Intergalactic

They landed back on the Quantum platform, barely two seconds had passed before Tony rushed off to heave out whatever was left in his stomach, Steve following him towards the nearest trash bin, once again rubbing his hand up and down Tony’s back. He really hated time travel, and he was glad it was over because it meant that his stomach would stop heaving so much. He really couldn’t understand why it kept happening, he flew around in a suit of armor, but apparently this was the one thing that wasn’t going to let him have an easy time. 

“Did we get them all?” Bruce said from the platform, forcing Tony to pay attention to what they were actually doing and not throwing up again. He couldn’t wait to brush his teeth, maybe take a bath, before he actually did what he promised himself and climb Steve like a tree, because they did it, they got the stones. 

 “Your telling me this’ll actually work?” Rhodey said smiling at them all, but Tony noticed something when Nebula hadn’t acknowledged him, it was weird considering how close she was to Rhodey. He wondered if something had gone wrong for Nebula, Rhodey and Carol’s team, but he could also be overthinking and she could just be sick from the trip, but that was before Carol looked over at Nebula and noticed something as well. When his eyes met Carol’s, he knew that she had noticed something as well, he was going to have to ask her about it when he was feeling a little better. 

“Clint, where’s Nat?” Bruce said pulling Tony out of his thoughts and forcing him to notice a very empty spot next to Clint, but it couldn’t be, Nat would have come back, Steve had told him that she had wanted someone back from the snap. 

He could feel his knees buckle right before he threw up again all over the floor, they had messed up, not just him getting thrown across a room by the Hulk mess up but losing someone they loved. Nat who painted his toes when she wanted the right nail polish color, Nat who told him really crazy stories about Clint as a father, the woman who looked out for him when he ignores all medical advice, the one who had stabbed him in the neck just to give him more time.  

The room was silent, his head pounding because of the constant heaving, his chest hurt, and he couldn’t tell if it was from his run in with the Hulk anymore. He couldn’t think anymore, he could hear the Hulk raging and something breaking around him, but he wasn’t sure if it was real. He wanted to think that they were all back safe and sound, that nothing bad had happened, he hadn’t noticed the tears falling from his face until he couldn’t breathe anymore. Steve was on the floor next to him holding onto him, he could feel his husband’s chest shaking. It didn’t matter if anyone else was in the room, it didn’t matter if they had all made it, she hadn’t, and they lost the one person who had tried the hardest to keep them all together all of these years. 

It was an hour later, after the Hulk had calmed down enough for Bruce to come out, after Thor had gone back to drinking everything he could find, after Clint cried in the conference room, throwing everything he could. After Steve took Tony to their in-suite bathroom and the two of them held onto one another while under the too hot spray of water. The hour feeling longer than it should have, before they all met on the dock outside of facility. 

“Do we know if she had family?” Shuri asked, she was one of the few people who had been friends with Natasha over the years. 

“Yeah,” Steve answered looking at the too young Queen. “Us.” 

“What?” Thor said looking confused at the group, Bruce rubbing his back knowing full well how badly he had relapsed after just a few days. 

“I just asked a question,” Shuri answered. 

“Yeah, you're acting like she's dead. Why are we acting like she's dead?” Thor said his speech clear even after consuming as much alcohol as he had. “We have the stones, right? As long as we have the stones, Cap, we can bring her back, isn't that right? So, stop this shit. We're the Avengers, get it together.” 

“We can’t get her back,” Clint said his face despondent never really looking any of them in the eye. It hurt because she had been his partner, so losing her after losing his wife was weighing heavily on his shoulders. 

“Wha-what?” Thor said  

“It... it can’t be undone,” Clint said, and Tony could hear the heaviness in the man’s voice, there was something about losing someone close to you that made it all the more painful, and for all of them Natasha was family. 

“I'm sorry. No offense, but you're a very earthly being. Okay? We're talking about space magic. And "can't" seems very definitive don't you think?” Thor said with a slight glee as if they couldn’t understand the severity of what kind of magic was at play. 

“Look, I know that I'm way outside my paygrade here. But she still isn't here, is she?” Clint said defensively, Tony knew that this could go south quickly, with the pain of her death too fresh in their minds. 

“Now that's my point...” Thor started but Clint stopped him before he could say anything else. 

“It can't... be undone. Or that's at least what the, great floating guy had to say," Clint starts shouting at Thor, and they all knew that he was trying to convey this whole clusterfuck to Thor, but they could see the grief in the man’s eyes, it was like losing all over again. “Maybe you wanna go talk to him? Okay? Go grab your hammer, and you go fly and you talk to him.” 

Clint at that moment broke down, the tears started coming down fast and faster, “It was supposed to be me. She sacrificed her life for that goddamned stone. She bet her life on it,” he said, and Tony knew that Clint would have sacrificed anything just to see his wife again, he was near suicidal and Natasha had given him a second chance at living happily with his family. 

“She's not coming back. We have to make it worth it. We have to,” Bruce said a slight twinge of green coloring his face. 

“We will,” Steve told them, but Tony could see the redness in his eyes, and he couldn’t take it anymore, he stood up and walked away going to the one place he could feel at peace, but the moment he saw her room, the door wide open, clothes thrown all over the place, he couldn’t help himself he walked in and sat at the edge of her bed. 

“You weren’t supposed to die,” he whispered to no one, the slight smell of her flowers in the air, an overturned bottle of nail polish on the nightstand. Tony wondered if he had a sister growing up would she have been like Natasha, brave and fearless, but also kind and caring. He couldn’t help but hold the bottle, it was a part of an Avengers collection, and it was the same red as his armor.  

The tears came hard and fast, before he knew it, he threw the bottle across the room shattering the glass mirror near the bathroom door. The red polish staining the carpet in the room as it ran down the wall with the planes of glass. She was another death of this war, another person who should have lived by died because they hadn’t stayed together. Everything in the last fifteen years of his life led to this, and there were too many if only’s running through his head. He hated Thanos for causing this, he hated everyone who had caused all of this, because if there was one thing, he would change in all of their lives, it would be for them to all be happy. 

“She was in love with Bucky,” Steve said walking into the room, taking in the scene in front of him. “She told me during one of those days when I had stopped here, hell she told me the day you came back on that ship looking like you hadn’t eaten or slept in weeks.” 

“Why are you tell me this Steve?” 

“She was my best friend in this time, you’re the love of my life but she was my friend,” he sat down next to Tony and took his hand. “She was our family, we’re allowed to grieve over this.” 

“We don’t have time to grieve Steve, we don’t have time to do anything else but finish this, because it’s what she would have wanted,” he stopped talking, he couldn’t deal with this anymore, but the sadness in his husband’s eyes meant that they had to take the moment, even if it was a short one. 

“We have time,” Steve said to him holding him close.  

They sat there in that room, the small space she had occupied while she tried to keep the Avengers together, while Tony broke down and cried but moved on all the same, where Steve learned to move forward, even if they all could never really move on from one loss. 

“Nat and Barnes, really,” he said thinking about Natasha and the Winter Soldier. “Do I even want to know how that happened.” 

“She said he had trained her, in the red room, that they had fallen in love, I think deep down, Buck found something that felt like home during those years, but in the end, Hydra took that from him too.” 

“Do you think, that maybe they would have found each other after we did all of this,” he said gesturing to the world as a whole, though he was sure Steve would understand what he was saying. “Would the brainwashing have given him those memories back?” 

“I’m not sure, I barely talked to him when he was in Wakanda, and when I did take the time to see him it was still a little strange,” Steve said holding Tony close. “We’ll never know unless we try to fix it all, but it’s too late for them if what Clint is saying is true.” 

“Maybe, maybe not, we’ll never know unless we try,” Tony said to him, knowing full well that even some theories were meant to be changed. 

They didn’t waste any time after that, Steve could see the determination in Tony’s eyes, the need to fix something that was broken, it was something he loved about the man. They were in the lab as Tony and Rocket worked on the glove, they needed to make sure that this would work, because they couldn’t have one more failure on their hands. He knew that they wouldn’t be able to take another one especially after the last three big ones. 

“Hey,” Carol said as she walked over to where Steve was. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you and Tony about, but since he’s busy, do you think we could talk before we did whatever it is, we’re doing with this glove.” 

“Sure, I have time,” he said before gesturing for them to talk in the hallway, leaving the others to work on the gauntlet without any interruptions. 

The facility seemed quieter since they returned, when they had left everyone had been in high spirits, they joked around a little, yes, they were scared but they were Avengers again. It had been just another mission for them, another hurtle that they had to go through. Now with Nat gone, he could tell that they were trying their best, Thor stayed quiet preferring to watch as the others worked, Clint in the corner staring at the spot, even Steve knew, had been there for her. Carol and Rhodes had stayed away, just like Steve and Tony, they had gone to grieve on their own, Shuri had stayed behind with Clint, Bruce and Thor, when Tony had rushed off.  

Every once and a while Steve could swear that Thor’s powers were manifesting nearby as the crackle of lighting hit the skies above. They were all hurting from this, but Thor was trying to think differently about what had happened, swearing that there would be a way to get her back. Steve knew it had to do with Bruce’s reaction to Nat’s death, they had all been close, but those two had learned to live in a world all their own and losing their friend was a hard thing to have happen. They had all been doing so well until this happened and Steve hated it, he hated that whenever they got somewhere, or found some form of happiness the universe saw fit to throw a wrench in their path. 

They stopped far enough away that no one was around to hear them, but close enough in case they were needed. He saw the worried look in Carol’s eyes and he wasn’t sure why, it could be nerves just like any one of them, but there was something else there that he couldn’t place. 

“When we returned from Morag, I noticed something different about Nebula,” Carol said and Steve couldn’t help but wonder how different Nebula had been acting for Carol to notice and not Tony, but then again they had found out about Natasha soon after getting back so if Tony had noticed anything it had been quickly overshadowed by Nat’s death. 

“What did you notice?” he asked genuinely curious about what Carol had seen that they all had missed, though now that he thought about it, Nebula hadn’t been seen since they returned. Usually she would be with Valkyrie or Tony, but he hadn’t seen her come near them at all which was a little odd for her, and he knew that she was strange as it was. 

“Where is she? Have you seen her, because Valkyrie came to me asking about her and she was nowhere near us, she vanished,” Carol said to him and he knew something was wrong with the whole situation. 

“Did anything happen while you were all on that planet? Anything that would have alerted you to something coming after you all?” 

“No, not really, but on the way back she was late, James and I were well on our way before she appeared next to us all.” 

“Don’t tell anyone, I don’t want Tony to worry right now,” he told her as he heard Rocket yell out something and Tony’s voice started arguing with the raccoon. “Go find her and bring her to the lab, we’ll have Tony talk to her, because if there’s someone who would notice it would be him.” 

“That’s true, they have spent the most amount of time together outside of her relationship with Rocket. I know that what she has with Valkyrie isn’t new, but I don’t want to worry her right now especially since they’re all worried about Thor.” 

“I’ll be in the lab, most likely we’re going to test out that gauntlet the moment they finish, so I don’t want to be far from them, but yell for FRIDAY if you notice anything suspicious happening.” 

“Will do Army,” she said before walking off. There was always a possibility of something going wrong for all of them, but he had thought that it couldn’t have been as bad as what happened on with his small team back in 2012. Now he wasn’t so sure that they all hadn’t gotten off unscathed from this whole ordeal. 

He was about to turn around when he hears the sounds of his own kids in the background, they’re hiding, and they shouldn’t be there at all, but he has really good hearing and Miles is terrible at things like hide and seek. Steve learned that from watching Miles play with Morgan, it strange that someone with powers to hide on the ceiling, is terrible at hiding from a five-year-old. Steve walked towards the closet, he knows they’re in there, and opens it watching as his kids, Lila Barton and America Chavez all spill out of the small space. 

“Do I even want to know how you five all fit in there?” he asked as they all tried to recover from the fall. “Or better yet why you’re all here in the first place?” 

“Well.... you see,” Miles starts before looking to his sisters for help. 

“We want to help,” Kamala said looking at him with a hopeful look.  

“We know that you and Dad are trying to get everyone back,” Riri said looking at him and he knew she was trying to get out of being in trouble for this. “When dad dropped us off at Aunt Pepper’s we had already known.” 

“Because I kind of overheard the whole conversation you guys had with Nat, Bruce, Scott and Hope,” Kamala said which meant that they’ve known the whole. “Pops we want to help.” 

“We want our families back,” Lila said a sadness in her eyes, “I want my dad to stop looking so sad.” 

Steve didn’t miss how America automatically hugged Lila, which meant that Lila was the girl that America had been talking about. They had all grown, found friends, and some had even fallen in love, this was what they were trying to protect. He didn’t know what to do about them showing up, they were all grown up enough to make their own decisions about what they wanted to do regardless of what he or Tony thought. 

“Go to the living area and stay there,” he told them knowing that Tony was going to have a fit about them all being there. “I need to talk to your father,” he looked at his kids knowing that while they loved them, they wanted to protect their parents as much as him and Tony wanted to protect them. 

They all smiled at him, as if they had won a battle, in reality it was just the beginning because they knew Tony’s stubborn streak when it came to their protection. America and Lila walked off holding hands, while Kamala and Miles jumped for joy at winning this small battle. 

“Dad’s not going to like this is he,” Riri said smiling at him. 

“Not a bit, but I figure if you’re as far away from the workshop, he can’t come after you until we finish what we’re doing,” he told her before giving her a hug. “No go and stay with them, I know that Kamala and Miles are up to something, and I love you all but I also don’t trust you to not get into trouble here. You’re the oldest, keep them all out of trouble.” 

“Okay but you owe me.” 

“I owe you nothing, you snuck in here without permission, all you get from me is a hug and that’s it.” 

“But,” she started but he just looked at her, she knew that she was in trouble and there was no getting out of that. “Fine... geez, I hate that look.” 

“Yeah well that’s what you get for disappointing me, no go get,” he said making sure she didn’t double back to sneak into the workshop. He didn’t want the fight with Tony to happen not when he was already working on something that could potentially kill them all if they weren’t careful with it. 

Tony couldn’t help but notice how long Steve had been gone, Carol had pulled him aside and Tony knew for certain this had something to do with Nebula. There was something off about her, she had become friends with Natasha over the years but hadn’t reacted to her death, she hadn’t shown any emotion at all even though she had grown over the years. It was a little disconcerting to him to see her acting that way, it was almost as if she had become another person. 

“All right. The glove's ready. Question is, who's gonna snap their freaking fingers?” Rocket said pulling him away from his thoughts. Steve walked through the door and looked over at Tony, which meant that they needed to talk but with the present situation at hand it was going to have to wait. 

“I’ll do it,” Thor said and they all knew that it was a bad idea, not one of them knew what it would do to any of them, they had said that it had made Thanos’ arm not function after using it not just the one time, but twice. 

“Excuse me?” Scott said looking over at the Norse God. 

“It’s okay,” Thor said making his way towards the glove. 

“No, no, no, whoa. Stop. Stop. Wait a sec. Hey, hey...,” they all yelled at him, they needed to think about this, and Thor rushing into doing it wasn’t the best plan they had. 

“Wait, wait, wait, Thor, just wait. We haven't decided who's gonna put that on yet,” Steve said pulling Thor away from the glove, they needed to make this decision with all of their heads on right, and Tony knew that anyone of them could lose an arm because of it. 

“Oh, I'm sorry. What, were you just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?” Thor looked around the room, it wasn’t about the opportunity, it was about making sure that they all survived this. 

“We should at least discuss it,” Scott said looking at Thor, while Hope watched the interaction from his side. 

“Look, us sitting here staring at that thing is not gonna bring everybody back. I'm the strongest Avenger, okay? So, this responsibility falls upon me. It's my duty,” Thor answered, and Tony knew this was more for the man to make amends to himself for what happened five years ago. 

“It’s not that...” Tony said trying to find a way to convey this. 

“It’s... stop it, just let me,” he said tearing up. “Just let me do it. Just let me do something good. Something great.” 

“Look...It's not just the fact that that glove is channeling enough energy to light up a continent, I'm telling you you're in no condition right now to do this,” Tony told him. “Thor, you need time to calmly think about this and that’s something we don’t have.” 

“What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?” Thor said trying to make himself feel like the bigger man, and not the man who has been struggling with defeat for five years. 

“Cheez Whiz?” Rhodey said and Tony gave him a nasty look, it wasn’t the time to antagonize a Norse God, and Rhodey should have known better. 

“Lightning,” Thor answered instead. 

“Yeah,” Tony rubbed the big guy’s arms. “But we don’t need that right now.” 

“Lightning won't help you, love. It's gotta be me,” Bruce said before shaking his head. “Actually, it has to be Hulk, you saw what those stones did to Thanos. It almost killed him. None of you could survive.” 

“How do we know the Hulk would?” Steve asked. 

 “We don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma,” Bruce said looking at the gauntlet the stones resting in their places. “It's like...uh... We were made for this.” 

“Bruce, you weren’t made for anything,” Hope said to him. “We’re all just here because of circumstance, it could have been anyone.” 

“I’m not all that certain about that,” Bruce said to her. “We’re not certain about anything if you think about it.” 

“The multiverse theory,” Shuri said looking at them. “The theory that there are an infinite number of universes out there, but even in those universes we all exist in different ways, but we still exist within our circumstances.” 

“Like I would still be War Machine in a different universe,” Rhodey said looking at her, Tony was fascinated by this just as much as anyone else. “Or Tony could have been a woman.” 

“Hey,” Tony said but Steve smiled. 

“You know it could have been possible, it’s not the woman who decides the sex of the baby,” Rhodey told him, but even Tony knew that Rhodey was just messing with him. 

“We won’t know the outcome of any of it though,” Bruce said to them. “We could all exist, we could have met at a different time in our lives, but it would still be us.” 

Tony looked around the room and knew it was the truth, hell they had just gone into the past and messed with the timelines, so for those people, their present day would be something different from what they were living. Nothing would have been the same regardless. Maybe Natasha would be alive, maybe Steve would have been the one to die, maybe Tony would have never gotten the reactor removed. Infinite possibilities, he hoped that they didn’t suffer the same fate as the rest of them did. 

They watched as Bruce walked over to Thor and kiss the man, giving him an uneasy smile before turning into the Hulk. There was a tension in the room, it had more to do with the glove than with the Hulk standing there.  

“Good to go,” Tony said and Hulk huffed out for a moment before turning to the glove. Bruce must have told him about what was happening at some point because the Hulk didn’t even flinch. 

“Let’s do it,” Hulk said as he looked out at all of them. 

“You remember... everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago and just bringing them back to now, today. Don't change anything from the last five years,” Tony explained to him. 

“Got it Tin Man,” Hulk said smiling. 

“Alright everyone suit up,” Steve said grabbing his shield as they all took positions, Scott and Hope both ready standing together, Shuri behind a glass wall, Tony activated the suit, but he saw an uneasy look in Steve’s eyes and he wasn’t sure what to think about it. 

“FRIDAY, do me a favor and activate Protocol 8,” Tony said as he activated the shield for his suit, Clint standing next to him. 

“Yes, boss,” FRIDAY said as the room went into lock down. 

“Everybody come home,” Hulk said to them as he puts on the gauntlet, Tony couldn’t help but watch as the stones lit up the Hulk’s arm, the power was really something else. Tony had never seen the Hulk in any kind of pain before but from the look on his face it was evident that the power of the gauntlet was taking its toll. 

“Take it off. Take it off!” Thor yelled out, worried for the man who had been there for him all of this time. To Thor, the Hulk and Bruce weren’t two separate beings, they were everything to him. 

“No, wait,” Steve called out, stopping Thor from doing anything. “Hulk, are you okay?” 

“Yes,” Hulk grunted at them, nodding at Thor who had backed down. “Bring friends back.” 

They watched as Hulk snapped his fingers, the gauntlet lighting up the room, Tony couldn’t help but watch as something that looked so harmless burned through the Hulk’s arm. They watched as the big guy slumps down and passes out, the gauntled sliding off and falling away as Hulk turned back into Bruce. Clint kicking it away from the man as they all walked over. 

“Did it work?” Steve asked as he walked over. “Bruce.” 

“Don’t move him,” Tony told him worried about what kind of damage the gauntlet had done if it was already manifesting on the scientist. 

“Did it work?” Bruce said holding onto Steve’s arm. 

“Worth a shot. It's over. It's okay,” Thor said kneeling on the man’s other side. Tony watched as Steve pulled away while Thor comforted Bruce. 

“You have something on your mind,” Tony said pulling his husband away from what was happening. “Tell me.” 

“Carol thinks Nebula isn’t who she says she is,” Steve said and Tony couldn’t believe what he was hearing, he knew something was off but he hadn’t gone that far. “And the kids showed up when I was talking to her, they were hiding in a closet.” 

That got Tony’s attention, the one thing that he had tried to do was keep his kids out of everything, but if they had shown up and this had all gone south, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself. “Shit,” he said pulling away. “Shit.” 

“You already said that,” Steve said to him but it only made him want to say it again. 

“FRIDAY,” Tony called out. “Tell the kids to suit up because I’m going to go kill them in a minute, right after I take care of Bruce.” 

“Tony,” Steve said but all he could do was glare at his husband.  

“No, you should have told them to go home,” he said wanting to yell but holding back. “They shouldn’t be here.” 

“I couldn’t send them away,” Steve said and Tony knew that it was one of Steve’s biggest weaknesses, those kids were both of their weaknesses. “They’re safe here for now.” 

“We didn’t know what would have happened with this, they could have gotten hurt,” he told him and Steve took his hand. “I can’t lose them too.” 

“I know Tony, once we’re finished, we’ll take them home okay,” Steve told him before kissing him, the two of them a sight in full battle armor, like the gauntlet would have attacked them for using the stones the wrong way. 

All of a sudden Clint’s phone started ringing, pulling them out of their conversation and making them all turn towards the thing as it vibrated on the table. Clint looked at them before looking at the phone rushing to pick it up, almost dropping it as he saw the name on the screen. His face lit up with joy, “Honey,” he said into the receiver. “Honey.” 

“Guys... I think it worked,” Scott said from across the room as he looked out at the small garden near the workshop, they all saw the birds which hadn’t been there before flying around. 

“Army we have a problem,” Carol’s voice rung out over the com lines, Tony looked over at Steve before everything outside turned dark and the world collapsed around them. Tony’s last thought was that his kids were somewhere in the compound.