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23 DAYS AFTER DECIMATION

JUNE 23, 2021

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Marlena's feet were propped onto the table. Thor sat beside her with a somber expression on his face. The two were sharing a bowl of popcorn and talking amongst themselves while the remainder of the team stood talking in front of them. Marlena wanted to listen to what they were talking about, but Thor needed someone to vent to. He needed someone who hadn't met his brother to talk to about him, and Marlena was the perfect fit. Thor always remembered Marlena's compassion and her ability to see the best in people, and he needed her to see and hear the best in Loki. He needed someone who wouldn't judge his brother, someone who could provide him peace with his brother's sacrifice, and Marlena was that someone for him.

"Did your brother ever stab you?" Thor asked Marlena with a mouthful of popcorn.

Marlena shook her head at him.

"How unfortunate," he grumbled. "It really builds character."

"You know what else builds character?" Marlena asked nonchalantly.

Thor hummed and grabbed another handful of popcorn. "Would the answer to that be a bottle of Stark's finest?"

"You are correct."

"I'll be back in a minute, little human."

Marlena only chuckled as she watched Thor fetch a bottle of liquor and two glasses from the kitchen. Steve looked to Thor and then back at Marlena with a raised brow. Thor and Marlena had become drinking buddies in the days beyond the snap, though it wasn't more often than twice a week. Steve knew what they were doing and why they were doing it, as did the remainder of the team, but they couldn't judge. Everyone had their own ways to cope with the situation.

"Don't look at me like that, Rogers," Marlena spoke telepathically to the soldier, and he immediately turned his head away from her, but Marlena could still make out the smallest smile pulling at the corner of his lips. "It's purely medicinal."

"I'm not judging you—either of you."

Thor returned to the table and Marlena grabbed a shot glass from him. "Don't worry, you're still my favorite comfort zone, but you're just a comfort zone I can't get drunk with."

"Very funny."

Marlena poured a shot into the glass and downed it before shoving more popcorn in her mouth. "Cons of being a super-soldier, I guess."

"Maybe I should write a book about it?"

"Yes, and hopefully you'll be able to find someone still alive to read it." Marlena downed another shot and looked at Steve with her glass raised to him, "Cheers, mate."

Steve only shook his head at her and turned back around, allowing Thor and Marlena to continue their conversation and their drink-fest.

"So, where is he now?" Tony's voice finally caught Marlena's attention and she looked at him, trying her very best not to look at the images of those lost floating in the air. It was one reason why she wanted to stay in her room, as she'd grown too emotionally vulnerable to continue the conversation about Thanos, but they refused to meet without her, and Natasha was, as always, incredibly persistent.

"We don't know," Steve answered. "He just opened a portal and walked right through."

Tony turned to Marlena and Thor to see them drinking away at his liquor. The sight worried him, considering he knew exactly what they were doing. That just wasn't the path he wanted them both on, especially Marlena. "Have they been drinking like that since the snap?"

"Cheers, mate," Thor raised a glass to Tony and downed it, while Marlena sat beside him with a grin on her face.

"Unfortunately," Natasha grumbled.

"I don't blame them," Rocket spoke. "Thor thinks he failed, the girl lost her entire family."

"You've had a whopping 23 days to learn my name, so I find it a bit insulting that you have yet to use it," Marlena remarked with a roll of her eyes. "Anyway, we've spent three weeks trying to find Thanos, yet we've found nothing, so I'm not too sure why these meetings continue to happen."

Natasha glanced over at Marlena and crossed her arms. "We have to do whatever we can to try, Marlena."

"She's right though," Rhodey defended Marlena. "We've tried deep space scans and satellites and still have nothing."

Steve sighed and looked at Tony. "Tony, you fought him—"

"Who told you that?" Tony cut Steve off. He was more or less disgruntled given the medication and the fact he spent 22 days starving aboard a spacecraft. Marlena didn't need to dig inside his mind to know how screwed up he was. She could see it on his face, and she could also feel it. "I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street magician gave away the stone."

Silence loomed in the air, allowing Tony to continue his rant.

"That's what happened," he added. "There was no fight because he was unbeatable."

"Did he give you any clues? Any coordinates? Anything?" Steve was desperate for an answer though he knew he likely wouldn't receive one.

"You know, I saw this coming a few years back," Tony spoke again, completely ignoring Steve's question. "I thought I was dreaming."

"Tony, I'm gonna need you to focus."

"And I needed you, Steve, as in past tense, and that trumps what you need."

All anyone could do was watch the exchange in silence. They all knew Tony wasn't in his right mind, so they knew they needed to let him get out whatever it was he needed to get out. His words hurt Steve tremendously, but they were bound to. Tony wasn't the only one in a vulnerable emotional state. Everyone in the room had their fair share of emotional vulnerability.

"You know what I need? I need a shave." Tony stood up, knocking his dishes over as he did so and capturing everyone's attention completely, "And I remember telling all youse, alive and otherwise, that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world. Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not. That's what we needed."

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

Marlena carefully got up from her seat and moved to join the group that had gathered in front of Tony. She was worried the confrontation was going to get out of hand, but she refused to let it. She had seen Tony and Steve's relationship fall apart before, and she didn't want to see that happen again. Not now. Not while they were all so vulnerable.

"I said we'd lose and you said we'd do that together, too," Tony was a bit choked up. "But 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, not the Pre-vengers, right?"

Tony began to stumble but Rhodey was quick to steady him. "You made your point, just sit down, okay?"

"No, no, no, here's my point—"

"Tony, you're sick," Rhodey struggled to keep him upright, "Sit down!"

Tony grumbled under his breath and managed to get away from Rhodey to get to Steve. He stumbled over his feet and fell into Marlena's side. She was quick to steady him, but she wasn't fast enough to keep the words from coming out of his mouth. "I got nothing for you, Cap—no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. You're a liar, you lied, you were supposed to be there."

His words had been meant for Steve, but Marlena, along with everyone else in the room couldn't help but feel a bit down over his words. He was so broken, so saddened by the events that had taken place three weeks ago. He was coping by lashing out, but no one could blame him or judge him for it.

"Tony," Marlena said quietly, her heart breaking with each thought that entered her mind.

Tony only looked at her and ripped the reactor from his chest. He grabbed Steve's hand and placed it in his palm. "Take this, find him, put that on, and hide."

Tony collapsed, leaving Marlena and Steve to catch him.

"Tony..."

"I'm fine," he breathed out. "Let me—"

Tony didn't get to finish his sentence. He dropped back to the floor, leaving everyone in a fit of panic. The team worked as quickly as they could to make sure Tony was taken care of, and soon enough they had him situated soundly in his room. Bruce had provided him with a sedative to calm him down and had also placed his IV back into his arm.

"He's probably gonna be out the rest of the day," Rhodey said to the team.

"You guys take care of him and I'll bring him a Xorrian elixir when I come back," Carol said.

"Where are you going?" Steve questioned. Natasha and Marlena followed behind him as he walked with Carol out of the room.

"To kill Thanos."

"Hey," Natasha called to her. "We usually work as a team here, and, uh, between you and I, morale's a little fragile."

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

"And not to be the bearer of bad news, but none of us have any idea where Thanos is," Marlena said.

"I know people who might."

Nebula then walked into the room. "Don't bother," she said to the team. "I can tell you where Thanos is."

"Where?"

Nebula sighed and leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest. "He spent a lot of 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 we would go once his plan was complete, and his answer was always the same...to the Garden."

"That's cute," Rhodey scoffed. "Thanos has a retirement plan."

"So, where is he?" Steve stepped up to the table where Rocket stood and in moments a holographic image of Earth was lighting up the room.

"When Thanos snapped his fingers, Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions," Rocket explained to the team. "No one's ever seen anything like it until two days ago on this planet."

The image of Earth disappeared and was replaced with an image of a planet no one had seen or heard from before, aside from Rocket, Nebula, and likely Carol.

"Thanos is there."

Natasha leaned forward to look at the map of the planet. "He used the stones again."

Her words seemed to spark something inside the team, an idea of sorts.

"We'd be going in shorthanded, y'know?" Bruce announced to the group. He'd practically answered the questions on everyone's mind: Could they get the stones back from Thanos? Would it be possible to use them again?

"He's still got the stones, so—"

"So let's go get them," Carol cut Rhodey off. "We could use them to bring everyone back."

Marlena raised a brow at Carol. While getting the stones back did seem to be a possibility, it was only a split second ago she thought about where exactly they needed to be to get them back in the first place. The only planets Marlena had ever known in her life were those in her immediate solar system, so to actually travel beyond her own galaxy in order to get to another planet kind of frightened her. It was intriguing, though, yet still a very frightening thought.

"Wait," Marlena interrupted. "You mean leave the comfort of our home planet in order to get the stones back?"

"Yeah?" Carol answered matter-of-factly. "Are you good, Claire?"

"Yeah, I mean, it's just..." Marlena coughed awkwardly into her hand and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, "...outer space."

"Outer space?" Rhodey chuckled. "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

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

Marlena knew she was right, despite the fact going to space terrified her. The thought of being able to kiss Bucky again, the thought of being able to hold her kids again...anything was worth trying. She simply feared it wouldn't work and she would've wasted so much energy hoping for everything but what the universe had in store for her.

"If we do this how do we know it's going to end any differently than before?" Bruce asked.

"Because before you didn't have me," Carol chimed.

"Hey, new girl?" Rhodey remarked. "Everybody in here is about that superhero life, and if you don't mind me asking, where the hell have you been all this time?"

Carol smirked and crossed her arms. "There are a lot of other planets in the universe, and unfortunately they didn't have you."

Thor finally stood up from where he and Marlena had been sitting together minutes before and walked over to Carol. The two stared at one another, and another smirk broke across Carol's face as the wind of Stormbreaker ripped through her hair.

"I like this one," Thor said to the team.

"Right," Steve added as he turned to the map. "Let's go get this son of a bitch."