17 | TESSERACT

Back at the headquarters, everyone assembled the time travel suits and time travel platform in an efficient manner. Scott informed that, although there was a plentiful amount of pim particles for one person to use to travel through the quantum realm, there was only enough for one round trip per person except for one person. Rhea, though recently joining the team, decided she wouldn't travel back in time since there was already not enough for the team they already had. But, everyone else was a key component in the time travel heist. "I won't take it." Amelia announced.

"Woah, woah, woah, wait! You came up with this, you, of all people, deserve to go." Tony exclaimed.

"I have the time stone. I may be a little rusty in using my powers, but it could work." Amelia reminded him.

"You've never jumped through time with it, though. You've only ever stopped and slowed time." Steve butted in, shaking his head, not agreeing with her trying to risk it all by using her own powers.

"I suppose it's time for me to graduate from primary school and explore my powers then, huh? I think it's been long enough. Almost a century, right?" Amelia chuckled.

"I don't like it." Steve muttered.

"You don't like anything." Amelia scoffed, heading off to try on her suit.

* * *

The test run with Clint going back in time was successful. He managed to jump back in time and jump back in one piece. But, now, Amelia needed to test her own time stone to see if she, herself, could go back in time without the pim particles. She stood on the platform and took a deep breath. Steve and Tony watched, nervously, from afar as she mentally prepared herself. She closed her eyes and whispered "ire tempore." She felt a surge of energy pass through her and a gust of wind pass by her face.

When she shot open her eyes, she was exactly where she had wanted to be. 2014. HYDRA.

She walked through the halls and looked through the glass chambers. Many different children were locked up different cells in the HYDRA base. It was quite disheartening. Amelia came to a stop when she spotted the cell she wanted to see. The one with her daughters in it. She had been killed in 2014 after having her babies stolen from her. They were given abrasive chemicals to force them to grow quickly. The twins, Liviana and Valdís, were meant to be only two weeks old at that point, but because of the medicines HYDRA had created and injected in them, they looked like toddlers. Amelia watched as they waddled around, grabbing blocks and toys off of the ground to play with.

Amelia shed a few tears. She was so sad she missed out on raising them herself and watching them grow naturally, but, the universe seemed to have different plans for them.

Amelia wanted so badly to steal them and take them back to the future with her, but she knew that it wasn't right. That wasn't her mission. So, before she could hesitate, she whispered "postea redire" to return to the future. She watched a bright white light flash before her eyes and her surroundings disappear until the present day avengers headquarters reappeared around her.

She gulped and nodded affirmatively at Steve and Tony, then walked off of the platform. Steve helped her down and noticed her long face. "Where'd you go?" He inquired.

"To see our babies, when they were babies still." Amelia simply said, and Steve didn't ask anymore questions, knowing it hurt too much to even think about the time he spent alone, with the love of his life and his children stolen away from him.

* * *

"Okay, so the how works. Now we gotta figure out the when and the where. Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter with at least one of the six infinity stones." Steve began speaking aloud to everyone in the meeting room to make a plan on who was going where to retrieve what infinity stone.

"Or substitute encountered with been damn near killed by one of the six infinity stones." Tony crudely added.

"I haven't. I don't even know what the hell you all are talking about." Scott informed everyone.

"Regardless, we only have enough pim particles for one round trip each and these stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history." Bruce told.

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

"Which means we have to pick our targets." Clint stated.

"Correct." Tony nodded curtly at him.

"So, lets start with the Ether, Thor, what do you know?" Steve looked over at Thor, who was sitting next to Rhea.

Thor stood up and began his lecture. "Uh, where to start? Um... the Ether. Firstly it's not a stone, someone called it a stone before," Thor pointed at Steve, calling him out, "it's more of a bit of an angry sludge sort of thing, so, someone's going to need to amend that and stop saying that. Here's an interesting story, though, about the Ether, my grandfather had to hide the stone from the dark elves. So, Jane, was an old flame of mine. You know, she stuck her hand inside the rock this one time and then the Ether stuck itself inside of her. And she became very very sick and so I had to take her to Asgard, which is where I'm from, and we had to try and fix her." Thor finished his story, finding his way back to his seat.

Then, Rocket was up next to present the power stone. "Quill said he stole the power stone from Morag."

"Is that a person?" Banner inquired.

"No! Morag's a planet! Quill was a person!" Rocket shouted.

"Like a planet? Like in outer space?" Scott asked Rocket.

"Ugh." Rocket stomped off.

Then, Nebula was up next with the Soul Stone. "Thanos found the soul stone on Vormir." Nebula stated.

"What is Vormir?" Natasha asked.

"A dominion of death. At the very center of celestial existence. It's where Thanos murdered my sister..." Nebula spoke in a low, ominous tone.

"...not it." Scott croaked out.

Amelia jumped to her feet. "The time stone! Split in half, I have one right now, Dr. Strange has the other half. He lived in New York."

"Um, he lived in New York? If we pick the right year, there are three stones in New York. And we wouldn't have to take your piece that you have now." Natasha piped up.

"Wait, wait, wait. How did Thanos do the snap if the stones weren't complete?" Tony questioned.

"He wasn't at his full potential. He was strong enough to do what he wanted, but was limited in some time manipulation abilities and he didn't even know it." Amelia explained.

"Huh..." Bruce was quite enlightened.

And with that, the plan was organized. There would be three teams. One to go to 2014 to space and retrieve the power stone and soul stone from Morag and Vormir. One to go to Asgard and get the reality stone. And another to New York to snatch the space, mind and time stones all at once. "Alright, we have a plan. 6 stones. 3 teams. 1 shot." Steve announced.

* * *

That same evening, they were all suited up and readied on the platform. "Whatever it takes." Amelia nodded at everyone as they all stood in a circle on the platform.

"See you in a minute." Nat smiled over at Amelia.

And with that, they were all transported to where they needed to go, leaving Amelia a few seconds behind to say "ire tempore" to meet the others in New York, 2012. The city was in chaos. The chitauri and Loki were causing a ruckus in New York and the Avengers were there to stop them. Tony, Scott, Steve, Bruce and Amelia were all in an alley way slowly taking in the destruction. "Alright, we all have our assignments. Two stones uptown one stone down. Stay low, keep an eye on the clock." Steve instructed, but before anyone could get to doing their job, a 2012 Hulk ran by and smashed a car on an attacking alien. He was unnecessarily violent and then ran off.

Bruce groaned, quite embarrassed. "Maybe smash a few things along the way." Steve told Bruce so that he could be inconspicuous as he walked through the streets of New York.

* * *

"Their hustle campaign looks like they've just about wrapped up here." Tony spoke through their comms to let Steve and Amelia know when they could go up the Avengers' Tower to take the tesseract.

"Got it, I'm approaching the elevator now." Steve told Tony.

Amelia and Steve hurried up into the building, moving as swiftly as they could while going unnoticed. "Alright Caps, I've got the scepter in the elevator just passing the 86th floor." Tony told.

"On it." Steve spoke in return as he pressed a button to call for the elevator to steal the scepter.

"I'll take the stairs." Amelia told right before she sped off to the emergency staircase to head down to the lobby to meet him and make a quick trade off before anyone realized the scepter was gone. Amelia felt like her old self for once. She felt like she was working for SHIELD and was putting her espionage skills back into use. For once, she felt like the threat wasn't larger than life and that the threat was merely another group of regular people.

Amelia flew down the stairs but was stopped when she met face to face with the Hulk, the big angry green one. Amelia kept her cool and smiled kindly at him. "Hey, you got kicked out of the elevator, too?" Amelia chuckled.

The Hulk groaned. "So many stairs!" He roared.

"I know, go check to see if the elevator is free on this level." Amelia patted his arm.

Hulk huffed then stomped out of the stairwell, allowing Amelia to speed down the rest of the steps without any more interruptions. When she reached the bottom, she saw Loki, Thor, Tony and a few agents from the past exit out into the lobby. "I've got eyes." Amelia spoke into her comm and easily walked over to Thor and Loki.

Her heart almost stopped having seen Loki's face. She wasn't there when he was killed by Thanos, but it hurt just as bad as Thor's when she found out he was truly dead. "The little one is already in." Tony referred to Scott as the little one since he was in a small size. The plan was that he crawl into 2014 Tony's clothes and unplug his arc reactor to cause a scene so that Amelia or Tony could take the tesseract being transported with them.

The moment Amelia walked over there, 2014 Tony collapsed to the ground as he gasped for air. Scott had did it, he had pulled the plug and caused a distraction great enough for Amelia to swoop in. Amelia hurried to Tony's side then shouted: "Someone call for help!" Many people began crowding around him.

She got up and as she briskly walked away, she inconspicuously picked up the briefcase and walked away while others tried to help him. As she walked away, a door slammed open from the staircase and Amelia was hit with a blunt force. She was shoved back and the briefcase went flying and broke open. She scrambled to her feet but as she turned around to grab the case, she spotted Loki snatching the Tesseract up and vanishing with it in plain sight.

Turns out, it was Hulk who slammed open the door. "Change of plans." Amelia muttered into the comm.

"Yeah, I saw that." Tony sighed.

"What's going on? Tell me you found that cube." Steve asked in his comm. Tony, Scott and Amelia were silent.