WE WERE HEADING STRAIGHT TOWARDS THANOS. As scary as that sounds, Tony convinced us that it would give us the upper-hand. We could scope out the area and strategize before Thanos arrived.

As we got closer and closer to our destination my nerves were eating me alive. Strange didn't think I was capable of battling Thanos and neither did I. What if I got hurt? What if someone else got hurt because I do something wrong? It's becoming much more apparent that I should have stayed home today.

The ship crashed into the planet but luckily Strange and I made a forcefield that softened the blow. Everyone took a deep breath and tried to relax, but then Peter warned us that something was coming.

Some sort of bomb contraption was thrown in between all of us and we all were blown away. I groaned and slowly got up to see some guy floating around aiming at me with his gun. Quickly, I made a forcefield to protect myself from the blasts. When he realized he couldn't hurt me he went after Peter, bounding him with some sort of electric rope.

"Everybody stay where you are. Chill the eff out." He yelled out. He had Peter in a choke hold with a gun to his head. I paused and looked around at everyone else. Tony had an alien on the floor with his hand above its head, ready to shoot him. Strange and I stayed on alert.

"I'm gonna ask you this one time. Where is Gamora?" He asks, removing his mask.

"Yeah. I'll do you one better. Who's Gamora?" Tony asks the question we were all thinking.

"I'll do you one better. Why is Gamora?" The alien under Tony asks. If we weren't being attacked by aliens then I would've laughed at that.

"Tell me where the girl is or I swear to you I'm gonna French Fry this little freak." The first guy pressed.

"Let's do it. You shoot my guy and I'll blast him. Let's go!" Tony exclaims turning his arm into a gun.

"Do it, Quill! I can take it." The alien announces.

"No, he can't take it!" Another alien exclaims from behind Strange. I didn't notice her until now. She had antennas coming out of her head.

"She's right. You can't." Strange confirms.

"Oh, yeah? You don't wanna tell me where she is? That's fine. I'll kill all four of you and I'll beat it out of Thanos myself." Quill threatened. From the looks of him he doesn't look like he could take on Thanos by himself.

"Thanos?" I ask.

"Let me ask you this one time, what master do you serve?" Strange questions.

"What master do I serve? What am I supposed to say, "Jesus"?" Quill retorts.

"You're from Earth." Tony deadpans.

"I'm not from Earth, I'm from Missouri."

"Yeah that's on Earth, dipshit." Tony scoffs. "What are you hassling us for?"

"So you're not with Thanos?" Peter narrows his eyes.

"With Thanos?? No, I'm here to kill Thanos." Quill confirms, lowering his gun. I felt a wave of relief go through me once he mentioned he was against Thanos.

"He took my girl. Wait, who are you?"

"We're the Avengers, man." Peter breaths once Quill lets him go.

"You're the ones Thor told us about." The girl alien said.

"You know Thor?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. Tall guy, not that good-looking, needed saving." Quill retorts.

I furrow my brows. "You are talking about a different Thor, my friend."

.•¤۞¤•.

ONCE WE GOT OFF THE SHIP, everyone started doing their own thing. Quill took out some device and was walking around saying the planet is 'eight degrees off its axis'. The girl alien was jumping around in the low gravity. I tried to stick with Strange when we got off the ship, but he made an effort to put distance between us. He made it clear that he was aggravated with me so I stood uselessly by Peter.

"All right, I have a plan. Or at least the beginnings of one." Tony announces. We were in a small group consisting of Quill, Peter, and Drax. Strange was off by himself in a familiar looking position. He sat cross-legged, levitating with the time stone suspended between his hands. It almost looked as if he was meditating, but after watching him work for two years I knew that he was going forward in time over and over again to see different combinations of the future.

"It's pretty simple. We draw him in, pin him down, get what we need. Definitely don't wanna dance with this guy. We just need the gauntlet." A yawn escaped from Drax and we all turned to look at him.

"Are you yawning? In the middle of this, while I'm breaking it down? Huh? Did you hear what I said?" Tony asks incredulously.

"I stopped listening after you said, "We need a plan." Drax deadpaned

Tony turned to face Quill with a disappointed expression on his face. "Okay, Mr. Clean is on his own page."

"See, "not winging it" isn't really what they do." Quill says sarcastically.

"Uh, what exactly is it... That they do? Peter looks at them with his brows furrowed.

"Kick names, take ass" The girl alien answers. Drax stands beside her confidently confirming her answer.

Everyone pauses for a moment. My eyes darted to Tony waiting to see his reaction because one thing I've learned about Tony Stark is that he is very expressive. He stands with pure hopelessness plastered on his face. Which, I shouldn't find amusing because if the most confident man in the world has no hope then we are about to die.

"Alright, just get over her, please. Mr. Lord can you get your folks to circle up?"

"Mr. Lord." Quill scoffs. "Star-Lord is fine." He motions for his alien friends to join us.

"We gotta coalesce. 'Cause if all we come at him with is a plucky attitude-"

"Dude, don't call us plucky. We don't know what is means." Quill interrupts. "Alright, we're optimistic, yes. I like your plan. Except it sucks, so let me do the plans, and that way it might be really good."

"Tell him about the dance-off to save the universe." Drax suggests hopefully.

"What dance-off?"

"It's nothing."

"Like in Footloose, the movie?" Peter piped up.

"Exactly like Footloose. Is it still the greatest movie in history?" Quill's eyes light up.

"No. It never was." I deadpanned.

"Don't encourage this, alright?" Tony motions for me to stop. "We're getting no help from Flash Gordon here."

"Flash Gordon? By the way, that's a compliment. Don't forget, I'm half human." Quill points at us. "So that 50% of me that's stupid... That's 100% you."

"Your math is blowing my mind." Tony replied sarcastically.

"Excuse me, but...Does your friend often do that?" The alien interrupts.

Everyone's eyes divert to Strange levitating behind us. His head is rapidly jerking side to side and his whole body is tense. I walk towards him and everyone follows suit behind me. He seems to snap out of the trance and he falls forward a bit but Tony stabilizes him.

"He went forward in time to see different futures and outcomes of what's coming." I explained to the group for Strange, who looked too out of breath to talk.

"How many did you see?" Quill asked from behind me.

"14,000,605." Strange says numbly.

"How many did we win?" Tony asked with a more hopeful tone than earlier. Everyone held their breath as we waited for Strange to answer. I hoped that the odds would be in our favor, but I knew in my bones his answer would be disappointing.

"One."

.•¤۞¤•.

AFTER OUR DEBRIEF, we all went our separate ways and got into position to execute our plan. No one knew when Thanos would arrive so we all waited anxiously. I sat on a rock, holding my knees to my chest, trying to calm myself down.

I shouldn't have come. I'm not ready for this. I am going to die. I'm going to be the reason someone else dies.

I anxiously picked at my fingernails and tried to imagine scenarios where everything turned out fine. I tried to remember spells I have learned that could help, but my memory went blank. I felt like I was going to crack under the pressure.

Strange didn't want me here and he told me that I'm on my own. I understand the importance of keeping the time stone safe and that's priority, but if I screw up, he won't be there to save me. And that's a terrifying thought.

As if he could read my thoughts, Strange walked over to be. I squeezed my eyes shut, expecting another lecture from him. But instead, he just sat next to me silently. It was almost as if he was trying to think of what to say to me. The man who has always known what to say had no clue what to say to me. After a few moments of silence, he finally says something. 

"Listen, I'm not mad that you followed me here. Even though I really wish you would have stayed home, I can't be mad at you."  He paused. "You're a great kid, Emmie. Thank you for wanting to have my back."

"Hey, I'm your partner. Your mess is my mess. It's what I do." I mustered up all the confidence left in me to sound sure of myself.

"Alright." He smiled, sympathetically. "I'll let you call us that this one time." He starts to get up, looking off into the horizon with an ever-knowing, matter of fact sense to him.

    "You can handle this." Strange says before he looked back at me. "If you couldn't have, I would have sent you back home. This is what you have been training for, Emmie."

    As Strange walked away and left me alone with my thoughts, I couldn't help but wonder if he told me the truth or not. I didn't dwell on it for too long, because even if it was a lie, it did make me feel better.

A/N

we are starting to get into the action!!

psa: emmie and peter's relationship is going to be a slow burn. a really really slowww burn. if your not into that i'd turn back now, but i just hate in books when everything is so rushed. i just rly want them to be on a realistic timeline.

hope you guys enjoyed!

<3 CJ