Destiny Arrives Page 6

  "How do you know he's not going for one of the other Stones?" Gamora asked, her heart racing. Thor sighed, turned, and faced her.

  "There are six Stones out there. Thanos already has the Power Stone because he stole it last week when he decimated Xandar," Thor said, not knowing the impact his words would have.

  Gamora, Groot, Rocket, Drax, and Quill exchanged looks. They'd met on Xandar and considered some Xandarians friends. They'd also been the ones to leave the Power Stone in Xandar's capable hands to begm with. Was this their fault?

  Thor continued, his voice grave. "He stole the Space Stone from me when he destroyed my ship and slaughtered half my people." Thor's voice was detached and elsewhere. He still needed time to grieve and process his loss. Now was not that time. He soldiered on. "The Time and Mind Stones are safe on Earth. They're with the Avengers."

  The Guardians were confused. Quill asked, "The Avengers?"

  "Earth's mightiest heroes." Thor tossed this off casually, as though everyone had heard of them. So busy was he preparing for his journey that he failed to notice not a single Guardian knew what he was talking about. "Like Kevin Bacon?" Mantis asked, earnestly.

  "He may be on the team. I don't know, I haven't been there in a while."

  As the only person on the Guardians' ship who actually knew who Kevin Bacon was. Quill furrowed his brow in confusion at the mention that Bacon could possibly be part of this Avengers thmg.

  Thor contmued, "As for the Soul Stone, well, no one 's ever seen that. No one even knows where it is." As Thor continued, Gamora turned her gaze to the ground at her feet. The mention of the Soul Stone seemed to make her very nervous. "Therefore, Thanos can't get it. Therefore, he's going to Knowhere."

  Thor looked around to make sure everyone was following what was to him plain logic. Unbeknown to him, logic was not the Guardians' strongest suit. "Hence, " he said with added inflection, "he'll be getting the Reality Stone."

  Thor looked at Gamora, his lesson apparently over. "You're welcome."

  Gamora moved to Peter a plan formulatmg in her mmd. "Then we have to go to Knowhere now," she insisted. She was about to explain the importance of swift action before she was cut off.

  "Wrong. Where we have to go is Nidavellir," Thor proclaimed. His order was met with silence, until...

  "That's a made-up word," Drax accused.

  "All words are made up," Thor wisely countered.

  "Nidavellir is. ..real? Seriously?" Rocket walked to Thor, his eyes wide and far off, a rare, genume smile stretchmg from whisker to whisker. "That place is a legend. They make the most powerful, horrific weapons to ever torment the universe." Rocket's voice sounded like a child describing Santa's twisted workshop. It was literally a dream come true to Rocket knowing that Nidavellir existed. He chuckled. Suddenly, eyes coming back into focus, he turned to Thor. "I would very much like to go there, please."

  Quill nearly choked at the sound of Rocket saying "please" to anyone, no matter how many weapons a place had.

  Gamora shook her head. This had to be a fool's errand.

  Thor gave an approving look at Rocket before passing his judgment to the rest of the crew. "The rabbit is correct, and clearly the smartest among you." Rocket's chest puffed and he was about to repeat the compliment when one word in particular sunk in. "Rabbit?"

  "Only Eitri the Dwarf can make the weapon I need," Thor explamed, ignoring Rocket's confused look at being called a rabbit. Instead, he looked to Rocket, gave a slight bow, and placed his fist over his chest as a sign of camaraderie. "I assume you're the captain, sir?"

  "You're very perceptive," Rocket answered, confidently and wrongly.

  "You seem like a noble leader. Will you join me on my quest to Nidavellir?" Thor asked, looking down at Rocket. "Let me just ask the captain. Oh, wait a second, that's me!" Rocket grinned from ear to ear. Thor beamed as well. "Wonderful!" This trip was shaping up to be fortuitous. Until...

  "Uh, except for that I'm the captain," Quill said, raising his hand in objection as he moved to place himself between Thor and the ship's secondary pod.

  "Quiet." Thor's brisk demand was so direct and commanding that it gave even Star-Lord a moment's pause. Which is when Quill noticed the bag Thor had filled with supplies and food for his long journey. "That's my backpack," Quill said feebly. "Go sit down," Rocket commanded.

  "Look, this is my ship. And I'm not going to..." Quill trailed off, trying to remember the name or pronunciation of the place Thor was going. Nothin'. "Wait." Thor turned back to face him. Peter squared his shoulders and tried to be taller as he cleared his throat. "What kind of weapon are we talking about here?"

  The answer caught everyone off guard.

  "The Thanos-killing kind." Thor 's words hung in the common room as everyone absorbed the enormity of such a weapon's possibility'. Recovering first. Quill said, "Don't you think we should all have a weapon like that?"

  Thor shot him down. "No. You simply lack the strength to wield them. Your bodies would crumble as your minds collapsed into madness." "Is it weird that I wanna do it even more now?" Rocket asked.

  "Mm: a little bit. Yeah," Thor answered, questioning his choice to bring the rabbit along.

  Gamora, having heard enough of dwarves, rabbits, and Thanos-killing weapons, stepped forward as the voice of reason. "If we don't go to Knowhere and Thanos retrieves another Stone, he'll be too powerful to stop." As she addressed the room, her words sunk m. Thor's drove them home.

  "He already is." The Asgardian's voice was grave and filled with painful memories.

  Rocket, feeling his duty as "captain," barked out a plan. "I got it figured out. We got two ships and a large assortment of morons." Everyone ignored the insult and looked at him to contmue. "So, me and Groot will go with the pirate angel here, and the morons will go to Knowhere and try to stop Thanos. Cool?" There were no objections. "Cool."

  "So cool," Thor answered.

  "For the record, I know that you're only going with him because that's where Thanos isn't," Peter hissed.

  Smirking, Rocket raised his voice loud enough for Thor to hear. "You know, you really shouldn't talk that way to your captain. Quill." That was exactly the thing to get under Quill's skin, and Rocket knew it when he saw Peter's face flush red.

  Rocket loaded his and Groot's packs into the pod, then looked to find the tree-creature holding his video game too close to the bark of his face, branches nimbly pressing the buttons as the game bleated a new high score.

  "Come on, Groot. Put that game down, you'll rot your brain," he admonished.

  Groot grunted a rude answer that stunned Rocket. He was about to open his mouth and cut the obnoxious scrawny tree down to size, but there were weapons of torment and destruction to be seen and they needed to begin their journey. All three boarded the pod and were ready to part ways.

  Inside the vessel, Thor saluted. "I bid you farewell and good luck, morons."

  Only Mantis waved back, the others staring at him, both confused and offended.

  Thor smiled at her. "Bye."

  With that final word, the pod ejected into space, splitting the team into two distinctly different missions, both of which could determine the fate of the universe. With that thought weighing on the minds of both ships' occupants, the Guardians' ship and Thor's craft sped off in different directions.

  To the unsuspecting eye, they just looked like any other couple having a boring evening in. She was sipping a cup of tea in bed: and he was gazing out the window as the dark night sky fell across the Scottish landscape just beyond. It was an ordinary evening in even" way.

  Except for one thing that made it extraordinary: the couple themselves. Wanda Maximoff: better known as the Scarlet Witch, and Vision, Tony Stark's rogue—and possibly evolving—android.

  Wanda and Vision had stolen this boring, ordinary evening. They'd protected these forgettable nights with everything they had. They'd fought to sit in bed and drink tea like any other normal couple with a fury and dedication they'd never recogni
zed in themselves before.

  Because in this boring room on this forgettable Scottish night, Wanda and Vision were finally free. Free from their endless obligations. Free from the judgment and impossible expectations. Free from the death-defying grind to continually save a world that neither accepted nor welcomed either of them.

  There are some in this world who would fight to the death for one seemingly boring evening, so long as they could be together.

  A tingling shiver ran through the room as Vision suddenly bent over, clutchmg his head m pain. He let his fingertips delicately touch the glowing yellow Mind Stone at the center of his forehead.

  "Vis?" Wanda asked. Her voice was gentle and worried. "Is it the Stone again?"

  Vision's fingers hovered above the Stone curiously. "It's as if it's... speaking to me." He sounded confused and a bit fearful. Wanda got out of bed and walked toward him.

  "What does it say?" she asked, unsure if she wanted to know the answer.

  "I don't.. .1 don't know, but something..." He trailed off.

  She gazed up at him. This face. His face. She knew even* inch, even,' pore, and it broke her heart that he was trying to cover up how worried he was. The tingling Stone rippled through the room once more, and Vision winced. "Hey," she said, and reached up to place her hands on either side of his face. She studied him. He took her hand in his and kissed it, ever fearful that their stolen time together was coming to an end. Whether they liked it or not, the outside world was pushing past their blockades.

  Vision closed his eyes as his lips pressed against the palm of her hand. She leaned into him and his eyes eased open, locking on to hers. He led her hand up to the Mind Stone and placed it tenderly atop it. The warmth of her, the feeling of her. It was everything to him. He bent down into her and whispered, "Tell me what you feel." Vision's voice was gentle and ragged. He needed Wanda to use her telekinesis powers to access whatever it was the Mind Stone was trying to say—even though neither of them wanted to remember who they really were outside of this anonymous room.

  Wanda looked up at him. The fear and the confusion written on his face. She hated that he was in pain. She hated that they couldn't just have another bormg, unencumbered night in. She hated that they couldn't just be... normal.

  But none of that mattered right now. What mattered right this second was bringing her love a little peace. She pulled her hand away from Vision's head and tiny strands of red energy flickered from her fmgers, connected with the Stone, and arced back to her hands.

  Wanda honed in on the Mind Stone and dug and searched and hunted for answers. She'd done this so many times, even* target's mind laid bare before her. But this was different. She couldn't seem to...she couldn't find... it...she couldn't get past the fog and the blur and the feelmgs and the warmth and the love and the belonging and home and he was home and she was home with him.

  "I just feel you" Wanda said. The ease of this confession took her by surprise.

  As the rain fell just outside their window. Vis took her face in his hands and kissed her. She became lost m him. Again and agam. It didn't worry her that she couldn't read the Mind Stone. It was proof. Something was happening. Something new and wonderful. Beyond all of the powers and the voices and the chaos in her mind that had hounded her for as long as she could remember... she could feel, and beyond that, she could love. She could be felt and be loved m return. She had a chance. They had a chance.

  Didn't they?

  Dressing slowly, the pair walked outside the inn in search of some fresh air and a hot meal. There was a humming urgency to them as they walked hand in hand down the cobbled streets. The ticking clock of their time together was deafening, and they both knew they had taken way more time than they should have. But it was as if every second became not enough and then the next second only made them hungry for two more, and on and on it went, greedily embezzling time from a universe that acted against them.

  "So, there's a ten a.m. to Glasgow, which would give us more time together before you went back," Wanda said, her voice robotic and detached. It was the only way she could get through the next few hours.

  "What if I miss that train?" Vision asked. He was clear-spoken, yet sweetly hesitant.

  "There's an eleven." Wanda kept herself as unemotional as possible. Her feelings raged just beneath the surface and scared her with their vastness.

  "What if I missed all the trains?" Vision stopped and faced her. He smiled as the thought became more and more real in his head. "What if this time I didn't go back?"

  All of the reasons why Vision should go back flooded Wanda's brain. The harsh truth of his wonderful and powerful fair-minded singularity crashed over Wanda. She was being selfish. The world needed Vision more than she did. Although how anyone could need him more than she did was incomprehensible to her.

  "But you gave Stark your word." She hated how pragmatic she was being. Why couldn't she just get swept away? Why didn't she believe that she deserved to have this chance at a real life, at happmess?

  "I'd rather give it to you." The words were the most serious vow Vision could give her, Wanda realized. Her own heart swelled despite the danger such a decision could mean for them.

  "Well, there are people expecting me too, you know? We both made promises." Wanda held back a tidal wave of emotion as the mutmous words spilled from her lips.

  "Not to each other. For two years we've stolen these moments, trying to see if this could work, and, I don't know.. .1.. .pers—" Vision took a deep breath, wondering if this was what nervous felt like. "You know what? I'm just gonna speak for myself. I-I-I think—I-I think it...It works."

  "It works," Wanda agreed, unable to keep from smiling.

  "It works," he said again. It felt good to say the words. It felt good to say them agam and again. Their smiles were heartbreakingly relieved and scared and wondrous. "Stay. Stay with me," Vision said. His voice was close and enticing.

  She looked up at Vision and for the tiniest of moments let herself imagine a world where she stayed. Where they tucked away in their little boring room and drank tea and moved utterly anonymously through this world. The only thing they'd be known for was the great love they felt for each other.

  But then they'd have to just stand by and watch as people needlessly suffered because they'd chosen to be so selfish. And however much they loved each other, that burden would begin to erode at the very reasons why they loved each other. And why they'd just begun to actually love themselves.

  Wanda painfully slid her gaze away from Vision. Her love for him meant that she couldn't—and wouldn't—keep him all to herself. However much it killed her.

  "Or not... if I'm overstepping," Vision said, trying to keep things light.

  But somethmg else had caught Wanda's eye, through the window of a nearby restaurant. A newscaster was broadcasting footage of the devastation in New York. The hovering ring ships and blurred footage of Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian made Wanda cover her mouth in horror.

  She could barely find her voice enough to ask Vision, "What are they?"

  A long sigh preceded Vision's answer. "What the Stone was warning me about," was all he could say.

  What flashed on the screen made them both take notice: TONY STARK MISSING!

  Vision grabbed Wanda's hand and kissed it: turning away as he did so: readying himself for what lay ahead. "I have to go."

  But Wanda refused to let go. "No, Vision. Vision, if that's true: then.. .then maybe going isn't the best idea." Wanda was panicking.

  "Wanda, I—Guhhhzz." His eyes widened in shock and pain as he bent over at the waist.

  "Vision!" Wanda's red magical energy surrounded her hands like a crackling mist now as she looked in horror at what had become of her love.

  A sharp blade was piercing his chest and lifting him three feet from the ground. Vision's human appearance faded as his skin turned red: and his clothes shifted to his green-and-gold caped outfit. Screaming, he was dismissively flung into the middle of the cobbled street.

/>   Behind Vision, Corvus Glaive growled.

  Wanda's eyes narrowed.

  The glow from the Scarlet Witch's hands grew more mtense and a heightening, glaring shade of red as she moved her hands to cast a spell. She lifted her hands, aimed—and was hit by a bright blue blast before she was able to do anything to save Vision. Wanda's body was launched through a display window on the other side of the street. Proxima Midnight stood, holding a staff buzzing with blue energy arced across the tips on either end.

  Vision lay on the ground, paralyzed temporarily, with Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight standing above him. Corvus Glaive had taken out the blade and was tapping it against the Mind Stone in Vision's forehead. Although the Stone was far more powerful than the blade. Vision let out a scream, feeling as if the blade was piercing his very brain. Corvus shifted his weight, replaced the blade against the Stone, and tried once more to pry it out.

  Before Vision could even cry for help, both foes were sent soaring two blocks away. Vision turned his head and saw the Scarlet Witch, fully powered and fully angry, stepping out of the now broken display window. Wanda moved her hands and the dancing red bolts encircled Vision, lifting him off the ground and away from Corvus and Proxima. Wanda flew off after him and, her magic continuing to hold him aloft, successfully transported them far enough away to see to his wounds. She pulled him mto a darkened alley, set him gently on the ground, and started stitching up the gaping hole from the blade with her powers.

  "The blade. It stopped me from phasing." Usually he could pass through any solid object with a thought.

  "Is that even possible?" Wanda asked, focused on his injury.

  "It isn't supposed to be-be-b—" Vision momentarily glitched as sparks flew from the hole in his chest. His tone softened. "My systems are failing." Wanda pressed on, unable to accept that this wound or these enemies were anything but completely beatable. She wasn't going to lose Vision. Not like this. Not ever.