The White Wolf

XXXV

Ava shifted her weight over her feet as she looked on at the van, anticipating whatever was to happen, whether it be success or failure. She prayed for success, for Scott's sake, and for hers. Scott needed to be okay, and she needed her family back. A lot of people did. "On a count of three," Bruce said, flipping a few switches on the control panel. "Three, two, one-"

Everyone held their breath, panicking and motionless with intense anticipation. The machine whirred to life again and someone returned in the suit Scott was wearing- a preteen boy that stared back at them, panicked. The suit hung off of his body loosely and he frowned, looking down at himself. "Uh, guys? Something doesn't feel right."

"Is that Scott?" Natasha frowned, asking the question that they all had in their minds.

"Yes, it's Scott!" The boy snapped back.

Bruce panicked and started pushing buttons, frowning as the boy shrank back down. Ava's eyes went wide, her heart racing as all she could do was watch. "What's going on, Bruce?"

Another flash and Scott was back, wrinkled and aged and white-haired. "Oh- my back!" He winced, reaching around to hold his lower back. Ava turned to look at Bruce, her eyes still wide as she scoffed, holding out her hands as a gesture of disbelief. It was all happening so fast, and so unsuccessfully. Their hopes were quickly turning into some horrible nightmare.

"What is this?" Steve muttered, frowning up at Bruce as the green guy continued to push different buttons and look at different screens from his equipment.

"C-can I get some space here?" He muttered.

Ava looked back at the old man Scott, growing speechless at this terrific failure of an attempt at time travel. "Bring him back-"

"I'm working on it!" Bruce snapped. The old man vanished, and a baby reappeared to take his place.

They all froze in place, looking down at the infant. "That's a baby." Steve muttered.

"That's Scott." Banner scoffed, pointing his big, green finger at the drooling baby wrapped up in the time travel suit.

"As a baby!" Steve snapped at him.

"He'll grow!"

"Bring Scott back!"

Bruce huffed and changed some of the equipment settings. "When I say kill the power, kill the power." He said, rushing to fix the situation. Natasha muttered to herself, running for the power circuits across the room, grabbing hold of the red lever. Bruce hit two more buttons, baby Scott shrinking away. "Kill it!"

Natasha cranked the lever as fast as she could, just as Bruce hit one last button. Scott came back, his eyes wide and wild as he stood with his arms out and his legs wobbled. "Oh, thank God." Nat let out her breath.

"Glory to Bast-" Ava ran a hand through her hair, closing her eyes as she sighed, feeling like she needed to sit down. She opened her eyes, rushing to help Scott, holding onto his arm so he didn't fall over. "You okay?"

"Somebody peed my pants." He muttered, staring wide-eyed into the warehouse, not looking at anything in particular. He trembled just a little, his breath shuddering. "I don't know if it was baby me or old me... Or just... me me."

There was another moment of silence as everyone shared relieved looks with each other, and then the moment was interrupted. "Time travel!" Bruce cheered with an ear-to-ear grin, holding his hands out like he had just accomplished something spectacular. "What?" He asked, seeing everyone's annoyed expressions. "I see this as an absolute win."

Steve scoffed and shook his head, his hands going to his hips as he walked away from Bruce without another word, going outside. Ava watched him go, sighing as she turned back to Scott. "Come on. Let's get you out of this." She muttered.

**********

The great Tony Stark had changed his mind. He had created his own fool-proof time travel device. His numbers added up and made sense. His technology worked according to the computer. He figured out time travel and brought his invention to the compound that very same day that they attempted to solve time travel without him. He brought it, and Steve's shield back.

Steve was more than happy to tell the others the news, and that little, fading glimmer of hope left inside of Ava flickered back to life. Together, Ava and Steve worked on contacting all of the Avengers that they could to come help. They would need a team to do this, after all. Time travel to fix everything. Okoye and M'Baku could not leave Wakanda- they were all that the country had as leaders. Danvers was off helping another planet with their crisis. Rhodey had found Clint's next target and when, and was headed back to the compound. Nebula and Rocket were on another planet gambling for money when they got the alert, and quickly made their way toward the compound, too.

When Natasha found out where Clint was headed, she was off on her way to finding him. When Rocket and Nebula returned, Bruce set out with Rocket to go retrieve Thor. And over the course of the next few days, everyone was under the same roof all at once, each of them having cozy rooms to themselves that Steve and Ava had taken the time to prepare with clean sheets and pillows.

And it was that night, when everyone was there, that they all sat and had dinner together for the first time in years. Stories were told. Hugs were given. Tears were shed. Laughs were shared. And the love of each other, their Avengers family, filled the air. A love that was formed through hardship, heartache, and suffering. A love like no other. Pain brought them together. Now, they were going to end that pain. The pain that turned Ava and Nat into work-a-holics. The pain that made Steve the leader of a support group. The pain that drove Tony into retirement before he was ready. The pain that turned Rocket and Nebula into even more crude versions of themselves. The pain that turned Clint into a mercenary, with shaved hair on the sides of his head and a longer strip of hair down the middle, with a heavy hurt in his eyes and weight in his shoulders. The pain that turned Thor into a depressed version of himself. One who had given up hope and let his guilt change him. He'd grown fat, and drank far too much. His hair and beard was long and unkempt and his sweatpants and hoodie were stained and stinking. He was a shell of the God he once was. And nobody blamed him.

The pain was going to go away.

Bruce and Ava were going to work on time travel suits with the tech Tony provided while Tony and Rocket worked un building a sufficient Quantum Tunnel. Thor and Steve and Natasha and Rhodey and Scott and Nebula helped where they could, and stayed out of the way when they needed to. They worked with their strengths and their skills for a number of days- days that became nearly two weeks before the suits and time machine were ready for testing.

**********

"We're getting donations." Ava mumbled aloud, reading through the financial statements of the Avengers compound. "There are still people out there that notice us doing all of this work."

Natasha looked up from the couch where she was filing her finger nails. "Really?" She sounded genuinely surprised. "Even with all of this hardship... People still have some hope in the Avengers, huh?"

"It's been almost three years since half the planet disappeared. I don't even know if I have hope in us anymore."

Nat pressed her lips together and stood, making her way over to Ava to look over her shoulder to read the usernames of the people who donated money to help fund their work. "It looks like @Batikitch, @Dance_Nerd23, and @Funnygirl_thatBelle would disagree with you." She said, placing her hand on Ava's shoulder. She gave a gentle squeeze and a sad smile. "If these people can have hope, so can we. We just need to find it."

Ava stirred from her dream, groaning when she noticed it was still dark in her room. Her eyes cracked open just enough and she let out a sigh, turning to the clock on the nightstand. Three-thirty-six in the morning. Definitely not time to be awake yet. She had another four hours before she needed to be up to finish the time travel suits for their test run, so she turned over and shut her eyes to try to go back to sleep until then.

AN: I love you all so much for keeping up with the story. I figured a shorter chapter would be nice after so many long chapters, for you as the reader and me as the writer! Let me know what you think so far in the comments! The comment winners from a few updates back have been mentioned above by Natasha herself! Thank you all again for your kindness and passion for this story. It means so much. Xx