The Beginning of the End (Elanor)

Chapter 6

        I'd sat in my room, staring at the wall and attempting to process everything, for a little while longer before deciding to join the others. I pulled up images of the people we'd fought, while Nat managed to find the two that attacked Wanda and Vision in Berlin. I recognized them as Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glave, but couldn't find the strength in me to speak. So instead, I leaned against the wall and listened as everyone talked things out. Rhodey stared at the pictures for a while, clearly contemplating before speaking up.

        "So we gotta assume they're coming back, right?" he asked as Bruce circled around him. "And they can clearly find us."

        "We need all hands on deck. Where's Clint?" Everyone glanced at each other before flashing our eyes to Bruce, feeling somewhat sympathetic toward his ignorance.

        "After the whole Accords situation, he and Scott took a deal," Nat explained. "It was too tough on their families. They're on house arrest."

        "Who's Scott?"

        "Ant-Man."

        "There's an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?" Rhodey nodded, almost looking exhausted with the amount of people we had to keep track of. "Thanos has the biggest army in the universe, and he's not gonna stop until he gets... Vision's stone." My hand rested on the red gem against my chest. I'd been able to hide it before, but if Thanos came for it, something told me I wouldn't be strong enough to keep him at bay. "And I'm sure he'll find you, Ela." I nodded, gripping the necklace tighter.

        "Then we have to protect them."

        "No, we have to destroy mine." Slowly, we all looked over at Vision, leaning against the window with one hand on his stab wound. He looked out at the line of trees as he spoke. It was clear he'd thought about this before he'd arrived, and at this point, his mind was made up.

        "I've been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head." He pointed to the yellow stone. "About its nature. But also its composition. I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source, something very similar to its own signature, perhaps... its molecular integrity could fail." The whole time he spoke, he looked Wanda in the eyes and stepped closer to her.

        "Yeah, and you with it. We're not having this conversation."

        "Eliminating the stone is the only way to be certain that Thanos can't get it."

        "That's too high a price." Vision shook his head and rested his hands against the side of her head.

        "Only you have the power to pay it."       

        I had to admit, I was touched by their sincerity. There had been a part of me that was a little confused by their relationship, but that partially was because they hadn't really been around for me to see them with each other.        

        "Thanos threatens half the universe. One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him."

        "But it should." I refused to even look in the direction of the voice's source. What right did he have to give his input for this situation? "We don't have to trade lives, Vision."

        "Captain, seventy years ago, you laid your life down to save how many millions of people? Tell me, why is this any different?"

        Something clicked in my brain, and I pushed myself off the wall and looked over the group, leaving out a person on my left.

        "Because you might have a choice. Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays. JARVIS, Ultron, Uncle Tony, Bruce, the Stone. All of them mixing together, and all of them learning from one another."