2014/Time Heist

## Timeline

### Current

2014

*"We're not the only ones in 2014 looking for the stones."*
―Nebula to War Machine[src]
This is a timeline of events that occurred in **2014** in a reality visited during the Time Heist.

## 2014

### August

#### 1st

* Nebula, James Rhodes, Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff materialize out of the Quantum Realm. Restoring the *Benatar* to its proper size, they use it to leave Earth and travel to Morag.
* Romanoff and Barton wish Rhodes well, and he tells them to look out for each other. Romanoff and Barton board the *Benatar* again to travel to Vormir.
* As they fly together, Barton jokes that they have come a long way since their time in Budapest, making them both smile.
* Nebula warns Rhodes that they are not the only ones in that timeline looking for Infinity Stones, stating that alternate versions of Thanos, Gamora and her own self are out for them.
* **Massacre of the Korbinites**: On Korbin, that timeline's Nebula battles Korbinites, fighting under Thanos's instruction. She is caught off guard by a grenade and a Korbinite goes to attack her, but Gamora arrives and kills it from behind. Nebula angrily tells her sister she did not ask for her help, but Gamora notes that she always needs it nonetheless. She then tells Nebula that Thanos wants them back on the ship, as he has found an Infinity Stone.
* Back on the Q-Ship, Gamora and Nebula discuss the located Infinity Stone: the Power Stone, on Morag. Nebula notes that his plan is finally in motion, and the sisters start to consider the ramifications if he is successful. They are interrupted when Thanos beams in from Korbin.
* Thanos tells his daughters that Ronan has located the Stone, and that he is sending them to Ronan's ship, since Ronan's obsession clouds his judgement. Nebula kneels and insists that she will make her father proud.
* Nebula's cybernetic head suddenly glitches and she falls over. Her synaptic drive loads up the memory file of her main counterpart, projecting the memory to the other two of her talking with Rhodes about there being others out there looking for Infinity Stones. Thanos tells Gamora to bring Nebula to his ship.
* Aboard the *Sanctuary II*, Thanos plugs Nebula into a system and has Ebony Maw run diagnostics on her. Maw finds her memory files entangled with another consciousness sharing her network - another Nebula, whose memory was the one this Nebula had broadcast, carrying a time stamp from 2023. Thanos has Maw search the network for any of Nebula's memories regarding Infinity Stones, and he finds the memory, which Nebula projects, of the Avengers discussing their plans for the Time Heist. Thanos recognizes them as the team who stopped his invasion of Earth and then spots Nebula in the memory. He has Maw set course for Morag and scan the other Nebula's memories for everything of use.
* Peter Quill, known as "Star-Lord", travels alone to Morag to retrieve the Orb.
* Quill starts up his Walkman, playing *Come and Get Your Love* by Redbone to entertain himself as he goes to get the Orb. He starts to groove to the song as it begins.
* As the lyrics kick in, Quill kicks his leg up in the air, starting to dance.
* Getting to a puddle, Quill kicks the water and spins as he passes through it, then continues shuffling along.
* Quill encounters some Orloni and kicks them aside in tune to the music.
* Quill continues grooving along, then finds a slippery patch, where he slides across. He grabs hold of a passing Orloni and pretends it is a microphone as he sings along to the end of the first verse.
* From nearby, James Rhodes and Nebula watch as Quill sings along to the chorus out of tune.
* As Quill reaches the second verse, he again grabs an Orloni and pretends it is a microphone, singing to it. Rhodes and Nebula continue to hear him.
* Rhodes notes that Quill is an idiot, and Nebula agrees.
* Quill struts along and spins around, before slowing down. As he continues walking, he comes across a Korbinite skeleton.
* Quill grabs another Orloni, singing the second chorus to it as he keeps going.
* Quill gets to another slippery patch. As he slides across it, Rhodes ambushes him from the side and knocks him out with a heavy hit to the head. Nebula kneels to check his belongings.
* Nebula rummages through Quill's bag and finds the tool he was planning to use to open the Temple Vault.
* Nebula tells Rhodes what the tool is.
* Arriving at the entrance, Nebula inserts the tool.
* **Theft of the Power Stone**: The tool opens the door. Rhodes is cautious to enter, but Nebula ignores him, walking in without worry. Rhodes then follows her in. As Korath arrives on Morag with Sakaaran soldiers, Nebula reaches into the Orb's protective field. The flesh on her arm burns, but she manages to pull the Orb out with her mechanical hand.
* Nebula hands Rhodes the Orb. He is stunned by her willingness to harm herself, but the two admit to each other that they have both been hardened over time. The duo prepare to return to the main universe together, but as Rhodes shrinks back into the Quantum Realm, Nebula's cybernetics glitch and she falls to the ground, affected by the connection with her alternate self.
* On the *Sanctuary II*, Thanos observes a memory from Nebula via his timeline's Nebula, of his main counterpart saying that he found the Infinity Stones, and his work is done. Thanos is proud to discover his "destiny" to be of success. Maw plays the rest, showing his main counterpart's decapitation, but Thanos is not worried. Maw uses his magic to wrap a coil around Nebula's neck, feeling she has been proven as a traitor, despite her insistence that she would never betray her father. Thanos, however, stops the strangulation, and says Nebula will have the chance to prove herself.
* Nebula becomes functional again and, realizing the memory Thanos has watched through her alternate self, panics that Thanos knows what is happening and rushes out to warn her teammates.
* Meanwhile, Steve Rogers arrives via the Quantum Realm and returns the Power Stone to the moment it was removed, erasing the dark splinter reality that was being created.
* Korath and his soldiers break into the Temple Vault.
* **Kidnapping of Nebula**:
	+ Nebula runs back to the space pod and tries to contact Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff, but fails. At that moment, the *Sanctuary II* arrives and beams her up into the ship.
	+ Alternate Nebula tortures her main counterpart and finds her Time-Space GPS. Nebula asks Gamora to stop the torture, starting to warn her what Thanos does to her in her timeline, but alternate Nebula interrupts, kicking her and prizing her main counterpart's head plate, a different, gold, color to her own, from her head.
* Nebula puts on her main counterpart's head plate and clothes, so as to pose as her. She hands Thanos the Pym Particles she has stolen, which are sent to Ebony Maw to mass-replicate, for their army to travel as well.
* Nebula uses the Time-Space GPS and Pym Particles to shrink into the Quantum Realm and use her counterpart's "return" programming to get to the main timeline. With Thanos and his army lacking the device programming to travel to her counterpart's universe, she travels with the plan to open the Quantum Tunnel and pull them through from the other side.
* The *Sanctuary II* shrinks down by the Pym Particles and jumps through the Quantum Realm, with Thanos and his army aboard leaving their timeline.
* Barton and Romanoff arrive on Vormir, and climb the mountain. They are greeted by Red Skull, stating that he knows them to be "Natasha, daughter of Ivan" and "Clint, son of Edith", and warns them that retrieving the Soul Stone is not easy.
* **Sacrifice of Natasha Romanoff**:
	+ Taking the pair to the edge of the sacrificial cliff, Red Skull explains the necessary exchange of a loved one's soul for the stone, and that one of them must die.
	+ Barton and Romanoff take time to think, and Barton wonders whether Red Skull is lying. Romanoff explains that Red Skull knew her father's name even when she did not, and that Gamora dying on Vormir in the main universe is likely because of this sacrifice.
	+ Barton and Romanoff agree that one of them has to go over the cliff, but insist on being the one to do it. Romanoff insists on saving him, but he says he feels he deserves to go. She tells him she does not judge people on their worst mistakes, considering he did not when he let her live on his mission to kill her.
	+ The friends start to fight to be the one to die and save the other. Romanoff electrocutes Barton, but he gets up and fires an explosive arrow to knock her to the ground and leaps off. As he goes, however, Romanoff grabs hold of him, firing a grappling hook to keep them hanging on, but intentionally hanging from Barton, leaving her in the position of the one who has to be let go. Barton is desperate not to drop her, but she assures him it is okay before kicking off the wall and out of his arms, and falling to her death below. Barton cries in anguish.
* Clint Barton wakes up in the Soul Stone's pool on Vormir, the Stone in-hand. After seeing the Stone, he cries at the loss of his friend.
* Barton shrinks back into the Quantum Realm with the Soul Stone.
* Steve Rogers materializes out of the Quantum Realm and arrives in Vormir. He then returns the Soul Stone to the moment it was removed, erasing the dark splinter reality that was being created.

## References

1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22 1.23 1.24 1.25 1.26 1.27 1.28 1.29 1.30 1.31 1.32 1.33 1.34 1.35 1.36 1.37 1.38 *Avengers: Endgame*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 In *Avengers: Endgame*, 2014 events are shown simultaneous to the events of *Guardians of the Galaxy*. With the 2023 Avengers making no impacts of significance until Rhodes knocks out Quill, the events of the film up to that point can be taken to play out essentially identically in that universe. Similarly, events such as the attack on Korbin and some previously unseen moves of Quill's, shown only in *Avengers: Endgame*, are unaffected by the 2023 Avengers' actions, so can be taken to have also happened in the main universe.
3. ↑ Joe Russo's Q&A about the plot of *Avengers: Endgame* in China