CHAPTER SEVENTEEN, a great return

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

STEVE HELD THE blade in his hand and sighed, making eye contact with himself in the mirror as he looked over his freshly shaven face. He and Natasha had lost her, they had lost Ivanna who had changed their lives for the better. In ways Steve hadn't even noticed until she disappeared before his eyes. Confusion crossed his face as the mirror in front of him began shaking. Steve glanced around, then grabbed his shirt and put it on to run outside of the compound.

Steve, Natasha, Bruce, and Rhodey ran outside, seeing a ship being carried by a woman with blonde hair and a red and blue suit. She brought the ship to the ground, where it opened and Tony himself came out: supported by a purple and blue woman. Steve rushed forward, grabbing onto Tony and letting Tony do the same in return.

"Couldn't stop him," Tony stammered, clearly wounded from an injury Steve couldn't fully see

Steve shook his head, "Neither could I."

"I lost the kid," Tony said next.

"Tony," Steve started, "we lost."

Tony looked around the group, "Is, uh...?"

Pepper was the next person to set foot outside the compound, her eyes instantly landing on her fiancé who stood with Steve, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

Steve let Tony go so he could embrace Pepper, who was beginning to cry as Tony hugged her.

"It's okay," Tony consoled Pepper.

Steve watched on silently, his eyes drifting from the reuniting couple to the ship behind them, and back. He barely had a clue as to what was going on, but he was certain it would be explained soon enough.

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

The group was surrounded in the living room area of the Avengers Compound, Rocker and Nebula with one another while Tony sat at a table receiving blood for healing. Steve was watching the holographic reports closely. The faces and the names flashed across of the people that they had lost.

"It's been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth," Rhodey explained, his arms crossed as people like Nick Fury and Maria Hill flashed across the screens in front of the group.

"World governments are in pieces," Natasha further explained, "The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did... he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent, of all living creatures."

Steve narrowed his eyes on one picture, in particular, the blue eyes and blonde hair ever familiar. Steve could feel the frown forming on his face, as well as the pit in his stomach of realization. He hadn't saved Ivanna or Bucky from their fates of the snap, he couldn't. And now here he stood without them.

"Where is he now?" Tony questioned, "Where?"

"We don't know," Steve spoke up for a response, "He just opened a portal and walked through."

Steve glanced over to Thor, who was seated on a bench with his hands tightly folded together and his eye glued to the ground beneath his feet. Thor hadn't been the same since they left Wakanda, but then again: nobody had.

"What's wrong with him?" Tony asked from his wheelchair while gesturing toward Thor.

"Oh, he's pissed," Rocket answered for Thor, "He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but you know there's a lot of that's going around, ain't there?"

"Honestly, until this exact second," Tony started while pointing at Rocket, "I thought you were a Build-A-Bear."

"Maybe I am," Rocket concluded.

"We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now," Steve interrupted the interaction, needing something to do other than to be reminded about what went wrong, "Deep Space scans, and satellites, and we got nothing. Tony, you fought him."

"Who told you that?" Tony asked with his mouth agape, "I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street Magician gave away the stone. That's what happened. There was no fight."

"Okay," Steve accepted the answer.

Tony, however, wasn't done just yet, "He's unbeatable."

"Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?" Steve questioned.

Tony scoffed, "I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming."

"Tony," Steve was growing annoyed now, "I'm gonna need you to focus."

"And I needed you," Tony seethed, "As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late buddy. Sorry. You know what I need?" Tony rose to his feet, causing things to clatter off of the table and make everyone flinch in the process, "I need to shave. And I believe I remember telling all youse -"

Tony made a move toward Steve and Rhodey put himself between the two men, "Tony, Tony, Tony!"

"Alive and otherwise what we needed was a suit of armor around the world!" Tony continued anyway, "Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not- that's what we needed!"

"Well, that didn't work out, did it?"

"I said, "we'd lose". You said, "We'll do that together too,'" the words resonated with Steve, as almost everyone else in the room had heard them as well, "And guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren't there. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers, we're the Avengers. Not the Prevengers."

"Okay," Rhodey spoke, still trying to calm Tony down the best he could.

"Right?" Tony's eyes were still glued to Steve.

"You made your point," Rhodey coaxed his friend, "Just sit down."

"Okay..." Tony seemed to give in to the request.

"Okay?" Rhodey began to move to help Tony sit down.

"Nah, Nah. Here's my point," Tony began again, "You know what?"

"Tony, you're sick," Rhodey countered.

Tony gestured to Carol, "She's great, by the way."

"Sit down. Sit," Rhodey's voice was hushed and strict, heard just as clearly as Tony's as he confined ranting.

"We need you. You're new blood. Bunch of tired old mules!"Tony walked right up to Steve's face, Steve looking down at him unmoving, speaking in a menacing whisper, "I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar."

Steve reacted to those words, staring down at Tony as he gathered and collected his thoughts to respond. Before Steve had the chance, Tony ripped out his Arc Reactor and shoved it into Steve's hand.

"Here, take this. You find him, and you put that on. You hide,"

And just like that Tony collapsed to the ground, Steve by his side and everyone else starting to gather around,

"Tony!"

"I'm fine. I..."

Tony fell unconscious, leaving the rest of the group to begin taking care of him once more.

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

"I didn't get to say goodbye to my sister," Natasha was speaking in a hushed tone. For the first time in the 23 days since the snap, Steve was finally able to speak to Natasha about how they felt, "only to discover that you've finally realized why she did every last thing she would for you."

Natasha sent Steve a small smile, knowing that Ivanna would be okay and safe if the sister's roles were reversed and rather Natasha gone instead. Carol suddenly rushed past the duo, and Natasha turned to her.

"Where are you going?"

"To kill Thanos,"

Steve and Natasha exchanged a look before trailing after Carol, Natasha speaking up on the matter, "Hey, you know, we usually work as a team here, and between you and I, morale's a little fragile."

"We realize up there is more your territory," Steve continued, "but this is our fight too."

"You even know where he is?" Rhodey questioned.

Carol didn't nod or shake her head, "I know people who might."

Nebula spoke up from where she stood behind Carol, "Don't bother. I can tell you where Thanos is. Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. And when he worked, he talked about his great plan. Even disassembled, I wanted to please him. I'd ask "where would we go once his plan was complete?". His answer was always the same: "To the Garden.'"

Rhodey looked around, unimpressed, "That's cute, Thanos has a retirement plan."

"So where is he?" Steve tried to return the conversation to the main reason they were gathered with one another, to begin with.

"When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions. No one's ever seen anything like it... Until two days ago," Rocker explained, moving toward the screens and pulling up a holograph of a planet, "On this planet."

"Thanos is there," Nebula concluded.

"He used the stones again," Natasha spoke with realization.

"Hey, hey, hey," everyone turned their attention to Bruce, "We'd be going in short-handed, you know."

"Look, he's still got the stones," Rhodey began, "so..."

"So let's get him..." Carol finished for Rhodey, "Use them to bring everyone back."

"Just like that?" Rhodey was disbelieving of what Carol had suggested but ready to try what they could.

"Yeah, just like that,"

Steve and Carol exchanged a knowing look and Natasha spoke up:

"Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this... I mean we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try."

"If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?" Steve glanced to Bruce, the source of the question, and waited for a response that came from Carol.

"Because before, you didn't have me,"

"Hey, new girl, everyone here is about that superhero life," Rhodey began, "And if you don't mind my asking, where the hell have you been all this time?"

"There are a lot of other planets in the universe. And unfortunately," Carol started explaining, her eyes on Rhodey before looking amongst everyone else, "they didn't have you guys."

Thor began stalking toward Carol, leaving his snack behind on the table where he had been from the beginning, and summoning Stormbreaker. Steve watched as it barely missed Carol, and Thor stood beside it and stared down at the woman in front of him.

"I like this one," and for the first time: some sort of smile was on Thor's face.

Steve nodded. If there was a chance to get everyone, especially Ivanna and his friends, back he'd take it, "Let's go get this son of a bitch."

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

Steve, Thor, Rhodey, Rocket, Nebula, Bruce, and Natasha all were the group seated on the Benatar. They were suited up out of their street clothes and left Tony behind to begin their trip to find Thanos. Rocket was piloting them and turned to the group of guests on the ship.

"Okay, who here hasn't been to space?"

Natasha, Steve, and Rhodey simultaneously raised their hands. Confusion crossed Rhodey's face:

"Why?"

"You better not throw up on my ship," Rocket spoke warningly and returned to what he'd been doing previously.

Nebula's voice filled the group's ears, "Approaching jump in 3... 2... 1!"

The ship lurched forward, and Steve found himself clutching to his seat desperately. He was pressed into the surface, his eyes widening due to the new experience. The ship eventually slowed down, and hovered in orbit of the planet Rocket had shown the team on the hologram. Carol hovered in front of the Benatar.

"I'll head down for recon,"

The passengers amongst the Benatar began preparing themselves to confront Thanos, and Steve was staring at his compass that once carried a photo of Peggy Carter in it. That was until Natasha had gotten her hands on it before they left the compound and then gave it back to Steve when they boarded the Benatar. Instead of Peggy's face, was now Ivanna's. And Steve could only send a tight lipped smile back toward the pictured blonde in the compass.

Natasha walked toward Steve, seeing the reaction on his face as it was the best that she had seen in the past few weeks,

"This is gonna work, Steve."

Steve looked up at Natasha standing beside him, "know it will."

Steve lowered his gaze back to the compass in his hands, "Cause I don't know what I'm going to do if it doesn't."

"No satellites, no ships, no armies, no ground defenses of any kind. It's just him," Carol's voice grabbed Steve's attention and Nebula answered for the group.

"And that's enough,"

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

The group watched as Thanos moved around the farm he was at as if he hadn't hurt the entirety of Earth. As if he heading separated families and friends from one another "for the greater good." They let Thanos enter the house before Carol went crashing through the roof, then Bruce in the hulk-buster through the floor. Thor flew in next, dismembering Thanos and watching the Infinity Gauntlet drop to the floor.

Steve and Natasha entered next, murder in Natasha's eyes as she stared at the man who had resulted in the loss of her family. Rocket walked over to the sliced off Gauntlet, kicked it over, and muttered:

"Oh no."

Steve looked down, discovering the missing stones of the gauntlet, "Where are they?"

"Answer the question!" Carol demanded from behind Thanos, holding him tighter.

"The universe required correction. After that, the stones served no purpose, beyond temptation," Thanos gave his explanation, angering Bruce who stepped forward and pushed Thanos into the ground with the strength of the Hulk-buster suit,

"You murdered trillions!"

"You should be grateful," Thanos received a punch in the face from the hulk buster.

"Where are the Stones?" Natasha pressed.

"Gone. Reduced to atoms,"

Bruce was growing annoyed before everyone's eyes, "You used them two days ago!"

"I used the stones to destroy the stones. It nearly killed me. But the work is done. It always will be," Thanos sat straighter, proud of himself, "I am... inevitable."

"We have to tear this place apart," Rhodey decided, "he-he-he has to be lying."

"My father is many things," Steve looked to Nebula who hadn't spoken as much as everyone else until now, "A liar is not one of them."

"Ah, thank you, daughter," Me yea looked at the ground beneath her, showing how uncomfortable she was, "Perhaps I treated you too harshly."

Thor's rage was growing by the second, and the next thing Steve knew, Thor had sliced Thanos' head off. The titan's limp body fell to the ground as Nebula wiped off the blood splatter.

"What... What did you do?" Rocket was the first to speak, his eyes on the dead body.

Steve focused his attention on Thor, watching his anger fade to realization and guilt,

"I went for the head,"

Thor turned around, leaving the group alone in the hut as he walked away. Steve's gaze fell to the limp, lifeless body, wondering where everything went wrong and how he could've had Ivanna and finally told her the truth if this could've gone right. But it didn't. And here they were once again; defeated and still without most of their team, family, or friends.