Pepper placed her hand lightly on Scottie's face as she rejoined the woman in the study that they had previously been sitting in before Rhodey was forced to take General Ross' business call. Wanda was still supporting Vision with the help of Sam, but their reunion had been largely bittersweet and necessary.
There were a lot of things hanging in the air with the team that hadn't spoken to half of the room for years. In fact, Natasha hadn't even been as sure as Steve that they would of been welcomed back so easily. She knew that the fight on the German concourse had gone much deeper than just a school ground disagreement, and she certainly was worried that James Rhodes' condition would have resulted in a hostile reception from the man.
She was certainly not expecting the man to have welcomed them with open arms, a gentle smile on his face as he saw the faces of his friends that he had long abandoned. She wasn't expecting Pepper Potts to even have been at the facility after the news that Tony had disappeared into space along with the Spider-boy that Tony had introduced to them during the fight. But she guessed that the reappearance of not only Bruce Banner but also Scottie Casey had done much to remind everyone that there was much more to life than following rules.
Scottie smiled as she placed her hand on top of Pepper's to remind the woman that she was really there. There had been a lot of time spent between both sides filled with anger and resentment at everything that had happened, but Scottie had always been someone that held deep connections with almost everyone on the team.
Sitting down on the armchair that she could tell was often used by Tony, if not for the slight tear of where his leg had clearly bounced on it many a time but also by the fact his old jumper was strung over the back, Scottie smiled gently as Wanda came to rest next to her. The red head placed her hand gently on Scottie's, lacing their fingers together as she rubbed her thumb lightly over a scar on the back of Scottie's hand that she had never known to previously exist on the girl.
Steve stood in the centre of the room, his authority instantly falling back into place as he studied the members of the Avengers; past and present. Pepper excused herself from the room as her phone began to ring, Scottie knowing that it was most likely Happy calling the woman to make sure that she was ready to be picked up. Pepper wasn't an Avenger, and there were much safer places that she could go than the battleground.
Turning on the lamps in the room for a better lighting effect, Bruce finally turned to Scottie with a furrowed look on his brow as he tried to process what this newest development was.
"You were dead?" Bruce checked, even though he had heard it from the girl earlier he hadn't realised that it had been over two years since they all presumed she had died. He knew he had been away a lot longer, but they hadn't thought the man was dead at least.
"I was in a coma," Scottie started to explain, watching everyone turn to look at her. She was fiddling with Wanda's fingers as she stared down at their hands before looking back up at the expectant faces of the team. They needed this explanation more than she needed to say it. "I think anyway. One minute I was passing out in the hospital bed and the next thing I knew I was stepping out of a cyro-tank, surrounded by dead scientists and with two aliens staring at me. I tried to shoot them with my beams but I just ended up blowing a hole in the wall to discover I was being kept in an underwater facility."
"Thanos' goons," Bruce filled in, knowing exactly who she was talking about.
Scottie nodded as everyone else shared looks, having all had a run in with the creatures minus Rhodey. Steve and Natasha shared a concerned look at the fact they had purposely gone after Scottie which meant that the girl must have something - whether it be knowledge or power - that Thanos needed in his quest for world dominance.
"How did you get here?" Steve asked gently, confused about how the girl had somehow made her way back to the headquarters.
"As insane as this sounds, I somehow washed up right in Wakanda. T'Challa called Happy who picked me up and took me to Tony and Pepper just before that weird wizard man and Bruce turned up and ruined the moment, no offence Bruce," she finished, shooting the man a quick look at the end.
"None taken."
"So we gotta assume they're coming back, right?" Rhodey asked the question, moving the topic on from Scottie's sudden return from the dead and Bruce's sudden reappearance in all of their lives. There was something significantly more pressing then listening to stories that wouldn't be able to help them fight Thanos.
"And they can clearly find us," Wanda added, pointing out how the aliens had managed to easily find her and Vision in Edinburgh and Scottie on the coast of Wakanda underwater. She squeezed her girlfriend's hand lightly as she continued to fidget with her own fingers. Scottie leaned into Wanda's touch, having not understood the pain that they had all gone through thinking she was dead.
"We need all hands on deck. Where's Clint?" Bruce asked, turning to look at Natasha who he deemed would be most likely to know.
The newly blonde woman shrugged her shoulders slightly, her arms crossed across her chest as she composed herself and returned into solider mode. She would have plenty of time to speak to Scottie and Bruce once they had won this battle.
"After the whole Accords situation, he and Scott took a deal. It was too tough on their families, they're on house arrest," Natasha explained, noticing out of the corner of her eyes how Scottie and Bruce both looked confused at the other name.
"Who's Scott?" Scottie asked before Bruce could open his mouth, a twitch on the corner of his lips in amusement at how they were both thinking the exact same thing.
"Ant-Man."
Scottie turned her head to properly study Steve for the first time since they had all reunited. The man was nowhere near as polished as she remembered him to be, and his distinctive uniform was drained of all its former colour. The scruffy beard around his face reminded her of the fact they had been on the run for almost three years, and his hair was in need of a decent cut. Although she couldn't deny that the beard certainly almost would have made her look at the man in a new light had she not been madly in love with Wanda.
"There's an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?" Bruce breathed out, spinning around in confusion. "Okay, look... Thanos has the biggest army in the universe. And he is not gonna stop until he... he gets Vision's Stone."
There was a moment where the room seemed to pause for Scottie Casey. While the rest of them all continued to talk about the stone and what that meant for the future of Vision, she had finally realised why the aliens had found her. She was sure that Vision had also started to catch on to her connection to the stone, but she wasn't sure if he was going to say anything to make the team concerned.
"We have to destroy it."
Scottie's head snapped up at Vision's decision over the rest of the adults talking. She had been worried before about this battle, but now she was utterly terrified. Vision and her had came to the conclusion in the past before that Scottie's very existence had become based on the stone giving her the powers that it had, and she had no idea what destroying it would mean for the preservation of her life.
"I've been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head, about its nature. But also, its composition. I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source, something, very similar to its own signature, perhaps... its molecular integrity could fail."
Wanda rose from Scottie's side, not fully understanding that this wouldn't just kill Vision but it might also kill Scottie too. No-one in the room other than Scottie and Vision were aware that this might not just lose one team mate for the team, but two.
"And you, with it. We're not having this conversation."
"Eliminating the stone is the only way to be certain that Thanos can't get it."
"That's too high a price," Wanda interrupted Vision's bargaining with the team, knowing that if the stone was to be destroyed it would be her or Scottie that would need to do the honours. Scottie slumped slightly in her seat as she began to take in the full weight of the conversation.
"Thanos threatens half the Universe. One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him."
"But it should," Steve spoke up, his voice firm and crisp as he stared at the android. His eyes flickered to Scottie for a brief second and the girl wondered if he suspected what her and Vision were pretty sure they knew. "We don't trade lives, Vision."
The android moved towards the leader, his tone still calm and rational as he continued to convince the team that this was their best option. "Captain, 70 years ago, you laid down your life to save how many millions of people. Tell me, why is this any different?"
The room was deadly silent as Steve sucked in a breath, preparing himself to find an answer that would protect his decision and show that this was different. Turns out, he didn't need to find one.
"Because you might have a choice. Your mind is made up of a complex construct of overlays. J.A.R.V.I.S., Ultron, Tony, me, the Stone. All of them mixed together. All of them learning from one another."
Wanda looked up hopefully, wanting to do everything in her power to save her best friend and not surrender his life for the cause. She knew how important this was but after losing her brother and seemingly losing Scottie, she wasn't ready to lose another friend.
"You're saying Vision isn't just the stone?"
"I'm saying that if we take out the stone, there's still a whole lot of Vision left. Perhaps the best parts," Bruce corrected, spinning around as he tried to sell his idea to the rest of the team.
Natasha looked up, amazed at the suggestion that the man was announcing. There was a brief glimmer of hope in the room for the first time that afternoon. "Can we do that?"
"Not me. Not here."
Scottie sighed as Bruce deflated the plan almost instantly. She had been so hopeful at his suggestion but he was the second smartest person she knew and if he couldn't do it, and Tony wasn't available, then she didn't believe there would be another person who could.
Rhodey sighed, running a hand over his face as he looked towards the members of the team that had became almost vigilantes. "You better find someone, and somewhere fast. Ross isn't exactly just gonna let you guys have your old rooms back."
Scottie looked at Steve and almost felt electricity run through her at the look on his face. She had missed the way he would look up with an undefeatable fire in his eyes when he had realised something that was going to help save them all, and this time was no different.
"I know somewhere."
_______
The last time Scottie had been on Wakanda, it hadn't exactly been the best of times for the girl. She had not only been dragged from the river by Wakandan warriors, but she had also sadly fried half of the country's already dying fish population.
It didn't take a genius to figure out that Scottie probably wasn't the people of Wakanda's favourite person at the moment. She wasn't even sure if she had spoken to the king of the country since she didn't even remember waking up until she was in the plane with Happy on the way back to the United States.
"Drop to 2600, heading 0-3-0."
Scottie was taken out of her daze as Steve told Sam to prepare to lower the ship. She squinted slightly out of the window as she noticed the thick trees that they were certainly going to crash into any minute now. Wanda seemed to share her thoughts as she looked across the quintet with a worried look.
"I hope you're right about this, Cap. Or we're gonna land a lot faster than you want to."
Natasha simply ignored all of the conversation, having complete and utter faith in the man as she continued to bandage up Scottie's arm. It had been damaged from her return from the facility and the bandages that Pepper had originally placed on them were beginning to have slightly red patches soaking through from where she had torn her stitches getting into her old uniform. There had been a heavy debate if she should join them in Wakanda after the team had noticed the blood on her arm, but Vision had told them that they might need her connection to the stone.
No one had questioned what for, but the girl was well aware that Steve was starting to catch on to what it might mean if the stone was destroyed. Sure, there was no way to be sure that the destruction of the stone would mean Scottie's death, but there was no precedent to prove that she would be alive afterwards.
"When you said we were going to open Wakanda to the rest of the world... this is not what I imagined," Okoye told T'Challa from the ground as they watched the Avengers quinjet behind to land in front of them. She was still amazed that the girl who had burned their fish was returning so quickly, but she was aware that this was a lot bigger situation than they previously had imagined.
"And what did you imagine?"
"The Olympics. Maybe even a Starbucks," she muttered, missing the sugary drink that she had enjoyed during their previous outings after stopping the takeover of Killmonger. Looking up, they all noticed the old Avengers walking towards them with various degrees of amazement and disbelief at the city they had just discovered behind holographic trees.
"Should we bow?" Bruce asked from behind Scottie and Wanda, his voice lowered in an attempt for only Rhodey to hear.
"Yeah, he's a king," Rhodey agreed, not missing the opportunity to wind up the man that had disappeared on them so many years ago.
Steve at the front of the group smiled warmly at T'Challa as he shook hands with the king. There was a glimmer of happiness in his eye as he released the grip with a soft grin on his lips. "Seems like I'm always thanking you for something."
T'Challa smiled back as he understood that Steve was not just meaning him and his people helping to rehabilitate Bucky Barnes, but also for allowing their friend Scottie to return home safely to the team.
Before anything else was said, Bruce took it as time to bow to the king. Everyone stifled laughs at the man making a fool of himself in front of Wakandan royality, with Shuri even smirking from behind her brother.
"What are you doing?" Rhodey hissed, his eyes lighting up as Bruce turned to him in shock horror at the set up.
"Uh, we don't do that here," T'Challa waved him off with a flick of his hand as Scottie scoffed in the background. Natasha lightly smacked the girl on the back of the head, causing Okoye to shoot the blonde a disappointed look. "So how big of an assault can we expect?"
"Uh, sir, I think you can expect quite a big assault," Bruce informed him, still blushing slightly from the prank Rhodey had just pulled on him.
"How we looking?" Natasha asked, no longer thinking emotionally but tactically. They needed to be prepared for the invasion that was coming, and there was no way she was going to let them be undermined by some purple man who had it out for their team - and seemingly their universe.
"You will have my Kingsguard, the Border Tribe, the Dora Milaje, and..."
"A semi-stable, 100-year-old man," Bucky Barnes voice entered the mix, the team smiling as the man sauntered towards them. Scottie eyed up the large silver arm, noticing that it no longer boasted the red star that she remembered it previously having. It calmed her slightly to also see that he had a more softer look in his eyes and was almost reassuring that he wasn't going to try and kill any of them any time soon.
Scottie looked at Wanda as the two old friends embraced each other. The girl was still very aware they hadn't had a moment alone since they found out that Scottie was alive again, and Wanda was also very tuned into this fact too.
Leaning closer to Scottie's ear, she lightly rubbed the blondes back with her hand as they all followed T'Challa into the large building in front of them. "Once this is all over, we'll finally have our moment."
"I can't wait for that."