Chapter Text
Incoming call from Carol Danvers
Natasha woke up with a jolt. She jumped out of bed and, not wasting a single second, raced to the meeting room. Her channel was always active in case of emergencies, but most of the time there weren't any. Natasha could feel her blood pumping, and, to her dismay, a grin spreading across her face. This wasn’t something she should feel excited about. It was an emergency. She didn’t know what it was yet, but it was unlikely to be good news. Still, after three years of sitting around in the Avengers Headquarters and trying, but mostly failing, to be useful, she couldn't help wishing that something had happened, good or bad, that she could get involved in.
"Is anyone there?" Carol’s hologram asked. Her fist was pointed upwards and she was glowing, which meant she was flying. Carol almost never flew during a meeting. She was fast enough that travel time was hardly a consideration. The fact that she was flying while calling Natasha meant that she either needed to be somewhere in a matter of minutes, or that she was travelling a very far distance.
"I'm here," Natasha said, jumping into her seat. "What's up?"
"I have news," Carol said. Her voice was tense, but not rushed, so she probably wasn’t in a huge hurry. "Not sure yet if it's good or bad."
"Go on."
"Remember how, a couple of weeks after the snap, there was a huge power surge that led us to Thanos because he'd used the stones? Well, a similar surge happened a couple of months ago."
Natasha frowned. "How? The stones were destroyed."
"I don't know much more than you do. The only thing that we know of that could set off a signal like that is the stones, yes. But it could be something else. We don't know."
"And why are you telling me this now? Why didn't you tell me when it happened?"
"This surge happened in the Triangulum Galaxy, which was under complete control of the Horde," Carol said as if Natasha knew what that was.
"What's the Horde?"
"A huge empire of clones, all controlled in a hive mind by their leader, Horde Prime. Super expansionist, turns everything into more of itself. The Kree, the Nova Empire, even Thanos, all avoided that galaxy. But… you wouldn't have. And you would have gotten yourselves killed."
This rankled a little, but Natasha had to admit Carol was right. Natasha would have been cautious, but if Thor or Clint had found out… "So what's different now?"
"Yesterday, two things happened. Number one, the hive mind shattered. All the clones of Horde Prime stopped being connected to each other. The only way this can happen is if Horde Prime died and somehow didn't transfer to a new body.
"And number two, there was yet another huge power surge, on the same planet as the one months before. I have no idea what happened there, but it's possible that this planet has Infinity Stones."
This was a lot to take in. Natasha had never heard of the Horde before, and didn’t know how to feel about the fact that Carol hadn’t mentioned the first surge when it had happened. But right now, that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that there were more Infinity Stones. If Thanos had used the Infinity Stones to kill half of the universe, maybe the Avengers could use them to bring everyone back. For the first time in three years, Natasha felt hopeful.
"So we go there!" Natasha exclaimed. "We find the stones, create a gauntlet, snap our fingers, and everyone comes back."
"Not so fast," Carol said. "One, we don't know if they're actually Infinity Stones. Two, we don't know if we can bring everybody back, even with Infinity Stones. And three, we know nothing about the inhabitants of this planet, but they're likely to be hostile towards us if we try to take their Infinity Stones. And they just killed the most powerful person in the known universe after Thanos; if we don't do this peacefully, it'll be a hell of a fight."
"I’m not suggesting we steal the stones," Natasha assured Carol. "But we could go there, find out where the stones are, see if the inhabitants are friendly. It won't hurt to try. This is the best chance we've had in years. And besides, what do we have left to lose? The worst thing that could happen already happened."
"We have no idea what's on that planet. You're gonna need me there. But you'll have to wait. With Horde Prime dead, I have enough on my hands. Four of the largest empires in the known universe have been destroyed within three years. The Kree are the only ones left standing. I need to make sure the Triangulum Galaxy doesn't fall into chaos or into the Kree’s hands."
"With all due respect, Danvers, we don't have that much time. If this planet had one of the largest power surges in history, you won't have been the only one to have noticed it. The Kree will be there, the Chitauri will be there, every empire in the universe will want these stones. And if they find them first, who knows what will happen?"
Carol hesitated for a moment, then said: "You realize there are so many ways this could go wrong, right? We have no idea what's out there."
Natasha took a deep breath. The longer a conversation dragged on, the less likely people were to change their minds. But Carol wouldn't have called if she hadn't at least been considering a mission like this. She was on the brink of conceding.
"The owner of the Time Stone before Thanos," Natasha said, "was a wizard from Earth. You didn’t know him, I never met him, but Tony told me about him. Before he died, he used the time stone to find all the possibilities of what could happen. There were millions in which we were defeated, and exactly one possibility where we won.” Natasha briefly paused to let that sink in. “What if this is the one possibility? If we miss this chance, we won’t get another one. We can't afford to wait."
"Okay," Carol conceded. "I'll send you the coordinates. If you're willing to risk your lives for this, be my guest. But this isn't something you can solve with brute force. Find out where the stones are, try to get into the inhabitant's good graces. But you won't win a fight against Infinity Stone bearers–"
"Carol," Natasha interrupted. "I've got this. I'm a spy, not a soldier. We're not just going to rush into battle."
Carol’s body language hadn’t changed much during the conversation. Like Natasha, she had been trained not to give away what she was thinking or feeling. But still, Natasha could tell that Carol, while worried about how this could go wrong, shared Natasha’s new-found glimmer of hope. "If anything goes wrong, page me. I'll come as soon as possible." The video ended.
Natasha felt a rush of adrenaline. After three years of pointless video calls, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches alone, waiting for something, anything, Natasha finally had a purpose again.
It was time to assemble the Avengers.
After weeks of travel, The Benatar had finally entered the Triangulum Galaxy. Soon it would reach its destination. Rocket was glad that he no longer had to spend weeks in a cramped space with these clowns. Of course, these clowns weren't thrilled about it either. Birdeye, for example (Rocket could never remember which bird it was. Eagleeye? Falconeye? Seagulleye?) had been interrupted from his favorite hobby: murdering criminals. Thor had been interrupted from getting drunk and playing Fortnite but had agreed to join when Rocket had assured him there was plenty of beer on the ship. The guy with the fancy metal suit – the red suit, not the gray suit, though they were both coming - had been reluctant to leave his family behind. Lucky bastard, the only one to have come out of this situation with more family. And Bruce had been the hardest to convince because he was having relationship issues with his alter ego, the big green guy, who was apparently afraid to come out after he'd gotten his ass kicked by Thanos. But they'd eventually all agreed to come because they all had people they'd lost and wanted to get back, no matter how risky it was. Rocket too. He wouldn't admit it in front of everyone, but he missed Groot, even though Groot had been a whiny teenager at the time. Rocket was willing to risk his life for a tree. Fuck, he was just as crazy as everyone else.
So now Natasha, Steve, Clint, Tony, Bruce, James, Thor, Nebula, and Rocket had been together on this tiny ship for so long that Rocket even knew all of their names. And Rocket was terrible at remembering names. It had taken him a week to learn Groot's name when they'd first met, and literally all he ever said was 'I am Groot!'
These last few weeks had not been fun. But now they were close to the end.
"Rocket!" Nebula said. "The planet." The two of them were taking their shift in the pilot seats, meaning that they had to be looking out for threats. There hadn't been any so far, but intergalactic travel was always boring. Now that they were in the Triangulum Galaxy, Rocket expected, even hoped, that something would come up.
"What planet?" Rocket asked.
"The one we are flying towards. Our destination."
"What about it?"
"Where is it?"
"What do you mean where is it? It's where it always was. Planets don't just–" He'd zoomed in on the place they were heading to on the control panel, but all he saw was empty space. "...disappear."
"What's going on?" Natasha asked. She was sitting just above Rocket, across from Bruce.
"The planet's gone." Rocket answered.
"What do you mean the planet's gone?"
"One moment it was there, the next moment it wasn't."
"So it disappeared just now?"
"No, this is an ordinary telescopic view," Bruce pointed out. "We're still a thousand light-years away from the planet. The last light we saw from the planet left it a thousand years ago. If we don't see the planet anymore, that means it's been gone for a thousand years."
"So, what, it blew up?" Steve asked. "Like in Star Wars?" Rocket vaguely knew what Star Wars was from Quill's rants about Earth, but the others seemed surprised that Steve knew what it was. "What? I've been out of the ice for 10 years. You think I still haven't watched Star Wars?"
"It did not blow up," Nebula said. "If it had, we would see debris and light from the explosion. Instead, we see nothing. This planet simply disappeared from one moment to the next."
"So what do we do?" Bruce asked.
"We keep going," Natasha said. "Planet or no planet, the surge came from here. This is still our best shot at bringing everyone back. Nebula, Rocket, can you make the jump?" Nebula nodded.
"Well," Rocket sighed. "It's too late to turn back now. Here goes nothing." Rocket set the jump-coordinates to the edge of the sector where the planet used to be, and pulled the lever, hoping for the best.
The ship accelerated and immediately jumped to the coordinates he'd set. They were finally there.
"The planet is back," Nebula remarked.
"The fuck?" Rocket said. Sure enough, the planet was there again. And it was fucking weird. It was bright, from all sides, even though there wasn't any sun within light-years. All there were was a bunch of glowing moons orbiting a glowing planet. And a giant... tree? Rocket blinked. Still there. A giant tree circling the planet. Groot would have loved to see this.
"How does a planet just suddenly appear?" Bruce asked, though it wasn't clear who he was asking.
"Through a portal, probably," Thor said. Rocket was surprised that Thor wasn't either asleep or too drunk to talk, as he usually was.
"But think of the energy it would take to teleport an entire planet," Bruce responded. "How would they get that energy?"
"I don't know," Rocket said sarcastically, "Maybe they had six shiny rocks that could do anything they wanted…"
"Rocket," Natasha ordered, "Jump back four and a half light-months."
"Why, what's over there?"
"Four and a half months ago is when the first energy surge happened. I have a hunch that that’s when the planet reappeared."
Rocket jumped the ship back five light-months. The planet was gone again. When he jumped a light-month forward, it was back. Natasha seemed to be right.
"So where did this planet come from?" Steve asked.
"Not anywhere in this universe," Bruce answered. "Otherwise, we would have seen the same energy signature at the same time in the place where the portal opened. This planet must have been in a parallel universe or a pocket universe."
"You know what that means, right?" Tony said. "If this planet wasn't in this universe three years ago, chances are it was unaffected by the snap. The only planet in the entire universe that didn't lose half its population."
"Good for them, I guess," Bruce said.
"Can we stop philosophizing and land already?" Rocket asked impatiently.
"Where we are now," Nebula philosophized, "the energy waves from the surge four months ago have reached us. The ship has found six distinct signatures in this wave originating from six different locations on the surface of this planet."
"Six locations. Six Infinity Stones," Bruce said.
"We'll split into teams," Natasha ordered. "Steve can manage on his own. I'll go with Clint. Nebula and Rocket, you two will go to the last site after dropping everyone else off. Who else?"
"I'll take Rhodey with me," Tony said.
"I'll go alone," Thor exclaimed. "I'm the strongest Avenger." Looks were exchanged. Thor may have been the strongest Avenger, but right now, he was the drunkest Avenger. But no one said anything, cause there was no changing his mind.
"And that leaves–" Everyone looked at Bruce.
"I'd rather stay on the ship," Bruce said. "I'm here as a scientist; there's so much we don't know about this planet. I can study it safely from up here." Dammit, Rocket had been looking forward to being alone. Now Bruce was gonna stay here?
"Oh, come on," Tony interjected. "This isn't a research ship. The most useful thing on this ship is that old 80s mixtape, and it doesn't even have AC/DC. There's nothing you can do up here."
"Look," Steve said. "I understand that it's scary, going to a strange planet we know nothing about. Especially with your current situation."
"What, you think this is because of him?" Bruce shot back. "I'm glad the other guy's not around. Imagine what a disaster that would be, going to a planet where we're supposed to be friendly and non-threatening as a guy whose temper tantrums destroy cities! All he ever does is cause trouble! I hope he never shows up again!" Rocket could see glimpses of fear in some of the people's eyes. It seemed they hadn't gotten used to the fact that Bruce Banner shouting no longer meant that they were all going to die.
"Bruce, you can go with Rhodey," Natasha said. "We need your eyes and expertise on the ground, and you're not much safer up here than down there."
"Fine," Bruce conceded.
"It's true that we have no idea what to expect down there," Steve said. "But there's no turning back now. If you come across locals, the number one priority is to stay friendly. We have no reason to believe they're hostile and we'd like to keep it that way. But be prepared for everything. Remember, this is a reconnaissance mission. Our goal is to find the Infinity Stones, or whatever else is causing these energy signatures. But we also need to find out more about this planet. Who are the inhabitants, how friendly are they, why and how did they disappear, were they affected by the snap, why and how did they kill Horde Prime, and, most importantly, can we use this planet's powers to bring everyone back? We'll stay in communication over our earpieces. If anything goes wrong, let us know and whoever is nearest will come to you. Good luck!"