United We Stand. Divided We Fall.

Part 18.

It had been twenty days since Captain Marvel joined our crew. Twenty days with no sign of Tony. We still didn’t know if he had been blipped or not.
 
The blip. That’s what everyone had taken to calling it. I guess that’s because it was an easier way to deal with it, rather than thinking one man had such power.
 
Twenty days had left everyone with pretty low morale. I hung out a lot with Rocket. Partially because wasn’t constantly checking up on me and partially because he had no one else. He had lost Groot in the blip and he didn’t know what had happened to the rest of his team.
 
Thor had barely spoken a word in the twenty days. He felt it was his fault. Something about going for the head. No matter how many times we told him, he never listened and was in a sense of depression. Although that was mostly because mere hours before Wakanda he had lost his brother. And his sister a day or two before that and this dad before that. He wasn’t dealing with it in the best way.
 
Carol left every morning and came back every evening. On her searches she often stopped by other planets. They were all experiencing the same thing as Earth.
 
Pepper had been spending a lot of time at the compound, just in case Tony came home. It was nice. She was teaching me to cook.
 
Nat and Rhodey had been taking care of all the official work, with the government and things. Steve had been helping the people get back on their feet, people who were suffering financially, children who had lost their homes.
 
I had mostly recovered from my injuries; my ribs were still a bit bruised and damaged but they hardly hurt. I trained every day, if we found Thanos I would be ready to fight him. No way was he getting off the hook.
 
It was late one evening, we’d had dinner, Pepper was getting ready to leave and Carol hadn’t come back yet. Rocket and I were playing cards. That was when we felt it. The cups on the table began to rattle slightly. Then the lamp next us. There was something outside. It was like a plane or a helicopter. I went to the window and saw a bright light carrying a ship. Carol. She had found him.
 
I met Nat, Rhodey, Steve, Bruce and Pepper all running out into the green outside the compound. We stared in awe as Carol landed this spaceship in front of us.
 
The steps to the ship were lowered and a bald blue robot helped Tony down the steps. He was so weak. I couldn’t see him properly but he looked so frail. Steve ran to meet him, helping him down the rest of the way.
  
“Couldn’t stop him,” Tony mumbled.
  
“Neither could I,” Steve replied. He led him down to Pepper.
 
“Hang on,” Tony panted. He stopped walking and turned to Steve. “I lost the kid.” He sounded so upset as if he had disappointed someone massively. I knew he was talking about Spider-Man.
 
“Tony, we lost,” Steve said almost reassuring him that it wasn’t his fault. Tony nodded weakly.
 
“Is, uh,” he mumbled. Pepper ran forward. “Oh, good,” he sighed with relief.
 
“Oh my God,” Pepper exclaimed tears filling her eyes. The two hugged. Tony planted a kiss on her cheek and reassured her that he was okay.
 
Behind them, Rocket sat next to the blue robot on the steps to the ship. She must have been Nebula. He had told me a little about his family and seeing as there was no one else on board the ship, I had to assume that she was the only one to survive.    
 
Tony hugged Rhodey and they exchanged words and then he looked at me.
 
“Thank God, I thought I had lost both the kids,” he hugged me. I hugged him back.
  
“I was so worried you were gone Tony,” I said. We may have had our differences but he was family and he helped me so much back when I first joined.
  
“I’m sor-,” he began.
   
“Don’t worry about us, let’s get you inside and get you some rest,” I said and handed him off to Pepper and Steve who helped him the rest of the way inside. I turned to find Carol.
  
“Thank you so much, Carol,” I said pulling her in for a hug.
  
“I guess now that I’ve found you’re friend you have no real need for me,” she said pulling away.
  
“No real need for you? Are you crazy? We still haven’t found Thanos. And even then, you’re a flammable immortal, you’re stuck with us whether you like it or not,” I replied dragging her inside with me.

                  *****************
The next morning, once Tony had gotten some rest, we reconvened in the living room to discuss. Nat uploaded files of everyone who had blipped.
   “It's been twenty-three days since Thanos came to Earth,” Rhodey said. I looked down at the floor when the images of Wanda and Sam came up.
   “World governments are in pieces,” Nat continued, “The parts that are still working, are trying to take a census and it looks like he did...” she trailed off. I saw Tony look away when Peter Parker flashed up. “He did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures.”
   None of us said anything, seeing our friends, our family up on those screens hurt.
   “Where is he now? Where?” Tony asked.
   “We don’t know,” Steve replied. “He just opened a portal and walked through.” Tony sighed. No one had any good news and it was all very disheartening.
  “What's wrong with him?” Tony asked pointing a finger at Thor. Thor who still hadn't said a word, not even after Tony came home.
    “Oh, he’s pissed,” I said, with no sympathy for him whatsoever.
    “He thinks he failed,” Rocket said from beside me. “Which of course, he did, but there’s a lot of that going around, ain’t there.”
   “Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a build-a-bear,” Tony said in disbelief.
   “Maybe I am,” Rocket snapped.
   “We’ve been hunting Thanos for three weeks now,” Steve said bringing us all back on topic. “Deep space scans and satellites and we got nothing. Tony, you fought him.”
   “Who told you that?” Tony interrupted. “I didn’t fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street magician gave away the store. That’s what happened. There was no fight, cause he’s not beatable.”
   “Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?” Steve asked.
   “Umm, uh,” Tony spluttered mock thinking. Nat sighed at his immaturity. “I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision; I didn’t want to believe it. Thought I was dreaming.”
   “Tony, I’m gonna need you to focus here,” Steve said.
   “And I needed you,” Tony snapped back. “As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It’s too late, buddy. Sorry.” Tony inhaled deeply. My blood started boiling, he had the power to help us and was just sitting there. “You know what I need?” he asked shoving his coffee cup across the table. “I need a shave. And I believe I remember telling all of youse,” he began, standing up and ripping his IV line from his forearm.
   “Tony, Tony!” Rhodey interrupted him trying to get him to sit back down.
   “Alive and otherwise,” he continued, “That what we needed was a suit of armour 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,” Steve replied. Forcing me to think back on Ultron, Tonys rouge AI that ended up cause my parents death and so many more.
   “I said we’d lose. You said “We’ll do that together, too.” And guess what, Cap. We lost, and you weren’t there.” That hit me. I couldn’t control my anger with him anymore.
   “Yeah, we weren’t there because you had us run out of the fucking country, Tony,” I said standing up. Rage rolling off me in waves.
    “Kate,” Bruce interrupted, silently pleading me to sit down.
   “No, he needs to hear this. It’s not as if we were sitting on our asses, we fought him too. We got beat too. We lost, Tony. We watched as he killed members of this team, members of this family. And guess who wasn’t there? You, Tony, you weren’t there. And yeah, Steve fucked up two years ago in Siberia, but so did you. You helped split the team. We all did. But right now, finding Thanos, isn't just about us, it's about everyone. Everyone we let down,” I said, viciously. I was so sick of his victim shit, we were the Avengers, we had jobs to do.
  “Thats what we do right? Our best work after the fact? We’re the “Avengers”. We’re the “Avengers”, not the “Pre-vengers”,” Tony replied.
   “Okay,” Rhodey soothed, trying to get Tony to sit back down.
    “Right?” he asked.
    “Okay, you made your point. Just sit down, okay?” Rhodey practically begged almost shoving Tony back into the wheelchair.
   “Okay. No, no, here’s my point. She's great by the way,” Tony said fighting free of Rhodey and pointing at Carol.
   “Tony, you’re sick. Sit down,” Rhodey repeated.    
   “We need you. You are new blood,” Tony continued directing his speech to Carol. “Bunch of old mules. I got nothing for you, Cap. I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero, zip, nada. No trust, liar.”
   Tony ripped the arc-reactor off of his chest and with shaky breaths slapped it into Steve’s palm. “Here, take this. You find him, you put that on, you hide.” With that, Tony fell to the floor. Guilt, flooded through my veins. Maybe we pushed him too far.

I've always felt that Tony was being an ass in this scene. Like Civil War which he had just as much a hand in as anyone else was the reason the Avengers split, making it the reason Cap wasn't in New York with him.
Sorry I have a lot of opinions about this. Thanks again for reading see you in a week xxxxx