Chapter 33: In a Flash


the lightning...

yesterday in the east

today in the west

~Kikaku, from The Classic Tradition of Haiku, ed. Faubion Bowers


The room brightened so suddenly it made Billy flinch. He blinked several times, then looked out the window to see where the light was coming from.

The sky was as bright as day.

"Weird," he said.

When Teddy didn't respond, Billy turned to him.

He was sitting at his desk, looking toward the window, but with a confused, distressed expression.

"Teddy, what's wrong?"

"I don't know. Billy, have you ever been out of Westview?"

"No. Why?" The sky had just flipped from night to day; why was Teddy worried about something like that?

"Mom and I used to go to New York City on weekends. We used to take a vacation every year. We went to Florida, Hawaii, Montreal, Puerto Rico...but we haven't gone in years. But I wasn't that much younger when we went on vacation. I think the years are messed up."

Billy shook his head. "What are you talking about?"

"I used to have a cell phone," Teddy continued, like he couldn't hear him.

"What's a cell phone?"

Teddy looked at him quizzically, then walked to his door. "Hey Mom, you out here?"

Billy followed him into the other room. Mary-Jo sat on the steps, her face resting in her hand. She looked troubled and deep in thought.

"Mom, I used to have a cell phone, right? I'm not making that up?" Teddy asked.

"Yes, honey, you used to have a cell phone," she answered.

"Do you know what's going on?" Billy asked.

"Not exactly."

Tommy came in from the den. "Hey, the sky just got really bright and the TV went to static."

"Tommy, do you feel like you just all of the sudden started being able to remember things you haven't thought about in years?" Teddy asked him.

"No."

"So you don't feel like...this is the wrong year? Like we should have way better technology than we do?"

"No. You sound like you've gone crazy." He looked at Mary-Jo, noticing her pensive reticence. "Are you okay, Ms. Altman?"

"Something's happened," she said. "Billy, Tommy, you're mother got something a few weeks ago. It would have looked like a little purple light. Do you have any idea what she did with it?"

Billy glanced at Tommy, who looked just as confused as he was.

"We haven't seen anything like that," he answered.

"I need to call her," she said, almost to herself. She went into the kitchen and picked up the phone, dialed, and listened.

Teddy went to the window. "It looks like some neighbors came out to look at the sky. Do you guys remember Netfix? Or the internet?"

"The what?" Tommy responded.

Mary-Jo came back in. "There's no answer at your house."

"Our mom's probably still out looking for our dad," Tommy said.

She nodded, and sighed in frustration. "This would be so much easier with cell phones."

"What the heck are cell phones?" Billy demanded. He was starting to feel like he was going crazy.

"What about the Blip? Do you remember the Blip?" Teddy continued.

"What blip?" Tommy asked.

"Half of everyone disappeared for, like, five years. Mom and I didn't. We were lucky. Maybe this is like the Blip."

Mary-Jo, who'd sat down to think again, stood back up. "I need to look for a phone number. Kids, why don't you all go pack your bags; we may need to leave."

"Are we in danger?" Billy asked.

Mary-Jo opened her mouth to give an answer, but didn't right away. The expression on her face started as a reassuring No, then shifted to a Yes, then a clear I don't know, and finally she said, "Probably not, but I want us to be ready, just in case," but her words sounded so hollow a simple 'yes' would have scared him less.

Tommy and Billy didn't have much to pack up, since they'd just brought an overnight bag with a couple of changes of clothes, their pajamas, and their toothbrushes.

As Teddy packed up, he searched in his closet, his drawers, and under his bed. "I used to have a bunch of video games. Where did they go? You really don't remember anything like that?"

"Really," Billy stated.

Someone knocked on the door. They all went into the foyer.

"Should we answer it?" Tommy whispered.

"Tommy? Billy? It's me. Miss Altman? Are you in there?"

"It's Natasha. Do you think she's going crazy too?" Tommy joked. He opened the door, then jumped backward, stumbling. "Holy shit, that guy's green!"

Nat walked in, followed by a very large man with green hair and skin. He had to duck to get through the door.

"Oh my God," Teddy said. "Oh my God. That's Hulk! You're the Hulk! I mean, Doctor Banner, you're my favorite Avenger! You're, like, my hero! I used to have some of your books. Hold on. I…" he darted back to his bedroom and returned with his algebra notebook, which had been sitting on his desk and was probably the first signable thing he'd seen. "Can I get your autograph?"

"Sure." The big green guy took it and signed the back. "You Teddy?"

"You know my name? Hulk knows my name! And...Oh my God. Natasha Romanov? You're Black Widow!"

Nat just smirked with her usual aloofness. "Tommy, Billy, this is Bruce Banner. He's an old friend of mine."

Teddy's excited eyes turned to Billy. "I just realized...your mom's Wanda Maximoff. Holy cow, my boyfriend's the son of the Scarlet Witch!"

"And the Vision," Nat added nonchalantly.

"This is the coolest day of my life," Teddy stated.

Billy felt completely lost. He realized he'd never known his mother's maiden name, so maybe it was Maximoff, and he'd realized a long time ago his parents weren't exactly like other people, but it had never occurred to him to wonder about their past. Or that they even had a past.

Bruce Banner looked past them. "Mary-Jo?"

"Yes," she confirmed, seemingly unphased by a large green man in her house and her son acting like he was a movie star.

"Fury sent me. We're going to escort you to a safehouse. Carol's on her way."

"It's the Power Stone, isn't it?" she asked.

"It's more than that. All but one of the Infinity Stones have reappeared in Westview in the past two years. We're evacuating the town until we can secure them."

"Hold on a minute," Tommy said. "Doctor Banner, I'm sure you get this a lot, but...why are you green?"

"Gamma ray accident while trying to recreate the Captain America formula," he replied.

"Who's Captain America?" Billy asked.

"He's the leader of the Avengers," Teddy answered. "At least, he was until the Avengers split over the Sokovia Accords."

"Who are the Avengers?"

"They're the team of heroes who saved New York City from an alien invasion, saved the world from Ultron, and reversed the Blip."

"There was an alien invasion of New York City?" Tommy gasped. "How have I never heard about that?"

"And who or what is Ultron?" Billy asked.

Bruce looked at him. "Oh, wow. This is going to take some explaining."

Nat rested her hand on Bruce's arm to silence him, and addressed Billy and Tommy. "You know, I think your father is the best person to tell you about Ultron."

"Dad's okay?" Tommy asked breathlessly.

Bruce answered. "Yeah. He's at my lab, just outside town. We'll take you too him. He's going to have a lot to tell you."

After they finished packing, they all piled into a large armored jeep. Billy was nervous, but trusted Nat enough to go with her. He thought that Tommy was a little more reluctant, but went along because he didn't want to be left behind.

Bruce explained how the town had been inside a bubble dimension, that over twenty years had passed there while in the rest of the world it had been less than a year and a half.

Mary-Jo seemed pensive but relieved.

Teddy peppered Bruce and Nat with questions about fighting the Chitauri, and about the time Nat helped save the world from an evil organization called HYDRA. When he asked Bruce where he'd been the three years he'd gone missing, and Bruce replied he'd been on a distant planet called Sakaar, and had also gone to Thor's home planet of Asgard, Teddy asked him all about his travels in space.

Billy watched out the window. The familiar buildings of the town he'd spent his whole life in looked different, more somber, almost lifeless. He wondered if that was because they were being evacuated, or because it was daylight but everyone had already gone home from work for the evening, or if it was just because the events of the day had shattered everything he regarded as normal and given. He'd thought things like alien invasions and experiments giving people powers were the stuff of science fiction, but he couldn't not believe it.

After all, he'd always known his own parents had powers other people didn't have. But for some reason, even though he'd known it was a secret, he'd never thought it was weird, never wondered where those powers came from.

He figured, based on Tommy's silence, that similar thoughts were going through his head.

They drove beyond the boundary of the town, something he'd never done before. Shortly beyond the last farm roads, the ground changed: there was a slightly curving line with the yellowed grasses of fall on one side and a foot of snow on the other.

There was a cluster of futuristic buildings set up between the town and high barbwire fences. Had those always been there? Had he lived his whole life in a cage without even knowing it?

Bruce stopped the jeep and they all climbed out. A man in a back trenchcoat and eye patch walked up to them.

"Fury, it's good to see you. For me it's been a very long time," Nat said.

"You too. Great to have you back in one piece. I never want to hear about you pulling a stunt like you did on Vormir again."

"I'm not planning on it," she said.

Fury turned his eye to Tommy and Billy. "These Wanda and Vision's kids?"

Tommy stepped forward before anyone could confirm it. "That's right. I'm Tommy, and this is Billy. I don't know what's going on, or how you know about our parents, but if you don't take us to them right now, there's going to be trouble."

Fury raised his eyebrow. "I like you," he stated. "Your dad should be in there," he pointed to one of the buildings behind him.

Tommy sprinted toward it without another word. Billy ran after him, but couldn't keep up. Tommy tried to open the door, found it locked, and knocked insistently.

The door opened. Their father, his face the undisguised deep red they'd only ever seen him wear in the privacy of their home before, wrapped Tommy in a hug. When Billy reached him, he pulled him into the hug too.

"Dad, where have you been? We looked everywhere for you," Tommy said.

"I found my way here. I was only here for a matter of hours, but in Westview it was days. Come inside. It is cold."

The room was some kind of super high-tech lab. There was a swivel chair turned backward in front of a computer screen showing several overlapping graphs.

"I know this must all be very confusing for you," Vision said.

Billy laughed hollowly. "No kidding. Our dad disappears for days, then the next thing I know, the sun comes out at eight o'clock at night, my boyfriend suddenly gets memories of things that I've never heard of before, Nat walks in with a giant green scientist, and people are talking about my parents like they're superheroes."

"Yeah. Why didn't you ever tell us you were a superhero, dad?" Tommy asked.

Vision gave them a long, melancholy look. "I am no superhero. I'm just a man, a father, and a husband trying to figure out the best thing to do. It's not a matter of simply making the right choice, because every choice has costs and benefits, and we can't ever know all of the effects our choices cause. Furthermore, the choices may benefit some while others bear the costs. I need you to know that, to know that...some stories don't have heroes or villains, only people doing the best they can with the information they have. I have made a choice your mother may never forgive me for. I took a risk she would not take, a risk she would not have wanted me to take. And once you understand what I have risked, you may never forgive me either."

"Is the choice you made the reason the bubble dimension that Westview's been inside for our whole lives just popped?" Tommy asked flippantly.

Vision swallowed, then answered. "Yes. And a choice your mother made is the reason it was there to begin with."

Billy, suddenly too tired to even think, sat down in the swivel chair. "Why would Mom do that?"

"To understand that, you must first know what she has been though in her life, what she has lost. She lost her parents in a bombing when she was ten. Her twin brother, your uncle, was killed by Ultron. And what she endured in HYDRA..."

"That reminds me," Tommy interrupted him. "What is Ultron, and why does Nat think you should be the one to tell us about it?"

"Ultron was a multi-modal artificial intelligence who attempted to eliminate human life from the Earth. And he is...in a sense...your grandfather."

Tommy very slowly slid down to sit on the floor. "Okay... I'm starting to get why we've never been to visit relatives."

Billy wasn't sure how many more shocking revelations he could endure today, but he couldn't stand not knowing. "Dad, I think maybe you should just start at the beginning and tell us everything."

So he did. "When the universe began, the Big Bang forged six points of incalculable power. These became known as the Infinity Stones..."