Five years. Five years of her life without the people Thanos snapped away. Five years of work to try to keep the world as safe as they could. To monitor any threats to the few that remained. To provide aid across the universe in any way they could. Natasha's hair had grown out past her shoulders again, her natural red roots encompassing her head once more, leaving the ends of her hair bright blonde. Ava's hair would have grown out or fallen out, but Natasha made her take care of it with good shampoos and conditioners- even going as far as giving her hair a trim when the ends would begin to fray.
Ava sat behind the desk beside Nat who stood, speaking to the others. The scent of peanut butter invaded her nose from the sandwich Natasha had made and set on a plate on the desk. She stared down at the tablet in her hands as she took notes on everything they were saying. They held group meetings like this monthly, and individual meetings every other week. The work was busy, but at least they were making an effort to keep their broken, depressive world and universe at least a little safer from wrong-doers.
Rocket and Nebula stood in one hologram projection together, Okoye in another, followed by Carol, and lastly Rhodey. Nat leaned her hands on the desk as she stood, listening to everyone share their news from their individual missions and surveillance. "Yeah, we boarded that highly-suspect warship Danvers pinged." Rocket muttered, turning his furry little head toward Carol, his teeth bared.
"It was an infectious garbage scow-" Nebula shot Carol a similar glance. If looks could kill.
"So, thanks for the hot tip." The raccoon crossed his arms.
Carol shrugged, not minding their dirty looks whatsoever. "Well, you were closer."
"Yeah, and now we smell like garbage!"
Ava chuckled lightly, looking up at them from the tablet as Natasha cut her sandwich in half with a sharp knife. She looked back down at her tablet, going over the notes from their most recent meetings. "We got a reading on those tremors?" She asked, glancing at Okoye for an answer.
Okoye clasped her hands together behind her back, lifting her chin. "'Twas a mild subduction under the African Plate."
"Do we have a visual?" Natasha asked, setting down the knife. "How are we handling it?"
The general deadpanned at the red-head, refraining from rolling her eyes. "Nat, it's an earthquake under the ocean. We handle it by not handling it." She said, her tone edging on judgment. Natasha had a habit of getting hyper-vigilant with this job. It was her desperate attempt to fix everything she could to make up for the wrongs that were caused five years ago. Ava pursed her lips, taking note of the news in her files.
Natasha took a breath to refocus herself before moving on to the next idea. "Carol, are we seeing you here next month?"
The Captain shook her head. "Not likely."
"What, you gonna get another haircut?" Rocket scoffed at her. Ava couldn't help the small smirk on her lips as she looked to see Carol glare at the talking animal. The new hair didn't look awful on her, but Ava had a preference for her longer hair. Her blonde locks were just much shorter than they all had expected when they began the meeting that evening. Short and pulled back, cut into an elongated pixie with an undercut. It was sexy and functional in their line of work- it wouldn't get in her face. Ava didn't have the confidence to cut her hair that short, but she knew how beneficial shorter hair would be.
"Listen, fur-face." Captain Marvel snapped. "I'm covering a lot of territory. The things that are happening on Earth are happening everywhere, on thousands of planets."
Rocket nodded, looking down at the ground. "All right- all right. That's a good point, that's a good point."
She sighed, turning her head to look to Natasha with a much friendlier expression. "So you guys probably won't see me for a while."
"All right, uh-" Nat brushed her palms against her thighs as she scanned across the group. "Well, this channel is always active. If anything goes sideways... Anyone's making trouble where they shouldn't... it comes through us." She pointed between herself and Ava.
Ava glanced up at her, biting the inside of her cheek, then glanced at everyone else. "Keep us updated on your missions. Reach out if you need help." She nodded. A simple end to a routine meeting, as usual. It was mundane, but it felt like it was important on some level. Even if it only meant they stopped a man from stealing an elderly woman's purse. Work, and training. Two things she shared with Natasha that kept them both sane. Natasha had grown to be like a sister to her, the two of them being the only ones to consistently live in the compound still. Steve visited often, and Nebula and Rocket would sleep over when they weren't out on missions. But mostly, it was just the two women. They needed each other through all of this anyway.
The crew of Avengers said their okays and their goodbyes before they signed off. Nat sat down next to Ava, picking up one half of the sandwich she'd made. Ava closed her tablet cover and tossed it onto the desk, sighing as she looked at the time on her watch. A blue light caught the corner of her eye and she turned her head to see Rhodey still signed on, watching them with a small frown.
"Where are you?"
Rhodey glanced down at his shoes momentarily. "Mexico." He replied. "The Federales found a room full of bodies. Looks like a bunch of cartel guys... never even had a chance to get their guns off."
Ava shrugged one shoulder and leaned back into her chair, kicking her feet up onto the desk as she crossed her arms. "Probably a rival gang."
The man started to shake his head, his chocolate-brown eyes shifting over to Natasha. Reluctance. Ava could see it clear as day. He hated to tell the truth, but it was needed. "It's definitely Barton." He said, causing Natasha to look up at him. She pressed her lips together, feeling her cheeks go warm. Ava frowned and looked at Nat, knowing that it was hard on her friend to know that Clint was rogue, slaughtering common criminals by the handfuls. It wasn't like him- at least, the him that Natasha had known during the glory days of SHIELD and the Avengers. Now, he was a brutish mercenary, working on his own. Sure, he was killing bad people- but it was violent. Gory. Angry. It wasn't about saving innocent people for him, no. It was his way of venting. Dealing with things. Dealing with the loss of his family. Natasha hadn't heard from him since before the snap. "What he's done here... what he's been doing the last few years... I mean the scene he left-"
Natasha stared down at the peanut butter oozing out of the bread in her hand, tears building up behind her long lashes. She bit down on her tongue, trying to distract herself enough to keep her chin from quivering. Ava swallowed, reaching a hand over to lightly rest on her friend's forearm. Natasha typically found more comfort from touch instead of words- but nobody else besides Barton himself knew that. "There's a part of me that doesn't even wanna find him." Rhodey spoke slowly.
"Will you find out where he's going next?" Natasha asked rather quickly after swallowing down the lump in her throat. She brought the sandwich to her lips and took a quick bite, acting like she was fine. "Please?" She mumbled, trying not to flash the chewed-up food in her mouth.
Rhodey hesitated, placing his hands on his hips with a sigh. For Natasha's sanity, he would do it. But only because of her, not because he wanted to find Barton. "Okay." He whispered, letting his eyes stay on the two women for a few seconds longer before he signed off.
As soon as he was gone, Nat tossed the sandwich onto the plate on the desk as her lip began to tremble, her eyes squeezing shut. Ava quickly stood, moving closer to her friend. Natasha brought her hands to her face, her fingers pressed to the corners of her eyes as she held in a sob despite some of her tears coming to the surface, sliding down her cheeks. The blonde wrapped her arms around Natasha, letting the Black Widow rest against her shoulder. She closed her eyes, rubbing her hand across Natasha's back between her shoulders. "We'll get him... We'll bring him home." She whispered, hugging her friend tight. Natasha was always there when Ava needed her to be. It was only right that Ava was there for her too.
"You know, I'd offer to cook you dinner, but you seem pretty miserable already."
Ava pulled away, looking over her shoulder toward the voice in the doorway. Steve leaned against the door frame, offering Natasha a sad smile. Nat immediately wiped her cheeks and inhaled, looking up at Steve as she settled her hands in her lap. "You here to do your laundry?" She asked, voice steady as if she hadn't been crying a moment before.
Steve had obviously seen her crying but he didn't comment on it. Instead, he shrugged and stood upright before he strolled over to the desk, pulling out a chair across from them. "And to see my friends."
Nat rolled her eyes and sat up, pushing her plate across the desk to Steve. "Clearly, your friends are fine."
Ava puffed out a small breath of air as she sat down, barely smiling. Fine was far from the truth, but it was a word she could settle on instead of the truth. The truth was- she was depressed. She still hurt, even after all this time. But it was becoming normal at this point- to be in pain. To be on the verge of tears all day every day.
"You know, I saw a pod of whales when I was coming over the bridge." He said and lowered himself into his seat.
"In the Hudson?" Ava raised her brows.
The Captain smiled, tilting his head as he looked down at his ring of keys in his palm. "Fewer ships... cleaner water."
"If you are about to tell us to look on the bright side, I will punch you in the head with that sandwich Natasha so graciously put together." Ava pointed at it, mostly joking. Mostly.
Steve smiled again and held up his hands in defense. "Sorry- force of habit."
Nat leaned back in her chair, wrapping her arms around herself as she looked across at Steve. "How is counseling, by the way? Helping anyone make any breakthroughs?"
He let out a long exhale, dropping his hands to the bends in his elbows. He paused for a long time, running his tongue between his lips as he stared at the desktop. After he thought, he lifted his eyes to Natasha, looking back and forth between her and Ava. "I keep telling everybody they should move on... grow... some do." He said, "But not us."
"Not us." Ava whispered, feeling herself begin to frown. Her hand lifted to her chest, grasping the dog tags hanging around her neck. How could she move on? The love of her life, the man she was engaged to, vanished from her grasp without a chance to say goodbye. The look of fear and confusion in his eyes still haunted her dreams at night, even all this time later.
Natasha inhaled deeply, shaking her head. "If we move on, who does this?"
"Maybe it doesn't need to be done." Steve mumbled.
Ava looked up at him, shaking her head. "I can't speak for Nat..." She muttered. "But this... it needs to be done. Maybe the world or the universe doesn't need it, but I do... working- it keeps me from falling back into the place I was in five years ago. And the idea that I could go back to that is terrifying. He wouldn't like it. I don't like it... Working is healthier. I can at least try to make a difference for other people that lost loved ones too."
She felt a gentle hand come to rest on her arm, seeing Nat sitting forward from the corner of her eye as she and Steve held eye contact. He understood her. He heard her. Hell, he couldn't move on either. His eyes went to Natasha as she began to speak. "I used to have nothing." She said sadly. "And then I got this... this job... this family. I was better because of it. And even though they're gone... I'm still trying to be better."
Steve started to nod, his eyes losing a little of the light within them. "I think we all need to get a life."
"You first." Nat smiled a little bit, swiping a notification away as it popped up on an interactive hologram screen in front of her.
The notification slid away, landing against the display screen to the right of the desk. Each of their faces paled as they heard a voice shouting from the intercom outside. "Oh, hi, hi! Is anyone home?" They each spun their heads around, eyes wide as they took in the image. On the screen, a slender man waved his hands at the camera outside desperately. Ava recognized his narrow face from the census five years ago. "This is, uh, Scott Lang! We met a few years ago at the airport in Germany!"
Scott Lang had helped Steve in Bucky some years back escape from Tony when the Sokovia Accords were placed. He'd been placed on house arrest, but he'd been reported seen in San Fransisco as a giant, Empire-State-Building sized man, but there was no hard evidence for the FBI. Shortly after, he was reported missing by his ex-wife and daugher when the census was taken the weeks following the terror Thanos caused.
Steve stood up, forehead wrinkling with tension. "Is this an old message?"
A shuddering breath escaped Natasha as she stared bewildered at the screen." It's the front gate."
"How is that possible?" Ava stood up, mouth ajar.
"I was the guy that got really big. I had a mask on, you wouldn't recognize me-" Scott continued from outside, pacing back and forth in front of an ugly, brown 1972 Ford Ecoline that had the word X-CON painted on the side in big, bold, blue letters. It looked like a chocolate milk carton. Natasha darted her way around the desk, grabbing her grey jacket on her way out to let him in.
Steve and Ava traded looks and she stepped around the desk. Steve brought his thumbnail to his lips, watching the doorway for Natasha to return. Within moments, she was walking back into the room, absolutely speechless and confused. Scott trampled in after her, his hair was disheveled and shoulders tense. The bags under his eyes were dark and his forehead wrinkled as he started to pace throughout the room- back and forth, back and forth, hardly acknowledging anyone.
Natasha joined Ava again, still shaking her head as she turned to face their guest and crossed her arms across her chest. She brought one hand up, pressing her fingers against her chin as she tracked Scott with her eyes. Scott started to mumble to himself as he paced, shrugging and rubbing a hand down his face.
"Scott." Steve said, attempting to get his attention. Scott kept rambling quietly. "Scott, are you okay?"
Scott paused, his ramblings stopping as he looked toward Steve. "Hm? Yeah- yeah, yeah." He stumbled through his words quickly. He brought his hands to his face, rubbing his eyes as he took a breath. He had too many racing thoughts at once and he simply needed to organize them for a moment. He eventually dropped his hands, his brows rising to nearly his hairline. "Have any of you ever studied quantum physics?"
Ava frowned and tilted her head. "I heard Shuri mention it once or twice long ago, but nothing more." She shrugged her shoulders and gave glances to Steve and Natasha.
"It makes good conversation-" Natasha smirked, glancing over at Ava who simply rolled her eyes at the Avenger's sarcasm.
Scott wrenched his hands together before he pointed at the two of them, holding back a snarky remark he would usually make. He was too much in a rush to get out his ideas. "All right, so- five years ago, right before..." Scott's eyes darted back and forth at each of the three of them, jerking side to side like he was watching a laser-light-show. "Thanos..." He went on after he swallowed down the nerves rising from his chest. "I was in a place called the quantum realm. The quantum realm is like it's own microscopic universe. To get in there you have to be incredibly small. Hope, she's my, uh..." His cheeks flushed up a hue of pink, "She- she was supposed to pull me out. And then, Thanos happened and I got stuck in there."
Natasha frowned, offering her best sympathy. "I'm sorry, Scott, that must have been a very long five years."
Scott raised his brows again, shaking his head at a rapid pace. "That's just it- it wasn't. For me, it was five hours." He paused, as if he was waiting for the dramatic impact ball to drop- and it did. Only five hours? Ava felt a frown tug at the corners of her lips as she shifted over her feet, listening closely when Scott began to speak again. "See, the rules of the quantum realm aren't like they are up here. Everything is unpredictable." He said, suddenly pointing toward the desk, his eyes remaining on Natasha. "Is that anybody's sandwich? I'm starving."
Ava smiled a little, turning to grab the plate. She held it out toward him, letting him take one half of it before she took the half Natasha had been eating. He seemed like a squirrel, high on sugar and bouncing around from one sentence to the next. She set down the plate as he took a bite, chewing like a starved dog, mouth open and fast. The blonde grimaced at him and took a bite of her half, the peanutbutter sticking to the roof of her mouth.
"So," Scott started again as he continued to chew. "What I'm saying is... time works differently in the quantum realm. The only problem is, right now we don't have a way to navigate it. But, what if we did?" Steve turned his head, looking at Natasha. The red-head pursed her lips, thinking. Analyzing what Scott was saying. Ava processed his words, swallowing her bite of sandwich. Time... time marched on, taking what it wanted from who it wanted to take it from- time didn't care if there was too much or too little of it for something to work. Time was rarely on anyone's side. Ava wished she had more time. Time with T'Challa. Time with Shuri. Time with Bucky. There wasn't a day that had gone by in the last five years where she didn't think of them.
Scott stuffed another bite in his mouth, starting to pace again as he got excited, his brows never coming back down. His hands moved wildly as he talked, exaggerating his sentences and drove his heart rate up. "I can't stop thinking about it! What if we could somehow control the chaos and we could navigate it? What if there was a way that we could enter the quantum realm at a certain point in time, but then exit at another point in time? Like- like before Thanos." He paused, looking up at Steve as he swallowed again, taking a breath from talking, chewing, and walking so fast.
Natasha stayed in silent thought as Steve felt himself begin to smirk- an old man from the forties, imagining the idea of traveling through time... it was insane. It was wild. It was... a sci-fi, nerd induced dream. A dream he liked. "Are you talking about a time machine?"
"No. No, of course not. No, not a time machine. This is more like a... Y-yeah, like a time machine." Scott rambled again, fidgetting with the last bit of sandwich in his hands. He blinked a few times and shook his head, pink hues highlighting his cheeks and forehead. "I know- it's crazy. It's crazy... But I can't stop thinking about it! There's gotta be- some wa-" He puffed out a flustered breath, shaking his head again. "It's crazy-"
"Scott," Natasha finally spoke up, keeping her arms crossed and fingers at her chin. "I get emails from a raccoon. Nothing sounds crazy anymore."
Scott looked at her, taking in a much needed deep breath. "So who do we talk to about this?"
Ava and Steve and Natasha knew exactly who, and they all thought about it at the same time. Ava trapped her lower lip between her teeth and set her half-sandwich back down on the desk. "Do you think he would even help us?"
Steve shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, contemplating the odds. "I don't know."
"Who? Who would help us?" Scott's eyes darted between them.
Ava looked at him again and stuffed her hands into her back pockets. "Stark."
"Stark?" His brows raised up again. "Like- like Tony Stark?"
**********
It was lunch time. Nobody had eaten yet, their nerves too high to think about food. Flecks of golden sun bounced off the glass of the car windows as they drove the dirt road through the trees toward Tony's home. Ava hadn't talked to Tony in a long time. In fact, none of them had. When he moved, he had told them they were always welcome to reach out if they needed it- but they knew that Tony was ready to leave everything in the past and adapt to this new life and this new world. He was scared of Thanos, and he had Pepper still. He didn't feel like he needed to do anything else. At least, on the surface. Deep down within his gut, Tony Stark wasn't ready to quit. He wasn't ready to lay down and take this loss. He'd lost too much. And the guilt was eating him alive. It was a fact that he didn't want anyone to see, even himself, so he buried it deep, deeo down within himself with all of the other trauma he stored in mental lock-boxes.
Ava stepped out of the car once Steve had parked, breathing in the fresh, crisp air of the forest surrounding them. Birds chirped in the canopy above, and a small smile formed on her lips as she looked toward the massive, rustic cabin ahead. At the bottom of the steps to the porch, Tony stood watching them. In his arms was a little, dark-haired girl, hugging onto his navy-blue sweater. Tony looked healthier- happier too, from the last Ava had seen him. Tony looked back at them, staying silent but smiling just a little to see four familiar faces once they'd all gotten out of the car and looked up at him.
He looked down at the girl in his arm, deciding not to say anything as he turned and stepped onto the porch. But he did want to talk to them. It had been years. Hesitating, he turned around again and opened his mouth to talk, taking a moment to choose his words. When he couldn't pick the right ones to say, he turned around again and walked inside.
**********
Tony stayed silent as he poured chocolate milk into the glasses on the tray. "We- we know what it sounds like." Scott stammered, taking a glass as Tony offered it to him.
"Tony, after everything you've seen, is anything really possible?" Steve asked, holding up a hand to deny the offer of a glass of milk.
Tony held out a glass to Ava, which she took gingerly into her hands. "Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?" He handed the last glass to Natasha and glanced up at Steve. "In layman's terms, it means you're not coming home."
"I did." Scott countered.
"No," Stark remarked as he lowered himself into his rocking chair beside the small table. "You accidentally survived. It's a billion-to-one cosmic fluke. And now you want to pull a... what do you call it?"
Scott shrugged a little, making himself frown to hide the urge to smile. "Time heist?"
"Yeah," Tony scoffed. "Of course. A time heist." He turned his attention to Steve, narrowing his eyes at the captain. "Why didn't we think of this before? Oh! Because it's laughable. Because it's a pipedream."
"The stones are in the past." Steve said, placing his hands on his hips. "If we can go back, we can get them."
"We can snap our own fingers. We can bring everybody back." Natasha added.
Tony eyed her, blinking a couple of times. "Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?"
"I don't believe we would." Steve said.
Tony clicked his tongue, shaking his head as he turned his head to Steve again. "Gotta say it, sometimes I do miss that giddy optimism." He said, causing Steve to sigh. "However, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said time heist. I believe the outcome would be our collective demise." He lowered himself into a wicker chair beside the glasstop table on the porch, running his thumb along the rim of his glass of milk.
Ava thumbed the dog tags she wore, listening close to everything being said as she stood against the log railing of the porch. She took a sip of the chocolate milk in her grasp before she set the glass down on the table between her and Tony. She took a seat in the second chair to the left of him.
"Not if we strictly follow the rules of time-travel." Scott mentioned. "It means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sporting events-"
"I'm gonna stop you right there, Scott." Tony interrupted, holding a hand up. "Are you seriously telling me that your plan to save the universe is based on Back To The Future? Is it?"
Scott scoffed, supressing another smile as he shook his head. He was immediately embarrassed, and like a child caught with their hand in a cookie jar, he deflected. "N-no."
"Good, you had me worried there, because that'd be horsesh*t. That's not how quantum physics works."
Ava closed her eyes, images of Bucky's vanishing figure flashing through her mind. "Tony," She said, her voice trembling. She opened her eyes, looking at the man seated beside her. She swallowed the building lump in her throat as she sank down in the chair behind her, leaning her elbows forward on her knees. "We have to take a stand."
Tony turned his head to her, a puff of air leaving his nose. He could see the redness of her eyes, the way her knuckles went white from holding onto the dog-tags around her neck so tightly. "We did stand." He said, sorry to admit it. "And yet, here we are."
She ran her tongue against the inside of her lip, looking down at her clutched fist. "I know you have a lot on the line." She muttered. "A wife- a daughter... But I lost someone very important to me." She raised her blue eyes back up to Tony, tears shimmering in her eyes. "A lot of people did. And now- now we have a chance to bring him back- to bring everyone back, and you're telling me you won't even-"
"That's right, Ava." Tony cut her off. He leaned back in his seat, sighing again. "I won't even. I can't."
Ava bit the inside of her cheek, sucking in a breath as she sat back, still clinging to the tags labeled with Bucky's name. The door into the cabin squeaked open, and small feet trotted across the porch. The little girl from earlier crawled into Tony's lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Mommy told me to come and save you." She hummed, laying her head on his shoulder.
Tony wrapped his arms tight around her and stood up. "Good job, I'm saved." He said, glancing around at the four guests. "I wish you were coming here to ask me something else. Anything else. I'm honestly happy to see you guys, I just-" He started to walk to the front door to go inside, pausing and turning to look at them when he reached the entryway. "Oh, look- the table is set for seven-"
"Tony," Steve frowned, shifting his weight over his feet. "I get it. And I'm happy for you, I really am. But this is a second chance."
Ava stood up from the chair, shoving her hands into her pockets as she stepped closer. Tony shook his head, pressing his lips together. "I got my second chance right here, Cap. Can't roll the dice on it." He swallowed and looked back at everyone else. "If you don't talk shop, you can stay for lunch." He said and turned away, going inside.
Steve's lips pressed into a thin line as the door clattered shut in front of him and he dropped his hands to his sides. Ava wrapped her arms around herself, following when Steve lead everyone off of the porch to the car again. "Well, he's scared." Nat said, going to the passenger side door, tugging it open as Steve went to the driver's door.
"He's not wrong." Steve nodded, squinting against the sunlight at her.
"But what are we- what are we gonna do?" Scott asked as Ava opened the rear door. "We need him. What, are we gonna stop?"
Steve was shaking his head again. "No, I wanna do it right." He sighed. "We're gonna need a really big brain."
"Bigger than his?" Scott asked, pointing his thumb over at the cabin.
**********
Ava wiped her brow, her hand going slick with sweat. She panted heavily, glancing at Natasha who was breathing just as hard. The two of them had taken to sparring again, training to let out their frustrations. Ava's hair was falling out of the ragged bun atop her head in damp strings, as Nat's hair frizzed out of her braid. "I kicked your ass." She grinned at the red-head and picked up her bottle of water from the bench outside the padded floor.
"No, I'm pretty sure I kicked yours." Nat said and picked up a towel to wipe off her face.
"Hey, Nat." Ava smirked at her, holding both of her hands up like she was surrendering. "Ask me if I'm a tree."
Natasha's brows slowly slid up her forehead as she stared at her blonde friend. "Are... you a tree?"
Ava shook her head simply, dropping her hands. "No."
Natasha let out an amused snort and shook her head as she moved to take a seat on the bench. "What the hell was that about?"
"It was something Shuri used to do to me." Ava smiled fondly at the memories. She sipped at her water, taking a deep breath right after before continuing on. "Any time we argued and she thought she was right, she would have me ask if she was a tree, and she would say no. Her excuse was that if I was stupid enough to think she was a tree, she had to be right." She chuckled again and lowered herself onto the bench to sit during their break.
Natasha smiled a little, humming a soft laugh while nodding. "She sounded fun." She said.
"She was."
"Hey, I just got off the phone with Bruce." Steve said as he walked into the training room, his feet thudding loudly on the floor. The two women looked up at them from where they sat, sitting up taller to listen. "I explained everything to him and he said he wants to meet for breakfast tomorrow to talk about it. He's gonna text me the restaurant name."
**********
"Come on, I feel like I'm the only one eating here." Bruce motioned to the table. Ava scoffed a little, bringing her coffee cup to her lips to take a sip. The bitter, black drink was enough to quiet her stomach. The stench of grease from the pile of sausages in front of Bruce dampened everyone's appetites. He scooted the massive bowl of scrambled eggs toward Scott, who gaped up at the large, green, Hulk-Man.
Scott's mouth still hung open as he stared at Bruce dumbfounded. "I'm so confused-" He finally spoke up.
Bruce chuckled, picking up a burrito the size of a small dog. "These are confusing times."
"Right- no, no. That's not what I meant."
"Nah," He laughed again. "I get it. I'm kidding. I know it's crazy. I'm wearing shirts now!" He motioned to his massive self. Jeans, a shirt, a sweater- all made to fit his Hulk body.
Scott nodded. "Yeah. What? How? Why?"
Bruce took a bite of his food and picked up a napkin as he chewed. "Five years ago we got our asses beat." He muttered, mouth full of food, "Except it was worse for me 'cause I lost twice. First Hulk lost, then Banner lost. Then, we all lost." He said and swallowed.
"No one blamed you, Bruce." Natasha shook her head.
"I did-" He said rather quickly. Ava bit the inside of her cheek, tapping her fingers against the handle of her coffee mug. They all blamed themselves in one way or another. Bruce took a breath, looking at Scott again. "For years I've been treating the Hulk like he's some kind of disease. Something to get rid of. But, then I start looking at him as the cure. Eighteen months in a gamma lab. I put the brains and the brawn together. And now look at me!" He grinned, looking down at himself. "Best of both worlds."
Ava's eyes flicked toward a group of three children approaching with timid giggles and smiling faces. They reminded her of the children in Wakanda she used to teach and look after. She felt herself begin to smile, remembering how much they liked to tease Bucky while he worked outside. The young girl in the group walked up to Banner, her cheeks blushing brightly. "Excuse me, Mister Hulk?" She asked, gaining his attention. "Can we get a photo?" She asked, holding out a cellphone.
Banner smiled, holding his hand out to take the phone from her, making it look tiny within his grasp. "One-hundred percent, little person." He hummed. He looked over at Scott who was closest to him, offering him the phone that already had the camera open. "Do you mind?"
"Oh, yeah, yeah." Scott took the phone, holding it up to take the picture.
The three kids scooted in closer to Bruce with wide smiles on their faces. Bruce leaned in, grinning as he posed with a flexed arm. "Say green!" He encouraged, to which the three of them hummed out the word green as Scott snapped a few photos.
Scott leaned over again, holding out the phone. "Did you wanna grab one with me? I'm Ant-Man." He said, looking at the three kids. Ava and Nat shared a look, both women beginning to cringe as the children went quiet, staring at Scott uncomfortably. Scott smiled, shaking his head. "They're Hulk fans- they don't know Ant-Man. Nobody does." He said, holding out the phone still.
Ava's face flushed and she bit at the inside of her lip, bringing a hand to her warm cheek. The second-hand embarrassment hit everyone at the table and Ava looked away as they continued on, only making it worse.
"Oh, he wants a picture-" Bruce said, glancing at the kids, the trio of them shaking their heads and giggling nervously.
"I don't want a picture-" Scott tried to say.
The smallest of the boys shook his head, his nose scrunching up. "Stranger danger."
"I don't want a picture. Look, he's even saying no. I get it, I don't want it either."
"Come on," Bruce smiled, "The kid- but you-"
"I don't want a picture with them!"
"He's gonna feel bad." Bruce tried to bargain with the kids. He looked at Scott again, pointing his thumb to the kids. "They're happy to do it-"
"We can do it." The tallest boy nodded.
Scott's face was turning bright red as he shook his head again and again. "I don't want it- I don't want it! Take the goddamned phone." He puffed.
The girl reached out and snagged it away from him, glancing at the two boys with a curt smile. "Thank you, Mister Hulk." She said, looking to Banner again.
"You guys were great!" Bruce grinned happily at them as they wandered away. "Hulk out!"
"Bruce-" Steve tried to get his attention.
Bruce held out an arm, his nose scrunched as he smiled wider. "Dab!"
"Bruce-" Steve tried again.
"Listen to your mom. She knows better." Bruce told them as they went out the door of the cafe.
Ava let out her breath, relieved that moment was over. That had to have been the most uncomfortable conversation she had ever seen. "About what you were saying-" Steve said as Bruce turned to face them again.
"Right," He nodded and sat back. "The whole time travel do-over? Eh, guys, it's out of my area of expertise." He frowned.
Natasha sat forward and looked up at him with a soft smile. "Well, you pulled this off," She motioned to his body. "I remember a time when that seemed pretty impossible, too."