"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." – Dale Carnegie
As Aphrodite predicted Arina didn't go down easy that night, in fact she was all but running circles around her father after dinner while he tried to get her to take a bathe, Aphrodite had headed up to their room for the night saying that she was tired and after travelling pretty much all day he couldn't blame her.
"Daddy?" Arina questioned after he'd finally gotten her into the bathtub, she was playing with the bubbles while he carefully washed her hair, and he hummed to let her know he'd heard her, "If Uncle Clint is sad, why won't mommy let me help?
Steve sighed rinsing out the suds from her hair as he thought back to the conversation at dinner, "Your uncle had some bad magic in his head before, so he doesn't really like any kind of magic in there anymore." He told her instructed her to stand as he let the water out of the tub and wrapping a towel around her tiny frame burrito style.
"But I can fix him." The youngest Rogers argued as Steve picked her up carrying her out of the bathroom.
"Hey," he said sternly shifting her to one side so he could look her in the eye, "You know that the people that you help aren't broken right?" When she nodded he continued in a softer tone, "You help make people feel better, but sometimes they want to feel sad for a while."
"Why?"
"So they can feel something."
Arina hummed thoughtfully as Steve set about getting her into her pajamas, "I don't get it." She said at last as he pulled her shirt over her head.
Steve snorted pulled back her covers before setting her down in her bed, "You're four, you don't need to get it." He told her honestly sitting on a low chair next to her bed, "You gonna' behave for Aunt Pepper for the next few days?" She nodded her eyes getting heavier, "Promise?"
"Promise."
The next day rather early in the morning, Steve, Aphrodite and Arina made the drive out to the Stark's lakeside cabin where Arina would be staying with Pepper, Morgan and most likely Happy on occasion, while Operation Time Heist officially got underway.
At the facility it was all hands on deck from the start, for as drunk as Thor always seemed to be, he and Steve handled all the heavy lifting while Rocket and Tony spearheaded the construction, with input from Natasha and Rhodes.
Those that were left were assisting in getting the time machine prepared for the test run under the watchful eye of Professor Hulk.
While Scott was getting suited up for his second test run, Aphrodite went into the kitchen to grab herself something to drink and there she found a very different looking archer.
"Clint." She gasped involuntarily taking in his new look of an arm full of tattoos, and his hair shaved down on the sides and quite tall on top.
The archer turned away from the fridge where he was looking at a picture that was pinned there of Natasha and Arina on her last birthday. To her surprise Clint smiled at her, it wasn't the bright smile she was used to seeing from him but it was a start, "Hey." He breathed moving around the counter to pull her into a tight hug. "I missed you."
"I missed you too." She replied honestly hugging him back before he pulled away.
"She's a cute kid." He added nodding his head over to the fridge and the photo he was staring at before, "What's she like?"
"Clint," Aphrodite sighed, "You don't have to-" she began to dismiss him but he cut her off pleading.
"I want too. Please."
She sighed again, "She really wanted to meet you." A Clint's confused look she went onto explain, "Nat and I talk about you all the time, actually we talk about all her aunts and uncles that she didn't get a chance to meet. That, and, she has abilities."
Clint perked up at that, "I'm not surprised," he joked, "What can she do?"
"She can sense people's emotions, and when she touches you she can change them and display some memoires."
"Who's?"
"It depends, if she knows you well enough they can be her own. And if she doesn't there yours."
"She sounds amazing."
Aphrodite nodded, "She's also twice as stubborn as her father on her good days." Clint laughed and she smiled, "She wanted to help you, but Steve and I know that you have some feelings about people messing with your head."
He nodded thoughtfully, "Maybe next time." He said seriously and Aphrodite was stunned silent but smiled, as the two of them left the kitchen and made their way down to the labs. "I know you wanna ask."
"I do, but I have a feeling you don't want to answer." She told him as they stood just outside the lab watching Scott and Bruce argue, "Did it make a difference?"
"It did to me." He said simply before entering the lab and leaning up against the doorway crossing his arms over his chest. That was the end of their conversation for now as they watch Scott accidentally hit a button on his suit causing him to shrink down to ant size before immediately growing back.
"Alright, I'm not ready for this." He whined as he came back, his faceplate popping up so he could breathe.
"I'm game." Aphrodite snapped her head to the side to stare incredulously at one of her oldest earthly friends.
"Clint?" she begged, and he didn't spare her a glance focused on Scott's suit the gears turning in his head about why he wasn't phased in the slightest of being a test dummy, he did though reach out and take her hand squeezing softly once.
"I'll do it."
Aphrodite tore her eyes away from Clint to look down into the lab where Bruce and Scott where giving her matching looks of question, when she nodded they both sighed. Scott's was filled with relief that he wouldn't have to do another test run, while Bruce's was a bit more worried about his old friend.
"Alright Clint," Bruce said stepping back from Scott, "Let's get you suited up."
Luckily the suiting up process took basically no time at all, with Tony, the genius that he is, modifying the time travel GPS to also house nanotech that created the suits for them to time travel in within injury or damage.
"Clint, now you're gonna feel a little discombobulated from the chronoshift. Don't worry about it." Bruce said, and Clint nodded, then almost immediately swung his head to the other side where Aphrodite was working alongside Nebula to adjust a few of the control settings in his suit.
"You're gonna feel some nausea when you land from the warp." She answered his silent question.
"Just say that." He mumbled before Rhodey spoke up from the corner of the lab.
"Wai-Wait a second, let me ask you something. If we can do this, you know, go back in time, why don't we just find baby Thanos, you know, and," he made a movement like he was wrapping a rope around something, before very clearly moving his hands closer to his neck and miming strangulation.
"First of all that's horrible." Bruce gasped in a disgusted tone.
"It's Thanos." Rhodey responded simply.
"I don't think this is gonna work that was Rhodes." Aphrodite shrugged to him, even though she admitted to herself that it had been one of her first thoughts when the idea of time travel was brought up.
"She's right, time doesn't work that way." Bruce added, "Changing the past doesn't change the future."
"Look…" Scott chimed in, nodding, "We go back, get the stones before Thanos gets them, Thanos doesn't have the stones. Problem solved."
"Bingo." Clint agreed.
"That's not how it works." Nebula said roughly.
"Well, that's what I heard." Clint shrugged.
"What? By who? Who told you that?" Bruce sighed.
Rhodey held up his hand, counting off his fingers as he spoke, "Star Trek, Terminator, TimeCop, Time After Time…"
"Quantum Leap –" Scott but in.
"A Wrinkle in Time, Somewhere in Time."
"Hot Tub Time Machine-"
"Hot Tub Time Machine." Rhodey nodded before continuing, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Basically, any movie that deals with time travel."
"Die Hard?" Scott suggested before he shook his head mumbling to himself, "No, that's not one. "
"This is known." Rhodey concluded.
"I don't know why everyone believes that, but that isn't true." Bruce spoke, earnestly "Think about it: If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past. Which can't now be changed by your new future."
"Exactly." Nebula added.
"So, Back To The Future's a bunch of bullshit?" Scott exclaimed petulantly sounding very much like his dreams were being crushed.
A few moments later the entire teams was gathered in the hangar where the new quantum tunnel was up, and hopefully running perfectly as they prepared for Clint to take the test run. A brief explanation for why it was Clint and not Scott as planned was needed and then they were ready.
Bruce began to press the buttons on his keyboard, he gave Clint his countdown, "Alright Clint, we're going in three-" Clint closed his eyes preparing for the shift. "Two." Natasha's hand tightened around Aphrodite's and she gave her an encouraging rub. "One."
And Clint was gone.
It seemed like the entire team held their breath for the second countdown that Bruce issued and then Clint was back. Stumbling down to a knee but alive and neither a baby nor an old man.
Natasha was the first up the stairs to kneel beside Clint, she grabbed his face gently as he rose, almost in a daze. He looked around with wide eyes for a moment before looking down at Natasha then the mitt in his hand before pressing it against her chest. "It worked. I think it worked." He tossed the glove to Tony who caught it with a snap and a large grin on his face.
"Okay, so the how works, now we gotta figure out the when and the where." Steve began early the next morning as the team gathered in a conference room, the names and pictures of the stones they knew of on display The Tesseract which held the space stone, The Aether which held the reality stone, The Orb which held the power stone, The Necklace which housed the time stone, the Scepter which held mind stone and awaiting information was the Soul Stone. Steve looked around the room, "Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones."
"Or substitute the word encounter for damn near been killed by one of the six Infinity Stones," Tony added as he waved his coffee cup around from the other side of the display as he cross the room
"I haven't!" Scott argued from his seat near the front of the room as he looked around the room at the other Avengers, "I don't even know what the hell you are all talking about."
"Regardless," Aphrodite cut in adding to what her husband and Tony had been saying earlier, "We only have enough Pym Particles for one round trip each, and these stone have been in a lot of places throughout history."
"Our history." Tony pointed out, "So not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in yeah?"
"Which means we have to pick our targets." Clint concluded.
"Correct."
"So, let's start with the Aether. Thor, Aphrodite, what do you know?" Steve asked the god's and in turn his wife. Aphrodite immediately stood and moved to stand at the front of the room, but upon not hearing any movement from her brother, turned to where he sat slouched in the corner of the room, wearing his sunglasses holding a beer can in his hand prompting everyone to turn to him.
Natasha clicked her pen anxiously as she turned and stared at the God for a moment before she asked, "Is he asleep?"
"No, no I'm pretty sure he's dead," Rhodey replied, in agitation.
"Thor?" Aphrodite called loudly and when he didn't budge she tried again louder and with a sharp clap, "Thor, wake up!" He jerked and mumbled something incoherent about his beer and sleep, "Will get up here please?" she asked tensely and he did, standing and stumbling to the front of the room.
"Uh, where to start," He groaned as he took off his sunglasses and used them to point at the screen showing the Reality Stone, "The Aether, firstly, first of all, it's not a stone. Somebody called it a stone before-" he pointed at his brother in law, who narrowed his eyes. "It's more of a, uh angry sludge sort of thing. So, someone's going to need to, amend that." He sighed tilted his head back and put eye drops in his eyes. "Stop saying that."
Aphrodite shook her head placing her hand on her brother's shoulder, "Okay you can sit back down now." She suggested and he shrugged her off.
"No, no I've got this. Here's an interesting story about the Aether, our grandfather many years ago had to hide the Aether from the Dark Elves." He made some sounds that were supposed to sound like ghosts or something else and Aphrodite was reminded of the few times that Thor had read bedtime stories to Arina. "So Jane, oh, there she is!" he grinned as a photo of Jane Foster appeared on the screen, "Jane's an old flame of mine. She stuck her hand inside a rock this one time and the Aether stuck itself inside her-" Steve tried very hard to follow Thor's story, but it wasn't relevant at all to their current mission, likewise the other members of the team grew bored and sat waiting for Thor to stop, which Aphrodite tried to do, only for him to brush her off, all accept for Scoot who looked entertained and like he was actually keeping up with Thor's rambling.
"Nothing lasts forever." Thor continued before finally Tony stepped in,
"Why don't you come sit down?" he suggested, "You wanna take over?" he asked Aphrodite as he tried to heard Thor.
"Happily."
"I'm not done." Thor told Tony, brushing him off, "The only thing that is permanent in life is impermanence."
"Awesome." Tony said clapping loudly before patting Thor on the back and offering him some breakfast to which he refused.
"No, I'd like a Bloody Mary."
Aphrodite was happy to take the floor as he went back to his seat, "That's how the Aether ended up on Asgard," she said tossing her hand in her brother's direction, "From there it bounced around few places Svartalfheim, earth, back to Asgard, and then Knowhere."
"No where?" Bruce echoed in confusion.
"No, Knowhere, it's a place. We've been there, it's run by this psycho called the Collector." Rocket explained. "He was working for Thanos."
"Yeah we didn't know that at the time, myself and a few friends took the Aether there for what we had thought was safe keeping."
"Those friends are dead too." Thor piped in but everyone ignored him.
"Then Knowhere's our best bet?" Natasha asked.
"No, knowing what I now know about the Collector," she shook her head, "He's eccentric but he's smart, and he won't give it up without a trade, that and we risk him tipping off Thanos. Then we're over before we even begin."
"No we need to do this discreetly." Steve nodded with a furrowed brow.
"How did you get the Aether out of Jane?" Bruce asked.
"I did it, on Svartalfheim, but if we go there that'll be walking into a fight that we don't need." Aphrodite told them, "That and Thor was right about the Aether not being a stone, it needs a vessel to survive, if I pull it out, it's gotta go somewhere."
"What if I can build something to hold it in?" Rocket suggested, "Yank it out of Thor's ex-girlfriend, before you or that Elf has to?"
"That could work." Aphrodite said, "Best place to do that would be on Asgard 2013, right after Jane got there right before the Dark Elves invaded. She'd be lightly guarded."
"Friday make a note of that." Tony said and the AI did, the word Asgard as well as the date showing up on the screen beneath the picture of the Aether. "You, Thor and Rocket can handle that one right, no one knows Asgard better."
Before Aphrodite could respond, Natasha spoke up, "That might not be a good idea."
Everyone turned to her in confusion, Aphrodite most of all, but Steve mistook what she was imply and continued on, "She's right, we might need you to help extract a different stone." She nodded then Tony tossed out.
"We'll work out he timescale later."
With one stone, date and time, down breakfast was served and everyone was feeling hopefully that the rest of the day would continue on much the same, and after he got his Bloody Mary Thor had sobered up enough to tell everyone else about the Tesseract the stone that Steve was also well versed in.
"It was used by various ancient civilizations before it was brought to the Asgardians hands where our father kept it in his vault." Thor explained much more concisely than he had the Aether, "He eventually brought it to Earth some time and it was left in Tonsberg where it was guarded by devout worshippers, where New Asgard currently stands."
"After that it was stolen by Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull in the 40's." Steve's jaw twitched as a picture of the Hydra leader came up, "He was using it to build advanced weaponry for Hydra."
"Not unlike Shield in 2012." Tony added, "Then we handed it back over to you guys." He said nodding to Aphrodite.
"And back into the vault it went. Until Loki brought it with him onto the refugee ship where Thanos took it."
"Sounds like it hung out on Asgard for a while." Clint tossed out.
"Might be tricky getting two stones out of there." Rhodes countered.
By lunch it was decided that the best place to take the Tesseract would be in New York, there was a small lull after the battle during which would be the best time, now the Power Stone was being discussed. "Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag." Rocket explained as he walked around the center of the table as he gesturing toward the screen ahead, showing the Power Stone encased in an Orb.
"Is that a person?" Bruce asked through a mouthful of Hulka Hulka Burning Fudge ice cream that he was eating out of the gallon container, having already practically inhaled his lunch.
"What? No." Rocket scoffed, "Morag's a planet. Quill was a person."
"A planet? Like, like in outer space?" Scott gawked through a mouthful of noodles.
Rocket lit up with mirth as he began to mock Scott, "Oh, look. It's like a little puppy, all happy and everything." he bent over and ruffled Scotts hair, his voice taking on a condescending tone "Do you wanna go to space? You wanna go to space, puppy? I'll get you to space."
"Thanos employed Ronan the Accuser, a Kree warrior," The normally silently observing blue alien woman spoke bringing everyone's attention to her and stopping Rocket's teasing, "To retrieve the Orb for him only before he could, it was stolen by Quill. He entrusted it to the Nova Corps on Xandar for safe keeping." Nebula continued.
"Which Thanos also destroyed." Aphrodite added with a sigh.
Nebula nodded, "Yes, and we don't want to run into Ronan either."
"You wanna tell me what that was about?" Aphrodite questioned in a teasing tone that night after they'd wrapped for the day, though her voice was teasing her expression was serious as she stared down her best friend as she washed her hands.
"What?"
"You know what, Nat."
The redhead sighed and picked up some hand-paper to dry her hands, "Look I just think it might be a good idea for you to sit this one out."
Aphrodite scoffed, "You're kidding right?"
"I'm not." Natasha said leaning back against the countertop, "Remember how sick you got just looking at the portal the first time."
"Yeah, and I was fine when Clint made his trip. It just took some adjusting."
"Which we won't have this time, this is a one chance thing."
"I'm pregnant Red, not invalid."
"And we don't know what this kind of travel could do to your body, to your baby."
Aphrodite sighed deeply but didn't admit aloud that she'd been having the same concerning thought as her friend, "I can't sit this out Nat. There's too much at risk."
Before Natasha could respond there was a loud flush of a toilet and they both froze knowing that there was only one other person on the premises it could be. Sure enough Nebula exited the stall looking quite awkward as she made her was past them to wash her hands. As she dried her hands she turned to face the other two women, "I didn't mean to eavesdrop," she said honestly before running her eyes over Aphrodite briefly focusing on her stomach, "I suppose this is something you'd like to keep a secret?"
"I'd like that, yeah." Aphrodite nodded.
Nebula did as well, "Then you have my word," she said before turning to the door and taking her exit.
When she was gone the two remaining women let out a long breath, "Just promise me something." Natasha said turning to her friend.
"Anything."
"The second you feel even the slightest bit off, you get your ass back here to this timeline. Stone or no stone."
"I promise."
"How long did you fight these guys?" Rocket asked, standing on his chair. The next morning they were watching footage of the Battle of New York, having started on the analysis of the Mind Stone. The obvious point, will have been New York when both the Tesseract and the Sceptre were present.
"Oh I dunno,2, 2 or 3 hours." Natasha said, glancing at Tony who was sat behind the animal on a low couch, an electric razor in his hand as he trimmed his beard and nodded to Natasha. Across the table Thor was mixing himself up a bloody Mary as well as one for a delighted looking Scott.
"Hours?" The raccoon scoffed "The Chitauri are the suckiest army in the galaxy, why didn't you just blow up the mothership?"
An awkward silence fell across the room and Aphrodite exchanged a glance with her brother who narrowed his eyes at the racoon. "We didn't know that was a thing." Steve finally said lamely from behind his wife who was perched on the arm of the couch.
The racoon guffawed loudly before breaking out in laughter completely, "You didn't know that was a thing!" Rocket continued his loud laughter much to the chagrin of everyone who knew what happened during the battle of New York. The man himself stood from his seat with a silent huff and walked up behind the hysterical racoon, "Everyone knows that's a thing!" his laughter was cut off when Tony once again turned on his razor and shaved a straight line up the racoons back. "Hey!" Rocker shouted immediately grasping at his new bald spot, now it was the rest of the team's turn to burst into laughter.
"Thanos found the Soul Stone on Vormir." Nebula explained having been given the floor after Rocket's impromptu shave made him rush off to the bathroom to check out his new haircut.
"I thought Vormir was a myth." Aphrodite said carefully and Nebula simply shook her head.
Natasha who was writing down information on her notepad, didn't even look up as she asked, "What is Vormir?"
"A dominion of death, in the center of celestial existence. It's where- Thanos murdered my sister."
At Nebula's somber words a silence fell over the room, Natasha looked up questioningly. Scott and Clint looked around at the others as Steve's face fell to the floor, Natasha went back to her writing. Bruce sat next to Scott, looking at his teammates thoughtfully as he held his glasses in his hand.
"Not it," Scott muttered quietly, but nobody even looked his direction at the words. He said what everyone was thinking.
The time and location of the Soul Stone had been decided by Natasha, Tony, and Bruce the night before, so that completed the planning, all that was left was the execution.
The entire team was gathered in the conference room for the final time before they turned in for the night, everyone gazing at the screens as they stared at the six stones all in various locations and times, searing into their minds their individual objectives while also keeping there the Endgame, bring everyone home.
"All right. We have a plan." Steve said as he stood and walked up towards the screens at the front of the room, the rest of the team stood as well at the finality in Steve's voice. "Six Stones, three teams." Aphrodite shared a look with Natasha who nodded towards her, then with Nebula who also offered her a single nod, "One shot."
That night, Aphrodite and Steve sat up in bed, a tablet propped up on Steve's lap as they listened to their daughter regale them of her time spent with her best friend and Aunt Pepper. Technically it was past her bedtime but Tony was across the compound talking to his own family for the night so curfew was all but thrown out the window, given the high stakes mission for tomorrow.
"And tomorrow when Cassie gets here, Momo's gonna show us Uncle Tony's garage." Arina gushed, excited at the thought of her big sister joining her at her best friend's house. It was decided that as a precaution Cassie would be joining the other girls at the Stark house, just in the event that anything went wrong tomorrow.
"Make sure you don't mess with any of Uncle Tony's stuff alright?" Aphrodite warned and Arina nodded but didn't look to concerned either.
"When are we gonna go home?" Arina asked innocently.
Steve sighed as he knew that if and when this Time Heist worked things were going to be much more complicated, "Soon, sweetie. Real soon." Was what he finally went with.
"It's happening soon isn't it? Your mission?"
Aphrodite and Steve shared a look before she leaned into the camera slightly, "Yes it is."
Arina nodded and looked down sadly, Aphrodite wanted nothing more than to reach through the screen to hold her, "You're gonna be careful right?"
"Always." Aphrodite told her, "And you remember the rules right, if something happens, you listen to Aunt Pepper and Happy, you help keep Momo safe."
"I remember. I love you mommy."
"I love you too."
"I love you daddy."
"I love you too sweetheart, we'll talk to you soon okay?"
"Okay." Arina blew a kiss to the camera before the call disconnected. Steve set the tablet aside on the table they settled down in the bed.
Aphrodite draped herself over his chest, tossing her leg over both of his one of his hand went behind his head and the other rested along the curve of her hip, where her nightshirt had ridden up as his thumb traced along the exposed skin.
"What are you thinking about?" Aphrodite asked breaking the silence, since it was clear that neither of them were going to sleep very soon.
"I lied to our daughter." Aphrodite tilted her head up, so that her chin rested on his chest as she gazed up at him in question, it expanded beneath her and he gave a deep sigh, "Couple weeks ago when she crawled into our bed after a nightmare, she asked me if I was scared about what we were trying to do."
She nodded settling back down, "We're all scared love. We've got much more to lose, but still so much to gain."
He took her hand and brought it up to his mouth pressing a kiss to the back of her hand, "One last mission?"
Aphrodite smiled and nodded again sitting up so she could press her lips to his, to which he responded eagerly, "Whatever it takes?" she asked against his lips and he nodded.
"Whatever it takes."
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I hope you all are staying safe during this pandemic, washing your hands, social distancing and all that good stuff. My country is currently quarantined and on lockdown and I thought I'd be free to get a bunch of writing done, but online classes are a complete pain in the ass.
I had the first half of this chapter written months ago, then hit a stump for the second half because even though it was a fairly simple chapter, it still carried a lot of weight.
Speaking of weight, the next chapter is the infamous Time Heist which I'm super excited to finish. Which team to you think I'll have Aphrodite going off with? And which one would you like to see, and why?
As always let me know what you think and what you'd like to see in the future. Leave me a review too, as you can see I'll be answering/responding to the ones can. So feel free to say or ask me anything.
