'It's been a long time, Susan.'

Sue grinned as she embraced Rhodey. The man had stepped out of his War Machine suit, and it stood in stationary mode behind him. He hadn't expected to be called to the Avengers compound after five years of no contact with the team, but when Steve's name popped up on his phone, he knew that the world was going to get even weirder.

'It's nice to see you. You look well. Legs working?' Sue pulled away from the hug and looked down to the machine that powered his bottom half.

'Of course not. But this machinery is yet to die on me.'

They stood in the meeting room, where what was left of the team gathered for the run down. The first mention of time travel bewildered those who arrived recently, but nothing could fully surprise them at this point. Each of them had spent their five years separately and got on with their lives as ex-Avengers. It was difficult knowing that they were part of the group who were meant to stop Thanos, and they had their moments of anger from the public. But in the end, people learnt that even they were affected by the blip.

'Hey! Lady! I forgot your name!'

The scratchy voice made Sue turn around and look down. Rocket waited by her feet to be noticed and she bent down to be at his level.

'What, my name slip by you? Was Wakanda that traumatic?' she joked, and the racoon waved his hand in a dismissal way.

'Look, it's been five years.'

'Susan.'

'Oh yeah, that's right. Good to see you, Susan.'

'You too, Rocket.'

The Storm stood back to her normal height and turned to the next person she was yet to see. But she let out a yelp and stepped backwards, bumping into Rocket who yelled 'watch it!'. Sue's neck strained as she looked up and her eyes blinked three times, making sure that she hallucinating the scene before her.

'Jesus Christ! Bruce! Y-You're-you're... green!' she stammered.

Bruce Banner had somehow perfected a state in-between the Hulk and being Bruce. He wore his glasses that looked small on his colossal face and smile down at the Storm. He wore clothes that were custom-made to fit his large, muscular form, but was still shoeless. He still had Bruce's face and Sue was shocked that she had missed seeing him around the compound up until this point.

'It's a long story and I've already told it three times today,' he shrugged and reached down to hold his hand out for a shake. 'It's good to see you, Sue. I won't give you a hug because... well, you know.'

'R-Right,' Sue slipped her tiny hand into his green one and did a small shake. She let out a nervous laugh before Bruce turned to head into the testing room. Taking the time to process what she saw, Sue took a deep breath and turned to the next person, who just so happened to be Clint.

'Hey, Clint,' she tried to appear normal. 'Loving the mohawk.'

'Thanks. You still look the same,' he let his lip twitch up into a smile.

'I-I uh... I heard about Laura. I hope you're somewhat getting through it.'

'Yeah... it's been tough. I heard about your daughter, too. I'm sorry.'

'Thank you...'

Sue had heard that Clint had lost Laura, Cooper, Nathanial and Lila. He had lost everyone from the blip and Sue felt immense sorrow for the Barton. She lost her daughter and brother, but Clint lost his entire family. She could see the indented lines that ran from his tear ducts to his cheeks, and his eyes carried the weight of his past tragedies. When he smiled, it looked painful. When he stared into space, it looked like he would never come back. Clint Barton was lost.

'Lady Storm! The woman of invisibility!' Clint and Sue turned at the booming voice and their eyes widened at the sight of Thor Odinson.

The demigod from Asgard waddled across the room with his arms up high. With one hand holding a can of beer, Thor grinned as his long, blonde hair swayed into his face. His stomach bulged from underneath his grey jumper and his legs were covered by a pair of sagging sweatpants. Cheeks flushed and eyes glazed, the demigod stopped in front of Sue and put his large arms around her shoulders to embrace her.

'H-Hey, Thor,' Sue's nose scrunched up at the stench of alcohol on his breath. 'How are you?'

'I am marvellous. My mighty life has been... mighty!' Thor laughed as he fell into the embrace and Sue stumbled, losing her balance at his extra weight.

'Woah!'

'Hey, Lebowski, be careful, there,' a hand softly pushed Sue back and Thor retracted his arms at the sound of the new voice. Tony stepped to be beside Sue and kept his hand on the curve of her spine.

'Ah, Stark!' Thor boomed and went to embrace Tony. 'What an honour it is to see the man who returned from Titan alive and glorious!'

'Alright, L'oreal, take it easy. It's good to see you, too.'

Thor eventually walked off to sit down and Sue resisted the urge to laugh as he tripped on his way there. Tony's hand slipped from her back to her waist, where he squeezed her side to stop her from laughing. She turned her gaze to him and saw that he was also attempting to hold back a chuckle or two.

'He's been in Sweden,' Tony explained and looked down at Sue with a lopsided smile. 'Was hard to get him back here. But none the less, he's here.'

'What's the plan?'

'Lang's getting into the testing suit. We've gotta do some test runs with the Pym Particles. It'll get us in and out. Well, in theory they will.'

---

Clint was the one to volunteer for the test run in the end. Scott wasn't overly confident, so the Barton stepped in and was now stood in position on the raised platform. Clad in a Quantum Suit, the man waited as the team were behind the control panel where Bruce turned dials and flipped switches.

'Clint, now you're gonna feel a little discombobulated from the chronoshift. Don't worry about it,' Bruce mentioned, and Clint stayed silent on the platform.

The Quantum Suit was mostly white with red and grey accents. A helmet would retract and form over the head and it was similar to the Ant-man suit that Scott wore. A nozzle sat in place of the mouth and small spikes sat on either side of the head. A glass panel sat over the eyes and gave a blue hue around the rim. Tony had been the one to add the classic Avengers 'A' on the breastplate, and the suit would allow for the team to survive through the quantum jump as well as enclose their individual suits for their missions.

'Wai-Wait a second, let me ask you something,' Rhodey spoke up. 'If we can do this, you know, go back in time, why don't we just find baby Thanos, you know, and...'

He motioned strangling a baby Thanos with a rope and Sue raised her eyebrows at the suggestion. It sounded simpler and would save all of them venturing through time. She and the rest of the team looked to Bruce, who was hunched over the panel with a disgusted expression.

'First of all, that's horrible-'

'It's Thanos?' Rhodey fought.

'And secondly, time doesn't work that way. Changing the past doesn't change the future.'

'Look, we go back, we get the Stones before Thanos gets them. Thanos doesn't have the Stones. Problem solved,' Scott followed, and Nebula shook her head.

'That's not how it works.'

'Well, that's what I heard,' Clint sounded.

'What? By who? Who told you that?' Bruce questioned and looked around at the team.

'Star Trek, Terminator, TimeCop, Time After Time-'

'Quantum Leap,' Scott interrupted Rhodey who listed famous movies.

'A Wrinkle in Time-'

'Wasn't that movie a flop?' Sue intervened and Tony nodded.

'Somewhere in Time, Hot Tub Time Machine, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Basically, any movie that deals with time travel,' Rhodey finished.

'I don't know why everyone believes that, but that isn't true,' Bruce denied. 'Think about it: If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past. Which can't now be changed by your new future.'

The team looked to each other and tried to understand Bruce's explanation. Scott sulked that this meant that Back To The Future used false logic and Bruce rolled his eyes. He turned back to the control panel and looked up to Clint, who stood waiting.

'Alright, Clint. We're going in three... two... one!'

Clint disappeared off the platform and a ring was left to sound throughout the testing room. Sue, who stood next to Tony and Natasha, bit her lip as the silence pounded at her ears. They would need to wait a minute until they attempted to bring Clint back, and it was the longest minute of their lives. The woman glanced to Bruce, who watched the levels and graphs that showed the results on the control panel.

'Anyone want any tea?' Sue mumbled and some replies came back, but she made no act to move until she was sure that Clint returned.

A whoosh was heard, and Clint's form appeared on the platform in his white suit. He was on his hands and knees, pants coming through the nozzle of his helmet. Natasha rushed to climb the stairs up to the platform and the team followed closely behind. Bruce stayed behind the panel, glad to see the Barton in one piece and continued to monitor the levels of the aftermath.

'Look at me,' Natasha knelt beside her friend worried. 'You okay?'

'Yeah,' his helmet retracted, and he threw a baseball glove to Tony. 'It worked. It worked.'

---

'Okay, so the 'how' works,' Steve began. 'Now, we gotta figure out the when and the where. Almost all of us has had an encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones.'

The meeting room was packed with everyone who was set to embark on the mission of time travel. Holograms of each of the Infinity Stones hung in the air, each colour casting a different hue across the group's faces. Sue was seated in front of the Soul Stone, the amber gleam lighting up her round face that stared at the men who were leading the meeting. Steve, Tony and Bruce paced at the front while they spoke, and the team waited to hear what their next move was.

'Well, I'd substitute the word 'encounter' for 'damn well near been killed' by one of the six Infinity Stones,' Tony followed.

'I haven't,' Scott piped up. 'I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about.'

'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,' Bruce added, and Tony followed once more.

'Our history. So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in.'

'Which means we have to pick our targets,' Clint sounded.

'Correct.'

'Let's start with the Aether. Thor, what do you know?'

Everyone turned at Steve's change of direction to the man in the corner of the room. With sunglasses over his eyes, Thor sat still in his chair with his hands on his thighs and his stomach bulging out in front of him. Light snores that could be taken as his last breaths grunted and everyone waited for the demigod to wake up or at least move a finger.

'Is he asleep?' Natasha asked.

'No, I'm pretty sure he's dead.'

'I saw him twitch before, I swear it,' Sue said after Rhodey.