They spent the next eight years playing the game. Shuri was more skeptical than Sigyn, but even she warmed up to Ana in the end. Thanos never returned to his full strength. Ana wasted his soldiers and his resources on meaningless quests at every opportunity, weakening him as much as possible without looking suspicious. He was more than happy to indulge her. Once Wanda's influence completely wore off, it wasn't easy for Ana to live with her true self. No, it was pure torture. But Wanda had eased her into it, so she wouldn't spiral into madness. The last mission was all that mattered now.

…

"From Sanctuary II to all receiving parties: This is Ana Maria Stark, daughter of Anthony Edward Stark. I've spent the past eight years undermining my captor, Thanos. I know most of you will not believe me, but this is not a trap. Every single drop of blood I spilled, I spilled it to earn his trust so that I could waste his resources and weaken his armies. And in that purpose, my plan was a success. If you think you have what it takes to end Thanos, now is the time. He is at his most vulnerable. I have done everything I could for this universe to honor my real father. Let it be known that the Mad Titan's most prized child was his greatest enemy."

"We're running out of time!" Shuri cried. The contraption was finally ready, but the Chitauri must have intercepted the message. They were coming.

"Come on, Sigyn," Ana told Sigyn, who was casting an illusion spell to make Ana look like a teenager. She was 34 now, but she looked even older than that. The last eight years had taken a toll on her. It had taken a toll on everyone, even on Sigyn.

"It's almost done," the half-Asgardian said. Ana didn't feel any different, but both Sigyn and Shuri nodded in satisfaction. It must have worked.

Someone started pounding on the door. The three women gasped in fear.

"I'll buy you some time," Shuri said. They all knew it meant she was going to get herself killed while fighting the Chitauri.

"Shuri, don't…"

"There's no other way. Besides, we're all going to sacrifice ourselves. This is what we signed up for. If you don't go back in time now, all this will be for nothing."

"Still, my death is going to be much quicker, compared to yours. It's not fair."

"I died when Thanos killed my brother anyway. I have nothing to fear."

"And I died when he made me kill Loki," Sigyn added.

"Good luck, my friend." Shuri hugged Ana.

"Go!" Sigyn cried.

Ana stepped into the machine and turned it on. Just ten more seconds, and she would leave this cursed universe behind for good. At that moment, the door burst open, and Thanos entered. He didn't seem surprised by the betrayal of Sigyn or Shuri, but Ana's involvement had really shocked him. She could see it in his eyes.

"Why?" he asked.

She was actually glad that they had been caught. At least, for once, she was allowed to look at him with all that venomous hatred she had been harboring. It gave her a cruel satisfaction to see how much it hurt him, as he realized every act of service she had performed was to undermine him.

"I told you you'd be the next thing I destroyed. I don't make empty promises."

Before she could see Thanos' response, the intense gravity pulled Ana into a vortex through spacetime. The machine was rigged to explode, so it would be destroyed and Thanos wouldn't be able to follow her, even if he found gravitonium elsewhere. She was free. She would die as Tony Stark's daughter.

A second later, she was standing before a very familiar sight. The front door of the old Malibu mansion. She had to go ahead and touch the door to make sure it was real.

It felt so good. The air, the quiet night… She knew her father was in Afghanistan now, being held hostage in a cave…

No. Her father was dead. He had been eaten alive by the Chitauri.

JARVIS. JARVIS was alive, too. He was right here. She could talk to him. Then she remembered that he wasn't sentient yet. Even if he were, he wouldn't be her JARVIS.

She was in 2009, she was in Malibu, and yet, she wasn't home. This was home to another Ana Maria Stark. The thought made her sad.

You are no human anymore. Just a tool to be used. You have no life. Do what you must do, and die. Come back from the dead, do what you must do, and die again.

She looked at the security cam above. "It feels so strange to be here, after everything I've been through. But terrible sacrifices have been made, just to make sure I get to deliver this message. And we don't have much time. Ana. I know you're there. I know you're watching me. I'm you. I've come from the future to warn you. Thanos has the Infinity Stones. All of them. He's unstoppable now, and there's nothing any of us can do. The Earth's been destroyed; the only survivors are the ones Thanos chose to adopt. I am, unfortunately, one of them. Forget about your dreams of time-traveling. Because if you don't, you'll be stuck in a time loop, just like I did. What you have to do is to finish what Howard Stark started. You have to build the Nexus. Only then, we might be able to destroy Thanos for good. Loki, he despises him as much as any—"

She turned around when she heard the footsteps behind her. They were here. Two armed men wearing black masks. Just like Charles Hinton had shown her years ago. One fired his gun, and two bullets pierced Ana's chest. Again, she knew how it would be like. She wasn't afraid. She looked at the camera again. Her message had been cryptic, and not entirely accurate, but it was exactly what her past self needed to hear.

"New York. You must be in New York."

And she died.

…

There was only darkness. Her soul was trapped in her body, for she was a temporal aberration, something that didn't belong in this reality. She had nowhere to go. Darkness was worse than hell, but better than being alive.

She woke up with a loud gasp, in a hospital bed, under the wary gazes of Nick Fury and Maria Hill.

"Easy," he said, thinking she needed to be comforted. "Easy. You're safe now."

"Are we in the Guest House?"

Both he and Hill frowned, and swapped quick, meaningful glances. "What?" asked Fury.

"I died. You brought me back, with GH.325."

"How do you know that?"

"I was counting on that."

"You knew you'd be here?"

"Come on, Fury. You know who I am. Or, rather, what I am. Don't tell me the Director of SHIELD never expected to meet a time-traveler."

"I wasn't expecting a time-traveler to look like… you."

"What? You expected a doctor with a phone box?"

"Get some rest. Looks like you and I have a lot to talk about."

"I'll rest when the work is done." She ripped off the IV tube from her arm. "For now, I just want cheeseburgers. And a drink stronger than your Kree juice."

…

After years of feeding on space food, Burger King cheeseburger tasted like ambrosia, the food of the gods. She felt like a god herself, with the knowledge she possessed. Or, maybe, she had drunk too much of that Haig Fury had brought. All those people she had killed in Thanos' name, every atrocity she had committed in the past eight years, her dad's final moments… The amber-colored liquid burnt them away, leaving only a fake sense of joy and triumph in its wake. Fury was waiting patiently as Ana devoured her third cheeseburger, but his good eye was full of questions.

"It's okay," she said at last. "Whatever you want to know, ask away."

"I don't think you're here to be my personal fortuneteller."

"No. But I want to see what it is that you want to know the most. Just curious."

"Alright. In your future, who killed me?"

His limited thinking made her laugh. Being drunk, everything seemed funnier.

He laughed, too, but more bitterly. "Let me guess, you can't tell me?"

"Sure I can. In fact, that's exactly what I'm here for." She swallowed the last bit of the cheeseburger, wiped her mouth clean with a paper napkin, and poured more Haig for both of them. They were going to need it. "I did it. I killed you. Along with 7.5 billion others."

She rolled her eyes when his hand went to the gun at his hip. "Relax, it was an accident."

"You accidentally killed 7.5 billion people?"

Ana looked up from the drink she was holding and pinned him down with a gaze. "Do you want to know how I spent the last eight years in my timeline? There's this guy. The one you, too, will have to fight one day. He's the most ruthless being in the universe. He doesn't just kill his enemies. He bathes the starways in their blood. He killed half of the universe with a snap of his fingers, then made me watch as his soldiers ate my dad alive. He adopted me. Every day, I looked this guy in the eye and lied, while he taught me how to be like him. I tortured good, innocent people who wanted nothing but to avenge the universe, just to earn his trust. I commanded the army of monsters that feasted on my father's flesh. I did all those things just to get here and save your timeline. Don't expect any apologies from me."

"You've got heart. Noted."

"Good," she said, taking another sip from the Haig.

"So, tell me more about this guy who bathes the starways in blood."

A/N: Originally, this is where the story was supposed to end. The writer in me keeps telling me to let actions have lasting consequences, but my inner fangirl is begging me to let Tony Stark get a happy ending. So, I've written three "bonus chapters" to find a middle ground. You can stop right here if you prefer the sad, depressing ending. But if you want a happy ending and don't mind an OP Tony, stay tuned! In the meantime, please let me know what you think. I haven't received many reviews lately and I don't know if you are still enjoying this story. I hope I've delivered what I promised.

Also, RIP Chadwick Boseman... The first scene of this chapter is from my Wakanda-focused story, The Princess, and having to revisit it right after his death was hard :(