CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO, mission accomplished

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ

STEVE SWUNG HIMSELF over the small railing, landing on the ground with the scepter. He sighed as he left his gaze on the building for a little while, wondering how differently things would go for his past counterpart and Ivanna this time.

"Cap-"

Steve turned around to see Scott and Tony seated in a broken car. Tony was slumped over, a lost look on his face.

"Sorry, buddy. We got a...problem,"

"Huh," Scott looked up, "Yeah, we do."

"Well, what are we gonna do now?" Steve questioned and looked between the two men.

"You know what? Give me a break, Steve," Tony snapped, "I just got hit in the head with the Hulk."

Steve sighed, "I just got electro-"

"You said that we had one shot. This-" Scott interrupted, not listening to the two men bickering, "this was our shot.We shot it. It's shot. Six stones or nothing. Six stones or nothing-"

"You're repeating yourself, you know that?" Tony sounded annoyed with Scott at this rate, "You're repeating yourself."

"You're repeating yourself. You're repeating yourself. You know-" Scott sighed, "No."

"Dude," Tony heaved a sigh, "come on."

"You never wanted a time heist, you went on board with the time heist-" Scott was cut off when Tony spoke.

"I dropped the ball,"

"You ruined the time heist,"

"Is that what I did?"

"Yeah!"

"Are there any other options with the Tesseract?" Steve finally broke up the verbal argument, wanting to focus on more important matters at hand.

"No, no, no. There's no other options.There's no do-overs. We're not going anywhere else. We have one particle left. Each. That's it, alright? We use that-" Scott sighed, "Bye, bye. You're not going home.

"Yeah, well if we don't try, then no one else is going home, either," Steve intervened.

"I got it.There's another way. To retake the Tesseract and acquire new particles. We'll stroll down memory lane," Tony suggested, a memory dawning on him, "Military installation, Garden State."

"When were they both there?" Steve pressed.

"They were there at a-" Tony trailed off, "I've a vaguely exact idea."

Steve pressed his lips together, unimpressed with Tony, "How vague?"

"What are you talking about? Where are we going?" Scott looked between the two men as they approached each other.

"I know for a fact they were there-"

"Who's they?What are we doing?" Scott interrupted frantically.

"And I know how I know,"

"Guys, what's up? What is it?" Scott continued asking his questions, and getting ignored.

"Well, it looks like we're improvising," Tony admitted.

"Right. What are we improvising?"

Tony finally looked back at Scott, taking the case the scepter was in and holding it in his direction, "Scott, get this back to the compound."

"Suit up," Tony instructed.

"What's in New Jersey?" Scott pressed.

"0-4," Tony spoke.

"0-4-" Steve stopped entering the date in order to look at Tony expectantly.

Tony thought for a moment, "Uhh, 0-7."

"0-7-"

"Excuse me..." Scott started.

"1-9-7-0,"

Steve looked up to Tony, "Are you sure?"

"Cap. Captain. Steve, sorry, America. Rogers," Scott frantically tried to get Steve's attention, and was successful when both men looked at him, "Look, if you do this, and this doesn't work, you're not coming back."

"Thanks for the pep talk, pissant," Tony turned his attention back to Steve, "Do you trust me?"

"I do," Steve admitted.

Tony gave a curt nod, "Your call."

If this worked, they would have the last stone: but no guarantee of returning home. But if they found a way back home, they could try the reverse snap. They could have a shot at getting back what they lost, and that's what mattered to Steve.

"Here we go," Steve, entered the final digits and confirmed the action, the two of them disappearing into the Quantum realm.

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Steve and Tony landed in 1970 New Jersey. They stood outside of a base camp as a car sped by them, an older man shouting in their direction.

"Hey, man! Make love, not war!"

Tony shook his head and turned to Steve, the pair getting ready to sneak into the camp.

"Clearly, you weren't actually born here, right?"

"The idea of me was," Steve spoke.

"Right," Tony paused, his attention on the base in front of them, "Well, imagine you're SHIELD, running a quasi-fascistic intelligence organization. Where do you hide it?"

"In plain sight," Steve confirmed and looked at the camp as well.

The two continued inside, finding disguises to fit in with the general group that was going in and out of the camp. They entered the main building, both going to an elevator. A woman stood with a file, Tony nodding curtly in her direction. They stood in the elevator awkwardly, Steve focused on the ground while Tony blocked him from the woman's sight.

The elevator came to a stop and Tony stepped up, looking back to Steve, "Good luck on your mission, Captain."

Steve nodded, still trying to go expose his identity, "Good luck on your project, doctor."

"You're new here?" The woman asked him with a wide smile.

"Not exactly," Steve sighed.

Steve had his own plans for how he would make sure they returned safely: Pym Particles. He found a phone, still trying to stay inconspicuous to the people around him, as any one of them could recognize Steve rogers in an instant.

The phone was answered and Steve cleared his throat, "Hello. Dr. Pym?"

"That would be the number that you called," Hank responded, "Yes."

"This is Captain Stevens from shipping," Steve continued the fake persona, "We have a package for you."

"Bring it up," the scientist instructed.

"Well, that's the thing, sir," Steve paused, "We can't."

"I'm confused. I thought that was your job,"

"Well, it's just-" Steve paused, thinking of what to say next, he needed to sound legit, "Sir, the box is glowing and,to be honest, some of our mail guys aren't feeling that great."

"They didn't open it, did they?" Hank sounded concerned.

"Yeah, they did. You better get down here," there was no response, the line went dead and soon enough Steve spotted Hank Pym running down the hallway,

"Excuse me! Out of the way!"

Steve watched him disappear down the hall, then quickly rushed toward where Hank had ran from. He entered the lab Hank had come from, looking over the lab until he found what he was looking for. He found the vials filled with red, and rushed to grab them.

Steve left the lab and found the woman from the elevator walking with security guards. She was describing Steve and Tony, and Steve knew that if she saw him they'd be caught.

"And you've never seen these two men before?" One of the guards pressed.

"No, I've got an eye for this.The two of them looked fishy," the woman admited.

"Can you describe them?"

"Well, one of them had a hippie beard," the woman continued.

Steve panicked internally, finding somewhere to duck into while the woman and guards grew closer.

"Hippie? Like Bee Gees or Mungo Jerry?"

"Definitely Mungo Jerry."

"Yeah, this is Chesler. I need every available MPson sub-level 6. We have a potential breach,"

Steve found a door and opened it, quickly entering the room as the guards passed by him with the woman. He watched them walk pass, then finally took a chance to look around the room he was in. He grew confused however, when he found a picture of himself sitting on the desk. He looked toward the door, finding the name Margaret Carter written across it.

He turns back to the rest of the office, seeing Peggy as she walked into the room speaking with someone. He watched her closely as she walked toward the window, reading a file. Steve was surprised when seeing Peggy didn't give him the same reaction it did when having seen Ivanna earlier. It didn't give him the reaction or feeling he felt as it did in the 40s. He had only felt a certain away upon being able to see Ivanna for the first time in five years.

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Steve was waiting outside by a jet, his eyes on Tony and signaling to him that he's done. Tony nodded and jerked flowers and a brief case into the air. Steve. Held his arms out exasperatedly, but nodded and waited for Tony. Tony eventually walked toward Steve, sharing an embrace with a man and then turning to Steve. The two men exchanged a nod, and then coordinated to go back to their time.

Steve and Tony returned, as well as the rest of the Avengers, to the Avengers Headquarters on the Quantum platform. Everyone looked around, seeing the stones that had been collected.

"Did we get them all?" Bruce questioned the team.

"You telling me this'll actually work?" Rhodey asked in disbelief.

There's a long pause amongst the group, and everyone suddenly noticed something missing. Bruce spoke first.

"Clint, where's Nat?"

Steve drifted his gaze toward Clint, seeing the sad look written on the marksman's face. Steve's heart dropped, and he looked to the ground. The look Clint gave him, as well as the silence, confirmed all the team needed to know. Bruce fell to the ground, pounding the floor in grief. Steve stared at the ground, not knowing how to react next.