The Tear of Celeste

Chapter 56: Her World

Most of the Avengers had been caught up by now, and there was a clear split across the group.

Those who had decided that you needed to go home no matter what, and those who had been left in the dark because they would not allow it.

On one side were Tony, Peter, Steve, Nat, Clint, Bruce, and Sam.

On the other side were Loki, Thor, Wanda, Pietro, Vision, and Bucky.

Stephen had not joined the group yet.

Pietro had to act in the same role as Thor, the brother holding their raging sibling back. Wanda was normally so calm and sweet with the others, but she too was furious about you being sent home.

Bucky and Steve were facing each other, not in a fight as it had not broken out into that yet, but more in a staring contest. They both understood why they were on opposite sides right now, but still stood firm.

The group had argued for a while about if it had been right or wrong to send you back when Pietro rolled his eyes and simply said: "Can't we just bring her back? Or visit her?"

The suggestion had come so out of nowhere that everyone stopped arguing to look at him.

Pietro sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Look! We are getting nowhere arguing about the past okay? You send her back, there is no changing that, and I get why even though you did it in a super uncool way!" He said with a cold tone, looking at the other group. "But right now should we maybe not see if we can at least visit her?"

Tony frowned and shook his head. "The whole point of sending her home was to keep her safe!" He argued back.

"Yeah?" Pietro pointed out, looking at Tony like he was an idiot. "And you did, she is back in her own world without all the supervillain drama and Hydra, but what danger is there in visiting her?"

The group looked a bit shocked, the reason they had to send you back was to keep you away from Hydra, but did that mean they had to cut all contact with you?

"That is... Surprisingly reasonable," Clint noted, "coming from you"

Pietro grinned at him. "Bet you didn't see that one coming."

Nat shook her head and looked at Clint. "Reminding her of her time here will make it harder to move on!" She said seriously.

"Does she have to move on?" Vision asked, tilting his head. "The reason for sending her home was the danger of this world, not the memories." You had good memories here, would it not be okay for you to remember them?

No one could really argue against that.

"We still don't know where her world is." Bruce pointed out. "It's not like it's another planet we could find and fly to, it's a whole other universe!" He pointed out!

Tony gave that a long thought before going over to the machine. "But we do have a log about where we send her." He pointed out. "And we also have a log over her getting dragged here if we combine the info from the two-"

Bruce gasped. "We might be able to pinpoint her world!" He rushed over. "Tony, you are a genius."

For once Tony did not just agree, instead, he said something shocking. "No, I'm not, I'm an idiot."

Everybody looked shocked at him for admitting that.

Tony sighed and kept working. "If I had thought of it before, we could have done this more peacefully. We could have convinced her to go instead of lying to her, making her think we didn't want her here anymore. We... I could have been honest with her... Instead, I hurt her." He had to stop typing for a moment, his hands shaking too much.

Steve walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. "She will forgive us." That was just how you were, he glanced over at Loki and frowned, walking up to him.

Loki was calmer now, the promise that they were actively working on a way to find you again had put a lit on his rage for now. They would work faster if he was not actively murdering them, so that could come later if needed. He looked up at the Cap with a frown.

"I am sorry Loki," Steve said, giving the god a mischievous bow.

The others started giving apologies too.

And Loki was shocked, not really sure how to react to that, they were all looking at him, not with hate, or pity, or anything like that. They were truly sorry that they had hurt him.... "Just find her," was all he could say right now, not letting them see how much their words were affecting him.

"Wait, hold on, this can't be right," Tony said while working on the data.

"What is it?" Bruce asked, looking over at him with a frown. "Something wrong with the data?"

"They don't match," Tony said seriously, pulling up two graphs on his screen. "The data from when she got pulled in and sent back don't match," he said frustrated.

Vision floated over and started looking through the data himself, having been Tony's AI for so long he knew what he was doing.

Pietro walked over with a frown. "Well yeah, one is going in the other is coming out right? Maybe just flip one of them?" He crossed his arms in a demonstration, pointing in different directions. He was not really a science geek.

Tony groaned a little, he hated explaining himself to people who clearly did not understand, but he tried. "No, it's not just that!" He sends the two data screens up on a bigger screen so they all could see better. "It's not just that one is going in and one is going out as the speedster puts it, it's like they are not going the same places!"

Nat walked over, looking at the data too, not fully understanding it, but enough to make suggestions. "Well she got sent to Germany when she came here, and the machine was built to send her back to where she came from right? As in the place she was born." She looked at Tony. "So it might just be the difference between here and Germany and where she got taken from to the place of her birth?"

"No, Tony is right," Bruce said, looking at the data, "these numbers are way too different, almost as if they are not even on the same planet!"

Thor walked forward. "Could she have been an alien in her own world? Taken to earth as a baby?" She was abandoned on a doorstep.

"No this is-" Tony started but got interrupted as Stephen appeared through one of his portals.

Stephen looked pale and like he had a slight panic to him, something that he did not normally have. He said your name, looking around as if expecting you to be here. "Where is she?" He looked to the group, then the machine, then back to the group, a shocked look on his face.

"We already sent her back Doc," Tony said, looking at the numbers still before turning to Stephen, "but something is wrong, the readings are all wrong!" How had that happened? He was sure his machine had worked! Stephen himself had even helped him test it out!

Stephen looked at Tony with a serious expression. "You sent her away already?" He asks in an icy tone.

Pietro chimed in "Yeah, we already had that fight, no need to keep arguing more, we are just trying to-"

"Then we have even less time," Stephen said, changing his outfit to his full sorcery supreme outfit, "I suggest you all suit up."

The others looked at him shocked. Wanda was the one to speak up. "What do you mean, what do you know?" She asked seriously.

Dr. Strange's face was one of guilt and horror. "I made a mistake, we need to go get her, now."