The Liberty War || Infinity War & Endgame

Chapter Twenty-Three: Inevitability

Music is "Infinity" by Jaymes Young.

Picture is Tatiana Maslany as Emma Barnes.

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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Inevitability

It's been a little over an hour since the Avengers' reunion, but besides looking over the Quinjet footage and explaining what happened in Edinburgh, we're no closer to finding a solution. The only productive thing that's happened is finding out where exactly Bruce Banner has been for the past three years.

Sakaar, apparently. He claims his memory is patchy, since he was in Hulk-form for most of those three years, but evidently he was a gladiator-esque champion of an alien ruler called the Grandmaster. The Hulk was his favorite champion. At least, he was until Thor and Loki showed up. The Odinson brothers teamed up with a Asgardian Valkyrie and Bruce to break out of Sakaar and get to Asgard, where they would go up against Thor's evil half-sister. They won, but only after Asgard was destroyed.

"Where is Thor now?" I ask, worried.

Bruce's face falls. "All the survivors of Asgard piled onto a couple ships. Thor and I were on one with Loki and Valkyrie, along with hundreds of other survivors. We were on our way here when...when he attacked."

"Who?" Steve asks sternly.

Bruce turns to him with terror over his face. "Thanos. He's this big, purple warlord from Titan. He's the one that sent Loki to New York. He wanted the Tesseract from Loki and destroyed our ship and everyone on it in the process. I saw him kill Loki, but I doubt Thor is alive either."

A moment of silence falls over the group. I clench my fists tightly. I didn't know Thor very well, just from the few days fighting his adopted brother, but to hear that anyone has died like that...I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Natasha is the first to recover herself. "Did he get it? The Tesseract?"

Bruce nods. "Loki took it from Odin's vault before Asgard blew up. He only gave it over when Thanos threatened to kill Thor."

"Sounds like a hint of redemption to me," I mutter.

"Loki was the god of mischief, not evil," Bruce admits. "He had his good moments."

"Why the Tesseract?" Sam inquires. "Thanos couldn't used other sources of power, right?"

"The Tesseract is an Infinity Stone," Vision replies. "It's unlike any other object in the universe." He taps the jewel in his forehead. "Like this one."

"Thanos wants all of them," adds Bruce. "There are six, and he already has two with the Tesseract. There are two others off-world that he needs, but there are two on Earth that he'll come for."

My head perks up. "Two?"

Bruce nods. "Vision's stone and another. Until this morning, a magician had it in Greenwich Village."

I hop up from my seat along the wall and move to the holo-screen. Maneuvering my hands, I pull up the footage from this morning, just before Tony left the planet after the spaceship. I zoom in on the battlefield that they created in Brooklyn, pointing to a figure cloaked in scarlet.

"Him?"

Bruce nods again. "Stephen Strange. He had the Time Stone. Vision has the Mind Stone. Whoever came for them, they won't stop until they get it."

I wave my hand, and the screen changes back to the female and male aliens we encountered at the train station.

"So, we gotta assume they're coming back, right?" Rhodey asks the obvious.