Chapter 101
The simulation had worked. And while they'd taken the evening off while JARVIS and FRIDAY began creating the actual machine they'd be using to travel back in time. The Klien bottle model meant it would be a complex process and she'd be surprised if they had it done quickly. It would most likely take hours, if not a few days to render up and have a working prototype that they could begin testing.
It had taken a full day to complete.
"Miss?" JARVIS asked her, as she watched the final stages of the time travel device be put into place, "Might I have a word?"
"Of course, JARVIS," she said, looking up at his nearest sensor, "What is it?"
Her AI hesitated, "I'm sure you are already planning on doing everything you in your power to save Vision, but I find myself still requesting that you give it your all. Vision is, simply put, the closest thing I will ever have to a child, and well, if anyone understands the pain of losing one's child, I know it's you."
She softened, wishing not for the first time that she could reach out and hug her kid.
"I know, JARVIS," she told him, "I promise, I'm going to bring them all back, okay? Ava, Bruce, and I are going to do everything to get the Mind Stone out of Vision's head and separate him from the Infinity Stone. I'll make sure he survives the fight against Thanos. That he comes home to you."
"Thank you," JARVIS told her, and she felt a flood of emotion. She'd been so caught up over the last few months in her own grief that she'd forgotten that everyone else around her was also suffering in one way or another. She hadn't been there for her child because of her own grief.
She needed to do better. She couldn't change the fact that she hadn't been there for her child, but she would be there for JARVIS going forward.
"Model complete," JARVIS said, as Steve herded the other Avengers into the room to begin the tests.
"Okay so Lang is going to don the suit, and we'll send him back exactly thirty seconds from now," Bruce started, and she cut him off.
"No," she said, "I'm going to be the one to go back. I don't want to risk him any more than we already have."
"Toni," Steve tried to protest, but she shook her head.
"It needs to be me," she said, insistently, and Bruce sighed as he ran a hand through his hair.
"Okay," he continued, "We'll send Toni back exactly thirty seconds from the moment she vanishes. We need to ensure that her body and her mind are intact so right before she vanishes, I'll whisper a word to her and draw a shape on her arm that only I alone know and have determined ahead of time. If this works, then she'll re-appear and have the word and marking on her body. If she does not, then we'll know it failed."
"Makes sense," Steve said, as he glanced over at her.
"I'll be okay," she promised her husband, and she reached forward to pull him into a deep kiss, as the Raccoon behind them pretended to gag.
"You better be," he told her firmly, and she pressed a final kiss to his cheek.
She stepped away as she pulled on a copy of the suit, she'd created for herself that was similar to Scott's as she stepped onto the landing pad.
"This is going to work," Bruce said to them all, as he walked up to her with a marker. She rolled up the sleeve and he drew a little taco on her arm.
"Really?" she asked him with a smirk.
"What can I say, Hulk and I like them," Bruce shrugged. He leaned closer to her so no one else could hear, "When you come back, use the word Serenity."
"Like from Firefly?" she asked in surprise.
"It was Ava's favourite," he said, trying not to look pained while he spoke.
She touched his arm.
"It's time," Bruce said, as he stepped back from her and walked over to the controls.
"I'll see you on the other side," she smiled at the group, and Bruce pulled down the lever. She held her breath, as above her the machine parts began to move. She saw the Quantum realm appear on the pad below her feet, as the realm was infused with green and blue.
She was instantly sucked in, and the next thing she knew, she was standing in front of the group while Bruce explained to them what they were going to be doing.
"Okay. We'll send Toni back exactly thirty seconds from the moment she vanishes. We need to ensure that her body and her mind are intact-"
"It worked," she cut him off, and he looked up at her in surprise.
"What?" Bruce asked, a little thrown, before his face began to shift in recognition.
She rolled up her sleeve to show him the taco he'd draw, "Serenity," she said, and Bruce pulled her into an excited hug. She beamed at the man, as she pulled away to address the group around them.
"What worked?" Rocket asked them in confusion.
"The only way she could have that on her arm and have known that word is if I sent her back already," Bruce said, grinning widely, "Our test worked. She successfully managed to travel back to this moment with her mind and body intact."
The room around them began to fill with excited chatter, as Steve pulled her into a tight hug.
"I was so worried for you," he said, and she kissed him once more.
"I know," she said with a sad smile, "But it worked, Steve! We finally have a way to go back."
"Which just leaves us of the question of when," Nebula said for the first time.
"Let's go to the conference room," Toni said as they walked over to the room in question, "Easier to talk in there."
"So first things first, we need to bring in the others," Steve said, addressing the group, "I'll page Marvel and have her return. We could use her fighting by our side and have her know about the future when we go back."
"I can get Clint," Natasha said, "I've been keeping tabs on him since the Snap, and I can bring him in."
Tabs on the circus performer, turned SHIELD agent, turned assassin.
"Good," Steve said with a nod. "I'll bring in Thor. Now that we know for a fact that we can go back in time, we won't be giving any of them false hope. We still don't know that we'll win, but we stand a fighting chance."
"It's more than we had before," she said softly. Because there was no guarantee that Thanos wouldn't just do the same thing over again and hurt them all. But they needed to try. If there was a chance she could get back all the people they'd lost, then she had to take it. No matter how hard it would be.
"So when do we go back to?" Bruce asked the group.
"It needs to be a point before Thanos attacked but not so far back that we could be changing unimaginable things," she said, "For example, we can't go back to 2012 when we all first met up because that would set off a large array of events and we don't know if that would trigger Thanos to show up sooner."
"Makes sense," Natasha nodded, "So recent history?"
"We can't save Asgard," Bruce said regretfully, "Hella was set free from her prison the moment Odin died. And Asgard wouldn't have been destroyed if not for the fact that Hella was drawing power from it. And there's no way to save a dying Asgardian God."
She sighed, "So after Asgard falls then," she said in agreement, "But before Thanos attacked the ship."
"He only attacked because Loki had the Tesseract," Bruce told them, "If we can get the Stone off the ship, then we'd be drawing Thanos to earth instead of the Asgardian fleet. And at that point he didn't have the Space stone yet, so his only option was flying. It would buy us a bit more time."
"If we go back three days before the attack, that's long enough for us to gather troops," Toni commented, "Steve had just left for his mission, but we'd have time for him to come straight back instead. We could bring in the Wakandians as well, and it would give Marvel some time to join us as well."
"Not a bad idea," Steve said, "If we can stop Thanos from getting his hands on as many stones as possible, then we'd have a shot."
"You're forgetting that he already had two stones before he attacked the ship," Rocket commented, "He had the Power Stone and the Reality Stone. Now if we go back three days before he attacked, the Guardians were close enough to the Collector that we could get the stone from him before Thanos does. But there's no way we'd be able to make it to the Power Stone as well."
She sighed, as she rubbed her temples.
"We can get the Mind Stone out of Vision and ensure the safety of it and the Time Stone," she said, "And we'll acquire the Space and Reality stones then from Loki and the Guardians. But I guess it doesn't really look like we'll be able to get them all. Not unless Marvel is fast enough to beat him and get it."
"She was too far away," Rhodey commented. They'd served in the air force together before she'd up and left earth, and Toni knew the two had been catching up whenever she was back. "There would be no way for her to get to it before Thanos did."
"So he'll have a Stone," Steve said grimly. "Possibly two if he acquires the Soul Stone too."
"No," Nebula said vehemently. "He had to sacrifice Gamora for it. I will not let him get his hands on her this time around. I hadn't been captured yet at that point, so I can still get to them and warn them to head straight for heart. Quill's a bit of a hothead, but Gamora will believe me, and if the talking animal backs me up, we can stop him from ever getting his hands on the Soul Stone."
"So he wouldn't be able to Snap and get the same effect," she finished, knowing that even if they had all five stones, they wouldn't have enough to stop Thanos the way he'd beat them the first time.
"Yes," Natasha said, "It's a risk we're going to have to take. I don't exactly see it worth going through all the hassle to get the stone when we aren't the ones who need to do the Snapping this time. We just need to be fast enough to stop him from doing it."
"And go for his head," Steve said with a taut expression, as the man knew it had pained Thor to no end that he hadn't aimed at Thanos' head the first time around.
She hadn't blamed the God. They all wished they'd done things differently in that battle. If they'd been able to get the Gauntlet off of Thanos on Titan then they could have defeated him, or at least stood a chance. And her grandson wouldn't have been brutally murdered in an attempt to get his stone.
She knew Steve had nightmares too about the fight, and all the things that he'd have done differently.
Survivor's guilt, it was called. PTSD. Depression. They were all things she'd known all too well. Things she'd felt since Afghanistan, when she'd survived but Yinsen had not.
"Sounds like we have a plan," Natasha said, "Time to go round up the others."
She nodded, as she and Bruce walked into the lab to finish up the updates needed to go back to exactly three days before the attack, while the others worked to gather the missing Avengers.
It took precisely two days to round up the missing Avengers. And that was due to the fact that Carol Danvers had to be paged back to Earth, and even with all her powers and technology it still took quite a bit of time to get back.
Erik Stevens, the current reigning king of Wakanda had looked relieved when she'd called him and offered him a solution to get his cousins back. Turned out that ruling was not all that it was cracked up to be.
And Thor hadn't believed them until Steve had promised him that they would save his brother and anyone else lost on the Asgardian ship from being harmed, because if all went according to plan, Thanos never would attack the ship in the first place.
Clint had taken Natasha a bit to track down. Knowing someone's location wasn't the same as actually seeing them face to face and trying to convince them to give up their new assassin lifestyle to come back and be a hero.
But here they were, gathered in one room, ready to put it to the test.
"So we doing this, or what?" the newly shaved head Clint asked. He'd previously sported a mohawk but at the concept of his family seeing him with one, he'd balked and shaved it off.
"Just doing final tests," Bruce said, as JARVIS ran the final calibrations. She had no idea if it would work as they wanted it to, but this was as ready as they were ever going to be.
They were all suited up in their new suits that they'd had created, and even with the inclusion of red in the style, it was far from her usual taste. It wasn't pure red like Aunt Peggy's lipstick, the colour that had given her so much strength over the years. It was subdued.
But it fitted, because they were all shells of their former selves. No longer quite the same, and desperate enough to do this in an attempt for normalcy and an attempt to try and regain everything they'd lost.
Because they'd lost so much.
They all stepped up onto the platform, shy of Bruce who was typing away at the keyboard. Nebula. Rocket. Erik. Carol. Rhodey. Clint. Natasha. Bruce. Lang. Thor. Steve. And herself. All twelve of the remaining fighters, standing there, in a circle as they looked at each other, bracing themselves for what was to come.
"Five months ago, we lost," Steve started voice breaking. "Every one of us. We lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. A part that we could never get back. But today, we have a chance to take it all back. We will all be scattered when we wake up before the attack. It is your mission to get yourselves and if you are assigned to get a stone back to the Compound as soon as possible. This is it. Our only chance. No mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. But it 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. Good luck."
He looked over at her at the last part and she nodded in agreement.
"He's pretty good at that," Rocket remarked, and Lang looked excited.
"Right?" the man fangirled.
"Right, well you heard the man," she said, clapping her hands, "Stroke those keys Jolly Green."
"Trackers engaged," Bruce said, as he joined them up on the platform.
"See you soon," Natasha said trying to lighten the mood, as the machine above them began to spin.
Their helmets engaged, covering their faces, and she took a deep breath.
The platform opened between them, glowing orange, blue, and green, as it sucked them all into it.
When she opened her eyes, she was back in the Tower.
"JARVIS, date and time," she said, as she got out of bed quickly.
"May 27th, 2018," JARVIS told her, "It is currently 10 am, Miss," and she exhaled quickly, as she got dressed.
10 am, three full days before the attack by Thanos.
It had worked.
She braced herself tightly, "JARVIS can you send Happy to bring Peter straight to the compound when he's done school? Tell him not to stop anywhere along the way. And ask Doctor Strange to meet us there as well. Tell him it's urgent. Can you also pull up the semantics from Vision's creation? Run simulations to remove the Mind Stone. Include FRIDAY if more processing power is required. It's it the number one priority that we get that stone out of his head as soon as possible."
"Is everything okay, Miss?" JARVIS asked her, a bit unsure. And she didn't blame him. She was acting radical, as if everything had somehow changed overnight. And perhaps to the rest of the world who was going about their days without knowledge of anything being amiss, she could see how it would seem like she had lost it.
However, she was one of the only few who knew the truth about what was to come.
"Yeah, baby boy," she said with a smile, "It's just perfect."
She walked out of the bedroom she shared with her husband, and straight into the nursery where Morgan was babbling happily in her crib.
"Mama," Morgan's eyes lit up when she saw her. "Mama mama mamam."
"Hi, my precious baby girl," she said, trying hard to keep her voice steady as she picked up her daughter, "Mommy missed you so, so much. How are you doing, my Darling?"
"Mama," Morgan repeated with a giggle, as Toni cradled her daughter close to her chest and pressed a kiss on the top of her head. It had been so long since she'd held her daughter in her arms, and she wasn't ever going to let the girl go.
Thanos would not win this time around. She would make sure of that.
Thor woke up with a roar as he shot straight out of bed. Lighting circled him, even on the small ship they were on, and he watched as his body returned to its previously fit shape.
He knew he'd let himself go in the wake of his brother and the death of the people on the ship. He blamed himself for their deaths. How could he not when it was his job to keep them safe? Loki may have been their leade,r but it had always been on him to protect the lives of his people.
He'd failed them. And then he'd failed his friends when fighting against Thanos. He'd gone for the body instead of the head, and because of that, Thanos had snapped his fingers and countless lives were lost. Even with the victory of Thanos' later death, it couldn't make up for the fact that so many had been harmed because of him.
"LOKI!" he roared, not caring if he woke those around him. He didn't know what time it was. Morning, night, it was all the same on the ship, "LOKI!"
He all but charged to his brother's door as he began banging with a heavy hand.
"Really, Brother, if you're going to insist on knocking on my door and waking me from my slumber, you could at least do it in a calmer manner," Loki said, as he wearily opened the door. "What brings you to my chambers at this time of morn?"
He felt himself unable to speak, as he couldn't find the words to say. Instead, he pulled his brother tightly into a hug, as he squeezed him.
"Thor, I demand you release me this instant," Loki said, sounding more confused than anything else. "What has gotten into you? I just saw you a few hours ago."
"You died," Thor said finally. "Thanos came for us because you had the Tesseract, and he killed you in front of me when you tried to save me. I failed you brother, and I will never be able to make right what I've done."
His brother looked a bit started at the mention of the Space Stone and he imagined that he was surprised over the fact that Thor had indeed known that Loki had it.
"How did you know that?" Loki demanded, "Thor, are you having another nightmare? I didn't die. I'm clearly right here."
"Brother there is so much you do not know," Thor said with a sigh. Where even to begin? "I come from the near future. Lady Antonia has found a way with Doctor Banner to send ourselves back to our past. This past. Because of what is to come. It cannot pass, Loki. That future is unimaginable. Many horrors occur, and all because of Thanos' desire to vanquish the universe. He wishes to destroy half of all life as we know it. It cannot come to pass if we all wish to survive and live to see another day."
"Brother you've gone mad," Loki breathed, unable to come to any other conclusion. And how could he even blame his brother? For all the magic of Asgard and many advancements over Midgard, time travel was never one of the things they'd been able to accomplish.
"You must trust me," Thor told him firmly, "Please. Or you'll meet your death once more. And I cannot lose you, Loki. Not again. Despite all our differences, you mean far too much to me for me to have to see you die again."
"You don't even have proof that this is nothing more than a bad sleep," Loki pointed out. "How can we believe what you are saying if you cannot show anything for it?"
"He's telling the truth," Banner said, in a pained voice as he approached the two of them, clearly having woken up from the trip as well. "Thor. Everything he's saying will come to pass. Thanos is coming, Loki. He wants all the stones. You know as well as I do that he does. It was why he sent you down to Earth, wasn't it? He's enacting his plan now, and we don't have much time before he comes for us. We need to move quickly if we are to have any chance of stopping him from reaching his goal."
"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?" Loki demanded, and his brother still looked distrustful. But there was nothing else that they could say to prove their point. They didn't have any proof like his brother had demanded.
He just needed to trust them. And after everything they'd been through, Thor hoped that he would.
"We need to gather all the stones before Thanos can," Bruce said, as he gave the Asgardian a rundown of the plan. "We need to get them all to Earth, and as far away as possible from this ship. If the stone isn't on it, then the passengers will be safe. Heimdall can send us to Earth ahead of them, and we can join Toni and the others at the compound."
"If we all stand there together against Thanos and not divided as we were the first time then we may stand a fighting chance," Thor said solemnly. Perhaps if he'd gotten to Earth faster things could have been different.
"I think you've both gone quite mad," Loki said finally, and Thor felt his heart sink. "However I trust you with my life, Brother. So if you say we must go to Earth then we will. Thanos has taken enough from us already. He will not take any more from us than he already has."
He smiled warmly at his brother, and for the first time in months, Thor felt that things could finally start to get better. That this time, he wouldn't lose his family.
