The Man My Father Always Talked About • A CAPTAIN AMERICA STORY

43

~43~

     With her arms crossed over her chest, Clara paced back and forth in a strange new room. The dark and wooden interior accompanied by countless shelves of books felt homey to Clara. She would have admired the room if not for her confusion. "I don't get it. Why here? Why now?"

"I don't know," Bruce shook his head. "Look, we need to get Tony. Do you know where he is?"

"Maybe the park?" Clara answered. "I don't know, he went jogging with Pepper."

"You don't know where he is exactly?" Bruce asked frantically.

"No Bruce, I'm his sister, not his caretaker." Clara replied. She turned to Stephan as he eyed them. "Central Park is your best bet."

Stephan nodded and held his hands up. He spun his fingers in the motion of a circle and though she had seen it before, Clara was still astonished by his abilities. Stephan stepped through the portal and found Tony. Clara peered over his shoulder and caught Tony's stare.

"Clara?" He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion when he saw his sister.

"Hey," she gave him a tiny wave as she smiled uncomfortably. "Long time no see."

***

Tony and Clara sat on a couch in the Sanctrum, watching as Wong and Stephan explained the six infinity stones. "At the dawn of the universe, there was nothing. The Big Bang sent six elemental crystals hurdling across the universe. These Infinity Stones each control an essential aspect of existence." Wong explained. Tony and Clara gave each other a look of confusion as they noticed a few of the stones from their past.

"Space, reality, power, soul, mind, and time." He said the last one as he opened his necklace, revealing a green stone similar to the mind stone in Vision.

"Tell me his name again," Tony said.

"Thanos," Clara mumbled, the name sending chills down her spine. She had never heard of or seen the creature, hadn't even known he existed until an hour ago, but the name sent chills down her spine.

"He's a plague. He invaded planets, he takes what we wants, he wipes out half the population." Bruce paused," He sent Loki. The attack on New York. That's him."

"What's our time like?" Tony asked Bruce.

"No telling. He has the power and the space stones, that already makes him the strongest creature in the whole universe. If he gets his hands on all six stones, Tony..."

"He could destroy life in a scale hither to undreamt of," Strange said.

"Did you seriously just say 'hither to undreamt of?'" Tony asked as he leaned on some antique in the room.

"Are you seriously leaning on the Cauldron of the Cosmos?" Strange asked as he used his Cloak of Levitation to knock Tony off balance.

"What the hell is this place?" Clara silently asked Wong who stood beside her. He had heard her and chuckled, but he didn't answer the question.

"I am going to allow that," Tony said. "If Thanos needs all six, why don't we just stick this one down a garbage disposal?" Clara glared at him from her spot and he took notice. "What's wrong with that?"

"A guy with as many PhDs as you have and that's your solution for saving the universe?" His younger sister asked. "We've barely been able to withstand a stone at time."

"We swore an oath to protect the Time stone with our lives," Wong stated.

"And I swore off dairy, and then Ben and Jerry's names a flavor after me."

"Stark Razing Hazelnut." Clara heard the serious doctor state.

"It's not bad." Clara said, gaining the looks of the two men.

"It's a little chalky." Strange agreed with a nod.

"That's what I always thought." Clara's eyes lit up as she let herself get distracted.

"Don't encourage this," he said and motioned between the two magicians.

"Our oath to protect the Time Stone cannot change. It's our best chance we have against Thanos." Strange stated, leaving the conversation of ice creams for another time.

"And it's his best chance against us." Clara said as she realized it. She didn't mean to say it out loud.

"If we don't do our jobs..." Strange started.

"What is your job exactly? Making balloon animals?" Tony asked.

"Protecting your reality, douchebag," Strange said.

"That's enough!" Clara said as she stood between the two. "We have one stone, that means we know he won't have them all without going through us."

"Vision is somewhere with the Mind stone..." Bruce started. "...and we need to find him."

"Yeah, that's the thing," Tony said, "Two weeks ago, Vision turned off his transponder. He's offline."

"What?!" Bruce exclaimed. "Tony, you lost another super-bot?" Bruce raised his voice. He helped put Ultron together and look where that got him. Not with Vision, he was scared something bad would happen.

"I didn't lose him, he's more than that, he's evolving." Tony defended.

"Who could find Vision?" Bruce asked.

After a moment of silence, Tony looked at his sister. He could tell she was thinking the same thing. They stared at each other, Bruce not knowing what was going on as they had their quiet conversation. Clara shook her head, "Probably Steve Rogers."

"Clara, call him," Bruce said.

"God we need to catch up." Clara sighed. Bruce looked at her and Tony. "Care to explain."

"The Avengers broke up," Tony explained.

Bruce looked in shock at Tony, then at Clara. "Broke up? Like a band? Like the Beatles?"

"Steve and I," she started, "we had a falling out. A hard one. We're not on speaking terms."

"What?" Bruce looked at Tony. "You too?" Tony nodded.

"Clara, listen to me," he looked back at Clara before tugging on her leather jacket sleeve. "Thor's gone. Thanos is coming. It doesn't matter who you're talking to or not." Clara's shoulders dropped with sadness. She looked down at her feet as she let the information set in. One of the Avengers, one of her friends had already been defeated by the faceless Titan. Clara sighed and dug the phone out of her pocket. She was relieved that she tucked in in her pocket when she left her room.

"Jesus is that a flip phone?" Tony asked. Clara glared at him before going to Steve's number.
Now's the time. Call him. You have to. "Clar..." Tony started. As soon as Clara was about to hit the dial button, Tony interrupted her. "Say Doc, you wouldn't happen to be moving your hair, would you?"

"Not at the moment, no," Strange said. Clara turned her attention to the hole in the ceiling. Flying debris flew by, causing the siblings to run to the door. Before going out, they gave each other a look.

"You think that's him?" Clara asked.

"Most likely," Tony sighed.

"And here I thought we were retired," Clara shrugged. With one last glance to each other, Tony and Clara opened the doors to the city, the screaming and screeching of cars drowning everything else out.