Chapter Forty-Nine
"Are you ready?"
Natasha stared blankly from the car window feeling numb all over. It had been a little over five years since Thanos snapped his fingers and wiped out half the population. Five years since she had been able to hold her daughter in her arms, since she heard her laugh, saw her smile, braided her hair….
During the last five years, she tried to keep busy. She kept an eye out on the entire world, making sure that everything was in order in the best way possible. She couldn't go a day without thinking of Alya.
Now that the population was lower, more animals were seen around the Compound. She was sure that Alya would love the little foxes that peeked their heads out of their holes at night.
Natasha wasn't the only one who was having a rough time with Alya's absence. Mischief was stricken with grief. Her favorite playmate and cuddle buddy was gone. She had no one to to play with her, no one to sing to her, or hold her as she fell asleep.
Not the way Alya did it.
The cat didn't meow very much anymore and she refused to touch any of her toys. She would just curl up with George, as if she knew that the stuffed monkey was Alya's prized possession and it was her only way of getting close to her.
Steve's eyes didn't twinkle the way they used to. He smiled, sure, but it wasn't the same. His orbs always gave away the hurt and the emptiness he was feeling.
Everything felt pretty hopeless.
That was, until, Scott Lang came to the Compound and told them that there was a way to bring everyone back.
Time travel.
It sounded strange, but honestly, nothing was very strange to her anymore.
They didn't have the right technology or manpower to pull this kind of thing off by themselves, so they had to ask Tony for help.
Natasha hadn't seen Tony since that day, five years ago. And she didn't want to. She was still very, very angry with everything that happened and she didn't think she was ready to even have a civil conversation with him.
But if he could help, she wouldn't stop him.
"Let's go." She turned her head to Steve and nodded.
She and Steve both got out of the car at the same time, Scott following seconds after. Tony's new spread was very beautiful. He had a lot of land and a cozy cabin to call home.
What shocked Natasha the most, was that he also had a daughter.
And she couldn't help the bitterness that filled up inside of her. For the past five years, she had to live without her daughter, but Tony got to live a cushy life with his.
Whether or not her feelings were right or wrong, Natasha felt it wasn't fair.
"Now, we know what it sounds like…." Scott looked at Tony after he finished explaining everything to him.
He had been in the Quantum Realm for the past few years and finally got out, only to find out how much time had gone by. He believed that there was a way to use the realm in order to time travel.
"Tony, after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible?" Steve asked.
"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?"
No one had anything to say on that, because they had no idea what he was talking about.
But they were willing to listen.
"Thank you." Steve nodded gratefully when Tony handed him a drink.
"In layman's terms, it means you're not coming home."
"I did." Scott told the retired man.
"No, you accidentally survived. It's a billion to one cosmic fluke." Tony scoffed. "And now you wanna pull off a— what do you call it?"
"A time heist."
"Yeah, a time heist. Of course, why didn't we think of this before? Oh, because it's laughable? Because it's a pipe dream?"
"The stones are in the past. We can go back and get them."
"We can snap our own fingers." Natasha set her jaw. "We can bring everyone back."
"Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?"
The redhead's patience was wearing a bit thin. This wasn't a pipe dream and everyone who was dusted, not just Alya, deserved their chance.
"I don't believe we would." Steve remained calm.
"Gotta say, sometimes I miss that giddy optimism. However, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said 'time heist'. I believe the most likely outcome would be our collective demise."
If that was the case, then Natasha was willing to take the risk. Everything was empty without Alya.
She needed to get her back and if she had to risk it all, she would.
"Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel." Scott tried. "That means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sporting events—"
"—I'm gonna stop you right there, Scott. Are you seriously telling me that your plan to save the universe is based on 'Back to the Future'?"
"No…"
"Good. You had me worried there. 'Cause that would be ridiculous. That's not how quantum physics works."
"Tony, we have to take a stand." Suddenly, Natasha wasn't so numb anymore.
Hearing Tony make light of this whole thing while she was doing her best to bring her child back, was grating on her nerves.
"We did stand." He shrugged. "And yet, here we are."
"I know you've got a lot on the line. You've got a wife, a daughter." Scott attempted to appeal to his humanity. "But I lost someone very important to me. A lot of people did and now, now we have a chance to bring her back. To bring everyone back…..and you're telling me you won't even—"
"—That's right, Scott." Tony looked at all of them. "I won't even. I've got a kid."
Natasha felt an unbearable and crushing weight crash down on her. It was as if she was losing Alya all over again and this time, it could've been helped. Tony didn't want to help her get her daughter back because he had a child now. It was as if Alya had never mattered in the first place.
She felt like screaming until her throat gave out on her, running until she collapsed, crying until her eyes swelled shut.
And most of all, she felt angry.
He didn't care.
Her baby vanished right in her arms, but he got to hold his for as long as he wanted to.
"Mommy told me to come and save you." His daughter smiled after running onto the front porch and into Tony's arms.
Steve watched the way Natasha looked at the two and he knew it was time to get her out of there. She was nearing the end of her tether and it was getting to be too much.
She didn't need this.
"Good job. I'm saved." Tony smiled. "I wish you'd come here to ask me something else. Anything else. Honestly, I…I missed you guys, it was…..the table's set for six."
"Tony, I get it." Steve assured him. "And I'm happy for you. I really am. But this is a second chance."
"I've got my second chance right here, Cap. I can't roll the dice again. If you don't talk shop, you can stay for lunch."
"No." Steve shook his head, putting on a friendly smile that never reached his eyes. "That's okay, thanks. We should be heading back."
Natasha didn't waste any time before turning on her heel to head down the stairs to the car.
She didn't need to spend one more minute here, it was all just too much.
"Nat." Tony's voice stopped her in her tracks. She didn't know why she didn't pretend like she didn't hear him, but it was too late.
Her body turned and she raised an eyebrow to see what he wanted as Steve and Scott got into the car to wait for her.
"Can we talk?"
"No." She wasted no time.
"Please."
The woman took a deep breath and nodded, following him back up onto the porch.
"Uh, this is Morgan by the way." He introduced her to his daughter. She was a cute little thing. Brown hair and beautiful brown eyes, and she looked no older than five. Natasha just couldn't find it in herself to be impressed. "Morgan, this is Natasha an old friend of mine."
"Hi." Morgan waved.
"Hi."
"Daddy said that you have a daughter. Where is she?" Morgan asked. "Is she at home?"
Natasha closed her eyes momentarily at the questions. She didn't want to make the child feel like she had said anything wrong, but right now, her emotions were going haywire and she was having trouble controlling them.
"Morgan, why don't you go back inside and grab some lunch with Mommy?"
"Is she staying?"
"No." Tony shook his head, setting her down to send her off. "Go on in, I'll be right there."
"Okay!"
The billionaire waited a beat before he spoke again. "I had no idea she—"
"—What do want, Tony?" Natasha didn't even realize that her left hand was gripping the porch rail until she opened her eyes again.
"I just wanted to know how you were doing."
"You want to know how I'm doing?" She scoffed bitterly. "I lost the one thing I love most in the world and everyday I'm reminded that she's not here. Deduce, Sherlock."
"Nat, look—"
"—My name is Natasha. Use it." It was petty, but Natasha didn't care.
"Natasha." He quickly corrected himself. "I know it's been rough on you. I know how you feel."
"You know?" She laughed humorlessly. "What could you possibly know about how I feel?"
"Natasha—"
"—Shut up!" She finally snapped. "You don't wanna help, that's fine. You have that right, I'm not gonna judge you for it. But you're not gonna stand there, look me in the eye, and tell me that you know how I feel. You have a beautiful daughter and when I leave, you're gonna walk through that door and you're gonna have lunch with her. I can't do that!"
Tony tried to remain stoic, but he knew that he had been way off base with his comment.
"You can hold her and cradle her for as long as you want to. You can kiss her and give her all the love in your heart. You can lay down next to her and read her her favorite story at night before tucking her into bed. You'll feel her waking you up at the crack of dawn the next day. You''ll hear her little giggles and her smile will light up your whole world." Tears poured down her face, but her voice never once indicated that she was crying. "You're a father with a daughter, but I'm a mother without my child. You don't get to claim to know how I feel. You can't even begin to guess how I feel."
For the second time that hour, Natasha moved to leave, but this time, Tony reached for her arm and tried to pull her back. She spared no expense in whirling around and aiming one good right hook at his jaw that made him stumble.
"Natasha, I'm sorry. You know I loved Alya—"
"—Loved?" Natasha bristled. "You loved Alya?"
"Of course I did. You know I did." He straightened up, hoping his jaw wouldn't bruise.
"You had a funny way of showing it." She shook her head.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That little girl watched you trying to kill her father only for you to turn around and insult her. I held her in my arms while she cried herself to sleep because you used her past, something anyone else would find horrifically unnerving, and bullied her to tears with it. But to you, it was something to let her know that you had the upper hand. You wanted to be right that badly. She held onto that for months before she finally broke down and I had no clue. Why didn't you ever say anything, Tony? Did you think I'd never find out? Did you think you'd get away with it? Or did you just think that it was an expression of love?"
"I'm sorry."
"I don't want to hear your empty apologies. You're too little, too late." She waved him off. "I just had to get that off my chest. Your daughter is precious. I wouldn't want to risk her either. But I'm not gonna stop until I get mine back because I can't live without her."
"Natasha…."
"Let this be my final warning to you. When I heard about what you did to my daughter, it took every ounce of willpower in body not to swim across the ocean and beat the daylights out of you. The only reason why I'm not doing it now, is because you've got a little girl in there that looks up to you and it would scare her to see you so injured." She pointed her finger at him. "I don't ever want to see you again. Do we understand each other?"
"Natasha…"
"You're not a child. I'm not going to repeat myself."
"I understand." Tony sighed.
"Good." Natasha forced a fake smile on her face that reminded him why they called her the Black Widow in the first place. "Get something to eat. You look a little green."
The rest of the day was pretty calm for Tony, but nothing about it was peaceful. He felt for everyone who lost someone during the snap, he really did, but he just couldn't bring himself to help.
Fighting Thanos had taken everything out of him and now he had a wife and a daughter. He had the life he never thought he would get.
He reached over to set the towel he had been using to dry up some dinner plates on a shelf, accidentally knocking a picture frame over.
He quickly picked it up and wiped the dust particles away from the glass, staring at the photo inside.
It was of Peter and Alya. Steve sent it to him a couple of years ago, wanting to keep in contact with him even though they were so far away.
The two kids were huddled as close together as they possibly could be. Peter had Alya sitting on his hip and their cheeks were smushed together, both were smiling so much, it looked like their faces hurt from the strain.
As soon as he received the picture from Steve, he made sure he framed it to have it for safe-keeping. He didn't want anything to happen to it.
Alya's steel blue eyes bore into his as he stared at the picture. The smile on her face, bringing a frown to his.
Before her, he had never interacted with many children. Especially not little girls. She was a feisty little thing when they found her and she was skittish at every new noise. The first year, she reminded him of a little fawn. Cute, graceful, but easily spooked by anything she felt was a threat. He'd never known a child's body could be so tense.
But little by little, she began to relax. She let her guard down and she started to act like a child instead of a soldier.
She became one of his favorite people with only so much as a cheeky little grin. They'd spend hours in his lab, late nights eating ice cream or drinking hot cocoa, mornings watching classic cartoons….
He never loved a child the way he loved her. She was part of the reason why he was so excited when Pepper told him that she was pregnant. Now, he had his own child, which he loved more than anything.
But he was making sure that he was better this time. He wouldn't take the mistakes he made with Alya, and make them with Morgan. Looking back at the things he said to her and things he did, it made him tear up.
Why did he do that? How could he hurt her like that?
She was just a kid. She was his niece.
The worst part, was he never got to apologize. She never got to hear him tell her what he really thought of her, how much he really did love her.
"What are you reading?"
"Oh, it's just a book on composting." Pepper showed her husband the cover of her book as he sat down next to her on the couch.
"What's new with composting?"
"Just—"
"—I figured it out by the way." He couldn't help but cut her off.
"You know, just so we're talking about the same thing—"
"—Time travel." He showed her a watch.
It was true. After Morgan was nicely tucked into bed, he went downstairs and spent hours trying to figure out how best to safely time travel.
And he did.
"What?" Pepper put the book down with a smile. "Wow, that's amazing! And…..terrifying."
"That's right."
"We got really lucky." She sobered up.
"Yeah, I know." Tony nodded, he couldn't get Alya's little face out of his head. "I can't help everybody."
"It sort of seems like you can."
"Not if I stop." He knew he couldn't give up on this. He owed it to Peter and he owed it to Alya to try. "I can put a pin in it right now, and stop."
"Tony, trying to get you to stop has been one of the few failures of my life."
"I sometimes feel I should put it in a lockbox and drop it at the bottom of a lake…..go to bed." He shrugged.
But he couldn't.
And he wouldn't.
"Why the long face?"
Steve couldn't find it in himself to bite the bait. They had just tried, to no avail, to crack the code behind time travel. Not even Bruce was successful.
"Let me guess." Tony stepped out of the car he had driven all the way to the Compound. "He turned into a baby."
During their trial run, they ended up turning Scott Lang into a baby, and a teenager, and then an old man before, thankfully, getting him back to his normal age.
"Among other things, yeah." Steve nodded. "What are you doing here?"
"That's the EPR Paradox." Tony walked around the car to pull open the trunk. "Instead of pushing Lang through time, you might've wound up pushing time through Lang. It's tricky. Dangerous…..Somebody should've cautioned you against it."
"You did."
"Oh, did I? It's a good thing I'm here." He joked, showing him the watch in his right hand. "A fully functioning Time-Space GPS. I just want peace. Turns out, resentment is corrosive, and I hate it."
"Me, too."
"And I was wrong." He softened his voice. "I'm sorry."
Steve looked at him for a moment before nodding his head, putting a genuine smile on his face. He quickly offered Tony his hand as an acceptance to the apology and immediately felt lighter than he had in a long time.
"We've got a shot at getting these stones, but I've gotta tell you my priorities: bring back what we lost? I hope, yes. Keep what I've got? I have to, at all costs….and….maybe not die trying would be nice."
"Sounds like a deal." Steve nodded, watching him pull something familiar out of the trunk.
It was his shield. The same one he dropped in Siberia in 2016. Wow, it felt like forever ago.
"Tony…"
"Why?" Tony quirked a brow. "He made it for you. Plus, honestly, I have to get it out of the garage before Morgan takes it sledding."
Steve put his arms through the strap of the shield and relaxed, feeling that grounding weight once again. "Thank you, Tony."
"Will you keep that a little quiet? Didn't bring one for the whole team…..We are getting the whole team, right?"
"We're working on that right now."
"Good."
"But, uh, you might want to catch Natasha before we do anything else. She's in a really good mood and I'm not sure how long that's gonna last."
"Oh, joy."
"I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again?"
Natasha didn't even bother looking up from where she sat on Alya's bed in her unoccupied room. Everything in there remained pretty much untouched. She didn't have the heart to go in and pack anything up. She guessed that a part of her still believed that Alya was coming back.
"I know." Tony held his hands up in surrender. "I just wanted to talk. Don't beat my face in."
"Go ahead."
"Okay…." He took a deep breath. "I messed up. I really did. I don't expect you to forgive me, I don't even expect us to be friends again. But I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done what I did, there's no excuse for it, no explanations. It was disgusting and I never should've stooped so low."
Natasha didn't say anything, but he had her attention.
"But I'm gonna help you get that little girl back, because it isn't fair that I get to enjoy mine when you were robbed of yours."
The redhead looked up at him, tears glistening her eyes, and nodded. "Okay."
"I will never be able to make up for what I did, but please." His vision blurred with moisture. "Let me try."
"You think there's a way?"
"I think we've got a pretty good shot."
Natasha's lips curled upwards and she stood up, walking over to where he stood by the door.
At first, he shuffled back, but he stopped when she pulled him in for a hug.
If this worked, she would stop at nothing to get her daughter back. She would do everything she could possibly do to make sure Alya was safe.
"Thank you."
Whatever it takes.