Chapter 99

She wanted to be able to say that it got easier as the days went on. That the pain started to fade away and life returned to normal. She wanted to be able to say that things were getting better, and that there was a light in all the darkness that surrounded her.

But that would have been a lie.

Things weren't getting better. And she wasn't convinced it wasn't getting worse.

The death of her parents had been traumatic. At the young age she'd been, she'd barely been able to process it properly, and she knew that at the time she'd engaged in many vices that were far from healthy. She was well aware that she didn't deal with it properly.

And when Jarvis had died, she'd been devastated for days, unable to process the loss of the man she'd once considered a father figure.

But deep down, part of her had always known that one day she would lose them. She hadn't been ready for it. And the knowledge hadn't helped her process the grief. But the knowledge was there.

She was never supposed to lose Peter and Morgan. They were supposed to outlive her. Supposed to be better than her. She wasn't supposed to stand at the funerals that Steve insisted they have for everyone they personally lost. One funeral a day, so every lost member of their family got the proper service they deserved.

It had been days since she'd gotten out of bed and talked to anyone else. She showered and ate at Steve's prompting, but she was little more than a hallow shell. Even their love making had been a way to help her forget her pain for just a few moments.

She loved her husband, and she knew he was in as much pain as she was, but she didn't have the strength to keep going. She wasn't sure she'd ever recover from this, in all honesty.

She knew Steve worried. She'd heard him have discussions with her family when he thought she was asleep. He was terrified of losing her too. And she wanted to be strong enough for him. She didn't want him to worry about her too. But she couldn't help it.

It was after the second week she'd remained in their rooms that Rhodey finally came to talk to her.

"Toni," he said gently, "You need to get out of bed."

"I can't," she croaked out, voice sore from the tears she'd shed.

"You have to," he said, sitting down beside her, "This isn't healthy, Baby Girl. You know that as well as I do."

"They're gone, Rhodey," she whispered, "What am I supposed to do? May and Ben trusted me to keep their nephew safe, and I failed them. I failed them because I wasn't enough to stop Thanos. I couldn't protect my own children, my cousins, my team. They're all gone because I wasn't enough. I didn't do enough."

"Don't you dare blame yourself," he said in a voice so commanding, she felt herself freeze, as she looked at him. "No. I know you, Toni. You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You blame yourself for things out of your control. This was on Thanos. He's the one who did this. Not you. Not me. Not Steve. You cannot blame yourself for this."

She felt her stomach grow nauseous, and she stood up quickly, running to her bathroom as she held her head over the toilet and puked into it.

Hopper, she was a mess.

She wiped her mouth, as she saw her reflection in the mirror. She'd lost weight, and there were deep bags under her eyes from the lack of sleep. Even in her peak twenties when she worked for unhealthy amounts of time, she'd never looked like this.

She walked back to the room, as she sat beside Rhodey in the bed, not quite crawling back into it.

"We're worried about you," he told her. "You don't need to go back to being as productive as you usually were. You don't need to do any upgrades or create any products for Stark industries. But you need to at least try. You need to get up each morning and eat some semblance of adequate meals. You need to be there for your husband. You need to sleep. Just do the basics, okay? Everything else can wait."

"My heart is so broken," she trembled, "How am I supposed to go on?"

"I don't know," he sighed, "Mom and Jeanette are gone too. This isn't easy for any of us, Sweetheart. Peter and Morgan meant the world to me too. I don't know how any of us are supposed to be okay with this. But we need to try. We need to keep living for them. We need to try and keep the world running. We need to keep going."

She knew deep down that he was right. Hiding away in her room wouldn't do anything. Her children were gone. That wasn't going to change. Her baby girl who'd just said her first few words, that finally included 'Mama' and 'Dada'. Her brilliant son who was competing in the school's science fair the week that was supposed to follow the attack.

And instead, she'd never get another memory with them again.

But she needed to keep their memories alive. She needed to honour them. She knew her son would be heartbroken if he saw her like this. And if the tables were turned, if they were here while she was gone, she'd want them to have a long and happy life.

"Come eat dinner," Rhodey told her gently. "Steve is cooking for the two of you. You don't have to face the rest of the team. You don't even have to say a word. But get out of bed, okay?"

She swallowed, as she followed him out of the room.

Steve looked both surprised and relieved when he saw her, and she wrapped her arms around him tightly.

"I'm sorry," she offered, knowing it wasn't easy on him either.

"Don't apologise for your grief," he told her, holding her. "We're going to get through this, okay? It won't be easy, but we'll face it together."

"Okay," she breathed out. And for the first time since returning from Titan, she believed him.


The days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months. It was hard still, to try and go about their lives. It was hard for any of them to try and care about something so mundane as work or having a new StarkPhone release that quarter, or even her own birthday.

Peter's had come and gone, and she and Steve spent the day watching Star Wars, commenting through watery remarks what Peter would have said during different scenes. His friends were both gone as well, leaving very people other than them to miss her son.

She wished she could say that it was getting easier, but that would have been a lie. It was nowhere near easy still. It was miserable. It was heart wrenching.

But she was surviving. She was waking up each morning, getting out of bed, eating, and trying to do something useful with her day. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough for now. It had to be.

She could see Steve hurting too, and he'd leaned on her a few times letting down his strong demeanour and breaking down from the pain of it all.

She didn't know a single person who'd made it out of this unscathed, and she knew everyone was in just as much pain. But they were moving forward.

"We still don't have the full statistics on everyone who was lost," Carol Danvers was saying, as Toni entered the once living room of the Compound, and now turned command centre. There were screens up everywhere with images, last seen dates, patterns tracking their movements before they'd vanished. She'd had FRIDAY run the math to see if there were any patterns to those who had been lost. She'd wanted to know if she'd lost her children because of Thanos, or if it was truly just luck of the draw.

It had been random. Some families completely wiped out, others spared, some fifty-fifty. There were no patterns. Thanos had wiped out half the universe just as he said, he'd chosen without discrimination. He'd let the universe decide who loved and who died.

"So you admit there's a chance," Natasha pressed, voice sounding on edge.

"I suppose," Carol admitted, and both women stopped talking the minute she entered the room.

"No go on," Toni nodded, "I can handle it. Whatever it is."

"I wanted to find out what happened to Scott and Hope," Natasha mentioned, "Their suits could help us a lot right now, especially with the lack of numbers we have. If we could utilize it, we could apply it to numerous applications, just as they were. But no one's heard from them since the snap."

"So they vanished too," she exhaled.

"We don't know that for a fact," Carol sighed, as that had been what she'd admitted to earlier. "We can assume it, yes. And it would be a valid assumption. But unless anyone saw them turn to dust then we have no idea."

"If they were dusted, but not wearing the suits at the time, then they would have been left behind," Natasha remarked.

"FRIDAY?" she asked, "Can you try and get footage of Hope and Scott from around the time of The Snap? See if we can't figure out what happened?"

"Searching," her AI responded, and she watched on the screen as hundreds of hours of footage began to be scanned with facial recognition for either Hope or Scott. "I believe I have a match."

She looked up in surprise, given how little time it took. The footage began to play, showing Hope, Scott, and Hope's parents on the roof of a parking complex. Scott had been wearing the suit while Hope and her parents were in plain clothes. So at least one suit would remain.

She watched as they began typing on the computers, and Scott got pulled into the van, presumably into the Quantum Realm, from what Hope had described to her.

And then it happened.

The Snap.

She closed her eyes as she saw Hope, Hank, and Janet turn to dust.

But Scott remained in the realm.

"FRIDAY speed up the footage," she asked quickly, "I want to see if he emerged at any point, or if he remained in the van."

The footage from the CCTV began to speed up, and no one came for the van. Not until several weeks later when finally, a tow truck dragged it away.

Meaning Scott Lang was still trapped in the Quantum Realm.

"Holy shit," Natasha swore as she realized the exact same thing. "He's still in there."

"We need to get him out," Toni nodded. "FRIDAY, track down the towing company and find out where the van went. We need to send a team to retrieve him. Hope mentioned that time passes differently there, and who knows if it's already too late. We don't want to lose him."

She wouldn't lose anyone else on her watch. Not if she could help it. If there's any way they could bring him back, then it was going to be her new mission to do so.

"Send me the coordinates," Natasha took charge, "Bruce and I can handle bringing him back."

"You know nothing about quantum physics," Toni argued, "You can't just press a few keys on a keyboard randomly and hope for the best. You need me."

"I don't," Natasha agreed, "But Bruce does. We can handle this, Toni. I promise. But if anything happens that's not according to plan, I promise we'll call you immediately, okay?"

She nodded tiredly, knowing the Back Widow was right. Natasha and Bruce could handle it.

She just hoped that it wouldn't be too late.


The flight to San Francisco was short and quiet. Natasha hadn't really had a friendship with Bruce in years, and well, the last time they'd been together, she'd betrayed his trust and forced him into the Hulk when she hadn't wanted to.

She'd believed she was doing the right thing at the time. Hulk was a heavy hitter against Ultron. But it was still wrong.

It had hurt Bruce. It had hurt Ava. It had hurt Harry and ended up hurting the rest of the group. It was wrong, and she knew she owed him an apology. She owed a lot of people apologies.

It was when they were about twenty minutes out that she'd sighed and let FRIDAY take the wheel as she walked towards where Bruce was doing readings that Toni had been able to get on how Hank Pym's technology worked so they'd be able to get Lang back.

"Can we talk?" she asked, as she sat down beside him.

"About?" he asked, sounding a bit confused.

"I owe you an apology, Bruce," she said, "For what happened with Ultron. I never should have kissed you and forced you turn into the Hulk. It betrayed you and Ava. And it betrayed Harry."

He didn't say anything, and she continued, "I spent so much of my life trying to unlearn what I was taught in the Red Room. But it's ingrained in me. Lie, manipulate, and do whatever it takes to achieve your goals. It's what I know. It's in my DNA. But that's not an excuse and it doesn't make it okay. It's not even close to okay. I'm sorry I hurt you, and I hope you can find it in you to forgive me."

"It was years ago, Natasha," he said, meeting her eyes, "Look, I'm not going to say it was right. But I was always going to leave. Kiss or no kiss. I wish you didn't trigger me, but you were right that it helped. I forgive you for it. I shouldn't have left, and I know it hurt Ava by doing so. I wasted precious time I had with her, and I'll never get that back. We already lost so much, and I don't want to lose any more people in my life. I'm not even sure I have the right to grieve her, given how we ended."

"You're allowed to mourn her. You loved her, Bruce. Even if your relationship was over, it doesn't mean your feelings were any less valid. It doesn't mean you loved her any less. That you love her any less," Natasha said, holding her hands together. "I miss him too. Every day. I miss Harry so much. I spent so much of my life trying not to fall for another person. I thought it was a weakness. But those Carter-Sousas have a way of sneaking up on you and making you feel things without you realizing it."

He snorted, "You can say that again."

The jet began to land, and she gathered up her things. They were in a storage facility outside the city, and Natasha felt her heart race as they left the jet and headed inside.

"Name?" the man sitting behind the desk asked without even looking up.

"We're here for a white van," Natasha said, "Might be under the name Pym, Van Dyne, or Lang?"

"I need a bit more than that," the man said, a bit skeptically. "Look, we can't just guess what you're here for. You'll need to present some ID."

"We're not family," Natasha said, and he looked up at her, before his face paled as he realized who she was. "Look. You know who we are. We need that van for official Avengers business. Do you think you could help us out?"

He nodded, as he quickly began typing on the computer.

"It's on one of the outdoor spaces. Spot 32A," he said, handing them the keys.

She grabbed it from him, as she and Bruce walked outside towards where the van was being held. She unlocked the unit, as she saw the keys on the front seat of the car.

"I'll drive this into the jet, can you return the keys to the storage spot to the owner?" Natasha asked.

He nodded, and she drove the car up the ramp and into the jet. All the computer gear had been placed in the van, and she stepped out of it, after parking and grabbed the computer that they'd seen Hope typing on in the CCTV footage, as she booted it up.

Thankfully, the computer had entered sleep mode, and all the screens Hope had had open were still active. She plugged in the laptop as Bruce entered the jet.

"How're we looking?" Bruce asked, as he rolled up his sleeves and took over the computer.

"Looks like everything's still functional," Natasha said, feeling hopeful. "It's all you, physics guy."

He grinned over at her, "Science is something I can do. Even if it's been a while."

He began typing quickly, and she wasn't even sure what it was. She may have hacking skills, but she was nowhere near proficient enough to be able to start up the machine. He was deeply concentrated in his task, as he looked over what commands Hope seemed to have typed recently and glanced over at his notes to put together what it was that they'd run recently and what they did.

"I think I got it," Bruce said as he stared at the screen. He began typing fast, as he entered command after command. She could see the van begin to light up and glow a bright blue as she heard a whirring noise.

He typed in a final command and hit the 'Enter' key, and she watched as the van came to life and began to shake a bit.

She saw a figure emerge from the van, as if it were being thrown out, as the figure grew larger and larger.

And there, in front of them, stood a very much alive Scott Lang.


"Miss? Sir? Ms Romanov and Doctor Banner have returned from San Francisco. Ms Romanov is requesting to speak with you immediately" JARVIS called out to her and Steve. They were currently in her lab at the compound, as she attempted to fiddle with some fixes to Steve's shield, as she found the reaction time in which it took to come back to her to be a bit too slow for her liking. She hadn't touched her own suit in recent months, not since the fight on Titan, and she hadn't been able to bring herself to put it back on.

"Tell them we're on our way," Steve said, as he offered her an arm. He'd been sketching while she drew, and it had been a while since the two of them had been alone together. Not since before, well everything.

They took the elevator up to the main floor, where she saw Lang, Natasha, and Bruce gathered in the once common room, and now head office that they'd set up. Rhodey, Thor, and Carol Danvers approached the room around the same time.

"I see you got him out of the Quantum Realm," Toni said with a nod, "So did you put together a game plan to utilize the Ant-Man suit?"

"Not quite," Bruce said, "There's something you all need to hear."

He turned to Lang, and gestured for him to start speaking, and Lang began to talk, "Hope, Doctor Pym, Ms Van Dyne, and I were conducting an experiment before the snap. In our previous fight against Ava Starr, she'd lost the ability for her particles to remain stable after being hit with quantum energy. I went into the Quantum Realm to gather matter to help reverse the process. I was only supposed to be in there for a few moments, but the next thing I know, I was being zapped out and appeared here."

"Is he saying what I think he's saying?" Rhodey said as understanding dawned on his face, looking over at her.

She looked at him in disbelief, "It sounds an awful lot like you're trying to say that five months didn't pass for you, Mr Lang."

He looked at her a bit nervously, "That's exactly what happened. It was only a few minutes for me. I come out here, and all of a sudden Hope is gone? I talked to my daughter on the jet. I wanted to go straight home, but Ms Widow insisted we come here. She thought I was dusted?"

"How is that even possible?" Steve asked, a bit confused.

"Time travels differently in the Quantum Realm," Scott explained to him, "It doesn't move like it does out here."

"So you skipped the last five months of torture," Thor deadpanned, "Congrats."

Aside from her, she knew Thor had probably been having the most difficult time. Half his people had been slaughtered, and those that were left were subjected to the dusting. Loki was dead, and Jane had been snapped away.

"You're not seeing the point," Natasha said, and she wasn't all that convinced she could believe the 'point' they were trying to make.

"Time travels differently in the Quantum Realm," Scott said again, but slower. "It means it's not a progression from point A to B and constantly moving forwards. We can use that to our advantage. If we can navigate through time, we can stop all of this from ever happening."

Steve wrapped an arm around her tightly at the possibility.

"That's not how Time Travel works," Bruce shook his head quickly, "If we went back, we'd be creating a different timeline. Ours would still exist, we just wouldn't be in it. We can't go back and change the past."

"So it is all for naught," Thor said, sounding resigned once more.

"I mean, not necessarily," Bruce said, "We cannot undo the Snap in this timeline because the stones are gone. But the stones still existed at some point in this timeline. If we could go back and get them, we could bring them to this moment, redo the snap to bring everyone back, and send the stones back to where they belonged."

"Like a time heist," she deadpanned, but she felt her heart sink at the same time. She knew it was something that would greatly excite her son if he were here. It involved everything he loved: time travel, science fiction, heist movies.

And yet he wasn't here to partake in it.

"No," she said firmly, and the room looked at her in shock.

"Toni, if we have a chance to bring back everyone, we have to take it," Steve said, glancing over at her.

"I know," she said, "I want them back too. You guys know how much I want them back. But a time heist wouldn't fix anything. Do you know how many problems Thanos caused by that Snap? For one, that much dust in the atmosphere? It's causing the earth to heat up at a faster rate than before."

She pulled up a hologram, as she showed them the new projections for global warming, "And that's happening now on every planet, based on Carol's reports. Not to mention the fact that Thanos snapped away half of all life. The idiot wanted more resources for those alive, but didn't realize that included all living things, such as plants and animals. There are more endangered species than ever before. And our food sources? No better than what we had. This world is dying, and even if we brought back everyone, that wouldn't solve the new problems that emerged as a result."

She took a deep breath, "And finally, the Re-Snap would only bring back those who were lost in the Snap," she looked over at Rocket and Thor, "People like Gamora and Loki would still be dead. And not to mention all the people who didn't die because of the Snap but as a result of the aftermath. People who were in planes where the captain was dusted. People in car accidents. People who couldn't get the necessary medical attention in time. They'd all still be gone. We can't bring them back to this world."

"So what are you suggesting?" Bruce asked her carefully.

"We pick a point with the least amount of deviance and go back to that moment. All of us," she said, looking around the room, "We gather the stones back up, and we fight against Thanos. Together this time. But now we'll have the stones on our side. We snap our fingers and rewrite the timeline, so we don't create an offshoot."

"You think that would work?" Thor asked, and she could see a small amount of hope in his eyes.

"I do," she nodded as she looked over at Bruce.

He ran his hands through his hair, "I mean, it would be difficult. And we'd have to fight Thanos again. But if we pulled it off, it would be like none of this ever happened. Those of us in this room who went back would be the only ones who remembered."

Steve nodded in agreement, "Okay, so what's the plan?" he asked, as she began to explain what they'd need to do.


When she headed off to bed that night, for the first time in months she'd felt a sense of hope. A sense that maybe, just maybe, things would be okay. That she'd be able to get through this. That she'd get her son and her daughter back, and she wouldn't have to go to bed each night feeling like a complete failure to them both.

"Toni?" Steve asked her gently as he stopped her when she came out of the bathroom. "Can we talk?"

She nodded as she looked up at him, knowing they needed to talk sooner or later. After everything that had happened that day, finding out about time travel and the possibility of being able to go back and bring back everyone they lost, she knew they'd need to talk about what it would mean for them.

"How are you feeling about all of this?" he asked her, "Honestly? You spent all day talking about it like it was some sort of science experiment and not talking about what it means for us. How are you actually handling this?"

She softened, knowing he was worried about her. And she didn't blame him. She hadn't exactly been the best company in the last few months and she was more than grateful that he'd stood by her side through all of it. That he hadn't once pushed her before she was ready.

She cupped his face, "I love you," she said, "So much, Steve. You mean the world to me, and I love that you've been here for me over the last few months and I know that couldn't have been easy. I wasn't exactly the best company. And despite it all, you still went out there every day to help people in need. You've been amazing through all of this, and I'll never be able to properly express how much I adore you for it."

She took a deep breath, "But we need to get our children back. This world? I can't live in one without our children in our lives. Every day my heart aches when I think about them. When I remember what our lives used to be and think about what they are now. I love you more than anything, but if there's a chance we can get them back, I need to take it. I have to take it."

He wrapped his arms around her, "I know," he nodded, "I agree. I just wish I could have been enough against him. He told me that he'd fought you and Peter, and I had no idea if you were alive or dead, and I wanted to beat him so badly if there was a chance of it keeping you safe. But instead, he threw me to the side like I was a piece of garbage. If I had been stronger, faster maybe, then maybe I could have stopped him from snapping his fingers. I could have saved Peter and Morgan. Bucky, Harry, and Ava. And everyone else we lost. I went against him with the serum, and it still wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. After everything we went through, for us to lose because of it, I don't know how to take it."

"Don't you dare say that," she said sternly, moving closer to him. "You have always been more than enough. You are far more than the serum, Steve. It may have made you physically stronger, but without your heart and your mind, it would have been nothing. Your kindness and compassion are what gives you your strength. And even if something awful happened tomorrow, and you lost your strength, I'd still love you just the same. Because to me, I love you. I love your heart, and a billion other things about you. Super serum or no super serum."

He kissed her head, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, as she put her fact against his chest. He wrapped his own arms around her shoulders.

"I love you too, Toni Stark," he said as she grinned.

"Stark-Rogers," she corrected, as she looked up with him with a wide grin.

"Stark-Rogers," he amended as he pressed a kiss against her lips. "My beautiful, brave, brilliant wife."

"Let's go to bed, Steve," she said, and he carefully picked her up and placed her ever so gently on the bed behind them. She pulled him in closely for a kiss as he lay there on top of her, and he stripped off his shirt.

"I love you," he said, breathlessly as he pulled away from her.

"I love you too," she said, feeling nothing but warmth in her heart. "Now make love to me, Steve."

He laughed deeply, as he leaned in for another kiss, "As you wish."