The Dark Heart(B.Barnes)

38: Shut The Front Door

"Tony, I don't know." He confesses

"Why?" Tony cocks his head and furrows his brows, "He made it for you. Plus, honestly, I have to get it out of the garage before Morgan takes it sledding." Tony tells Steve as he places the shield in his hands.

"Oh, we already did that. It makes a great sled." I say from behind them. Tony sends me an incredulous look while Steve just quirks an eyebrow at me, I shrug.

"Thank you, Tony." Steve says sincerely, taking in the weight of the shield back on his arm.

"Will you keep that a little quiet? Didn't bring one for the whole team." Tony grabs his case from the trunk before turning back to Steve and I.

"We are getting the whole team, right?" I ask as we move back towards the compound.

"We're working on that right now." Steve assures us as he leads us inside.

By that, he meant that Nat was tracking Barton across East Asia while Banner went with the talking raccoon to get Thor from New Asgard. I decided to help Nat in tracking Barton instead of going with Bruce and Rocket, with both of us looking it was easy to pinpoint where he was. Nat had been tracking him for a while so it wasn't too hard to get a quinjet to Tokyo.

Nat and I both thought it would be best if she went alone to get Clint, not entirely sure what kind of state he would be in ever since we found out his whole family was lost in the Blip. But apparently he was easier to convince than Thor was, who had made it abundantly clear he was only here because there was free beer and poptarts.

I was standing near the area that Tony had designated to build his time machine, it was nearly done and I was basically just watching the raccoon work on it.

"Ratchet, how's it going?" I hear Tony call out as he walks up, fat Thor following with a can of beer in his hand.

"It's Rocket." The raccoon replies angrily from where he was hanging onto the bottom of the machine and hammering some panels into place, "Take it easy. You're only a genius on Earth, pal." He snarks.

I cover the laugh that bubbles up but Tony sends me a glare as he comes to a stop next to me. It looks like Tony was gearing up for another comment but just then Thor lets out a belch. I share a disgusted look with Tony before shaking my head and leaving the three of them in the room.

I decided to go check on how Bruce was doing with Scott and the suits, regretting that decision almost instantly since I arrive while Banner and Scott are arguing. Scott was waving one of the Pym Particles around while lecturing, "This is what we have. We're not making any more." He tells them.

"Scott, calm down." Rhodey placates.

"Sorry," Scott mumbles, nodding at me when he notices my presence, "We've got enough for one round-trip each. That's it. No do-overs. Plus two test runs." Scott finishes as he slides the particles into his suit.

I watch in mild amusement as Scott disappears and then reappears immediately after, an embarrassed look on his face as he opens his suit helmet, "One test run." He corrects.

Rhodey scoffs, hanging his head with a sarcastic smile on his face as Scott poorly tries to hype himself up, "Alright. I'm not ready for this." He closes his eyes as if he was bracing for something painful when I hear a voice speak up from behind me.

"I'm game." Barton calls out from where he was leaning against the glass doors, "I'll do it.". I move away from the others, claiming a seat at the back table and scrolling through the blueprints for the time machine on one of the tablets.