for my slower running.

Carol already had Thanos in a chokehold with Bruce and Rhodey grasping either of his arms. I used my purple energy to keep him from moving, encasing his torso and legs in a force field. Thor swung his axe and Thanos' left hand fell to the floor along with the gauntlet. He yelled, groaned, and writhed in pain as the four of us continued to restrain him.

From the floor, Rocket flipped the gauntlet over to reveal the stones were gone, "Oh no."

Steve and Nat shared a look of knowing, wanting to figure out where they were.