Redshift

Steve felt Danvers’ return before he heard it. The entire compound had shaken as if hit by an earthquake, and by the time he’d thrown on a shirt and run outside, the cosmic woman had set down a large, beat-up orange spaceship onto the compound’s lawn.

Bruce, Rhodey, and Natasha had brought up the rear—he slowed himself to stay in pace with them. Only Pepper remained ahead, but she wasn’t moving—she’d remained frozen in place, not daring to hope for a miracle just yet.

He understood that feeling.

The door to the ship opened, and a pair of figures descended from the ramp, bathed in its interior light. As they stepped closer, Steve recognized one of them.

Tony was pale, emaciated, and feverish, leaning on his companion entirely for support. She had blue skin, no hair, and what looked like metal grafted onto all parts of her body. He barely paid her any attention though—as soon as Steve recognized Tony, he broke into a full sprint again.

Steve had always been one to put the cart before the horse, and now was no exception. As he slowed down and reached out to take Tony from the alien, he realized he had no idea what to say.

Tony clearly didn’t either, because he was gaping like a fish. Even as he allowed himself to be deposited into Steve’s grip, he looked back toward his companion as if to make sure she wasn’t leaving.

There was so much—too much—to say, and none of it was appropriate right now. So, wordlessly, Steve began to guide him back toward the others.

Tony broke the silence first. “I couldn’t stop him.”

“Neither could I,” Steve admitted lowly.

“Hang on.” Tony seized his arm with sudden strength, forcing him to stop. His eyes looked like shattered glass. “I lost the kid.” 

Right, Tony had left Earth with the spider guy. From Queens.

“Steve?”

Bucky’s last word before crumbling to ashes would haunt him until the end of time.

“Tony, we lost.”

He’d meant it as an olive branch, of sorts. An attempt to get through this tragedy together, like the good old days. Judging by the spark in Tony’s expression, however, it had not been interpreted that way.

However, he seemed to choose to ignore it. “Is, uh...”

Pepper had begun clearing the distance between them when they stopped walking. As soon as Tony saw her, pitched forward, stumbling into her arms.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, teary-eyed, rocking him gently. “Oh my God, Tony...”

He placed a kiss to her cheek, unable to do much else.

Bruce hooked Tony up to an IV bag and gave him a wheelchair, with firm orders not to leave it. Pretty much everyone would have been content to let him rest and recover from his harrowing ordeal in space, but Tony was never one to focus on his own health. Instead, he wheeled himself into the compound’s command center and all but demanded an update.

“It’s been twenty-three days since Thanos came to earth.” Rhodey tapped at several holographic images which were being displayed from the center of the table. They changed, cycling through the faces and names of various people that had been lost. When Bucky’s face appeared, Steve felt another knife slide into his heart.

“World governments are in pieces,” Natasha added dully. “The parts that are still working are trying to form a census, among other things, but it looks like he did…”

As she continued talking, the pictures changed. The next one to flash across the screen was that of a teenage boy, fair-skinned with short brown hair. Projected below it was the name PETER PARKER. Steve didn’t recognize him at first, but judging from the way Tony immediately looked away, he figured this must have been the kid. Spider-Man.

He glanced up when the image changed, to that of another teenage boy, with darker skin and hair. The corresponding name read CONNOR TANYARD.

Steve had barely exchanged a few sentences with the kid, and knew nothing about him other than that he’d put his life on the line alongside the rest of the Avengers. He was already so full of grief he didn’t think he could take any more, but the pang in his stomach made him wish he’d gotten to know Connor a bit more.

Tony, upon seeing Connor’s face after Peter’s, weakly mumbled, “Stop,” and Friday turned off the projections instantly.

“Where is he now?” he demanded, glancing around expectantly at the others.

“We don’t know,” Steve replied bitterly. “He just opened a portal and...walked through.”

“Right. What’s with him?” Tony, in classic form, was rapid-firing questions to distract himself. Steve had seen him do it before. He followed the outstretched hand, which was gesturing at Thor.

“He’s pissed,” replied Rocket from the floor. Tony wheeled around to face him, eyebrows raised. “He thinks he failed. ‘Course, he did, but there’s a lot of that going around.”

“Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear.”

“Maybe I am.”

“We’ve been hunting Thanos for the past three weeks,” Steve said, attempting to return the conversation to a more important topic. “Deep space scans, satellites, and we got nothing.” When Tony didn’t reply, or even look his way, he continued, “Tony, you fought him—”

Even in his skeletal state, the speed at which Tony’s head turned to address him was frightening. “Who told you that? No, I didn’t fight him. He wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker street magician gave away the store. That’s what happened.”

Steve lowered his head, so no one could see his aggravation. “Okay.”

“There was no fight, because he’s unbeatable—”

“Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?” Steve pressed.

Tony pointed at his temple, as if attempting to think, then mimed a gunshot with his fingers and blew a raspberry. It only served to chip away at Steve’s patience even further.

“I saw this coming, a few years back,” Tony continued, gaining momentum. His voice hadn’t lost its weak quality, and he sounded nearly delirious. “I had a vision, didn’t want to believe it. Thought I was dreaming—”

The dam broke. Steve stood up, towering over him from across the table. “Tony, I’m gonna need you to focus—”

“And I needed you.”

The words were uttered with such quiet fury that all confrontation within him faltered instantly. The contempt coming from behind Tony’s sunglasses was almost enough to make him feel like a skinny kid in Brooklyn’s alleys again.

“Needed. As in, past tense. That trumps what you need. It’s too late buddy. Sorry.”

There was a bowl of soup on the table in front of him. He hadn’t touched it, but now he slammed the spoon into it, sending the dishes flying with a clatter. “You know what I need? I need a shave!”

He stood up unsteadily, wobbling, and started digging at the needle attached to his arm. Rhodey immediately swept in, attempting to placate him. 

“And I believe I remember telling all of you, alive and otherwise—” He ripped out the needle and cast it aside, whirling to face Steve at his full height. “—that what we needed was a suit of armor around the world. Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not. That’s what we needed!”

A muscle twitched in Steve’s jaw. Tony was going to justify himself with Ultron, of all things? “Well that didn’t work out, did it?”

“I said we’d lose, and you said, ‘We’ll do that together too.’” His voice deepened mockingly. “Well, guess what, Cap? We lost. And you. Weren’t. There.”

He punctuated each word with an accusing jab of his finger, and Steve’s shoulders slumped.

“But that’s what we do, right?” Tony turned to address the rest of the room, who all had their eyes trained on him like a nervous audience. “Our best work after the fact? We’re the Avengers, not the Pre-vengers.”

“Tony!” Rhodey had backed off to let him speak, but now that he had begun to sound delirious again, he stepped back into his personal space. “You made your point, just sit down, okay?”

“No, no, here’s my point!” He turned and pointed at Danvers, who was watching the entire exchange with raised eyebrows. “She’s great, by the way.” 

He shoved Rhodey away, and stalked around the table. Once again, his anger had been directed back at Steve. “Buncha tired old mules. I got nothing for you, Cap. I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust, liar. ”

Something cold and dense slithered into his gut, rendering him speechless.

Tony wasn’t done, apparently. With shaky breaths, he ripped off the arc reactor attached to his chest and slapped it into Steve’s hand. “Here, take this! You find him, you put that on, you hide. ”

Then he collapsed, dropping to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

The medical wing was just adjacent to the common area. Through its glass walls, Steve watched Pepper sit beside Tony, who was out cold. Bruce was talking to Rhodey, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying.

He turned the arc reactor over in his hands, rubbing his fingers across its surface. The device was scratched and scarred, damaged from whatever encounter Tony had had with Thanos on Titan.

Liar.

“Steve.”

He glanced back up. Rhodey had exited the room.

“How is he?”

Rhodey’s expression was unreadable. After a moment of silence, he said, “Let’s talk.”

They both sat, gingerly, on the sofa. Tension crackled in the air between them like a live wire.

“He’s upset. Mostly at you. Some of it at himself.”

“I know.”

“That’s the thing, Cap, I don’t think you really do.” There was fire in Rhodey’s eyes as he met his gaze head-on. “I know you’re a stand-up guy, with the best of intentions, I really do. And I’m gonna be honest, it’s only those intentions that are keeping me from throwing you out of this compound.” Without breaking eye contact, he pointed at the medical wing. “That guy in there is my best friend. He is like a brother to me. Do you know why he’s angry with you?”

It took him several moments to finally say, mouth dry, “Siberia.”

To his surprise, Rhodey shook his head. “No. He’s upset because you let him down.”

Steve frowned. “But...”

“He was plenty pissed about Siberia, believe me. But he’s had decades to process his parents’ deaths. Knowing why they died doesn’t change the fact that they’re gone.”

But he still tried to kill Bucky, he wanted to say. It must have been written on his face, however, because Rhodey said, “I’m not saying he was in control when the truth came out. But can you fault him for that?”

“No.” Even at his angriest, Steve couldn’t forget the raw pain in Tony’s words.

I don’t care. He killed my mom.

Rhodey sighed. “Steve, look. Tony has never put stock in people’s words. How could he, the way he grew up? Actions have always defined people for him. So when you defended Barnes—”

“What would you have done?” he demanded. “Just...just let him kill...?”

“No,” Rhodey replied calmly. “It would have killed me, but if I’d had to, I would have done exactly what you did.”

Once again, Steve was caught off-guard by the admission. He supposed it made some sense. Rhodey wouldn’t have wanted his best friend to kill anyone in cold blood.

“But I wouldn’t have left after stopping him,” he added, before silence could fall between them. “You did. You walked away. You hurt him, deeply, and then sent him a postcard saying that you’d try to be better next time. And now...” He shrugged his shoulder, briefly glancing up at the ceiling before settling his attention back on Steve. “Now he’s lost the closest thing he ever had to a son. Thanos is the one responsible, but Tony blames himself all the same. And if he can’t even forgive himself for that, Steve, how can he forgive you for the past few years?”

For that, he had no answer to give.

At that moment, Natasha and Danvers strode into the room.

“How is he?” Natasha asked.

“Bruce gave him a sedative,” Rhodey replied, glancing at her. “He’ll be out for the rest of the day.”

“Great. You guys take care of him, and I’ll bring him a Xorrian elixir when I come back.”

Steve raised his eyebrows at Danvers. “Where are you going?”

“To kill Thanos.” Then she turned on her heel and left as quickly as she’d come.

All three Avengers looked at each other, then hurried to follow her.

Danvers hadn’t known where Thanos was hiding, but it turned out she didn’t need to. The blue-skinned alien who had arrived with Tony, whom Rocket introduced as Nebula, had the answers they wanted. She was a child of Thanos—albeit estranged, unlike the Black Order who had come to Earth.

According to her, Thanos was on a planet called the Garden. With access to his ship again, Rocket was able to use the tech inside to search for energy signatures which matched the Stones. Sure enough, a very similar wavelength appeared on a planet matching the Garden’s description only two days ago.

Danvers was the first to voice the idea of using the Stones to bring everyone back, but she hadn’t been the only one thinking about it. Virtually everyone’s minds were firmly on the dead.

As Natasha had put it, if there was even a small chance…

Steve had never particularly had a desire to go into space—life on Earth was weird enough, and the multiple alien incursions hadn’t exactly warmed him up to the rest of the galaxy. When they hit the first “jump” as Rocket had called it, he was focusing more on the idea of not throwing up rather than the majesty of the stars.

The Garden was a verdant world about twice the size of Earth with significantly more landmass. The planet was so rich in fauna that it was virtually impossible to scan for Thanos’ biosign from orbit, and it was too big to conduct a flyby survey. Instead, Rocket was able to pinpoint an approximate location of the Stones by zeroing in on their energy signature. It wasn’t exact, but it narrowed down their search to about a few square miles of territory on the southern hemisphere..

Danvers had offered to fly ahead and scout the place out, but Steve didn’t want to send anyone in alone. She took point, but rather than wait for her return he had Rocket set their ship down just outside the target area.

As the ramp extended, and Rhodey and Bruce began unloading their armors from the cargo bay, Natasha approached him.

“You ready for this?” she asked.

Steve didn’t really know. So instead, he said, “It’s going to work. It has to.”

He didn’t know what he’d do otherwise.

“Alright, we’re ready to roll out,” Rhodey said. The remaining heroes departed the ship, heading in the direction Danvers had flown.

The Garden was, in all honesty, stunning. The vegetation didn’t resemble anything like that of Earth, both in color and shape, but it was beautiful all the same. As Steve stepped under an orange, low-hanging fern, he caught sight of a blue-scaled bird with two pairs of wings flying overhead.

“In other circumstances, this would be pretty cool,” Natasha remarked quietly.

“Do us all a favor and don’t touch anything,” Rocket griped from behind them. “The last thing we need is to piss off the wildlife. Or the flowers.”

Rhodey, who had been about to poke a spiny, pinecone-looking bulb attached to a tree, quickly retracted his finger.

“Guys.” Danvers’ voice crackled through their communicators. “I’m half a klick ahead of you. You better get here quick.”

They double-timed it, shoving their way through the foliage, until suddenly all of the plant life gave away to blackened, scorched ground. Steve brought up the front as the group emerged into a clearing, approximately fifty feet in diameter. Everything inside the perimeter had been reduced to ash, destroyed as if a localized wildfire had burned its way through, then extinguished itself into a perfect circle. In the center of the clearing, stood Danvers. Her back was to them.

They approached warily. Steve scanned the jungle around the clearing with cautious eyes, in case they were walking into an ambush. But they reached Danvers without incident.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Slowly, she turned around. In her arms, nearly as big as her entire torso, was a mangled hunk of metal. It was so badly scarred and burned that Steve didn’t recognize it immediately. But as he scrutinized it, the object’s markings and shape became familiar.

It was the Infinity Gauntlet. From how Danvers held it, he could see that Thanos’ arm was still inside it, severed just below the elbow. It had the stench of decaying meat, but most disturbing of all were the knuckles on the device.

They were empty. The Stones were gone.

“Oh no,” Rocket whispered.

“Where are they?” Rhodey demanded, looking around wildly. “Where is he? ”

Danvers turned the gauntlet over in her hands, and pulled back the fingers. Clutched in the center of its palm was a small, black cube. Steve reached out and picked it up.

Instantly the device responded at his touch, sending out a flash of blue light. He dropped it, and Rocket immediately trained his weapon on it, but Nebula stepped in front of him. “No, wait!”

The light floated around the cube where it had fallen, curling like wispy smoke. After a moment, it coalesced into a humanoid shape. By the time its features sharpened into focus, Steve already guessed who it would be.

“I knew you would find your way here, sooner or later,” Thanos rumbled. He looked in even worse shape than he had after snapping his fingers in Wakanda—scar tissue ran rampant across the left side of his torso and face, and the stump of that arm was shriveled and deformed. 

“What did you do?” Steve demanded

“No doubt you’re wondering what I’ve done,” Thanos continued, and belatedly he realized this was a recording, not a communication. “You, Avengers—however many of you are left—should look to the other survivors and be grateful. The Stones served their purpose—the only thing they could provide now was temptation. Their power may be infinite, but their existence is not. The Stones are gone, reduced to atoms.”

“No.” Natasha’s voice was barely a choked whisper.

“My work is done. It always will be.” Thanos’ smile was a combination of triumphant and grim. “Look for me if you wish. If you seek revenge. But it won’t matter. It won’t change anything.”

Then the image dissipated into static.

“He—he has to be lying!” Rhodey exclaimed. His helmet retracted, revealing panicked, wide eyes. “He has to be!”

Nebula shook her head. “My father is many things, but a liar is not one of them.”

Reluctantly, Steve glanced down at the cube. If Thanos really had destroyed the Stones, it would make sense. Tactically, it was the best option. As long as the Stones existed, even if the Avengers were gone, there would always be the potential for someone to undo what the Mad Titan had done.

Suddenly, with a flash of silver, the cube was pulverized by Stormbreaker, accompanied by Thor’s howl of rage and the booming of thunderclouds overhead.

Silence fell. There were no words to say, nothing that could change what had happened—what was truly, now and forever, irreversible.

“I will find him,” Thor declared, his eyes brimmed with murderous hate. “I will find him and I will kill him.”

Steve stepped forward. “Thor—”

But the Asgardian rocketed into the air, guided by his weapon. For a moment, he hovered above the jungle, as if hesitating. But then he shot straight into the atmosphere, climbing higher and higher until he was a distant glimmer among the stars.

“What do we do?” When no one responded, Natasha touched Steve’s arm. It was gentle, and uncharacteristically vulnerable of her. When he met her eyes, he saw his own feelings reflected in them. “Steve?”

He couldn’t answer. Danvers dropped the gauntlet, pinching the bridge of her nose. Rocket dropped to his knees, shoulders sagging. Bruce and Rhodey both turned away. Nebula simply stood like a statue, silently watching the remaining Avengers fall apart.

Defeat wasn’t a mystery to Steve. In World War II, he’d lost more than a few engagements with Hydra before turning the tide. He’d lost people and allies as an Avenger. Failure was the risk of every mission. But he’d learned how to shoulder it, how to get back on his feet, and keep moving. When all else seemed lost, hope kept him going.

Now, he didn’t even have that.

FIVE YEARS LATER

The world did not move on.

Earth’s population had yet to recover from the Snap. With the sudden loss of life, entire cities were claimed by nature—there simply weren’t enough people living in one place to keep it modernized. The harbors were clogged by unmanned ships pulled into shore by currents, and there weren’t enough people to remove them. Wildlife could now encroach upon industrialized territory, but the Snap had affected them as well. Multiple species had become newly endangered, and those already in critical status were pushed further to extinction.

Steve had lived through the Great Depression—he thought he’d seen the worst living conditions that a failing economy could force upon people. But after the Snap, wealth disparity only increased. Some, like Tony and Pepper, donated as much as they could and attempted to employ as many survivors as possible. But not everyone was as altruistic, and while the rich could stay rich, their companies failed and the people employed in them suffered the consequences. The world economy was in tatters, and entire countries were still destabilized and not anywhere close to recovering.

It wasn’t the utopia Thanos had seemed so sure would come about. 

As Steve entered the compound, he could hear Natasha speaking with Rhodey, who was on the ground in Mexico. Just outside the command center, he paused.

“The Federales found a room full of bodies. Look like a bunch of cartel guys, never even had a chance to get their guns off.”

A cough, then Natasha spoke. “It’s probably a rival gang.”

“Except it isn’t,” Rhodey said, firmly. “It’s definitely Barton.”

When Natasha had discovered a large pile of ashes at the Barton farm, too large to belong to one person, no one had questioned that Clint had also been killed by Thanos. If anything, that would have been the kinder fate, rather than be spared and have to live a life without your wife and kids.

But then bodies started dropping, about six months after the Snap. They were all criminals, some of them pretty influential and powerful. The first few dozen were full of arrows, but pretty quicker the killer had begun using a sword. Less profile that way.

But the arrows were enough to convince Rhodey that Clint was alive and killing his way through the criminal underworld, one continent at a time. Natasha hadn’t wanted to believe it, but as the evidence mounted, her protests rang hollower and hollower.

“What’s he done here, what he’s been doing for the past few years—” Rhodey sucked in a breath. “I mean, the scene that he left...I gotta tell you, there’s a part of me that doesn’t even wanna find him.”

The following silence stretched on long enough for Steve to wonder if Natasha had left the room. But then, in a choked voice, “Will you find out where he’s going next?”

“Nat?”

“Please.”

“Okay.”

As Rhodey ended the call, Steve thought about leaving, returning later in order to give Natasha some privacy. But, he realized, he’d already violated her privacy by eavesdropping. And she could probably use a friend.

He stepped through the open doors, turning the corner to look at where she was seated at the center table. There was a plate with a mostly uneaten peanut butter sandwich in front of her. Her eyes were red, and wet, and her body trembled with the shaky breaths of restrained sobs.

“You know,” Steve began, stepping forward. Natasha didn’t even flinch—she must have picked up on his presence as soon as he entered the building. Even upset, her skills were still sharp. “I’d offer to make you dinner, but you seem pretty miserable already.”

She smiled weakly at him. “You here to do your laundry?”

“And to see a friend.”

She leaned back in her chair, fixing her expression into a neutral mask. “Clearly, your friend is fine. How was counseling?”

Steve sat down opposite her, and crossed his arms. “Same as usual. We’re all...trying to put ourselves back together. You’d think after five years it would get easier, but...”

“It doesn’t,” Natasha finished solemnly. “I know.” She sighed, glancing at the papers scattered in front of her, around her sandwich—intelligence reports from various nations, or what was left of them; seismic activity in the African plate; a folder full of dossiers on the active and inactive Avengers.

It was this folder that Steve picked up. He thumbed through the names highlighted at the top. Rocket, Nebula, Natasha, himself, Rhodey, Carol…

“No Thor?”

Natasha shook her head. “Carol’s been looking for him, but he’s dropped off the grid. The galaxy is still a big place, and with that axe of his, he could be anywhere. If we can’t call on him for help, he’s not exactly active anymore...”

Rocket and Nebula were tertiary members who operated mostly in space, and Carol had a thousand different obligations to other planets. They were allies, and dependable ones, but that still left himself, Natasha, and Rhodey as the only Avengers on duty. Bruce had left two years back, claiming he needed to do some soul-searching. Tony had retired.

“Sometimes, this doesn’t feel like a team anymore,” he admitted.

“It’s not a team,” she said, causing him to look up from the dossiers. “Not to me. Never has been. All...” She sighed, gesturing at the documents. “All of this, it’s family.”

Steve’s small little smile pulled at the muscles in his face, making them ache with disuse. “I guess we fight often enough to be one.”

“Sometimes families fall apart,” Natasha agreed, with a wet chuckle. “But...sometimes they come back together, too.”

“You still hope this one will?”

“I have to, Steve.”

A holographic symbol appeared just front and left of Natasha. She tapped it, and a third voice flooded the room. When he heard it, Steve practically jumped out of his chair with her, turning to face a video feed that was projected in the middle of the room.

“Oh, hi, hi! Uh, is anyone home?”

The image was of outside the compound, depicting a beat-up van and a face he’d not seen in nearly seven years.

Scott Lang.

Years ago, at the airport in Germany, if anyone had told Steve that Ant-Man would hold the key to saving trillions of lives...he would have been skeptical.

Granted, he hadn’t arrived on their doorstep with a fully laid-out plan. In fact, he barely had a concept of one. But it was the first idea Steve had heard that not only seemed plausible, but doable.

Traveling through the quantum realm to a different point in time period sounded like the kind of insane science that he’d only see in a movie, even despite all the crazy things that had happened to him in the 21st Century. But then, Steve himself had sort of time-traveled, hadn’t he? He just hadn’t had a say in it.

There were problems with the idea. Obstacles they would need to surmount. The most glaringly obvious one was that they needed someone with the skill and knowledge to make this happen. If she were still alive, Steve would have voted for Shuri. As it were, he did contact Okoye and gain her support as well as whatever Wakandan resources they would need. But they still needed a mind.

There was only one other person on the planet who even had the capacity for this kind of work.

“Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck scale which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition,” Tony said, with the air of one explaining to a child that one plus one equals two. As he spoke, he handed Steve a glass of iced coffee. “In layman’s terms, it means you’re not coming home.”

They’d driven out to the lake house Tony and Pepper had built, and caught him just as he was heading inside for lunch. His daughter, Morgan, was already bigger than in the last photograph Steve had seen of her. She scampered around the house with all the energy of a puppy, while the adults sat in chairs on the back porch.

“I did,” Scott piped up from the corner seat. “I came back.”

“No,” Tony corrected immediately. He poured another glass for Scott and offered it to him. “You accidentally survived. Billion-to-one cosmic fluke. And now you want to pull a...what do you call it?”

“A time heist?”

“Right, of course. Why didn’t we think of that? Oh, right, because it’s laughable. It’s a pipe dream,” Tony snipped, handing another cup to Natasha.

“The Stones are in the past,” Steve said. “We could go back and get them.”

“We could snap our own fingers,” Natasha added. “We could bring everyone back.”

Tony rolled his eyes and massaged his temple with a free hand as he poured his own coffee. “Or, we could screw it up even worse.”

“I don’t believe we would,” Steve replied.

That was evidently the wrong thing to say, because Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Gotta say, sometimes I miss that giddy optimism. But high hopes won’t help if there is no way to safely execute this...time heist.” He leaned back in his chair, and took a sip, smacking his lips. “The most likely outcome is our collective demise. And even if it succeeds, great. Let’s say somehow we manage to make a Delorean. How do we navigate the timeline without destroying the fabric of reality? Once you open this door, you have to consider everything from the butterfly effect to the grandfather paradox.”

Steve could tell Scott was beginning to lose his composure. He took a deep breath, and said, “I know you got a lot on the line. You’ve got a wife, a daughter. I understand that. But I lost someone very important to me—”

“So did I,” Tony cut him off, bluntly. “But no, Scott. I won’t do it. You don’t know what you’re asking. That’s the problem.”

“Tony,” Steve tried again. “We can do it safely.”

“Okay, how about this? We somehow don’t die, and we figure out how to go back in time. Where do we go?”

Natasha frowned. “We figure out—”

“Nuh-uh. I wanna hear it from him.” Tony set his glass down and crossed his arms. “What’s the plan, Cap? Walk me through it.”

Steve frowned, but decided to play along. “We go wherever the Stones are. We get them.”

“Right, okay, let’s track that back. Pick one. Oh, how about the Tesseract? We all know that one, right?”

Scott shook his head, but Tony ignored him.

“Pick a point in time where you know the Tesseract is. The 40s, maybe? Do a little stealthing in the original Hydra stomping grounds, get a rematch with the Red Skull? Great, but what happens then? You remove the Tesseract from the 1940s, Hydra doesn’t develop its weapons. Hydra doesn’t try to bomb the world. There’s nothing for you to stop. There might not even be a you to stop something. And without you, what about the rest of us? What about the Avengers? The Chitauri, Loki, New York, all of that. Time is in constant fluctuation, Steve, and it’s incredibly sensitive. We would need to pinpoint a location where the Tesseract wouldn’t be missed by anyone, where it wouldn’t change our history at any point. Otherwise, we could write ourselves out of existence. Us and anyone we’ve ever bumped into on the subway. So tell me, right now—how are we going to do that for all six Infinity Stones? It’s impossible.”

Now it was Steve’s turn to develop a headache. “Whatever comes our way, we will deal—”

“No!” Tony’s fist pounded the table between them. “That’s the thing! That is the problem! You, none of you, have not even a shred of the perspective needed for what you’re asking. I’m thinking about the big picture. You want to save everyone, Steve, I get that. I do too. I miss—” He stopped, blinked twice, then swallowed and continued. “We all want someone back. But we need to remember what we’re risking in order to do it.”

At that moment, the glass door beside them slid open, and Morgan ran out, jumping into her father’s lap. “Mommy told me to come save you!”

All of the anger drained out of Tony instantly. He melted at Morgan’s touch, scooping her up into his arms. He put his cheek against the top of her head, and closed his eyes. “Good job. I’m saved.” After another moment, he opened them to stare at Steve, Natasha, and Scott. “If you guys had any other idea. Any at all. I really wish I could help with this one, but I can’t. And I won’t let you risk everyone without a plan, either.”

His embrace around Morgan tightened a little, and with a sinking feeling, Steve began to realize that Tony wouldn’t back down from this. He couldn’t afford to. He wasn’t wrong about the risk, but also—

You let him down.

Steve never wanted Tony to lose faith in him, but that’s exactly what had happened.

Without Tony, there was little else for the trio to do but go back to the compound and look for alternatives. 

There were other geniuses in the world, but none living who had quite the same skill set as Tony. Even if such a person did exist, the idea of going behind Tony’s back despite his explicit warning made guilt roil around in Steve’s chest.

The morning after their unsuccessful venture to the Stark residence, Steve was sitting at the kitchen island, watching the untouched cup of coffee in front of him slowly cool down.

“Is the, uh, television broken?”

The voice made him start, and he twisted around in his seat to look at the source.

“Bruce?”

He had more grey in his hair, and a few new lines on his face, but it was definitely him. There was a backpack slung over one of his shoulders, and he was a few days late in needing a shave.

He smiled—a warm, yet tired gesture—and stepped further into the kitchen. “Hey, Steve.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked, opening up for a one-arm embrace as Bruce neared. He returned it, clapping him on the back, and pulled out the stool next to him.

“Nat called me,” he replied, dropping his backpack on the floor next to him. “Says there might be a way to fix everything. Reverse what Thanos did. She thought I might be able to help. Time travel isn’t really in my wheelhouse. I told her to talk to Tony, but he...”

“Won’t do it,” Steve confirmed, shaking his head. “The thing is...I get why. I thought I already understood him, but...I think this time it’s the real deal.”

Bruce frowned, tilting his head like an inquisitive dog. “What do you mean?”

“Tony, he...he and I didn’t always see eye to eye on everything. That’s obvious. But there was a time where we’d watch each other’s backs, and trusted each other. And then we...didn’t.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” was the wry response. Steve gave him a wan smile.

“Even if we could, Bruce, I don’t want to do this without him. If we’re going to be a team—be a family —again, I need him to trust me. But I don’t know how.”

“I do.”

At seeing his raised eyebrows, Bruce continued, “Nat told me what Tony said. About perspective. Not having a plan. So come up with one.”

Steve snorted quietly. “Just like that?”

“Didn’t say it’d be easy. But then, when is the right thing ever?”

He considered it. The science behind Lang’s idea was completely beyond him, but...he knew tactics, and strategy. If they managed to pull this off, turn it from a theory into a reality, they’d need a game plan.

“I could use some help.”

Bruce grinned, looking younger than he had in years. “Why do you think I came all this way?”

Eighteen days later, after hours upon hours of sleepless nights and frustrating dead ends, Steve picked up the phone and called Tony.

“If you’re calling because you turned someone into a baby, the only words I have for you are ‘I told you so.’”

Steve blinked, a little unsure how to react to that. “I have a plan, Tony.”

An exasperated sigh filled his ear from the other end of the line. “Cap, I told you—”

Before he could start, Steve overrode him. “Hear me out, Tony. That’s all I’m asking. I thought about what you said. A lot. We called Bruce, and the four of us put something together. It’s just a theory. I’m not calling to ask you to put on your armor or head down to your lab. I just want to know what you think, that’s all. Give me five minutes.”

There was a lengthy pause, and Steve thought he was about to hang up, when:

“Five minutes. Go.”

Explaining it to Tony only took three. When he finished, Steve sucked in a deep breath. “So?”

“Huh.” The tone of that single word was simultaneously incredulously and—reluctantly—impressed. “Simple. Old-fashioned. Definitely has you written all over it. But...”

Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes, or project the gesture into his voice. “But?”

“That...actually might work. Maybe. It’s still a hell of a long shot. If it fails—”

“Nothing is ever guaranteed, Tony. We’ll be taking steps to get the best odds. But we can’t do it without you.”

There was yet another silence between them. However, this one was shorter.

“You and Pepper on the same day, that’s gotta be manipulative somehow.”

He smiled.

“I figured it out two weeks ago. Time travel. I’ve been sitting on it, not sure if I should throw it into the lake or not...turns out, it’s hard to not hope.” Tony’s light tone turned more serious. “Listen, Cap. I gotta tell you my priorities. Bring back what we lost, I hope, yes. Keep what I found? I have to, at all costs. This plan of yours, it’s...doable. But we need to do it right. If I feel like our chances start going down, we pull the plug, stop it right in its tracks. There’s too much at risk, you hear me?”

“I do, Tony. I understand.”

This time, when he said it, Steve really did.