Rogue: Annihilation (An Avengers Sequel)

19. One Test

My mind was racing 100 miles an hour, leaving me behind as it came up with theory after theory, each one slightly more plausible than the last. I wasn't a scientist, I didn't have the faintest idea if Scott's plan was even possible. But I couldn't let go of the hope that he and Steve had filled me with.

"Hey," Tony said, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts as he sat on the sofa beside me. "Nati's down. Fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow."

I nodded in acknowledgement and he put a hand on my knee.

"What are you thinking about?"

I fixed him with a glare. "You know what I'm thinking about."

"Baby," he sympathized. "I know that those guys got your hopes up, but it's not possible." He shook his head. "Even if we didn't die, even if we got the Stones and got back unscathed, which would probably never happen anyway... we can't change what happened with Kilgrave."

I tilted my head, frowning. "Why not?"

"Because Time Travel doesn't work that way," he answered immediately. "Changing the past doesn't change the future. If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past. So nothing you do will have any effect on your former present."

I nodded, already prepared for this answer. "That's the traditional view. And yeah, sure, it makes sense. But if we control the Quantum Realm, can't we control which future we go to?"

He gave me a confused look. "I have no idea where your head's at right now."

I took a breath, fleshing out my idea. "You just said that going back in time and changing things doesn't change anything in our current reality, correct?" I asked, to which he nodded. "Then it's entirely possible that going back to the past and changing things actually creates a parallel universe, right?" I continued. "One where Thanos never gets the Stones and doesn't destroy the world, and our current universe, where he does?" Tony nodded again, this time somewhat hesitantly.

I pulled a piece of paper out from underneath the coffee table and drew two parallel lines.

"So, if that's the case, we have two universes running alongside each other, one where everyone killed by either Kilgrave or Thanos is alive, and ours, where they're still dead," I said confidently, my Stark Industries pen poised on the paper. I drew an arrow with two points between the lines. "What if getting the Stones and snapping combines the two universes?"

He thought about my hypothesis in silence.

"If we all go back in time using the same technique, we're all going back to the same parallel universe," I kept going, waiting for him to interrupt me by telling me that my plan would never work. "Therefore, if I go back in time and kill Kilgrave while you guys are getting the Stones, and then we go back to this present and Snap... everyone who died because of Kilgrave will come back."

Tony frowned thoughtfully. "So what you're saying, is that we'll be creating two timelines by going back in time, and you think that the Snap will... combine the timelines?"

"Yes," I answered, my heart racing. "Snapping will even out the anomalies. Take Nat, for example. In our current universe, she's dead because of the series of events that Kilgrave set into motion. But if Kilgrave dies in an alternate reality, the alternate version of Nat will still be alive. So her death in our current universe is an anomaly that the Snap will correct." I nodded my head at my own theory. "There will only be one Nat in both universes because our Nat is dead. So when the timelines combine, the only universe that exists will be ours. Everyone that Kilgrave hurt will be alive, and everyone that Thanos killed will be alive too, just like that."