"Challenge incites conflict. And conflict... breeds catastrophe." - Vision
"I said we'd lose. And you remember what you said?"
Tony glared harshly back at his former best friend while Steve drew back slightly as Tony threw his past words back at him.
"You said, 'We'll do that together, too.' Well guess what, Cap? We lost; you weren't there."
Steve's eyes narrowed but it wasn't the blond captain that spoke up next.
"You think you lost, Tony?" Arianna asked darkly.
"I looked in your head and saw annihilation." - Wanda Maximoff
"You shouldn't have said that to him."
"Someone had to." Arianna replied darkly, although she was still staring into empty space and not meeting Steve's eyes.
"No, they didn't."
Steve's expression was grim as he held Arianna's face and forced her to look right at him.
"You really didn't have to."
"And you really didn't need to hide the fact that Bucky killed Tony's parents." Arianna snarled back. "But here we are. Earth's mightiest heroes."
Her lips pulled back into a bitter sneer and Arianna added in a low voice, "Fury was crazy. We were never a team, never could be more. Thanos proved that - that we were nothing more than fools desperately trying to pretend we were something more."
"This lone gunslinger act is unnecessary. You don't have to do this alone!" - Rhodey Rhodes
"I don't know what I'm doing anymore, Nat." Arianna whispered brokenly. "I keep thinking back to all the things we could have done, thinking of what went wrong. If we hadn't broken the team, would we have stood a better chance? Or was it all inevitable as Thanos said? Was it really God's plan to take those we loved away from us?"
"Avenging is your world. Your world is crazy." - Sam Wilson
"You know I never believed in God - well, maybe only Thor's type of god." Natasha finally responded, her lips lifting in a half-hearted smile that fell quickly anyway when Arianna didn't join.
"But I don't believe for a moment that we've lost the people we love for good, Ria. Not for a moment. And we're going to bring them back. Because we owe it to those same people to try."
"I know you know a lot of super-people, so… thanks for thinking of me." - Scott Lang
"Hi. Hi! Is anyone home? This is Scott Lang. We met a few years ago, at the airport? In Germany? I got really big and I had my mask on. You wouldn't recognize me."
"Is this an old message?" Steve asked, not daring to move, scarcely daring to even breathe as he stared at the screen where Scott Lang was still waving awkwardly at the camera and still talking anxiously.
"Ant-Man? Ant-Man, I know you know that…"
"It's the front gate." Natasha whispered.
"In times of crisis, the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers." - T'Challa
"So this is Phil Rogers." Tony mused as he stared at the picture of the baby he had never had the chance to see in the flesh. Because of them; because of their foolishness.
"It's… we called him 'Jim'." Arianna corrected and Tony glanced at her questioningly. Arianna shrugged.
"Seemed more appropriate."
"Nah, he's a Phil all right." Tony replied with a shake of his head before he gestured toward the picture again. "See, he's even got the same look that Agent had. Mark my words, he'll be as irritatingly righteous as Coulson was. I'll bet my entire fortune on it."
"I'm with you 'til the end of the line." - Bucky Barnes
"I won't be able to take it… if it's not real." Clint said in the same tight, croaky voice. "Don't give me hope if it's not real."
"We swore long ago: no lies between us. I can't say I have hope, I'm not confident enough to do that. But I can't deny there's a chance, a slim chance but a chance, to make things right. To bring them back. Will you help us?"
"You told me not to give up on myself; I think you need to take that advice." - Arianna Hart Rogers
"I'm not saying it's easy, Ria," Natasha murmured, "but we need you. Steve needs you."
Arianna stiffened while Natasha pulled back and stared at the younger woman with sympathetic but stern eyes.
"And I need to know you're not going out there to die. Even if we fail and we can't bring them back. I need to know your head's on your shoulders and your heart's in this, because Steve and I can't lose you. Not now, not after everything else. I need to know that if there's no chance, you will come back with us. I need your word, Ria, that you're not going to let your emotions cloud your judgement."
Arianna closed her eyes and she took several deep breaths. By the time she'd exhaled for the last time, her mind was clearer even if her heart was no lighter; and she opened her eyes.
"I promise."
"Stay in here, you're good. I'll send your brother to come find you. But if you step out that door, you are an Avenger." - Clint Barton
Natasha winked at Steve.
"See you in a minute."
The group all smiled a little at the joke before a bright while light surrounded them and they disappeared from each other's views, sucked into the quantum realm; into the past. To save the future.
"Love is for children." - Natasha Romanoff
They hung, the three of them, from the edge of the cliff, high up on the mountain on a planet far away from the home none of them had thought in their youths they would have, with only certain death awaiting the first to fall.
Strike Team Delta had never been so divided as in this moment and yet they were also united in the fiercest way - the only way that mattered.
"So you're saying that the Hulk, the other guy, saved my life? That's nice. It's a nice sentiment. Save it for what?" - Bruce Banner
"It's gotta be me."
Bruce looked at each one of his team members, his eyes still filled with sorrow but growing steadily more determined.
"You saw what those stones did to Thanos." He continued grimly, walking forward toward the case in the center of the room. "It almost killed him. None of you could survive."
"How do we know you will?" Steve pointed out but Bruce just stared at the gauntlet grimly.
"I don't." He answered softly, closing his eyes before opening them again. "But the radiation's mostly gamma. It's like… I was meant for this."
"I choose to run toward my problems and not away from them. Because that's what heroes do." - Thor
"What's he been doing?" Tony asked, staring out across the smoldering wasteland and to where the purple Titan that had once defeated them was seated quite casually on some debris.
"Absolutely nothing." Thor answered from where he had been standing grimly about half a hilltop above Thanos before his friends joined him.
"Where are the stones?" Steve asked in a low voice and Tony sighed heavily.
"Somewhere under all this." He muttered back grimly, glancing around the wasteland that had been their base before looking back to where Thanos was. "All I know is he doesn't have them."
"So we keep it that way." Steve said firmly, his blue eyes filled with a rare hatred as he kept his gaze fixed on Thanos.
"I still believe in heroes." - Nick Fury
Steve lay coughing on the ground, exhausted from his duel with Thanos that had ended about as well as it had the last time they had faced off against each other in Wakanda. The events of the last twenty-four hours were taking their toll and the pain in his heart was still strong, aching with every beat. It was so tempting to just lie there and move no more; even his shield was broken.
No, he forced himself to rephrase: not broken - chipped. Like him. Like all of them: bruised and chipped but never broken. Not in the way that mattered.
'I will always love you. No matter what, Steve, that will never change.'
With Arianna's words ringing in his ears, Steve pushed himself heavily up onto his knees. Everything hurt as he did, and Steve couldn't help a groan as the cut on his thigh stung particularly sharply. But still he pushed himself up - as he would every time.
"I can do this all day" - Steve Rogers
For a brief moment, Thanos felt truly joyous. He had gone through hell and high waters for years that had bled into decades and longer. But now, he had beaten the God of Thunder, pushed through the human Captain who refused to stay down and tossed aside the man in iron; he had even bested the unusually powerful humanoid wearing Kree technology. And finally he had what he wanted, literally in his hands.
Yes, for a moment, he felt truly happy.
But then Thanos saw the truth; the smile slid off his face and he turned to face the man who would bring him his doom.
"I am Iron Man." - Tony Stark
*A/N: Next arc, End Game, is coming soon! Thank you to all my readers who have been so patient until now.