Thank you to everybody who read or left kudos for the last conversation. I appreciate all the encouragement.

Welcome to the first chapter, at least written partially post Guardians of the Galaxy, vol. 3. This is also the first material produced after Quantomania. However, that movie did not result in me spending the next day mapping out the end of the story. Guardians gave me what I needed to figure out the final pieces of this epic tale. I promise we will not be dealing with Rocket's trauma. This story has enough trauma. It got me to a place where I think I can write the chapters that have been a little bit harder on me after my mother's death.

Because I now have the roadmap for the rest of the story, I need to adjust some previously written chapters that I have yet to post. That resulted in moving about 800 words from the last chapter to this one to make it more cohesive.

Also, everything was written pre-secret invasion, but it does make the title of this chapter amusing in hindsight. I won't say how that show affected my story until necessary.

Conversation 70: Self-Care for SHIELD Agents Is a Foreign Concept

Mr. Leopold: Hey, I'm back. I just talked to the sister-in-law. She's OK or as OK as you can be right now. She is with Coulson.

Mr. Leopold: So that you don't have to ask, he's a mess. Everyone is.

Mr. Leopold: After punching out Tony, he cried on Simmons. After she got him away from Tony's fiancé. Probably while she was fixing his hand.

Mr. Leopold: The flesh one. They're going to leave for Malta. However, it took Clint intervening to get him to agree. That is never a good sign.

Mr. Leopold: Coulson thinks that you should send Natasha to tell her. It's up to her if she wants to stay in the field. Joey, Bobbi, and Yo-Yo are on standby. If Bobbi's going, I'm going so I can see you.

Mr. Leopold: As soon as I can find another person to watch your brother. If I leave him alone in Wakanda, the sister-in-law will be furious. Especially after I just promised to take care of him.

Dr. Leopold: Daisy coming back to earth is an option now? Should it be an option? None of us are very good at determining if we are emotionally compromised.

Mr. Leopold: I got a text from Tony. He told me to tell you it is an option now that we have the ring pop. It is Daisy's choice to come back, but it is Natasha's choice if she should be pulled from the mission. Natasha should also be the agent in charge now.

Mr. Leopold: Although the blue ring pop stays behind because we don't want it anywhere near Earth.

Dr. Leopold: She wants Natasha to come to her. Loki issues. Loki and Thor are upset at her for not telling them about Loki dying in the beta timeline.

Dr. Leopold: That was something extra in Natasha's letters. She let me read them. But we're not transmitting them to Earth.

Mr. Leopold: I'm not surprised there're Loki issues, but I am amazed the problem is Loki being mad at her for not telling him about what happened the first time around.

Dr. Leopold: It was Lincoln-related. Daisy was afraid that if she told Loki that he died in the other timeline, she would make it happen in this one. She still thinks that because she told Lincoln about her vision, he made it come true.

Mr. Leopold: She's not wrong, at least not entirely. Baby bird's drawings are why May did what she did.

Dr. Leopold: I'm not going to tell her that. I don't want anybody to know that Robin's drawings were involved. Tell Tony I want those images blocked permanently. No one gets access.

Mr. Leopold: Good call. The Princess said she'll take care of it herself.

Dr. Leopold: Natasha will write her and let her know she's coming.

Mr. Leopold: Ok.

Mr. Leopold: Just be good to yourself. Also, I hope there's someone there making you eat.

Dr. Leopold: Wanda is making me eat.

Mr. Leopold: Good. If Daisy decides to come back and the others take her place, I will come to you. The Princess has agreed to make sure your little brother eats and takes science rest breaks. I think the Queen will actually enforce that. I hope so, anyway.

Dr. Leopold: Will Tony allow you to come?

Mr. Leopold: Wanda will be the one making the portal, and I feel like she's a romantic at heart.

Dr. Leopold: You're not wrong.

Red spider: I will message Stark directly to see what he wants. I agree that you two should be together right now. There might be another option. We also need to bring another agent to take over. Otherwise, Davis will be in charge.

Dr. Leopold: I'm willing to admit I'm not mentally able to be in charge right now, but Davis?

Red Spider: Would you prefer the nephew?

Dr. Leopold: Potentially. Do you think I should go back to Earth?

Red spider: Yes. You're not okay right now. Vision can take over your tech role with Deke's help, and you can help perfect time travel so we can stop jumping. The less we have to do that, the better. Besides, it might be good for you and the nephew to be on different planets.

Red spider: Wanda can take care of the ring pop, and I'm sure Stark has a few more reinforcements he can bring up from Puerto Rico.

Mr. Leopold: Stark could send Bobbi to take over as mission leader if you come back. The Princess can also send a few extra people. I would suggest bringing her over regardless, but I know that the three of us shouldn't be in a confined space for prolonged periods.

Dr. Leopold: You made valid points. Have Natasha talk to Stark and Daisy. Then we can decide.

Mr. Leopold: Okay.

Red spider: Will do.

xxxxx

Red Spider: I need you to pull Leo back to Earth now. I would say bench him, but we don't have that luxury. I think having him work on the time GPS is the safest course right now.

Chief mechanic: Thank you for not starting this conversation with "How are you?" I am very over that question at the moment.

Red Spider: I don't want to answer that question right now. I doubt you do.

Chief mechanic: Especially because I just got the suicide notes. I'm locking those in my personal vault.

Red Spider: Leo is the one that found them. He threw up afterward. He can't stay here.

Chief mechanic: I agree he needs to come back. I'll be able to send the team midday tomorrow. I need them to all be in the same country before I arrange for Wanda to do a pickup. I don't want Wanda to exhaust herself by making portals to different countries when she doesn't have to. Yo-yo and Joey are with me in Wakanda. But Bobby is still in San Francisco trying to get Scott Lang from the feds.

Red Spider: How is that going?

Chief mechanic: Ana is creating paperwork to transfer his House arrest to the ATCU because the FBI are toddlers. They should be able to leave around 6 AM San Francisco time. Okay, I forgot about the time zone difference. Accounting for the 10-hour time difference, it might be late evening local time but midday for you. Your ship is on East Coast time, correct?

Red Spider: Yes.

Red Spider: How long will we have to keep jumping around? I heard you had a breakthrough.

Chief mechanic: We have Pym's cooperation and a functional time GPS unit to reverse engineer and modify for what we need. We also have the notes from Tony Potts. I'm helping the team with that as soon as we land in Wakanda in about four hours. Maybe with Leo's help, we will definitely be done with the modifications in time for the test Saturday.

Red Spider: That's good. Why do you need to modify the unit from the other Steve? Couldn't we use that GPS to send everything to the other timeline? We could be done with this now.

Chief mechanic: In addition to not having everything, we would still need to take out the purple monster.

Red Spider: Easier to do when he can't grab any more stones that will make him invincible. I don't want any more of our agents to die protecting these ring pops. The sooner we can get them out of here, the better.

Chief mechanic: I'm not looking forward to letting Agent May's mom know that I got her killed when this mess is over. Unfortunately, we can't use the Grant Roth time GPS to get to the beta timeline because it wouldn't go to their 2023 but ours. The beta timeline is no longer our timeline. We are a branch.

Chief mechanic: It's part of why Mr. Roth is stuck in this timeline. He threw too many pebbles in the time stream, and now it's going in a completely different direction. Grant's GPS cannot build a canal, but ours will.

Chief mechanic: This explains why Back to the Future was so wrong. Just because you can't get to someplace anymore doesn't mean it's gone.

Red Spider: I'm glad you got your nerd tirade out of your system. Did Grant create this branch timeline because he was trying to make a timeline where the two of you got together?

Chief mechanic: Probably. But his main goal may have been keeping me alive. He also tried really hard to keep you from the Red Room and get Bucky out of Hydra earlier. It didn't happen, but he did try. He even got in a fight with the Russian version of Captain America. Apparently, the timeline only allowed for so much divergence.

Red Spider: It wasn't just the story. It actually happened.

Red Spider: At least he tried. That's more than anyone else ever did.

Chief mechanic: Very true. I am comforted knowing that at least Howard was a little better here. My alpha timeline variant started boarding school in kindergarten. I didn't end up there until my life was threatened by fucking Hydra. Also, my boarding school was liberal, and I had a lot more freedom being there as Tony Carbonell rather than Tony Stark.

Red Spider: I can't believe I've been dealing with the better version of you.

Red Spider: Are we positive that Grant Roth is stuck here? Did he ever try to go back to his original time?

Chief mechanic: Yes. He tried to go back after his husband died. He ended up at a birthday party for twins with no sign of what he left behind anywhere. Then he was pulled back to our timeline to watch us all make the same mistakes again, leading us back to the purple one.

Red Spider: Not the same mistakes. New ones.

Chief mechanic: Yes, new mistakes like May deciding to jump.

Red Spider: Which she did to keep me from doing it. And I'm going to have to tell my girlfriend that now.

Chief mechanic: Don't email her until morning. Rest. More importantly, let her rest. She just defeated Hela. I will have so much to work on during the flight to Wakanda.

Red Spider: Loki defeated Hela as my girlfriend took care of the blue ring pop.

Chief mechanic: Still, something that requires at least a power nap. Also, if Quake is coming back, I want her and Leo to come back together when their replacements are ready.

Red Spider: I agree.

Red Spider: Are you sure you want me to be in charge? I don't know if I should be the one to bench my own girlfriend.

Chief mechanic: I have few leadership options right now.

Steve is the person I trust the most to bench me if I become a danger to the mission. He knows I would do it too.

Red Spider: I would suggest Steve go over, but he's probably as emotionally compromised as the rest of us.

Chief mechanic: Possibly more.

Red Spider: Although you were the one who took a punch from Colson. Why did you do that?

Chief mechanic: Because I deserved it. I got his wife killed.

Red Spider: If you read her letter, you know it was her choice. I disagree with her choice, but she made it. We can't take that from her.

Chief mechanic. Because she was convinced the other choice was letting you die. She wasn't going to let Daisy deal with that again. You know this.

Red Spider: I wonder if Daisy wishes she had made that choice.

Chief mechanic: I think she would wish there wasn't a choice that had to be made.

Red Spider: You might be right about that. Tell Steve that I'm thinking about him and give him my condolences. Coulson too. I know this can't be easy on him at all.

Chief mechanic: I don't think Agent will read any of my text messages anytime soon, but I will pass your well wishes on to Simmons.

Chief mechanic: However, Steve says thank you. Also, to be careful. Neither one of us wants to lose you.

Red Spider: I will be. I'll let you know when I make contact with Daisy.

Chief mechanic: I will be standing by. I just want this to be over with soon. I am exhausted.

Red Spider: We all are.

To be continued…

Sorry, everybody, for the later-than-normal update. I was on vacation for a couple of weeks. I opted not to take my computer with me, which means I could not update until I returned.