Fanfic / Z To A

“Z to A” by memoriaeterna is a Marvel Cinematic Universe Fix Fic where Peter Parker and Wanda Maximoff of 2025 are able to make a deal with the Infinity Stones to go back in time and prevent the Snap (Avengers: Infinity War) from ever taking place. Arriving at the Battle of Leipzig Airport (Captain America: Civil War) the two swiftly begin taking steps to change the future, starting with changing the worst parts of the Accords and progressing from there to secure the Infinity Stones before Thanos can claim them for himself.

Z to A contain examples of:

• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Peter and Wanda have never really interacted in the series apart from when they took part in the Battle of Leipzig Airport and the final battle against Thanos, but here they have become as close as siblings after the Blip.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Peter clearly feels like Tony is doing this when Tony very publicly drops him off at school in a car so expensive Ned isn’t even sure it’s publicly available yet and accompanies him to the principal’s office to make it clear that Peter gets dispensation to be let out of school whenever he wants.
• Badass Boast: When Wanda stops a fight between Loki and Doctor Strange, she issues the following;
  Stand down, Asgardian and Eldritch. [...] Or you will see exactly what Chaos stands for.
• Birds of a Feather: It is noted that Mind and Soul are distinct from the other four Stones as Space, Time, Power and Reality represent the physical world while the other two represent the collective will of all living beings.
• Broken Pedestal: A minor example of this; talking with Steve, Peter reflects that he can always trust Captain America to do the right thing, but Steve Rogers ultimately made a selfish decision by going back in time to make a life with Peggy.
• The Chosen One: On a wider scale, each Infinity Stone chooses one particular hero to regain their future memories; Peter Parker (Soul), Wanda Maximoff (Mind), T'Challa (Power), Tony Stark (Time), Nick Fury (Space) and Thor (Reality), based on their relative level of contact with each particular Stone, along with other factors. However, Peter is ultimately revealed to be the "Chosen One", as all six Stones choose him to be capable of using a new Gauntlet long enough to destroy Thanos's forces without being killed by the effort himself; after Tony's sacrifice and Steve Rogers going back in time in the original timeline, Peter was the one who had most contact with the Stones from both prior Gauntlets.
• Closest Thing We Got: It’s stated that part of the reason the Stones chose to bond with Peter is because only Peter Parker had close contact with both versions of the Infinity Gauntlet, as he carried the Stark Gauntlet during the final battle and fought Thanos on Titan. However, since Thanos didn’t have the Mind Stone on Titan (he had Power, Space, Reality and Soul and Doctor Strange was still wielding Time), Wanda essentially had to act as a ‘substitute’ for that version of Mind, and even then it took two years for her and Peter to spend enough time together for Peter to build up sufficient ‘awareness’ of the last Stone.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Basically the Avengers’ reaction when they learn that Peter Quill is ranked just below Thor, Carol and Hulk in terms of his ability to channel the Gauntlet’s power (only not ranking higher because Ego’s death limits Quill’s own abilities).
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • When Peter and Wanda arrive at Leipzig, it only takes them moments to stop the other ten Avengers, thanks to Wanda’s greater experience with her powers and Peter knowing details such as the deactivation codes for the Iron Man and War Machine armours.
  • When Peter goes to confront Toomes before the Staten Island Ferry deal, Wanda accompanies him and manages to take out all of Toomes’ men while Peter is keeping Toomes distracted.
• Everyone Knew Already: When a group of terrorists try to take Peter’s class hostage due to his connection to Tony, Flash reveals to Peter that basically the entire class already knew that Peter was Spider-Man, and most of the teachers and other students had also worked it out.
• Foregone Conclusion: By the time the Avengers all regain their memories of the original timeline in 2025, literally everyone else agrees that Peter and Wanda should be the co-leaders of the next generation of Avengers once the originals retire, to the extent that Yelena, Kate and Harley had already planned which of them would take out the originals if anyone disagreed with that view.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: After Peter uses the Gauntlet to stop Thanos, he is confronted by the essence of the six Stones, who appear to him in the forms of people they consider their 'ties' to reality; Soul as Natasha, Time as Doctor Strange, Power as Star-Lord, Space as Carol, Mind as Wanda and Reality as Jane Foster (the last taking Peter a moment to recognise as he knows Jane the least).
• Godzilla Threshold: Judging by Strange’s reaction, he would have preferred that they not experience a timeline where the Scarlet Witch is ‘activated’, even if he recognises that Wanda is on their side.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: Once the Avengers have made their plans, they swiftly start tracking down all six Infinity Stones to stop Thanos recreating the Gauntlet himself.
• Help Yourself in the Future: In a variation of this, Peter is able to talk Quentin Beck out of his future vendetta against Tony’s legacy by encouraging him to consider the good his work can do rather than just being angry at Tony.
• In Spite of a Nail: When Peter and Wanda visit the Ancient One, she affirms that her death remains the same even with the time-travellers’ potential impact on history. Later the consciousness of the Stones assures Peter that any children born post-Snap will still be born in the new timeline unless it's blatantly impossible due to factors such as their parents only meeting after their original partners were Snapped.
• Like Brother and Sister: Watching Wanda and Peter interact, characters such as Bruce Banner and Natasha compare their dynamic to bantering siblings, with Wanda explicitly musing at least once that Peter reminds her of her lost brother Pietro. By 2023, Peter has also formed a strong bond with Morgan Stark, with Morgan treating him like an adored older brother.
• Loved by All: Peter swiftly makes himself popular to the entire Avengers team, ranging from suggesting that he, Scott and Natasha should be ‘Team Bug’ to bonding with Bruce Banner as a scientist. Tony later agrees with Wanda’s observation that he shouldn’t really be surprised at the revelation that even the Infinity Stones like Peter, and by 2025, Natasha reflects that Tony should have expected that even his own daughter would prefer Peter to her father.
• Mental Time Travel: The six future heroes chosen by the Stones all essentially ‘possess’ their past selves, granting them memories of the future.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Tony nearly makes things worse in the final battle when he tries to destroy the Infinity Stones to stop Thanos getting them. As a result, the energy of the stones is dispersed and then channelled into Peter- their 'chosen protector'- while the attack prompts Wanda to tap into her full potential as the Scarlet Witch to defend Peter while he absorbs the power of the Stones to use them against Thanos.
• Oh, Crap!: Naturally all of the Avengers have this reaction when Thanos arrives on Earth and makes it clear he remembers the original timeline (in the sense of he at least remembers the timeline where Thor killed Thanos after he destroyed the Stones).
• Open Secret:
  • While Spider-Man’s exact identity is not initially disclosed under the Accords, the fact that Iron Man basically signed for him essentially confirms that Spider-Man is a minor, prompting at least one blogger to start a monthly reverse-countdown of how old Spider-Man must have been when he joined the Avengers until Peter’s identity goes public.
  • After the battle against Thanos, Spider-Man's real identity was this at Midtown.
• One-Steve Limit: While nobody makes a big deal about the fact that Spider-Man and Star-Lord share the same name, Quill refers to Parker as his “name buddy” after he regains his memory of the original timeline and thanks Spider-Man for saving Gamora.
• Parental Substitute: Emphasis is often placed on Tony and Peter’s relationship being like a father/son dynamic, to the extent that Iron Man essentially acts as Spider-Man’s parent by signing the Accords on the wall-crawler’s behalf until Peter’s old enough to do it legally himself. When Peter starts working at Stark Enterprises as Tony’s ‘official’ intern, characters ranging from Pepper to Quentin Beck all initially assume that Peter is Tony’s actual child, and some continue to speculate that this applies even after they confirm otherwise.
• Pragmatic Hero: Peter and Wanda at least pretend they’re willing to resort to this when they offer to erase all memory of Toomes’ family from his associates if he turns himself in before the Staten Island Ferry incident while strongly implying they’d go after his family themselves if he didn’t.
• Pre Crime Arrest: Essentially applies; as well as all time-displaced characters preparing to face Thanos, Peter, Tony and Wanda use their advance knowledge to get evidence of Adrian Toomes’ crimes and convince him to turn himself in before the Staten Island Ferry incident. However, Peter approaches Quentin Beck on his own to just suggest that Beck focus on the good his work can do so he won’t be driven to villainy like before, rather than arrest him for his future vendetta.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Once the six time-displaced heroes arrive in the past, their memories of the future remain unaffected by their subsequent changes. Later on, other heroes regain their original memories once they reach either the moment of their deaths (Loki, Gamora, Vision, Natasha and Tony) or the moment when the original timeline reset (the rest of the Avengers and Guardians), although the Stones tell Peter that new memories will seem like a dream rather than a mass download.
• Secret-Keeper: Out of all of the Avengers, Peter and Wanda choose to tell Steve alone the truth about exactly when in the future they come from before Thanos is defeated (they only tell Fury enough to confirm that they know about Carol).
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Peter, Wanda and the other time-displaced Avengers are all committed to preventing the Snap from happening ‘again’.
• Shipper on Deck: Not only are Peter and Wanda each in favour of the other getting a second chance with MJ and Vision respectively, but they also do their best to ensure that Tony/Pepper and Quill/Gamora work out.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Thanks to Peter and Wanda’s efforts, Loki, Gamora, Vision, Natasha and Tony all survive the war against Thanos, to say nothing of other worlds such as Xandar and the population of Asgard never being attacked by him.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Once Tony regains his initial memories of the future (dating to just the moment when Thanos destroyed the Stones), he’s immediately suspicious of how Peter and Wanda can be familiar with each other when as far as he knows they only met at Leipzig; Peter improvises to claim that he and Wanda ‘met’ in the Soul Stone dimension.
  • Basically how nearly all of Midtown deduces Peter is Spider-Man. First he is gone the same weekend the Avengers almost split up for which Spider-Man was present at and then shows up at school with Tony Stark. Then he has an after school rendezvous with Wanda. Then was he was gone the entire week the Avengers were deployed at Area 51. Combine all that with Spider-Man being obviously minor due to Tony signing the accords for Spider-Man, they knew Spider-Man had to be Peter.
• Stating the Simple Solution: After all six Stones have been assembled, Peter Quill is not only the one to suggest that they use the Stones to stop Thanos, but also suggests they do so by repeating the Guardians’ feat of channelling the power through multiple bearers to stop any one of them being hurt too badly by the energy released.
• Summon Bigger Fish: When Loki and Doctor Strange start fighting after Thor brings Loki to Earth, Wanda steps in to stop the struggle with little more than a demonstration of her power.
• Terror Hero: It’s suggested that Wanda is seen as this by the general public, based on the other students’ reaction when she drops in to visit Peter; him knowing Iron Man is just cool, but Ned reflects that Wanda’s power is generally feared by the public (although Ned himself reflects that he still thinks it’s kind of cool).
• Unskilled, but Strong: The best description of why Hulk and Drax aren’t chosen for the heroes’ plan to stage their own Snap, as while both could channel that energy Hulk couldn’t keep a coherent thought at this stage of his psychological development and Drax can’t be trusted to follow any given instructions.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: When Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Stephen Strange, Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker arrive at Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone and learn of the price that must be paid to get it, Strange reveals that he already looked to the future and confirmed that this combination of visitors are the only ones who can visit Vormir and leave with the Soul Stone without losing anyone. This is because, in Peter and Wanda’s future, Wanda "already" sacrificed Peter for the Stone (on his insistence and the understanding that they would be undoing it almost immediately), with this deal still applying even though Peter and Wanda won't do that again.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: By 2025, with the Avengers’ memories of the original timeline restored, Wanda is still surprised that the rest of the team agree that she should be the co-leader with Peter, feeling that her actions in Westview prove that she isn’t worthy of such an honor, but the rest of the team assure her that they all understand that Westview was an exceptional circumstance that won’t happen again.

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