MARVEL's Avengers: Infinity War: The Cosmic Quest, Volume 2

by Brandon T. Snider

  “I saw you come in on the closed-circuit cameras,” Ian smirked. He stretched his arms out from his sides, as if to remind Darcy of his shape. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that said R.I.P. EARTH. “I’m alive. Surprised?”

  “Nothing surprises me anymore,” Darcy replied.

  They stared at each other in total silence for roughly thirty seconds. Their brains were brimming with questions they were far too afraid to ask. Their relationship hadn’t ended well. It began, however, innocently. Darcy hired Ian the same way Jane had hired her. He didn’t have a background in science, but he was cute, funny, and took direction well. They started dating soon after the Convergence event. Try as they might, though, Darcy and Ian just couldn’t make it work.

  Felix broke the silence and reached out for a friendly handshake. “I’m Felix,” he said. “What do you do here, man?” He sniffed the air. “Besides stink.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Ian asked.

  “Don’t mind Felix. He’s still learning how to be a real boy,” said Darcy.

  “I’m the guy who tags and bags stuff once it falls into Anjelica’s hands,” Ian explained. “It can be boring. And lonely. But it’s stability, which is nice, and I’ve always got the telly to keep me company. There’s also a gym down here. One of the perks.”

  “Ugh,” Felix groaned. “No wonder you smell like an underarm.”

  “That’s probably just you going through puberty,” replied Ian.

  Darcy was impressed by Ian’s new physique. “Your arms look like hams. Subterranean isolation does a body good, I guess.”

  Felix was fixated on the rows of shelves that were filled with boxes waiting to be returned to their proper places. Each one was tagged according to its relevance and placement within the facility. He moved his eyes across them all, noticing names like the Battle of New York, Damage Control, and 177A Bleecker Street. Felix’s mind raced, imagining the stories and secrets inside each one.

  Ian’s attention was focused squarely on Darcy. “Still working for Selvig, huh? Some things never change,” he muttered.

  “Sick burn,” Darcy said, rolling her eyes.

  Felix quietly removed a stack of files marked Classified. The first folder detailed a UFO encounter near Winslow, Arizona, though most of the documents were blacked out. He flipped open another folder and thumbed through a missing-persons report for a woman named Janet Van Dyne.

  “Put that back,” Ian said.

  “Oh. Sorry. You seemed really busy. I thought I’d help with the filing,” said Felix, grinning. “Don’t worry about paying me. This one is on the house, pal!”

  Ian pointed at the shelves. “Back,” he said. Somberly, Felix did as he was told. As he returned the files, he spotted a tiny black ball covered in unfamiliar white symbols, hiding behind a box. He stuffed it into his pocket as slyly as possible.

  “Let the kid read a couple of old secrets, dude,” Darcy said. “Loosen up.”

  “Don’t distract from the issue, Darcy,” protested Ian.

  “What is the issue, Ian?!” Darcy exclaimed.

  “You’re Selvig’s lapdog,” Ian said. “When are you going to actually do something for yourself instead of running around doing whatever he tells you?”

  Darcy calmed herself as best she could, though Ian’s words stung a bit. “Yes, Erik has his moments. He’s been through a lot. You were there for some of it! Show some compassion, man. Half the world just crumbled! I’m not leaving the one person who needs me the most.”

  “The one person who needs you the most?” Ian asked. “That used to be me.” He retrieved a gadget from his desk and handed it to Darcy. It was both familiar and outdated.

  “This… looks like… my old MP3 player,” she said, tilting the device to inspect each of its sides.

  “It is,” Ian said proudly.

  “Okay… but… am I missing something?” Darcy asked. “This was confiscated by S.H.I.E.L.D. back when we first met Thor. Once everyone kissed and made up, they gave it back to me. I still have it somewhere. In a drawer. I think.”

  “They gave you a decoy made to look exactly like yours. This is the real one. Found it when I was cataloging a bunch of stuff,” Ian explained. “I’d ditch the impostor, if I were you. There’s a tracking device embedded inside its circuitry. I was going to tell you once I found it but…”

  Darcy crinkled her nose. “What a bunch of—” She stopped herself before she said something regrettable. “I can’t believe S.H.I.E.L.D. just threw this in a box and put it in storage. That’s messed up.”

  “Maybe they didn’t consider you important anymore,” Ian said. “That’s not to say you aren’t important. You’re a scientist! Or, no, that’s not right, you’re science-adjacent.” He struggled to find his verbal footing. “You know Thor! That makes you a very important person.”

  “Quit while you’re behind,” Darcy said, putting the device in her pocket. “Thanks for this, beeteedubs. It’ll come in handy on our road-trip-quest thingy.”

  Ian took a long, deep breath. “What are you looking for?” he asked.

  Darcy pondered the question. “Stability. Happiness. I’d love to get a big, dumb dog that I can wrestle around with in the backyard of my farmhouse. Oh, and a farmhouse. I want one of those. Other than that? A job that pays well and allows me to put my political science degree to good use. Not that I don’t love what I do now, but, you know… It sounds cheesy, but I want to help people. I’d love to be really good at that. Those are the broad strokes. Pretty much.”

  Ian smiled. “No,” he said. “I meant what are you looking for on your little road-trip-quest thingy?”

  “Oh,” Darcy chirped. “The secrets of the universe. Know where we can find some?”

  “I’m sure whatever Anjelica gives Erik will help illuminate things,” Ian said, smiling. “Darcy, you’re already good at helping people. If I may make a suggestion, though, you may want to learn how to help yourself.”

  “I’ll take that into consideration,” she said. Suddenly, her eyes darted around the room in a panic. “Where’d Felix go?”

  On the other side of the facility, in the viewing room, Selvig inserted the flash drive and settled into his seat to watch Jane’s video diaries.

  “Hey,” Felix said, arriving unexpectedly. He pulled a chair up next to Selvig and took a seat. “Darcy’s ex-boyfriend works at this place. The guy seems like a real tool. Things got kinda weird, so I bolted. Mind if I watch what you’re watching?”

  “Be my guest,” Selvig said. He took the tablet into his hand and pressed PLAY. “Pay close attention, Felix. These tales should illuminate my mission.”

  “Our mission,” corrected Felix.

  Doctor Jane Foster appeared on the screen, sitting in the manager’s office at the Smith Motors Auto Dealership in Puente Antiguo. She seemed nervous but excited.

  “Hello, friend,” Selvig whispered. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You know this isn’t a live feed, right?” asked Felix.

  “Shhhh!” Selvig snapped. He swung his index finger up to his lips for added effect.

  Felix took the cue and quieted himself.

  Jane shifted around in her chair and began her chronicle. “This is Doctor Jane Foster’s video diary regarding the events that took place in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. I’m, um, Doctor Jane Foster. My colleague, Doctor Erik Selvig, said I should record an account of these events… for posterity… so… here I am. Oh, and if you’re watching this because I’m dead, be kind. I’m a scientist not a video blogger.”

  “She’s funny,” Selvig muttered to himself. “I’d forgotten how funny she can be.”

  “Did you guys used to… you know… date?” asked Felix. “She’s cute.”

  Selvig shot him a dirty look.

  “I’m shutting up now.”

  “I’ll begin at the beginning,” Jane said. A cell phone rang off camera, and she leaned over to see who it was. “Ugh. Good ol’ Don Blake. Always knows the wrong time to call. You
know what? Forget him. Let’s get down to business,” Jane said. “I’d been studying auroras, tracking magnetic storms, as one does—”

  Selvig pressed fast-forward. “Jane is one of the most brilliant minds of our time, but she’ll drone on about the majestic beauty of the auroras for hours if you let her.” He patiently waited for an approximate moment to stop. “How about here?”

  “—and it was truly one of the most gorgeous sights I’d ever seen in my entire life. Absolutely incredible. I’ll drone on about the majestic beauty of the auroras for hours if you let me. Now is not that time.” Jane chuckled. “Anyway, a magnetic storm had erupted in Puente Antiguo. Erik wasn’t all that thrilled or impressed. I can hear him now. You’re an astrophysicist, not a storm chaser! Which is funny considering how our understanding of the universe changed that day.” Jane paused, clearly recalling the exact moment in time when her work moved to the next level. She shook off the feeling and got back to business. “What we witnessed in Puente Antiguo was more than a magnetic storm. It was an Einstein-Rosen bridge, a wormhole, and it spat out the god of thunder.”

  “Here we go,” Felix said, rubbing his hands together. “The good stuff.”

  “It was startling. To say the least. Thor’s a big guy. Cracked the windshield. So, Darcy was freaking out. Erik was whatever…”

  “You were just whatever?!” exclaimed Felix. “We’re talking about Thor here, man. I would have lost my head.”

  Selvig ignored the comment. He wanted to hear more of Jane’s recollection.

  “My readings were completely off the charts. I’d built all my equipment by hand, and it’d cost me more than I’m willing to admit. That insane storm almost fried every piece. It also left a series of circular markings on the ground, like nothing I’d ever seen. I wanted to stay and study them, but Thor needed medical attention, so we headed to the hospital. But I knew what we’d seen was a tried-and-true Einstein-Rosen bridge. Erik disagreed. He loves to protest. It’s just a theory, Jane! As if that mattered. Everything is a theory at some point. Everything. Then that theory gets proven. He knows that, of course, but maybe he was just afraid that uncovering the truth behind the nature of things might…”

  Felix grabbed the tablet and stopped the video. “Can we talk about Einstein-Rosen bridges for a minute?” he asked. “Jane wrote an article about them in a science journal I read from the library. I made a copy of it. Anyway, she said Thor referred to the wormhole he used to access Earth as the rainbow bridge or Bifrost, but my question is—”

  Selvig snatched back the tablet from Felix’s grasp. “Please, Felix, it’s very important that you let me absorb this chronicle uninterrupted.” He pressed PLAY as Felix sank into his seat in defeat, mumbling to himself in frustration.

  “I needed to talk to Thor. Obviously. Data, readings, measurements; they only tell part of the story. I needed context. Once we realized he didn’t just get caught in the storm, that he was actually inside the thing, experiencing it, we rushed to the hospital to find that he was gone. My smoking gun had disappeared. We got him back. Eventually. But, in the interim, S.H.I.E.L.D. confiscated all my equipment. Agent Coulson said I was a security threat, which was absolutely ridiculous. Thor got my diary back, though, thankfully.”

  Selvig pressed PAUSE to tell a story of his own. “I was the one who rescued Thor,” Selvig said proudly. His voice filled with delight. “It was thrilling. To fool his captors, Thor pretended to be Jane’s boyfriend. We had it all planned out. I even tossed around falsified identification as if I knew what I were doing. But I didn’t! Which was exciting. Thor and I had a bonding moment. I remember our conversation well, despite a few… impairments.”

  “What do you talk about with a god?” Felix asked. “No offense, but aren’t you just a stupid animal to someone like him?”

  “No, no, no. God or not, Thor doesn’t view humanity like that. Not anymore, at least. At this moment in time, he was unsure of himself and the path ahead,” Selvig said. “But anyone who’s ever going to find their way in this world must start by admitting they don’t know all the answers. The key is to ask the right questions.”

  “I want to hear more Thories,” Felix said. “Get it? Thor stories?!”

  Selvig was pleased to have Felix along for the adventure and found his humor refreshing. He was in need of a lighter moment. Jane’s recollections reminded Selvig that he hadn’t always been the supportive mentor he should have been. It left him feeling unsettled. “Jane was convinced Thor was the answer to the mysteries we’d been tracking. I thought he was dangerous. She wanted to go after S.H.I.E.L.D. I was the one who dissuaded her,” Selvig explained. “I should have believed her. I should have supported her without question. But, you see, the Norse mythology, all these fantastic things, they were just children’s stories to me. The electromagnetic storm surges could be explained with ease, but a god who fell from the sky? It didn’t make sense. I used to tell Jane that it was our job as scientists to chase every possibility, every alternative. She was doing exactly that! And I still doubted her. I couldn’t wrap my head around what I assumed was magic.”

  “Arthur C. Clarke said, ‘Magic is just science we don’t understand yet.’ You probably already knew that.” Felix slowly patted Selvig’s shoulder three times in an awkward show of affection. “Cheer up, Doc. That all happened in the past. Don’t sweat it. Let’s just watch these videos, figure out what we need, and then move forward.”

  Selvig nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, yes. That’s what we’ll do. The information we seek is coming. Let’s get prepared.” He pressed PLAY and continued.

  Jane was smiling. “Thinking about Thor trying to buy a horse from a pet shop still makes me laugh,” she said. “He could have easily treated me like some dumb mortal. I assumed that’s what a god would do. But he didn’t. He opened up my entire world and took the time to make me feel comfortable. What did I do in return? I kept hitting him with my car. Not an even trade-off. The way he explained the Nine Realms… I’d never heard something so incredible. It was all so unbelievable. I had proof that the Einstein-Rosen bridge existed, but convincing the scientific community to believe me without an overwhelming amount of hard evidence… wasn’t going to be easy.”

  “That’s true,” Selvig said, pressing PAUSE. “The scientific community can be so fickle. Science fiction had become science fact very quickly. Jane had broken entirely new ground, and the stubborn gatekeepers didn’t know how to handle it.”

  “My mom and dad were always believers. I mean, obviously there’s life on other planets. What kind of small-minded little idiot thinks Earth is the only place in the entirety of the cosmos with the conditions to create living things?!” Felix shrugged. “Man, I remember when Thor and the Avengers made their big debut in New York City. Everything changed. It was a big honkin’ deal. The whole world paid attention. I sat in front of the TV for days watching the news and knockin’ back bowls of Frosted Sugarbombs. Snatched a red tablecloth and some of my mom’s old extensions and ran through the neighborhood telling everyone I was the ‘Goduvfunder.’ Ahhh, to be a kid again.”

  Selvig snickered.

  “What?! I was a kid. Comparatively speaking. Even at that age I knew that unexplored worlds meant new biology to study.”

  Selvig twiddled his fingers as he recalled the excitement of the moment. “It was the first in a chain of events that would totally reshape humanity’s understanding of the heavens,” he said. “But we still have so much to learn!” He pressed PLAY.

  Jane had found her groove. “While Thor was stuck on Earth, chaos had erupted on Asgard. Thor’s brother, Loki, was trying to steal the throne. So then Thor’s friends, the ‘Warriors Three,’ needed him back home to help stop this. Guess how they get to Earth? An Einstein-Rosen bridge! They called it the Bifrost. What I called it was more evidence to prove my theory.” Jane shimmied her shoulder, playfully smirking at the camera. “Let’s see, there was Fandral, Hogun, Volstagg, and Lady Sif.” Jane paused. She appeared confused. “
That’s four warriors, not three. Hmmm. I suppose Lady Sif is in a class all her own. Actually, I know that for a fact, because I watched her in action, and she is, without a doubt, one of the fiercest women I’ve ever met. You can quote me on that. Anyway, so, Loki sent something called a Destroyer to kill Thor and take him out of the picture completely. Keep in mind, Thor was totally powerless at this point. He lost his hammer. Darcy called it Meow-Meow .”

  “Meow-Meow?!” Felix said. “Does she mean Mjolnir? Uh-uh. No way. Unacceptable. You don’t go calling one of the greatest weapons in existence Meow-Meow ! Unless she’s talking about something else entirely, and, in that case, I don’t want to know.”

  “Hearing myself say all this out loud sounds crazy, but that’s what actually happened,” Jane said. Her tale was entering into the home stretch. “Thor confronted the Destroyer who was, well, destroying everything. Poor Puente Antiguo. Loki had been watching the whole thing from Asgard, so Thor made an appeal. ‘Take my life and end this!’ That’s what the Destroyer did. He took his life, or so we thought. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I was a total mess, crying over Thor’s body as if he weren’t someone whom I’d just met. But look, the guy had an effect on me, okay? I won’t apologize for caring about his welfare. It doesn’t matter anyway because he came back to life! His hammer somehow sensed he was in trouble and finally showed up. Next thing we know, Thor is revived and looking like a majestic warrior. He kicked that Destroyer’s butt. S.H.I.E.L.D. knew the game had changed, and they had no choice but to change with it. Thor made them give back all my equipment. Coulson wants me to continue my research, so that’s an option. As for Thor… he promised me he’d return, and I believe him. As for me…” Jane appeared to gather her thoughts as they came to her. “I’m going to expand my resources, publish my findings, and make sure the scientific community understands that this is just the beginning. Cosmic forces have been awakened and I’m not about to give up searching for answers to these new mysteries. This has been Doctor Jane Foster’s very first video diary. Thanks for watching?”