The Devil Or The Deep Blue Sea (Comp/ Editing)

Chapter 4

"Alright, on our way to Earth, this guy bumped into the aircraft. We rescued him and partly treated him. And I was shocked to see him there. Guys... that was....."

"That was who Tony?" Steve asked when a phone suddenly started ringing and everyone started looking around until they figured out that the phone was Natasha's. "Hello?... Oh my god What!!!... Ok come to Wakanda... coordinates are.... Be safe.... I am sorry for what happened.... Bye" she said and cut the call, looking near tears.

"Who was it Nat?" Tony asked. "Clint Tony. Apparently, no one survived from his family and he is devastated. And also seems like most of the SHIELD agents are gone. No sign of Antman or his family." Nat explained and burst to tears just when a portal opened.

"I did not find him. Did you meet him by any chance?" the mysterious cloaked person asked. "Yup, still in medical. Lots of burns and all. Loki had had a number on him apparently" Tony replied.

"Loki" chorused everyone in the room. "And who are you?" Rocket asked. "Strange, get that ass up already. We have planning to do." the mysterious person said. "But isnt that Tony?" Steve asked.

"Well... we may have switched ourselves?" the cloaked one said sheepishly before "Strange" waved his hand, revealing that the one on bed is indeed Strange while the cloaked one was revealed to be Tony.

"Why did you change? And how did you act that perfectly?" Natasha asked. "We established a mind link between the two of us so... we could direct thoughts and conversations between one another. So all of them were genuine replies given from Tony." Strange explained.

"How did Tony create the portal then?" Steve asked. "Apparently he also had studied a little magic after Afghanisthan due to the condition he has. So it was easier for us to do this." Strange said.

"And what was the talk about my brother? He died" Thor deadpanned. "Apparently not as I had seen a vision where he was fighting Thanos after the snap. So we split ways to find him and I had encountered him on my way back. Managed to heal him a little using magic but it drained a lot out of me."

"And considering the fact that we created something that is somewhat like a twin bond, his wounds are mine and mine are his, his exhaustion affected me while my wound affected him. So we were totally exhausted to do anything properly until we were in our own bodies. To simply put it, our souls were spit into half, half in each body" Tony said.

"So.... that means Loki is alive?" Thor asked hopefully. "He is alive and will wake up in a day. We can discuss the plans tomorrow as we are in need of some well needed rest and time to grieve. We have a plan and we will tell it tomorrow" Strange and Tony said in sync, which was creepy. But everyone heeded to it and went to rest.

Rocket was destroyed. The family he had built within the Guardians was all gone, Gamora was sacrificed and the rest were gone, especially his son Groot, leaving with that robot lady. The family which had started to take him in and change him was gone.

Steve was more likely devastated. The friend he thought he had lost once had comeback to him again, finally healed and now he was again gone, leaving him alone. Sam, who had helped him a lot and another person he had considered a friend was gone.

Wanda, another person who was close to him was gone. All the three people who were close to him and helped him the most were gone, leaving him all alone somewhere out of his time was something that tore him apart.

Along with the fact that there had just been a civil war and the rest of them were not in the best terms with each other or didn't know each other was another fact that Steve hated.

Natasha was just holding together somehow. She had become great friends with Sam and Wanda and to see them die was something that broke her a little. After hearing the news of the Barton family almost dying though, she was barely able to hold herself together. The emotionless spy was almost broken.

Nebula didn't know what to feel. She knew her sister had been sacrificed, her friends and boyfriend had been snapped away and she literally no one who could actually understand her (Not that she knew anyone that much to reach that conclusion). She just knew that she was maybe angry and sad and had lots of hatred.

Strange didn't lose anyone that close as he knew that his girlfriend and Wong were still alive, thanks to the time stone but still felt empathetic to the rest of the world on their loses and being the Sorcerer Supreme, it was his duty to protect and people who he had recently come to like dying didn't do any good.

Rhodes was basically empathetic towards everyone who had lost someone precious as he knew what war can do, being in the army and all and losing his best friend only added on to it. He felt a pang in his heart for all those who had lost their lives that day, whether enemy or friend.

Bruce was frustrated and hell a lot angry. He had not been on Earth for the past two years, that is true but that didn't mean that he didn't lose someone in this fiasco. The friends he had made before and the recently made ones he had lost made him devastated.

At the same time, he was frustrated and hell a lot of angry at the fact that he could still feel Hulk in the back of his mind and could still connect and contact him and contrary to the popular belief have a conversation with him but could not let him out when he was needed the most to save his friends.

Thor and Tony were... simply to say, shattered and broken to pieces. True that Thor was happy that Loki was still alive but he had lost him home, half his subjects and didn't know where the other half were and also had lost his father and lived through many battles and all the guilts weighing down at him were not a good combo.

Tony was in a similar state, if not more than what Thor was feeling. After all, he had envisioned Thanos doing this sooner and was one of the first who knew of this threat and even though he made all effort to prevent this, it still happened. 

Being able to see a glimpse of the future totally sucked man, thanks to the portal. And losing his girlfriend, unborn child and a teen that he had considered a child, one of his first friends turned robot dying was the last straw for him. It had hurt worse than Obie's betrayal, all the torture he had faced in the years.

Loki in fact was the one that was the most broken of all one could say. After all, he had been tortured, mind controlled, emotionally abused at some point of time, secrets were kept from him even though they were the most necessary ones he had to know the most, and finally the fact that he had been brought up with contradicting beliefs and always underestimated or unwanted broke him completely.

Thanos was one of the main reasons that he was broken (literally and figuratively) After all he was the one who had who had broken him the most, controlling his mind, increasing his hatred and insecurities, making him do things that he normally won't do (Even though he might do some things, attacking cities with alien armies was not one of them)

Wakanda was lost, lost without the king or the queen or half its subjects. All of them were ultimately driven only by one fact, and that is to defeat Thanos and get whatever they had lost.

A/N: This was a small filler like chapter with a small look into what each character. Hope you all liked it! Loki and Strange are alive!!! Though I did mess up the Strange and Tony thing but never mind. All comments and criticism accepted and appreciated.

And do you think I should write the other alternative side by side to this one as a separate book? If yes, any book title suggestions are accepted, as long as it matches the short description that was in the first chapter (Viewing Choices)

Thank you all for reading!!!

Rasnak signing off :) ;)

UPDATED ON 11 AUGUST 2018