"Elaina, stay back!" Natasha screamed as I basically threw myself at the edge of the cliffside, trying somehow to get to Tony in time. "Elaina, he's fine! Look-LOOK. He's alright." The woman had to hold me back, forcing me to look up just in time to see Tony fly back up—very much alive. I realised that I had forgotten he wasn't Natasha—that he wasn't trying to die, and that he had had his suit on, which he'd apparently made sure still had his Iron Man flying abilities. I stopped fighting the woman who was holding me, letting the relief at my own mistake wash over me as Clint and Natasha ran at the man who had attacked Tony. I'd just seen him fall and... lost it.
Thankfully, I didn't have to worry about losing Tony just yet, as he started fighting the man with renewed energy—all three avengers now attacking him simultaneously. Once I had caught my breath, I joined in as well, though I realised that I wasn't as much help as I would have wished to be—not being able to do much other than launch a few ranged attacks at the man. He pinned Natasha down, who shouted something at Clint who immediately jumped on top of the guy, calling out to me to help—which in turn made me leap to help subdue the guy with Clint long enough for Tony to rip the stone away from him. It seemed like almost immediately after Tony grabbed hold of the Soul stone with the glove of his suit, the man gave up—not even trying to fight us anymore as he slumped to the ground, letting Natasha go. Before anyone could decide what to do about him, the woman aimed her gun and sent one bullet through the mans chest, doing the same to the woman who was also only half alive a few seconds later. It was probably for the best, but I still felt icky from the inside as we walked back towards the ship we had come in, now carrying the Soul stone.
The four of us remained silent until we were ready to travel back, and then we were all standing in a circle back in the compound once again. I quickly let my suit disappear, taking my mask off and scanning everyone who was standing there. "Is everyone here? Everyone alright?" I instantly asked, and was only able to breath properly once I had made that that there were indeed ten people standing there. "It... it actually worked." I let out a breathy laugh—almost unable to really believe that we were all standing there, alive. We had all the infinity stones, and Natasha was still here—everything had gone off fine. "I can't believe it."
Things had seemed to go just as well for the other two teams—the Mind stone having apparently been a breeze to grab from the compound and return with, and Thor having quite easily managed to get into the vault on Asgard and bring the other four stones back from there was well, though they had run into some people along the way that they had had to feed some false stories to, but had come back with the stones nonetheless. Once I had gotten the stories from everyone, the whole group, including Bruce and Nebula followed Tony into his lab, where the Nano gauntlet that Tony had already crafted before we'd left was waiting to be used. The whole group waited with baited breath as Tony started to set the stones into the glove, and a few minutes later it seemed to be fully ready. "Alright, we've got the glove—now what? Who snapped in the movies, kid?" Tony asked, looking towards me, and only in that moment did I really realise what had happened in the movies.
"Oh shit." Bruce had snapped because he could control the Hulk. He couldn't even go into that form right now—let alone be able to control what he did while all Hulked out enough to be able to pick the gauntlet up, put it on and snap. Who else here could even do such a thing? It was clear Tony wouldn't be doing so—and I wasn't going to let Natasha, Bruce or any of the other humans in the room even attempt it. But who could? Vision? Would it even work if he tried snapping? I mean—he could think like a person, and was more than a robot could ever be, but that didn't change the fact that he was still made out of a lot of Vibranium. The stones might not work if he tried the snap, and we couldn't risk that. Rocket? Nebula? No to both—they might have been from outer space, but I would have trusted Tony with the stones before them, and I knew how that one turned out. Steve? Would the super solider serum be able to somehow outpower the infinity stones? For some reason I doubted it—I couldn't imagine him turning out much better than Tony had if he tried to snap. Thor? Maybe... he was a god after all, and if anyone could be able to sustain the stones, it would be him. But still, the reason the Hulk had even been able to survive the snap was because he had already been exposed to Gamma radiations a lot—that wasn't the case with Thor.
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ACATALEPSY ➺ loki
Adventureelaina wasn't meant to be dead, yet here she was, six years in the past, living with parents who mourned a death that had never happened. her death. on top of that, she may now have the chance to save the lives of people who she'd spent years watchi...
