'Mummy, who were those people today?'
'Just some old friends of Mummy and Daddy's.'
'Was it the Avengers?'
Sue froze and looked at Booker, who was waiting for her to straighten out his duvet. His bedroom was lit by his side-lamp that showed shadows of rockets and planets. The walls were a dark blue and poster corners of comic book characters hung limply from the lack of proper sticky tape.
Booker sat with his arms on the edge of his duvet while Sue lowered herself onto this bed. She swallowed and thought about her words carefully. She should have known that Booker would ask about Steve, Natasha and Scott who showed up at their house earlier today. Nothing ever got past the boy, and he always wanted to be in the know of adult endeavours.
'Did Daddy tell you about the Avengers?' Sue sighed.
'Yeah. He said they were the coolest heroes ever, and that you and Daddy were the strongest, and there was Uncle Johnny, who could fly-'
'He told you about Uncle Johnny?!'
'Yeah? Ruby's Dad?'
The ping in Sue's heart was something she thought was past her. But the familiar spike made her hands shake. She did well to grip them together and took a deep breath. She learnt to think of other things, what she had. Who she had.
'Was... was the man there today, Captain America?' Booker could see that his mother was struggling, but he couldn't let the topic go. The sight of superheroes was fascinating, and his father was the only one who would give him even a lick of information. Maybe if he edged it out of his mother, he would get the full story.
'Yeah. It was the Captain. The Avengers were a team that were powerful and good,' Sue caved in and reminisced in the positive thoughts of the past. 'Daddy was the star for sure. Mommy was... well, I was somewhat of a help-'
'Daddy said you were amazing.'
'He did, did he?' Sue laughed and Booker grinned a toothy smile. 'If that's what your dad says, maybe I was. But there were others. There was Brue... Clint... Rhodey... your Uncle Johnny, uh...Wanda...'
Wanda. Wanda Maximoff was someone who Sue hadn't thought about in a long time. Through her grief over Morgan and Johnny, Wanda had been the extra ache that Sue didn't want to feel. The young woman who lost everything, who then lost herself. Sue's journey with Wanda had been the classic tale of enemies to friends to good friends. Wanda faced the hardest challenge of losing Vision and then welcomed death, and Sue missed her. She missed everyone from the team.
'Your Daddy and I went to New York, Sokovia, Wakanda... never went to Venice, though. Always wanted to go to Venice,' Sue lost her train of thought when she looked at the clock that sat on Booker's nightstand. 'You're stalling your bedtime.'
'No, I'm not.'
'Yes, you are,' she stood up from his bed as he giggled and turned off his nightlamp. 'Goodnight, love.'
'Goodnight, Mummy.'
Sue left the bedroom and closed the door behind her. Her chest yearned for a deep breath that she couldn't seem to catch. The old thoughts of Wanda, Johnny, and the team flooded her vision and she leaned back against the wall of the hallway. Closing her eyes, she rubbed her hands together to stop their shaking and thought about Tony. The image of Tony helping Booker pin up his posters on his bedroom wall while her voice called to not put holes in the paint calmed her. She felt her heartrate slow and the picture of Booker's smiling face let her open her eyes.
Today had brought up old roots that Sue thought were buried. But when it was mentioned of reversing the effects of Thanos and the Infinity Stones, the hope of everything being normal again was bliss. But their logistics were foolish, and Tony made it clear that it was fairy-tale. But when Booker grinned at the story of the Avengers and how great they once were, Sue wanted it all. She wanted it to work.
Heading downstairs, Sue settled onto the sofa of the living room. Almost like it was fate, Tony walked into the living room where FRIDAY displayed a hologram of a mobius strip. He did his best to appear contained and nonchalant, but his actions were jerky and nervous. On a sheer fluke, he had somehow solved the great mystery that all scientists on Earth thought was impossible.
'Did you tell Booker about the Avengers? About Johnny?' Sue asked without looking at the man that sat on the back of the sofa.
'I may have. Look, I've gotta tell you something-'
'I'm assuming that's why Ruby started asking Pepper about her father. What a can of bloody worms...'
'Yeah, really sucks. But don't freak out, but-'
'Do you think we should help?' Sue turned to look up at Tony with conflicted eyes. 'I know it sounded like the stupidest thing ever, but what if we really could... fix it all? Take it all back and... Morgan. Oh, Tony, we could have Morgan and Booker would have his big sister. Or little sister. I don't know, but e-everything... everything could be perfect-'
'I figured it out.'
Sue stopped. It took a moment for her to process his words, but they eventually went into her mind and were pulled apart to form a response. But through her babbling about Booker and their past experiences with the team, she couldn't grasp what it was that Tony was referring to.
'Figured what out? Just so we're talking about the same thing here-'
'Time travel.'
'O-Oh,' Sue straightened her back and shuffled her body around to face Tony, who looked down at her with excitement, but also reluctance.
'That's... amazing. But terrifying.'
'I know.'
'A lot of people... weren't as lucky as us. A lot of people weren't...' Sue began slowly but Tony cut in.
'No, I can't help everybody.'
'But it sort of seems like you can.'
'Not if I stop,' Tony suggested, the thoughts of what could go wrong hindering his excitement. 'I can put a pin in it right now and stop.'
'Tony,' Sue reached out and took his hand that held his balance on the back of the sofa cushion. '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 locked box and drop it at the bottom of a lake... go to bed.'
'But would you be able to rest?'
Tony blinked and looked down to where their hands met. The engagement ring that he proposed with back in Sokovia still sat on Sue's finger. Even though they had never officially gotten married, the large rock remained to show they would never leave each other. He smiled at the thought of their failed wedding, as awful as it was. Then came along Morgan, who brought them closer than any expensive ceremony ever could. But just like everything, she was taken from them. And Pepper was left without her husband, and Ruby without a father. Tony realised that he had a responsibility, for Pepper, for Ruby, for Booker, for the whole universe. If he could put his theory into action, he could take it all back.
'Looks like we're going to where dreams go to die,' he looked to Sue, whose nose let out a huff of air in a laugh.
'Upstate New York?'
'Yup.'
---
Steve sighed as he stepped out of the Avengers Headquarters to breathe some fresh air. Bruce's attempt to send Scott into the quantum loop had been successful but had consequences. It wasn't perfected, and they didn't know what they needed to do to fix it. They couldn't jump around through time while aging backwards and forwards. There could be more effects that they were unaware of, and it was too dangerous to continue without proper discussion on how to stop them. They had taken a step but had brought roadblocks into their path.
The naturistic silence was broken by the sound of a loud car engine. Steve looked to the road that led up to the compound and saw a sportscar roaring up from the gate. The black, sleek vehicle screeched around the curve and Steve watched it pass him, before stopping. It then calmly reversed, a stark contrast to its previous driving style, and the engine was cut from the driver.
Steve looked through the tinted window and saw the outline of Tony Stark with Susan Storm in the passenger seat. He couldn't help but feel relief at the sight of them, as the biggest brain had come to tell them how foolish they were for the second time.
'Why the long face?' Tony stepped out of the car; his eyes covered by sunglasses. 'Let me guess: He turned into a baby?'
'Among other things, yeah. What are you doing here?' Steve held his composure as he followed him to the boot of the car.
'We're here to bring some order to the whole experiment,' Sue appeared from the other side and Steve couldn't help but let his smile break at the sight of her. 'Or more chaos, actually.'
'That's the EPR Paradox,' Tony continued his previous rant while opening the boot. '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? Thank God I'm here,' Tony grinned and then held up his right arm, a device spread across the back of his palm. 'Regardless, I fixed it. A fully functioning Time-Space GPS. I just want peace-' he holds up a peace sign. '-Turns out, resentment is corrosive, and I hate it.'
Steve agreed while Sue walked around the car to stand next to Tony. She crossed her arms over her chest and smiled at the Rogers. She never had the same resentment for Steve as Tony did. In fact, she missed the man dearly. No one ever considered the fact that he was probably the most bewildered by the whole existence of aliens and Infinity Stones than anyone. The man grew up with cars that ran on four gallons of fuel and was years from the invention of the internet. Sue saw that he did his best to adapt because if he didn't, he would fall behind. But of course, Sue's parents weren't murdered by Steve's best friend, so she would never be able to understand Tony's resentment for Steve.
'We got a shot at getting these Stones, but I gotta tell you my priorities: Bring back what we lost? I hope, yes. Keep what I got? I have to, at all costs. And... maybe not die trying will be nice,' Tony stood up straight and glanced to Susan, who met his gaze.
'Sounds like a deal,' Steve shook his outstretched hand. Tony then reached back into the boot of the car and pulled out the thing that gave Steve the name of Captain America. His shield, that Tony's father had made with vibranium and the classic American stars and stripes, was brand new and mended from the last time it was used. It's last sighting was in the compound on the mountain in Siberia, and it was left by Steve when the truth came out that Bucky was the one to kill Tony's mother and father.
'Tony...'
'Why? He made it for you,' Tony insisted it to the man who was reluctant. 'Plus, honestly, I have to get it out of the garage before Booker throws it and takes out either of our heads.
'Where is the little squirt?' Steve carefully took it from Tony's hands and inspected it.
'Pepper's taking care of him,' Sue answered and watched fondly as Steve put the shield onto his arm. 'He wanted to come, but I want him as far away from all this as possible.'
Steve let out a hum and liked how natural the shield felt against his arm. It had been years since he left it in Siberia and any other weapon felt foreign to use. But now that it was back and brighter than it had ever looked, Steve was Captain America again. The hero had been gone, lost when the Sokovian Accords tried to squish the Avengers, but he had returned when the universe needed the man out of his time the most.
'Thank you, guys,' he looked up at the two who he never thought would be standing in front of him again.
'Yeah, keep it quiet, though,' Sue looked left to right for any sign of the others. 'Didn't make one for everyone. We are... getting the whole team, again, right?'
'We're working on thatright now.'