A Thousand Miles And Poles Apart

homesick for someone i'm still learning to miss

You were sitting on the fountain in Central Park. The exact spot you'd been sitting for the last 3 hours, just staring at the painting in your hand. It was getting dark now, and most of the park had already cleared. And yet, you sat here, with the painting. The painting the weird and mysterious man had given you. You had no memory of meeting him before. And yet, he seemed to know you.

But it didn't make sense. You weren't an Eternal. You didn't even know what that meant. And you knew nothing about saving the world. You were an art curator for crying out loud. You looked at the world in paintings.

And yet the painting was yours, you knew it. You could see your familiar brush strokes lining the page. And you had painted this exact painting before. It had come to you in a dream, just as all your paintings did. A cave and a river and markings on the wall and the feeling of home. You'd painted it the second you'd woken up. How could he have the exact same painting?

You sighed and knew what you had to do. "Eros," you said aloud. He had said to say his name and he would come, right? But you waited a moment and then two, and nothing appeared. You would have wondered if you'd imagined the whole thing, but the proof was in your hands.

"Eros," you said again louder.

You heard the familiar pop before the portal opened and he stepped out of it. "Finally, I thought you'd never say my name," he smirked at you. "Do you believe me now?"

"How do you have this?" You held up the painting, ignoring his question.

"You gave it to me," he said.

"I don't even know you," you said. "I never met you before yesterday. How could I have given this to you?"

"Because as I said your memories are gone," he said. "But look at it. It's your painting. You gave it to me. How else would I have it? I didn't exactly pluck it out of your cold dead hands, did I?"

"Let's say what you're saying is true. Why would I give this to you?" You asked, unsure if you believed him.

"You said the painting was to remind you that home was a feeling not just a place. It is of the place your heart found it's new home," he told you. "You hoped it would help me find a new home too."

"My heart found its new home? Who talks like that?" You rolled your eyes.

"Well that is pretty much verbatim so you do," he said. "Or you did."

"Before I lost my memories."

"Exactly. So does this mean you believe me now?" He asked.

"No. It means you're from the future," you said with certainty. "I mean you create portals. You obviously created a portal to the past. You're all spacey. And Thanos's brother. You must have all kinds of powers."

"Well I do, but not that power, and half brother," he corrected. "I didn't come here from the future. I came here to find you very much in the present. We were together a few weeks ago, but it took me a while to pinpoint your location."

"Right," you deadpanned. "The present before I lost my memories."

He sighed. "Y/N, I don't know how to convince you I am telling the truth. But I really need you to believe me because we need to find the others. Something is coming."

"Right, someone is coming to destroy the world," you repeated what he had told you last night.

"Yes, someone very powerful and dangerous," he said.

"Okay, well, I don't know how exactly you got this painting in the so called present," you said. "But you're clearly crazy and I'm going to leave now because I'm now realizing I'm alone in a dark park with a crazy person."