Resilience | ✔

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Marley hurtled into the sky, falling into place between Wanda and the woman on the pegasus. She could do a hell of a lot more in the sky than she could on the ground. One of the big worms up ahead—she'd take that one down, she decided. Somehow.

Okay, change of plans, she thought, watching as the Enormous Airport Man punched it in the head and sent it careening into the front line of enemy troops. I'll stick to the smaller stuff.

"F.R.I.D.A.Y., open a private commlink to Peter." She fired off three quick successive blasts, taking down a skiff that had been aiming for a group of Wakandan soldiers.

"Open, boss."

"Hey, Peter," she said, diving to avoid being knocked out of the air by a random flailing alien that seemed to have been thrown by someone. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"

"Yeah—one sec—gotta help your dad—"

Her dad was here? She hadn't seen him. She almost asked where they were, but—Peter could handle himself, and so could Tony. She ducked a burst of laser fire and hurled repulsor blasts in return, smirking as they hit their mark. She glanced down at the field and froze.

A glint of golden hair.

Camo cargoes.

Marley slammed to the ground beside Beck, shooting the alien behind her best friend in the face point-blank. It died with a screech. Beck turned, and in that moment Marley knew something was wrong.

She looked old.

Not like a grandma old, but . . . older. Like she was in her twenties. She had a scar on her face, from her cheekbone down to her neck.

Marley folded down her helmet. "What the hell happened?"

Beck went absolutely still. Staring at Marley like she was a ghost. "What . . . what are you doing here?"

Marley shot an alien over her friend's shoulder. "I decided to have a picnic. You know, same old, same old—"

Beck yanked her into a bone-crushing hug. Clinging to Marley like she'd just woken up from a coma. Something warm and wet dripped onto Marley's neck. Tears. Beck was crying. Beck who never cried. This only served to freak Marley out further. What the hell had happened?

"Beck, honey," she said, unsure at the honey as soon as it came out of her mouth, "you know I love you but—right now doesn't really seem like the best time to do this? Case and point: the aliens running towards us?"

Beck let go of her, turned around, and threw something. The five aliens that were all charging towards them reeled back and collapsed. Were those—throwing stars?

"You missed a lot," Beck said, facing Marley again. She really was crying. "You got dusted. I didn't."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Beck shoved her out of the way and neatly punched a knife through the back of an alien's throat. "Long story short, Thanos won, snapped half the universe's population away, you included, and it's been five years and thanks to Scott Lang—Ant-Man, the big guy—we managed to get all the Infinity Stones and snap you guys back. I don't know where the Stones are now but we need to make sure Thanos doesn't get them."

"It's been five years," Marley repeated dully, watching as Beck ducked under an alien's claws and stabbed it. She seemed to have knives attached to her fingerless gloves. No, built into her gloves, and she could control how long they got. Holy cow, that was cool.

"Five years," Beck confirmed. "Look—I know it's a lot, but if you try to process it right now you'll die. Just keep fighting, and we can talk about it after the battle, okay?"