Void (The Avengers)

what if...?

《WHAT IF...》
... everyone had survived?

CARTER HAD LIVED through fights before, had sparred against Avengers and endured harsh tortures as a child. The weight of her own experience would drown that of someone else her age — hell, it could send the average grown man running for the hills and leave him with nightmares to plague him forever. But nothing could compare to the battle against Thanos.

It had been a bloodbath, a stretch of battlefield on which time didn't exist. Only one thing mattered: surviving. It was the basic instinct that sank in, the priority in the human body, and Carter's had long since lost the flight portion of fight or flight mode. Adrenaline was her fuel, and on that battlefield there was an excess.

She remembered it too well, even if it was a blurry collage of distant memories. The screams, cries of pain, echoed in her brain. She could still smell the blood and sometimes her scars would tingle a little if she dwelled on it for too long.

It had been a nightmare.

But it was okay. Because they had won. As if, like a nightmare, it disappeared with the piercing sun that rose first thing in the morning, showering the horrors with its exuberant optimism. In this case, their sun was the victory. The first time sitting down after leaving that battlefield. It was what made it all worth it, all the pain and suffering.

Because, now that it was over, Carter's shoulders weren't so tensed; her headaches had subsided. There was time now. Time to make up for the five missed years. Time to spend with her family, happy and whole. 

~\☆/~

Carter was sitting at a desk, legs pulled up on the chair as she looked over some Spanish vocabulary. She wasn't going back to in-person school now that her identity was known, and the whole situation was a little iffy. There were more pressing matters to solve at the moment and her schooling had taken a back seat for the moment. But that didn't mean she wanted to sit around without learning anything.

A knock came at the door and she shouted to come in, not looking up from using her pink-coloured pen to write out a definition.

"You busy?"

She didn't have to turn to recognise Tony's voice. After all these years, it was a familiarity. She knew it as much as her own.

"Yes, but you'll keep talking anyway."

"You know me so well," he said nonchalantly. "But anyway, Pep and I need to talk to you."

Oh no. That was never a good start to a conversation. The last time, it had ended with a week-long ban on ice cream. Carter craned her neck around slowly, eyes narrowing at his unreadable expression. "Am I in trouble?"