A/N – Okay, I know it's been a while since I updated this story – I had a whole heap of things planned, things involving Infinity War and Endgame and I'd written them up, but now I can't find the hard drive it was all saved on and so I'm having to rewrite from memory because the notebook I had them written in has also disappeared. So, I had to start from scratch which has proven a lot harder than I thought it would because I decided to go in a slightly different direction.
The phone call was, it turnedout, was related to a minor work issue that wasn't even an issue, but it had given Samantha pause. What was she doing starting up with Steve again? Was that what they were even doing?
She looked at him as he sat on her couch, staring at whatever it was he'd found on TV. He was good-looking and sweet when he wanted to be, but she needed a break. She needed a chance to get used to the new life she was building in London and he needed to do whatever he needed to do to help Bucky. Could either of them do that if they were together? She didn't know.
He smiled at her and she knew, she had to bite the bullet. She had to end it, and she had to do it now.
XX
Two Years Later
Samantha walked home as she always did. She passed the usual people - the woman who was always arguing with her boyfriend on the street, the homeless man who was always glad for the five pound note she gave him. She passed the usual buildings – three coffee shops, a jewellery store, several newspaper offices. She had a routine.
MI6 had kept her on duty with the Prime Minister, despite the fact that the whole world knew who 'Olivia Potter' was, and she was good at her job – both of them actually. Being the Prime Minister's secretary was surprisingly easy, she didn't even have to pretend to be his girlfriend anymore. After they'd won the election, it had gotten even easier.
She kept the superpower usage to a minimum, she'd fixed things up with her dad, she even got to catch up with Wanda every once in a while. Things were good.
She entered her apartment building. She'd had a good day. Work hadn't been a complete disaster – their messaging seemed to be working. The only thing that would make it better is if she had someone to come home to. Normally, she had Emma, the adoption had been finalised a year and a half ago, once everything had been smoothed over with the US Government and she'd brought her niece to London to live with her in a somewhat stable environment. She'd hired a regular babysitter to manage the school drop off and pick up. The only reason why Emma wasn't at home now was because school holidays had hit and, with no one to look after her and no way of taking two weeks off work, she'd had to send her to New York to be with 'Grandpa Tony and Nana Pepper' as Emma called them – her father had nearly had a heart attack the first time Emma had called him Grandpa.
She was just unlocking the door to her empty apartment (or flat as they called it in these parts) when things started to turn a little more pear shaped than she would have liked. Of course, a portal had to open right up in front of her and a caped Doctor Stephen Strange just had to walk through.
She'd met Stephen Strange – Doctor Strange – on a few occasions while in New York on the very rare vacations she took. He'd seemed a little cocky and self-absorbed, but her father was Tony Stark, who was she to judge?
"Samantha, you're needed," he said as though that explained everything.
"No, I am out of that game, I have things to do. You can't just portal in here and expect me to go to New York with you," she said, angrily.
"Samantha," she heard the voice of a certain soft-spoken biochemist.
She had to look twice when she saw Bruce Banner walk through that portal. Raising her eyebrows, she merely said "Where in the hell have you been?"
"We can explain later, just know that you're needed," he said, and out of desperation to understand where her father's friend had been, she wandered on through the portal.
That was how she ended up sat on a couch in Stephen Strange's weirdly grand New York house (no one had houses like this in New York, not even extremely wealthy world class surgeons), listening to someone named Wong explain stones to her and her dad.
"Tell me his name again," her dad said and she looked at him, wide-eyed.
"Thanos," Bruce said, walking towards them. "He's a plague, he invades planets, he takes what he wants, he wipes out half the population. He sent Loki, the attack on New York, that's him!"
Her dad had stood up now but she just sat dumbstruck on the couch. So, Loki wasn't the big bad they'd thought he was, and this guy, Thanos, was collecting things that controlled the universe.
"This is it," she swore she heard him mutter. "What's our timeline?" he asked, trying to take control of the situation.
She looked at the dire-looking faces of the other men in the room and knew, there was no way they'd caught this early enough, now way they were prepared. There simply wasn't a timeline.
"So, we just start stealing stones and hoping we do a good enough job of hiding them that Thanos can't get to them, that's our plan, right?" she suggested, the first thing she'd said since the whole infinity stone thing had been explained.
"If Thanos needs all six, why can't we just stick this one down the garbage disposal?" her father suggested, pointing to the green gem Strange was wearing in an amulet.
"No can do," Strange replied.
"We swore an oath to protect the Time Stone with our lives," Wong said.
"And I swore off dairy, then Ben and Jerry's named a flavour after me." Of course, he'd turn this discussion to ice cream.
She listened to a couple of seconds of the two men going on about ice cream. It was a nice distraction, even if she did want a scoop of Cherry Garcia.
"Whatever, point is, things change," her father said.
She sighed, this whole thing was going to get them nowhere. She raised her hand. "I for one don't think it's a good idea to destroy the thing that controls time," she said.
"The fact is that we have this stone, we know where it is," Bruce said. "Vision is out there somewhere with the Mind Stone and we have to find him, now."
"Yeah, that's the thing."
"What do you mean?" Bruce was looking at Tony incredulously.
"Two weeks ago, Vision turned off his transponder, he's offline," her dad said.
"What? Tony, you lost another superbot!" Bruce was about to start yelling, she had to interject.
"I might know where he is," Samantha said. Now all the men had turned to look at her.
"What? Why didn't you tell me?" her father turned and looked at her incredulously.
"You never mentioned that you didn't know where he was and I saidI might know where he is," she argued. Everyone looked at her, urging her to go on. "Look, there is every possibility that he might be with Wanda," she said.
"And you know this how?" her father asked.
"She's my friend, we communicate, we tell each other stuff," she answered honestly.
"You're friends with her? She killed people, she put lives in danger."
Samantha did not want to be having this conversation. "Not one of the people in this room can say they haven't put people's lives in danger! Why is she any different? Because she picked Steve's side?"
Her father looked at her aghast. "Where is she then?" he asked.
She shook her head, "Scotland, maybe, that's where I last caught up with her but that was months ago. She's probably moved on from there."
"So, who else do we go to?" Strange asked.
She looked at her father, they both knew the answer. "Shit!" her father muttered. "Probably Steve Rogers, maybe, but…" he said.
"Call him," Bruce urged.
"It's not that easy. God! We haven't caught up in a spell have we?"
She'd known her father's rage over Bruce's leaving would show up eventually.
"Things went down Bruce, the avengers broke up," she tried to explain before her father could.
"Broke up? Like a band, like The Beatles?"
"Cap and I fell out hard, we're not on speaking terms," her father said, controlling the anger she knew he was feeling.
Bruce looked at Samantha next. "I mean, I text him sometimes but it's complicated," she admitted. She knew what she had to do though, she had to make the call and she told the people in the room as much.
XX
She stared at her phone. They hadn't had a proper conversation in two years, not since she'd told him that they shouldn't be together, that they might be better being apart for a while. She texted him sometimes, those consisted of 'Merry Christmas' and 'Happy Birthday' most of the time. Sometimes, she even threw in a 'Hope Bucky is doing well' if she was in a really good mood. He never responded.
She stared at the contact on her screen. She had to dial the number. She had to hope and pray that he'd answer and then she'd have to tell him that the world would end if he didn't do as she said.
Before she could even do it, she felt the ground shake a little. She swore she heard a low rumble. She looked out the window behind her and took off at a run, everyone else had clearly already done so.
When she got outside, people were falling over themselves trying to get away from something, cars were crashing into lampposts, chaos reigned. Then she saw it, a giant wheel thing had seemingly landed above New York City.
Her father was talking to Friday through his glasses. Strange was trying to throw energy at the thing, that wasn't doing anything. Then, of course, a beam of light dropped down, carrying with it a giant dude in armour and a much smaller reptilian guy.
"Here me and rejoice, you are about to die at the hands of the children of Thanos. Be thankful that your meaningless lives are now contributing to the balance –" the reptilian guy started saying before her father interrupted him.
"I'm sorry, Earth is closed today. You better pack it up and get out of here!"
"Stone keeper, does this chattering animal speak for you?" reptilian guy asked Strange.
"Certainly not, I speak for myself," he responded, arming himself with great big balls of light. "You're trespassing in this city and on this planet," he added and Wong started to conjure balls of light too.
Okay, they were doing this then.
"He means get lost Squidward!" her father yelled.
They were definitely doing this then. She could feel the heat in her hands, white hot as rage coursed through her.
"He exhausts me, bring me the stone," reptilian guy said to the giant guy who then started swinging an axe around.
"Banner do you want a piece?" her father asked his friend.
"Not really, but then when do I ever get what I want?" the biochemist said right before he took on a slight greenish tinge. She'd never seen the transformation happen before so she didn't know how long it was supposed to take so she decided to focus on the giant with the axe.
The giant was running at them and while she waited for Bruce to transform and for her father's suit to arrive, she decided that shoot first, ask questions later might be a good option right now. She hadn't really had a chance to use the powers, not since she'd first discovered them, so it was pretty interesting to watch as she outstretched her hand and a giant beam of light shot out at the giant.
Then her father hit the guy with a shield – clearly the suit had had some modifications since she'd last seen it. Then they were both hitting the giant with beams of light, trying to push him back. Of course, once they got him back, reptilian guy decided he was expendable and blasted him back further.
"Where'd that come from?" Bruce shouted at Tony.
"It's nano tech, you like it?" her father said and she had to roll her eyes.
Reptilian guy then started shooting trees at them and Strange was opening portals. She focused on the reptile guy as he started creating bullets out of bricks. She knew where his focus would be – the guy with the stone his boss needed to take over the universe – so she decided to step in front of Strange and start shooting from there. It wasn't much good as Strange was soon flown into a pile of bricks, then a car.
She couldn't hear the conversation that was happening but the moment Strange was being tied up in ropes, she knew something had to be done.
"That is enough!" she screeched, throwing yet another beam of light at the reptilian guy, who flinched as it hit him. "I have had it with you!" she yelled, as she sent five balls of light in his direction. "Do we come to your planet and try and kill your people?" She sent another beam of light his way. "No! We don't!" She inched closer to him, keeping his eyes on her the whole time, hoping that little bit of lack of focus would help Strange out of the binds he was in. "So, you can take your stupid guy with his stupid giant axe and your stupid wish for stupid stones and get back on your stupid ship!" she yelled, letting out all her pent up rage into one big ball of light that flew straight at the reptilian guy.
It was just what Strange needed to get away as his cape wrapped around him and he was able to fly out of the binds. So, then the guy started to fly after him, through the streets of New York, leaving all manner of debris in his path. She had to duck as she ran after him, pushing things out of the way, somehow finding her way to Central Park where her father was dealing with the guy with the axe.
At some point, she lost track of everyone except Wong and Bruce as they were beamed up into a spaceship. They walked back to the main street. Bruce stopped to pick up something off the floor as Wong opened up a portal back to Strange's house.
"Where are you going?" Bruce asked.
"The Time Stone's been taken, the sanctum remains unguarded. What will you do?" Wong asked.
Bruce looked down at the phone, then at Samantha. "I'm going to make a call," he said. "What about you?" he asked, looking at her.
"I need to head to Scotland, make sure Wanda and Vision aren't there," she answered, following Wong through his portal into Strange's house.
A/N 2 – I hope this chapter has quenched your thirst for a new chapter and I hope my descriptions of Stephen Strange's powers and Ebony Maw 'AKA reptilian guy', I had no idea how to write them.
