Back at the Compound, everyone was in full work-mode. Those of us that weren't constructing the time machine were working on the suits that we'd need to wear when we travelled; everyone had a job to do.
Everyone except Thor.
He was sitting in a corner alone, drinking beer. Well, 'drinking' was a strong word; he was mostly dribbling the beer down his huge beard.
I walked over to him cautiously. He'd changed a lot since I'd last seen him five years ago, but the expression on his face was almost identical. Sadness.
"Hey, you okay?" I greeted him sympathetically.
He looked up at me and did a double take, as if he hadn't noticed me walking towards him. He squinted, blinked, took another dribble-sip of beer and smiled widely.
"Yes, I'm fine! Don't I look fine?"
I raised an eyebrow – the last word I'd use to describe him was 'fine'. "You look... different."
He nodded, reaching under his chair and pulling out a second beer, even though I was almost sure he hadn't finished the first.
"Want one?"
I sighed, sitting down next to him and taking the beer from his outstretched hand. It was warm and tasted slightly watered down. I swirled it around my mouth, reluctantly swallowing before going in for another sip.
"I'm sorry about... what happened to Loki, and the other Asgardians," I said, watching the way his face changed. "No one deserves that. Thanos-"
"I'm fine," he repeated with a less-than-reassuring laugh, cutting me off. "I've spent much of my life mourning my brother. It's not a new feeling."
I shrugged, taking another gross sip. "Doesn't make it hurt any less. When you lose your family, their death attaches itself to you. No matter how long they've been gone, the pain of losing them doesn't get easier to handle... you just learn to deal with it."
He scoffed, finishing his beer and reaching down for another. The fake smile had disappeared. "You 'learn to deal with it'," he repeated my words, as if he didn't understand them. "I lost my hammer, my brother, my best friend and half my people. How does one 'deal' with that?"
I bit my lip apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that."
"Then what did you mean?" he asked, sounding annoyed. We both sat in silence for a second before he spoke again. "I heard you and Stark had a child. Is that how you dealt with our losses?"
I frowned, looking at him with my head tilted. "You're suggesting that I had a baby to distract myself from the fact that people died?"
He shrugged, not denying his claim. "The loss of an old family contributes to the beginning of a new one."
I shook my head defiantly. "My daughter is not the product of guilt and depression, Thor. And I didn't have her to fill the hole that Nat and Wanda and my mom left." I sighed, scowling at the memory that came to me. "You know, I was six months pregnant before we told anyone, before I could even bear to talk about it. And even then we only told Steve and Banner. Getting pregnant didn't feel like a solution, it felt like a reminder of everything we'd lost... another person that I'd fail to protect."
"So what happened?" he asked, sounding somewhat intrigued.
I looked up, meeting his eye. "She was born, and I fell in love the moment I saw her. I realized that she wasn't an abstract idea, or a reminder of the past. She was... a clean slate, a fresh new human being that I'd protect with everything I had – someone I'd die for." I rested my hand on his. "We're all here because we lost people that we were willing to die for. That we're still willing to die for. But, you should know that it's okay to not know how to 'deal with it'. It's okay that every time you think about them, you feel like the world is crumbling around you. You'll be okay, Thor."
He looked away from me, breathing heavily for a moment. Then he composed himself, dribbling more beer onto his beard.
"I'm fine," he reiterated once more, with less conviction than before.
I stood up and smiled, leaving him to finish his other beers in peace.
I ended up in the room where Banner, Scott and Nebula were configuring the Time Travel suits.
In the last five years, Banner had completely changed. Instead of being a scientist that became the Hulk when he was angry, he had become a mix of the two – a slightly smaller Hulk with the mind, brain and speaking abilities of Banner – the best of both worlds. At least, according to him.
"How are we doing?" I asked, casting an impressed eye over the red and white suit that Scott was wearing.
"Great," Scott said in an unconvincing voice, as Banner tried to insert a tube filled with something red into the suit. "Hey, easy, easy!"
"I'm being very careful," Banner said in a calm voice.
"No, you're being very 'Hulky'," Scott complained, taking the tube from Hulk and holding it up. "These are Pym Particles, alright? And since Hank Pym died, this is it, this is all we have. We're not making anymore."
"We understand," I told him. The only way this plan would work is if every piece of the puzzle was in place, and the Pym Particles were a huge piece. They were the key ingredient that we needed to go back and forth through time.
"We have enough for one round-trip each, and a few test runs," he reminded us. "Now, who's gonna test it?"
Before either of them could speak, I cleared my throat. They looked at each other skeptically, then back at me.
"It has to be me, okay?" I told them firmly. "I'm the one who forced Tony to figure it out, I'm the reason that we're trying it. If our theory is wrong, it's my fault, no one else's."
The determination in my voice kept them from protesting. If one of us had to be the first to test our Time Travel device, it had to be me.
***
"You're gonna feel a little discombobulated from the chronoshift," Banner warned, helping me into the suit. I was standing in the middle of the time machine platform. Everyone was standing on the ground around us, waiting to see if our theory would work, or if we'd all just wasted our time.
"Someone else should go," Tony said, for about the thousandth time. "Let me go."
I rolled my eyes. "We've been over this. If something goes wrong, you're the only one that'll be able to bring me back."
"Or you'll get stuck in the past?" he suggested, only a hint of sarcasm in his tone. We were all optimistically sure that it would work – after all, with the amount of research and planning we'd done, there was no reason why it shouldn't.
"If I get stuck in the past, find out what went wrong, fix it, and bring me back," I commanded, like this was an easy task. "I believe in you guys."
Banner nodded, stepping off the platform. "Alright, Rogue. We're going in 3... 2... 1."
Instantly, I was flying through the Quantum Realm. I tried to take in my surroundings, to remember this once-in-a-lifetime experience, but all I could see were flashes. Colors, lights and different pathways moved past me, one after the other, too quick to focus on. Until suddenly, everything stopped.
I yelled in surprise, falling out of the Quantum Realm and onto my knees in a place that I instantly recognized.
I was in Stark Tower, before it had become Avengers Tower.
I stood up slowly and walked around. How could a place feel so familiar and yet so distant at the same time?
Part of this test mission was to bring an object, any object, from the past to our present, so we'd know for sure that we'd be able to keep the Stones if we found them.
Walking up to the mantelpiece, I grabbed the first thing I saw – a framed picture of me, Nat and Clint, taken years before. We looked... happy.
I stared at the picture wistfully, until I heard familiar voices coming down the hall. Extremely familiar voices.
"Look Nat, I know you don't like him-" I heard the past version of myself say, walking into her bedroom. The mention of Nat made my breath catch in my throat.
"Stark and I have never seen eye-to-eye. I know him, better than a lot of people. I know what he's like," Nat replied. It had been so long since I'd heard her voice, but surprisingly it felt like I'd never stopped hearing it. It took everything I had within me to keep my feet planted on the floor, to not burst into the room, hug her, and never let her go.
"I'm so lucky to have such an amazing big sister," my past self said, in a voice so quiet I had to strain to hear.
"And I'm lucky to have a completely crazy, head-over-heels, headstrong baby sister," she replied.
I started to feel myself being pulled back through the Quantum Realm, just as their footsteps left the room.
"I miss you, Nat," I whispered, knowing that she'd never hear me. "We're gonna get you back, I promise."
I fell backwards, through the Quantum Realm, and landed back in the present-day Compound.
"Hey, you okay?" Stark asked the second I was aware of my surroundings. He climbed onto the platform, kneeling beside me with a worried look on his face. A tear fell to my cheek; I hadn't even realized that I was crying. "What's wrong?"
I sniffed, taking his hand and allowing him to pull me into a standing position. "Nothing, I'm fine."
Facing the rest of the group, I held up the picture frame.
"It worked, guys! Let's go back in time."
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