CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT—Space—Spring 2018
The grating of the cockpit floor pressed painfully against Sam's cheek. Up was down and down was sideways. The air smelled stale, like old sweaty clothes dried without washing.
From the metal uncomfortably sandwiching her hand to her stomach, she could tell it was frigid, but she didn't move.
The whole ship was quiet except for her own breath and heartbeat.
Sam's mind was clearer than ever though her vision remained grey. The ringing had stopped. She remembered everything.
Sam laughed at Doctor Strange. She thought to tell Tony the sorcerer had a sense of humor, but he wouldn't believe her.
By the time it was clear Strange wasn't kidding, or at least thought he wasn't, Sam started to panic.
"How long have you believed this?" Her hands were shaking from the caffeine, or not.
"On Titan, when I looked through possible futures, I saw you and your suit—"
There, she thought. "I don't have a suit. I'm not an Avenger. Wasn't me."
"I didn't know your name or relation to Stark until you returned from Wakanda."
"Six months!" Sam nearly choked. Her throat ran dry. "You've sat in a castle thinking I'm a time-traveler for half a f—"
"Please," the doctor stopped her, "understand. I have no experience of how you—" He hung his head before continuing. "All I know for certain is that you had this—" he lifted the Eye from his chest "—which means, at some point, I give it to you. I have to."
Sam jumped out of the chair. "I don't want that thing!"
"I? I don't want you to do this at all." Strange was visibly upset, shifting in his leather chair, running his own shaky fingers through his hair. "My purpose in life is to safeguard time itself, but now…a teenager…"
"Then don't," Sam burst. "You could be wrong. I have no suit so—"
"You will," he argued flatly.
Strange let Sam sit in silence for a long time. She wanted to scream but instead Sam thumped her skull with the heel of her hand, over and over, jolting her mind to think of anything else. The sound was soothing.
Sam stared straight down at the wood floor. She could see ancient signs of wear and tear, dragged scuffs.
She remembered Todd Arliss's wheelchair on linoleum in a professor's office at Harvard.
"Something no one else can do," she'd told Lemuel Dorcas.
Sam supposed she should have said 'something I've already done.' She thought through the details for a long moment.
"There is no 'if' you do this, there is only 'when.'" Strange added, as if he knew where her mind had wandered.
Sam put out her hand towards Strange. "I can prove it. I can prove you wrong." She went to grip at the amulet around his neck, sure he would fight her, sure it would shock her.
The Eye of Agamotto uncurled itself willingly.
Whereas minutes ago, handling the brilliant green of the Time Stone from within Strange's memory felt natural, seeing the real Stone with her naked eye shot ice through Sam's veins.
"I think you know I'm not lying," Strange whispered, pulling out a piece of paper from the folds of his robe and placing it by the coffee. "For later."
Tears formed in fear as Sam crouched, unable to move her eyes or hand away.
"Handling an Infinity Stone…it could kill me. They've killed better."
"Go ahead," he encouraged.
Whether speaking to Samantha or the Time Stone, Strange's words sparked the stone to fling itself into Sam's hand.
Sam heaved herself upright on the ship. The ghost of shock passed through her.
When Strange locked away the memory of her fate, he scrambled her ability to think straight. Her mind kept running into an invisible barrier, and it almost drove her mad.
She'd known she could handle the Space Stone but didn't know how. She'd thought of a huge gesture to impress the Avengers but didn't understand the impulse. She'd felt that instant in the hall was her only shot with Bucky but didn't comprehend the urgency.
Tony was right to hate Strange, Sam moaned, rubbing her numb arms. The Space Stone still sat snug on her left wrist, but her right cuff lay bare.
Her finger traced over the dark metal. "Missy," she called out. No response.
A rattling sigh made her turn around, and Sam pried herself up using the arm of a pilot's chair.
Walking on the grates barefoot was painful, but she preferred it to crawling on her tingling hands and boney knees.
The greatest source of light was a nebula outside the windows, so Sam had to crouch over Tony to see.
He looked so young. He looked so sick.
Tony's cheeks sank low behind his growing, unkept beard. Underneath his eyes were dark blotches. He had cuts all over and an enormous black stain over his gut, ruining his white undershirt. The cold didn't seem to bother him. His breathing was shallow and ragged.
"Missy," Sam called again. "Give me the converter." Her own breath went thin.
Tony didn't have much time.
Sam ducked her head down a porthole. "Missy?" She searched down a squat hall. "Mi—see," Her voice broke.
The tingling of Extremis healing her oxygen deprivation grew stronger.
Finally, around the farthest corner from the cockpit, she found her.
"Jeez…Mi—"
Mistress faced a wall, shaking hands with a pale blue android tucked into a pod.
"Nebula?"
There were no known pictures of Nebula on Earth. Sam was struck by how similar to Mistress the once very real woman looked. By now, Nebula was mostly machine, and the evidence of her alterations spanned her entire body. Her eyes were closed with movement beneath.
Mistress wore her face, but it was blank and lifeless. A pale light shone in the seam of their clasped forearms.
Sam grabbed at Missy's lip. "Conver—haaa, pleeee."
She tapped, and the face split to show the mouthpiece.
Sam popped it in her mouth and ran back, taking one big breath of her own before giving it to Tony.
Sam grimaced. Good thing we're related. She hadn't wiped it off.
After watching his chest rise and fall, Sam inspected the dark stain. Faint brown rings surrounded the dried blood like coffee stains.
She kept her face distant for a moment.
Tony was the smell. What probably started as the copper-tinged scent of blood had fully soured and gone rancid. The wound, however, showed signs of successful cauterization. From the angle, and the implements scattered above his head, the repair was self-inflicted.
His skin felt cold to the touch, so Sam focused on producing heat from her upper body. She held her arms above her father like a kitchen lamp.
He shifted towards the warmth.
This was so different from the Tony she knew.
Without a fine suit, or a close shave, or tinted glasses to hide behind, Tony Stark was a man. Just a man. Yet over the past few months, Samantha learned he was so much more to her.
She thought of all they'd been through the past few months, putting down her hands to check on the beautiful, indestructible clothing her father made for her.
After another breath, Tony shivered.
A stabbing pang hit Sam behind the nose, watering her eyes. She scooped him up into a hug, grateful for the strength all her alterations had given her. It didn't matter if he smelled or if he woke up or if he remembered her. Sam held her dad tight and buried her face in his shoulder.
"It'll be ok," Sam mouthed into his flesh. "I've got you."
Maybe if she actually had a medical degree, maybe if she had a full lab and surgery, she could do something, but all Sam could do was get Tony back home.
To his home.
She'd have to let him go. She'd have to leave him.
Sam mapped out how large the ship must be in her mind, adding a fair margin for safety plus even more (because no repeats of boom were necessary), and pictured the paper Dr. Strange handed her to memorize through her tears.
Earth.
428 kilometers altitude. 41.3 degrees N; 74.5 degrees W.
Sam reached her fingers into the holes of the grating. She pictured the beautiful blue marble in her mind. She conjured the shape of North America.
Everything else faded. You're there. Sam shut her eyes.
Her arm seared as if impaled, but that subsided. Sam was either healing faster, getting stronger, or losing feeling.
When she opened her heavy eyelids, there, clear in dying daylight, was the East Coast. She could see the lights of Long Island framed by the thick metal walls around her.
Her vision remained grey and cold as her lungs burned.
Button lights and alarms popped on all around.
"Unknown craft, identity yourself," Natasha's voice echoed from the comm of the frontmost chair.
They had to get out of here. Sam swiveled to find Missy closing the gap between them. She tried to speak but nothing came out.
Missy cocked her head. "Where is your…" She looked to Tony, stooped, and ripped the oxygen converter out of his mouth.
Sam tried to protest. Twenty-plus years ago, her father was still considered a playboy; her parents went on "breaks" before. No telling where that's been. Mistress didn't care and encased Sam with the converter in place at her mouth.
Sam squeaked in disgust.
"You won't need it where we're going, but we can't leave a trace."
Tony stirred. "Pep," he croaked. His eye barely fluttered.
"We still have a lot of people to save," Missy said before shoving the needle back through Sam's occipital.
Missy shifted her arm to allow the Time Stone to seep through to the bracelet on Sam's right arm. Thoughts of a planet Sam didn't recognized flooded into her mind with coordinates overlaid like notes on a graph.
Her body seized again. Energy flowed in and out of her as if the Stones were talking to each other. It hurt, and she grew more exhausted by the second.
Missy never showed Sam a display before she reopened in a field of soft yellow grasses topped with spiky blossoms.
Sam collapsed without Missy's support and passed out, thinking of Tony's cry for her mother.
