"We are not meant to stay wounded. We are supposed to move through our tragedies and challenges and to help each other move through the many painful episodes of our lives." - Caroline Myss
The 1970's New Jersey military base was busting with activity, it was Shield was still in its adolescence but right now they held everything that they needed to get themselves home.
Steve led them to an empty part of the base where the men found themselves some clothes, Steve in stone military fatigues and Tony in a suit that was a tad too large but it would work. With Steve's instructions Aphrodite conjured the appearance of a dress suited to the times.
"Your hair." He reminded her before they exited, remembering that her hair was not only the wrong colour but was inappropriate for a military based she changed that as well, to its once blonde colour and pulling it back into a neat bun.
"Hey, man! Make love, not war!" A man shouted as he leaned out the window of his car as he drove pass the base.
"Clearly," Tony asked as they walked the base searching for where the objects they needed could be housed, "You weren't actually born here, right?
"The idea of me was." Steve answered easily.
"Right. Well, imagine you're SHIELD, running a quasi-fascistic intelligence organization. Where do you hide it?"
"In plain sight." Steve said nodding to the ammunitions bunker in the centre of the facility, not only was it the obvious choice but both he and Aphrodite remembered such a place from over 8 years ago when they were on the run from Shield.
"Got em'," Tony announced after scanning the building with his specially made glasses, "Tesseract is four floors down, Pym's lab is another after." He explained quickly as they strode towards the building.
"Hold it," A private that was guarding the door said stopping them, Steve quickly ducked misbehaved pulling his cap lower so as not to be recognized, "Sorry folks, can I see some identification."
"You certainly can," Aphrodite said catching his eye, hers flashing gold for second, "These gentlemen are with me, and we have a very urgent mission we need to get done."
"Of course ma'am." He said standing aside, "You all have a nice day."
Aphrodite thanked him while they scurried through the door. "Can you do that for everyone?" Tony asked as they carefully descended the staircase.
"I can but it'll arouse too much suspicion if someone comes looking," she explained quickly before casting a quick charm that sent a wave of gold throughout the room, "Look away." She commanded and the people in the room turned away from the center of the room, "Quickly." She told the boys as they moved through the room to the elevator on the other side.
The entered and breathed a sigh of relief as Aphrodite released her hold on the room, but before the doors could close a woman rushed over calling for someone to hold the elevators, rather than draw more attention by letting the doors close despite her calls, Tony stuck a hand out and stopped the doors before they could close completely.
"Thank you." The shorter woman breathed as she pushed the button to her floor then leaned against the opposite wall looking down at the files in her arms. A few moments of silence passed before she looked up, peering at them. The three of them were extremely aware of her suspicious gaze, Steve kept his head casually turned downwards and away from her, while Tony shuffled forward slightly to hopefully block her view. Seconds later the elevator dinged signalling they'd arrived at their first stop.
"Good luck on your mission, Captain." Tony said bowing slightly as he left.
"Good luck on your project, doctor." Steve responded tossing his hand, Tony turned back and tapped his glasses twice before the elevator doors closed again.
The woman in the elevator with them cleared her throat before asking politely, "You're new here sir?"
"Not exactly." Steve responded honestly. The woman smiled tensely but nodded looking back down at her files but still taking suspicious peeks at Steve finally the elevator stopped again and it was their floor, all three of them, "After you." Steve said politely and the woman nodded stepping off and they followed before starting in different directions.
"Miss?" the woman called out after them, making them freeze before turning to face her, "Aren't you coming? You are the new assistant to the director aren't you?"
"Of course I am," Aphrodite responded after a moment of hesitation, "Just lost my bearings for a moment. Well Captain," she said turning to her husband who had a slight look of panic in his eyes, "I will – Good luck." She told him before scurrying off after the other woman.
Steve watched her go with varying levels of contempt but exhaled deeply before turning and continuing on his own mission. The woman from the elevator was already suspicious of them, maybe Aphrodite would keep her mind occupied.
"Things are a little crazy here today, so you'll have to learn on the job." The woman explained to Aphrodite as they strode through the halls. "Hope you're a quick learner." She added as a joke.
"Don't worry I am." Aphrodite told her.
"Alright well you can take these," she said handing over the files, "Director will be just down this hall to the left in the meeting room. Good luck."
"Thank you?" Aphrodite said as the other woman quickly walked away, she sighed and followed the directions she needed to in order to get to the director's office, figuring it best to keep up appearances until it was time to go home.
She followed instructions making her way down to the meeting room as directed, "You've got to be joking." She mumbled to herself upon entering the director's office. She had been sincerely hoping that the director she'd be 'working' for would be the other one.
"Lovely, I sent for those files ages ago." Peggy Carter herself said as she pushed off from where she was leaning against a desk.
"Yes, here."
"Thank you, Miss," Peggy trailed off and Aphrodite fumbled for a second before responding.
"Stevens? Natalie Stevens." She told her holding out a hand for the other woman to shake, "Your new assistant, Director Carter."
"Peggy, please. You know I told Howard I didn't need an assistant. Bless, that man doesn't listen."
"Reminds me of someone I know." Aphrodite commented.
Peggy smiled, "I hope you found your way down alright?"
"Took a bit of getting used to."
"That's a beautiful ring." Peggy said suddenly, "May I?" she asked politely holding out her hand.
"Of course." Aphrodite told her shifting the folder to her other arm and letting Peggy inspect her wedding rings.
"Gorgeous," she hummed, "Your husband must have good taste."
"You can say that." Aphrodite joked.
"How long have you been married?"
"Six years."
"Any young ones?"
"A little girl, she's five." Aphrodite cleared her throat, "Do you have children?"
"I do actually, a girl and a boy." She responded brightly, before glancing at her watch, "Speaking of, they should be here with their father soon it's almost time for dinner. We're having supper with the Stark's tonight."
"Sure to be an eventful night then I suppose?"
"I certainly hope not." She said smiling fondly, "Where is your husband now?" The Brit asked changing the subject.
"He's a soldier actually, currently deployed."
She nodded in understanding, "I wish you both the best. I have a bit of an idea of what it's like to wait around for someone." She added at the end and Aphrodite offered a small smile in return.
"Well he did promise that this was his last mission, and to be honest, not a moment to soon." She admitted placing a hand over her stomach, Peggy noticed of course and immediately sat up.
"You don't mean to say?" she let the question hang when they both knew the answer, "Congratulations! How far along are you?"
"About a month and a half." Aphrodite responded, quickly doing the math in her head.
"All the more reason for him to come home then?" Peggy said as she stood up straight and collected a stack of papers Aphrodite taking half, the other woman nodded her thanks before exiting the room.
"Exactly." Aphrodite responded to her earlier questions.
"I just need to take these files down to my office, then we can both get out of here."
"Sounds good."
After acquiring the Pym Particles Steve was moving back through the base's hallway to get back to the elevator they came down on and get back topside.
"And you've never seen these two men before?" His enhanced hearing picked up on and he glanced up from underneath his cap to see the woman from the elevator marching down the hallway with two guards by her side.
"No, I've got an eye for this. The two of them looked fishy."
"Can you describe them?" one of the guards asked while Steve looked around for an escape, "Well one of them had a hippie beard."
"Hippie? Like Bee Gees or Mungo Jerry?"
"Definitely Mungo Jerry." Steve heard before he ducked into an empty office quietly closing the door behind him. He heard one of the guards call for backup for a potential breach as they passed the door.
Steve glanced around the room he was in curiously before doing a double take at something he spotted on the desk. It was a picture of him, but the old him, Steve Rogers before the serum. He looked back at the door and even the backwards writing was unmistakably, 'Margaret Carter'. He approached the desk and carefully picked the picture up so as not to disturb anything that was resting in the desk.
He remembered that picture, pre-serum at basic training. That was taken shortly before be was selected for Project Rebirth. Next to that picture was one of Peggy and her family, so he picked that up and looked it over with a small fond smile.
He heard a door open and looked up and through the blinds to the other side of the office he watched Peggy herself walk in talking animatedly with someone. That someone happened to be his girl and he approached the blinds watching them interact organically. The only other time they had met was when Peggy was much older and suffering from severe Alzheimer's.
His heart swelled watching them talk, his first love and the love of his life. How much he wished he could be apart of that moment, but he knew that went against every rule in the book. So he forced himself to hold still as they set down some files before Peggy grabbed a coat off of a rack and ad quickly as they'd come, they had left.
Peggy truly was an amazing woman, even only talking to her for a short while it was easy to see why Steve fell so hard for her so quickly.
"But I'll tell you this much," Peggy said as they exited the bunker and out onto the bustling military base, "It does get easier the second time."
"So I've heard." Aphrodite shrugged, "Honestly om more concerned about my husband's reaction. He nearly lost his mind when he found out we were expecting our daughter."
"Well be sure to tell me all about it." She said with a kind smile, and Aphrodite's fell a little knowing that that moment wasn't going to come, "Howard." She called out and two men turned to answer.
"Hey Peg," Howard Stark said glancing at his watch, "Right on time."
"As always," she responded as they approached the men, "I was just making sure my new assistant was well sorted."
"Howard Stark." The man said politely introducing himself holding out his hand.
"Natalie Stevens." Aphrodite responded shaking his hand.
"This here is Howard Potts, visitor from MIT." He added clapping a hand onto Tony's shoulder.
"Peggy Carter." She said shaking his hand as well.
"Oh we've met." Aphrodite told them as they were clearly waiting for more introductions to be made.
"Yeah, Natalie's an old friend."
"And speaking of which," Aphrodite said turning speaking to Tony, "We really should get going."
"Uh huh." Tony responded absently while staring at his father.
"So should we." Howard told Peggy, "Good to meet you Potts, Stevens." He held out his hand for Tony to shake, but the other man pulled him into a hug instead.
"He's a very, emotional man." Aphrodite explained when Peggy turned curious eyes to her. "So, shall I see you tomorrow?"
"Yes indeed. And I wish you all the best on the rest of your pregnancy."
Ignoring Tony's wide eyed stare on the side of her head, Aphrodite answered sincerely, "Thank you." Before grabbing Tony's arm leading him away.
"Are you kidding me?" he snapped in a low whisper.
"Not a word." Aphrodite responded through gritted teeth, "He doesn't know yet."
"Do you know how dangerous this is for you?"
"Of course I do." She said with a sigh, "Do you have the Tesseract."
"Yes I have the Tesseract, don't change the subject."
Aphrodite shushed him, "Look I knew the risks okay? I took every measure I could to make sure that we were safe and now what's done is done."
Tony huffed a breath through his nose but before he could continue to argue, there was a large blond striding in their direction, "You need to tell him, soon."
"I will."
"Everything alright?" Steve asked when came to a stop in front if them.
"It's fine." Tony answered.
"Then let's get outta here."
Then in real time, as quickly as they had disappeared, the Avengers reappeared in the compound in the same exact spots that they'd left from.
"Did we get them all?" Bruce broke the silence wanting to make sure before too much excitement set in, there were nods and sounds of confirmation to his question.
"You telling me this'll actually work?" Rhodes nearly scoffed even as he smiled.
They all looked around ready to revel in their success however, a hard thumping sound cut through all excitement and they turned to see Clint had dropped to his knees, and he was alone.
"Clint, where's Nat?" Bruce asked the archer, and he was silent not even sparing the scientist a glance.
"Where is she?" Aphrodite asked this time, and Clint did look up at her with sadness and regret in his eyes, "Clint?" she whimpered slowly approaching.
"She's gone." He stammered.
"No." Aphrodite cried dropping down beside him.
"She's gone." He said again.
"No." Aphrodite sobbed wrapping her arms around his shoulders and hugging him crying onto his shoulder, his hand came up to hold onto her arm as he repeated those two horrible words again, before he too broke down in tears. The rest of the team was silent, Steve couldn't even make his body move to comfort his wife as he felt paralyzed from shock.
The mission was completed, but look at the cost.
It took some time but eventually Aphrodite and Clint managed to peel themselves up from the platform floor, and go and get cleaned up. The others followed suit most of them with a heavy cloud hanging over their heads. Silently Rocket gathered up the retrieved stones and took them to the lab to begin breaking them down or open, Rhodes and Scott went with him to give the original team some time to mourn their teammate and friend.
Clint was already on the boardwalk overlooking the lake when Aphrodite and Steve ventured out there needing a bit of fresh air. Eventually they were joined by the other.
"Guess we should start thinking about funeral arrangements," Tony mumbled from the back of the group, "Do we know if she had family?"
Aphrodite sucked in a sharp breath as she felt another round of tears surface, beside her, her husband was crying silently even as he rested a hand on her knee, "Yeah." He said answering Tony. "Us."
"What?" Thor snapped getting close to Tony's face, who didn't even budge.
"I just asked them a question," he tried to defend but Thor wasn't hearing it.
"Yeah, you're acting like she's dead. Why are we acting like she's dead? We have the stones, right?" Thor said gesturing wildly, "As long as we have the stones, sister, look at me," He pleaded, "We can bring her back, isn't that right?" He asked before snapping slightly, "So stop this shit. We're the Avengers, get it together."
"We can't get her back." Clint spoke up, his voice cracking slightly.
"Wha– what?" Thor blinked.
"It can't be undone. It can't."
"I'm sorry. No offense, but you're a very earthly being. Okay?" Thor scoffed with a dry laugh, "We're talking about space magic. And 'can't' seems very definitive don't you think?"
"Yeah, look, I know that I'm way outside my paygrade here. But she still isn't here, is she?"
"No, that's my point–"
"It can't, be undone. Or that's at least what the red floating guy had to say." Clint snapped before his voice rose, "Maybe you wanna go talk to him, okay? Go grab your hammer, and you go fly and talk to him!" He roared before breaking down again, "It was supposed to be me. She sacrificed her life for that goddamn stone. She bet her life on it."
In a burst of anger that he held back this far, Bruce grabbed a bench and hurled it clear across the lake.
"She's not coming back." He said in a resigned tone, "We have to make it worth it. We have to."
Steve stood with grim determination on his face. "We will."
A few hours later it was finally time, everyone was re-suited up, save for Thor, after the successful time heist of retrieving the stones. They all thought it best to be battle ready just in case anything bad came after their snap.
"All right. The glove's ready." Rocket said while carefully removing the completed gauntlet from its stand, "Question is, who's gonna snap their freaking fingers?"
"I'll do it." Thor piped up from all the way on the other side of the room.
"Excuse me?" Scott asked since he was closest to Thor as he strode past him.
"It's okay." He said making a reach for the glove but almost everyone in the room put a stop to him, pleading to just wait.
"Wait, wait, Thor, just wait." Steve said placing a hand on his brother-in-law's chest, "We haven't decided who's gonna put that on yet."
"I'm sorry." Thor snapped sarcastically looking back at the Captain, "What, we're just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?"
"We should at least discuss it." Scott suggested.
"No, no, sitting here staring at that thing is not gonna bring everybody back. I'm the strongest Avenger, okay? So this responsibility falls upon me. It's my duty."
"It's not about that–" Tony tried this time but Thor interrupted him too.
"Stop it!" Thor snapped, before pleading as he started to tear up again, "Just let me! Just let me do it. Just let me do something good. Something right."
"Hey, hey, look at me." Aphrodite shook her head sliding in front of him, "It's not just the fact that that glove is channelling enough energy to light up a couple small planets. You are in no condition."
"What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?" He begged.
"Cheez Whiz?" Rhodey tossed out with his arms folded over his chest, Thor only pointed a finger at him in warning before looking his sister in the eye.
"Lightning." He whispered.
"I know, but I can't let you do this." Aphrodite said patting his cheek. "I'll do it." She said only to be met with protests as well, "If anyone can take the energy from that thing it's gonna be me."
"She's got a point." Rocket agreed.
"Maybe under normal circumstances," Tony said stepping in front of her, "But we have no idea what that thing could do to the baby." He said trying to get her to see his reasoning before realizing what he'd accidentally let slip.
"Baby?!" Almost everyone in the room echoed and Steve was immediately at her side staring her down in shock, while Aphrodite shook her head at Tony who at least looked apologetic.
"Yeah, I'm pregnant," She told the room, before speaking directly to her husband, "I was gonna tell you after."
"They're right," Bruce spoke up for the first time in a while stopping whatever Steve was going to say next, "Lightning won't help you, Thor. It's gotta be me." He said with finality and this time no one argued, "You saw what those stones did to Thanos. It almost killed him." He said before speaking to Aphrodite, "Even if we let you do it, we don't know what kind of damage that glove could do to your baby, no one else could survive."
"How do we know you will?" Steve asked carefully looking like he was on the verge of grabbing his wife and taking her far, far away from the Infinity Stones.
"We don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma." He said whilst staring down the gauntlet, "It's like. I was made for this."
Rocket removed the gauntlet from its pedestal before carefully handing it over to Bruce, "Good luck pal."
"Good to go, yeah?" Tony asked and Bruce made his way to the centre of the room.
"Let's do it."
"You remember– everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago and just bringing them back to now, today. Don't change anything from the last five years."
"Got it."
Everyone formed a circle around Bruce, Thor ushered Rocket to stand behind him as the raccoon slid his goggles over his eyes, Tony, Rhodes and Scott's suits all developed around them and Tony formed a shield from his nanotech to further protect he and Clint. Steve held his shield in front of his, and Aphrodite conjured up a force field in front of herself and extended it to cover Scott and Rhodes as well.
"F.R.I.D.A.Y., do me a favour and activate Barn Door Protocol. Will you?" Tony called out to his UI.
"Yes, boss."
"Everybody comes home." Bruce said one more time before slowly sliding his hand inside the gauntlet which expanded to fit his massive hand. As soon as it properly fit him, a surge of power flowed through the gauntlet and up Bruce's arm before he dropped to a knee while grunting in pain.
"Take it off! Take it off!" Thor shouted.
"No, wait." Steve cut in, :Bruce, are you okay?"
"Talk to me, Banner." Tony echoed.
"I'm okay. I'm okay." Bruce forced out nodded.
Thor relaxed slightly offering two thumbs up to the green giant. Bruce screamed in more pain as he slowly began to raise his arm, fighting against the raw power that the gauntlet was giving off, before finally he snapped his fingers. In the next second he collapsed onto the floor as the gauntlet slid off of his badly damaged arm.
The team rushed to check on him and Clint kicked the partially destroyed gauntlet out of the way.
"Bruce!" Steve called as he dropped to his knees beside him placing a hand on his chest.
"Don't move him." Tony warned before using a freezing function on his suit to freeze over Bruce's charred arm,
"Did it work?" Bruce moaned gripping Steve's arm with his good hand.
"We don't know yet," Aphrodite said honestly running her hand over's Bruce's head, "It's okay. It's okay."
During that Scott walked towards the windows now that the defences were once again raised as was shocked to see plants blooming and birds chirping just outside. A phone rang and Clint stood on shaking legs to slowly walk over to his phone, immediately tearing up at the image of his wife on the caller ID.
"Honey? Honey?" His broken voice stammered.
"Guys," Scott breathed out, "I think it worked!"
The second after he said that the entire base exploded, and everyone flew in different directions, some went down, some went even further down, some went up, and the explosions didn't stop there.
KEZZ 1: Thanks!
Ivana Bocanegra: Thanks, hope you enjoyed.
BlueBloodsSVUOrder: I am and I hope you are too. Hope you liked it.
Supernatural4life: Lmao, thanks.
La rara que con nadie habla: Much love for my fellow international readers, Gracias.
Guest 1: Lol, yall seem to be forgetting that when Aphrodite died back in Infinity War she already had her moment with her mom, I feel like Thor needed this one more.
Love. Fiction. 2019: Thanks.
LoveOfMyLifeHALSEY: Welcome back, hope you enjoyed.
Literally the only reason this chapter took so long to post, is because I was searching high and low for Peggy Carter's original timeline story, and I'm still not %100 sure that I got things right.
Well this chapter was exciting, THE TRUTH CAME OUT, though probably not in the way you guys were expecting.
And next is the massive battle sequence, well technically 2 battle sequences. So I need your guy's opinion, do you think Aphrodite should have gotten trapped underground, or should she be with the Big Three when they greet Thanos for the first time. I have ideas for both instances but I wanna hear from you which you think would be better.
Also, is there anything specific you guys want to see happen during the Big Final Battle, don't hesitate to let me know.
Stay safe everyone.
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.