Always and Forever

Chapter 17

"We have to get back to Earth," I said, getting up. "We have to get back. I have to see if Lexi, or Ned, or May...."

"Hey, hey, we will," Tony said. He was trying to stay calm for me, but his voice shook when he talked. He turned to Nebula. "Can you fly Quill's ship?"

Nebula nodded and led the way to Quill's ship. We climbed on, and Nebula did a run down of the ship before we tried to take off. "The fuel cells are cracked," she said.

"Shit," Tony said, calling his nanites back into his housing unit and looking at me. "How can we fix them?"

"We can reverse the ion charge," I said, also calling my suit back into my housing unit. "That'll buy us about 48 hours of flight time that we can use sporadically."

"Is there welding equipment on the ship?" Tony asked Nebula.

"I'll go get it," she said, walking away.

I knelt down and started studying the fuel cells. "Hey, why don't you go sit down and let Nebula and I handle this?" Tony asked.

"I know what you're doing, and I'm fine," I said as I picked up one of the fuel cells.

"Allie, you just lost three people you were close with. You need to take a breath."

"I need to fix these fuel cells so we can get home."

Tony started to get annoyed and spat, "Can't you use some of your new powers to get us back then?"

I stood up. "Don't start with me about the powers."

"When were you planning on telling me?"

"Never? I don't know! How would you have reacted if I had? If I had just walked up to you and said, 'oh, and by the way, the guy you're super mad at for Manhattan, yeah, he taught me all his tricks'. I don't think you would've been too happy about it."

"Maybe not, but I would've had a reason behind it! Loki was evil!"

"You didn't know him like I did! He was hurting, Tony! He had just found out he had been living a lie his whole life! And right at the end of his life, right before he was killed by Thanos, he started to change! He started doing good! He wanted to change, and he never got the chance because he was murdered! He was never evil, he was just misunderstood! Everyone called him a monster, and eventually he believed them! That was never his fault!"

I stormed away to the front of the ship, ready to cry from a mixture of anger and sadness. I knelt down and drove my fist into the floor, tears starting to stream down my face. I could hear Tony and Nebula working on the fuel cells behind me, and it wasn't until a couple hours later when they were done that Tony walked up to me. "Look, Allie, I'm sorry," he said as he sat on the floor next to me.

I wiped the tears from my face and looked at my hands. "Loki taught me how to do so many things with just these and my mind," I said. "I was hoping he would teach me more when he got to Earth. That's never gonna happen now."

"I didn't mean what I said about Loki. Ok, I did, but I didn't realize what he had gone through. And now I get it. It's still no excuse for what he did, but at least it explains why he did it."

"He just needed someone to show him love. I was that person."

"I know. And I'm so sorry for your loss."

"Thanks for that. I know it was hard for you to say."

"Yeah." He pulled me into a hug. "I love you kid."

"I love you too Tony."

Nebula walked up to us. "Get in a seat," she said. "We need to get going."