When Time Collides ★ [2] ✔

Reality Check

Giving me something to do always made me feel better. I was able to clear my head. It gave me one single thing to think about and allowed the rest to fall away.

Intruding on the Bartons suddenly and unexpectantly was rude, so I offered to chop wood. Tony joined me not long after.

"Thor didn't say where he was going for answers?" he asked.

"Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things," I replied, watching Barton work with his son. "I was kinda hoping Thor would be the exception."

"Yeah, give him time," Tony said, brushing off my subtle accusation of him. "We don't know what the Maximoff kid showed him."

I pulled a chunk of wood and placed it on the block. I raised my axe. "'Earth's Mightiest Heroes.'" I cut the wood cleanly, tossing the pieces onto my pile. "Pulled apart like cotton candy."

"Seems like you walked away all right," Tony remarked.

My eyes wandered to Andi sitting with Barton's daughter on the porch. The little girl was on her lap with Andi's watch in her hands. Golden dust drifted around them magically, Andi pointing out objects and the little girl beaming with delight.

I didn't walk away all right. What I'd seen in that dance hall...it troubled me more than anything else had in my life. I am Eon. And he is me. What did that even mean? I didn't understand. And what was she talking about her future being written out for her? I thought that that was impossible for her people.

I didn't want Tony to have an inkling on what I saw. It was knowledge that should remain with me, and so I remained nonchalant. "Is that a problem?"

"I don't trust a guy without a dark side." Tony chopped a block of wood. "Call me old fashioned."

"Well, let's just say you haven't seen it yet."

He walked towards me. "You know Ultron is trying to tear us apart, right?"

"Well, I guess you'd know. Whether you tell us is a bit of a question."

"Banner and I were doing research," he defended.