20 | 'TIL DEATH DO US PART

Everyone charged in on Thanos' army. Everyone fought bravely and harshly, managing to obliterate Thanos' army. The fighting wasn't the hard part. The difficult part of the fight was getting the gauntlet full of stones back where the stones belonged. "Lia!" Clint shouted into their ear pieces.

"What do you want me to do with this damn thing?!" Clint asked.

"We need to get them back where they came from!" Bruce replied.

"No way to get them back. Thanos destroyed the quantum tunnel." Tony reminded everyone in the comm.

"Hold on, that wasn't our only time machine!" Scott announced. Then pressed a button on his keys that made an obnoxious alarm on his van.

Amelia looked over and spotted the ugly brown van. "Clint, get the stones to them." Amelia told.

"Yes ma'am!" Clint chuckled then went off the comm.

Amelia stabbed and hit and kicked every possible enemy in the field, and somehow, she managed to end up next to Tony and Dr. Strange. "Hey, you said one out of fourteen million we win, yeah? Well tell me this is it." Tony spoke to Strange.

"If I tell you what happens, it won't happen." Stephen replied, then glanced over at Amelia.

"You better be right." Tony spoke lowly.

The fighting continued and Amelia took no part in trying to get the gauntlet back to the van. She couldn't keep up with where it was going. All she knew was that she suddenly saw and felt ballistic missiles falling from the sky and it was taking out the Avengers' team and even Thanos' own people. It was obviously Thanos' doing, and he must've gotten desperate to release such missiles and risk the lives of those on his team. Strange and his people instantly created golden shields made out of magic above everyone's head to protect them from getting killed by the missiles. But, the damage the missiles were causing alone was enough of a threat to kill them all. The missiles destroyed a natural barrier holding back the coastal water from seeping into the crater created by Thanos when he destroyed the Avengers compound.

The water began rushing in and Catalina instantly knew what she had to do. She snapped her head over to the rushing water and lifted her hands. She felt her power to control water surge through her veins. She had taken on huge bodies of water plenty of times before, so, this was a piece of cake. Using her power, she held the water back and pushed it back away from the battlefield.

"Help! Somebody help!" Peter shouted.

Amelia looked over and spotted Peter getting swarmed by enemies and he had the gauntlet in hand. "Hold on, baby." Amelia spoke into their comm before throwing the Mjölnir. Peter caught the hammer and flung away with it through the sky.

When he landed, Pepper and Valkyrie made sure that he didn't take took hard of a fall down to the ground as they flew through the air on their respective iron suit and magical flying horse.

He landed at Val's feet and she quickly landed him a hand to lift him up off of the ground. At that exact moment, the missiles stopped raining down on the battlefield. Val looked up to the sky and saw the missiles were now being shot at another target. Something in the air coming toward them. The enemies seemed frantic. "What the hell is this?" Sam asked in the comms.

A ball of blazing fire cans charging in toward Thanos' ships and ripped right through them, instantly destroying them. It was the Carol Danvers herself. "Oh, yeah!" Amelia cheered when she saw her come in to save the day.

Danvers flew down to the ground and landed before Val and Peter. Val was wiping the blood of her enemies off of the dual ended sword she stole from Thanos. He had dropped it on the ground and while she was running along, she picked it up for herself. It was quite a good weapon to use when surrounded by opponents, she found. She hadn't even needed to use her powers just yet because she was having too much fun with the sword. "Hi, I'm... Peter Parker." Peter awkwardly introduced.

"Hey Peter Parker. You got something for me?" Carol asked him.

Peter handed her the gauntlet. "I don't know how you're going to get it through all of that." Peter nodded over at the masses of enemies charging towards them.

"She's got help." Val smiled devilishly once she saw all the other women heroes gathering around her, in a defensive strategic way.

But, as Carol was about to make her way over to the van. Thanos found another weapon, one not dual ended and not as cool this time, and threw it at the van. Within seconds, it destroyed the van. Thus, destroying their plan to return the stones.

Amelia was seething. She ran toward Thanos and began throwing the hammer at him. Steve and Thor joined in to try and slaughter him once and for all, but their plan was ruined by an angry Carol rushing in to try and help. She still had the gauntlet in her possession when she rushed over and Thanos snatched it from her and tossed her aside. He quickly put the gauntlet on and felt the energy surge through him. Carol tried to fix her mistake by trying to take off the gauntlet from him, but, it was too late. He managed to punch her away.

Amelia growled and ran at Thanos again, this time only accompanied by Tony. She grabbed the gauntlet with Tony and tried to take it off of Thanos. Tony, while pulling, managed to take out all of the stones from the gauntlet in time before Thanos could realize. Amelia noticed but didn't say anything. She wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to use the stones then. Thanos chuckled. "I am... inevitable." Thanos shoved Amelia and Tony aside then raised his hand and snapped his fingers. But.. nothing happened.

Amelia resisted the urge to laugh. Thanos looked over at his gauntlet and realized all the stones were gone. He looked back at Tony, who had all the stones and they were now all loaded up in a gauntlet of his own creation. A gauntlet built into his iron man suit. Amelia realized that if Tony tried to erase Thanos, it wouldn't work since he needed all of the time stone to mess with his timeline. And who had the missing half of the time stone? Amelia. Amelia turned to Thanos. "And I... am the captain now." She chortled then grabbed a shard of glass from the ground and stabbed herself in the gut.

As fast as she could, she reached down and fished out the half of the time stone buried deep inside her. When she pulled it out, it was hardly noticeable since it was covered in blood but the moment she plopped it into Tony's gauntlet, it lit up so brightly it hurt her eyes. Thanos and Tony were so in shock at her scene that they didn't know what to do but stare for a moment as she began to bleed out. "Snap!" Amelia screamed at Tony.

And Tony got it together and snapped. The moment he did, all of their enemies dusted away into nothingness. Including Thanos. Before he did though, he watched in horror as he lost the Great War he felt he had always been preparing for.

Tony was nearly burnt to a crisp. His mere human body couldn't handle all of that power moving through him. He crawled over to Amelia who was beginning to cough up blood. She must've punctured her own lung in the process of trying to save the universe. "No, no, no." Tony barely coughed up.

"You can't die. You already died!" Tony was shaking from all the strain he was taking from trying to near Amelia.

"I love you." Tony placed his hand on her face. He needed her to know that. It wasn't a romantic love. It was a family type of love. She was a figure he respected and looked up to for so long. She was one of the only people to genuinely care for him.

Amelia weakly smiled, her face getting paler by the second. Suddenly, Steve ran over to Amelia and lifted her head into his arms. "No! No! This isn't fair!" Steve cried out as he held her nearly limp body close.

"I'll be okay." Amelia assured him. She knew that although her last experience with death was strange, it was unnatural. She knew that this time she'd finally experience what life was like after death. She hoped it was pleasant.

Steve bawled and rocked her back and forth. "I can't live without you. I can't do this again. Please!" He was shaking uncontrollably. It hurt worse seeing her die in his arms.

Valdís joined the scene and covered her mouth. She began to weep. Amelia's breathing became short and choked up. "I left.. letters for you." Amelia told Steve as she fought for oxygen.

No more words were exchanged until Amelia took her final breath. Steve let out a howl. He was devastated and truly heartbroken. How could it be? How could she leave him again? How could his god do such a thing to him? It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. She was good. She saved the universe. She deserved better.

But, it was meant to be. It was all a part of her plan.

* * *

When Steve finally returned home, he found the box of letters Amelia wrote to him. He combed through the dozens of letters she wrote and analyzed every curve of her handwritten letters. He couldn't believe she was dead. He couldn't believe that they were burying her the next day. It was all too fast. He felt as if he didn't even have enough time to appreciate her coming back. Those five years would never be enough to compensate the lifetime he'd have to spend without her and the seventy years he left her heartbroken.

He decided to open the most recent letter she had written and read it.

Steve,

If you're reading this, I'm dead. I'm not quite sure how I died, but, I do know this... you're probably devastated. I'm sorry I left you on this planet all alone, again. I want you to know that I love you so much.

You are the love of my life. My one wildest love. My truest soulmate. As many faults we had made with each other, somehow we managed to find our way back into each other's arms. We were destined to be together. Even if that meant that being together came with a long dreadful story filled with horrible events.

As I am writing this, Tony and I discovered how to safely and controllably time travel. If I die during this last battle of the Great War, I want you to go back in time and find myself, before you became frozen in ice, before my innocence was obliterated. I want you to live a full, happy and normal life with me. Because every time we tried in this universe, it never worked out. Take it as an opportunity to complete unfinished business. To make up for the seventy years you probably still regret leaving me here thinking that you loved another woman.

I love you,
Amelia Rogers.