An Act of... Love? [An Avengers Polyamorous Fanfic]

Chapter 48

 "Stephen!" Wanda called out as Stephen felt her hands on either side of his head as he gasped for air. "Breathe, Stephen, breath." He gasped for air a few more times before his lungs finally seemed to be satiated. His chest ached as he tried to return his breathing to normal.

Bruce and Dr. Cho hovered over him causing him to look up at them confused. "What happened?"

"As soon as you weren't here anymore, you stopped breathing. You were gone for a minute," Bruce said.

"Guess time dilation didn't affect me," he mumbled as he couldn't help but be curious how that worked.

"What does that mean?" Wanda questioned as she continued to check him over. She couldn't bring herself to remove her hands from Stephen as she tried to reassure herself that he was okay.

"Ollie hasn't been there for as long as she's been gone. She was talking about how time passed differently there," he mentioned as he consciously reminded himself to take deep breaths.

"You saw her?" Tony questioned, surging forward as everyone else perked up to listen.

"She was far... very far. I don't know where she was. And she wasn't alone. The... entity told me to refer to them as Astraea. She said not even my acquaintances would know of her," he told them. "They both said Ollie would be coming back. Ollie wanted to ask Astraea more questions... but she said she'd cut back so she could get back here and stop worrying us."

"She was safe?" Nat questioned and when Stephen nodded the majority of tension she was holding onto visibly left her body.

"She... she was made of galaxies and stars," Stephen recalled, picturing her once again.

"Come again?" Bucky questioned.

"I almost didn't see her at first, she blended in with the surrounding space. But when Astraea spoke to her, I noticed her and just knew it was Ollie. Astraea was the same... but more corporeal. She was more... there."

"I'm not understanding any of this," Scott blurted.

"I think very few of us are following," Sam whispered to him.

"Do you know anything about where you were?" Wanda questioned.

"... Not this dimension, that's all I know for sure. I basically had a bad signal. And they could see me... which isn't supposed to be how astral projection works. It was all very foreign to me. And I am not used to foreign."

"If her... soul?" Pietro began, his voice rising an octave.

"Correct," Stephen stated, so Pietro continued.

"If her soul is absent from her body and in another dimension, could that explain the brain scans? The areas regarding personality are blank because her soul, who she is, is absent?"

"That... is possible. But I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept," Bruce stated.

"Souls..." Loki murmured to himself.

"How are we meant to deal with something like this? Something we know nothing about?" Bucky questioned with frustration clear in his voice.

"Maybe Ollie will be able to tell us more when she gets back," Peter said softly. All of them looked at Ollie, just wishing she'd open her eyes.