𝒩𝑜𝓌 𝐼 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌 𝓈𝒽𝑒'𝓁𝓁 𝓃𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓋𝑒 𝓂𝑒 𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓃 𝒶𝓈 𝓈𝒽𝑒 𝓇𝓊𝓃𝓈 𝒶𝓌𝒶𝓎
Audelia Motter and Tony Stark had each other's backs through thick and thin. But after the abduction of the billionaire in Afghanistan by the Ten Rings...
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All is quiet in the Avengers upstate facility. Truthfully, there's not much to say.
The team is sat in the conference room, all scattered around the room as they watched the screens. News channels reporting on the latest global death toll, now surpassing 3.2 billion people. And that was just on this earth, that wasn't counting the various other planets in the universe that had surely lost half of their population.
They had failed, and now the universe was paying for it.
"This is a nightmare,"
Audelia sat quietly on the couch, playing with the ends of Tony's sweatshirt that she had been living in the last twenty-two days. Pepper and Aurora were holed up somewhere else in the compound as Pepper tried to distract the young girl from asking about Tony. Nathan made sure to keep an eye on Deli from his place beside Steve, noticing how quiet she had grown over the days.
"I've had better nightmares," Natasha mumbled as Rhodey walked into the room.
"Hey. So that thing just stopped doing whatever the hell it was doing,"
Nathan, Natasha and Steve followed Rhodey out of the room with Audelia quietly bringing up the rear. A pager, one that belonged to the now gone Nick Fury, had turned off once again, stopping whatever signal it had been sending. For says they had been rebooting the signal, knowing that if Fury had activated it, it was for a reason.
"Whatever the signal is sending, it finally creeped off," Bruce told the group as they approached him, gesturing to the device.
"I thought we bypassed the battery?" Steve questioned.
"We did. It's still plugged in, it just... it just stopped,"
"Reboot and send the signal again," Nathan told them.
"We don't even know what this is,"
"Fury did," Natasha spoke softly, looking at Bruce. "Just do it, please. You tell me the second you get a signal. I want to know who's on the other end of that thing."
Natasha turned around, followed by the rest of the team, as they came face to face with a woman they had never met. Blonde, tall, and decked out in a red and blue suit as she stood before them, staring them down.
"Where's Fury?"
"I don't think you're in any position to be asking questions right now," Steve grumbled, stepping toward her with narrowed eyes. "Who are you?"
"Carol Danvers. I gave that pager to Fury," she looked around the group, seeming to settle down slightly. "You all must be the Avengers."
"And you're the one that Fury called," Natasha commented as she pieced it all together. "What took you so long?"
"I kind of had to travel across a few galaxies to get here," she retorted. "Where's Fury?"
"Thanos turned him to dust, like I'm assuming you've seen on a few planets on your way," Nathan told her, thinking for a moment. "One of our team, he's trapped in space somewhere. Can you find him?"
"He could be dust, but if it's going to help us stop Thanos, then yes," Carol looked around the team before settling on Natasha. "Who am I looking for?"
"Tony Stark,"
The simple mention of his name had Audelia stalking out of the room, wiping furiously at her under eyes. Nathan looked after her, taking a step to follow when Steve placed a hand on his shoulder as Natasha moved to follow her.
"You help Carol, Nat and I got this,"
It took a moment for the pair to find Audelia. She was seating on one of the couches positioned at the windows, looking out on the forest behind the compound. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, a few stray tears running down her cheeks.
"Hey," Nat spoke, not getting an answer as she sat beside Deli, Steve staying a few steps back to observe. "Fury trusts her, obviously, and she's the best chance we have at finding him."
"Finding him alive, or a pile of dust?" Deli's voice broke as she looked toward Natasha, her lip quivering. "I can't do this, I can't sit here and pray for him to come home when I know the chances. I shouldn't have lied to him that day."
Natasha grabbed onto her friend's hand, holding it tightly as Deli tried to keep in her sobs.
"Lied about what?"
"When Strange came and found us...I shouldn't have lied," Deli shook her head frantically. "I was going to wait until dinner that night, I should've just told him."
Steve dropped to a knee in front of Audelia, placing his hand on top of Natasha's as they held onto Deli's shaking one.
"Deli, what are you talking about?"
She looked between the pair, another tear slipping as a sad smile crossed her lips.
"I'm pregnant,"
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