Bound By Purpose

One

The groups have seperated. Peter Quill and his 'Guardians' survey the surrounding area, "The heck happened to this planet? It's eight degrees off its axis. Gravitational pull is all over the place." Peter stands up and looks up at the sky. Mantis and Peter Parker bounce in a spot of low gravity. Tony and I sit together and Strange stands behind us observing. I know Tony's head is spinning, mine is as well, but now is not the time for distractions.

 "What are the chances of you sitting this one out?" I look over at Tony and find that his attention is still forward.

"Tony I'm not talking about this right now."

"I'm serious." He looks at me now. There's something in his voice that stops me from resisting his opinion any longer. 

"This is too dire for me not to fight Tony. I'll stay at a distance, but I'm not sitting aside." Tony turns behind us to Strange. 

"You wizards can make portals?"

Strange looks from Tony to me and then nods without a word. Tony turns back to me but I'm already shaking my head. Before I can protest he puts his hands on my own. "I won't ask you to leave now, but..." He looks back up Strange, "If things get bad... You fall back to Wakanda, you warn the others, and stop this son of a bitch."

"I'll go." I say suddenly. "If things get out of hand, I'll go willingly." I peer up at Strange who gives me a nod before turning away from the two of us.

"I swear if it comes to it, I will throw you through that portal myself, the kid too." Peter is far away but I'm sure he picked up the mention. 

I squeeze his armored hand with my own, "It won't come to that." I say with a reassuring smile. 

"Yeah, well we got one advantage." Tony says getting up with a groan. "He's coming to us. We'll use it." He pulls me to my feet and then addresses our ragtag group. "All right, I have a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one. It's pretty simple. We draw him in, pin him down, get what we need. Definitely don't wanna dance with this guy. We just want the gauntlet." The group has come together now but the Guardians really don't seem all that interested. Drax yawns. "Are you yawning?" Tony inquires quite offended. "In the middle of this, while I'm breaking it down? Huh? Did you hear what I said?"

"I stopped listening after you said, "We need a plan."

"Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page." Tony mutters under his breath.

"Ya, see, "not winging it" isn't really what they do." Quill says, also disinterested.

"Uh, what exactly is it that they do?" Parker asks.

"Kick names, take ass." Mantis speaks for the first time and she has the voice of kitten. 

"Yeah, that's right." Drax says falling into a stance as if he were going to take on Thanos at this very moment.

Tony looks absolutely hopeless, "Alright, just get over here, please. Mr. Lord, can you get your folks to circle up?"

"Mr. Lord." Star-Lord is fine." This whole group is just a bunch of jokers.

I look over at Tony who seems just as annoyed as I am. "We gotta coalesce. 'Cause if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude..."

Quill finally seems to be paying attention, "Dude, don't call us plucky. We don't know what it means. Alright, we're optimistic, yes. I like your plan. Except it sucks, so let me do the plan, and that way it might be really good."

"Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe." Drax laughs from the background. Everyone looks beyond Quill to see what the hell Drax is on about.

"What dance-off?" Tony asks, actually intrigued.

"It's not a... it's not... it's nothing." Quill looks down embarrassed. 

Parker steps forward and looks completely enamored, "Like in Footloose, the movie?" He says in awe.

Quill smiles largely, "Exactly like Footloose. Is it still the greatest movie in history?"

"It never was." Parker says still in awe.

"Tony said no more pop culture references kid. Don't encourage this." I say nearly breaking into a laugh.

"Yeah, we're getting no help from Flash Gordon here." Tony turns away from the group.

Quill calls out after him "Flash Gordon? By the way, that's a compliment. Don't forget, I'm half human. So that 50% of me that's stupid? That's 100% you."

Tony turns back around and looks absolutely dumbfounded, "Your math is blowing my mind."

"Excuse me, but..." Mantis has timidly stepped forward, "does your friend often do that?" We all collectively turn to Strange. He sits cross-legged, floating slightly above the ground, his hands poised in a mystic gesture with the Time Stone glowing brightly. His eyes are closed and his head is jerking rapidly from side to side, the motion blurring. I run up to his side as does Tony. 

"Strange! We alright?" Strange snaps out of his trance, letting out a cry and falling forward. Tony and I catch him, easing him to the ground. "You're back. You're alright."

I see the Time Stone glowing faintly now. "Did you just time travel?" I ask intrigued but also a little unnerved.

Strange pants with his answer, "I went forward in time to view alternate futures. To see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict."

 "How many did you see?" Quill has come to our side and he seems a lot more focused now.

"14,000,605." His answer comes without a hitch.

"How many did we win?" I glance in between Tony and Strange. There's a pause.

"One."  My stomach drops.

Tony turns obviously upset. I put a hand on Strange's shoulder and let him grab my arm to get up. He seems recovered enough. Tony turns back to us flustered. " Send them back." I freeze, annoyed that we have to discuss this again.

"Tony..."

"NO! I don't want to hear it. Strange you're going to send both her and the kid back to Earth right now and we're going to make a plan to stop this son of a bitch, or at least slow him down."

"Mr. Stark?" I turn to Peter Parker. "We can take care of ourselves, we can help." I realize the answer to this insistent debate is still clutching my arm.

"Doctor? You've seen the future... What do we do?" Tony stops arguing with Peter and waits to hear his answer. 

Strange shakes his head. "I can't tell you what's going to happen. It has to be your choice."

I turn back to Tony. "The kid and I are staying. If we want to stop this Thanos... or at least buy our guys some time... You'll need us. We win together. We lose together."

"The team isn't together though is it?" I look down in shame, but then come face to face with him.

"I guarantee that everyone... Rhodes, Cap, T'Challa, Vision, Sam, Nat, Bruce... They're all working together down there to do what needs to be done. We make our stand here and do whatever we can for them. This isn't about the team anymore Tony. I know you know how big this is. We've both seen it play out, we can't let it end the same way." Peter steps to my side.

"Mr. Stark we can do this. Let me do this." Tony looks from him to me. I know he's scared, any rational person would be in the face of losing those you care for. He nods his head once then twice. He turns to Quill.

"We've got one shot at this. Let's not waste it." He blows by us and heads towards the Guardian's ship. I notice Peter smiling up at me so I return the favor even though I can feel the pit in my gut warning me of what's to come.