I Thought You Were Different: Part 5

Culmination

Deep inside the main building, back where it was unlikely to be found, Grant, Anthony, and Brooklyn were doing their best to hide, despite being completely against it. Steve had ordered them to keep put where they were, spoken to them as their Captain and not as their father, so they felt more compelled to comply; it still wasn't enough, of course, for your three headstrong children who took after both of you far too well.

"We can't just sit here while everyone is out there fighting!" Grant argued with his siblings. "We have powers for a reason, Stephen said that from day one! You guys, our family is out there and could be dying while we're hiding like scared little kids!"

"We're doing what Mom and Dad told us to do," Brooklyn answered, "so we stay here until we don't have a choice. We told them we would stay as safe as we could, remember? This is where we wait."

"Then why did we go through training with Strange? Was that just to kill time? Get us out of their hair for a year? He told them that we could help save the world someday, and I, for one, am not gonna sit on my ass-"

"Language, man," Anthony groaned, looking around like he would still be caught by Steve, even though it was the furthest from his dad's mind right now.

"I'm not gonna sit on my ass and wait for the world to end around us." Grant stood firm and held his resolve to act, looking from his brother and to his sister and back, waiting with anticipation and eagerness for one of them to go along with it. He wasn't going to wait long and they knew it; they also couldn't fight the intuition that the three of them had always shared, and the connection that they tried to push away and failed to yet again in this moment.

Fireball was right.

~~~

Everything was moving in such a maddening, yet intolerably frantic slow motion, and you had never felt so out of place in your own body. You had never felt so out of place within your team, each of you struggling to just stay alive at this point. The training that Steve had pushed on everyone to learn, to use each other's skills and weapons, was doing some good, but it wasn't the outcome that he had hoped for. Yes, you were a better marksman now with Clint's bow, and sure, Peter could throw the shield almost as effectively as Cap, but it was like putting a band-aid over a hemorrhage. It was barely holding the edges of the wound together.

Thanos was standing atop the main building, ensnared in a fight with Stephen and Wanda, who were just keeping up with every hit he could throw at them. It was clear that they would be outmatched on their own, and as a pair they were beginning to show signs of faltering. You had been not far from where they stood, on the ground with Natasha and Clint taking on Ebony Maw, the one who had controlled Brooklyn in an effort to not only win but to enact some of your own vengeance, when you heard a voice from above that left Wanda stumbling towards the edge of the roof in a stupor and emotional breakdown.

"Oh, hell no," Tony growled, hearing it too, "Wanda, I've got you!" He quickly changed his trajectory to swing past and grab her before she could fall, the sounds of Vision's voice filling the air around her as the Titan toyed with her pain. With the mind stone in his possession and firmly settled into the Gauntlet, he knew that it would be more effective than any strike he could throw her way. "Don't listen," he commanded, "it's not him, you know that."

"I know," Wanda panted, covering her ears as he carried her, "I do, and I'm trying. But I need to help Stephen...he can't hold him on his own."

"Let me deal with that. Rhodey's already there and I'll circle back. Here," he paused, quickly but gently setting her onto her feet, "stay with Sam and Peter, and I'll call you back up there if I need you, okay?" With that, before she could utter her agreement, he was in the air again with repulsors firing to light up the blackened sky around them as his hits landed on their target.