—

⚠️ WARNING ⚠️
it has been almost a month since Endgame was released but I still feel like I needed to alert you that from here on now, this is all Endgame. Spoiler city basically. If you haven't watched Endgame you might not want to read this - if you have go ahead. I have no control over your decision. Good luck.

—

—TWENTY THREE DAYS LATER —

Bronwen's bones ached. She hardly moved from the seat before the window. Her hair was full of grease, dark and discoloured. Her damaged suit was still on, the colours dull. She barely lifted a hand to drink, to eat, and Natasha had to forcefully feed her.
She was a shell.
Barely human.
When the building began to shake, ornaments rattling on shelves, Bronwen tilted her head. An alarm sounded in the distance and she faintly heard footsteps thundering through the halls.
What was going on?
She slid forward in her seat, holding a hand over her eyes as a glowing form holding...
A spaceship.
Bronwen's eyes widened. She stood, with newfound urgency and energy, and teleported to the grass outside, a level below her. She watched as Tony descended the stairs, supported by a blue skinned woman who handed him over to Steve.
Tears sprung in her eyes and she hurried forward, embracing Tony's frail body.
"I lost him. I lost him. I lost him." Tony repeated, clinging onto Bronwen.

∆ ∆ ∆

"It's been twenty three days since Thanos came to Earth. World governments are in pieces." Nat had moved the group inside, Tony resting in a chair with an IV line, Bronwen and Pepper by his sides. "The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did... exactly what he said he was going to do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent, of all living creatures."

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

Steve shook his head, "We don't know. He just opened a portal and walked through."

"What's wrong with him?" Tony gestured to Thor, eye's sunken, leaning back in a chair across from the group. Bronwen knew herself that he too got little sleep these days.

They both had matching weary looks.

"Yeah...he's pissed." A smaller raccoon creature that Browen heard was called Rocket chimed in, "He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but there's a lot of that goin' around, ain't there?"

"Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear."

Bronwen couldn't help but snort at Tony's remark, causing the group to be startled and stare at her.
It was the most emotion she'd presented since twenty three days ago.

Rocket shrugged, "Maybe I am."

"We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep space scans, satellites, and we got nothing." Steve glanced toward the mysterious blonde woman who decidedly to join the conversation inside, who Bronwen only noticed then, "Tony, you fought him."

"Who told you that? 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."

"Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?"

"Pfft!" Tony laughed, "I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't want to believe it. Thought I was dreaming."

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

"I needed you. As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late buddy. Sorry. You know what I need?" Tony pushed himself out of the chair, shoving things off the table, ripping out the IV line, "I need to shave...and I believe I remember telling you, Cap."

Tony lunges for Steve, Rhodey quickly coming in between the pair, "Tony, Tony, Tony, stop!"

"Otherwise what we needed," Tony continued, "was a suit of armour around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedom or not - that's what we needed!"

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

"I said, 'we'll lose.' You said, 'we'll do that together too.' And guess what, Cap? We lost. 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, right?"

"Okay, you made your point," Rhodey cut in, "Just sit down, okay?"

"Nah, nah, nah." Tony pushed Rhodey away, "here's my point."

"Sit down!"

Tony pointed to the new blonde lady, "She's great, by the way. We need you. You're new blood."

And Bronwen, who had not spoken a word in twenty three days, placed a hand on Tony's shoulder, "Please sit down."

Tony paused, staring down Bronwen, before continuing, "Bunch of tired old mills! I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no plan, no option. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust, liar." After a pause, Tony reached toward his chest and ripped the glowing arc reactor from it, shoving it into Steve's hand, "Here, take this. You find him, and you put that on. You hide."

Tony shook, falling to the ground. Hands reach toward him, and he was muttering, "I'm fine, I—" And fell unconscious.

∆ ∆ ∆

Bronwen sat cross legged on her chair, turned away from the window, one eye on Tony unconscious on a bed in the infirmary. Pepper was by his side, just as worried as her.
"Bruce gave him a sedative." Rhodey said, "He's gonna be out for the rest of the day."

"You guys take care of him," The blonde lady moved to leave, "And I'll bring a Xorrian Elixer when I come back."

Nat tilted her head, questioning, "Where are you going?"

"To kill Thanos." She replied like it was the simplest thing.

"Hey, you know, we usually work as a team around here, and between you and I, we're also a little fragile."

"We realise out there is more of your territory," Steve interjected, "But this is our fight too."

Rhodey lifted a brow, "Do you even know where he is?"

The blonde lady answered, "I know people who might."

"Don't bother." A voice rang through the room, Bronwen located it easily - the blue skinned lady-thing that came back with Tony. "I can tell you where Thanos is. Thanos spent a long time trying to perfect me. Then 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 snorted, "That's cute, Thanos has a retirement plan."

"So where is he then?" Steve asked.

Rocket stepped forward, bringing up a projection of Earth, "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." The hologram shifted, to another planet in another galaxy, "on this planet."

"Thanos is there." The blue-skinned woman confirmed.

"He used the stones again." Nat observed.

"Hey, hey, we'd be going in short-handed, you know." Bruce said.

Rhodey shrugged, pointing toward the hologram, "Look, he's still got the stones, so..."

"So let's get him... we'll use them to bring everyone back." The blonde said.

"Just like that?"

"Yeah..." Steve's eyes darted to Nat, "Just like that."

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

"If we do this," Bruce shifted his weight, "how do we know it's gonna end any different than it did before?"

"Because before," the blonde woman crossed her arms, "you didn't have me."

"Hey, new girl," Rhodey frowned, "everyone here is about that superhero life. 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, they didn't have you guys."

The room became a startled silence.
And the only sound was a mutter, "Bullshit."

All eyes turned to Bronwen.
"What?" The blonde lady said.

Bronwen stood from her seat, "Bullshit." She laughed, "It's great and all that you've been looking after the rest of the universe, except, if I can remember correctly, did those planets have multiple attacks by Thanos?" She stared the group down, "Right, I didn't think so. And tell me, did those planets have a program where children were turned into machines for the sake of his army? No." Bronwen's hands began to shake, "I lost him because of Thanos."

"We've all lost somebody." The blonde replied.

Bronwen snorted, disbelieving, "I lost the only thing I had. I lost Peter, lost Gwen. I have nothing. So if your excuse is that other planets were having a bitch fight while a sixteen year old girl held back the most dangerous threat in the universe at that time while Wanda destroyed the stone? Only for their effort to mean nothing? Then you can go shove a stick up your ass. I'm done." And with that, Bronwen spun on her heel and left.

Tensions are so high!! Wow that last part was so hard to write. But finally I got through it. So much is going to happen within the next chapter I am terrified to write it. I'm terrified to write Endgame all together. But anyway, here I am.
Somehow this got up to 1400 words and I was so tempted to write more?!?! Except I didn't because I wanted to drop the next events into the next chapter!
Ahhhhhhhh this is a journey I did not expect!
- J