THE OLDEST MAXIMOFF | Stephen Strange

6.0

Nadia Maximoff was a shell of her former self and neither Tony nor Nebula knew how to help her let alone help themselves. The enhanced Maximoff mostly kept to herself on the Guardians ship as they traveled through space to god knows where. It had been nearly twenty-two days since they left Titan and have been afloat in space, a thousand light years away from Earth. Tony and Nebula were able to buy themselves another two days of flight time but that eventually ran out and now they were just dead in the water. They were low on oxygen and had even less food aboard the ship and Nadia was feeling as weak as ever. The malnourishment had taken ahold of her body in more ways than one and affected her negatively. The sclera surrounding her irises were bloodshot and her cheeks were sunken in. Her weight had dropped significantly within the couple of weeks and her body was extremely tired which made it difficult for her to move too much.

Her head was leaned against the floor of the ship as her thoughts of Stephen Strange consumed her as she knew that her and Tony wouldn't survive the night. The man that she loved had stolen her heart without even trying and broke down her walls with no mercy. Nadia had felt as if she would always experience the bad things in life and whenever something good came along, it wouldn't last long and would be ripped away from her. When Nadia met Stephen, she thought she finally had things turning around for her but whenever she obtains a sliver of happiness, life has other plans for her. She now believed that her and Stephen were the perfect example of the right person at the wrong time.

She forced her eyes shut at the painful memories of her brief and short time with Stephen when a tear escaped her tear duct. "I love you, Stephen," Nadia whispered through her shaky breathing. "I always will."

Nadia drifted off into a state of unconsciousness which made Nebula approach her to check if she was still breathing. It had only been less than a month but Nebula considered her a friend and did not wish for this to be happening. Nebula picked up Nadia's body and set her in a chair next to Tony as she thought that they would both like the expansive view in front of them with all the stars, and the moons, and the planets.

A distant boom echoed around the ship as both Nadia and Tony stirred a little bit in their sleep before a blinding and bright light blocked the view of the galaxy. Nadia squinted her eyes shut tighter as a silhouette of a person appeared through the bright glow of light. The woman on the other side of the glass smiled at the two before moving under the ship and flying it to Earth.

EARTH

Carol Danvers set the ship down as lightly as she could in the grass right next to the Avengers compound. Nadia's scanned her surroundings and was met with worried eyes of her fellow teammates. Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff were front and center alongside Pepper Potts when Nebula and Carol helped Nadia and Tony out of the ship. Nat immediately reached for Nadia and wrapped her in a tight embrace. The tears started back up again for Nadia as she was trapped in Natasha's arms. "Where's Wanda?" She voiced her concerns for her younger sister which made Natasha make eye contact with Steve, neither of them wanting to upset Nadia further by telling her that Wanda was gone.

"Where is she?" Nadia's voice cracked as she tried to demand but her voice was weak which didn't make her tone sound as firm as she was hoping it did.

"I'm sorry," Nat finally choked up a response to her friend. "She's gone."

Nadia shook her head as her face scrunched up as more tears formed and escaped her eyes. "No, no, no, no," She repeated as Nat held on tighter before guiding the Sokovian woman into the compound.