PP POV
Tony had ushered her away from the group as Salem ran off to hide in some corner.
"Everything alright?" Piper asked as she sat on the conference room table.
"Yeah." Tony assured as he sat on a chair near her. "How old where you during the Battle of New York?"
Piper blinked cut off guard by the random question. "9- ish."
"And where were you when it happened?"
"In the city." She confessed, not liking talking about that day. "Peter and I celebrated our birthdays on different days, so we'd each get a day to ourselves like other kids could, like our parents had. Peter wanted to see Stark tower in person. More correctly he wanted to see you.
"But then aliens started pouring out of a giant wormhole in the sky. We ran trying to get to safety. But in the chaos I was separated from them. Wound up in an alley, and I stared there until I saw the aliens collapsed. And then I found some officers, and they helped me find May, Peter and Ben." She looked up to Tony who had a look of understanding on his face. "Why?"
"When we were back in 2012," He started. "I found this lost little girl wandering around, looking for her family. But she wasn't looking for her parents. She was looking for her aunt and uncle."
Piper stared up at him with wide eyes. "You?"
"In one timeline." Tony smiled to her. "What about you? Anything interesting? What happened while you were there?"
Lie to him and save him a heart attack? Or tell him the truth?
"Nothing really. We went there, talked to a ghost wraith thing, and got the stone."
"A ghost wraith thing?"
"He called himself the stone's guardian?"
"Weirder things have happened." Tony said looking at the soul stone. "Well I should get to work on this thing."
"This will work." Piper said surely as she stood up. "I'm going to work on my armor. Let me know when you're done."
"Don't do anything-"
"-There's a gray area I know!" Piper called out as she walked out of the room. She paused seeing Clint and Natasha sitting on the couch talking intently, not having noticed her yet.
Yeah, they were definitely going to kill her... If they saw her.
As quietly as she could she jumped onto the ceiling, quietly crawling in the garage without them noticing.
As she entered the garage she pulled out her phone. Harry had to know.
"Hello?" Harry answered boredly.
"I'm back." Piper greeted.
"Welcome home my Angel of Verdun." Harry said voice elevated.
Piper scoffed with an eye roll. "You were watching Edge of Tomorrow, weren't you?"
"It's a good movie." Harry, much like her, watched movies to take her mind off problems.
"You just like watching Emily Blunt."
"She's hot and more importantly a great actress. One of the best parts of the movie."
"Not disagreeing with your assessment of the great Miss Blunt. But Edge of Tomorrow is not a time travel movie, it's a Groundhog Day movie."
"Have you even seen that?"
"No. You?"
"Nope. So when should I expect to see people randomly appearing?"
"Hour or so?" Piper guessed. "Tony, Bruce and Rocket are working on a gauntlet."
"A gauntlet?"
"We can't just gather them and ask like in horror movies. They need a vessel to be controlled through." Or so Nebula had said.
"I'll take your word for it. Oh! There's something I want to show you. When can you come over?"
"Why don't you come up here?" Piper offered. "You could check out the gauntlet, I can check out what you have. Plus I could help you come up with what to say when you see your Dad again."
"And I can hear your story." Harry said in a more normal tone. "I'll be there in an hour?"
"Alright." Piper smiled. "See you soon."
"Love you."
"You too." Piper hung up before looking at her phone.
She knew she couldn't avoid the story forever, but how to tell them. She barely understood what happened.
Piper looked toward the cliff after forcing Nat and Clint back as she took off her own watch and setting it down on the ground. "Wrap this around the stone and send it back to them."
Not waiting for a response she ran to the edge jumping off- Only to feel something push her back onto the cliff.
She rolled a couple of times before stilling. "What the hell?!"
"The stone won't accept your sacrifice." The wraith explained. "Unless there is someone to accept it. As I said you must sacrifice something you love-"
"I heard you the first time." Piper yelled grabbing the watch. She looked out into the abyss. "This is bullshit!" She screamed her voice rising to hysteria. "I've lost everything!" Tears stung her eyes. "My family! My friends! And now that it's my life I'm ready tp give you won't accept it?!" She grabbed onto her necklace pulling it off.
She looked up to the sky. "This is your fault!" She yelled to her father's spirit. "You said you'd always be with me! And you've never been there!" She let go of the ring, feeling the blood stick to her palm as the ring rolled on the ground. "And I can't even stay angry at you! Because I barely know you and I still love you."
Images flashed across her vision. She saw Thanos alone on the cliff. She saw a small green girl staring up at her. 'Tell Nebula she will always be my sister and the best thing that happened to me, in all the time I was with Thanos.' She saw a wasteland swarmed with monsters, Chitauri and leviathans. Thanos in the center of it all. 'I am inevitable.'
Piper gasped as she sat up in a shallow lake of sorts. She looked around. How did she end up here?
She felt something heavy in her palm as she stood. She looked down as she walked out of the lake to the shore, to see a glowing orange gem. The Soul Stone.
"As I said," She looked up to see the Wraith standing in front of her. "You must sacrifice that which you love. The Stone accepted your necklace."
Piper's hand drifted to her now empty neck. "I'm never getting it back, am I?"
"That is up to the Stone." It said as it held out her watch. "I presume you won't be needing my assistance any longer?"
Piper sighed running her hand through her hair as she looked down at her glove. She had been infusing nano-tech into the fabric like Tony taught her, hoping it would get her mind off everything. But of course not.
This is going to work, she told herself as she heard footsteps approaching. She looked up to see Nebula stalking in.
"Neb!" Piper called out rushing to the older woman.
"Yes?" She asked hesitantly.
"What are you doing here? I thought you'd be helping Tony and the others."
"No. My mind's been elsewhere."
"Was it weird?" Piper asked bluntly. "Being back there? Did you see Thanos?"
"No."
"If you had, do you think you would've killed him?" Piper asked genuinely curious. She knew Nebula's drive was to kill Thanos for years. Would seeing him again have set her off?
Nebula was silent, simply staring away.
"I never did apologize, did I?" Piper
"For what?"
"Killing Thanos." After they had returned from killing Thanos, Piper refused to talk about what happened. Thor had demanded she tell him why she did it instead of allowing one of them. She had stayed silent. Nebula hadn't said anything, just gave her a strange look. "You were the one he hurt all those years. You should've been the one to kill him."
"It's fine." Nebula dismissed trying to walk away.
"Nebula, are you alright?" While the woman was always kind of cold, she's never been so stiff and dismissive.
"I'm fine."
"Neb it's been 5 years. I'd like to say I can somewhat read you now." She placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, feeling her stiffen under her fingers. Piper relaxed slightly.
She's worried. Piper realized.
"You know no matter who we bring back, you'll always be friend. And I'll be here whenever you need me." She hugged the older woman. "I just want you to remember you're not alone here."
Slowly, Nebula held her back.
"How did you get the stone?" She asked as they separated.
"You can't tell Tony." Piper began. "He'd freak out."
Nebula nodded.
"There was a ghost who told us we must sacrifice that which we love the most to get the stone."
"That's why Gamora died." She spat.
"I sent Nat and Clint back and tried to sacrifice myself." She looked away from Nebula's wide eyed stare, her hand straying to her neck. "I tried to run off, but it wouldn't accept me. My father's ring-" She cut off, feeling it's absence. "The stone accepted my father's ring as a sacrifice instead.
"But I heard a voice while I was there." She looked to Nebula, blinking away tears. "It was a woman's voice. She said 'Tell Nebula she will always be my sister and the best thing that happened to me, in all the time I was with Thanos.' I think it was Gamora."
"What?" Nebula asked in shock.
"I guess the stone's omniscient. Maybe it knew Gamora was going to be sacrificed, decided to let her say another goodbye?"
Piper looked to see Nebula's face was unreadable. Piper put a hand on her shoulder in comfort.
"And we're still family. Now come on. I think they're almost finished with the gauntlet."
"You go on." Nebula said. "I'll wait out here."
"You going to prepare the ship to get them for Titan?" Was the only reason Piper could think of for her not wanting to go with her.
"Yes." Nebula said hesitantly.
"Mind waiting for me? We want to make sure this works before we do anything."
"Of course."
Piper smiled.
/
The rest of them gathered in the lab where Tony, Rocket and Bruce were displaying the gauntlet, and Piper was avoiding Clint's and Nat's gaze, who were kind enough not to cause a scene. It looked exactly like one of the Iron Man gauntlet, except with the addition of the stones.
"Is it ready?" Piper asked.
"Yeah." Rocket said. "Question is, who's gonna snap their freaking fingers?"
"I'll do it." Thor insisted walking forward. Tony, Steve and Bruce trying to caution him.
"No," Tony said "no, no, no. Stop. Stop."
"Thor, just wait." Steve insisted. "We haven't decided who's gonna put that on yet."
"I'm sorry." Thor chuckled. "What, were you just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?"
"We should at least discuss it." Nat pointed out.
"Look, us sitting here staring at that thing is not gonna bring everybody back. I'm the strongest Avenger, okay? So this responsibility falls upon me." He took a deep breath as he looked up pleadingly. "It's my duty. It's not that... It's... stop it! Just let me. Just let me do it. Just let me do something good. Something great."
"Look..." Tony said gently "It's not just the fact that that glove is channeling enough energy to light up a continent, I'm telling you you're in no condition."
"What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?" Thor challenged.
"Cheez Whiz?" Rhodey guessed.
"Lightning!"
"Yeah." Tony tried again. "Lightning won't help you, pal."
"It's gotta be me."
"You saw what those stones did to Thanos." Piper reminded stepping forward as she remembered seeing his skin so burnt at first she thought it was dirt. She stared at the glove. "It almost killed him. None of you could survive."
"No." Tony said immediately standing in front of her and grabbing her arm. "You are not putting that thing on!"
"The radiation's mostly gamma." Piper reasoned. "Tony, I can do this. It's like...
"I was meant for this." They looked over to Bruce picked up the glove as it morphed to fit his hand.
"Bruce." Natasha said stunned.
"Good to go, yeah?" Rocket asked.
"Let's do it."
"You remember everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago and just bringing them back to now, today." She could hear Tony's desperation. "Don't change anything from the last five years."
"Got it." Bruce said.
"This is going to have some serious kickback, right?" Piper asked.
The others looked around. Scott and Rhodey activated their helmets, Rocket moved behind Thor who stiffened himself, Piper put on her hood and mask (it should be sturdy enough, it was made by Tony) and Tony activated his own shield protecting him, Nat and Clint.
"Friday, do me a favor and activate protocol 8."
"Yes, boss." As she spoke large metallic sheets barred the doors, walls and windows.
"Everybody comes home." Bruce said sliding it on. Her spidey sense went off as the stones glowed fiercely, electricity dancing between them.
It's burning him, Piper realized as Bruce started screaming excruciatingly as he fell to his knees.
"Take it off!" Piper screamed rushing to him, only to be held back by Tony.
"No wait." Steve said looking toward the green man, "Bruce are you okay?"
"I'm okay." Bruce panted.
"Bruce please!" Piper begged, staying in place only because of Tony's iron grip. "Bruce let me do it!"
Bruce looked to her, giving a pained smiled. "I'm okay." He lifted his arm with a scream before he snapped-
And collapsed on the floor.
"Bruce!" Nat yelled as she and Piper rushed to him, yanking the metal off him, ignoring as it singed her palms, as soon as she was next to him. Her spidey sense still hadn't calmed yet.
"Don't move him!" Tony ordered as he rushed forward and sprayed a cooling agent onto his burnt arm. She saw Clint kick the gauntlet away before he walked off.
"It's alright." Piper promised, trying to will her nerves away. "You're alright."
Suddenly her senses yelled tenfold. She shot up, looking around to see Clint and Scott stepped outside of the room. The others looked up to her as she scanned the room when she spotted the dark shadow against the floor of the room. The sound of something fast travelling through the air.
"Piper what's-"
"GET DOWN!"
The compound exploded.
/
AN:
So, I only got one review this time. Therefore I'm leaving things on a cliff hanger.
I was originally planning to keep the Endgame version of how they got the Soul Stone, but then I rewatched the scene and noticed that Red Skull said "That which you love" not "whom you love" like I originally thought. Therefore I found a loophole!
Anyways super big thanks to my one reviewer.
Grazi: Thank you for the clarification. And I am so glad you loved this chapter. I was worried no one would like it. But I try not to kill my characters for shock value, so Piper lives. And Harry is not heartbroken. As for the don't kill Tony part...? No comment.
As always thank you for reading. Please enjoy and review.
Bye.