↳ our job

they had collectively decided to walk out of the ship and search for thanos, after introducing themselves to each other

the alien lady turned out to be called mantis, quill was peter quill or starlord as he liked to call himself. the grey guy was drax

"what the hell happened to this planet?" wondered quill "it's eight degree off its axis" he held some sort of scale in his hand "gravitational pull is all over the place"

"yeah, we got one advantage. he's coming to us" tony said "we'll use it, alright i have a plan or at least the beginnings of one. 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 want the gauntlet"

drax yawned audibly

"are you yawing?"

he yawned again

"in the middle of this while i'm breaking it down? huh? did you hear what i said?"

"i stopped listening after you said 'we need a plan'"

"okay, mr clean is on his own page"

"see, "not winging it" isn't really what they do" explained quill

"are you kidding me?!" evi put her face into her hands

"uh, what exactly is it that they do?" asked peter pointing at mantis and drax behind evis back

"kick names, take ass" said mantis proudly

"yeah that's right"

"i'm sure something just got lost in translation" evi whispered at peter, who nodded wide eyed

tony stared at them like he was trying to figure out a puzzle and sighed as if he couldn't find an answer

"all right, just get over here, please" he advised "mr lord can you get your folks to circle up?"

"star-lord is fine"

they stepped closer after quill had nodded at them

"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 it means" quill interrupted "all right, we're optimistic, yes. i like your plan... except it sucks so let me do the plan and that way it might be really good"

"tell him about the dance-off to save the universe" said drax

"this is gonna be a disaster" whispered evi, hiding her face in peters shoulder. she wasn't sure if she should laugh or cry at these ridiculous people

"what dance-off?" asked tony

"it's not a- it's not- it's nothing"

"like in footloose, the movie?" peter assisted

"exactly like the movie"

"peter" evi warned through her teeth

"i'm sorry, it's a great movie" peter said, raising his hands in defence

"it is!" said quill excitingly "it's still the greatest movie in history right?"

"it never was" said peter, after evi had slapped his arm to say something that would get quill away from his trip down memory lane and focus on the task at hand

"don't encourage this alright?" tony advised, turning around and stepping down in their direction "we're not getting any help from flash gordon here"

"flash gordon? by the way that's a compliment... don't forget i'm half human, so that 50% of me that's stupid, that's a 100% you" he drew an invisible circle around the three in front of him

"your math is blowing my mind"

"excuse me" said mantis, interrupting the fight that was obviously about to start "but does your friend often do that?"

"strange? we alright?" tony called at the man who was hanging mid-air while he seemed to be meditating, his head snapping from side to side. his body was in a green daze, which was coming out of the time stone.

suddenly, he fell down on the ground, tony racing to kneel down beside him
"you're back, you're alright" he tried to comfort

"hi" said strange

"hey what was that?" peter asked from in front of evi. she sent a concerned look in strange's direction. she felt like she knew what he was about to announce

"i went forward in time, to view alternate futures, to see all the possible outcomes of the coming conflict"

"how many did you see?" asked quill, even he seemed serious now

"14.000.605"

"how many did we win"

"one"

"we're fucked" announced evi, while she threw up her hands and turned around
"why even bother at this point"

"there are lives at stake here" said tony

"yeah, believe me i know that" she sighed "but why try when we've already lost, the probability is literally one to 14.000.605 and if we make one wrong choice, than it's over. without me" she turned away and began to walk through all the rumble, trying to find a way off this stupid planet, but it seemed like she was stuck here

she heard steps approaching behind her while she sat down on a piece of metal.

"you don't mean that" peter said when he stopped and sat beside her

"how do you know i don't?"

"you're not like this, you're an avenger and they— we do what's right and we save lives, that's our job"

"it was my job, but i quit" evi commented sarcastically "i don't want to spend this life dying for nothing again"

"but you said you would be good, that you weren't our enemy, you said you left that behind you"

"i did"

"then why don't you want to fight with us? are you scared something might happen to you? i promise that i will keep—"

"no that's not it" evi shook her head

"than what is it? you can tell me"

"i don't have a problem with dying, peter" she sighed "i would die again if it was to save innocent lives"

"then what is wrong with fighting for them, or at least trying for them?"

"if i have to die again, i want to die with my sister"

"oh" peter gulped

"yeah, 'oh'" evi laughed

"you don't know if you both die"

"i do" evi said "you remember the part about the future? we can't win this fight, peter. half the population will die and with them my sister, this will definitely happen, i know it. i'd rather see her before i never can again"

"are you really sure that it will end like that?"

"yes"

"but isn't there something you forgot in your equation?"

"no..? what do you mean"

"you came back to life and went straight to the future before you came here, right?" peter asked

"yeah, that's about it"

"then you weren't here before that?"

"what is your point?" evi started to grow annoyed at the boy

"you forgot that time when we lost, you weren't here to help, in my opinion that makes a huge difference"

evi was too stunned to answer

"i promise it will be different this time, we'll try and this time it will work"

evi smiled at the optimistic boy. she had never guessed that she could ever not be annoyed at someone that optimistic, the events happening in her life didn't really make it easy to be a happy person, but she actually really liked peter parker. and maybe, which scared her, a little too much.

"you really promise?"

he silently outstretched his hand and shook hers as if they had just made a deal. then he held up his little finger to her

"pinky promise" he whispered

she laughed a little but took his finger with hers.

"we will try" she agreed as if to sell the promise

if only they had known

*