"I am so confused,"
Sat at a diner in New York, Bruce Banner sat before the team at the end of the table, shoveling food into his face. Except, this Bruce wasn't the one that they had always known. Instead, in the five years between the snap and now, Bruce had found a way to merge him and the Hulk into one body.
"These are confusing times,"
"That's not what I meant-"
"No, I get it. I'm kidding! I know. It's crazy. I'm wearing shirts now!"
Lottie sighed, leaning back into Steve's chest as his arm stayed wrapped around her shoulders. Natasha sat on her other-side across from Scott Lang, the entire trio on that side of the table completely done with what was going on in front of them.
"I'm just...mind blown," Scott looked at the trio with wide eyes, seeing how completely done they looked before turning back to Bruce. "How?"
"Five years ago, we got our asses beat. Except it was worse for me. Because I lost twice. First, Hulk lost, then Banner lost. Then, we all lost. I blamed myself. For years, I've been treating the Hulk like he's some kind of disease, something to get rid of. But then I started 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. Best of both worlds..."
The trio could only sit and watch as a group of children walked up to the table, smiles on their faces as they handed their phone to Bruce and asked for a picture. Lottie couldn't help but smile as she watched them. Seeing children with genuine smiles on their faces in times like these wasn't something they saw often.
Scott took the phone from Bruce, holding it up for the photo as Bruce brought the kids in.
"Say 'GREEN'!"
"Green!"
"Do you guys want to grab a picture with me?" Scott asked them. "I'm Ant-Man...of course, no one knows Ant-Man."
"No, no, he feels bad. No, he wants you to...he wants to... You want to take a picture with him, right?"
"I don't want a picture with them-"
"I'm actually going to lose my mind," Lottie mumbled under her breath, gaining low, but annoyed chuckles from both Nat and Steve.
Steve tightened his grip on his wife, growing more annoyed by the second as Bruce finally let the kids walk away.
"Bruce," Steve's call didn't gain the man's attention. "Bruce!"
The man finally turned, shoveling more food into his mouth as he looked at the team before him.
"Can we get back to the topic at hand?" Lottie asked, an annoyed smile on her lips as Bruce sheepishly nodded.
"Right. The whole time travel do-over? Guys, it's outside my area of expertise," Bruce told them with a shrug.
"It's out of mine too, but we have to try," the man looked to Lottie as she spoke. "We're the only shot we have. If I read a couple more pages on Quantum Physics, maybe we can combine our brains and make this work. We have to try."
"Plus, I remember a time when we thought this was impossible," Natasha told him with a little smile, gesturing to his new physical status.
Bruce sighed, looking down at his coffee mug before back up at the team.
"I can't promise anything, but we can try,"
◼ ◼ ◼
"Okay, here we go. Time travel test number one. Scott, fire up the uhhh... the van thing,"
The ugly brown van that Scott had arrived in sat inside of the Avengers Compound in front of the team. Scott gave them a nod, opening the back doors as he fired up the Quantum Realm generator inside, the lights and colors flashing as the plan was set in place.
Lottie stood beside Bruce, going over the multiple controls on the panel before them as over the checksheets on the clipboards. Natasha stood off to the side, watching nervously as Scott prepared his suit.
"Breakers are set and emergency generators are up and running," Steve told the team as he reentered the room. He walked forward, placing a quick kiss to his wife's head before he joined Nat's side.
"Good. 'Cause if we blow the grid, I don't wanna lose tiny here in the 1950s,"
Lottie foot quickly came up, kicking Bruce in the shin roughly as the man winced, reaching down to hold his leg as Lottie shot a fake smile of comfort at the panicked looking Scott.
"He's totally kidding!"
Scott gave them a nervous nod, walking away to stand before the van. Natasha rose an eyebrow, looking over at Lottie.
"He is kidding, right?"
"I have no idea!" Lottie shot back quietly, eyes wide. "Either we did the math right and this checks out or we lose Scott in some alternate time line. This is time travel, Nattie...either it's all a joke or none of it is."
"We're good!" Bruce shot at their friend, trying to convince him that everything was okay as him and Lottie readied the machine. "Get your helmet on, Scott. We're gonna send you back a week, let you walk around for an hour, then bring you back in 10 seconds. Makes sense?"
"Perfectly not confusing,"
"Good luck, Scott," Steve told him with a nod. "You can do this."
"You're right, Captain America. I can,"
Lottie counted down to three as they switched on the controls. Scott hit the button on his suit, shrinking down and disappearing into the Quantum Realm behind him.
The next five seconds as Bruce counted down were agony for everyone, waiting to see if it would work.
Lottie quickly hit the switch at the count of five, and Scott suddenly shot back from the tunnel and stood before them.
"Uh...guys?"
The teams eyes widened as they look at Scott, except it wasn't exactly Scott. Suddenly, he was a teenager.
"Oh god," Lottie mumbled, reaching forward to hit a sequence of buttons on the panel as Natasha looked at them with wide eyes.
"Who is that? Is that Scott?"
"Of course it's Scott!" the boy shot back, looking around frantically.
Bruce quickly hit the switch once again, pulling Scott back into the Quantum Realm before bringing him back once more, everyone praying that this time it worked.
"Ow! My back!"
"Can you bring him back?" Steve shouted frantically at the two behind the control panel as old man Scott stood before them now.
"We're trying!"
Scott was pulled back into the Quantum Realm and pulled back a second later.
The entire team froze as they looked down at the floor, where a tiny version of Scott now sat.
"It's a baby..." Steve deadpanned, staring down at Scott. Lottie sent her husband a sheepish smile.
"At least it's Scott!"
"As a baby!"
"He'll grow!" Bruce tried to argue as Steve glared at them.
"Bring Scott back,"
"Nattie, kill the power when we tell you to!" Lottie called out to her friend as she ran past mumbling under her breath.
Bruce and Lottie hit another sequence of buttons on the panel as they sent baby Scott back into the Quantum Realm.
"Hit it!"
At the same moment Natasha killed the power, Lottie and Bruce brought Scott back into the present, the entire group letting out a sigh of relief to see that it was their Scott standing before them this time.
"Somebody peed my pants. But I don't know if it was "baby" me or "old" me...Or just "me" me,"
Steve looked over at Bruce and Lottie, raising an eyebrow at the pair. Lottie sighed, her elbows resting on the control panel as she put her head in her hands and sighed. Bruce tried to give an optimistic smile to Lottie's husband as he threw his arms out.
"Time Travel! Honestly...I see this as an absolute win!"
Steve let out one more sigh, shaking his head as he walked away from the group, bursting through the front doors and out onto the front lawn as Natasha shook her head and dragged Bruce aside to speak to him.
Lottie's gaze stayed focused on where Steve had gone. She was supposed to be a genius, and yet she couldn't figure it out. She felt like she had failed Steve and...well, everyone.
"What do you think went wrong?" Scott asked the woman, walking up to stand in front of her.
"EPR paradox," Lottie told him simply with a shrug of her shoulders. "Instead of pushing you through time, we pushed time through you. I knew there were too many unknown and dangerous variables, we shouldn't have done this."
"You gonna go after him?" Scott asked her again, gesturing to the front door. Lottie sighed, already moving toward them.
"I need to,"
Pushing through the doors out onto the front lawn, a frown crossed Lottie's lips as she approached Steve. He was leaning against one of the pillars, staring out into the distance.
"You disappointed in me?" Steve turned to his wife, shaking his head. He held out a hand for her, dragging her back into his arms.
His head rested on her's as they held onto one another.
"It's not your fault, doll,"
"I'm supposed to be a super genius-"
"We're talking about time travel, Lottie. I think you get a pass,"
The conversation came to a halt at the familiar sound of an engine coming up the drive of the compound. Lottie and Steve pulled away from one another, watching as a familiar black car came rolling up in front of them, stopping just a few feet before them.
It reversed, the window rolling down to reveal Tony Stark as he parked in front of them.
"Why the long faces?" Tony lowered his glasses as he looked at Lottie. "Let me guess: I win the bet because he turned into a baby."
"Among other things," she mumbled, rolling her eyes at her best friend as Steve brought the attention to him.
"Why are you here, Tony?"
"That's the EPR paradox. Instead of pushing Lang through time, you might've wound up pushing time through Lang. I'm assuming Lottie already figured that out," Tony got out of the car, throwing his glasses inside as he leaned against the door, staring at the two. "It's tricky. Dangerous. Somebody shoulda cautioned you against it. I bet Lottie did."
"I did, but so did you," she conceded.
"Oh, did I? Thank God I'm here. Regardless, I fixed it," Tony held up his hand, a watch-like device sitting on the back of his hand. "A fully functioning Time-Space GPS. I just want peace.Turns out, resentment is corrosive, and I hate it."
"Me too," Steve told his old friend, smiling at him. Lottie stood back, leaning against the pillar now as Steve and Tony moved toward the trunk of the car, standing together.
"We got a shot at getting these stones, but I gotta tell you my priorities: Bring back what we lost? I hope, yes. Keep what I got? I have to, at all costs. And... maybe not die trying will be nice,"
"Sounds like a deal,"
Lottie's smile only brightened as she watched the two finally shake hands.
Tony took another look at Steve before popping up the trunk. He reached inside, removing a sheet from on top of something before flashing the object at the pair: Steve's shield.
"Tony...I don't know,"
"Why? He made it for you. Plus, honestly I have to get it out of the garage before Morgan takes it sledding,"
"I bough her a sled for Christmas!" Lottie exclaimed, though the pair only rolled their eyes with a smile and ignored her.
Steve slipped the shield onto his arm, both him and Lottie admiring it for a moment. It was finally back where it always belonged.
"Thank you," Steve told him, looking up with a grin.
"We're getting the whole team together, right?"
"Working on that right now,"
Tony's eyes trailed to Lottie, raising his eyebrows as he watched the way she smiled at the shield.
"Wipe the grin off your face, Khaleesi, I already made you your own Iron Man suit, you don't get a shield too,"
Lottie smirked as she looked back at him.
"You just called my suit an Iron Man suit. That means I officially win the bet,"
"...shit,"
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I legit haven't stopped playing The Sims 4 Island Living wow I love it