[ xxviii. twenty-eight ! ]
❛ 𝙾𝙽𝙴 𝙻𝙰𝚂𝚃 𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙽𝙲𝙴 ❜

❝ This is gonna work, Steve ❞

𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐉𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌 𝐁𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐓𝐇. "Did you get any position on Thanos?", Steve asked her as he shaved off the last bit of his beard.

Watching him through one of the mirrors Anastasija spatted her toothpast into the sink and let the water rush over it. "Nothing", the woman answered him as she dried her mouth with a towel.

Those who were left of the team tried for weeks to find a clue where Thanos could be but it was completely hopeless, they couldn't find anything.

The two looked at each other for a moment in silence, Ana wanted to speak up but was suddenly interrupted because the floor and the mirrors in the bathroom that started shaking.

Ana could hear loud rummbling in the distance as she eavesdroped. "Earthquake?", she questioned Steve unsure but the man shook his head at her. "Feels more like the landing of a ship", Steve stated before he quickly left the bathroom.

Ana followed after him through the big building until they both stept out into the night, followed by Natasha, Rhodey and Bruce. They all looked up at the dark sky, where a gigantic spaceship flew towards the big grass area right infront of them.

Pepper was already standing outside looking at the spaceship. As Anastasija eyed it closer she could see a blonde woman who was lfting the entired spaceship. She glimmed in yellow, red and blue colourse and as she sat the ship down the lights slowly vanished.

After a short moment the doors opened revealing Tony and some blue skinned woman who helped him out. Steve was the first one to react, he quickly run up to Tony and helped him walk.

Tony looked at the man panting heavily,"I couldn't stop him." They both walked further, Stark still leaning on the blond man for support, "Neither could I", Steve answered him sadly.

"Hold on the—", Tony suddenly said as they both stopped walking and looked at each other. Tony had the defeat written all over his face as he fought back tears, "I lost the kids." Steve eyed him, a sad look on his face as well, "Tony, we lost."

The man remained silent for a moment, "Is uh- ?", in that moment Pepper approached them quickly. "Oh, good"

"Oh my God!", she exclaimed as she quickly hugged him sobbing as he kissed her on the cheek. "It's okay."
Anastasija didn't said anything as she let them pass her, the two deserved to have a moment alone.

They all went in side where they quickly updated Stark on what had happened on earth while he were gone.

"It's been 23 days since Thanos came to earth", they all looked at the pictured of their vanished friends, there was a picture of Juliet Troy, Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson and Erik Salvig.

Anastasija spoke up as she looked at pictures of Wanda Maximoff and Scott Lang, "World goverments are in pieces and the parts that are still working are trying to take a census and it looks like he did— ", she stopped as the hologram switched to Peter Parker, Eva Maximoff and T'Challa's little sister Shuri.

She sighed heavily, "He did exactly what he was gonna do. Thanos whiped out 50% of all living creaturs." The russian looked at a picture of Nick Fury sadness in her eyes. After that the pictures changed to T'Challa and Alisha who had vanished as well.

There was a short silence before Tony spoke up from the wheelchair he sat on, "Where is he now? Where?" Steve looked at him, a unknowing expression on his face, "We don't know."

"He just opened a portal and walked through." Tony sighed as he looked aound, his gaze fell on Thor and Freya who sat a bit away from the rest of them starring at the ground infront of them, "What's wrong with him?"

"Oh he is pissed, thinks he failed. Which of course he did but there's a lot of that going around, ain't there?", Rocket who Anastasija got to know the last few weeks spoke up from where he stood. Tony inhaled as he looked at the speaking raccon, "Honestly, until this excat second I thought you were a Build-A-Bear."

"Maybe I am."

"We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now. Deep space scans and sattelites, and we got nothing. Tony you fought him", Steve informed him as he looked at their old friend.

"Who told you that?", the man asked him churning. "I didn't fight him. No, he whipped my face with a planet while the the Bleecker street magician gave away the store. That's what happend. There was no fight—"

"Okay—", Steve wanted to interrupt him but Tony was taking himself furiously. "Cause he's not beatable", Strak ended as he held his hands up.

"Did he gave you any cluess, any coordinates, anything?", Steve questioned him and Anastasija inhaled deeply because she knew Stark good enough to know what was about to happen now.

Tony started to stutter, "Uh- I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna belive it. Thought I was dreaming." Steve straightened up, "Tony, I need you to focuse."

"No, I needed you!", Tony interrupted him with hate in his voice. "As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late, buddy. Sorry." He sniffed as he hit his bowl of food away that stood infront of him, "You know what I need? I need a shave."

He stood up and looked at Steve again, "And I remember telling youse-", he tried to ripp off the kateter that was attached to his arm.

"Tony! Tony! Tony!", Rhodey spoke up as the man accomlpished to rip it off. Anastasija closed her eyes as she shook her head.

"- alive and otherwhise, that we needed was a suit of amor around the world. Remember that? Whenether it impacted our precious freedoms or not! That's what we needed!", Tony continued just ignoring Rhodey.

"Well that didn't work out, did it?", Steve asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"I said we loose. You said, we do that togehther, too. Guess what Cap. We lost. And you weren't there", Tony said as he looked at Steve with betrayle in his eyes. "But that's what we do, right?", Tony tried to approach him but he was too weak, Rhodey tried to stop him.

"Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers. We're the Avengers, not the Pre-vengers?", Tony asked Rhodey sarcastical as he still held him back. "Okay"

"Right?"

"You made you're point just sit down, okay?", his old friend begged him as he looked at Tony. "Okay. No,no, here's my point. You know what?!", Tony tried to push Rhodey aside but he was to weak.

He pointed at the blonde woman, "She's great by the way", the woman just looked at him seriously. He then pointed at the back haired woman who sat besides Thor, "She looks cool too!" Ana must say that she really wanted to know who the blond woman was.

"Tony you're sick. Sit down", she begged him as well, as she approached the two men. "Bunch of tired old mules." He succeded to make his way past Rhodey who was distracted for a moment, "I got nothing for you, Cap."

Stark approached the blond man, "I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada.- No trust, liar", he spatted at the man as he stood right infront of him.

Suddenly he ripped the metal out of his chest as he started to breath shakingly, he placed it into Steve's hand. "Here, take this. You find that, you put that on you hide."

Anastasija was shocked as she walked over to them, Tony dropped to the ground breathing heavily which made Ana speed up. "Tony!"

"I'm fine. Let me-", and with that he fell to the ground unconcussiond. They immediatley all rushed towards him and brought Tony to the medic station where Bruce could patch him up.

The group stood infront of his room as Rhodey walked out of it, "Bruce gave him a sedative. He's gonna probably be out for the rest of the day."

"You guys take care of him and I'll bring him a Xorrian elixir when I come back", Carol who had introduced herselfe in the meanwhile spoke up. She started to walk away, "Where are you going?", Steve asked her curious and a bit confused.

Without turning around the blond answered him, "To kill Thanos."
Natasha and Ana exchanged a look befor Nat quickly followed after the woman, "Hey! You know, we usually work as a team here, and uh- between you and I. morale's a little fragile."

"We realize up there is more your territory, but this is our fight too." Steve approached her as well. "You know where he is?", Rhodey asked her as he leaned next to Ana against the door. "I know people who might."

"Don't bother", the blue woman who had helped Tony interrupted them, "I can tell you where Thanos is."

They all looked at her before they followed after the blue woman who lead them into the next room.

The team was standing in the meeting room watching Nebula as she stood in one corner of the room. "My father 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?"

She turned her head towards them, "And his answer was always the same." She walked to the table and leaned on it, "To the Garden." Rhodes made a face, "That's cute. Thanos has a retirement plan."

"So where is he?", Steve asked as he walked around Natasha and stood next to Anastasija looking at the hologram Rocket had activated.

"When Thanos snapped his finger Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions. No one's ever seen anything like it. Until two days ago-", he switched to a another planet.

"On this planet."

"Thanos is there", Nebula spoke up as she looked at the planet. Natasha leaned forward disbelieving, "He used the stones again." Banner chuckled, "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey. We've be going in shorthanded, you know?"

"Look he still got the stones, so-"

"So, let's get'em. Use them to bring everybody back", Anastasija proposed to the others as she looked at Steve.

"Just like that?", Bruce asked her sceptical. "Yeah. Just like that", Steve repeated his words as he looked at the hologram.

"Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this, I mean, we owe it to everyone who is not in this room, to try", Natasha agreed with her sisters proposal.

Bruce looked still unconvenienced, "If we do this, how do we know it's going to end any differently than it did before?"

"Because before, you didn't have me", Carol answered him confident, her hands on both of her hips.

Rhodes gave her a look his arms still crossed over his chest, "Hey, new girl? Everybody in this room 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."

Thor slowly stood up and walked to Danvers. They meet eye-to-eye as Thor summoned his axe Stormbreaker, which whizzed right past Danvers' head.

The woman didn't even flinched as it past her and Thor smiled as he looked at the others, " I like this one." Steve looked back at the planet as he nodded his head, "Let's go get this son of a bitch."

     THE WHOLE TEAM SUITED UP and took there places inside of Rocket's spaceship. Rocket was steering the ship with Nebula as the others sat in the back looking out of the big front window.

Anastasija sat inbetween Natasha and Carol looking around as Rocket turned around to them. "Okay. Who here hasn't been to space before?"

Steve, Rhodey, Nat and Ana all held up there hands in syncrony. Carol chuckled as Rhodey quietly asked, "Why?"

"You better not throw up on my ship!", the raccoon warned them before he looked back ahead. "Approaching jump in three- two- one!"

Anastasija was pressed into her seat as bright rays surrounded the ship. Her eyes wided as the ship speed up and rushed through the light. It looked beautiful, but then it suddenly stopped and Carol immediately got up.

The russian remained in her seat eyeing the planet that they had saw on a hologram an hour ago. She couldn't believe that she was actually in space.

In the meantime Carol had already left the ship. "I'll head down for recon."

Anastasija quickly opened her seatbelt and turned towards Steve who looked down at his old compass.

Earlier, when they met he had a picture of Peggy inside of it but as Anastasija looked at it now she saw that it had been replaced with a photo of her. She was smiling into the camera as her bright hair flew into her face.

The russian looked away and smiled lightly before it faded again. She looked back at him and placed a hand on his arm, "This is gonna work, Steve."

He turned his head towards her and nodded as he placed his hand over her hand. "I know it will. 'Cause I don't know what I'm gonna do if it doesn't."

"No satellites . No ships. No armies. No ground defenses of any kind. It's just him", Carol interrupted them as she came back to the spaceship.

"And that's enough", Nebula spoke up before she slowly steered the ship further towards the planet.

They landed the ship a bit away from the little house that belonged seemingly belonged to Thanos, so the titan wouldn't seen them coming.

They watched him as he walked through his garden and waited until he had entered the house.

After that Carol was the first to attackt him, she busted a big hole into the celling and flew through it directly at him.

Carol, Freya, Rhodey and Bruce, who was wearing the Hulkbuster armor, restrained Thanos together and Thor quickly choped off his left arm with Stormbreaker as Steve, Anastasija and Natasha entered the house.

Rocket immediately turned the big gauntlet over only to find all the Infinity Stones missing. Rocket sighed as he looked at the gauntlet, "Oh no-"

Steve and Anastasija exchanged a look before Steve looked at the gauntlet as well. He sighed before his gaze wandered to Thanos, "Where are they?"

The purple Titan only groaned loudly instead of answering the blond man.
Carol who had him in a headlock pressed her arms together. "Answer the question."

Thanos groaned again before he finally answered him, "The universe required correction. After that, the stones served no purpose beyond temptation."

"You murdered trillions!", Banner shouted as he shoved Thanos to the ground. "You should be grateful", the titan spatted at him. Banner grunted as he punched him into the face.

Natasha stepped forward looking down at the purple man, "Where are the Stones?"

"Gone. Reduced to atoms."

"We know you used them two days ago!", Anastasija told him as she stepped next to her sister.

"I used the Stones to destroy the Stones. It nearly killed me, but the work is done. It always will be. I am- inevitable."

Anastasija let out a shaking breath as she thought about the fact that she couldn't bring her friends back. "We have to tear this place apart. He has to be lying", Rhodey immediately spoke up.

Nebula who had remained scilent the whole time approached the titan, "My father is many things. A liar is not one of them."

"Ah. Thank you, daughter. Perhaps I treated you too harshly-", he told her but before he could finish Thor brought Stormbreaker down and decapitated Thanos.

Rocket looked at him, "What did you do?" Thor watched the body on the floor, his voice was shaking, "I went for the head."

Natasha started crying and tears run down Anastasija face too, they would never have the chance to bring all their friends back. Thor quickly stept out of the house leaving the group to themselves in complete silence, followed by Freya who tried to calm him down.

❝ Whatever it takes ❞