The events in this chapter are synced with events in the movie Avenger's Endgame.
5 Years Post Snap
"Is that anyone's sandwich?"
Kagome watched the newcomer, Scott, stride over to the table and pick up Natasha's abandoned sandwich. His aura buzzed about him anxiously, as disheveled as the rest of him, but he was harmless.
And apparently not a stranger to Steve and Nat, which made her feel better about the way he kept pacing and jerking around, full of busy, nervous energy. He'd shown up out of the blue and unannounced, throwing a new wrench into their carefully constructed existences, but he'd distracted Natasha from the downward spiral she'd been on due to the current whereabouts of her closest friend, and for that Kagome was grateful.
Most of what he said went right over her head, her spotty attendance in high school physics not serving her very well in talks of quantum realms and pockets of slower time, but the conversation soon turned toward a subject she knew intimately.
"No, no of course not. Not a time machine. It's more like... yeah, like a time machine. I know, it's crazy. It's crazy! But I can't stop thinking about it. There's gotta be... some way... it's crazy."
"It's not crazy." She spoke before she could consider the ramifications which hit her all at once when three sets of eyes swung her way glowing with questions.
"It's not?" Scott asked, some of his agitation calming at the prospect of being understood.
Kagome cleated her throat, took one more moment to hesitate, then spilled a secret part of her life she hadn't spoken of since that long ago time on Asgard.
"No. No it's not crazy. Because... because I've time traveled."
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Kagome sat next to Scott in the diner booth and tried to follow along while they explained their new situation to Bruce, who had supposedly made peace with his "other side" and had morphed into an interesting amalgamation of himself and The Hulk. It was a little jarring, but there was a true peace about him that he hadn't had in the few interactions she'd had with him.
That same peace had also enveloped Tony, who'd been so very broken when she'd first met him. She could not blame him at all for not wanting to help them in their latest scheme. Asking him to risk his family was too much, and if they'd known he and Pepper were raising a child now, she'd have insisted on leaving him alone, though Steve would probably have argued.
She also couldn't blame him for not believing that she'd once been a time traveler. Tony Stark was a man of science, and ancient, magical wells on shrines hiding time portals in their depths were better suited to fairytale books.
Bruce, it seemed, was a little more willing to play along with her story, and his new, jovial outlook on life had him quickly agreeing to try and help them.
It seemed her own experiences with time travel didn't quite match up with what they would encounter should they be able to figure this out, but it was concluded that whatever had happened to allow her into the past must be a fixed point of some kind, and their own determination to force themselves backward through time would have very different consequences to the time line.
She called Inuyasha to join them, as he'd stayed behind to help with some repairs on the shrine. As her partner in time travel shenanigans, he'd be another invaluable resource in their investigations.
She went with Bruce and Nat to retrieve him, giving Bruce a chance to scan the well for latent energies related to her journeys into the past.
Her mother took his strange appearance in stride, just the way she took everything, and had them all seated around the table to have refreshments before they were allowed into the wellhouse.
Kagome set to work getting the tea cups arranged on a tray with some leftover dumplings and rice balls when her mother slid up behind her and whispered low enough that the human guests wouldn't hear, even though they wouldn't understand her mother's Japanese anyway, though she had no doubt Inuyasha was privy to every word.
"Is that Inuyasha's new lady friend?"
"What?" Kagome sputtered, glancing over quickly to see Inuyasha's ears tilting backwards and a slight flush crawling across his cheeks. "How did you know about that? They're so sneaky about it."
Her mother snickered and added some cookies to the tray.
"Oh please. As if I hadn't noticed him always with his nose in that phone of his. I'm old now dear, but I am not losing my mind yet! She seems very nice. And what other reason would she have to come here? As I remember you telling me, she is not a scientist like the other one, and this is a science trip after all."
Her jaw dropped in shock, but Kagome couldn't deny her mother was right. They'd only told her that Bruce wanted to study the well, not that they were all trying to build a time machine, but even with as little information as she'd been given she was right in her assessment that Natasha was not necessarily to this expedition.
'Except maybe to see a certain grumpy puppy.'
Kagome thought as she placed the tray of food and tea at the center of the table. She winked as Inuyasha cast her a dark glare when she took her seat.
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The lasers that ran over their bodies felt like nothing at all, but were apparently enough to get thorough, detailed readings of their bodies on a cellular level. Bruce's scans of the well had turned up all of nothing, so he'd inquired about scanning their bodies instead. Inuyasha had been reluctant to be treated like some sort of science experiment after centuries of successfully dodging such treatment, but with a huff and a glare Kagome managed to convince him to go along with it.
"This is so embarrassing." Inuyasha grumbled, standing rigidly with his arms crossed in a skin tight suit that covered him from sternum to wrist to ankle.
Kagome wore a matching suit and she had to agree. It was shockingly revealing despite covering nearly every centimeter of skin.
"I agree, I hate that this is necessary."
"It's not." Bruce responded distractedly, tapping at the readings on his screen.
"It's not?! Then why the hell are we wearing these things?"
"This was just for me." Natasha answered Inuyasha's outburst, stepping up and grinning impishly as Kagome burst into giggles.
"Natasha you're the worst."
"I'm not getting anything unusual out of these scans. Well, nothing aside from what already makes you unusual. Nothing to suggest you've been permanently altered by jumping into a time portal."
"Sorry we couldn't be more help Bruce."
"Eh, it's alright 'Gome, I've got some other things cooking I'm going to try out. Scott's going to help me test some things this afternoon, we'll see what happens then."
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The arrival of Tony Stark and his proclamation of having solved the time travel dilemma added a fresh undercurrent of excitement to the burning hope that had been bubbling up between each of them, and he set them to work immediately on building the machine that would allow them to leap backwards through time and snatch the Infinity Stones for themselves before Thanos could ever find them.
Tony Stark in his natural element, happy, busy and running the show, was a force that Kagome would never have predicted from her previous, very brief interactions with him. He almost rarely called them by name, resorting to nicknames that ranged from obvious to absurd or obscure, keeping them on their toes with new directives and verbal sparring matches, and sweeping in and out of rooms unannounced to do as he pleased and drop hints of havoc in his wake. He marched to the beat of a drum no one else had ever heard, and Kagome found him endlessly entertaining in a way no one else in their group appreciated.
'I was married to Loki for too long. This kind of chaos is just second nature to me now, I guess.'
She felt his aura approaching again, dancing with mischief and mirth to check in on she and Inuyasha where they worked in one of the store rooms utilizing Inuyasha's demon strength to search through large boxes of mechanical parts while Kagome sorted tiny electrical bits. Tony popped his head in and Inuyasha immediately tensed, much to Kagome's eternal amusement.
"Hey Katniss, Thundercat, we're waiting in the meeting hall."
And just like that he was gone, leaving them to tidy up and make their way to join the rest of their friends.
"How many damn times am I gonna have to tell that asshole that I'm a dog?!"
"Something tells me he's going to keep making cat references until he's convinced changing to dog jokes will get more of a rise out of you." Kagome giggled as she strode next to him, and Inuyasha's heart squeezed at how bright her eyes sparkled for the first time in ages.
"Hey uh, Kagome..." he started, scratching at the back of his head awkwardly.
"Yes?"
"So um, you seem to be happier lately."
"We're all happier Inuyasha, we actually have something to do, a goal to work toward. We have a chance to fix everything." She replied dismissively and he winced that he'd now have to push a little farther. Things had been so good between them since he'd stopped arguing with her about her plans for resurrecting her dead husband, but he couldn't let it lie any longer, no matter what she said about it. He wasn't even positive that a person could be successfully brought completely back from the dead, not without some serious repercussions, and he was worried about how she might react if that turned out to be true, that she would be unable to cope with failing in bringing him back. Especially as she was involving the tumultuous powers of the Shikon Jewel. More than anything he feared her attempts would be twisted by the inherent selfishness of bringing someone back from the dead.
Turning back the clock on Thanos's destruction was different somehow, in his mind at least. Righting a wrong wrought by someone's else's selfishness seemed more justifiable than calling back a singular soul simply because you missed them.
In any case he had to ensure that her head was in the right place for this mission. It was going to be difficult enough as it was.
"Well I mean, you seem extra extra happy."
She cast him a suspicious glance.
"Is there something you're trying to say?"
Inuyasha heaved a sigh and decided to lay it all on the line. Subtlety was never his forte anyway.
"Have you moved on from attempting to resurrect Loki?"
She stopped mid step and looked at him, uncomprehending and with the beginnings of old defensiveness and rage beginning to simmer behind her eyes.
"Why are you asking about that? Of course I haven't."
"You don't think it would be better to try and move on? Like the rest of us?"
Inuyasha could practically see the defensive walls she was building in her mind with every word he spoke and he hated it more than he could say, but as her oldest friend he felt honor bound to try and care for her in the ways she wouldn't care for herself.
"Like the rest of you? And what are the rest of you doing to move on? Hatching plans to bring back all the people you lost? Building time machines? How am I any different?"
Inuyasha flinched at the accusation in her tone, and despite his previous thoughts on the differences of their situations, he could still see how damning it seemed.
"That's... not exactly-"
"Don't even try to tell me it's different Inuyasha. Don't even start. Thanos killed Loki just like he killed Sesshomaru and Shippo and me trying to bring him back is no different. Now let's go, they're still waiting on us."
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Touching down in New Asgard made Kagome breath a sigh of relief. Inuyasha has followed Natasha to Japan to find Clint Barton, and the massive stretch of space between them finally cut the tension she'd been holding onto since they're last conversation before that hectic meeting that had led her here to retrieve Thor.
Scott, Bruce and Rocket followed her through the village, past the docks where Valkyrie warned them he may not want to see them.
But she was there, and he always wanted to see her.
The only thing that made her nervous was that it wasn't her week to be here. Thor normally had two whole weeks to clean himself up before she arrived, and she worried what she'd find by catching him unawares.
Her heart broke when they entered his little house and she found it was much worse than she feared.
He had successfully hidden so much of his struggling from her.
He'd had no chance to clean the beer bottles and pizza boxes, to put on a cleaner, bigger shirt or sweater, to dust or wipe or sweep. He staggered and slurred as he tried to greet them, but she couldn't tear her eyes from the physical manifestations of the mess in his heart and soul.
She picked up a mostly empty beer bottle and sniffed, her nose wrinkling at the smell of cheap, weak alcohol, nowhere close to the strength of Asgardian wine or Ale.
"Thor, how are you even getting drunk on this stuff? Are you not drinking any water at all when I'm not here?"
He met her eyes guiltily and Rocket and Bruce stepped back from their attempts to reason with him as she approached.
"Oh Thor, I figured things were worse than you were letting on. I'm so sorry. But listen to me, we need you now, okay? We're going to get them back. Do you understand? We're getting them all back. Will you help us?"
He stared back into her eyes and she watched as hope and despair warred in the depths of his. His feelings of failure bowed to the possibility of righting all of the wrongs that had plagued his every thought. Kagome thought she might sing when she watched resolve flash brightly through his aura, and when he clasped her hand and nodded his acceptance, determination hardening his features, she let her own hope finally fly free.
They would win after all, and they would do it together.