Willow stared at Carol and Steve as they chatted together happily. They were joking and laughing and it felt weird. Not to be watching, necessarily. Just that it was happening at all. Everyone had gone back to their normal, whatever that was, and Willow had taken personal offense to it. Granted, her own ways of dealing with her grief had led her to Rhodey and it wasn't exactly healthy, but laughing felt out of line somehow.

Everything felt wrong.

She got up from her chair and walked away. She had no idea where she was going, but she had to be doing something. Anything was better than watching all the supers being productive. Even Tony had been locked up in his lab for days, looking for a way out of their mess. Without the time stone, it was hard to see the end of this very long and dark tunnel.

She gave a small wave and a half-hearted smile to Rhodey as she passed him, but motioned for him not to follow either. She needed a minute alone.

Willow opened a random door off the main hallway and walked inside. She didn't even care if it was a garage at this point. It was quiet. That's all she really needed.

When she opened her eyes she was surrounded by art, which she was more than fine with. Leave it to Tony to have a random art gallery in the compound for no reason whatsoever. None of the photographs or paintings that lined the wall seemed not to follow any sort of theme. But with Tony, chaos was a theme and it was beautiful. Most of the time.

After a minute or two, she heard the door open on the other side of the room. She didn't stop to see who it was. She kept walking through different scenes, determined not to care about who had followed her. She wasn't in a mood to talk.

She felt Steve beside her before she looked, though. Of course it was him. Ever the peacemaker of the group. He'd made up with Carol, which Willow thought would never happen after his 'little lady' comment the day before. It was Steve and you couldn't be upset with America's Golden Boy. It went against God. Or the founding fathers, at the very least.

"What do you want?" she asked quietly.

"Nothing," he lied.

She walked further on, leaving him at the first painting.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"It's a free country, right? Thanks to you."

He chuckled humorlessly. Suddenly, she saw Carol at the other end of the gallery. They were boxing her in. She couldn't leave without talking. They were forcing her to deal with her issues. She had absolutely no desire. She could ignore them if she wanted. She would. Carol had to know that's where she was mentally, even being gone as long as she had.

"You know," Steve started up again. "Hopper has a way of making even simple scenes appear unsettling."

He was referencing the painting in front of them both now and he recited it like every single art history teacher she'd ever had. She looked him over, wondering if he meant to be condescending. It was Steve, so probably not.

She looked back to the painting, one she'd seen a hundred times, and he was right in what he'd said. Maybe it was the fact that this was one of her favorites. Chop Suey always had been. Or maybe he had just assumed she wouldn't know about it. He wasn't malicious. It just rubbed her the wrong way. Every tiny thing was setting her off lately and before she could stop herself it fell past her lips.

"Have you heard of the term 'mansplaining'?"

"Umm, no. But I have a feeling you're going to 'womansplain' it to me."

She laughed louder than she had in a week. "I am."

He waited for her to talk again. "Basically, it's when a guy tells you something about a subject and assumes you don't know because you're a woman."

Carol laughed and tried to cover it up with a cough. Steve was tripping over his words now to make up for his mistake. Willow knew it wasn't intentional, but he couldn't change if he didn't know. And she felt like correcting someone right now. She wanted him to be wrong. She felt like making Captain America human for a second.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't—I wouldn't..."

"Calm down," she teased. "I know, it's just I kinda have a Masters of Fine Arts from Columbia so..."

"Right," he said, smiling down at her. "I didn't mean to 'mansplain'."

"It's okay, old man. I know for you women should probably still be in the kitchen or whatever."

He chuckled and shook his head before standing next to her as she kept on to the next photograph. He was quiet, never overwhelming, as they commented on one and then another. He let her take the lead each time.

Willow knew what they were doing in there and what they both wanted to talk about. And it wasn't paintings. She just wasn't going to open that box right now. She wasn't ready. She could deal with one thing at a time, and right now that was getting out of bed in the morning and appearing presentable. That's all she had the strength for. Without Pepper, without all of them, she couldn't be asked to do anything more. Which was why she knew Steve and Carol weren't being pushy.

Willow moved on and left Steve in front of another Jackson Pollock. When she came around the corner, she was met with the most impossibly gorgeous scenery. The orange and red clashed beautifully with the tranquil browns of the buildings that were on fire. She couldn't remember ever seeing it before. She could almost smell the singed cloth and straw of the thatched roof.

No, wait, she could definitely smell it. Why could she smell it?

Willow looked around and saw that she was in the painting. Several people stood next to her. They were in awe of the atrocity happening in front of them. Some were crying. None were paying attention to her, if they could see her at all.

She closed her eyes tight and wished herself back to the compound and the art gallery where Steve and Carol were. She didn't know what else to do to get herself out of the oddly vivid daydream she'd found herself in. Her whole world was on its side, so it made sense that strange things would happen left and right.

Right?

"Willow?" Carol screeched. "Steve, I found her."

"Willow?" he asked, coming closer.

She was still too nervous to open her eyes. Then she heard the footfalls of the others running toward them. Had her dream been that real?

"She's here," Steve answered as more people came into the room.

She chanced it and opened her eyes, looking around to verify she was actually back where she should be.

"Where the hell did you go?" Tony asked, upset.

"I—I—wait, I left?"

"Yeah, babe. You left," Rhodey said.

He smoothed her long blonde hair out of her face from where it was sticking in places because of all the sweat. She didn't miss the way he used the pet name so easily either. He was staring straight into her eyes and she had no idea what he was seeing. Nothing seemed to scare him. That was good.

"I left?"

He just nodded and shooed everyone else away. Of course, Tony didn't leave. She was happy to see he wasn't too mad at her. He still cared about her on some level.

She wasn't ready for what happened next, though. Through the air, because nothing else made sense, a man appeared. He stepped through the golden rings that came out of his hands.

"Wong," Tony addressed him, like this was perfectly normal behavior. "I think Thor and Banner were just coming to check on you. Glad to see you didn't die."

"Who traveled?" Wong asked, looking around at everyone. "Was it you?"

He was pointing directly at Willow's chest. "Traveled?"

"Traveled through time," he clarified. "Without a time stone."

"What?" Everyone yelled at the same time.

"There's no way. I didn't travel through time. I just had a very intense daydream. It's..."

Wong was giving her a look that made it perfectly clear what he was trying to get her to understand. She needed to re-examine what had happened immediately and adjust. Willow couldn't time travel though. Only superheroes got to do the fun stuff.

"Do it again," Wong commanded.

"I can't," she retorted. "I don't know what I did. If I did anything."

"Try."

He was talking to her as if everyone else was staring right at them. She knew it shouldn't make her feel safe, to have him there, she didn't even know him. But something about the way he moved as he watched her seemed to relax every muscle she had. Like it was supposed to be this way.

She closed her eyes again, not sure where else to start. She hadn't closed her eyes the first time, but it seemed right. She could hear everyone around her talking in a hushed tone. They were frantic. They didn't believe it either. They couldn't and she didn't blame them. She didn't. She wanted one of them to tell her it was silly.

Let the menfolk handle it, Will, she kept waiting for Tony to joke. And yet, her savior didn't come.

"I can't," she repeated, her eyes still closed.

"You need quiet," he said.

"I can't," she said again, trying to make him understand.

She couldn't do this, whatever it was they were asking of her. He needed to drop it and help find a way to get Pepper back instead of playing with this idea. If he could do all that with his hands, he could help more than she could.

"She time-traveled?" Tony asked.

"I believe so. The last time I felt energy that strong, well..."

"Well?" Steve asked.

"I was in the company of Dr. Strange, as he liked to be called."

This simple comment spurred something inside Tony as he rushed off, back to his lab. She sincerely hoped it wasn't because he expected her to save the day. That was the last thing Willow Danvers would ever be good for.

^chapter title from sarcastic-screaming on tumblr (via Pinterest)