"I must remind you," Wong took his time sitting at the conference table as the portal from the Sanctum closed behind him. "This will not erase what happened. Are you certain this is what you want?"
"Anything's better than this," Tony said, speaking for the first time since they had gathered together today. A buried memory surfaced of Tony, off to the side, not joining in the discussion. The things we've seen, the things we've done, since then…
The empty chairs on the other side of the table served as the only reminders of their lost friends. No plaques, nothing but memories. Steve's perfect recall was now a curse. Sam never refrained from adding his witty comeback to any debate and if he were here… if he were here. His absence from the group tore at the gaping wound in Steve's heart but he fought it. If the plan worked, he would see him, or a version of him, again, soon.
"The people you will meet will look like your friends, but will have had different life experiences, different memories," Wong said, his legendary patience clear in his calm voice. "What we are doing is…"
"Merging our realities." Steve finished for him. Wong delved deep, discovering a dimension where the ones who survived here disappeared there, in a mysterious other place not found on maps or star charts. He wouldn't say much about it, only that he could 'see beyond that future'. He interpreted it to mean it was better they be together, leaving this world and everything familiar behind, even if it caused temporary chaos in their new reality. Somewhere out there, on a metaphysical realm, the two worlds would blend.
"All paths led us to this point. It is no small thing we are planning to do," Wong said. "I hope we are all up to the task. Once we begin, there is no returning. We must say goodbye to our lives in this dimension. Everything here, will be gone."
Steve glanced over at Tony. His jaws were tight, his eyes staring into his own personal nightmare of returning from his failed mission in space without the young Peter Parker but with a cryptic message of faint hope. Tony's experience haunted him as much as that last image of Bucky fading away remained clear in his own mind. Their shared pain brought them back together, no apologies, and no words needed, just quiet understanding that their petty differences no longer mattered.
"So, what do we do?" Tony asked, shaking recent memories out of Steve's head. "Do we go to your place, sit around in a circle, hold hands and chant…?"
Wong smiled, unfazed by Tony's sarcastic wit. "No. You wait here. The burden of completing this task is mine alone," he said.
"Will it take us back to where we were when it happened?" Rhodey asked. He hadn't been able to get over the fact he couldn't find Sam after the battle. That day he had wandered over the fields for hours, unwilling to accept that he had lost him.
"Yes. They will avoid the pain of what happened here. That will be your gift to them. Of all the people in that new reality, we here alone understand the full truth so prepare yourselves. Millions of people will return with us, suffering from mild disorientation and what memories of this life they will keep, I do not know. The realities will adjust themselves but there will be chaos for a time. What you decide here will affect all. Are you still determined to do this?"
Around the room, everyone nodded in assent. This conversation started months ago. They had agreed it was an all-or-nothing pact.
The portal opened, revealing the New York Sanctum again and with a few steps, Wong disappeared as it closed behind him. No one said anything. This decision involved weeks of debates, long sleepless nights and even though few would admit it, tears.
"Wanda was brave on the battlefield," Natasha said after a few moments, staring at the empty chairs. "So brave. She fought so hard. If we can have her back…"
"We won't be getting any of them back. We're doing a new thing here, creating a new reality. I hope it's the right thing to do," Bruce said. "The last couple of times I've experimented with the unknown, things kind of went to hell." Bruce, the last holdout. Long nights of him pacing around the room, sometimes yelling at them in exasperation, as they waited, fearful of what might happen, but Tony took him aside for a long conversation which ended in him agreeing to go along with the others. He and Natasha exchanged a glance. They put their relationship on hold during the recent crisis filling Steve with sympathy for his friends.
"And what about Clint?" Rhodey asked. It was the question they all danced around for weeks. As soon as it was all over, Clint disappeared, sinking beneath their radar, not wanting them to find him.
"He'll return, the same as the rest of the masses," Tony said. "As in, not one of us. He'll be our test case."
"Test case," Natasha said. "I don't like him being reduced to an experiment."
"It's his own fault. If he had just stayed with us…" Tony said. Natasha shot him an angry glance. She wanted to wait, to spend more time in their search but Wong insisted that it had to happen when certain mystical forces aligned. To Steve, it was just as intelligible as Tony explaining how his suits worked but when Wong shared his knowledge, all of them latched onto the possibilities it promised. Even though they had won, they could not celebrate knowing how they could not recover everything they had lost. Until now but unfortunately that meant, moving ahead without Clint.
"So what we do is, play it by ear," Steve said, moving on from Bruce's misgivings and Tony and Natasha's bickering. "I suggest we let them, the other them, take the lead in explaining things to us in this new world we are about to create."
"You mean play dumb!" Rocket spoke up from his seat on the side of the room. The little alien insisted on following Thor around since the disappearances. "What if I don't like it, what if they put me on waste extraction protocol or something?" Steve smiled despite the situation. Rocket's attitude reminded him of people he knew from the old days in Brooklyn.
"Don't worry, Rabbit, as long as you are with me, they will not abuse you." Thor's strong voice cut through the room. "I've seen and done many things in my lifetime, but this idea is something I would not have believed possible. We shall be there, as we are here, together."
"Together." Steve echoed.
They broke off into little groups. Everyone else had someone to talk to. Steve, reminded of his own loneliness, walked away until he came to the large observation room that overlooked the fields. Recent events devastated the world out there. In his mind's eyes, he could see the rubble the cities had become, the suffering caused by what had happened. The misguided attempt to bring peace and balance brought immense pain instead. If things went according to plan, they could wipe it all away. There would be no fond farewell to this place, there was only going forward. Soon, he would see Bucky and Sam again. A different Bucky and Sam but he would live a new life with them.
Without warning, he flew across a waving expanse of color. For a moment he thought this trip would turn him inside out but the disorientation went away. He wasn't falling; a force pushed him in a straight line, past glowing squares, and circles, through endless tunnels of light. He could see bits and pieces of his life play out before him, smashing together and then breaking apart again. When he thought he would disintegrate he stopped, his feet resting on solid ground.
Wakanda. A heavy mist covered his eyes, clearing until he saw himself. The other Steve gazed into his eyes, confused and then enlightenment spread across his face. He walked toward him and they melded together. He expected more, an awareness of the other Steve, but the whole process was serene. The other Steve was a ghost, gone from this place, taken from his friends the same way they took Bucky and Sam from him. All around him, from the outer reaches of the cosmos to the tiniest insect, he sensed that things blending together into a new reality, except for himself and his friends, the lone holdouts. The full impact of their actions hit him at that moment. We are playing God…
Everything was he left it, the grass, the trees and Bucky standing in front of him, still holding his gun. Steve wanted to rush over to him and hold him and not let go, but he restrained himself.
"What the hell just happened? You blinked out…" the other Bucky began. No, not the 'other Bucky'. This was Bucky. He looked the same as he did before Steve lost him.
"So did you," Steve said, keeping his distance. There was something off about his friend's mannerism, something hard to gage. He didn't move, his face impassive as he stared hard at Steve. Was he… angry? Wong said things would be different. Steve's misgivings returned. He wasn't used to uncertainty. He made hard decisions, acted on them, doing his best to never back down but now was not one of those times.
A noise to the side of them distracted their attention. Sam bounded out of the undergrowth, without his wings. Once again, Steve restrained himself from running up to his friend and pulling him into an embrace.
"Hey man! We won! Thor took out that purple grape and we're still here!" That was his Sam. Rhodey, not wearing his War Machine armor followed him. He and Steve gave each other a slight nod. There was no preparing for the sight of Sam running toward Bucky and throwing his arm around him, giving him a big side hug. Bucky allowed himself a small smile, but the frown returned. Steve hide his reaction, but behind them, Rhodey's face betrayed pure astonishment.
"Damn it, Colonel Rhodes vanished. I was running through the bushes looking for him but then there he was…" Sam continued as he pulled away. He turned his head to follow Bucky's line of sight. His smile vanished when he saw Steve. He glanced back at Bucky whose stern contour had not changed and then back to Steve.
"This is awkward," he said.
"That's one word for it," Bucky said, taking his finger off the trigger and positioning his gun so it pointed upright in a safe position. "I told T'Challa I would fight for Wakanda, I'd do anything he wanted as long as he," Bucky pointed a metal finger at Steve, "stayed on the other side of the battlefield from me. That was the agreement."
Steve was at a loss. Rhodey was no help, his face now registering confusion, gave Steve a slight shrug of his shoulders.
"Maybe, you'd better go," Sam said to Steve, obviously trying to be a mediator. "Find out who else made it and see if anybody else experienced that weird… blink out... thing."
"Don't bother." Bucky graced Steven with a withering look. A sharp memory of the Winter Soldier returned. Steve watched his friend turn away, walking away with that same determined strut he used when he hunted down his prey. The three of them stood still as he entered the forest.
Sam turned his attention back to Steve. "What the hell were you thinking?" he asked.
Steve forced himself to recover from the shock. He had to be careful, remembering the words of Rocket. Play dumb. "I was hoping we could put it all behind us, start over."
Sam sighed. "A good thought, and you being the optimist, would think that, but no. You know how to fix this. Get Mr. Stark to call off his operatives. And an apology wouldn't hurt. You did kind of turn his world upside down." He turned and followed Bucky, disappearing into the edge of the forest.
Steve and Rhodey stood still for a few minutes, staring at the line of trees as if they expected it to give up its secrets.
"What the hell happened here?" Steve asked.
Rhodey shook his head. "I thought nothing could tear the two of you apart." He was silent for a minute, staring at the ground but something jerked him out of his reverie. "Wait…. what did he call me Colonel Rhodes? Not Rhodey, Colonel Rhodes. Nobody on the team calls me that. Tony has… operatives? What the hell does that mean?"
Steve shook his head. "It doesn't sound good. Judging from what we just heard, he's in for a big surprise when he comes back."
"If he comes back," Rhodey said. "We might be out of our depth down here. Who knows what he's run into up there."
"He'll come back," Steve said with more confidence than he felt. "He has to." The two men walked together, following Bucky and Sam into the unknown.