Work Text:
Tigress’ log
Entry one
25th July, 2016
Director Fury has requested that I start a mission log. I suppose for my first entry it would be apt to document the previous 14 years. All accounts can be verified by official S.H.I.E.L.D., Avengers, Thunderbolts, X-Men, Torchwood, and/or U.N.I.T. files.
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It’s fairly common knowledge I’m not from this dimension. Of course, most people I meet don’t believe that, but there’s always gonna be skeptics, y’know?
So, my parents were scientists. When I was seven they predicted an imminent incursion of another dimension into ours (negative outcome: not good). So they used prototype inter-dimensional travel technology to shoot me into the multiverse in order to save my life.
The next thing I remember was the shocked look on the Doctor’s face after I crash landed on his TARDIS. Priceless.
For those of y’all who haven’t heard of the Doc’, he’s an alien with a time machine that spends a disproportionate amount of time in the UK. You wanna know more? Go to Torchwood in London and talk to Jack. He’s a lot more social than me and would be happy to explain. Warning: he will flirt with you.
Actually? Just go talk to him anyway, he has some great stories.
Anyway, I traveled with Doc’ for five years. But you know what happens when you turn twelve? One: even a millennium old war veteran alien starts not being able to handle you, and two: an average mutant’s powers start to develop. Me? I was an electrokinetic. Fritzed electronics on the daily. So what else could Dad do but send me off to boarding school? Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters, to be precise.
He promised to visit often, but it’s shocking how often a time traveler is late. We don’t see each other much now either, we’re both quite busy with our own “jobs”.
While at the Institute, I learned a lot more than how to control my powers. How to make friends with a grumpy Canadian, for example. In my case, a lot of lunches spent sitting at his table. Logan eventually started to like me. Took three years but I did it. I also served on the main X-Men roster, during which time I helped Prof X convince Magneto that his style of violence isn’t the answer.
The good news about the latter? Erik’s not (really) a villain anymore. The bad news? The Brotherhood still exists, just with different leadership -in the form of Mystique.
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It was about 2012 when I first met Tony Stark. Now, this was before the Avengers existed in actuality. They were just a list of names in a secret dossier somewhere -which, of course, Boss knew about.
In 2012, the rule was “no minors”, which in retrospect was not a bad rule. I was only 17 at the time, but I made the waiting list. Apparently making friends with an A-list villain and being an Alpha-Level mutant is high interest.
But, the thing about time travel -and the main downside for those like myself who have been raised with it- is that your age and the date rarely match. I was born in 2004, my age was 17, and the date was 2012. You do the math.
Not something that would seem like it would matter, until you try to get a driver’s license. Claiming a time traveling alien as your guardian-while true- doesn’t exactly fly.
So Tony helped me get papers that said my birth year was 1995. And, with my permission, claimed legal guardianship so I wouldn’t have to worry about stuff like that anymore.
And for those of y’all that insist on dubbing him my father, he is not. The Doctor holds that title. Tony does hold a dear place in my heart, but you guys just get our dynamic all wrong. Thus I call him Boss.
Also, before you try to accuse me of ignoring his faults, I am fully prepared to call him a walking disaster to his face. Of all the people I know, he’s in the top five of “most flaws”. How many bad decisions can a single man make in one day? Maybe he should try sleeping instead of living off coffee. I oughta try stealing his espresso canteen one of these days.
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It wasn’t until after Civil War that I joined and met the main Avengers team. However, it was shortly after my 18th birthday that we heard word Captain America had been discovered frozen in the Arctic. March 2013, almost exactly 70 years after his disappearance.
A couple months after that was the battle of New York. Then the revelation S.H.I.E.L.D. had been compromised. Then Ultron. Rapid fire disasters, only months apart. They hardly had the time to recover. Then came a year of relative silence. The calm before the storm.
I was busy. X-Men stuff. Torchwood stuff. Always something do. Didn’t wanna get involved (who would?). It was late 2014 when the Avengers imploded. Hardly my problem.
Entirely their fault. Mostly Boss’. A lot of bad decisions were made. This was the point a vengeful soul took the payment.
It was the beginning of 2015 when I officially joined the ranks. Just a few weeks before I turned 19. Everyone was trying to carry on as normal, but the tension was palpable. An uncomfortable time to be the rookie. I didn’t wanna seem like I was choosing sides, so I mostly kept to myself. The groups still seemed to be avoiding each other.
Almost six months later, things were starting to relax. Then came Thanos.
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By Rassilon. Infinity War. Where do I even start?
…
It was a losing battle to begin with, really.
The team was still divided. We didn’t have enough backup. Thanos’ army was virtually infinite, not to mention he already had most of the Infinity Stones in his possession.
We fought hard. We fell harder.
The Snap was devastating. Half the population of the universe just… erased. Everyone scattered. It was chaos.
Jack got snapped. Couldn’t collaborate with Torchwood to contact Dad. For a while I was afraid he’d been snapped. Or the TARDIS -she is sentient, after all.
Most of Torchwood got snapped. A lot of U.N.I.T. officers. Both groups were in shambles. The Avengers were completely dissolved. Everyone was searching for a way to bring the Lost back.
The obvious answer was time travel.
But the Doctor is a hard being to get a hold of.
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Seven months. That’s how long it took to reassemble the team and contact Dad. Going back and collecting the stones for ourselves was the easy part. We only brought a small team -Boss, Steve, Nat, Clint. We picked up a past version of Jack so we could get the Soul Stone. He wasn’t impressed, but he was the only person we knew that was guaranteed to survive and be willing to do it.
There was a catch, though. Something to do with the Infinity Stones, that anything they do cannot be undone via time travel until the point when the means to do so are obtained. In our case that was late February, 2016. And so, the final battle occurred during the harsh winter of a year broken in half. We almost lost Boss. Steve went MIA for five months -during which he was presumed dead, again.
Victory was ours. But at what cost?
Sure, seven months doesn’t seem like that long, but it was enough for the world to move on. Things to change. Establishments to collapse. The lost returned to a broken world and sent it straight back into a frenzy.
The Flagsmashers rose. Walker was dubbed the “new Captain America”. Wanda Maximoff magic’ed a town so she could have her husband back. Bucky broke Zemo out of jail to help him and Sam take down the Flagsmashers. Sam became the actual “new Captain America”. S.H.I.E.L.D. began picking up its pieces for the second time. A lot of things happened that had no direct effect on me.
And some things that did affect me happened too. I started dating Loki. The Thunderbolts were formed, and a was made their liaison. They started out as mostly people I knew -Erik, Loki, Wade. Then some I didn’t know -Silver Samurai, Laura (a clone of Logan), Viper. Not everyone got along at first, but we managed.
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Almost immediately after everyone returned, a cloud of Terrigen mist was accidentally unleashed. Turns out there are a lot of Inhumans that didn’t realize what they were. Including Boss.
Now, we had first met the Inhumans only a few days after I had joined the Avengers. Their Queen, Medusa, had come to us for help finding her missing husband, Black Bolt -who, to my knowledge, is still MIA. When we found out Boss was an Inhuman too, she did a little research into his origins. Apparently, Howard Stark was a member of the royal family who was bored of the aristocratic lifestyle and took to dabbling in the lives of humans as a hobby. After his first wife died during childbirth, it became more than just a hobby. He permanently took up the guise of humanity in the late 70s.
So, Boss and Gorgon are half brothers.
Certainly not what anyone was expecting.
Also, I’m fairly certain that he and Medusa are dating now.
Nothing I have ever seen in my time as a time traveler or as an X-Man has prepared me for dealing with these idiots.
And now a Valkyrie claiming to be the long lost daughter of Odin, and Boss’ mother, has shown up. So, I guess I should just cancel any plans for a break at this point.
By Rassilon, even Torchwood isn’t this ridiculous.
~End Transmission