“What do you mean he’s dead?”
“We should have seen this coming. I mean they did say they were orphans.”
“How did he die?”
The kids glanced uncomfortably between the adults. “I don’t think we can answer all your questions. I mean it’s bad enough that we ended up here, and met you all. It’s worse that you figured out who we are. Isn’t it dangerous if we gave up all the secrets of the future?”
The Avengers pondered this for a couple of moments.
“He’s got a point.”
“This means Nat dies too.”
“How did he die?”
“Do all of us die?”
“The future sounds terrible!”
Steve cleared his throat and everything quieted. “I don’t need to know how I die. It’s inevitable. I just need to know one thing. Are you two ok in the future? Who’s taking care of you?”
James was quiet, but after a moment, Sarah spoke up. “The future is different. I can see just by listening and watching your interactions that things are better here.” She paused. “You’re blissfully ignorant of what happens in the future. Our father gave his life to save the world. Our mother disappeared to save the world. We’ve been on our own ever since.”
“Wait,” Rhodey said, “So you’ve got no family or friends to stay with.”
“Very few people do. The world has half the population it does in this time.”
“What?!”
“How?!”
“That’s a difference of 4.5 billion people!”
“How did that happen?”
“I’m sorry. We can’t answer all your questions because we ourselves don’t know the whole story.”
The team was silent for a while. “I’m sorry.” Steve said.
“For what?”
“For everything that I do in the future that hurts you, and causes you to have to live in a world that is in that darkened state.”
YOU ARE READING
The Irony of it All
FanfictionLove is for children. At least that's what Natasha had been taught in the Red Room. At the age of just twelve years old, she made her first kill. They made her into a monster. Her body was trained and pushed to the limits, surgically altered to take...
