Been There, Blown That Up
Summary: After Loki's defeat and his fall from the portal, Tony starts preaching about a murderous purple titan out to get them in the depths of space.
Wait. What?
On the other side of the universe, Nebula loses her cool approximately two seconds after laying eyes on Thanos and finds herself on a wild chase through the galaxy. Now, where exactly was that pathetic piece of rock Terra again?
Chapter 19
"So you're telling me you had an invitation to Avengers tower–"
"I'd hardly call it an invitation. A summon, maybe."
"You had an invitation to Avengers tower," Scott repeated, just in case he hadn't put enough incredulity into his sentence the first time around, "and you didn't take it? Why?!"
Hope's lips tightened the way they always did when Scott said something to make her smile, but she didn't want to give him the satisfaction. "It may have to do with the fact that my father and Stark are mortal enemies."
"You've never cared about that," Scott said. "You're not your father. And it's the Avengers!"
"The public didn't exactly know much about them when Stark invited me." Hope paused. "They were still busy with the cleanup, then."
"Are you kidding? That makes it even worse!" Scott tried to lower his voice when a passing SI employee gave him an odd glance. He tried to give them a winning smile and picked up his rant once they'd entered an elevator and were on their way to the top of the building. "You could have gotten to meet them before they were famous!"
Hope shook her head mildly. Her lips were pinched, which told Scott that she was still fighting a smile. "Maybe I should have just sent you in my stead."
"No way. I would have probably barfed at Black Widow's feet or something."
Nevermind that Hope and he hadn't even known each other back then. Scott hadn't had long to come to terms with his sort of, kind of superhero status. (Did this put him on the same level as the Avengers? Definitely not. It did, however, put them in a vaguely related orbit, which in itself was enough to make Scott dizzy with amazement.) He'd only now found out about Hope's continued stubbornness in refraining from visiting Avengers tower.
She may not have inherited her father's dislike of Stark, but she definitely had Hank's stubbornness.
"I'd appreciate if you didn't vomit at my feet."
Scott startled violently and bumped into Hope.
Black Widow stood in front of them as though she hadn't just sneaked up on them ninja-style after overhearing Scott giving her the likely worst possible first impression of himself.
"I'm meeting my first Avenger," Scott whispered, knowing that his wide-eyed stare was probably starting to look creepy but unable to do anything about it.
Black Widow's lips curled into a smile, and Scott relished the shiver it sent down his spine.
Things only went uphill from there.
Scott messed up the salute he offered War Machine, but he must have made up for it with sheer enthusiasm because Colonel Rhodes gave him an amused smile and a salute in return.
He almost tore Bruce Banner's arm out of its socket when he offered his hand for a handshake.
By the time Scott stood opposite of actual Captain America – sans shield and uniform, but no less intimidatingly patriotic and awesome – he was close to bursting into tears.
"This is the best day of my life," he hiss-whispered to Hope when he thought nobody else was listening in – although if his smug smile was anything to go by, Hawkeye must have been well-versed in the art of lip-reading.
He calmed down marginally after Stark's AI butler asked them to make themselves comfortable in the tower while they waited – apparently, punctuality was not something a billionaire superhero valued.
Seeing as it stretched out the amount of time Scott would spent in the coolest place on Earth on the best day of his life, he wasn't going to complain.
By the time twenty minutes had passed, Scott was busy dutifully oohing and ahhing over the pieces of tech a little dark-skinned girl showed him from something she called 'science camp'. (Scott wasn't exactly sure why there was a little girl in the tower. Nobody questioned her presence, and her science talk sounded as though she was right at home, so who was he to question it?)
If Hope had at one point been irritated at being made to wait, she'd definitely forgotten all about it while she'd struck up a conversation with someone who looked like an actual, real alien.
"I am no fighter," the girl told Hope (Was her name actually Mantis? While definitely easy to remember, it would somewhat overdo the whole insect theme her appearance had going on.), her eyes rapidly flipping between meeting Hope's gaze and dropping down into her lap. "But I am training my powers so I can be of use to my friends."
Hope hummed. "I don't have powers myself, but my parents… they built this suit. It started out as scientific equipment, but lately we've been using it to help people."
Mantis' eyes brightened up. "Like Tony and his friends do!"
"Exactly." Hope's lips curved in a smile. "Like the Avengers do."
"Are you still listening?"
Scott whirled around his head with extremely guilty, oops-you-caught-me widened eyes. "But of course, Your Grace."
Shuri snorted. "That's not how you say it, either."
"It isn't? No way!" Scott huffed out an incredulous breath. "I'll get it right next time for sure."
He still had plenty left on his list: Dame, Most Honorable and Excellency among them. Scott wondered if Shuri'd appreciate being called Khaleesi. Did they have American television in Africa? Scott certainly didn't know any African TV shows.
"Mr. Stark has just entered the tower," JARVIS said, bringing both of their conversations to an impromptu halt.
Sure enough, Tony Stark entered the room as though none of the people inside – aliens and super soldiers and genius children – were anything to get excited about.
"J," he said, taking large steps into the common area, "we've got incoming."
There was a thud from outside the building that Scott could have sworn shook the floor.
Hope raised an eyebrow at Stark. "Bad time?"
Stark had the courtesy to wince. "It's always busy here," he replied, sending Hope what could count for an apologetic look. "Thanks for coming. Haven't forgotten about you. I swear I'll come around to you, as soon as... well, after this."
'This', as in 'the arrival of yet another famously amazing member of his team'. Thor looked even bigger than he did on TV – Scott was pretty sure his bicep was wider than Scott's head.
"How'd you know he was coming?" Scott asked, impressed with himself that he managed to get out the words without stumbling over them. Thor must have had some sort of magnetic attraction, because he couldn't seem to take his eyes away from him.
He was also sure he was one more celebrity/superhero away from fainting on the spot, and desperately hoped that they weren't hiding yet another icon somewhere in the tower until he'd had a little time to digest the events of the day.
"I flew here," Stark replied as though he wasn't one of the only humans able to utter a sentence like that. "I could see the storm clouds miles away."
"Take your time and don't worry about us." Hope leaned back on the couch, looking far too casual considering their circumstances. "This is the most excited I've ever seen Scott."
Scott didn't have the time to feel affronted about being talked about like an excitable toddler. Or maybe a puppy. Thor stormed into the room with long, booming strides and pulled all the attention towards himself.
"Tony," he said as soon as his eyes landed on his teammate, steering towards him while tugging along a considerably less intimidating looking (human?) woman.
She allowed herself to gently-insistently be dragged along, wearing a half-exasperated, half-amused expression.
"You need to fix her," Thor said, all but thrusting his lady companion in Stark's face.
"Um," Stark said, "right. Hello to you too, buddy." He took in the newcomer with a brief glance. "Hey, I guess. Welcome to the tower. And you are..."
"Jane," the woman said, eyes twitching around the room and looking more flustered than intimidated by the people she'd been dropped in the middle of. "Jane Fo–"
"Foster. Right, of course."
"We need your help," Thor insisted, undeterred by the pleasantries being exchanged around his frantic request. "You must know what we need to do. The Aether has taken hold of Jane's body and refuses to let go. Whatever we've done to help her in the future, we must do so again."
Scott nodded along feverishly. He had no idea what Thor was talking about, but the way he said it made it sound like they should absolutely drop whatever they were doing and help out his friend.
"Wait. Did he say 'in the future'?"
"The Aether as in the reality stone?" Stark's eyes widened in alarm.
"Yes," Thor said. "Tell me, what did we do to free her the first time? We shall do so again and destroy the stone before it can cause more harm than it already has."
"'The first time'?" Scott said.
"Thor..." Stark scanned Foster with a long, hesitant gaze. "I don't know how to tell you this, but... I didn't do anything to help the first time."
Thor blinked. "What?"
"You told us some of it afterward. Something about Dark Elves? You were in London at the time, no idea why. But you must have taken care of it yourself."
"Can we rewind to the part where you were talking about something that happened in the future?" Either Scott had become part of one of the coolest conversations he'd ever have in his life, or he needed to accept the fact that his idols had collectively lost their minds.
"Okay. Okay, just," Stark pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm usually great at multitasking, but this is just too much. J, give Arrietty and Thumbelina the SparkNote version. Thor, Doctor Foster, with me."
Thor did as he was told, a mild frown on his face. "You truly do not know anything about the Aether?"
"Afraid not." Stark turned around just short of reaching the elevators. "But what's the point of keeping this many brilliant people around if one of them doesn't manage to figure something out?"
Tony wondered how it was that with so many geniuses in one room, they couldn't seem to be getting anywhere. He was beginning to entertain the hypothesis that starting from a certain number, everybody's brilliancy simply started to cancel each other out.
Bruce, never one for large crowds of people, pushed down his discomfort and made the first start. "What do you already know about the reality stone?"
"Not much," Foster admitted. "Pretty much only what Thor told me. I know that it acts as a sort of defense mechanism: it manifests outside of my body when it feels threatened."
"Sounds good," Rocket said. "Let's poke it."
"Erm." Bruce blinked. "Maybe that's not... the best course of–"
"Our goal is to crush this thing, right?" Rocket shrugged. "Can't crush it as long as we don't know anything about it."
Jane nodded along, proving a worrisome lack of self-preservation. "He has a point."
"Yeah, about that," Tony said, "Am I the only one who remembers the tower almost blowing up when we poked the last one?"
T'Challa pressed his lips together. "No. No, you are n–"
"We're not getting anywhere if you insist on touching her with safety gloves," Rocket interrupted.
"The saying goes 'kid gloves'"." Tony frowned at Rocket. "Safety gloves on the other hand sound like a marvelous idea. In fact, I'd argue they're essential if we're–"
Nebula powered up her power-stone-infused blaster. "It worked with the other stone. Let's do it again."
Bruce had uttered a soft, "I don't think this is a good idea," in the time it took Tony to dive in between Nebula and Jane.
"It's attached to a human," he said, glaring at Nebula. "Hands off."
Jane had the nerve to look disappointed. "We have the chance to watch two primordial forces interacting..."
"One of which is inside you," Tony deadpanned. "Seriously, does anybody in this room have any level of self-preservation?"
"Some risks are worth taking in the name of science," Shuri said gravely. Who even had let her and Peter into the labs? "You should come with us once we return to Wakanda. Our research labs are huge and incredibly advanced."
"We are not taking Miss Foster with us." T'Challa showed all the weariness of an exasperated parent. "We are not taking anybody with us."
"Thanks anyway," Jane said, giving Shuri a wide smile, "for the offer."
"Fine." Shuri let out a huff. She turned to Peter and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "You should consider yourself very lucky."
Peter blinked. "Um. Okay?"
"No outsider has been in Wakanda for decades. It would seem that you will remain the only one."
There was silence as Shuri's statement sunk in.
"Why would you think–" T'Challa closed his eyes, letting out a sigh. "Shuri. When I said we would not bring anybody back with us, I was including Peter."
"Right." Shuri nodded, giving what she seemed to believe was a sneaky wink. "I get it."
"No." T'Challa met her gaze firmly. "We will not kidnap a child and bring him to Wakanda with us.
"Fine." Shuri threw her hands in the air. "We will have to come to America more often, then."
"We will talk about this some other time," T'Challa muttered, rubbing his eyes and letting out another sigh.
"Okay," Tony said, having followed the conversation with morbid curiosity. "Now that that's, uh, settled. How about we get back to–"
"Wait," Peter hiss-whispered to Shuri, unintentionally cutting Tony off. "Is this why you told me to prepare for a trip?"
"Of course," Shuri said. "What else would I have meant?"
"I don't know! I thought you were gonna take me to Disneyland or something!"
Tony tried to pick up where he'd left off while Shuri sent Peter an incredulous gaze. "Guys, focus. We've settled that we're not going to risk–"
"Wait, you made me pack for my own kidnapping?!"
Tony sighed, sinking down at one of his workbenches. It was going to be a long day.
They figured out a solution eventually.
The reality stone was destroyed, Doctor Foster came out of it unharmed and Tony's labs took only a marginal amount of damage compared to the last time they'd decide to blow up one of the stones.
And if a handful of parents were called later that day with a detailed offer of a potential field trip sponsored by actual African royalty, then that was only a lucky byproduct of having gotten one step closer to preventing the end of the world – this time, hopefully, for good.
A/N: It's my birthday today! does suggestive dance towards commenting box You know what to do! :P
So. As of now this story has a fixed chapter count: It's gonna be 22 chapters in total. That's not weird to think about at all. It's been one hell of a ride - thank you so much for sticking along until now, and I hope you'll enjoy the last remaining chapters, too!
Beta'd by the wonderful To Mockingbird, PyrothTenka and Igornerd!
~Gwen