LEGACY (T.Stark's Daughter)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The not-so-incredible Hulk.

[ 2012 ]

"I'd be careful going that way. We only just had the floors waxed."

Bruce took Stevie off of his shoulder and set her down beside him, both of them turning to face The Ancient One. Her skin was deathly pale, her head lacking hair and her robes pristine and freshly ironed. It was almost as if she knew she'd be expecting guests.

Instinctively, Banner stepped in front of Stevie, "I'm looking for Dr. Strange."

"You're about five years too early." She told them, "Stephen Strange is currently performing surgery about..." She wandered towards the edge of the building and raised her left arm upwards, "20 blocks that way... what is it that you need?"

"That, actually."

The Ancient One glanced down at her eye-shaped necklace, intricately laced with streaks of golden material. It was the exact necklace that Dr. Strange had worn when he brought Stevie and Ace to his house to stop them from 'messing with the Space Time Continuum' or something along those lines. 

"Ah." She chuckled, "I'm afraid not."

Bruce edged towards the woman, "sorry, but I wasn't asking." He continued to walk forwards confidently, but The Ancient One shook her head, backing away from him.

"You don't want to do this."

"You're right." Agreed the doctor, "I don't, but I need that Stone, and I don't have time to debate–"

She thrusted her arms forwards, sending Banner backwards as he crumpled to the floor. But floating behind his green, muscular body was his old, human self. "Astral projection." Whispered Stevie, reaching her hand through Bruce's ghostly figure.

"Let's start over, shall we?" The Ancient Once queried rhetorically, "if I give up the Time Stone to help your reality then I'm dooming my own." She thrusted her hand forwards and pulled a beam of sparkling, orange mist from behind her. "The Infinity Stones create what you experience as the flow of time. Remove one of the stones–"

Stevie interrupted her, "and that flow splits... so your reality, this reality, won't have the Stone to protect itself."

Nodding, The Ancient One continued, "millions will suffer. Tell me, Doctor. Can your science prevent all that?"

"No." Bruce's brows where furrowed questioningly as he stared down at the light that The Ancient One had created to represent the Infinity Stones, "but we can erase it, because once we're done with the Stones, we can return each one to its own timeline at the moment it was taken."

"You're missing one part." The woman turned away, erasing the projections, "in order to return the Stones, you have to survive."

"We will!" Banner exclaimed, "we will, look– look. I know that we will because Stark's kid is alive. She's right here. We make it. I promise."

Stevie gave the woman a look almost as if to say that he was right. Of course, he was, but Banner couldn't know that. If she told him that they survived then it wouldn't happen.

She sucked in a breath, "I can't risk this reality on a promise. It is the duty of the Sorcerer Supreme to protect the Time Stone."

"Then why the hell did Strange give it away?!"

"What did you say?"

"Strange. He gave up the stone to Thanos. Willingly. I don't know why, maybe he made a mistake."

The Ancient One stumbled backwards, reaching the wall at the edge of the roof. "Or maybe I did." Her hands circled the golden necklace that was wrapped around her neck, causing it to slowly twist and turn. A green glow emitted from the centre of it.

Once she had returned Bruce to his rightful body, she let the stone drift into his hands, her eyes still wide with shock. 

"I'm counting on you, Bruce. We all are."

In one swift movement, Banner had thrown Stevie over his shoulder again and taken off towards Stark Tower, scraping along the side of the building until he hit the ground, shattering the concrete beneath him.

In front of them stood Steve and Tony, and a little farther behind was Scott, who was flailing his arms around angrily and pacing back and forth like a ragingly hormonal teen. "You're repeating yourself. You're repeating yourself. You never wanted a Time Heist. You weren't on board with the Time Heist. You ruined the Time Heist."

Steve dropped his shoulders, leaning against the frame of a nearby car. "Are there any other options with the Tesseract?"

"No, no, no." Rambled Scott, "there's no other options. There's no do-overs." He slammed a car door and kicked a piece of debris in frustration. "We're not going anywhere else. We have one particle left. Each. That's it, all right. We use that, bye-bye, you're going home."

Stevie watched boredly, resting her fingers on her temples as she listened to Lang tell off Captain America and Iron Man. "God, he's almost as annoying as his son." She muttered. 

"I got it." Tony turned to him, "there's another way to retake the Tesseract and acquire new particles. Military Instillation. Garden State." The name alone was enough to flood Steve's expression with surprise.

"You're sure?" Pressed Cap, "you understand that we have to take the kid, right? She's coming with us. If this falls through, we're stuck there."

Tony spared a glance at his daughter, his brows softening at the sight of her alone. "I'm sure." He then reached into his pocket and pulled out another tube of the red liquid. "Kept it in the basement. Found it with my old man's stuff." 

"You're wasting more Particles on a child?" Butted in Scott, who was still as furious as ever.

"She's my daughter." Snapped Tony. He turned back towards Stevie, "We're gonna have to take you even further back with us if we want to get you all the way home. Is that OK?" In response, his daughter nodded.

Steve let out a long sigh, "looks like we're improvising."