Let us prepare for the (time) heist of the century!

Seeing as Tony was unwilling to help with their plan to save half the universe, the Avengers turned to Bruce Banner, whom during the five years managed to combine his Banner side with his Hulk side, making the same person. He readily agreed to help with the project, but their progress was… slow, to put it simply. They had the quantum tunnel and equipment, but every time they tried to send Scott back in time and bring him back, he would return as an old man, a baby, or anything in-between!

"This is getting us nowhere," Lylla sighed. "There's something that we're missing here."

"I see this as an absolute win," Bruce argued.

The otter gave him a look before walking outside, needing to take a break from the experiment. Steve felt the same way and joined her.

"This would be easier if Rocket was here," Lylla said. "With him, Bruce and I, we might be able to make time travel possible. But it'll take a while for the Guardians to get back to Terra. If only Tony had changed his mind…"

"Tony would be a big help," Steve agreed.

The two looked out across the Avengers Compound, before the sound of a roaring engine came to ear. A sports car came racing up to them, stopping and then backing up to reveal Tony in the driver's seat.

"Why the long face?" he asked Steve. "Let me guess, he turned into a baby."

"Yep," Lylla said dryly, crawling up to Steve's shoulder to face Tony.

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked.

"It's the EPR Paradox," Tony explained, getting out of his car. "Instead of pushing Lang through time, you might've would up pushing time through Lang. It's tricky, dangerous. Somebody could have cautioned you against it."

"You did," Lylla said.

"Oh did I? Well thank god I'm here," Tony said. "Regardless I fixed it." He held up his hand to reveal a device around it. "A fully functioning time-space GPS." Lylla and Steve smiled as he continued. "I just want peace. It turns out resentment is corrosive, and I hate it."

"Me too," Steve replied.

Tony eyed Lylla. "You didn't have to mention the kid either."

"You just needed that extra motivation," Lylla said.

Tony sighed. "We got a chance at getting these stone, but I gotta tell you my priorities. Bring back what we lost: I hope, yes. Keep what we found: I have to, at all costs. And maybe not die trying would be nice.

Steve held out his hand. "Sounds like a deal."

The two men shook hands, the looks in their eyes reestablishing their trust in each other. Tony went to the back of his car and popped open the trunk, pulling out Captain America's shield and presenting it to Steve.

"Tony I don't know," Steve said.

"Why not? He made it for you," Tony argued. "Plus I have to take it out of the garage before Morgan takes it sledding."

"Shocket might have already done that," Lylla admitted.

"She's a bad influence, but Morgan loves her anyway," Tony sighed.

Steve accepted the shield and hung it on his arm. "Thank you, Tony."

"Will you keep that a little quiet," Tony said. "Didn't bring one for the whole team. We are getting the whole team, yeah?"

"We're working on that," Lylla said.

[***]

A little while later, Rocket, Nebula, and Shocket finally arrived back on Earth, just in time for Scott to see it while he took a taco break.

"Hey humie," Rocket called. "Where's Big Green?"

"In the kitchen," Scott replied. He pointed to the Benatar. "That's awesome."

Shocket went over to the human. "What's that you got there?" she asked.

"It's a taco," Scott said.

Shocket nodded, then quickly grabbed it out of Scott's grip. "This is my taco now."

"Shocket, you've got ask before you take things from the humies," Rocket chided.

"But Dad," Shocket wined.

As this argument went on, Nebula leaned into her comlink and said, "Rhodey, be careful on landing. There's an idiot in the landing zone."

And that was when War Machine came into for a landing, making Shocket drop taco on the ground in surprise. "What's up, regular-sized-man?" he asked.

Shocket looked down at the taco, then picked up the pieces and held them up to Scott. "You want this back?"

"It's fine… it's fine…" Scott said, looking like he might start to cry.

It was then that Hulk came outside alongside with Lylla. He was ready to go with Rocket to pick up Thor in New Asgard, while Lylla went over to give her mate a kiss on the cheek. Bruce looked at Scott and Shocket gave them new tacos, which they both gladly took.

"Be safe out there," Lylla said.

"I've got a Hulk with me, which is like having a Drax on steroids," Rocket said. "I'll be fine."

"Before you go, I've got something that I made for you," Lylla said. "I know you like that pilot's outfit you've got going on, but I thought you might like something more breathable to wear."

She handed over a package, which Rocket gladly took. "See you in a few hours, Lady," he said softly. "Hey Big Green, I'd like to pick up Mr. Space Angel before we get the Stones. Let's go!"

As Rocket and Bruce flew off to New Asgard, Lylla turned back to Shocket, whom was now eating her taco with Scott. "So, you're the guy that can grow and shrink, right?" Shocket asked through her food-filled mouth.

"That's me," Scott replied. "You're the kid of Lylla and that raccoon guy, I'm guessing. You know I used to be a thief myself, before I became Ant-Man."

"What's the biggest thing you've ever stolen?" Shocket asked.

"I stole the first Ant-Man suit, but before that I hacked into Vistacorp and paid back all the money they'd been scamming customers out of, 'Scott said.

Shocket grinned. "Awesome."

Scott chuckled. "Other than getting arrested afterwards it was pretty awesome. You should meet my daughter Cassie sometime. You too are around the same age, unless you're my age in raccoon years."

[***]

After Rocket and Hulk convinced Thor to help them, and Natasha went to Tokyo to recruit Hawkeye, everyone got to work on creating the time machine. Tony, Rocket, and Shocket were in charge of the main engineering, while Bruce, Nebula, and Lylla worked with Scott to create specialized suits for everyone to safely travel through the Quantum Realm with.

"Hey Ratchet, how's it going?" Tony asked as he brought in power cables for the time machine.

"It's Rocket," Rocket corrected. He had changed into the outfit that Lylla had made him, which consisted of a green vest over a grey shirt, blue pants with light-blue accents on the side, a black belt to store items on, and a red neckerchief to replace his scarf. He kept the goggles, as well as his rocket skates. "Take it easy. You're only a genius on Earth, pal."

"Careful with the parts, kid," Tony warned, watching as Shocket moved some of the paneling around on a dolly.

"I know my way around a workshop, Mr. Stark. I can handle myself," Shocket replied. "Vanguard, help me out here!"

The Klyntar came over and used its tendrils to effortlessly pick up and move the panels from the dolly to the machine.

"The sentient goo monster is still weird to me," Tony said.

"Out of everything you've seen, that's what throws you off?" Rocket asked.

Over with Lylla, she was putting the finishing touches on the quantum suits, which had a white and red color scheme with the Avengers logo on the chest. "And that should do it," she said, carefully inserting the Pym Particles into the side.

"Thanks you Lylla," Scott said. "You know, since Hank Pym got snapped, this is all we've got. We won't be able to make anymore."

"And you're sure that he didn't leave any notes behind on that?" she asked.

"He was very protective of his life's work," Scott confirmed. "We've got enough here for one round trip each. No do-overs. Plus two test runs."

"It wouldn't hurt to check his house or his lab," Lylla shrugged. "Before we do the time heist, we could always pop over there and check." She saw that Scott was struggling with his belt and fixed it for him.

"Thanks for that," Scott breathed. "Might have accidentally activated the suit there. And I checked before I left San Francisco- what I brought is all we've got. Alright, I'm not ready for this."

"I'm game," said Clint. Everyone turned to look at him leaning in the doorway. "I'll do it."

After getting Clint into his suit and prepared, the team made a few adjustments to make sure that they were prepared for their test run.

"Clint, now you're gonna feel a little discombobulated from the chronoshift; don't worry about that," Bruce said.

"Wait a second, let me ask you something," Rhodey said. "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 choking motion with his hands.

"First of all, that's horrible," Bruce said.

"It's Thanos," Rhodey rolled his eyes.

"And secondly, time doesn't work that way," Bruce explained. "Changing the past doesn't change the future."

"Look we go back and get the Stones before Thanos gets them," Scott said. "Thanos doesn't have the Stones. Problem solved."

"That's not how it works," Lylla said.

"Well that's what I heard," Clint muttered.

"Wait, but who? Who told you that?" Bruce asked.

"Startrek, Terminator, Timecop, Time After Time," Rhodey listed off.

"Quantum Leap," Scott added.

"Wrinkle in Time, Somewhere in Time."

"Hot Tub Time Machine."

"Hot Tub Time Machine. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Basically any movie that deals with time travel," Rhodey said.

"Die Hard? No that's not one," Scott said to himself.

"This is known," Rhodey said.

"You shouldn't base your knowledge of real life on fiction," Lylla said. "Though admittedly I thought some of those Startrek movies were good."

Bruce nodded. "I don't know why everybody believes that, but that isn't true. 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 knew future."

"Exactly," Nebula said.

"Couldn't have worked it better myself," Lylla agreed.

"So Back to the Future is a bunch of bullshit?" Scott said.

After the machine was finished, everyone gathered around to watch the test run. "Alright Clint," Bruce said as he manned the controls. "We're going in three, two, one…"

The portal opened and Clint went in. Everyone waited with bated breath as time passed, before the portal opened again and Clint came out. The time machine worked!

"Lila!" Clint cried, gasping for breath.

Everyone ran over to check on him, with Lylla getting there first. "Yes, what is it?" she asked. "Are you hurt."

Clint gave her a confused look. "No… my daughter's name… is also Lila."

"Hey. Hey, look at me," Natasha said, putting a hand on Clint's shoulder. "You okay?"

Clint took her hand and stood up. "Yeah. Yeah. It worked. It worked."

Lylla smiled, grabbing Rocket and Shocket and giving the two a hug. "We'll all be back together soon!"

[***]

With the time machine fully functioning, everyone gathered in the meeting room to come up with a plan for how they were going to go about the time heist. "We know the how. Now, we gotta figure out the when and where," Steve said. "Almost everyone in this room has had and encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones."

"Or substitute 'encounter' with 'damn near been killed' by one of the six Infinity Stones," Tony added.

"Well, I haven't, but I don't know what the hell you're all talking about," Scott said."

"Regardless, we only have enough Pym Particles for one round-trip each," Bruce explained. "And these stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history."

"Our history," Tony said. "So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in, yeah?"

"Which means we have to pick our targets," Clint said.

"Correct," Lylla said. She stood up on the table, getting everyone's attention. "During my free time I've been looking into all of your past adventures and the Infinity Stones themselves. First, the Reality Stone, or as it was before, the Aether. Thor was the first one of us to encounter it, and it has the ability to alter the world around the user. Any comments, Thor?"

Everyone looked over to see Thor lazing about in his chair. He was a lot… bigger than Lylla remembered him, with sunglasses and long unkempt hair to boot.

"Is he asleep?" Natasha asked.

"I think he's dead," Shocket said. She went over and poked Thor in the face, the Asgardian suddenly waking up in surprise.

"What? Oh, the Aether," he said, standing up and shambling to the front of the room. "Uh, where to start? Um… The Aether, first, is not a stone. Someone called it a stone before." He pointed at Lylla.

"It's both, but continue," she replied.

Thor nodded. "Um, it's more of an angry sludge sort of thing, so someone's going to need to amend that and stop saying that. Here's an interesting story, though, about the Aether: My grandfather, many years ago, had to hide the stone from the Dark Elves. Oh… Scary beings. So Jane, actually…" He pulled up a picture of Jane Foster. "There she is. Yeah, so Jane was an old flame of mine. You know she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time, and then the Aether stuck itself inside her, and she became very, very sick. And so I had to take her to Asgard, which is where I'm from, and we had to try to fix her. We were dating at the time, you see, and I got to introduce her to my mother…" He sighed. "Who's dead and, um… Oh, you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, so…"

"OKAY THOR, that's good enough," Lylla shouted, ushering Thor back to seat. Tony helped Thor back to his chair as Lylla took a deep breath before continuing. "As I was going to say, I've already got locations on all of the Infinity Stones, and at around what time it would be best to grab all of them."

"That's my Lady," Rocket said with a smile.

Lylla blushed a bit, before coughing. "Right, so, I narrowed it down to three Terran- I mean, Earth years that will be the most optimized to get the stones." She grouped the Power and Soul Stones together, and the Time, Space, and Mind Stones, leaving the Reality Stone by itself. "First, the Reality Stone is the only outlier, which as Thor explained will be on Asgard. We'll need an extraction device to get it out of Jane Foster in the year 2013."

She pulled over the Power and Soul Stones. "It 2014, we'll have to go to Morag and Vormir to get the Power and Soul Stones, respectively."

"What's a Morag and Vormir? Are those people?" Scott asked.

"Those are planets," Rocket said. "Quill found the Power Stone on Morag, and Vormir is where the Soul Stone was held."

"I have the coordinates to Vormir," Nebule said. "Thanos took them from me five years ago and murdered my sister there."
Everyone paused at that, before Lylla continued. "Right, and that leaves the Space, Time, and Mind Stones, which were all here in New York in 2012, during an invasion by the Chitauri."

"The Chitauri?" Rocket asked.

Lylla nodded, pulling up footage of when the Avengers first assembled. "The Avengers first battle was against them in what is called 'The Battle of New York.'"

"How long did you fight these guys?" Shocket asked.

"About, uh, two or three hours," Natasha replied.

"Hours?" Rocket questioned. "The Chitauri are the suckiest army in the galaxy. Why didn't you just blow up the mothership?"

"We didn't know that was a thing," Steve admitted.

Rocket started laughing. "You didn't know that was a thing!? Everyone knows that!"

Lylla chuckled a bit as well. "Unfortunately, Rocky, not every planet has to deal with invasions all the time. Regardless, we can get the Mind Stone and Space Stone during the time that Loki was captured. As for the Time Stone, it'll be at Dr. Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum."

"He lives in New York?" Natasha asked.

"It's a nice place," Bruce said.

"So that's all of them," Steve said. "Alright, we have a plan. Six stones, three teams, one shot."

Everyone stood up with determination. They were ready to travel through time, get the stones, and save half the universe.

Author's Note

It's time for the time heist! There weren't many story changes this chapter, but once the actual time travel happens, you'll start seeing where this story diverges.

Rocket has a new outfit to match Lylla's, and now both of them are wearing what their costumes from the art I use on this story (which was drawn by me BTW)!

I put in a deleted scene here where Rocket laughs at the Avengers for the Citauri invasion. Lylla also made sure that Scott didn't accidentally use up one of the vials of Pym Particles, so that'll come in handy later.

I don't really have a lot to say about this part, only to stay tuned for when the time heist begins! Leave a review of this chapter with your guess as to which group you think Lylla will be travelling with!