Guardian Angel | Steve Rogers

19

"What do you think?" Arden raised her eyebrow, grabbing plates off the shelf. 

"I think you're scared to open up to him." Pepper answered the rhetorical question. 

"Yeah, well, I got the answer I needed today." 

"Which is what?" Pepper asked, looking up from the cutting board. 

"To move on." Arden answered, giving a defeated smile. 

Pepper returns the weak smile, putting a hand over Arden's. Suddenly, Arden takes in a deep breath, closing her eyes, Pepper grows worried until her eyes open back up.

"You have guests." Arden informs her, feeling the presence of others. 

"Morgan's out there." Pepper drops the knife on the cutting board, turning to go outside but Arden stops her by putting a hand on her arm. 

"It's okay. They're friends." Arden reassures her. Pepper lets out a sigh of relief, peeking out the window above the sink, seeing a car pull up by the house.

"I'll get Morgan." Arden adds, walking out onto the porch, watching Steve, Nat, and Scott Lang stand by the car.

When her eyes meet Steve's, it was like the decision to move on had washed away. From the last time she saw him almost a year ago, he looked like a new man. Shaved face, with the sun lightening pieces of his hair, she forced herself to break the eye contact, looking over at Nat, who nodded at her. Then looking over at Tony as he walked onto the porch with Morgan, she turned back to Nat, nodding back at her.

"Hey squirt, why don't you go inside and help mommy with lunch?" Arden insisted, pulling her from Tony's arms, and setting her down to run inside. As Steve, Nat and Scott made their way onto the porch, Tony and Arden led them to the corner of the porch.

"I'm gonna grab us some tea." Arden blurts out, walking inside.

Putting together a tray of cups and a pitcher of sweet tea, Pepper could see the tension that built into Arden's shoulders.

"Take a breath." Pepper advised her, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Arden gripped the edge of the counter, trying not to squeeze too hard to break the marble, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath as advised. Opening her eyes, she took the tray outside, setting it on the table.

"Scott." Nat initiated the conversation, nodding at him.

"Right. First off, Tony, good to see you again. And Arden, heard a lot about you. Nice to meet you." Scott rambled, awkwardly smiling at the two.

After sending back awkward smiles, he began talking about the quantum realm and how he was stuck there, going on about his theory and plan about building a time machine.

"Now, we know what it sounds like." Scott commented, putting his hands up.

"Tony, Arden, after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible?" Steve asked, the first time he spoke to Arden, even though it wasn't exactly directly.

"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck scale... which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?" Tony interrupts Steve, looking over at Arden, taking a step forward to hand Steve and Nat a glass.

"Thank you." Steve mutters to Tony, but his eyes were on Arden.

"What Tony means is, you're not coming home." Arden explained for Tony.

"I did." Scott countered.

"No. You accidentally survived." Tony corrected. "It's a billion-to-one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull a... What do you call it?"