Thank you to everybody who read or reviewed the last conversation. You are lovely. Also, a reminder I posted a special chapter Wednesday this week. If you did not read that chapter, go back.

We are back to the "bad choices were made" timeline in October of 2023. A few notes, time will not be flowing the same between our two timelines. Only a few hours have passed in the "good choices" timeline; in contrast, nearly a day has passed in the "mistakes were made" timeline. There's a reason for that.

We will be doing Shield Agent/Avengers mission reports in the story. This will function similarly to the interludes during the first story. Remember, Daisy and Laura are off by themselves, Laura in a different dimension/timeline several years in the future, and Daisy on Sakai, which might as well be considered a different dimension. I promise we'll be checking on Daisy soon.

ATCU/Avengers report 1: I am no longer in Kansas

Agent: Laura Barton

Location: Avenger compound, Medical wing

Date: October 12, 2023

I have been in this strange place for 22 hours and 18 minutes, according to Avenger Friday. That's about the only thing she's allowed to tell me now. May has ordered her not to tell me anything else due to her last major revelation causing me to lose consciousness.

From what I've gathered, I am here due to time travel gone wrong. Or maybe attempt to undo the damage caused by Thanos gone badly. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that I've landed 5+ years in the future where half of all life in the universe was wiped out of existence at the snap of fingers and six stones.

My children are essentially dead, or rather the children of the Laura in this timeline are dead. They were among the many victims of what is referred to as the Decimation. Not that my counterpart is aware because she was also wiped out of existence. Now I understand why Clint seemed so lost when he found me at the compound. As far as he was concerned, I'd been dead for over five years. All of us being gone explains the midlife crisis hair and tattoos. A major life crisis can usually explain the worst hair and tattoo choices.

Of course, I'm going entirely on supposition because this Clint hasn't said a word to me about anything. He was waiting for me to wake up in medical after passing out. However, after I confirmed May's suspicions that I am a Shield agent from an alternate 2018, he's been avoiding me. Maybe I'm just another ghost of the past to him now.

Bruce has been the only one that talks to me, although May has sat in on all those meetings, usually focusing on her phone. She was greatly relieved when she found out that Laura was from the timeline created by Leo Fitz, a.k.a. James Leopold being tossed back in time nearly 2 years by the monolith. She seemed grateful to find out that Leo didn't die; he just created a new timeline where Tony and Steve started speaking to each other again and Coulson is not terminally ill.

Not surprisingly, Melinda left the room after that revelation. I am trying to decide if it was the Coulson was alive revelation or the fact that her husband was engaged to someone else revelation that forced her to leave. Considering Friday told me that they were only married so she could get custody of her adopted daughters, I'm leaning towards Coulson being alive and well in my timeline. I can understand how hard something like that could be.

15 minutes later, Steve arrived to take her place, and Bruce resumed his interrogation. Steve didn't really participate except when Bruce asked him if he was bisexual and to confirm he really did date a former Sen. Christopher Ward staffer. I feel horrible for revealing that, but I needed to know for sure how close the timelines are. (And that felt like a safer topic then the half-sister in Nevada.) I'm now 100% sure they diverged when Leo came back.

Steve almost seemed relieved that we know about Thanos and are actively preparing to defeat him as a team. Of course, I don't know if the preparations we've made will make any difference because nobody will answer my questions about what happened here, and I've asked everyone. No one answers.

As stated earlier, Friday is now banned from telling me anything else about what I am mentally referring to as the 'Thanos wins' timeline. I'm only aware of this order because I woke up to Natasha berating the AI for telling me too much after May told her about the information ban. I get the impression that Natasha might oversee this timeline's Avengers. I, unfortunately, I can't get any confirmation regarding that because Friday is banned from telling me that.

I despise this one-way exchange of information. They want to know everything about where I'm from, but won't tell me anything of use. Of course, I'm holding some things back as well. No way am I going to mention that Leo decided not to look for a way to come back to his original timeline and is essentially married to someone else. I'm pretty sure this Simmons is holding on by a thread. She tried to come to see me once and started crying. I overheard somebody saying something about Fitz also being dusted, which confuses me. I would love for clarification, but again no one is telling me anything.

This is what I know:

On March 24, 2018, three monoliths that control space, time, and creation were destroyed by a bomb. It was presumed that Leo Fitz died during the explosion. Instead, he was transported 22 months into the past. Due to his attempt to prevent the destruction of the earth, he created an alternate timeline that apparently, I come from.

On April 28, 2018, half of all living life was wiped out by Thanos using the infinity stones. The Avengers were not able to keep him from getting all six stones. The last stand happened in Wakanda, which makes sense considering some of Robin's early drawings. I am starting to think that maybe the baby bird can see the future of multiple dimensions and timelines, not just our own. Perhaps she was showing us what would happen if Leo didn't intervene. I don't know for sure.

If I'm doing the math right, the decimation happened about a month after Leo disappeared from this timeline. This means that we diverge from this timeline, or at least that's what Bruce hypothesizes. This would be our future if he didn't come. This could still be our future except Coulson is not terminal and Steve and Tony are practically married to each other. (I haven't even met this timeline's Tony yet and I kind of want to smack him upside the head for letting the situation get this bad.)

Yo-Yo was killed by Thanos during the fight. I'm trying to find out if others died during the battle, but again Friday's not allowed to tell me anything, and no one else is talking. I overheard this little tidbit.

I wish I had a comprehensive list of who is dusted, but I don't. My children, myself, Daisy, Agent McKenzie, and all of Ms. Marvel's family are among the dusted. I'm 99% sure that the Princess is among the dusted too, because if she was still alive, I completely expect her to be here. I also feel that the time travel might have worked properly. She is the smartest Avenger. Even my Tony says that.

The Avengers that are left have resorted to time travel to try to get the stones because they were destroyed by Thanos in this timeline, so his masterpiece cannot be undone. I assume that Thanos is dead, but again I have no confirmation on that.

I don't know why I am writing this report. It's not like I'm able to send it to my Tony right now. Maybe I am writing so I can put my thoughts together on what I need to do. I need to get back home to prevent this from happening. I'm not losing my kids. I'm just not. The best way to keep Thanos from winning again is to figure out how the Avengers lost.

I'm not sure they're willing to answer my questions regarding that. They're living with the scars of what happened, but I don't think they ever processed it. I'm not sure if everybody grieved because they're focusing on undoing it. On that note, I don't think they're going to be willing to examine the mistakes that were made closely. I hypothesize things went badly because they were not actually on speaking terms at the time of the invasion. It's hard to stop an apocalypse when you're not talking to many of your teammates. I think Leo made the right decision in getting Tony and Steve talking to each other again first. At least that's one thing going in our favor.

Xxxxxx

Laura placed her phone on her lap, done for the moment, or so she thought. Suddenly she noticed text show up on her phone mysteriously.

xxxxx

I'm curious to know precisely how your Tony and Steve started talking to each other again. Because like you guessed, we have yet to really move past the Siberia fiasco. The rift was just made worse by the fact we had our asses handed to us by a giant purple alien.

I feel like I need details because the Steve Rogers I know is not a sharer. He is also a bit of an asshole. He doesn't like to share information; therefore, it has not surprised me at all they're not telling you about this god awful "Thanos wins and everything is horrible" timeline that you found yourself in. Although it is good to have more confirmation that Star Trek got time travel more correct than Back to the Future.

Okay, and maybe Steve is not entirely horrible. Okay, he's not horrible at all. Sometimes he just annoys me, but I wish we could hang out without talking about our kids. He still has a stick up his ass, in the bad way, but he is a good father and husband. Better than me sometimes, not that Pepper and I are married because reasons.

It can't be easy raising a child that sees the future. It's hard enough raising a normal gifted kid. Not that there is anything normal about any gifted kid. I should know.

xxxxx

After reading the text messages, Laura was 100% sure who was writing, but decided that she should write the person back. Therefore, she started to type.

xxxxx

Tony? Is that you. Also, Star Trek was right about meeting yourself not causing a world-ending paradox. Leo and Fitz are like brothers. They hang out with each other all the time.

The random text showing up on my screen is creepy. Send an actual text message or something else next time.

You are good. Yes, this is Tony. I'm going to need a number to do that.

Please, not you. You're Tony Stark.

To be continued.

I was initially going to keep this conversation going on longer in this form, But I realized it was very confusing to read and would have been hard to interpret for those using screen reading software. They rarely tell you when the text switches to being italicized.

But just to clarify, the italicized text was Tony sneakily typing on Laura's Avenger report share document.