"We have to turn this thing around," Strange argued against Tony's hypothetical argument that they should continue on.
"Isn't it best if we take the fight to Thanos? Isn't it better to throw him off his guard and take the fight to him rather than continuing to let him hold all the cards?" Tony's argument had merit, but still something kept gnawing at Strange that this would turn out to be a very bad idea.
"Umm, guys," Peter said softly from the sidelines.
"We don't know enough about this being to fight him head on just the three of us," Strange argued. "Plus we have no idea what world this ship is even taking us to. What if it's an environment we can't physically survive? What if it has even more hostiles on it than just Thanos?"
"Hey guys," Peter said louder, trying to be heard over the yelling back and forth between the two men.
"We tried to tell you that we needed your help back on Earth but did you want to help? Oh noooo!" Tony fired back in a childish manner. "You wouldn't even give a thought to the kid holding the stone for just a few minutes…just a few minutes is all she would have needed to copy its powers." Tony said, marching up to Strange holding his fingers to his face trying to drive his point home of how little time it would have taken.
"Now, she might be dead for all I know," Tony muttered, catching a sob from escaping as he said the final word before turning from Strange.
There was a short silence between the two men before Strange attempted to offer his apologies for not being more forthcoming with Madison's request.
"Well it's too late now. We are in this shit together and we have to figure out what to do next." Tony barked back at Strange, his frustration levels rising.
Battling Thanos' children in New York had been hard enough, now they were on a ship hurdling through space on a collision course to meet him. As if that hadn't been enough, when Tony had gotten on ship to try to save Dr. High and Mighty's Ass, he basically had to sacrifice one kid he'd grown to love for another kid so that he didn't lose them both. Then said second kid basically defied orders and hung around to put himself into harm's way, a constant thing with him lately.
Tony could feel his chest constricting as he kept thinking over the past few hour's events. Granted, Peter's suggestion on how to deal with Maw worked out great, but Tony wasn't about to tell him that or else he might think his actions were justified.
"I suggest we...," Strange spoke up before Tony abruptly cut him off.
"How about no. Don't suggest, don't delve wizardly wisdom….just don't for five minutes and let me think," Tony snarked back.
"Hello! People who are supposed to be the adults in the room." Both Strange and Tony turned to look at Peter, surprised at his choice in words and tone directed at them. "Could you please stop fighting for a moment to tell me if you are seeing the same thing I'm seeing?"
Both men's attention turned to what looked to be a dark mass that was growing brighter and brighter before their eyes. As they continued to watch, the brightness began to take form and before too long, standing before them was Madison. Or what appeared to be Madison.
Stunned, Tony stepped forward to get a closer look.
"You see her right?" Peter asked, afraid he was losing his mind or something.
"Yeah, kid I see her," Tony said, too stunned to say much more as he walked closer to where Madison stood.
"You didn't tell me she could astral project," Strange said as he too moved to stand closer to Madison.
"She's been learning, but she's never been able to accomplish something of this distance before. The furthest was across the country, but we must be thousands of miles away by now from Earth."
Peter walked until he stood right in front of Madison. Waving his hand in front of her face, "Do you think she can see us?"
"Holy Shit," Madison exclaimed as she opened her eyes to see Peter, Tony and Strange standing in front of her.
The sudden outburst from Madison's form scared Peter causing him to stumble backwards a few steps before regaining his footing. "You scared the crap out of me."
"Sorry," Madison winced. She looked down at her hands that weren't quite solid in nature. "How did I get here?"
"Kid, are you alright?" Tony asked, his voice carrying both shock and remorse. "I'm so sorry that I couldn't get to you." Madison watched as tears of relief filled Tony's eyes at being able to see her again.
"It's alright. I somehow landed safely. I'm back at the compound in the infirmary."
Peter was fascinated how Madison could be here, but not here at the same time as he swatted her astral form with his hand.
"Could you stop that?" Madison was not amused.
"Sorry, it's just…how are you here right now? I thought you didn't have that kind of range?"
Looking back down at her body that carried an almost ghostliness to it, Madison wasn't sure just how long she could maintain this form, so she knew she had to act quickly.
"You've got to turn this ship around," Madison pleaded with her uncle. "Terrible things are waiting for you on Titan if you go the whole way there."
Madison's image began flickering like a signal on the T.V. that was too weak to be received.
"Please don't go there. People we love will die if you do." As her image began to fade, Tony, Peter and Strange could all hear Madison's final desperate pleas.
"You'll lose if you go up against Thanos, please Uncle…Tony." With her final word drifting off into the darkness of the ship, Madison's image disappeared.
The three men stood still, just staring into the dark space that had only seconds ago held Madison's astral form. Snapping out of his daze first, Tony began barking orders at Peter. "Kid, get to that console over there and see if you can figure out how it's activated." Tony pointed to a device mounted on the wall a few feet away from what appeared to be the steering for the ship.
"Strange help me here," Tony pointed to what looked like two long joy sticks. "If this is intended for only one being to control then it's going to take both of us working together to get this to change course."
"How ya coming with that panel kid?" Tony asked as he slid his left arm into the glove attached to the first steering device as Strange did the same with his right arm.
"I've got it online but I have no clue how to read any of this Mr. Stark," Peter's voice shook with the nerves he was trying hard to squash down.
"Touch your left wrist, and when it opens point it at the panel," Tony instructed Peter to which he reacted quickly.
In no time FRIDAY's voice could be heard greeting Peter as she awaited his commands. "Can you read this stuff?" Peter asked as he adjusted his left arm so that it faced the screen he had activated.
Moments that felt like hours passed as FRIDAY's linguistics system translated the foreign text into something Peter could better understand. As he reviewed the different commands he finally found what he was looking for, "Autopilot." Peter nearly jumped for joy at his findings. "Do I shut it down Mr. Stark?"
Tony looked at Strange for a sign that he was ready. He had a bad feeling that as soon as he turned off the autopilot that the ship might become dead in the water. That could be almost as bad as hurtling towards certain doom if they couldn't figure out how to turn it back around towards Earth.
"Hit it Kid," Tony announced as he braced himself for the ship's trajectory to change. And change it certainly did. Before it had been hurdling through space and suddenly, almost like slamming on the brakes of a car, the ship dropped from its light speed to almost a slow waltz. This sent Peter flying to the front of the ship, his new suits retractable arms saving him from face-planting into the wall. The devices that Tony and Strange were currently attached to were their only saving grace as they too went stumbling forward but were pulled back by the steering controls.
"Okay, let's see if we can change the course of this thing. It looks like it was meant to be controlled by one, so we have to work together on this. Okay?!" The anxiousness in Tony's voice wasn't very comforting to Strange, but he was ready to do what was needed to get them back on a course towards home.
Both Tony and Strange had to use a great deal of strength to turn the ship's direction back the way they came. After several minutes and a lot of teamwork, they finally had it where it needed to be. Or as close as Tony could tell it needed to be without precise measurements.
"Okay, now Pete, I need you to use your wrist controller to see if FRIDAY can set a course back to Earth."
Peter, now back on his feet and at the panel he previously exited rather abruptly, was holding his wrist controller up again for FRIDAY to evaluate what to do next.
"That button there," FRIDAY lit up a button on the wall panel for Peter to see as she then proceeded to add on more buttons once he figured out how to follow her. The ship slowly began moving forward again, only this time it was in the opposite direction it had been traveling. The stars outside began zipping by faster and faster as the ship picked up speed.
"So what do we do now?" Peter asked as Tony and Strange freed themselves from the steering mechanism since returning the ship to autopilot only this time the destination being Earth.
"Best I can figure is that we traveled for about an hour, two at the most at whatever warp speed this thing travels at. So best guess we travel back in the same amount of time?" Tony sat down on the top step to the platform he and Strange had been standing on.
"Do you really think we would have…," Peter's words were cut off by Dr. Strange.
"Don't allow yourself to be fixated on what Madison told you. She was only warning you about the reality she came from. You'll go crazy trying to figure out if everything that happened in her universe will happen here. It's quite possible that what her Tony, Peter and well, me, went through in her universe would have been completely different from what we would have been through, or it could have turned out exactly the same. The point is we'll never know. We just have to roll with the punches we are dealt and try to handle them the best we can." Strange sat as well after pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders. Space was not the warmest place to be.
"Woah," Peter gasped, his eyes getting wide as the thought about what Strange had just said. "So it's kinda like, do you take the red pill or the blue pill."
"I swear kid, I'm cutting down your T.V. time when we get home." Tony shook his head before laying back on the platform. Looking up at the ceiling above he began to plan out loud.
"We need to start thinking about how to land this thing when we get home. I highly doubt it is self-landing…plus we have no idea where it will land. We could be on the other side of the Earth when we get back."
"Mr. Stark, what if we land in water? I only know how to dog paddle," Peter admitted with an embarrassed tinge of pink to his cheeks as he looked down.
"Don't worry kid," Tony joked, "do you think I'd hit you up with a new suit that isn't a flotation device as well?"
Peter looked down at his new suit inspecting the arms and legs closely trying to figure out where the floats might come from.
"Does he believe everything you tell him," Strange whispered to Tony.