Not having an outline is a hassle; every day when I'm writing, I have to check where I left off yesterday.
Will this cause a conflict...?
Once I've finished writing the current MCU storyline, I plan to have Lynn take Natasha on a trip to other universes or timelines.
Get to know the Avengers with different personalities and their various timelines.
What do you think?
The plots of TV series and comics can be incorporated without worrying about the logic of the main universe.
There are even more stories to write now.
Has anyone wondered why Thanos was left alive? Lynn knew the timeline perfectly well, yet he still insisted on waiting five years.
Has anyone guessed how to get the Soul Stone?
I think my idea is absolutely brilliant!
After the meeting room door opened, everyone dispersed.
Tony walked the fastest, almost jogging into the lab, muttering that the stability parameters of the Quantum Tunnel needed to be recalibrated. JARVIS and Banner followed behind him, arguing about the precision of the time anchor as they walked, their voices fading into the distance.
Scott was grabbed by the arm by Sam and dragged to the logistics area for a physical examination.
He spent five years in the Quantum Realm, and although the physical sensations only lasted a few hours, no one knows whether the microscopic dimension will have long-term effects on the human body.
Scott kept rambling on about what he'd seen in the Quantum Realm —distorted bands of light, waterfalls flowing backward, spatial folds bouncing like jelly—while Sam listened with a blank expression, only repeatedly patting him on the shoulder and saying, "Alright, alright, let's go get a checkup first."
Thor walked silently to his room. He was much more bloated than he had been five years ago, his long hair draped loosely over his shoulders, and his eyes held a perpetual weariness.
Wanda stood in the corridor, staring blankly at the direction where Scott was dragged away by Sam for a long while.
A faint, scarlet glow unconsciously emanated from her fingertips, then quickly faded away.
Pietro walked over to her, said nothing, but gently touched her elbow. Wanda snapped out of her daze, shook her head at him to indicate she was alright, and the two exchanged a few pleasantries with Lynn before turning back to the training room.
Carol stood motionless at the conference room door.
She watched Lynn and Thanos walk away side by side, her lips pressed into a straight line. For five years, ever since she was brought back from the Garden Planet, she had been trying to understand what this young man was thinking.
He kept himself and Thanos by his side, without imprisoning him, just letting her farm and wait. Now he's brought Thanos back for a meeting and to participate in such an important operation, while she's been assigned to "stay at headquarters and wait for orders."
She wanted to question him, but the words stuck in her throat.
The image of her being punched away by Lynn five years ago and then being controlled by a spatial cage was still etched in her mind.
That absolute overwhelming power made her spend the rest of the past five years on Garden Planet, apart from farming, repeatedly replaying that punch in her mind.
She still can't understand why her strength was so easily defeated by the other party.
Carol said nothing in the end and turned to walk towards the base's guest room area.
Lynn led Thanos through a long corridor and into a lounge at the far end of the base.
This room is Lynn's private area; no one in the base will enter it.
The door was locked, and only he and JARVIS could open it. The room was small and simply furnished, with a bed, a table, two chairs, and an old wine cabinet in the corner with several bottles of wine that had been brought back from some unknown star system.
Lynn closed the door, casually sat down at the table, and pointed to the chair opposite him.
Thanos sat down.
His body appeared exceptionally large in the small room.
His face was covered with crisscrossing old scars, the most conspicuous of which was a diagonal line from his left eyebrow to his cheekbone, left from when he was brutally beaten by Lynn years ago.
The two sat facing each other, neither of them speaking first.
The silence lasted for a long time.
Thanos observed Lynn's expression. The young man's features were calm, revealing no emotion, but Thanos had spent five years with him and knew him somewhat.
Lynn wasn't the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but when he was silent, what he wanted to say was often more weighty than when he spoke directly.
"Just say what you want to say." His voice was deep and steady, with a rare hint of ease. "This isn't like the you I know."
He paused, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, and raised his hand to point to the scar on his face.
"I know you, but you can beat me so badly I'll question my existence without saying a word."
Lynn looked at him.
Five years ago, when they first met on the Garden Planet, Thanos was a self-righteous cosmic overlord who thought he had accomplished his mission, full of malice and with a twisted sense of satisfaction in his eyes. After that battle, he experienced for the first time what an absolute power difference meant.
In the five years that followed, Thanos seemed like a completely different person.
There was no feigned meekness, but rather a genuine calm that had been tempered through daily beatings and labor.
He fell silent, began to reflect, and started to examine everything he had done from an outsider's perspective. Occasionally, he would utter a few dry jokes, which would have been unimaginable for Thanos five years ago.
Lynn didn't respond to his joke.
He pondered for a moment, his fingers tapping unconsciously on the table, as if he were organizing his thoughts.
"We both know how to obtain Soul Stone."
Thanos's smile vanished.
Of course he knew.
"Soul for soul," meaning to exchange the life of the person you cherish most. He personally pushed Gamora down, obtaining the Soul Stone in return, completing the final piece of the puzzle.
That was the most resolute thing he had ever done in his life, and it was something he had been repeatedly thinking about for the past five years, something he could never let go of.
"I plan to take you back to the moment you pushed Gamora down the cliff." Lynn's voice was flat, devoid of any emotion. "You need to tell me the exact time coordinates."
Thanos remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
"This time I'm going to give you three choices."
Lynn held up one finger.
"First, we'll do nothing. We'll watch as your past self still pushes Gamora down, and once we get the Soul Stone, we'll take it and not interfere with anything that happens at that point in time."
He held up his second finger.
"Secondly, you personally pushed your former self down."
Thanos's pupils contracted slightly.
"Although you did obtain the Soul Stone before, we both understand that what you loved most in the past... was actually yourself."
This statement was very blunt and left no room for tact.
Thanos remained silent.
He didn't refute it because what Lynn said was true. The Thanos of the past regarded the balance of the universe as his life's mission and the sacrifice of Gamora as a necessary price. In the end, what he loved most was himself, whose only thought was "saving the universe."
Gamora didn't hold as much weight in his heart as he had initially thought.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have let go without hesitation, even with tears in his eyes, at the moment he pushed her down.
"But don't worry," Lynn leaned back in her chair, her tone softening slightly. "You won't disappear. The timeline where you died will open a new branch, which won't affect your existence in this timeline. That's the rule of time travel; we change the past, but we don't erase the present that has already happened."
Lynn raised his third finger.
"Third, you do nothing, and I'll take it by force."
He looked into Thanos's eyes.
"Once we've finished everything and everything is back on track, it's up to you whether you want to stay or leave."
Thanos lowered his head, his hands clasped on his knees.
The room was dimly lit, with only a small lamp on the corner of the table. The dim light shone on his scarred face, illuminating every deep wrinkle.
He did not answer immediately.
Lynn didn't rush him. He stood up, walked to the wine cabinet, grabbed a bottle, unscrewed the cap, and poured himself a glass. The wine was a deep amber color with a spicy aroma; he didn't know what year it was from or what planet it came from.
He held his wine glass, leaned against the wine cabinet, and waited quietly.
Thanos thought about it for a long time.
His five years of farming taught him one thing: don't rush into making decisions.
There's no use rushing when planting things in the ground. Once the seeds are buried, they will sprout naturally when the time is right.
He wasn't like this before. He used to be one of the strongest beings in the universe, always making decisions swiftly and decisively.
But now he knows that some decisions can't be rushed, because rushing them can lead to mistakes.
"Let me think about it."
He finally spoke, his voice low and calm.
Lynn nodded, didn't ask any further questions, and handed over the wine glass.
Thanos took the glass and glanced down at the amber liquid swirling within.
These past five years of farming have instilled a habit in me: after finishing work, I sit by the edge of the field, drink wine, and watch the sunset slowly sink, occasionally reminiscing about the past.
He took a sip, the spicy liquor sliding down his throat, the burning sensation traveling all the way to his stomach.
"This wine is good," he said.
"I'm a prince of Asgard, after all. Taking a few good wines from Collector isn't a problem for me."
Lynn leaned against the liquor cabinet, speaking casually, "He had a lot of good stuff in his warehouse, but unfortunately I drank most of it."
Thanos didn't reply. He put his glass on the table and looked down at his rough palms.
These hands have fought countless battles, killed countless people, and snapped their the Snap, destroying life in half the universe.
Now these hands are covered in calluses and grime, and there's still dirt stuck in the crevices of their fingernails.
Five years ago, he would never have allowed himself to become like this.
Gamora...
Thanos suddenly spoke, his voice very soft, as if talking to himself.
She used to say I would never understand what love was.
Lynn did not interrupt him.
"I thought she was wrong. I love her. I raised her like my own daughter, taught her to fight, taught her to survive, and gave her the best resources. I thought that was love."
He paused for a moment.
"Later I pushed her down. Only after losing her did I realize she was right. I didn't understand."
Silence fell over the room again.
Lynn downed the drink in his glass, put it down, and walked to the window.
"No rush."
"We need some more time to prepare. Tony needs more time to make and adjust the equipment, so you still have time to think it over."
He turned around and looked at Thanos.
"However, there's one thing I need to remind you of."
Thanos raised his head.
"If you choose the second option, pushing your past self down with your own hands, it means you're killing yourself. You need to think carefully about whether you can bear it."
Thanos remained silent for a long time.
Finally, he stood up, pushed the chair back under the table, and walked towards the door. When he reached the door, he paused, but didn't turn around.
"I know, don't worry. I'll think about it carefully."
The door closed.
Lynn stood by the window, watching Thanos's figure disappear at the end of the corridor. He sat back down at the table, picked up the bottle, poured himself another glass, and his gaze fell on the spot where Thanos had just been sitting.
If Thanos chooses to personally push his past self down, it's tantamount to trading his own life for the Thanos Stone. The past Thanos would die, the Soul Stone would appear, and the present Thanos would survive because of a new timeline branch.
This is the simplest solution.
But it's also the cruelest solution.
Because that would mean Thanos would personally kill his past self and completely deny everything that came before.
Lynn picked up her wine glass and swirled it gently.
He gave Thanos the choice, but he knew very well which one Thanos would ultimately choose, given the mindset Thanos had developed over the past five years.
There were light footsteps outside the door, then they stopped.
"Still not asleep?" Lynn asked without looking up.
There was a few seconds of silence outside the door, then Tony's voice came through.
"The stable framework for the Quantum Tunnel is complete; JARVIS ran several simulations with a success rate of 99.9%. But there's one problem."
"Don't do that, calm down, this isn't like you. Come in and tell me what's wrong."
Tony opened the door and walked in, looking at Lynn's face. He hesitated for a moment, then finally got to the point.
"The anchor point for time travel has limited precision; we can only pinpoint the approximate year and month, not down to a specific day and second. We need Thanos to provide precise time and spatial coordinates; otherwise, we can't locate it."
Lynn put down her wine glass.
"I understand. I'll talk to him about it; some things need to be decided by him first."
Are you sure you want to take him?
Tony's tone was emotionless, but Lynn had known him for too long and knew what he was worried about.
"OK."
" Lynn... we thought we could handle it, so we didn't contact you right away."
Tony's voice was much lower than before, "which caused Na... and the others..."
He paused for a moment.
"I'm sorry."
Lynn went up to Tony and gave him a hug.
"We all know this isn't just your fault; we all have our problems. I also fell short in some ways, and you all meant well but made mistakes."
"Let's just let this go, okay? The most important thing now is to bring everyone back."
Tony nodded, opened the door, and went out.
Lynn leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.
"It's been five years, Natasha."
"Wait for me."