And suddenly...the lab setting had been replaced by dust-ridden surroundings with dilapidated housing and rusting cars.
She knew this neighborhood.
The robins-egg-blue ranch-type house that sat on the corner, with white shutters and overgrown red rose bushes that rustled in the slight breeze.
She found herself striding towards it, heart threatening to pound its way out of her chest.
The door creaked on its hinges as she forced it open and closed. A duffel bag sat on a table and guns leaned against the wall. She couldn't stop words from escaping her mouth.
"Bucky?"
Heavy footsteps sounded as a dark-haired man ducked through a low doorway, coming from the living room. Bags layered under his eyes, dark rings surrounding them. His hair hung loosely and shoulders slumped with the weight of the sins they had both been carrying. At the sight of her, his brows raised.
"Brie…" suspicion laced his voice and in her commlink, Aubrey heard a countdown begin.
Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…
"Bucky. I..-" she drank in the sight of her friend, memorizing every detail of his face and the lilt of his voice. "- You're...you're here." taking a cautious step forward, she moved directly in front of Bucky. His icy blue eyes met hers, concern rising up in them. Resisting the urge to pull him into a hug, Aubrey's hand-pulled one of the combat knives from the utility belt strapped around his waist. He tensed but didn't make any other movement. "Thank you…." the words were whispered as she clutched the weapon to her chest, attempting to gulp down tears. The countdown reached single digits and she felt wetness on her cheeks.
"What...What's wrong?" he frowned, eyes raking over her for an injury.
"I've missed you so much-" before she could say goodbye, Aubrey was pulled from that reality and back to her own.
Her legs gave out as the hardness of the platform replaced the worn-down carpet she had stood on moments before.
"Bucky" the whimpered word sounded quietly as footsteps pounded and she felt weathered hands gripping her shoulders. Vaguely, a voice sounded.
"Aubrey, look at me, Aubrey. Are you okay?"
Heaving a breath, she summoned the strength to meet Tony's worried gaze. Slowly her hands unraveled from the precious knife she had taken from Bucky. Its Jarrah wood ran smoothly beneath her fingers and Russian words were engraved on the sides.
Мы будем живы, мы не умрем [We will be alive, we don't die]
Thin lines of blood trickled down her palms as she flashed it in the fading light. Tony's eyes flicked from her to the knife and back to her.
Straightening, he held out a hand and she took it, unsure if her legs would decide to work or not. Thankfully they held her weight and Tony followed her down the stairs, as though he was worried she would collapse into a heap at any moment.
The others stood in a nervous clump and Aubrey watched them collectively shudder a sigh of relief when she flashed his knife again.
Her fingers couldn't stop tracing the engravings.
When Cap asked to hold the knife, she regretfully let him pry it from her grasp.
Aubrey felt as though shock had covered her in a veil, making things sound far away and underwater.
She might see Bucky again.
Might be able to tell him everything that there hadn't been time to say.
But she was wary of the hope, as it had evaded her so many times.
"Okay, so the how works, now we gotta figure out the when and where.-" Cap began. Aubrey rested her legs on the armrest of a chair, knife still in hand. "- Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter with at least one of the six infinity stones."
"Or, substitute the word encounter with almost been killed by one of the infinity stones."
"Well I haven't...but I don't even know what you're all talking about" Lang sat at a dining table while Banner paced around them.
"Regardless, we only have enough Pym Particles for one roundtrip each. These stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history."
"Our history,-" Tony interrupted. "- So not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in, yeah?"
"Which means we pick our targets" Flipping the knife through the air, she watched the hologram of the stones revolve around the holo table.
"So let's start with the Aether-" Cap nodded towards Thor, who had parked himself on a chair in the corner. The god of lightning had changed….a lot since she'd last seen him in Wakanda. His suit of armor had been replaced with a worn-out sweatshirt, sweatpants and sunglasses covered his eyes."-Thor, what do you know?"
When he didn't answer, Natasha muttered under her breath "Is he asleep?"
"No, No, I'm pretty sure he's dead" Rhodey shot back, malice in his voice.
Tony heaved a sigh, growling, "Why don't you check"
Creeping closer, Rhodey said Thor's name several times before raising the sunglasses off of his face.
Thor was indeed not dead but asleep.
Very asleep.
A soft snore slipped from his mouth as Rhodey attempted to shake him awake.
"Thor? Wake up"
"Huh? I just was...what's going on?" lumbering to his feet, Thor ambled to the front of the room.
"We need you to tell us about the Aether."
"Uh...where to start?" Thor bumbled around, voice flustered. "The Aether, firstly, is not a stone...Someone called it a stone before...Um, it's more of an angry sludge sort of thing so someone's going to need to mend that.-" He paused, squeezing eye drops into his eye. Aubrey's mouth tugged into a frown as she watched him. He didn't even seem hopeful at the chance for redemption. "-So here's an interesting story though, about the Aether. My grandfather, many years ago...had to hide the stone from the dark elves. Ohh, scary beings. So, Jane actually-" swiping the hologram, the image of a woman appeared. Her face was rounded with large hazel eyes and layered brunette hair. "-Oh, there she is. Yeah, so Jane was an old flame of mine.-" A glance at Tony's face told her that she wasn't the only confused one. "- 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. So I had to take her to Asgard, which is where I'm from...and so we had to try and fix her. We were dating at the time you see….and I got to introduce her to my mother….who's dead..um" Thor stopped again, heaving a shuddering sigh and Aubrey saw the glitter of tears in his eyes. Tony started slowly skirting around the table, concern painted on his face as Thor's words became mumbled "- Oh, you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, so...yes these things happen….Nothing lasts forever...the only thing that-"
"Why don't you come sit down?" Grabbing his arm, Tony tried to lead Thor back to his seat but the god of lightning wasn't done yet.
"No….no, I'm not finished. The only thing that is permanent in life...is impermanence."
She saw the pain flashing in his eyes, the feeling he had tried to cover up for years, choosing to drown his sorrows in alcohol.
The same sorrows she had tried to deal with by isolating herself.
"Awesome, Eggs, breakfast?"
"No, I'd like a bloody mary." Thor's smile was broken as he lumbered out of the room.
"Okay, Time Stone." Curling a leg underneath her, Aubrey watched the hologram spin. Natasha's back leaned against hers, They both were sat on the table, Tony laying beside them with a pillow beneath his head. Banner was on the floor as the remaining smell of Chinese food wafted through the air. Various facts about the stones floated through her mind.
Power stone, stolen by a man named Quill from Morag, a planet.
Soul Stone, found by Thanos on Vormir...a dominion of death at the very center of celestial existence….where Nebula's sister had been killed.
"Doctor Strange" Tony clarified.
"Yeah, what kind of doctor was he?"
"Ear-nose-throat meets rabbit-from-hat"
"Nice place in the Village though-" Banner piped up, twirling a pencil in his hands. "-On Sullivan Street...no..wait, Bleecker Street."
"Wait...he lived in New York?" Natasha's back stiffened as she spoke.
"Uh, yeah, Bleecker and Sullivan.-" he repeated "- have you been listening to anything?"
"Wait-" Aubrey's mind clicked with what Nat was getting at. "...if we pick the right year...there are three stones in New York"
The air in the room stilled as Banner sat up "Shut the front door."
Time Heist
New York: Space Stone, Mind Stone, Time Stone.
Morag/Vormir: Power Stone, Soul Stone.
Asgard: Reality Stone.
"Alright, we have our plan. Six stones, three teams, one shot."
Rolling her shoulders, Aubrey's hands twitched as she loaded the suit with knives, and throwing stars. The rings on her fingers glittered in the light and a quiver of arrows sat nearby. Tony ambled into the side room she was in, it connected to the hallway that led to the lab.
"Well," he started, not meeting her eyes. "- Cap has always been one for pep talks" the words brought a small smile to both of their faces as she crossed her arms.
"Tony, is everything okay?"
"Yeah...I just...yeah. I'm fine...I was just thinking and-" leaning against the doorframe with his back, Tony stared at the door. "- This needs to work...It has to. I'll make it work."
Sucking in a breath, she sidled closer, brows pulled down. "I think you need to hear what I'm going to say...as hard as it is to get out. Are you listening?"
He hesitantly nodded.
"Tony. I have so much hope...I want this to work more than anything. But...I also have come to the conclusion that I am okay. I will recover if this doesn't work...and..and I've found what I've lost in your family. You, Pepper, and Morgan. I owe you my life, I owe that and so much more-." Tears pricked her eyes but Aubrey sniffled them back. "-I've settled with the people I've found around me. The ones I never would've been able to know otherwise….and for that...I'm eternally thankful." There were so many words, things she wanted to say to him at that moment but Aubrey couldn't find the right way to convey them. He'd saved her in so many ways.
"I hear you...what you don't want to say. I want this Aubrey. I want Morgan to grow up in a world that's not as broken as it is now. I want Pepper to be able to call her friends. I want you to lose the dull, numb look you get in your eyes. And when you see him, after all this, I'm instructing you to talk to him. I can see in your eyes what you want to say *We talked all the time Tony*. And you did..probably. But you know what I mean. I want to say more, but I'll stop here before your cheeks can turn any redder-." He gave her a real grin, pushing off of the doorframe. "- Besides...if I find out you haven't said anything to him, I might have to say something myself."
A sucked-in sob tore its way through her as reality struck Aubrey's mind.
"You wouldn't"
"Oh, I think you know I would" the sarcastic gleam in his eye returned as she followed him through the door, wiping away the tears.
They were going to bring everyone home.
"Five years ago, we lost. All of us, We lost friends, we lost family, we lost a part of ourselves, today we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the Stones, get Them back. One round trip each, no mistakes, no do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know, that doesn't mean we should know what to expect. Be careful, look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives and we're gonna win. Whatever it takes-" Pausing, Cap met Tony's gaze "-...good luck"
"He's pretty good at that" Rocket the Raccoon nodded his head in approval.
"I know, right?" Ant-Man took his position beside him.
Aubrey shifted her weight, as Tony gave her a sarcastic grin, one she had seen on Morgan's face several days before. Her heart panged at the thought of the girl.
This was for Morgan, who didn't deserve to grow up in a broken world.
It was for Bucky, who had lived a broken life and deserved peace.
It was for her family, who she never wanted to live without.
For Christina, who'd she would never meet again, but that she could endure the happiness of grandchildren.
It was for herself so that Aubrey could stop living in the past and focus on the future.
For half of the population that never got a chance.