AN- So before I start the Endgame segment of Spark Sisters, a quick note, that the guesstimate chapter count for this segment is 9, but a few of them might be a bit short and almost all the POV's will be from 3rd Person, Nat, Bruce, or Rocket's POV's, which will be made clear why with the events of this chapter, hope you enjoy!
3rd Person POV with the remaining Avengers and Guardians
"It's been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth." Rhodey announced from his position by the projecting screens that were showing all the people who've been reported missing due to the Snap.
After Carol Danvers, AKA Captain Marvel, rescued Nebula and Tony from the space adrift Benatar following their defeat on Titan, Tony had been given medical attention and Rocket had caught Nebula up on the situation at hand.
"World governments are in pieces." Nat spoke up from where she stood, her voice breaking toward the end, "The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did... he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent of all living creatures."
"Where is he now? Where?" Tony questioned from where he was sitting in a wheelchair, hooked up to an IV drip from his and Nebula's stranding in space.
"We don't know. He just.. opened a portal and walked through." Steve answered.
"And he took Ash and her sister with him." Bruce added.
"What's wrong with him?" Tony asked motioning over to where Thor was sitting, looking down at the ground sullenly.
"Oh, he's pissed." Rocket spoke up bluntly making Tony take a double take even as he continued talking, "He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but you know there's a lot of that's going around, ain't there?"
"Honestly, until this exact second, I literally thought you were a Build-A-Bear."
"Maybe I am." Rocket snarked back before he spaced out looking down at the goggles hooked onto his tool belt and the staff leaning against the wall closest to Bruce as he could tell he was thinking the same thing as he was; how their kids were doing and if they were even still alive after Thanos took them.
Another thought that had come up during the info gathering of who had been Snapped away was that it seemed that every Chrysinthean-borne being had disappeared after the Snap and it seemed most likely due to their Core energies deriving from the Infinity Stones and once they were used to get rid of half of all life, it immediately affected them as well.
"Tony!" Their attentions were brought back forward when Tony had ripped out his Arc Reactor from his chest to hand over to Steve and was stumbling to the ground trying to protest,
"I'm fine.. I…" Before he fully collapsed and everyone had to get him to the Med Bay and left him with Pepper by his side as Rhodey told everyone who was outside the room,
"Bruce gave him a sedative. He's gonna probably be out for the rest of the day."
"You guys take care of him. And I'll bring him a Xorrian Elixir when I come back." Carol told everyone as she started walking away when Nat asked her,
"Where are you going?"
"To kill Thanos," She stated bluntly before hastily adding, "And rescue your kids of course."
"Hey, you know, we usually work as a team here, and between you and I, morale's a little fragile." Nat started to say before Steve added,
"We realize up there is more your territory, but this is our fight too."
"You even know where he is?" Rhodey questioned and Carol responded,
"I know people who might."
"Don't bother." They all turned to look over to Nebula who was leaning against the wall before she told them all, "I can tell you where Thanos is… Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me... and when he worked, he talked about his great plan.. even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I'd ask 'where would we go once his plan was complete?' His answer was always the same; 'To the Garden.'"
"That's cute, Thanos has a retirement plan." Rhodey stated with a hint of sarcasm before Steve raised the question,
"So where is he?"
Rocket used the hologram table to pull up a map of the Earth and grabbed everyone's attention as he explained
"When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions." A visual of a shockwave explosion appeared, "No one's ever seen anything like it... Until two days ago." The image changed to one of another planet labeled 'Planet 0259-S' that had a similar shockwave appear on its surface followed by two smaller shockwaves in its wake as Rocket added, "On this planet."
"Thanos is there." Nebula affirmed.
"He used the stones again." Nat added.
"Hey, hey, hey. We'd be going in short-handed, you know." Bruce pointed out with Rhodey reminding them,
"Look, he's still got the stones, so…"
Before Carol interrupted to say,
"So let's get 'em... Use them to bring everyone back."
"Just like that?"
"Yeah, just like that." Steve stated, somewhat confidently as he and Carol shared a knowing look.
"Even if there's a small chance that we can get them back and undo this... I mean we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try." Nat reasoned but Bruce was still a bit skeptical as he asked,
"If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?"
"Because before, you didn't have me." Carol declared.
"Hey, new girl," Rhodey started to say with a 'slow your roll' motion as he told her, "Everyone here is about that superhero life. And if you don't mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?
"There are a lot of other planets in the universe. And unfortunately, they didn't have you guys." She explained.
Abruptly, Thor finally stood up from where he had been sitting and walked right up to Carol who turned to face him and didn't even flinch when he raised his hand to summon Stormbreaker to his hand and missed slicing Carol by mere inches but she just responded with a small smirk as Thor admitted with a smile,
"I like this one."
"Let's go get this son of a bitch." Steve declared with no regard for his language and everyone went to suit up, grab their weapons, and pack their gear.
While Bruce was checking on the damage repairs the Hulkbuster suit had sustained back in Wakanda he noticed Rocket looking down at JJ's goggles in his paws.
"Hey," Bruce spoke softly to get his attention and Rocket looked up slightly before he continued, "We're gonna get them back…"
"I hope so…" Rocket admitted, "I already lost one kid, I can't lose another…"
"Hey where was she all this time?"
"Well before me an' Groot found'er, she was in some kinda illegal space lab where these douchebag Oajins were experimentin' on'er."
Bruce froze as soon as Rocket said that word and he turned back to ask,
"Did you just say 'Oajin'?"
Rocket gave him a confused look before saying,
"Yeah so?"
Bruce thought back to the last time he, Ash, and Nat had encountered an Oajin and their warning to them,
'Kryjer will have his dual arsenal of destruction…'
"Ash and I faced an Oajin before, he tried to take her to someone named 'Kryjer' saying something about how 'he'll have his dual arsenal of destruction.'"
"An' I thought Taserface was the most dumbass name…" Rocket smirked a bit as he noticed a frayed wire that was poking out from where the arm of the Hulkbuster had been reattached and got to work putting it back into place.
"I'm being serious…" Bruce's voice took on a grave tone as he told him, "Everyone we've encountered who's known about Chrysintheans keeps telling us that Ash and her sister are 'crucial to the restoration of their homeworld…'"
Bruce went silent as he remembered how Zaruk had told him on the way to Wakanda what happened to Shawna while Ash was fighting in Germany.
"Yeah we crashed on their planet a while back, but it looked too dead to bring back so I don't know what 'everyone's' been tellin' ya but it ain't gonna happen." Rocket bluntly remembered as he put the panel back onto the arm and jumped back down to the ground to walk out of the lab after they both saw everyone walking past to get to the Benatar but Bruce told him before he fully left the room,
"Well regardless we gotta get 'em back... I promised her we wouldn't stay separated again…"
Rocket stopped at the doorway remembering a similar promise he'd made to JJ,
There are more who would want to use me as a weapon of mass destruction, you're not going to let them do that to me, are you?
Nah.. you're better off with me and Groot than those war-raging nutjobs…
Promise...?
Yeah, I promise...
"Hurry up and get that half trashed junkpile to the ship, we're about to leave." Rocket spoke gruffly to cover up the slight wavering in his voice from the memory as he walked out of the lab and got aboard the ship.
Once Bruce managed to load the suit into the cargo bay area of the ship, they all took off and made it just outside of the atmosphere when Rocket turned back to everyone and asked,
"Okay, who here hasn't been to space?"
Nat, Cap, and Rhodey all raised their hands as Rhodey asked,
"Why?"
"You better not throw up on my ship." Rocket told them, mostly Rhodey before Nebula announced,
"Approaching jump in 3... 2... 1!"
Just before the ship zoomed through the stars everyone holding on for dear life to their seat armrests before they arrived at the Garden planet and Carol disembarked to hover in front of the ship to comm to everyone,
*I'll head down for recon.*
Before she flew down to the planet, leaving everyone else to gather their gear for the possible upcoming battle.
As Nat was readying her weapons, she caught Steve looking at the compass that held a picture of the woman he had loved, Peggy Carter, and she told him gently,
"This is gonna work, Steve."
"I know it will… Cause I don't know what I'm going to do if it doesn't…"
They looked back up to see Carol reapproaching the front window as she reported,
*No satellites, no ships, no armies, no ground defenses of any kind. It's just him.*
"And that's enough." Nebula spoke plainly but she looked worried as she asked, "What about the girls?"
*No sign of them yet…*
Meanwhile, down on the surface, the golden armor that Thanos had worn only weeks ago was now being repurposed as a scarecrow and said being, now clad in a large t-shirt and sweatpants was walking alone through the aisles of the crops, harvesting the ripe fruits and dropping them into a sack.
Once he finished, he picked up the sack with his uninjured arm before limping back inside the hut and began preparing a stew in a pot on the counter, dropping a pinch of spices in while in front of him lay three bowls, two of them overturned.
After putting the pot on the fire and sitting down to watch it cook, he heard a noise and before he could react, Carol came streaking through the walls of his home, knocking him down before immobilizing him by putting him into a headlock while also using her leg to push his gauntlet-clad hand toward the floor where Bruce in the Hulkbuster suit pushed up through the floor to grab it just before Rhodey secured his other arm and Thor finally came in to slice off the gauntleted hand with Stormbreaker, making Thanos yell out in pain.
Steve, Nat, and Rocket came in shortly after and Rocket walked over to the hand on the floor and turned it over, only to gasp in shock as it was revealed that the Stones were no longer within the spaces of the gauntlet,
"Oh no..."
"Where are they?" Steve demanded to know and Carol tightened her grip on his neck as she hissed,
"Answer the question!"
"The universe required correction. After that, the stones served no purpose, beyond temptation." Thanos told them all before Bruce yelled as he pushed him over with the suit,
"You murdered trillions!"
"You should be grateful." Thanos spat, earning a punch from Bruce.
"Where are the Stones?" Nat demanded, her voice quavering despite the steely tone she attempted to use.
"Gone. Reduced to atoms."
"You used them two days ago!" Bruce argued.
"I used the stones to destroy the stones. It nearly killed me and them…" Everyone looked at each other in horror as they realized who he was talking about before he continued to speak, "But the work is done. It always will be." He sat himself up before declaring with a slight smirk, "I am... inevitable."
"We-we have to tear this place apart, he-he-he has to be lying." Rhodey stuttered out, still in denial of what had just been told to them.
"My father is many things." Nebula spoke up from where she walked in and looked down at her 'father' with a hint of discomfort before she added, "A liar is not one of them."
"Ah, thank you, daughter… Perhaps I treated you too harshly." He spoke in a falsely apologetic tone and, before anyone could stop him, Thor raised Stormbreaker and sliced Thanos' head clean off, leaving his body to fall to the floor and slightly spraying Nebula with his blood.
"What... What did you do?" Rocket asked in disbelief and Thor looked down at the corpse with a broken gaze as he realized,
"I went for the head."
He walked out of the hut but everyone else stayed, Nebula kneeled down next to Thano's decapitated head and closed his eyes before Nat spoke up with some urgency in her voice,
"Everyone search the whole place, they have to be here somewhere!"
Bruce got out of the suit to help search, Carol and Rhodey flew off to see if there were any other buildings or places Thanos could've kept them while Bruce, Nat, Rocket, and Steve all stayed behind to check the rooms of the hut.
"I got 'em!" Bruce yelled from a room and Nat and Rocket both rushed toward him with Steve and Nebula following close behind before they gasped when they entered the room; Ash and JJ were both lying on the dusty floor as if they'd just been tossed in there and both had their eyes closed and looked to be barely breathing and Bruce was kneeling between them holding two fingers to their wrists to look for a pulse when he spoke,
"They're alive…" The others let out breaths of relief at that before he noted, "But look…"
He pointed to their chest areas where shadowy lights with a slightly green tinge were faintly glowing, eerily similar to when they had found the victims of the Haven raid.
"JJ? Kid?" Rocket kneeled down next to JJ's head and placed his paws on the sides of her face but she didn't respond to it so he broke down and placed his forehead against hers as he sobbed, "C'mon kid.. w-wake up…"
Bruce and Nat were in an identical position as Nat was stroking Ash's head trying to get her to wake up to no avail and Bruce was thumbing off some of the dirt that was near her eyes and on her face.
"Let's get them out here…" Steve told him gently, placing a hand on Rocket's shoulder, half expecting him to snap at him but he was in too much despair to do anything as Steve gently picked JJ up while Bruce picked up Ash and they all walked back to the ship to go back to Earth.
…
…
…
…
FIVE YEARS LATER
…
…
…
…
In all the time since the Snap, life for almost everybody on Earth and other inhabited planets changed completely.
Ash and JJ remained in their comatose-like states for five years, hope for their awakening diminishing each year, their bodies laying on gurneys in the Med Lab hooked up to IVs, heart rate monitors, and other kinds of medical equipment to help keep them alive for all that time.
Rocket and Nebula, being the only two Guardians left, continued traveling through galaxies helping wherever they could, and, though it hurt him to do it, left JJ on Earth with her sister so they could be taken care of and observed for any kind of healing progress.
Bruce had gone to "complete some unfinished business," telling Nat it had to be done but that he wouldn't leave Ash forever, that he'd keep his promise to her.
Meanwhile, Nat had become the commander of the surviving Avengers and Guardians, retrieving and assigning missions for everyone to complete while also taking care of Ash and JJ, keeping everyone updated on their statuses.
At the moment, Nat, now with her red hair growing back but the ends remaining their bleached blond coloration, was leading a hologram call meeting with Nebula, Rocket, Okoye, Carol, who was also sporting a new short haircut, and Rhodey while also making herself a peanut butter sandwich as Rocket reported,
"Yeah, we boarded that 'highly suspect warship' Danvers pinged."
"It was an infectious garbage scowl." Nebula deadpanned as Rocket added,
"So, thanks for the hot tip."
Before Carol side shrugged and slightly smirked as she told them,
"Well, you were closer."
"Yeah. And now we smell like garbage."
Nat stopped the argument from going further when she asked Okoye,
"You get a reading on those tremors?"
*It was a mild subduction under the African plate.*
"Do we have a visual? How are we handling it?"
*Nat, it's an earthquake under the ocean. We 'handle it' by not handling it.*
Nat nodded in hesitant understanding before turning to Carol to ask,
"Carol, are we seeing you here next month?"
*Not likely.*
She answered before Rocket snarked,
*What, you gonna get another haircut?*
Making Carol snap back irritated,
*Listen fur-face, I'm covering a lot of territory. The things that are happening on Earth, are happening everywhere, on thousands of planets.*
*All right, all right, that's a good point. That's a good point.*
Rocket murmured to himself before Carol added,
*So you might not see me for a long time.*
"Alright. Uh, well…" Nat choked on her words a bit as she told everyone, "This channel is always active. So, if anything goes sideways... anyone's making trouble where they shouldn't... comes through me."
Everyone voiced their understanding before signing off, Rocket and Rhodey staying behind a bit later than the others.
*Hey uhh..*
Rocket rubbed the back of his head awkwardly as he asked Nat,
*How're.. how's she doing?*
Nat looked behind her to the Med Lab where the two girls were clearly seen through the large windows and she answered with a downcast tone,
"Same as last week.. and the week before.. they're not getting worse at least, but they're not getting better either… it's like they're just.. stuck…"
There was a bit of a sad silence before Rocket finally coughed and tried, and slightly failed, to say without letting his voice waver,
*Just.. keep me posted yeah?*
Nat nodded with a slight smile to her fellow adoptive-parent-figure-to-an-alien-child before he too signed off and Rhodey began to tell her about another massacre that she thought possibly pointed to Clint but she was only half paying attention as she kept her gaze on the girls until she asked Rhodey,
"Will you find out where he's going next?"
Rhodey hesitated to agree before he did and signed off, leaving Nat to struggle to contain her tears before she heard a beeping go off in the Med Lab so she rushed over, silently praying it was them waking up, but when she got there she just saw Ash slightly moving with her face scrunched up and whimpering a bit like she was having a nightmare.
As if practiced, Nat kneeled down next to Ash and placed a hand on the side of her face while the other stroked her hair as she whispered a Russian lullaby until Ash stopped thrashing and settled back into a peaceful "sleep."
Nat sighed a bit at this being one of many times when it seemed like Ash and JJ were about to wake up but it turned out to just be them in a dream-like state and would subconsciously move around a bit. Each time it happened Nat would calm them back down but, other than that, there was no development on their conditions and it seemed like they would be in that state for the foreseeable future.
Once she was sure Ash had settled back down, Nat walked back over to her desk and leaned over it with her fists to the surface of it, she breathed deeply trying to get Ash's pained face out of her mind as her tears started to resurface before she was broken out of her thoughts by a voice saying,
"You know I'd offer to cook you dinner but you seem pretty miserable already."
And she turned around to see Steve standing there leaning against the bookshelf with a doleful expression on his face and Nat wiped the tears off her face before she snarked lightly,
"You here to do your laundry?"
"And to see a friend."
"Clearly, your friend is fine." Nat tried to shrug over her clear emotional distress as she sat back down in her seat so Steve changed the subject with,
"You know I saw a pod of whales when I was coming up the bridge."
"In the Hudson?" Nat questioned in disbelief.
"There's fewer ships, cleaner water."
"You know, if you're about to tell me to look on the bright side. Um... I'm about you to hit you in the head with a peanut butter sandwich." Nat looked down at the sandwich she had made herself during the meeting as she jokingly smiled at Steve who responded with,
"Sorry. Force of habit." Putting his keys and jacket down before sitting in a chair on the other side of the desk to tell Nat,
"You know, I keep telling everybody they should move on and... grow.. some do.. but not us…"
"If I move on, who does this?" Nat asked, referring to leading the remaining Avengers and Guardians.
"Maybe it doesn't need to be done."
Nat let that sink in before she spoke solemnly,
"I used to have nothing.. and then I got this.. this job... this family… a kid… and I was... I was better because of it.. and even though... they're gone... I'm still trying to be better…"
"I think we both need to get a life." Steve joked lightly again and Nat responded with,
"You first."
Another beeping alert came up and Nat thought it was Ash or JJ's monitors but a hologram alert popped up in front of her instead and she swiped it to the side to put it up on the big screen as someone's voice came through the speakers,
*Oh! 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.*
Nat and Steve stood up as they saw Scott Lang at the front gate with a brown van behind him and Steve asked with some disbelief in his voice,
"Is this an old message?"
"It's the front gate."
*Ant-Man? Ant-Man, I know you know that. I need to talk to you guys.*
AN- Sorry it took a little while to post but this is the last week before final exams week so I've been really busy.. Wish me luck on getting my D+'s up to passing C's in Botany and Calculus ^^;