The Liberty War || Infinity War & Endgame

Chapter Forty-Eight: Unbound By Death

Music is "Repeat Until Death" by Novo Amor.

Picture is Tatiana Maslany as Emma Barnes.

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CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: Unbound By Death

{May 1, 2023 -- Sixteen Years Later}

W A K A N D A

The hours after the war finally ends are a blur at best, and bloody near impossible to recall at worst. Of course, help arrives soon after Tony passes. Heroes pull themselves together and help take care of our wounded. Stephen Strange himself uses both magic and medicine to operate on Grant on the field, getting him to a situation next to perfect, much to my relief. Other sorcerers do the same for others, and for those that have passed, we carry them to a place where they can be transported for a proper burial, depending on what their culture accounts for.

I keep my loved ones close by as the dust continues to settle, both on and off the battlefield. Grant gets checked out at the nearest hospital, just to be sure, as do the rest of us. We lost a lot of people today, but we won the Endgame. We still have a planet to stand on and loved ones to embrace. Even more this time, since those that were lost in the Snap have returned. Much of the world is just getting back to normal and reuniting after five, long years.

Clint leaves almost immediately for his family. As do Scott and Hope. Thor, Valkyrie, and the Asgardians return to New Asgard, to be sure that the havoc wrecked there doesn't spread elsewhere. Peter Parker is reunited with his Aunt May. The Guardians are back together again. T'Challa returns home to Wakanda. Harry and Eggsy reunite as well. While Harry is a bit more reserved than his younger partner, they're both in tears by the end of the embrace. Another family reunited: it brings a smile to my face.

Tony is taken away like a hero, as he should. We all send silent gratitude his way. Some days later, there will be a funeral, which I'm sure we will all attend. Until then, I think it's best to let Rhodey and Pepper bring him home.

After being released from the hospital a few days later, Grant, Steve, Rose, Bucky, and I decide to return to the only other place any of us have ever called home. At least, the one that isn't a pile of rubble in Upstate. Wakanda and its King welcome us back, and after a day or two of peace, I meet with Shuri in her laboratory.

"Back on your feet so soon?" she asks as I enter the room.

"I could say the same about you, Your Highness."

She scowls at the title. "Fair point. What did you want to meet about, Emma? It sounded important over the com."

"Is Grant here?" I inquire, looking around the room for my son.

Shuri shakes her head. "I believe he is at the palace with my brother and M'Baku."

I tab the viles of the test cure that she concocted and used on Grant. "How certain are you that these worked?"

Shuri turns to her computer holo, then throws up several graphs, charts, and analyses on the cure. Very little of it I understand, but at the top, I see a large 98% circled several times. "I've been testing his samples ever since he took the cure," she explains. "And after measuring a multitude of things, using Wakandan scientific methods the Americans can only dream of, my analysis shows a 98% certainty that the cure is working. Unfortunately, even with that high a number, it will take time for age to show. There will be no way of knowing 100% certain until Grant begins to age. And when will he have stopped aging anyway due to the measure of the serum he received from his birth mother? Has he already hit that point or will it be sometime later in his later twenties or thirties? No one can know for sure." She closes the reports and turns back to me. "I'm sorry, I wish I had better answers for you."