PIETRO coughed as he materialized in a random street of New York in the year 2012. Tony grabbed his arm to keep him steady as they could see Chitauri snarling at the familiar circle up of the original Avengers. Pietro's eyes widened as a suit flew out of nowhere and attached itself to 2012 Lyra Redfield as she smirked at the creatures around her while blood trailed down her face. She looked confident. Young. Ready for battle. Her helmet fipped down, blocking her face from view.
"There she is," Pietro whispered as their suits were retracted. "She's badass."
Tony's eyes were on her as well. "Yeah, kid. There she is."
"All right, we all have our assignments. Two Stones uptown, one Stone, down. Stay low. Keep an eye on the clock," Steve said. 2012 Hulk passed them as he smashed everything in his path. Bruce placed a hand on his face in shame. Pietro sniggered as Steve added, "Feel free to smash a few things along the way."
Bruce began to rip off his shirt as he rolled his eyes. "I think it's gratuitous, but whatever." He stalked over to a car, lightly punching to make a small dent. He picked up a motorbike and threw it into a wall.
"Pietro, you're with me," Steve reminded as Tony suited up in his Iron Man suit for the first time in five years. Pietro nodded, speeding off. Steve sighed. "Doesn't know where he's going, damn speeding—" he ran off.
"Ready?" Tony asked Scott. Scott nodded eagerly before shrinking using his Ant Man suit. Tony made sure he had a good grip on him before flying up to see around the Stark Tower. "Got to hustle, Cap. Things look like they're just about wrapped up here," he said as he saw Lyra spinning around his past self before kissing him lightly on the lips. "This is hard to watch."
"Got it. We're approaching the elevator now," Steve said. "Don't talk to her, Tony."
"I know," he whispered back as he landed and walked into the room as his suit retracted. He was watching the back of their old selves.
"If it's all the same to you... I'll have that drink now," Loki said with a smirk.
Past Tony ignored him and looked at the rest of them. "All right, get him on his feet. We can all stand around posing up a storm later. By the way, feel free to clean up."
Lyra laughed, and Tony's heart clenched. "Yeah right. It'll be me cleaning this up later, Tone."
Tony smirked to himself as he watched himself squeeze Lyra's hips as he whispered something to her. His eyes moved to past Steve. "Uh, Mr. Rogers. I almost forgot that that suit did nothing for your ass."
"No one asked you to look, Tony," Steve called back.
"It's ridiculous," Tony muttered.
"I think you look great, Cap. As far as I'm concerned, that's America's ass," Scott countered.
"Oh, now, I want to compare," Pietro's voice broke through with a chuckle as the elevator opened to reveal Rumlow and Sitwell.
"Who gets the, uh, magic wand?" Natasha asked.
Tony noticed Lyra was watching Rumlow suspiciously, and he wondered if she had a feeling they were bad long before they knew.
Sitwell grabbed it from Natasha's hands. "We can take that off your hands."
"By all means. Careful with that thing," Natasha said.
"Unless you want your mind erased. And not in a fun way," Clint retorted with a smirk as he grabbed Natasha a drink.
Sitwell smiled. "We promise to be careful."
"Who are these guys?" Scott asked.
Tony sighed. "They are S.H.I.E.L.D. Well, actually Hydra. But, we didn't know that yet."
Scott scoffed. "Seriously, you didn't? I mean... they look like bad guys."
"You're small, but you're talking loud," Tony said instead.
"On my way down to coordinate search and rescue," past Steve said, walking to the elevator.
"On my way down to coordinate search and rescue!" Loki said as he transformed into Steve for a moment. After he transformed back, he rolled his eyes. "I mean, honestly! How do you think you'll be—"
Thor placed something on his mouth. "Shut up."
"Please," Lyra added with a scowl. "I'm so over your brother, Thor."
"Adopted," both Thor and Loki said, though Loki's was muffled.
Tony smiled at her before looking down at Scott. "All right, you're up, little buddy."
"All right. Flick me."
Tony flicked Scott right to the Tesseract case, grinning when Scott landed and began to climb up Tony's past self. Tony quickly jumped from the building as his suit formed again.
Tony smirked as he hovered in the air and eyed the elevator. "All right, Cap. I got our scepter in the elevator just passing the 80th floor."
"On it. Head to the lobby," Steve said.
"All right. I'll see you there, Scott," Tony sang as he landed and let his suit retract. He send an injection at the nearest guard before dragging him into a closet and stealing his outfit. Walking out, he tried to looked normal as he saw the Avengers from 2012 getting out of the elevator. "Pietro, you good?"
"Sitwell did not trust me, but we got the scepter," Pietro called back. "I think the accent helped."
"Great. Thumbelina, do you copy? I've got eyes on the prize. It's go-time," Tony said.
"Bombs away. Is... is that Axe body spray?"
Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I had a can just for emergencies. Relax. Can we focus, please?"
"I'm going inside you now."
Pierce walked up to the group with stern eyes. "May I ask you where you're going?"
Thor looked at him oddly. "To lunch and then Asgard. I'm sorry, you are?"
Past Tony gestured to him. "Alexander Pierce. He's the man. One of the folks behind Nick Fury."
"My friends call me Mr. Secretary. I'm gonna have to ask you to turn that prisoner over to me," Pierce said.
"Loki will be answering to Odin himself," Thor responded.
Pierce nodded. "Oh, he's gonna answer to us. Odin can have what's left. And I'm gonna need that case, that's been S.H.I.E.L.D. property for over 70 years."
"Hand over the case, Stark."
Tony turned as they all began fighting. "All right, move it, Stuart Little. Things are getting dicey up here. Let's go."
"You promise me you won't die?"
"You're only giving me a mild cardiac dysrhythmia."
"That doesn't sound mild."
"Do it, Lang! Window's closing. Pull my pin!"
"Here goes!"
Past Tony fell to the ground as he convulsed. Lyra yelled, "Tony! Tony, what happened?"
"Look, he's convulsing. Give him air! Medic!" Pierce yelled.
Tony screamed, "MEDIC! You guys, some help!" Lyra's head jerked at the voice, eyes looking around to see who had said it. Tony cursed when her eyes met his, and he quickly looked away.
Ant Man pushed the case. Loki watched the case fly across the room as Tony grabbed it.
"Good job. Meet me in the alley. I'm gonna grab a quick slice." Suddenly, the Hulk broke through the door sending Tony flying as it hit him. The case opened as the Tesseract slid right to Loki. Loki rose his eyebrows as he grabbed it and disappeared.
"That wasn't supposed to happen, was it?" Scott asked.
"Oh, we blew it."
Tony and Scott were sitting in a broken car, both dejected as they knew they screwed up. Pietro came running past with a beaming grin before he realized he had passed them up. He turned back and laughed.
"He had to fight himself! I tried to help, but he told me not to. I did not see that coming!" Pietro laughed. He realized the other pair were not successful, and his grin fell. "Oh."
Steve made it to them as Tony called, "Cap–" Steve looked at them worriedly. "Sorry, buddy. We got a problem."
Scott sniffed. "Huh. Yeah, we do."
Pietro frowned. "Well, what are we gonna do now?"
"You know what? Give me a break, Speedster. I just got hit in the head with the Hulk," Tony replied.
"You said that we had one shot. This—this was our shot. We shot it. It's shot. Six stones or nothing. Six stones or nothing–" Scott said to Steve.
Tony eyed Scott as he jumped out of the car. "You're repeating yourself, you know that? You're repeating yourself."
"You're repeating yourself. You're repeating yourself. You know–No."
Tony closed his eyes. "Dude, come on."
"You never wanted a time heist, you went on board with the time heist—"
"I dropped the ball," Tony agreed.
"You ruined the time heist."
"Tony?" a very familiar voice echoed around the alley.