For a long, drawn-out moment, the room seemed to hold its breath.
And then Kate Stewart smiled. "Yes, you most certainly are, Doctor," she said. "I'm glad you finally made it."
Amy, for her part, folded her arms over her chest and gave the Doctor a look. "What perfect timing," she said dryly. "Were you standing behind the door waiting for a cue to make your grand entrance?"
A dark-skinned woman with curly black hair popped out from behind him. "He really was," she said with a wide grin. "He was standing outside listening in for a while before coming in."
The Doctor sent her a side-ways glare.
Amy returned the young woman's grin. "Hello, you must be Bill," she said. "I'm Amy."
Bill's face brightened further and she walked around the Doctor to get into the room. "Hello! It's nice to put a face to a name," she said. She came closer and froze. Her jaw dropped. "Oh my god! You're Amy Williams-Pond, the Girl Who Stopped Waiting!"
Tony frowned. "Okay, I'm missing something," he said. "Again. This is starting to become a thing and I don't like it."
Rory turned to him with a smirk. "I married a super model," he told him. Then his face became serious. "Also, proposition my wife again and I will punch you."
Steve glared at Tony disapprovingly while Tony's mouth opened and closed silently a few times.
"What?!" Tony finally exclaimed. "When did that happen? Seriously, Spangles, stop giving me that look! I swear I never propositioned Amy!"
"April 16th, 2013," said Rory with a completely straight face.
Amy, for her part, rolled her eyes. "Fashion Week New York is in February, dear," she said. "And given how drunk Tony was that evening, I highly doubt he'd remember it."
Bill, meanwhile, was beginning to frown as she watched Amy. "No offense, but you look a lot older in person than you did in your photos. Not that you don't still look good. I mean, you're still absolutely gorgeous in that movie star kind of way."
Amy snorted, cutting Bill off before she could talk herself into a verbal corner. "Time travel has a way of creeping up on you, especially when you do as much of it as Rory and I once did. Getting stranded in the 1930s didn't exactly help with that."
"Oh." Bill blinked. Then she made a face. "I'm glad that wasn't me. Getting called the Doctor's servant when we were in the 1800s was bad enough. Although watching the Doctor punch the arrogant twat was almost worth it."
Amy gaped. "The Doctor punched someone?!"
"I would've paid to have seen that," Rory commented from behind her.
Someone loudly cleared their throat. Amy felt the corners of her lips twitch in amusement and briefly met Rory's equally amused eyes. She touched Bill's arm as she passed her, giving her a look that said they would definitely talk more later. Then she approached the white-haired man leaning against the doorframe and smiled even as her eyes took in the nuances of his new regeneration. The physical differences between the Doctor she'd traveled with and this one were obvious, but there were other, less obvious ones.
The glasses, for a start. Deliberately hiding his eyes was a marked difference. His body language was more closed off, more still than the Doctor she'd known. And his posture seemed to be striving for casual, and yet Amy could see the way his fingers twitched, the way his muscles vibrated with suppressed nerves – on her Doctor it would've been energy, but on this man she could tell it was nerves.
He was different in so many ways and yet, even without the grand entrance, Amy would've known this man anywhere. She smiled at him.
"Hello, Doctor," she said. "It's good to see you again."
Her words, simple thought they were, seemed to break some sort of spell and the Doctor unwound himself, some of the tension easing from his posture as he stepped forward. He took off his glasses and folded them, but didn't put them away, instead holding them carefully in his hands. Eyes older than she could possibly imagine looked back at her, full of wisdom and a spark of joy – and heavy with grief.
A dark pit of dread opened in her heart at the sight, but her smile didn't waver.
He smiled back, his smile slightly awkward. "Hello, Amy, Rory," he said softly. "It's good to see you both again too. I never thought it would happen... I suppose this idiot with the giant flying sword masquerading as a spaceship outside is to thank for that."
"Inadvertently."
He took a deep breath and Amy saw the fingers holding his glasses fidget briefly. "I–you know I would've done something if I could have. But there are rules against that sort of thing, you see, and we'd already changed the past twice in that exact moment and exact time and, well, the laws of time aren't really something you want to bend too much. Not that I really have to tell you what happens when the laws of time are broken, you're both aware of the consequences. But if I could have gone and brought you home then–"
Amy covered the space between them and threw her arms around him, making sure to hold on tightly. "We know," she whispered even as she felt Rory slip his arms around both of them.
It took a few seconds, and then the Doctor relaxed in their arms and returned the embrace.
Somewhere behind her, she heard Ross protest about something, but she tuned him out. The Doctor was here. Ross barely mattered anymore.
They untangled themselves, but the closeness between them remained. And the Doctor's smile finally reached his eyes, shining brightly through the grief.
"What happened wasn't your fault," Amy said firmly. "You did everything you could to prevent it, remember. And when Rory was sent away by the Weeping Angel assassin, I followed him with my eyes wide open. I knew we couldn't ever go back, but it kept its word and I was sent to the same place and time as my husband. It might not have had as many adventures as before, but we built a life for ourselves."
"We were happy," Rory added. "We have children now."
Amy grinned. "They're very excited to meet you."
The Doctor frowned and glanced briefly down to where her womb was. "But I thought you couldn't have anymore children?"
"They're adopted, but that doesn't make them any less ours," said Amy, an eyebrow raised in challenge.
"Oh, no, of course not," said the Doctor. "Why did you leave then if you were happy?"
"The opportunity presented itself unexpectedly," Rory answered. "And to save the world."
"Exactly," Amy agreed. "Or are you telling us you don't about the crack in time and space?"
The Doctor's face lit up with surprised delight and his lips split into a grin. "I'd forgotten just how amazing the two of you were."
Amy's grin widened, because there, there was the excited grin she remembered, finally a distinct shade of the Doctor she'd known.
"Then let's go save the world, shall we?" she said. "For old time's sake."
"Yes, absolutely! That's a splendid idea!" He then turned his attention to the others in the room. "Ah, hello Osgood, I see your new integrated unit was approved. Good for you. Kate! Splendid to see you again! And... actually, I don't think I know you."
Ross glowered at the Doctor, clearly unimpressed by the man. Amy chuckled. No, the Doctor didn't look impressive. He wasn't some muscle-bound hero, or a gun-totting commando, and he didn't really have superpowers either. He was impressive precisely because he was neither of those things.
She exchanged amused glances with Rory and Bill.
"I'm Thaddeus Ross, the Secretary of Defense for the United States of America," said Ross after he'd held the Doctor's gaze for a few moments. If he'd been expecting the Doctor to flinch at his assessing gaze, he'd been sorely disappointed even if he didn't show it. "And I don't accept your authority, Doctor. Who exactly are you that you think you can suddenly show up and give orders?"
The Doctor snorted. "Well, for a start I only just got here and therefore haven't actually given any orders yet," he said with a superior haughtiness that Amy blinked at – that was new. "As for why I'm in charge, mostly because I am much smarter and cleverer than you are and because I'm the one who's going to defeat this... this..."
"Kang," Bill volunteered.
"Right, yes, Kang. Which is really quite an awful name isn't it? I almost expect him to have a large pot on his head that goes 'klang' every time you hit it."
"Well, he is wearing this weird blue-tinted thing that looks like a hazmat suit," Tony pipped up. "No idea if it goes 'klang' when you hit it, but I'm all in favour of finding out!"
"A blue-tinted visor, you say? Hmm..." The Doctor looked thoughtful for a moment. "The Moon Colonies used environmental suits like that for repairs to the infrastructure's exterior. You see, they made the visors using a silicone-based mineral found deep within the crust, which made the visors somewhat elastic and yet nearly indestructible, able to withstand tremendous heat and cold, as well as pressure, but also gave it a blue tint."
"Well, Kang is apparently from a Moon colony," said Amy. "So that fits."
"He is?" said the Doctor, looking surprised. "I mean, oh, you already knew that. Well, then you already know how out-of-place his ability to travel through time is. After all, the Moon Colonies were mostly abandoned by the time the Time Agency was founded."
"Time Agency?" Ross asked. "What sort of nonsense are you spouting here, Doctor?! There is no such thing–"
"–Of course there isn't. Well, not yet in any case. Which is what I just said, so do pay attention." He clapped his hands together, turning back to Kate. "Now then, has anyone spoken to this Klang fellow?"
Kate was immediately all business again. "No, we've been hailing his ship in an attempt to open a line of communication, but, last I heard, no one's had any luck. Kang had, of course, managed to hack our communications satellites in order to broadcast his intentions and his demands, but he seems otherwise entirely uninterested in speaking to us us."
"He sort of talked to us when he attacked Stark Mansion," Steve pointed out.
Tony snorted. "That was hardly a conversation," he said. "More like the rantings of an ego-maniacal madman who thinks he's smarter than everyone else."
"He's not smart enough to know not to play with forces and science he doesn't understand," the Doctor muttered darkly.
Out of the corner of her eye, Amy saw Tony flinch and wondered what that was about.
"Kang isn't answering any of our hails either," Ross added grudgingly.
The Doctor nodded. "Well then it seems to me, the first thing we need to do is give him a chance to leave peacefully and of his own volition," he declared.
Everyone in the room blinked at him. All except for Amy, Rory, and Bill, who exchanged excited grins. Because this – the moment when the Doctor finally decided on a completely insane and yet somehow workable plan – this was what they'd been waiting for.
Hidden from sight atop one of the light fixtures, Antman and Wasp looked down on the room, watching the drama unfold as Kate Stewart took on former General Thaddeus Ross. They'd originally retreated here in order to make sure at least one of their group knew what was going on – in case they suddenly had to leave. Because anyone who'd ever worked with Ross knew he was that petty.
Hope could be patient when it was required of her, but she hated not being in the thick of things. Still, there was something to be said for being able to watch things unfold without the need to censor her facial expressions. Especially since Scott was too busy having the same reactions she was to use hers against her – only more verbally.
He seemed particularly giddy at the idea that they were going to be fighting along-side an army of lizard people. Hope just thought it sounded like something out of a bad sci-fi B movie. Turned out, Scott loved bad sci-fi B movies. She wasn't quite sure why that surprised her.
Lizard people – or, rather Silurians – aside, she was still stuck on the revelation that a race of shape-shifting aliens were apparently living on Earth with the knowledge of the UN. Or, possibly a branch of the UN. Hope wasn't entirely where UNIT fit into the hierarchy of the United Nations, since they seemed to be more than just the usual Peace Keepers.
"You know, I think I'm kinda starting to like this woman," Scott had told her at one point. "I wonder why the UN sent Ross instead of her to talk to the Avengers about the Accords."
Hope didn't have an answer for him. Why was Ross, of all people, the one chosen to present the accords to the Avengers instead of someone more neutral, someone with more diplomatic skills?
Neither one of them recognized the man who easily cut into the repetitive argument between Stewart and Ross, but the way the room became immediately charged with both tension and excitement, made the two of them lean over a bit further. And then Kate Stewart gave them a name: the Doctor.
Ever since they'd arrived at this temporary base with UNIT, they'd been hearing whispers of the Doctor. No name, just the title. However, it was the way the name had been spoken that had initially caught their attention: like a prayer, a savior, and a secret weapon all at once. And every mention of his name was suffused with thin tendrils of hope, but also trepidation. It took her a while to work out that it was because they weren't entirely sure he was going to show up to help, but they really, really hoped he did.
And now here he was and both Hope and Scott craned their ears to catch every single word spoken down below them. They glared at Ross in unison for starting up an argument with Stewart once again, because his voice drowned out the softly-spoken words between Amy and the Doctor.
As a savior, he really didn't look like much. There was nothing heroic, nor magical-looking about him. Until his eyes lit up with excitement at the prospect of challenging Kang the Conqueror, not an ounce of fear to be seen, as he confidently told Ross he would stop Kang. And several people below them grinned, as though the man's mere presence managed to reassure them everything would be okay in a way that neither the presence of the Avengers nor an army of Silurians could.
The Doctor didn't bother consulting with anyone, just slipped his sunglasses back over his eyes and rushed over to the cobbled-together transmitter.
"Alien technology," Scott said beside her suddenly. "That's why I didn't recognize what they were doing: that amplifying device they're using to get past the jammers must be alien tech. Probably Zygon, seeing as how we're working together with them. Or they're working with us. Whatever."
Hope nodded. That made sense; the device certainly looked alien.
There was a soft whirling sound and then the device began to pulse a yellow-green light. The television screen turned on. At first it was black. Then some faint static appeared. And then the whole screen flashed and they were looking at the deck of a ship. Two green-clad men and a woman looked up from their consoles in alarm.
"Ah, hello, there," said the Doctor with a friendly, casual ease. "I'd like to speak to your leader. Could you run along and fetch him for me, please? I'll wait."
All three blinked up at him, as though they couldn't decide whether it was his appearance or his polite demeanor that shocked them more. After a few moments, the three exchanged a quick, panicked look and then the woman got up and rushed away.
The Doctor's faint reflection on the screen looked completely unconcerned as he slouched slightly and slipped his hands into his jean pockets to wait.
"You're just going to let him speak on behalf of this planet?" Ross asked Stewart with a glare just as Vision quietly slipped into the room through the back wall.
"Of course I am," said Stewart matter-of-factly. "He's the Doctor. And while I could list his many, many qualifications, right now the most important one is that he's the only person standing in this room whom Kang can't dismiss."
When Kang stepped in front of the screen, he was scowling through his blue visor. Hope noted that he seemed to be the only person on the bridge wearing one.
"Aaah, excellent!" the Doctor began immediately. "You must be Klang."
Kang's scowl deepened. "My name is Kang the Conqueror!" he declared. "And I'll admit, I'm somewhat impressed that you managed to hack my ship's systems in order to force communications like this. I didn't except something so... advanced from a backwards twenty-first century human."
"Gallifreian actually," the Doctor corrected him mildly.
Kang was silent for a moment. "Excuse me?" he then said slowly.
"You called me a backwards twenty-first century human. I'm not. Human, I mean. Or backwards, or from twenty-first century Earth if we get right down to it, but one must always prioritize these things. And I'm not human, I'm a Time Lord. My name is the Doctor, good to meet you."
Kang's eyes widened. "The last of the Time Lords," he said, the words sounding breathless, full of awe, as though forced out of him without his mind's consent. Sure enough, in the span of a single blink, the wide-eyed awe was gone and Kang's face was once again a cold mask. "There have been whispers, rumours of such a man, though I was unable to find anything more substantial than legends, stories to corroborate his existence. There is, in fact, no evidence of the existence of any race known as the Time Lords. And you expect me to believe you are this mythological figure without any sort of proof?"
He continued on for a while longer, the Doctor seemingly content to let him speak, but Hope's mind was stuck on the phrase 'the last of the Time Lords'.
Eventually, Kang went silent, staring down at the Doctor expectantly. Triumphantly.
The Doctor looked highly amused by what Kang had been saying. "You know," he began lightly. "It's quite mind-boggling that you actually, genuinely believe yourself superior to these humans living in the twenty-first century when in reality, you are no less of a child. Oh, certainly, you're a little older, a little ahead of them in school, but you're still just as stupid."
"Hey!" Hope heard Tony Stark protest quietly and scowl at the Doctor. A shadow appeared behind her and she looked over her shoulder. Spiderman gave her a small wave from his spot on the ceiling. Hope and Scott returned it before turning back to the screen below.
Kang had remained silent, but his eyes narrowed dangerously.
"If anything, you're actually more stupid than they are," the Doctor continued. "At least they know they don't have all the answers, but you, you think you do. And that's the sort of stupid that becomes dangerous. What happened, Kang? Did you find a timeship and decide to use it? Did traveling through time give you ideas? Did you think you could just change history without any consequences?!"
"I saved it!" Kang suddenly yelled, his eyes blazing fury even from behind the blue visor. "It crashed just past the experimental gardens, its two crewmembers injured past saving. Even dented and smoking, it was still beautiful, but by the time I arrived, the two fools inside had set the self-destruct!"
The Doctor nodded. "A Time Agency ship then," he said mostly to himself – and possibly for the benfit of his audience. "It's standard procedure."
If Kang heard him, he chose to ignore him. "It took me years, but I finally managed to make sense of the technology and complete repairs. I tested it a few times, over-shooting my return slightly the first time so that instead of three hours, I'd been gone three years. My second test was much more successful, but I digress. If you truly are who you say you are, if you have seen the future of this world, then surely you understand the value of what I'm doing! According to my research this is the ideal time, when most of the world's societies have shifted towards being more open and accepting, and the planet's ecosystem hasn't yet reached the point of no return. It can still be saved! I can save the Earth, the planet that gave birth to the human race, the planet humans plundered and destroyed and then abandoned like nothing more than a chewed-up wad of gum."
Hope's felt her breath catch at the description of the Earth. At the passion that burned in Kang's eyes as he described his desire to save the planet – a planet whose future he'd seen. He was from a Moon Colony, she suddenly remembered, and you could see the Earth from the Moon. He'd probably grown up looking up at the night sky and seeing the dim, leftover, burnt-out wreck of a planet his race had once called home.
She felt tears burn in her eyes.
"Damn," Scott said, his voice sounding rather shaky.
"Yeah," Spiderman agreed softly.
Below them, the room had gone silent, all eyes glued to the television screen.
And then the Doctor sighed and removed his sunglasses, carefully tucking them into his breast pocket.
"Such is the burden of time travel," he said, his voice soft. "To enjoy a lovely day walking through the marketplace of Pompeii, knowing that in two day's time everything around you will be swallowed by the volcano in the distance. That the beautiful young woman who served you tea and the best sweet dumplings you've ever tasted in Hiroshima, will be dead tomorrow, along with everyone around her."
"It's why you shove Hitler into a storage cupboard instead of killing him," Tony suggested.
Hope frowned at the bizarrely random analogy. The Doctor froze with his mouth open for a moment and then closed it with a frown. He looked over his shoulder at them.
"Oh, right, I'd forgotten about that," he said.
Tony threw his hands up in exasperation. "How is shoving Hitler into a storage cupboard an afterthought to anyone?!"
The Doctor shrugged. "It was a very busy day." He turned back to Kang. "Yes, it's why, if you happen to crash into Hitler's office in Berlin, you shove Hitler into a storage cupboard instead of killing him. You see, some things in the timeline can be changed, little things can be altered and it doesn't really affect the universe at large, but there are other events that are far more significant and changing them brings about dire consequences. What you're proposing is noble, yes, but deeply misguided. You're a child whose gotten his hands on his father's gun. You have no knowledge of how to use it properly, nor have you ever bothered to learn the rules, the guidelines that come with using it and are not truly aware of the things that could go wrong."
He took a deep breath.
"You must stop this now, Kang. Go back home to your own century and marvel at the wonders the human race has achieved, not obsess over its failures."
Kang was silent for a long moment but by the way his expression hardened, Hope knew before he spoke that the Doctor's plea had gone unheard.
"Clearly you cannot be the Time Lord of legends," he said coldly. "Surely, a true time traveler would understand the value of fixing the mistakes of the past."
"Mistakes have their own value," the Doctor countered. "They are lessons of what not to repeat, what should never, ever be allowed to happen. They tell us what needs to change, what lessons we still need to learn."
"Doctor – if that is even your name – you are a fool and a sentimental fool at that." The superior sneer was back in Kang's demeanor. "I will change the world and I will change the future. I will not allow this planet to be destroyed the way it once was. Neither you, nor anyone else on this planet have the power to stop me!"
The Doctor chuckled darkly. "I think you'll find that humans, in any century, can be quite resourceful, especially when their backs are to the wall. Doubly so, when they're told something is impossible."
And then, between one blink and the next, the last tendrils of the lightheartedness in the Doctor's face vanished, replaced by an expression that was deathly serious. In the reflection of the television screen, Hope saw a pair of sharp eyes staring back, skewering her with their icy intensity, looking both ageless and yet impossibly old. They were eyes that carried the weight of having seen empires rise and fall, civilizations born, galaxies destroyed. The being that stood below her looked like just a man, but his eyes belonged to an angry god.
She shivered despite herself.
"I am the Doctor," he said in a dark, heavy tone. "I am the man whom the Daleks called the Oncoming Storm, the last of the Time Lords, and I am giving you one last chance to leave of your own free will. Know that if you don't, I will stop you. I happen to like this planet and its people, warts and all, and I will not allow your actions to cause its destruction."
"I-I take it the Avengers do not intend to surrender to me?" Kang asked, attempting to look unimpressed by the Doctor's words, but Hope could tell he was shaken. "Very well, then. I suppose there's no point waiting for the deadline. They will serve a fitting example to the rest of the world."
He made a gesture to the side and the screen went abruptly blank.
"Well, that could've gone better," Tony commented.
"Oh, I don't know, I thought it went quite well," said the Doctor as he spun around to face the rest of the room. "I now know where his time travel technology comes from, which will only make it that much easier to disable and reprogram."
"I'll tell Sarah-Jane to let Harkness know," said Kate, already typing away at her cellphone. "Incidentally, Secretary Ross, I received a message from Sarah-Jane just a few minutes ago. Her group managed to hack into the ship floating above London and figured out how to bring down its shield. They're preparing to infiltrate it as we speak."
She looked up, her eyes smug for moment before a cool, professional mask covered it all up. "She says she's forwarding the information to our Moscow branch, but isn't sure where to relay it to Washington to make sure someone gets it who can do something with it."
Ross, to his credit, hesitated only for a moment. "Tell her to send it to General Houlihan at the Pentagon. I'll call her myself in person to make sure she knows the information is legit." He frowned, his eyes flicking towards the Doctor for a moment. "I might not be happy about it, but you seem to have the situation well in hand here. I will inform the colonel in charge of the squadron outside that he is now under your command."
Kate nodded. "Thank you, Mister Secretary, I appreciate your support in the matter," she said.
"Ensuring that our forces in Washington have the information they need to defeat that ship is my priority right now," he said with a brisk nod. "Good luck to you all."
He left without another word.
"Well, that was..." said Tony.
"Our cue to get working," Kate finished for him. "It won't take long for Kang to find us. And I have a feeling he's going to want to make an example of us personally, if only to make sure everyone knows the Avengers are, indeed, dead."
"Yes, well, I'll leave you lot to figure that part out amongst yourselves," the Doctor declared, his eyes once more gleaming with excitement. "Amy, Rory, are you coming?"
Amy and Rory exchanged a single glance.
"Yes, absolutely," Rory answered.
"But, first, we have to say good-bye to the children," Amy added. She glared at the Doctor when it looked like he was ready to protest. "We are not leaving on a dangerous mission without seeing them first."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Yes, fine, alright," he said, waving them off. "But hurry it up."
He and Bill followed after them.
Hope exchanged a look with Scott and then the two of them flew down to the conference table.
"Once Ross' colonel gets here, we can start outlining a plan of attack," said Kate into the silence that had ensued. "I have a few strategies in mind, but I'd appreciate any input with regards to your own abilities."
"Actually," said Steve, eyeing Osgood and her two guards thoughtfully. "I have an idea about that."