Deep within the bowels of district one, warehouse number three, a doll laid within a package, focused and stiff as a corpse.
He was the one doll that saw things whenever he closed his eyes, although he was not sleeping.
He saw visions of the future, of what will be and what currently was, and in his mind he saw six dolls, each with their own separate lifestyles, slowly coming together like pieces in a puzzle.
One day they would be there for him.
But today was not that day.
Today, they were fighting for their lives.
Chapter six: Better Late Than Never
Recuperation wasn't easy after the red woman exploded.
Kamala Khan had led them on, that much was obvious. Rhodey had suspected she was a double-crosser all along, the wild goose chase she conducted only further cemented his theory. Loki, blind with rage, had banished her, forbidding her from every joining the bounty hunters again. Kamala had been lucky. Other traitors had died for their crimes immediately. Rhodey guessed that Loki still had a soft spot for her. She might as well be dead now, though. Bounty hunters were everywhere in the warehouse. Rhodey could only hope that Kamala would get out and find a home soon.
Rhodey didn't have that kind of hope for himself.
He'd been with Loki's gang for nearly three years now. Three unhappy years spent with the bounty-hunters, where your identity became a number. Yet, Rhodey knew there was safety in numbers. His occupation had allowed him to afford a fairly comfortable lifestyle. He had his box well out of the humans' sight, and furnished with air pillows and packaging peanuts, a luxury, really. Still, it was a lonely existence. The bounty hunters under Loki's control were probably nearing the thousands, and Rhodey knew only a few by name. Even then, they weren't his friends. It was difficult to make friends when everyone was a number.
Rhodey knew he had been at a crossroads in his relationship with the bounty hunters before he saw what the red woman could do. He liked safety, but he was lonely. He liked luxury, but he hated the hunt required to gain it.
It the red woman who made him choose a side.
It should have been a normal day.
Loki had assigned them another target. A Scarlet Witch All Stars figure, about three and a half inches tall, about four weeks old. Easy. But... Loki had paused here, he liked the drama... she was a Blazing Soul. His minions muttered worriedly, but Rhodey had been expecting this. Bounty hunters don't target useless dolls. And if this Scarlet Witch doll didn't have money, she had to have power.
And power she did have.
Karl had turned her in. He would be heavily compensated later for such a gift, but unfortunately, the Scarlet Witch doll was not naive. Karl was her mentor, her friend, and maybe even her family, but everyone knew that she used to be a Rogue Soul, and that title was not to be taken lightly. She came out of hiding on fire, and that fire grew with each minion she kicked out of the way. She was this controlled chaos that struck a chord within Rhodey. She was an oxymoron. She was like him.
But when he took their leader, Loki, by the neck and hurled him through the air, things changed. This Scarlet Witch doll, the woman blazing with a bright red light, was not like him. She was better. Better than Loki, even.
Rhodey decided then and there to leave his life forever, and all that he knew, and follow her. Both literally and figuratively.
He pretended to be wounded in the battle. He collapsed to the ground when the others ran after Kamala Khan. Underneath a slightly closed eye, he saw a flash of red as the doll crawled away to safety. Rhodey waited for the warehouse to resume stillness again, and then he somersaulted upwards until he was standing, then walking... walking out of his old life and into a new one. He did not know where the red woman would go, but at this point it wasn't important. All Rhodey had to do was work on being a few steps behind the red woman and her new crew, yet not close enough to be noticed.
There would come one day where he was noticed, but that wouldn't be for a while, when times had certainly changed.
Chapter eight: The Naive God
Warehouse three was a place of many gods.
Literally.
Thor 54 was one of them; one of many other Thors who existed there for however long they had to exist until a human came to collect them. Thor felt neutral about the whole idea. He did not care whether he went or he stayed.
He did not care that he was treated like a god among men, a doll that people practically worshipped for the sake of his character's strength, humility, or beauty. Women called at him from the shadows, eager to get better acquainted with his scruff and chiseled muscles, but he paid neither of these groups any attention. Thor had a one-track mind. Nothing mattered to him unless it had to do with reaching his goal: finding Loki.
A lot of dolls were looking for Loki in those days.
The hunters were becoming the hunted as more and more people in warehouse three became tired of living under Loki's reign of terror. But Thor was not searching for the Loki, he was searching for his Loki. This Loki he believed to be kind, patient, and understanding- the exact opposite of the one with a target on his head. Thor claimed to have seen this Loki in a dream on the day he first came to life, and whenever he told this story to other dolls, nobody believed him. They had lived in a world of malice for so long, they did not think a world of compassion could exist.
Because of this dream, Thor was mostly alone.
Still, he never gave up hope. He wandered the warehouse day after day, only stopping to sleep whenever humans were around. There would come a time when he wandered a little too close to the humans' reach, and he would be put into a box and shipped away to another home.
It didn't bother Thor.
He would just learn to look elsewhere.
Chapter nine: The Mysterious Bird-Man
Wanda had learned to move on quickly. Every day, when Karl, or the Ancient One, or Kamala Khan entered her mind, she shooed those thoughts away with a reminder of her gratitude. Their small group of Avengers were all she had now, and they were enough.
By day, they traveled across the warehouse, sneaking by the humans' watchful eyes, and by night, they hid and rested, being wary of any sounds around them. Just because they had escaped didn't mean their past was willing- and ready- to catch up to them.
Despite this, Wanda felt she could relax. Sure, there was a target on her back and big and bold as the red leather jacket she always wore, but she felt protected among the guys. More protected than she had with her previous "family", who always warned her of danger that she had not even encountered until the day they had betrayed her. Chris, Tony, and Hawkeye didn't pay much attention to their present situation. Chris and Tony would always come by with a witty quip or pun or distract everyone, and Hawkeye never slept, allowing the others to let their guard down. Because of that, he was considered the leader of their group. Chris, since he was more responsible than his partner, became second-in-command. Tony was then designated to comic relief. Wanda wasn't sure what she brought to the group, if anything, and she was desperately eager to find her place. She wasn't going to settle for being the "token woman". Anything but that.
The role soon came whenever Chris and Tony were discussing their plans to leave the warehouse one night. Hawkeye was standing outside their hiding space, acting as a guard. Wanda's eyes kept darting to the entryway. She heard voices outside.
"Anyways, if we're ever going to leave, we're going to have to get the humans' attention somehow," said Tony. "They won't take four measly dolls shipped together. We need a bigger group."
"I heard somewhere that an Ant-Man doll got out in a group of six hero figures."
"Yeah, but he can get small," Tony sighed. "It's not fair."
"Not this Ant-Man," Wanda added. "I heard this, too. That Ant-Man wasn't a Blazing Soul."
"A what?"
Wanda shook her head. She felt like that should be kept a secret. It had certainly hurt her head whenever Karl and the Ancient One first revealed the secrets of the world to her. "Nevermind."
"It doesn't matter what he is. What matters is that he got out. In a group of six, huh?" Chris scratched his chin. "That doesn't seem too bad. I figure we can recruit a couple more dolls by the end of the week."
"Why the end of the week?" Wanda asked.
"Christmas." Chris said grimly.
"Christmas." Tony agreed, in the same tone of voice.
Wanda hadn't been living under a rock, although it had felt that way at times, what with the dark and cramped spaces. She knew that Christmas was important to most humans, and somehow, this important time meant a lot of toys were being ordered. After that time though, as soon as January came, any toy left behind in was sure to remain until next year. Nobody ordered nearly as many toys during the rest of the year than they did at Christmas.
Wanda sucked in her cheeks. "Well, you boys can leave that to me. The Ancient One used to provide sanctuary to lost and hunted dolls. Maybe we can do the same, and then we can take them to the humans and then," she shrugged. "Who knows what then. Hopefully we'll get shipped out and end up somewhere nice."
"Ain't that every doll's dream?" Chris laughed. "Okay, Wanda. You seem to know what you're doing; we'll leave you to it."
"It's the... 13th. December 13th," Tony said. "We'll give you until the 20th to find two more dolls. That's a week from today. Can you do that?"
Wanda smirked. "I'll try. It's not like I'm wanted dead or alive or anything like that."
"That's the spirit. We'll tell the plan to Hawkeye tomorrow."
At the mention of his name, Hawkeye's shadow dipped away from the entryway as he came in through the hole in the box that was their makeshift room. He cast his eyes upon Chris and Tony suspiciously.
"Hi, Bird-Man. What's up?" Tony asked casually.
Hawkeye grunted in reply.
"Who were you talking to?" Said Wanda.
"My brother," Hawkeye replied. "Saying goodbye." And that was all he said about that.
Chris watched Hawkeye cross the room and crawl into his box without so much as a backwards glance. He clapped his hands once. "Alright! Bedtime."
Chris and Tony went to their separate boxes, yet Wanda didn't move. She didn't have a box anymore. She had left it at the Ancient One's sanctuary, and with good reason. Hawkeye had warned her that going back was dangerous. Any identity outside of yourself was like painting a target on your back for the bounty hunters. Hiding was more important than comfort.
"And Wanda, hey," Tony hissed, minutes after Chris was breathing softly beside him. "It would also be okay for you to pick up a third doll for us."
"What? Why?"
Tony cocked his head at Hawkeye's box. "As a replacement for that guy. I don't fully trust him. I feel like he could be working for the..." he lowered his voice even more. "...the other guys."
Wanda secretly felt the same way. She didn't want to believe that she would be betrayed again. She knew that Chris and Tony had good hearts. Their actions were simple and intentional. Karl had been shifty, moving without noise, thinking deeply before speaking, and always avoiding eye contact with Wanda. He was afraid she could read him. She could. Chris and Tony were earnest. They hid nothing. Hawkeye, however, had his eyes concealed behind his purple glasses. He wore them all the time, but did he wear them when going to bed? Would he notice if someone took them away?
"Tony," Wanda whispered back. "I can read him. I mean, I can read his mind. I can do it tonight."
"Wanda, I'll love you forever," Tony settled back into his box. "You're excellent, you know that?"
Wanda smiled. She was excellent. People thought she was excellent. She wanted to prove that title correct. Wanda waited, sitting cross-legged to keep awake in the same way the Ancient One had taught her to. Tony's breathing followed, a deeper murmur than Chris's. Still no sounds from Hawkeye. Wanda groaned internally. Did the man ever sleep?
When the light began changing outside, Wanda decided that it had been long enough. It was now or never. She crawled across the floor until she reached Hawkeye's box. He was settled rigidly into the clear plastic casing, one hand an open fist and the other gripping his bow. It was unloaded. Wanda ran a finger across his palm delicate as a snowflake falling on hair. Hawkeye murmured, but not comprehensively. Yes! He was asleep.
Wanda locked her fingers under the glasses and lifted them away from Hawkeye's face. His eyes were ready for her now, shut in multiple creases that made him look old and worried. No wonder he wears these all the time, Wanda thought. She rested her hands on his temples and closed her eyes. Time to dive in.
There was the sucking sensation as his dream was transferred to her mind, which which common. Wanda had been expecting this. What she didn't expect was the voice that she heard, clear as day, fading in and out around her.
"My brother," were the words. "Saying goodbye."
In her mind's eye, they were outside the lair. It's brighter outside; it's not safe. She saw herself in Hawkeye's body, which would have been a welcome change had she not been distracted by another man that stood before her, hunched over and nursing a broken arm like a baby. He spoke to her.
"It's not so bad- really, it's not. Stop worrying about me."
"I should be worried," Hawkeye's voice responded, coming uncontrolled from her mouth. "I thought you died. I thought you died along with her."
The man looked up. It's another Hawkeye. It was like staring into a broken mirror. His eyes are shining with sorrow. "Yes. Her. Tatanya. I'm so sorry."
"Apologies won't bring her back," Hawkeye snapped, but then softened. "No, I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault. It isn't your fault she is gone. If anything, it's mine. I took the shot. I couldn't catch her when she fell," he paused. His head felt ready to burst. "I couldn't stop Loki from breaking your arm."
"I told you- it's nothing. You've been through worse than I have. I can get another arm... somewhere, somehow. You can't get another Tatanya."
You don't think I know that? Hawkeye screamed inwardly. In reality, his jaw was set. The glasses didn't show his emotions. He was composed. He was cool.
"But I see you have another woman in there. Who is she? Looks like-"
"Emily," Hawkeye finished. "It's not her. Another one like her, but not her. She's got powers. Big ones. She single-handedly defeated Loki and all of his minions. I saw it myself. I'm sure you heard of that, too."
"No wonder you're keeping her around," the other Hawkeye said, trying to make light of the situation. "I have heard of it from another source. I was kicked out of the bounty hunters whenever he broke my arm. What good is an archer if he can't shoot, right? Not like I was a good shot, anyways... they miss you, though."
Hawkeye clenched his fists. "Miss me? I'm replaceable. Loki saw me as nothing but a pawn in his little game."
"Yeah, but you were a special pawn. You were the queen... or whatever. Something like that. I've never played chess," the other Hawkeye waved his good arm around in the air, the one not bound together by packaging tape. "How is it, knowing that you'll never be safe in here again?"
"It's wonderful," Hawkeye sniffed, his jaw raised. "Refreshing, even. I have more freedom than I've ever known before."
"Yeah, and no fear of expiration, not with Emily 2.0 to protect you."
"I'm starting to worry that that's exactly as I see her," Hawkeye confessed. "Her name is Wanda. Not Emily. And yet... I feel that, by keeping Wanda by my side, guarding her, conversing with her, making sure she's never lonely... I feel like I'm redeeming myself. What I did to Emily was unforgivable, I-"
"I'm sure she forgives you," other Hawkeye said. "Emily was never one to hold a grudge, for as long as I've known her," he blinked, as if suddenly realizing or remembering something. "Oh god, my sister. I've known her forever. My sister. Emily."
"Hey," Hawkeye rested a hand on other Hawkeye's shoulder. "Do you need to come inside? You could sit down for a while. Chris and Tony are pretty accepting. You don't have to tell them that you were a bounty hunter. I didn't."
Other Hawkeye shook his head. "No, no. No. I'm fine. I'm okay," he inhaled and stood up as straight as he could. "Kamala has been kicked out, too. I'm living with her for now, and she gets all panicky whenever I'm out too long at night."
Hawkeye nodded once. That was understandable, given everything that had happened to them. "Be safe heading back, alright?"
"I will be," other Hawkeye turned on his heel and began to hobble away, but then he stopped. "I won't see you again, will I?"
"No," said Hawkeye grimly. "I have a feeling that Chris and Tony will want us out of the warehouse before Christmas. That's when most of us will be packed away."
"I don't think I will be. I'm a broken doll now. Nobody wants damaged goods."
"Not at a full price, anyways," Hawkeye managed a smile. He ran a finger under his friend's chin. "Keep your head up. Kamala is one of the smartest dolls I know. She was Loki's right-hand man for a good reason. I guarantee she'll have you in a box by the end of the week, even if she has to drag you there."
"She might have to." the doppelganger chuckled.
Something rustled close by. Both dolls sprung into action, like statues ready to strike.
"It's nothing," said the other Hawkeye. "A red light. Maybe from the warehouse alarms?"
"Yeah, maybe."
The doppelganger fell against Hawkeye in a half-hug. "We had a pretty good run, Clint. I'm glad you're my brother."
"Mm-hm." Hawkeye murmured. The words he wanted to say were building up inside him like rain in a cloud. They were bound to come out if he didn't leave now. And they were pushing Wanda away. Pushing her, forcing her, out of his head. Almost like... he was waking up.
Wanda lept back just in time, crouching in the shadows by the side of Hawkeye's box. He was sitting up now, rubbing the places where Wanda's hands had been. She tried to still her breathing, although it was difficult after all she had seen. How was Hawkeye still so calm?
"Wanda, I know you're in here." Hawkeye said. His voice was clear as day.
Wanda slunk further away from Hawkeye's vision. It didn't work.
"I can see you, Wanda."
"Hi, Hawkeye," she said sheepishly. "Just... um... checking up on you. I thought I heard something."
"You saw something," Hawkeye corrected, standing. "You were poking around in my head without permission."
"I had to!" She blurted. "Tony was thinking of kicking you out of the group. He thought you were up to something. He thought you were, you know..." Wanda stood and brushed off her dress. "Part of the bounty hunters."
"I was for a while," Hawkeye confessed. "I left whenever my job killed everything and everyone I loved. I know more about the ins and outs of their team than anyone else. It would be stupid to get rid of me."
"I know," Wanda bowed her head. "I'm sorry about what happened to you. It looks like neither of us had a very good start."
Hawkeye cleared his throat. "No. Things will be better when we get into a home. That's why we're leaving. Tomorrow."
Wanda started. "Tomorrow?" She hadn't even thought about which dolls to recruit next. They had no chance of making it out with just the four of them.
"I can tell Chris and Tony when night falls again. But Wanda-" he pointed a finger at her, more in fear than in warning. "You mustn't tell them what I was. This is the only chance I have to leave the life I destroyed. The dolls here won't rest until I'm dead."
"Yeah, me too." Wanda whispered.
"Come and take my box for the night. I can't sleep any more."
Wanda felt awkward and overwhelmed. She had seen enough for one day, and she wasn't about to refuse a comfortable bed. Hawkeye stood by the entryway again, probably thinking. Wanda assumed he was the kind of doll to think a lot. She wondered if that was good for a person. She didn't have to wonder for long. Sleep seized her hungrily as soon as her eyes were shut. Good thing, too. Tomorrow, she might be elsewhere.
Chapter ten: Like a Target
Rhodey had not expected them to leave the day after the two Hawkeyes reunited.
They abandoned their boxes early into the night, as soon as the last human left, and began their way across warehouse three to the packaging center.
"We'll be there first thing in the morning." The Captain America doll had said optimistically.
"Yeah, maybe they'll still take the four of us together," the Iron Man doll added, giving the red woman a small punch on the arm. "We'll be an exclusive set. People have seen sets of six. They haven't seen us, though."
The Hawkeye doll and the red woman were both tight-lipped for most of the journey. Each one kept continually glancing at the other nervously.
They reached the packaging center at dawn.
Tony pretended to hold a microphone to the mouth of his suit as he comically said, "Last stop: district one, home of warehouse three's packaging center. Here dolls of all shapes and sizes will be forced into cardboard prisons for any time between 2 days and 2 weeks to arrive at where... well, we don't know where. Good luck to you, brave cadets. This is the end of the line."
"Toot toot." Chris said, making a train noise.
Wanda shook her head gravely. "Buncha dorks. You shouldn't make so much noise. Loki could still be around here."
"Or someone Loki knows," said Hawkeye. "He's got eyes everywhere."
The four of them stopped to look around, holding their breaths as they scanned the scene. Nothing. No doll dared to be out when the humans were so close to arrival. Except Rhodey, who had cleverly been grabbing on to the underside of a work bench as they talked.
"Eyes everywhere? Sounds like a medical condition," Tony joked. He seemed to take nothing seriously. "Come on. Let's go find ourselves a nice box."
They came across one that was the perfect size. Well, it seemed perfect, until they looked harder.
"This one's already occupied." Said Chris, peering in. A curious red face stared back. Rhodey thought at first this was the famous Magenta, with how strange he looked, but no, this was a Vision.
"Are the four of you leaving?" The doll asked politely.
"That's the idea."
"Then come in. I've got room for more. I was just on my way out as well." Vision patted a spot beside him, offering the others to sit down. They clamored in, surprised at his hospitality. Rhodey sneaked along the side of the box, his ear pressed against the cardboard to listen in.
"How long have you been in here?" Hawkeye asked.
"Goodness knows," Vision replied. "I've just woken up. Somehow I've always been here, ready to get sent out. But nobody ever bothered to pick me. I wonder if it was because I didn't have enough dolls with me to do so," he locked eyes with the red woman and titled his head. "Yes... I feel that this is the right place for all of us."
They sat awkwardly in silence until Hawkeye coughed and asked someone to check the time.
"Eager, are we?" Said Vision.
"Maybe I've got a good reason to be."
"My apologies. It is five minutes to six. How unusual. Five of us, and five minutes left until we go."
Five minutes that couldn't pass quick enough, especially for Rhodey, who was struggling to find even the smallest amount of a disguise.
"Psst. James! Hey, James!" A doll whispered from the racks below.
If dolls had a heart, Rhodey's would have stopped then. He glanced over his shoulder. A small, feminine doll, with green skin and ombre hair, was standing below the workbench, waving her arms like she was attending a concert. Gamora, a doll who might have been his one and only friend, but still definitely a bounty hunter. James jumped to the ground as quietly as he could.
"What were you doing over here? Loki's been off the wall looking for you," she tapped a pointed finger on his chest light. "You're not that easy to find, you know. All you are is a little red light in the darkness. Wandering. Like a cat chasing a laser pointer." Gamora was grinning in her accomplishment before noticing that Rhodey wasn't.
"What's the matter with you? We gotta go back. The humans are gonna come in soon."
"I know, Gamora," he swallowed. His voice sounded too desperate for his own liking. "I gotta go."
"What do you mean, go?"
"Like, go. Leave forever. Find a home," he grabbed Gamora's hands. "I'm done here. Loki doesn't need me. He never did."
Gamora ripped her hands away. She started shouting. "What's gotten into you? We need you and you know it! You're coming back with me and reporting to Loki. Now."
Rhodey looked into Gamora's eyes and saw ruthlessness. If he let her go, she would run back and fetch Loki, but if he went with her, he'd be seeing Loki anyways. There were still five minutes left on the clock. He had to trust that Gamora couldn't run that fast.
He activated his jetpack and blasted away, but Gamora had been expecting this. She took off at an angry sprint, expertly dodging benches and boxes on her way to district three. Rhodey launched himself higher until the red woman and her team were within eyesight again. Rhodey alighted slipped into a neighboring box that was barely big enough to hold a set of matches. It would have to do. He compacted himself into a corner and held his breath. Please, Gamora. Please understand me this one time. Trust me, if you've seen what I've seen, you would want to leave, too.
The alarms sounded across the warehouse, piercing Rhodey's ears. But this time, he welcomed the ringing. Doors swung open and humans filed in to the floor. His box was shut and taped over, then strung together with the red woman's box. Rhodey breathed a sigh of relief. Sure, he was a still target, but at least he was a moving one now.
Chapter eleven: Suddenly Elsewhere
A last-minute addition was suddenly kicked into the box, loose with the rest of them. They didn't care about bubble wrap or styrafoam. They just wanted to be gone.
The doll tumbled head-over-shoulders and landed before them. He paid his fall no attention. Rather, he beamed up at them like this was the best day in the world. That was not so surprising. The dolls didn't know one Thor that didn't radiate sunshine 24/7.
"Nice to meet you all. My name is Thor." Were his first words.
"What do you know, we'll be a set of six after all." Said Tony happily.
"If you know what's good for you, you'll shut up right now." Hawkeye told them.
"There are a lot of dolls in here. Have any of you seen my brother Loki?"
"You mean the Loki who's currently trying to kill us?" Chris asked.
"No, no, surely not!" Thor babbled. "My Loki is a nicer one."
"You sure about that, point break?" Tony asked, a sorry mistake.
Thor began to shout, spiking the nerves of everyone in the box. "That out there is not my brother! I've met him in my dreams, and I know that he is kind, and I know that one day-"
"I'm sorry, but shut up." Wanda whispered, before sending a tendril of magic to Thor's temples. He immediately was taken into a wide-eyed, dreamlike state of focus and silence.
Hawkeye signed her a "thank you", and Wanda nodded. She didn't need to understand ASL to know he was grateful.
"What's the scoop on Loki?" Tony asked. "Can he take on a human? How about more than one human? That has to be easy to do if he can just paralyze them, right?"
"What?" Hawkeye gawked.
"He's got the scepter."
"It doesn't work." Wanda and Hawkeye said in unison. They turned to look at each-other, each one more confused than the other.
"It won't be of any use to him," Hawkeye concluded. "He doesn't have any powers."
"He's not a Blazing Soul," Wanda agreed with a nod. "He's Tier Three."
"Alright, great, I'm glad you guys know that and we don't." Said Tony.
"Regardless, he's still a threat," Chris said. "We'll be safe as soon as we are in the truck. Until then, lay low and keep your voices down. Remember that all cardboard looks the same."
That became the team's mantra as they passed from conveyor to conveyor, hand to hand. All cardboard looks the same. All cardboard looks the same. They began to convince themselves that the humans had everything under control. They began to believe that the entire doll army would not be able to find them in time before they were packed away. They began to let their guard down, just a little. All cardboard looks the same. All cardboard looks the same. They will never find you. You will never see this place again.
The box shifted, and the dolls tumbled headfirst into a corner like marbles in a tin can. Cool metal flooring radiated from under the box. They were in the truck. There were a shriek and a thud with the doors shutting behind them, and the tiny window the packaging tape had formed was no longer letting in light. The fight was over.
"We're on our way to a new home." Vision whispered. He locked eyes with Wanda. "Things will be better now, won't they?"
"You tell me, Snorlax." Tony quipped. "We found you alone and asleep without a care in the world. Meanwhile, we've been running for our lives."
"I was not sleeping," Vision insisted. "Although I admit I was dreaming. Of horrible, terrible things... beyond imagination," he blinked. "I feel like they are supposed to mean something. Like... a vision, if I may say... of the past or the future. I cannot tell which."
"Let's hope it's the past," said Chris. "This is the chance for a new life. We don't need to carry any tragedy with us."
"Your story is hardly tragedy." Vision scoffed.
"Like you know!" Tony argued.
"This isn't helping." Hawkeye grunted.
"Haweye is right. We're all arguing like mortal enemies. I thought we were trying to be a family." Said Vision.
"We're not family." Said Hawkeye, embittered by the word.
"What are we, then?" Wanda asked.
No one knew. They embraced the rumbling of the truck rumbling beneath them, the tilt and shift with each turn they made to exit the lot. The increasing acceleration let them know that whatever they had left was far behind them now. For a couple of days, an ill-padded cardboard box and an Amazon delivery truck would be their lives. And then what? Somewhere in a child's toy chest, or in a glass display case in a fan's collection, or lost and forgotten under a bed or in the attic.
"We're out. This is the highway now," Chris stated. "Wanda, you can lift your spell on Thor?"
"I can't hold him much longer, anyways," Wanda admitted, pulling her hex away from Thor's head and back into her hands. "His mind is very strong, surprisingly."
Thor spluttered back to life like he was resurfacing from the sea. He shouted something incomprehensible in what everyone assumed was Norwegian, then watched, unphased, as Thor paced around the interior of the box, hitting walls and stumbling over the ground. Eventually, he ran out of fury when he hit his head- and hard. He wobbled, fell, and began snoring.
"Wonderful," Tony commented. "He's definitely not going to remember anything about us."
"We can play along when he comes to," Chris laughed. "Pretend like we've never seen him before, re-introduce ourselves. He might give us a break about finding his brother."
"He will get cold laying like that." Vision observed. He tugged at the ends of his cape, hoping it would become loose from his shoulders. It was firmly stuck. Vision shrugged and rolled onto his back, laying at Thor's side so that his yellow cape would cover Thor's sleeping body. Vision folded his fingers over his stomach and closed his eyes peacefully. No one was sure what to make of such an action. It was like a robot trying to replicate empathy.
"Not gonna lie, a nap sounds nice." Said Tony.
"I swear you've just read my mind." Said Chris, laying next to Tony as they set their arms around each-other's shoulders.
"That's Wanda's job," Tony pointed at Wanda, whose mouth turned up in a sad little smirk. She was feeling awfully tired after holding Thor steady for so long. And a nap would make the time in the box pass a little quicker... "Come join us, mind-reader."
Wanda shrugged and curled into a fetal position at Thor's other side and watched as Hawkeye stared down at them, the shadows in the box obscuring all emotion in his face.
"You too, Hawkeye?" She asked. "Come on. It's December out there. You'll freeze if we don't conserve as much warmth as possible."
"I'm fine."
Wanda titled her head. The smallest gesture; the quietest question. Hawkeye rolled his hands and laid down at Wanda's feet, no magic required to convince him. Wanda smiled as she felt Hawkeye grab her heel. It wasn't going to be enough warmth from her body to carry on to his, but it was a start. Hawkeye wasn't a bad egg, she thought. Besides, all eggs can be cracked. Wanda hated when anyone felt left out, and luckily, she had only begun to find his weak spots.
The Pocket-Sized Avengers, as they had later decided to be called, were to awake in the new home by January 3rd, 2018. It was a new year in a new home.
And maybe... just maybe... it would be a new family.
-Loki
