Hello there,

Got a little side tracked and forgot to upload another chapter...or did I decide to just leave you guys hanging a little longer than usual? I can't remember, haha, busy times. For real though, a friend of mine convinced me to download Lord of the Rings Online game, addiction is real. So you can blame him for the long wait on this update lol.

Thanks must go to Padgent, jazztullock, nameword, aliiceroseee, Daughter of the Oceans, marin93, BlackPachirisu, , KaliRenee, hotstuff142, Procrastinator1, Janeth16, shadowednight1, kitsune-miko-witch, breezzylife12, Driller63, blackroseheart7, tiarna13, Katie Loom, Intheblood29, QuirkyMurderSubject, Leafpoo16985, Transi3nt Star, voicesofmelodies, killyourmind, and Gaarakitty for joining this epic.

Much love to xRaspberryx, p0mel0, mellifera19, AliceCullen3, and INeedMoreMarvel for the reviews.

And to answer your question xRaspberryx... some of the dialogue I have found on fan written transcripts of the movie on the web, although they can often be incorrect, I'm lucky enough that it's enough to jog my memory on what was actually said.

Enough from me now.

Enjoy

xo

Chapter 32

Stick With Me

Lex walked down the hall, meandering through the Avengers building without much focus on where she was going.

She had slept in this morning; her nights most recently been spent sitting up with Steve and watching movies. Neither wanted to sleep, for fear of the things they might see or experience. She never imagined she would do such a thing such as fall asleep on the lounge with Steve, but it had happened on more than one occasion. And on more than one occasion, Natasha had walked in to find them leaning on each other while asleep.

Lex wasn't fussed by the coy grins her fellow Widow threw their way, but clearly, Steve was. He always had a bashful expression on his face, and his cheeks crimson, like he was a child that had been caught doing the wrong thing. It often made Lex chuckle.

They had reached an agreement. Lex was giving Steve a movie education. Even though it had been a few years since he had come out of the ice, he still had a ways to go until he had seen all the best movies, in her opinion. Although, it was more that Lex didn't give him a choice in the matter, and Steve seemed quite content to just not go to sleep on his own.

The female super soldier stopped fast when she heard voices in the main hangar of the compound, where she knew the science types had been building the machine that they hoped would send them through the Quantum Realm. She quietly made her way towards the entrance, looking around the corner to see the gigantic construct finally appeared finished.

"I still can't believe 'Back to the Future' was bullshit," Scott said as he, Tony, Bruce, Rocket and Nebula worked around the console and machine, tweaking panels and flicking switches.

"I could have told you that," Lex said, stopping next to Steve, who stood with his arms crossed while he watched them work, with Natasha beside him. The others glanced in her direction. "Oh, wait, I did."

"I still can't get my head around how you have any idea about Quantum Physics," Tony muttered as he checked over the special suit Clint was wearing.

"I still can't get my head around how people actually like you, but that's none of my business," she muttered, earning her an elbow from Steve. "What?"

"Cut it out."

Lex rolled her eyes but turned her attention back to the job at hand. Clint walked up the ramp to stand on top of the construct. He looked nervous, and honestly, Lex felt nervous for him. She had offered to be the first to go, but Steve had been strictly against it, citing that if something were to go wrong, they would be a strong pair of hands down. She suspected it had more to do with his one-sided promise to Bucky, more than anything else. Some of the others had vocally agreed immediately with Steve's reasoning, while others had remained quiet and skeptical.

Finally, Clint turned to face them, as Tony and Bruce began moving dials and switches on the console in front of them. The helmet on Clint's suit activated, closing over his face.

"Okay, Clint. We are going in 3, 2, 1…"

There was a flash and Clint disappeared. Lex clenched her jaw, her fingers tightening around her arms as she waited for his return. A few seconds later, and Clint reappeared, falling to the floor of the construct as if he had tripped or jumped.

Lex released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding as Clint looked around wildly, before he moved to stand up. The others hurried forward in anticipation.

"It worked?" Bruce asked.

Clint looked straight at Natasha, holding out something black in his hand. "It worked." As they crowded around him, Lex could see it was a black baseball mitt. The look on Clint's face told her that this was obviously something of great relevance to Clint, but the mitt meant much more for them.

They were about to pull off Scott's 'Time Heist' and steal the Infinity Stones and reverse Thanos' snap.

They crowded into one of the board rooms in the science wing of the compound. Each held a clipboard or notebook and there were piles of files on the board table in front of them.

Steve stood at the front with Natasha, who began to activate the holographic board, moving images of infinity stones around along with information about the stones.

"Okay, so the "how" works. Now we gotta figure out the "when," and the "where," Steve began to explain, motioning towards the images. "Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones."

"Well, I'd substitute the word 'encounter' for 'damn near been killed by one of the six Infinity Stones.'" Rocket commented. Nebula appeared unmoved beside Rocket, listening intently instead. She never spoke much.

"I haven't," Scott said, looking around with a shrug. "I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about."

"Ditto, I've never even seen one until Thanos brought them to earth," Lex also piped up, leaning back in her seat and putting her hands behind her head as she slouched. "Or, if you count when I first met Vision. First I had heard of them." Steve frowned at the thought. Surely, there had to be a time when she was close to one at some point in her life. She was 120 years old.

"Regardless, we only have enough Pym Particles for one round trip each, and these stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history," Natasha explained, pointing to some of the locations that appeared under a couple of the stones, one in New York, one in Morag and another in the UK.

"Our history. So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in," Tony added, looking thoughtful.

"Which means we have to pick our targets, and acquirers, very carefully," Lex said, running a finger over her lip as she looked at the images. Steve couldn't help but notice she seemed to be taking the current situation more seriously than anything else they had done recently. If you didn't count her 'movie culture education lessons' that was. She took those very seriously.

"Correct," Tony said, agreeing, before opening a bag of dried blueberries and beginning to pop some into his mouth. "Anyone?" he offered the bag to Lex.

She pulled a face and drew back from it. "Ew."

"So," Steve began, looking back at the hologram and then around the room. "Let's start with the Aether." He looked to Thor, who was sitting in a chair in the corner, a pair of sunglasses on. He had packed on the weight since their last mission to take down Thanos, the lack of closure hitting him hardest of all it seemed. As Rocket had once said, Thor blamed himself for the snap and all that followed, and took it badly. "Thor, what do you know?"

Everyone in the room turned to look at Thor. "Is he asleep?" Natasha asked, narrowing her eyes as they all stared at the Asgardian. Lex frowned, glancing at Steve. He sighed and went to move towards Thor, but Lex beat him to it, picking up her 3/4 full water bottle and pegging it at him. It hit Thor in the dead centre of his forehead.

Thor jumped, holding his head and groaning. "What?"

"Care to enlighten us on the Aether, Thor?" Steve asked, while throwing a warning look at Lex. She shrugged in a nonchalant manner, batting her lashes innocently at him. He couldn't help but smirk a little.

Thor slowly stood and made his way towards the screens, adjusting his clothing to hide his belly as he went. "Where to start? Umm...The Aether, first, is not a stone," Thor began, motioning to the image of the Aether. "Someone's called it a stone before. Ahem... It's more of a... an angry sludge, sort of thing."

Steve frowned, as he watched Thor continue. He wondered how the proud Asgardian could have fallen so hard from his once proud and strong attitude.

"So... Someone's gonna need to amend that and stop saying that. Here's an interesting story, though. About the Aether. My grandfather, many years ago, had to hide the stone from the Dark Elves. Scary beings. So, Jane..." At the mention of the physicist, the screen changed to show an image of the young doctor. "Oh, there she is. That's Jane... She's... an old flame of mine. She... she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time...and then the Aether stuck itself inside her."

Steve noted the dumbfounded and sympathetic looks the other Avengers were giving Thor as he continued to drone on about his encounter with the Aether. Lex looked down, beginning to massage her temples. Clearly, she was trying her best not to make a snarky comment, which Steve had to admit, he was grateful for her effort.

"And, she became very, very sick. So, I had to take her to Asgard, which is where I'm from. And we had to try and fix her. We were dating at the time, you see. I got to introduce her to my Mother...who's dead, and umm..." He paused for a moment, a dark expression appearing for mere seconds, before he continued again. "Oh, you know. Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, so... These things happen though, you know. Nothing lasts forever." There was an awkward silence in the room as the others avoided looking at Thor. "The only thing that..."

"Why don't you come sit down?" Bruce offered, motioning to a chair beside him.

"I'm not done yet," Thor retorted frowning at Bruce. "The only thing that is permanent in life, is impermanence."

"Awesome," Tony muttered.

"Good lord, they broke the God of Thunder," Lex muttered, resting her head in her hands.

Lex sat at the dining room table; a file open in front of her as she chewed on some cereal. The others were also in the kitchen, Tony was cooking, Natasha was trying to ply Thor with something other than alcohol, while Nebula and Rocket were sat across from her. Rocket was snacking on the rest of her box of cereal, while Nebula sat with her arms crossed, looking completely void of any emotion, as per usual.

"Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag," Rocket said in-between mouthfuls of cereal.

"Is that a person?" Bruce asked with interest.

"Morag's a planet," Rocket explained. "Quill was a person." Lex noticed Rocket's tone quietened slightly at the mention of Quill. She understood that Quill was, more or less, the Guardians of the Galaxy's leader. As well as their friend. So, she could sense that Rocket felt a pang of sadness thinking of any of his friends that were gone. She understood his pain.

"Like a planet? Like in outer space?" Scott asked with interest, raising his eyebrows.

"Oh, look. It's like a little puppy, all happy and everything," Rocket said, beginning to mock Scott. He clapped his hands in front of him, leaning towards Scott. "Do you wanna go to space? You wanna go to space, puppy? I'll take you to space."

"Rocket…" Lex warned, seeing Scott beginning to grimace. "I'll take the cereal box off of you." Rocket frowned in response, before quickly grabbing the box and jumping down from his seat, walking away. Lex looked to Steve, who raised an eyebrow at her and smirked.

She rolled her eyes; she knew what he was thinking. Look at her, being all responsible and shit. She was well aware that Steve was trying to mould her into this 'better' person. It annoyed her whenever he looked at her as if to say 'see?'.

Lex looked to Nebula; whose focus was on nothing in particular. That was standard for Nebula. She didn't speak unless spoken to or if she had something that was of importance to say. "Nebula, what about the Soul Stone?"

Nebula's focus shifted to Lex. She found the alien unnerving at times, particular as it looked like the part cyborg tended to appear to look through you. "Thanos found the Soul Stone on Vormir."

"What is Vormir?" Natasha asked, curiously as she sat beside Lex with her own bowl of cereal.

"A dominion of death, at the very center of Celestial existence." Nebula looked down for a moment before speaking again. "It's where... Thanos murdered my sister."

There was silence all around, but Lex was unperturbed. She had no family; she had seen her mother murdered by her father. "Noted."

Lex sat on the floor with her back against a wall, staring at the screens with the Infinity Stones pictured, occasionally throwing popcorn at either Scott or Rocket, who would catch it in their mouths. She was so over trying to figure out which timeline they were going to enter. She couldn't just leave; Steve had sat next to her and every time she tried to leave he would grab her and drag her back in.

"That Time Stone guy..." Natasha began, speaking up from where she was lying on the board room table on her back.

"Doctor Strange," Tony corrected, throwing a ball of paper into the air and catching it. He was also lying down on the table.

"Yeah, what kind of doctor was he?"

"Neuro-stuff meets rabbit from a hat," Tony answered simply as Lex threw more popcorn at Rocket, who caught it in his mouth easily.

"Nice place in the village, though," Bruce added from his chair at the end of the board room table.

"Yeah. Sullivan Street," Tony agreed.

"Hmm... Bleecker."

"Wait, he lived in New York?" Lex asked, whipping her head to look at Tony. Natasha sat up, looking thoughtful too.

"No. He lived in Toronto."

"Yeah, not Bleecker. It's Sullivan," Tony corrected again, throwing the paper ball up into the air again.

Lex hurried to her feet, rushing over to the screens and adding in calculations, Natasha jumping off the table to join her. She added dates and times and suddenly the solution dawned on her. She looked sideways at the smaller Widow.

"Guys, if you pick the right year, there are three stones in New York," Natasha exclaimed as the images moved. Three stones pushed together under the title of New York. The Space Stone, the Time stone and the Mind Stone.

"Shut the front door!" Tony exclaimed, catching the ball and sitting up to look at the screen.

There was silence for a moment as everyone took in the information on the screens. Nebula broke the silence.

"The front door is already shut."

They began to set to work, plotting ways to take possession of the stones without causing too much of a disturbance. And in particular, they didn't want to run into themselves. As Lex had explained, and now re-explained with Bruce's assistance, it wouldn't cause any harm to their timeline, but it would certainly cause a commotion as would be expected if you ran into the exact same, but perhaps older looking version of yourself.

"So, we know who is going to Morag and to Vormir. Whose got New York?" Clint asked, folding his arms as he looked at those who had not yet been tasked.

Lex looked around the room, it was only herself, Steve, Tony, Bruce and Scott who had been left without a tasking. "Looks like it's us."

"We've got to get three different stones simultaneously," Tony said with a nod and looking thoughtful.

Steve folded his arms. "The Tesseract and the Scepter will be together, but the Time Stone will be across town," he added thoughtfully.

"And Stephen Strange isn't just going to hand it over," Lex pointed out. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but the first time you requested the stone, Tony, he was very hesitant to hand it over."

"She's not wrong."

"I think it would be safest if I go and get the Time Stone. Especially because I'm harder to hide in plain sight. I kind of stand out. I can carry on like I used to and head over to the sanctum," Bruce offered, putting his hands on his hips.

The others were thoughtful for a moment, before Steve nodded. "That's a sound plan."

"Right, so that just leaves the other two stones," Scott said looking hopeful.

Lex frowned. "Did the Tesseract ever leave your possession?" she asked looking between Steve and Tony.

The billionaire raised his eyebrows at Lex. "I like your new girl, Cap, she's a thinker."

"She's not my girl."

"I'm not his girl."

The pair answered simultaneously, Steve's cheeks going pink, while Lex simply raised an eyebrow at Tony while folding her arms. The room was silent, lest for Clint and Rhodey trying not laugh from their seats at the end of the table. They quietened when Lex shot them an icy glare.

"Wow…" Rocket said looking between the two. "That was creepy."

"Anyway," Tony continued, looking between Clint and Natasha. "Super Black Widow is right. Remember when we took the Tesseract downstairs and Pierce wanted the case from us and we had a minor argument with him about it?"

"Right, Thor wanted to take it and Loki home, but Pierce didn't want them to be released to Thor," Natasha recalled.

"It's an opportunity we could take advantage of, I bet, we could even make enough of a distraction that no one would even notice the case is gone before we are back here," Tony offered, looking from Steve to Scott and Lex.

"You've got an idea?" Lex asked, noting the particular look that Tony always got when he had an idea, whether it be at making trouble or an actual idea that was useful. She'd seen it a couple of times in the past few weeks, when he found the time to play pranks on them. She often wondered which out of he and his daughter caused his wife the most trouble. Her money was on him.

"Back then, my arc reactor was controlling my heart, I bet tiny here could pop in there and trigger a cardiac arrest. That should create a bit of action and let me or super psycho slip in there and grab the case without being noticed." Lex raised an eyebrow at Tony's jab at her, but said nothing in response. He wasn't wrong after all.

"Uh… wouldn't that kill you?" Scott asked incredulously.

"It'd be fine, easy fixed," Tony answered, waving Scott's question off.

"Even if you didn't know what happened?" Lex asked, raising both eyebrows with a smirk on her face. She liked the idea, but thought Tony seemed a little blasé about it. Not that it bothered her, it was his life.

"Relax, I have faith in myself."

"Course you do," Lex replied, rolling her eyes.

"So, what about you?" Steve asked, interrupting their banter with a nod as he looked down at her from across the table.

She looked up at him expectantly. "What about me?"

"Where were you when New York happened?" Steve clarified his question.

Lex pressed her lips together and was thoughtful for a moment. "The UK, from memory. Because the following year I had to sneak out after bozo and his alien friends tore up London."

"Oh yes, that was fun," Thor commented, smiling as he looked thoughtful.

"So, we don't have to worry about running into you?" Scott asked, although it sounded strangely like he was relieved at the thought.

"Not at all."

"We should use that to our advantage. No one recognizes her, she can be seen in plain sight without fear-" Steve began, beginning to pace like he always did when he was running a plan through his head.

"Hold up, HYDRA still knew who I was back then, Steve. Pierce at least, will be very excited to see me."

Steve frowned, looking at Lex thoughtfully for a moment. Lex stared straight back at him, cocking her head to one side, until he finally sighed and put his hands on his hips. "I'll go after the scepter; you can stick with me."

"Fun." He gave her a bemused look before looking back to others. "Let's start planning this."

xo

Krayzee