One short plane flight and an even shorter car journey later, you were at Tony's place. He was already outside, carrying Morgan towards the house; his expression moved from confusion at the sight of the car to delight as you got out, and then reluctance as he saw Steve.

"Y/N!" Morgan cried joyously when she saw you walking towards them, wiggling out of Tony's arms and making a beeline towards you. You picked her up and swung her around as she reached you; she shrieked in delight. Nat was smiling behind you.

"Hey squirt, I missed you!" you told her happily as she attached herself to you, running a tiny finger down the scar on your face, as she always did.

"Kid, what are you doing here?" Tony asked, looking past you at Nat, Steve and Scott. You smiled at the nickname as you gave him a one armed hug, holding Morgan in the other.

"We need to talk to you. It's kind of urgent." you told him, following his gaze to Pepper who had appeared in the porch.

"Morgan, go tell Mommy I'll be in soon, alright?" Tony told his daughter. She nodded and you set her down, watching as she ran back up towards the house. Tony was looking at you in concern; you had a feeling you knew exactly what his response to all this was going to be.

Tony led you all up to the porch, where Scott than explained everything to him as he'd explained it to you hours earlier. You'd spent the entire plane journey trying to beat down the exhaustive hope which kept threatening to rise in your chest.

Scott had finished explaining everything to Tony; the look on his face confirmed your suspicions.

"Now, we know what it sounds like..."

"Tony, after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible?" Steve asked almost desperately.

"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?" Tony asked you all, handing Steve a drink. You shook your head, at a loss; Nat, Steve and Scott looked equally confused.

"Thank you." Steve said simply, taking the drink.

"In Layman's terms, it means you're not coming home." Tony said bluntly.

"I did." Scott protested.

"No. You accidentally survived. It's a billion to one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull off a... what did you call it?"

"A time heist." Scott replied proudly.

"Yeah, a time heist. Of course, why didn't we think of this before? Oh, because it's laughable? Because it's a pipedream?" Tony asked, almost aggressively. There it was: disappointment. It was your own fault, how could you have let yourself even begin to hope?

"The stones are in the past. We can go back and get them." Steve said.

"We can snap our own fingers, we can bring everyone back." Nat continued, hope clear for everyone to hear in her voice.

"Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?" Tony asked.

"I don't believe we would." Steve replied defiantly.

"I gotta say, sometimes I miss that giddy optimism. However, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said time heist. I believe the most likely outcome would be our collective demise." Tony told you all matter of factly.

You heard what Scott was about to say before he said it and quietly prayed that he would keep his mouth shut. He didn't.

"Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel. That means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sports events-"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, Scott. Are you seriously telling me that your plan to save the universe is based on Back to the Future?" Tony interjected harshly.

"No." Scott muttered, embarrassed.

"Good. You had me worried there, 'cause that'd be horse shit. That's not how quantum physics works." Tony told him firmly.

"Tony... we have to take a stand." Nat said. Tony looked at her, hard.

"We did stand, and yet, here we are."

Scott was a very emotional person, you were quickly working out. The loss of his girlfriend was still extremely raw for him, not to mention the fact that he'd been stuck in the Quantum Realm for five years... or hours, and he was feeling desperate.

"I know you got a lot on the line. You got a wife, a daughter. But I lost someone very important to me. A lot of people did, and now... now we have a chance to bring her back. To bring everyone back. And you're telling me that you won't even-"

"That's right Scott, I won't even. I got a kid." Tony cut across him sharply. At that moment, Morgan ran across the porch to Tony, who picked her up.

"Mommy told me to come and save you." she said innocently.

"Good job, I'm saved." Tony smiled at her, before turning back to the four of you.

"I wish you'd come here to ask me something else. Anything else. Honestly, I... I missed you guys, it was... Oh, and the table's set for seven." he said, suddenly quite emotional. Not that he would ever let that show on his face.

"Tony, I get it. And I'm happy for you, I really am. But this is a second chance." Steve implored him.

"I got my second chance right here Cap." Tony told him, referring to Morgan, "I can't roll the dice again. If you don't talk shop, you can stay for lunch."

Scott turned away in disgust and started walking back towards the car. Steve looked at Tony sadly and then followed Scott slowly. Tony sighed.

"He hasn't changed."

"Neither have you, Tony." Nat told him with a sad smile, before turning and walking away too.

"What about you, kid? You staying for lunch?" Tony asked you. You recognised that he wasn't just asking you to stay for lunch. He didn't want you to get your hopes up. You looked at Tony carefully, searching his face.

"Is there a chance? Any... tiny, miniscule chance at all that this could work?" you asked him. Tony opened his mouth and then closed it again, giving a resigned laugh, knowing that he couldn't lie to you. Your heart leapt; you couldn't help it. Tony saw the hope on your face and sighed again.

"I know, I know." you said quickly before he could tell you not to get your hopes up, "But... you know I have to try. Don't you?"

He knew.

"Look, if you do decide to do something massively stupid, call me first, okay?" he asked you in concern. You nodded, walking backwards towards the car.

"I will call you when we undoubtedly decide to do something massively stupid." you grinned, allowing hope to fill you. Screw it. Tony shook his head good naturedly and turned to walk back inside with Morgan.

"He's scared." Nat said, as you got into the car and slammed the door shut.

"He's not wrong." Steve replied.

"Yeah, but I mean, what are we gonna do? We need him. What, are we gonna stop?" Scott asked in concern.

"No, I wanna do it right. We're gonna need a really big brain." Steve said, looking at Nat. She nodded in understanding. They were thinking of Bruce.

"What, bigger than his?" Scott asked in disbelief, pointing back at Tony's house.

...

It didn't take you long to track Bruce down. He wasn't exactly hard to find, and Nat had been keeping in contact with him. You met him in a café to talk; he'd been thrilled to see you all, but had told you that time travel was outside his area of expertise, as if time travel was anyone's area of expertise. You hadn't said that to him, obviously.

Nat had reminded him that there had been a time when his current physicality had seemed an impossible goal too, and eventually he'd agreed to accompany you back to the compound.

You didn't have the first clue about quantum mechanics, or anything to do with science in general, so you stood by and watched with Nat and Steve as Scott and Bruce discussed the technicalities of what you were about to try and pull off. Apparently Scott's van was going to be playing a large part in the proceedings.

You decided to stop trying to understand what was going on at that point.

After a few days of planning, the first test run was upon you. Scott got suited up in his Ant-Man gear and was stood in front of the van, Bruce was stood behind a deck of important looking buttons, switches and levers, while you, Nat and Steve were stood nearby.

Steve had been tasked with managing the backup system in case something went horribly wrong. You didn't want to think about what might happen if that were the case. As promised, you'd called Tony this morning to tell him that you (and by you, you meant Scott) were planning on doing something really quite stupid.

"As long as it's not you going into that thing. Just be careful, alright?"

He hadn't been telling you something, you could tell, but being on the other end of the phone you hadn't been able to read his mind. It was bothering you.

"Okay, here we go. Time travel test number one. Scott, fire up the, uhhh... the van." Bruce instructed. You were still trying to get used to the term 'time travel' being thrown around so casually.

Scott did something to make the van power up and put his helmet on carefully.

"Breakers are set, emergency generators are on standby." Steve said loudly over the noise the van was making.

"Good, 'cause if we blow the grid, I don't wanna lose Tiny here in the nineteen fifties." Bruce joked. You all looked at Bruce in a panic.

"Excuse me?" Scott asked, suddenly sounding a lot less confident.

"He's kidding!" Nat said loudly to Scott, smiling.

"You can't say things like that!" you reprimanded Bruce under your breath so that Scott wouldn't hear.

"Just... it was a bad joke." Bruce muttered, not looking at you.

"You were kidding right?" you asked him quietly.

"I have no idea. We're talking about time travel here, either it's all a joke, or none of it is." he replied under his breath, before looking up at Scott, who now looked slightly pale, and gave him a thumbs up.

"We're good! I'm gonna send you back a week, let you walk around for an hour, then bring you back in ten seconds. Makes sense?" Bruce called over to him.

"Perfectly not confusing." Scott said grimly.

"Good luck!" you called.

"Good luck Scott, you got this." Steve told him determinedly.

"You're right. I do, Captain America." Scott said, steeling himself.

Bruce pressed a button, and Scott disappeared into the Quantum Tunnel. You all watched the space that he'd disappeared from in anticipation.

"On the count of three. One, two, three!" Bruce said, pushing another button.

Scott reappeared. You gave a triumphant cry, before realising that something was wrong. There was a teenager in Scott's suit.

"Uh, guys? This doesn't feel right." the teenager said.

"What is this? What's going on?" Steve asked Bruce in alarm.

"That... who is that?" Nat asked, grabbing at Bruce's arm in a panic.

"Hold on, hold on..." Bruce told her, pushing some more buttons.

"Is that Scott?" you asked in distress.

"Yes it's Scott!" the teen yelled in indignance, before getting sucked back into the Quantum tunnel. Seconds later an old man reappeared wearing the suit.

"Ow, my back!" he croaked in pain.

"What is this?" Steve asked again.

"Can I get a little space here?" Bruce asked, batting you and Nat away impatiently.

"Can you bring him back?!" you stressed, hovering at his elbow in concern.

"I'm working on it!" Bruce half shouted, before pressing more buttons and making Scott as an old man disappear. Next to emerge in the suit was Scott as a baby.

"It's a baby." Steve said, very helpfully stating the complete obvious.

"It's Scott." Bruce countered, appearing to have given up.

"As a baby!" Nat stressed.

"He'll grow." Bruce said, apparently unbothered.

"Bring Scott back." you said seriously.

"Okay, okay." Bruce said, pointing at the generator and speaking to Nat, "When I say kill the power, kill the power."

"Oh my god." Nat muttered as she ran across the room to the generator.

"And... kill it!" Bruce called to Nat. Nat slammed the lever down and everything shut off. There were a few seconds of horrible silence, and then Scott, normal Scott, appeared in front of you. You all breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief.

"Somebody peed my pants." Scott said shakily.

"Oh, thank god." Steve muttered, running his hands through his hair.

"But I don't know if it was baby me or old me, or just me me." Scott continued to ramble. You didn't blame him for being a bit disorientated, he'd just time travelled. And it had worked... eventually.

"Time travel!" Bruce said happily, raising his hands to the sky.

You stared at Scott as Nat moved towards him, not noticing as Steve shook his head, walking away in silence and apparent defeat. The gravity of the situation hadn't quite hit you yet; you stood still and waited for it to.

This was your chance. Well, it was half a chance... and maybe not even that. It had barely worked, but it was a start.

"What? I see this as an absolute win!" Bruce exclaimed, apparently annoyed that no one was as excited as he was about what he'd just achieved. You looked over at him, and then around when you didn't see Steve.

"Where did Steve go?" you asked.

"Outside." Bruce said grumpily.