"I can't believe he kicked our asses so hard." Rocket said.
"No." Thor said softly.
"Okay, I can believe it, honestly. Its just an expression." Rocket rolled his eyes.
"We haven't lost. Not yet." Thor said, his voice stronger. He looked to Peter, who'd been silent even since Thanos had left, with both the Power Stone and Gamora in tow while inexplicably sparing them. "You've never been defeated until you give up. And since I haven't given up, I remain undefeated."
"Cool. I suppose you have a plan on parlaying that to actually winning." They'd made there way back above ground. With Thanos' departure, his fleet and armies had left as well. The world felt terribly empty- an apocalypse without a cause. Fires both nearby and distant raged on, filling the sky with smoke so thick it blotted out the sun. They could make out the ruined remains of vehicles and buildings around them, backlit by flames. There must have been survivors out there, but the task of rescuing them was to large for them to contemplate, not now, when Thanos was surely going to deliver this fate to other worlds.
"Well first, we need to go to Asgard." Thor said "We need to warn the people there, hide the Tesseract. Form a defense."
Sif shook her head "We won't make it there before Thanos."
"No. I refuse to accept that. There's got to be a way." Thor said in denial.
"I am Groot."
"Thank you." Rocket said "Just because you want there to be a way, doesn't mean there is one. Unless your magic hammer can teleport us, then-"
"That's it!" Thor pumped his fist.
"What?"
"You're absolutely right, rabbit."
"I'm not-"
"Now look what you've done." Sif said flatly.
Thor was undeterred. "I just need a better hammer."
-----
The woman quivered, fingers digging into the firm cushion of the medical bed. "Oh fuck!" She gasped, mouth agape. She stared heatedly up at him with eyes that begged for him to fuck her. "Cumming! Cumming!" Seoyun Cho cried out.
By this point, it had become a strange sort of routine for Harry. He and Natasha would meet an ex-agent and explain the process, and then give an extremely awkward warning about what having her sex organs regrown would feel like. None of the widows had been deterred by this warning. As Natasha had explained to him, the Red Room was very thorough in destroying their agents' boundaries- sexual or otherwise. Sex was supposed to be just another tool in the kit, and so Harry's carefully presented warnings only stirred surprise, interest, and occasionally flirting.
And no, Harry was not going to have sex with any of these women. Wanda had brought the possibility up, but Harry had shot it down immediately. It was one thing to invite Yelena, or Maria, or Shuri, into their sex life. But women he barely knew, who had just had their lives overturned? It felt a little too much like taking advantage. More than that, he wasn't going to risk getting them pregnant. If Skye or Wanda accidentally got pregnant, that was one thing. There was an iron clad relationship of trust between them. He did not want to drop that bomb into an indoctrinated, traumatized, ex-assassin's lap.
So, while a few of them flirted and a couple came on quite strong, he always demurred. It was a difficult position to be in, and he suspected that rumors of his unorthodox love life had filtered down to them, so he was grateful that Natasha was there to run interference. She was legendary among the widows, and her disapproval, however subtly applied, was always enough to put the women in line.
But Natasha wouldn't be able to help him when it came to healing the women, for that he was on his own. Harry had found that tying to be careful or precise just dragged the process (and thus the pleasure) out. It was better if he just let his magic do what it needed to do, even if it caused the woman he was healing to cum once, twice, or in this case, three times.
He'd be lying if he claimed he was unaffected. This beautiful woman was coming apart right before his eyes, because of him. The breathless pleasure in her voice and written on her face, the writhing of her muscular body, the way she pressed her hips up into his hand, abdominals and glutes flexing with the effort, at all affected him. Most of all, though, were her eyes. They bored into his own with passionate intensity, daring him to do more- to spread her thighs and take her.
He'd always been weak for strong, passionate women- it was something he'd first discovered with Ginny. Years later and a world away, his tastes hadn't changed. Yet as much as the sight seemed custom made to entice him, he kept himself on a tight leash. He left his hand on Seoyun not a moment longer than he needed to, and he put distance between them while she recovered. Natasha stepped in while the ex-agent got her bearings, allowing Harry to observe from a distance.
Harry's restraint wouldn't need to hold for too much longer. Seoyun had taken last of that day's appointments. Unfortunately, they had a public dinner to attend with a collection of European diplomats, but Harry knew that when they did manage to find private time, it would be well worth it.
After seeing Seoyun out, Harry found Shuri in her office. She had her feet kicked up on the desk while casually browsing through a dense, technical paper that Harry didn't have a hope of interpreting. She and Hermione would have gotten on so well. He wished they could have met.
"Hey." He smiled.
Shuri looked up from her work and grinned back at him. "Hey."
"I'd ask if you wanted to take some time away from your papers to eat dinner with some stodgy rich people, but…"
Shuri snorted "I'll pass, thanks. Our first date is going to be much better than that." They hadn't talked again about her pregnancy. She had time to decide and he was going to give it to her without pressure. Yet, there was a new warmth and affection between them, that left Harry hopeful. Regardless of what happened, there was something growing between them, something worth nurturing.
"I'll think of something." He hummed, walking up behind her. "A day off, maybe." He tempted her. Shuri was nothing if not a workaholic. She dove into her work with a passion, but at the risk of burning herself out "Sleeping in. An afternoon at a spa."
"Don't tempt me." Shuri moaned, as Harry wrapped his arms around her, happy to further tempt her.
"A nice long massage, a relaxing jacuzzi. A quiet evening together while you read your incomprehensible research papers."
Shuri giggled. "That sounds-" His earpiece chirped. "-nice." Shuri trailed off awkwardly, having received the same notification.
Their earpieces chirped again, which lent the call a measure of urgency. But there was something else… something niggling at the edge of his mind that he couldn't quite put a finger on. Harry didn't hesitate to answer. "Potter."
It was Maria. "We've got a situation."
-----
Bruce took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, a nervous tic. "So we've got one large ship, the size of a small country. Three 'smaller' ships the size of cities, and an 'undetermined but extremely large' number of ships the size of…"
"The size of regular ships." Tony said "Roughly."
The impromptu holographic conference was going about as smoothly as one could expect. The Avengers had scattered across the world for various reasons. Harry and company were in Sokovia. Steve, Bucky, Sam and Rhodes were on a mission in Cairo. Clint was at his family cottage. Tony and Pepper were at a tech expo in Tokyo. The sudden appearance of an alien fleet coming inbound had caught them with their pants down.
"Have we received any communication from them?" Natasha asked.
"Nothing." Tony said.
"Do we know anything about their intentions? What are they doing now?" Nat followed, rapid fire.
"Jarvis?" Tony prompted.
"If their current thrust continues, they will enter a stable orbit in three minutes and forty-five seconds." Jarvis chirped.
"They're not landing." Hill surmised.
"We don't know their technology." Tony shook his head "They might not need to land. And as much as I want to be optimistic, do you really need to send an armada for a peace mission?"
The atmosphere tightened, bundling up in Harry's chest as he focused. That feeling at the edge of his mind had grown stronger and stronger, until he could barely pay attention to the conversation around him, as important and urgent as that conversation was.
"It could just be a show of force." Shuri ventured "Scare us. Get concessions. It's a common strategy."
"Still, not exactly comforting." Steve said "But unless we're certain they're going to attack, I don't want to fire the first shot. Its possible that they could bombard the planet."
"Or worse. Even if we do win, well, we'd be living up to our name a little too well." Natasha said.
"Avenging an ash heap isn't much of a victory." Tony nodded.
"Harry." Wanda asked, sensing his growing dread "What is it?"
After a moment of heavy silence, Harry spoke. "Wanda. You know… how you can feel a connection to the Mind Stone, because it gave you your powers?"
Wanda nodded.
"I can feel it."
"Feel what?" Nat asked.
Harry knew he was doing a shite job explaining it, but that was probably because he was currently being poleaxed by sheer magical power. Because that was what he felt. Magic, pure magic radiating from above like the sun. And he instinctively knew it could only come from one source, the stone that was, ultimately the source of his powers as a wizard. "Its the Reality Stone." He gestured upward "And its right up there."
"Shit."
-----
Humanity had had enough experience with aliens to know that the presence of an unknown fleet in orbit could only mean disaster. Aliens did not come in peace. They did not come bearing gifts or seeking friendship. Aliens came for conquest, they came for war and brought only destruction. Loki's and Malekith's invasions had come and gone quickly enough that general disorder hadn't had time to spread, but the disruptions from Demagorge's arrival had sent the planet into chaos.
The Avengers had feared that the same would happen now, but it didn't. There were no riots, there was almost no looting, there was no mass panic. People from all walks of life just went home, locked their doors, and waited.
If anything, the reaction was even more unsettling. At least rioting and looting meant that people were fighting for survival. This felt like they were accepting their fate. It was as if everyone on the planet collectively understood that they were powerless, and that whatever was going to happen, would happen regardless of what they did or wanted, or dreamed. So all over the world people sat down to lunch or dinner, in front of their computers and their televisions, and they waited for their destiny to arrive.
The Avengers too, waited. In San Francisco and Tokyo, New York and Cairo, Wakanda and Sokovia, they discussed and prepared, but mostly they waited. Attacking blindly against an enemy they didn't know was suicide, so they had to wait for their enemy to make the first move, to reveal themselves.
That was where Stephen Strange came in. Sequestered away in the sanctum while the Avengers made themselves as busy as possible in anticipation of what was to come, Stephen would take the only proactive step available to them. He held his hands up, willing the amulet that hung around his neck to slide open. He felt the power of the Time Stone and focused it inward. You didn't control an infinity stone so much as unleash it in a way that was helpful to you. For this, Stephen unleashed the Time Stone on himself.
He had used the Time Stone in earnest only twice before. Once to outlast Dormammu, and the second to divine how to defeat Hela. While the power of an Infinity Stone was beyond human comprehension, Stephen was willing to flirt with that power when the situation called for it. The moral flexibility had saved the world, and if the price for saving the world was some minor damage to the timeline, then so be it. In the choice between preserving life and maintaining a fixed moral standard, he would choose life, every time.
He had used the Time Stone to loop time, and to wind time back, but there was another use, perhaps the most powerful use of all- foresight. He disassociated, his mind releasing from his body and quickly being whipped away, buoyed by the power of the Time Stone. He could feel now, how time shifted, split and diverged. With effort, he grabbed ahold of one stream and followed it, before discarding it and latching onto another.
It was no small task, sorting through the endless series of possible futures, finding those that were most favorable, and discerning where and how they had diverged. While this technique was incredibly powerful, it was also the most taxing. It was his greatest test of endurance since his showdown with Dormammu. After the first ten or so timelines, he had identified the general scope of the problem- Thanos, his army, his possession of four of the six infinity stones, and his quest to destroy half of all life in the universe. The next few dozen were sent exploring the pieces they had on the board. The Avengers, of course. Thor, who often appeared wielding the Axe, Stormbreaker, and accompanied by the Guardians of the Galaxy. Then there was Carol Danvers, who was powerful, but had a tendency to arrive too late to make a difference.
In essence, the problem was to get the pieces into place in the correct way. Their team had enough power to defeat Thanos, it just had to be used correctly. This was easier said than done, and Stephen spent several hundred timelines searching for one in which Thanos was defeated. The first one he found left the Earth a shattered husk, and he quickly discarded it. He refused to let that be how they 'won'. He would not sacrifice billions of lives so that trillions would live. He would not make that trade.
He looked through hundreds, and then thousands more. Each time he stumbled across a victory, he turned away- it had come at too high a price. There had to be some way to if not save everyone, then at least avoid mass death.
At around the hundred-thousand mark he found it- the perfect alignment of planning and luck. It was a quick takedown, cemented by a fortuitous arrival by Thor and a finishing stroke from Harry. Strange let the timeline play on, letting himself relax a bit. It had taken far longer than he'd expected, but if it got everyone out of this unharmed it would be worth it.
Harry carefully removed the gems from the gauntlet one by one, holding them each one aloft in turn as Vibranium cases were provided. "We'll need proper protection for these." Strange watched himself say "Though keeping any more on Earth is… unwise."
"Yeah." Harry huffed "We're a big enough target as is. It's a miracle we made it out of this alive." He pointed his wand to the final stone- the orange red gem, the Soul Stone.
That was when everything fell apart. Stephen paused the flow of time, trying to make sense of the frozen moment, but his mind refused to understand. It was more than mere destruction. In the blink of an eye, reality had been overturned.
The sun had gone out and the earth had cracked. Building were frozen in mid-destruction, fragments of plaster and brick suspended in the air. Harry remained, but the other Avengers had turned to stone.
Stephen let time wind forward, and he watched, pained, as the triumph was wiped from Harry's face, followed by confusion, and then terror. He stumbled around in a daze, not fully processing what he was seeing. Stephen couldn't imagine what he must be feeling, it was a living nightmare. Then he found Natasha, and it broke something in him. "Nat?" He said, his voice small and broken. "I- I don't understand. Nat. What happened to you, what-" He touched her cheek, and the statue dissolved not ash. He sobbed, falling to his knees, sifting his hands through the ash as if that could bring her back. Stephen pulled himself out of the timeline. He didn't need to see any more.
What he didn't understand was why? Was it an incursion? Possibly, but he certainly had never witnessed such a thing before. All he could really say was that Harry's possession of the Soul Stone caused destruction on an untold scale. It was a puzzle that Stephen suspected he didn't have all the pieces to. All he could do was return to his search, diving through timelines until he lost track of himself. Millions, and then tens of millions of futures sifted past. He only needed one- that one, thin, winding path that didn't end in disaster.
He found it.
When he finally returned to reality, he was physically exhausted. "You alright?" Harry asked, his expression was concerned and curious, not marred by grief and terror. He leaned down and put a hand on his shoulder. "You were in there for over half an hour. We were getting worried."
"I'm fine." Stephen said between panting breaths, his voice hoarse "Nothing damaged except my sanity." Harry shot him a concerned look that Stephen duly ignored.
"How many timelines did you look through?" Harry asked him.
Truthfully, he'd long since lost track of the precise number, so he chose one that sounded impressive and conveyed the scope of his efforts "Fourteen million, six hundred and five."
"Wow." Harry said "No wonder you're in a bad way." He helped him up, and Stephen found to his chagrin that he was still shaky on his feet. "What happens?"
Stephen shook his head. He could act on the information he'd gathered as the Time Stone protected him from temporal feedback loops. But the moment he told anyone else details of a future or instructed them how to behave based on that knowledge, that future could no longer happen. Their path was a delicate one, through a turbulent sea of chaos and probability. Even the smallest disruption would cause the timeline to diverge. It would have to, after all in the one scenario where they won, Stephen hadn't told Harry what had happened. Instead, he'd said "You know I can't tell you that."
"Do we win, at least?"
Stephen considered his answer. Technically, there were many possible scenarios where they defeated Thanos. There were worlds where entire planets were leveled in the battle, or where the universe was destroyed in an incursion. He didn't consider any of those victories, not a victory worth having, at least. "In one of them, yes."
Harry's horror was palpable "Will we be able to pull it off?" And that was the catch, wasn't it? He could nudge events in the correct direction, but he wasn't in control. He couldn't singularly dictate the course of the universe. All that he could do was set the stage, and hope that it worked out.
"We'll just have to see, won't we?"