" No? What do you mean no?" Bruce asks in his astral form.
" You know, I kind of prefer you the other way now," Lauren says.
" If you do not want the stone... then why are you here?" The Ancient One asks.
" Lauren... we've been working on this for weeks. As a team. Think about everything we've lost," Bruce says.
" Think about everything we could lose," Lauren says.
" We couldn't have had this conversation before I became a ghost?" Bruce asks.
" It's called astral projection, genius," She says as she crosses her arms.
The Ancient One begins to walk away, but Bruce follows after her and pleads.
" If I give up the time stone to help your reality, I'm dooming my own," She says.
" I'm not sure the science really supports that," Bruce says.
Lauren chuckles at his words.
The Ancient One creates a line with her orange/gold magic, along with an illusion of the Infinity Stones surrounding the line.
" The Infinity Stones create what you experience as the flow of time. Remove one of the stones, " She says, then removes the time stone from the line, " and that flow splits. Now, this may benefit your reality, but my new one, not so much. In this new branch reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness our world would be overrun. Millions will suffer. So, tell me, Doctor, can your science prevent all that?"
" No... but we can erase it, because once we're done with the stones, we can return each one to its own timeline at the moment it was taken," Bruce says as he puts the time stone back on the line," So, chronologically, in that reality it never left.
" Yes, but you're leaving out the most important part. In order to return the stones, you have to survive," The Ancient One says.
" We will. I will. I promise," Bruce says.
" I can't risk this reality on a promise," She says, " It's the duty of the Sorcerer Supreme to protect the Time Stone."
"
The Ancient One tries to walk away once more, and Bruce motions for Lauren to do something. She rolls her eyes, but quickly and effortlessly creates a forcefield around the Ancient One.
" Your powers have certainly grown, " The Ancient One says as she turns around.
" Why the hell did Strange give away the stone?" Bruce says.
Finally, they caught the attention of the most powerful sorcerer... in this time.
" What did you say?" The Ancient One asks.
" Strange. He gave it away, he gave it to Thanos," Bruce says.
" Willingly?"
" Yes."
" Why?"
" I have no idea. Maybe he made a mistake."
" Or I did."
At that, the Ancient One moves her hand to connect Bruce with his physical body. She opens the eye of Agamotto, and removes the time stone.
" Strange was meant to be the best of us," The Ancient One says as she holds the stone up to Bruce.
" So he must've done it for a reason," Bruce says.
" I fear you might be right," She says, then hands the stone to Bruce.
" Thank you," He says.
The Ancient One looks over to Lauren, then flicks her wrist to bring her closer.
" You... are our last hope. You have the power to defeat great evil... but you must be careful. The powers the stones gave you were neutral. A blank page. The page can either be light... or it can be a great darkness, " The Ancient One says, " Whatever happens... you mustn't cross over to the other side."
While vague, Lauren understands. She and Big Green leave the sanctum. Bruce gears up to head back to their time, and Lauren insists he leave without her. She wants to make sure the others didn't mess up.
She finds Tony and Scott sitting in a car blankly staring out the window.
" What... the hell... did you do?" Lauren asks.
Within seconds, Steve jogs up to them.
" Did you get the Time Stone?" He asks.
" Bruce is already back," Lauren says.
Steve looks at the two in the car and sighs.
" We got a problem," Tony says.
" Yeah we do," Scott scoffs.
After they explain their story about how Hulk busted through the stairs and Loki took the space stone, Lauren rests her head in her hands.
" You had one job... one job!" She exclaims.
" What are we gonna do now?" Steve asks.
" You know what? Give me a break. I just got hit in the head with the Hulk," Tony says.
And in response, Lauren flicks him in the forehead.
" Really?" He asks from his seat in the car.
All she does is shrug.
" You said that we had one shot. This was our shot. We shot it. It's shot. Six stones or nothing. It was six stones or nothing," Scott says in his normal panicky tone.
" You're repeating yourself. You know that? You're repeating yourself," Tony says.
" You're repeating yourself. You're repeating yourself."
" Dude. Come on!."
" You never wanted a time heist. You weren't on board with the time heist."
"I dropped the ball."
" You ruined the time heist."
" Is that what I did?"
" Yeah."
With their bickering, Lauren pinches the bridge of her nose to try and soothe her headache.
" Are there any other options with the Tesseract?" Steve asks.
" No, no, no, there's no other options. There's no do-overs. We're not going anywhere else. We have one particle left. Each. That's it, alright? We use that... bye-bye, you're not going home," Scott says.
" Yeah, well if we don't try... then no one else is going home, either," Steve says.
A lightbulb goes off above Tony's head as he gets up out of the car.
" I got it," He says, " There's another way to retake the Tesseract and acquire new particles. Little stroll down memory lane. Military installation, Garden State."
Both Lauren and Steve know exactly what Tony's referring to. It's a shot. It's their one shot. Steve ponders for a moment.
" When were they both there?" Steve asks.
" They were there at a time... I have a vaguely exact idea," Tony says.
" Vague or exact?" Lauren asks as she crosses her arms.
" Vaguely exact," He repeats.
" What are you talking about? Where are we going?" Scott asks.
" I know for a fact they were there," Tony says.
" Who's they? What are we doing?"
Steve and his wife lock eyes, both expressing their concern without speaking.
" Guys, what is it?"
" Looks like we're improvising," Steve says.
" Great," Tony says.
" What are we improvising?" Scott asks.
" Lauren, Scott, get this back to the compound," Steve says as he hands Scott the scepter.
" I'm coming with you," Lauren says.
She might not think this mission is the best idea, but she's certainly not letting her husband go alone.
" It's dangerous," Steve says.
" Is that supposed to make me scared?" She asks, " I'm coming with you."
Her voice comes from a place of authority, and not a place of asking.
" Alright, suit up, " Tony says, " 0-4."
" What's in New Jersey?" Scott asks.
" 0-7," Tony says.
" Excuse me."
" 1-9-7-0."
" Are you sure?" Steve asks.
" Cap, Captain, Steve? Sorry. America. Rogers," Scott fumbles, " Look, if you do this, and it doesn't work, you're not coming back."
His words make them all tense up.
" Thanks for the peptalk, pissant, " Tony says, " You trust me?"
Steve and Lauren look at each other, then look back at Tony.
" We do," Steve says.
" Your call."
" Here we go."
They all press the button to activate their quantum suits, then disappear into the quantum realm.
All the way back to 1970.