So, you're saying that a purple alien, wanted to find a bunch of magic space rocks, one of which was in the robot's head, so that he could put them on a magic glove and kill half the universe?" Scott asked.
"Yes, that's exactly what happened." Tony answered. Scott, Hope, and Hank were meeting with the rest of the Avengers in Wakanda to discuss their next moves.
"Wow, okay." Scott was having trouble believing this, and he had a suit that allowed him shrike to the size of an ant and grow to the size of a giant.
"And we need your knowledge of the quantum realm to help us travel back in time." Bruce said.
"We should not be changing time." Dr. Pym said. "That will create a paradox, which we do not want."
"Wait, whats a paradox?" Scott asked, a little lost.
"Its something that is self-contradictory when taken to it's logical conclusion." Hank answered.
"So…"
"Imagine you went back in time and killed your grandfather before your father was born." Bruce said. "Then you would never be born. Then you would not be alive to kill your grandfather, and you would be still be born. And on and on and on."
"Okay, so if I run into any of your grandfathers' in the past, I'll try not to kill 'em. Alright?" Rocket said.
"It's not that simple, Rocket." Shuri said. "The smallest change in the past could cause a very large change in the future."
"I'm sorry but are you having a conversation with a Raccoon?" Scott asked.
"Hey I have a name!" Rocket yelled angrily. "And I'm not a racoon!"
"No, I'm pretty sure you're a raccoon."
Rocket jumped off the table he was standing on and moved right up to Scott, pulled his gun out and pointed it at Scott's face. "Call me raccoon one more time and they're going to be cleaning that smug look of your's off the ceiling."
Steve moved towards them and calmly pushed Rocket's gun down. "Hey, we're on the same side, remember? Now is not the time for petty arguments."
Rocket begrudgingly put his gun away and walked away, while repeating Cap's words in a making voice.
"Back to the point at hand…" Dr Pym started. "Going back in time is the last thing we want to do."
"No." Tony responded. "Facing Thanos without the information we need is the last thing we wanna do."
"I'm pretty sure facing Thanos at all is the last thing any of us want to do." Clint interrupted.
"It may not be what we want to do, but it's what we have to." Clint said.
"Steve's right." Natasha said. "We beat Thanos and we might have a chance at fixing everything."
"And our only chance of beating Thanos is by going back in time." Tony finished Nat's point.
"And when you do travel back in time, what will you do?" Hope asked.
"I need to talk to Doctor Strange." Tony answered. "He had the time stone before Thanos took it. He was able to see the one scenario in which we beat Thanos. We need to go back to when he had the time stone, and find out how we win in that one scenario."
"So you want to travel back in time so that you can get a wizard to travel to the future?" Hank question Tony. "Did you think that maybe we had already failed this one scenario? Or that the one scenario required you to not know how you win? This is why I never trust you Starks, you don't think these things through. Your weapons were given to terrorists, you created Ultron, and now this."
"Oh I've thought this through plenty." Tony walked up to Hank. "I've thought about how half the universe was killed by a homicidal maniac, and this is the only way to beat this guy and bring everyone back."
Tony and Hank stared each other down. Steve broke the silence by saying "Listen Dr. Pym, no one is planning on breaking any timelines here. We just want to go back and learn what we can about Thanos, and how we can defeat him."
"So what are you suggesting we do?" Bruce asked.
"Why don't we just go back and take the infinity stones before Thanos gets them?" Hawkeye asked.
"There are too many variables in that. Who knows how history could change if the infinity stones suddenly disappeared." Hank answered.
"We should go back and find out what we can about Thanos, and the power of these Infinity Stones, and then use that against him in battle." Steve said.
Hank was silent for a few seconds. "Fine." The doctor said. "Where is the lab?" He asked.
"Some of my servants will take you to your rooms and then the lab." Shuri answered. "Mr. Stark, Dr. Banner and myself will meet you down there."
—-
"So this device you found would store your atoms within it while it takes you through time and space?" Hank asked as he analyzed the piece of Hydra technology.
"That's our theory." Tony said. "We heard about some of your research into the Quantum realm and thought that might be the link we needed to make it work."
"It's possible." Hank said. "He looked towards the other scientists in the room. "In the quantum realm, time and space cease to exist in the sense that we know them. In our experiments and journeys into the realm, we have only been able to travel forward in time in very small increments."
"How small are you talking?" Bruce asked.
"A few seconds at most. The same with moving through space. When we would come out of the realm, the most we would have moved is a few centimetres."
"But if you were able to get this device to access the quantum realm, do you think that we would be able to travel back further?" Shuri asked.
"It's possible. I'll need to run some analysis on this device. And we will need to find a way to allow the device to utilize pym particles so that it would actually be able to access the quantum realm."
"Alright, let's get to work then." Tony said.
—
Peter was still travelling through the barren, orange lands. He had no idea where he was, or how long he had been there. He never ran into anyone else. He was left a lone with his own thoughts.
Peter had been able to piece together what exactly had happened. He was fighting some evil alien over a wizard's necklace, because it had something called a time stone in it. And if this alien got the time stone then half of all life would cease to exist. The alien beat them, got the stone, and then people started disappearing. He was one of those people.
Peter wondered if this was the afterlife. It wasn't all clouds and angels playing harps or whatever like people described heaven, and it wasn't all filled with fire and torture like how people talked about hell. Where ever he was, it was just, empty.
Peter kept walking for a while. He was slowing giving up hope that he would find anyone. Eventually he got tired, dropped to the ground, and fell asleep.
When he woke up, he thought he was hallucinating. He looked up, and thought that he saw silhouettes in the distance. He immediately stood up. He looked closer. Those definitely looked like people. Peter ran towards them, hoping it wasn't just his brain playing tricks on him.
As he got closer, he started to make out the figures. The first person he recognized was Doctor Strange, the wizard he and Mr. Stark left earth with. Then he saw the other Peter, the one who called himself Star-lord, and his friends, the green, muscular one, and the one with the antennae. Peter was getting hopeful. He finally wouldn't be alone in this strange place.
"Hey." Peter called out. "Hey guys, it's me." He kept calling to them. Eventually they saw him, stopped and waiting for him to get closer. Peter had so many questions. He ran up to them and started asking "Where have you guys been? Where are we? What is this place? What happened? What…"
"Calm down kid." The other Peter said.
"Boy am I glad to see you guys." Spidey said. "so uhh, where are we?"
"I think we are in the soul stone." Dr. Strange said as he looked around at the environment.
"How could we all fit in a stone? It's tiny." The green, muscular guy asked, completely serious. Peter was having trouble remembering everyone's name.
"Our bodies aren't here, our souls are." Strange explained. "When Thanos one, he trapped all of our souls in here."
"The wizard is correct." The one with the antennae said. She looked out into the vast environment. "Our bodies have been destroyed, and Thanos used the soul stone to capture all our souls." She said, sounding quite scared.
"Our bodies aren't destroyed though, mine's right here." The green one said.
"Have you not been listening to what we've been saying?" Strange asked, getting annoyed. "That's not your body, its just your soul."
"But…" the green alien started but was cut-off by other Peter.
"How come we only found each other now, and not earlier? We all disappeared in the same spot." He asked.
"You guys only just found each other?" Spider-man asked.
"Yes, only just a few minutes before you got here." Other Peter said.
"Something's changing with the stone." Dr. Strange started. "We spent weeks alone and just know we find each other. Something is different."
"So what does that mean?" Other Peter asked.
"I don't know. But I can sense there is something different. It almost feels… weaker."
"So can we escape then?"
"No. Not really. Its still very strong. Its more like Thanos is losing control of the stone."
"Serves that Bastard right." Other Peter said angrily. "First he kills Gamora, and now us! When we get out of here, I am so gonna kill him in ways he couldn't even imagine." Other Peter exclaimed.
"What, so we are going to get out of here?" Peter asked, excitedly. He was only 16, he still had to graduate, get a job, and do so many other things.
"Maybe." Doctor Strange said. Everyone looked towards him. "But all we can do right now is hope that the Avengers are on the right path."