Scottie smiled at Steve, her smile not quite reaching the corners of her lips as she looked at him through the mirror directly in front of them both. The man returned the smile, trying not to let his eyes focus for too long on the stitches that littered her forehead. The cast on her wrist was a bright yellow, something that he guessed much have been of comfort to her when she picked it out.

Not only was the cast rather bright, it was making the process of cutting Steve Roger's hair rather hard for the girl. She eventually sighed, sitting the scissors down as she motioned for Steve to check himself out in the mirror. He smiled once more, holding a thumbs up to motion that he was pleased with her attempt of making him look less of a nomad.

Scottie watched the man as he shaved the remainder of his beard off, staring intently at the running water as it hit the basin. She didn't realise how many sounds she had gotten used to in her life until she was left with nothing. She was sure she could almost remember the sounds of how water would hit the sink, but she was sure it wouldn't be long before she was able to recall smaller and less significant sounds like typing on a keyboard or the sound of a light humming as it was turned on.

If there had been any advantages to her new state, it was that every other sense had almost felt heightened at the loss of her hearing. Which meant that when the vibrations started pulsing throughout the Avengers Headquarters, she was the first to instantly sit up. Steve turned to look at her in surprise at her sudden movement, before his head swung back round to the shaving mirror he had previously been staring into. The metal hingers were shaking rapidly, and Steve instantly knew that there was something landing outside.

Scottie ran after the man as he took off towards the front of the building. She grabbed her jacket from the hallway as they all gathered on the outside yard, Natasha moving so that she was standing directly in Scottie's eye line. The girl had started to get a little jumpy when she couldn't tell where people were around her - especially as she used to just be able to know that from light breaths or footsteps. Now everything just seemed to appear at once.

The blonde squinted as she noticed the bright shape of what she assumed to be Carol Danvers, the woman they had met only days prior. She had seemingly pulled through on her promise to the remaining heroes, especially since she was literally carrying a spacecraft on her shoulders. Scottie twitched slightly as she considered running up the ramp and into the ship to see if Tony was alive, but that exact reasoning was what made her stay rooted on the stop.

A gasp escaped her lips as she noticed a robotic blue woman leave the ship, her arms wrapped cautiously around the man she was desperate to see. Scottie watched as Steve darted forward, his arms wrapping around the weaker and malnourished man. She stared intently at their mouths, trying her hardest to focus on what they were saying.

"Couldn't stop him," Tony muttered, no hope left in him that the Earth team had managed to do the same either, since he had literally watched Peter Parker die in his arms. He looked at Steve with a purpose, unsure on his current state of mind at the reunion with the man that had willingly torn their team apart all those years ago.

"Neither could I," Steve admitted, knowing that his own attempts against Thanos had been useless in comparison to what Thor and Scottie had tried to do - and even then they hadn't managed to stop the mad titan.

"I lost the kid," Tony breathed out, turning to look at Steve with nothing but guilt and shame in his eyes. The man was almost expecting Steve to look at him in disappointment or resentment so he was amazed to find the look that he had in his own eyes mirrored in America's golden boy.

"Tony, we lost."

Scottie watched the scene, not quite having been able to pick up what they were saying due to their mumbling. She gathered that Peter was gone just as Wanda and the rest of her friends, especially since there was no sign of the teenager that had saved her life more than just once. She jumped as Pepper lightly touched her shoulder in comfort as the woman joined them, her eyes straining to see who had left the spaceship. The second the strawberry blonde noticed it was her fiancé, she took off straight towards the man.

Tony's eyes filled with tears of relief as he saw the woman rushing towards him, turning around and catching her body with his own. He hugged her tightly with his eyes shut, breathing in her familiar smell and giving himself a moment to adjust to the fact that Pepper was alive and while he might have lost everyone else, he was always going to have her.

Scottie watched the scene from the distance. She didn't want to have to face Tony and tell him that she could have stopped Thanos had she not made a mistake. He wouldn't be standing in despair at losing Peter and the battle if she had just not hesitated when fighting Thanos. She had gotten too cocky and they had all paid for it.

Turning on her heel, Scottie slunked back inside. Natasha broke her gaze from the reuniting couple as her and Rhodey both turned in confusion to see the way she retreated from the brief moment of joy that was being had. The older members of the team both shrugged as they too followed the girl, knowing that she wasn't really ready to be left on her own yet. They all hadn't fully processed the events that had happened and Natasha was amazed that Scottie hadn't burned the place down yet from grief.

When Tony finally saw Scottie, she was sitting in the living room that he had been wheeled into. Her arms were crossed tightly against her chest as she had her back to the man, staring out of the window and at the spaceship that had just landed outside their compound.

"Scottie," Tony breathed, waiting on the girl to turn around and see him. He let out another deep sigh that he hadn't realised that he was holding as he noticed that while he could see she was injured, she was alive. He waited to see her eyes, waited for her to finally embrace him but it was as if she hadn't even acknowledged his presence. "Scottie?"

Pepper placed a hand on his arm, causing the man to look up at her with a distraught look on his face at the girl not looking back at him.

"Tony... what Thanos did to her... she can't hear anything anymore."

Before Tony had time to say anything, Natasha lightly rested an arm on Scottie's back to get the girls attention. She jumped slightly, but turned around as Rhodey started the debriefing that he knew was necessary to figure out where they would go from here.

"It's been 23 days since Thanos came to Earth," Rhodey informed everyone, making sure that they were all aware that they had been doing nothing for almost a month while the world was on fire outside.

"World governments are in pieces. The parts that are still working are trying to take a census. And it looks like he did... he did exactly what he said he was gonna do. Thanos wiped out fifty percent, of all living creatures," Natasha continued, very aware that Scottie was trying her hardest to read her lips.

Bruce passed the girl a tablet, a soft smile on his face as he tried to help her adjust to life without hearing. Scottie took it graciously, looking down to see that the tablet was dictating for her the words that were coming from her friends mouths.

"Where is he now? Where?" Tony questioned, a look of sheer desperation in his eyes as he thought about how the team was supposed to have been together to fight foes like this. He could help but feel anger brewing in his stomach at the fact Steve was still trying to act like a leader when it was his fault they had all had to face the Titan alone.

"We don't know. He just opened a portal and walked through."

Tony turned his head, noticing for the first time that Thor was there with them. The man was slouched over a bench, his eyes almost glazed as he ignored the conversation that was happening all around them.

"What's wrong with him?"

Rocket jumped up from where he had been sitting, the racoon still feeling empty at the knowledge that none of his team survived the snap. The only person he had was Nebula, and even then its not like they were particularly close from the plenty of times she had tried to kill him.

"Oh, he's pissed. He thinks he failed. Which of course he did, but you know there's a lot of that's going around, ain't there?"

"Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear."

Scottie smiled gently at Tony trying to keep some humour in this dark time. She opened her mouth, a slight smile as she looked over at him.

"My thoughts too."

"We've been hunting Thanos for three weeks now," Steve informed Tony, sensing that the man was getting distracted from the matter at hand again. "Deep Space scans, and satellites, and we got nothing. Tony, you fought him."

"Who told you that?" Tony asked. There was a pause as everyone looked between each other as they started to hear the venomous tone that was seeping into the billionaires voice at Steve's comment. "I didn't fight him. No, he wiped my face with a planet while the Bleecker Street Magician gave away the store. That's what happened. There was no fight. He's unbeatable."

Scottie slumped on the chair she was sitting on, a hand running over her face as she continued to watch their words roll on the screen that she was clutching. There was a lot to unpack between the two men and she knew this wasn't the time Tony should have chose to do so.

"Did he give you any clues, any coordinates, anything?" Steve almost begged, not wanting a fight. There was a time and a place for them to sort out their differences - the biggest one being how Steve had left Tony for dead in the Siberian wilderness.

"I saw this coming a few years back. I had a vision. I didn't wanna believe it. Thought I was dreaming."

"...Tony, I'm gonna need you to focus."

Scottie tensed slightly as she almost sensed the anger that the rich man held as he started pointing a finger across the room at Steve. His chest was rising more rapidly and for a breif moment the girl was worried that he was going into cardiac arrest.

"And I needed you," Tony spat back, his tone certainly now one of anger if it had not been previously. Scottie didn't need to be able to hear to sense how livid the man was with the group of heroes that were standing in front of him; and she couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible for everything. "As in past tense. That trumps what you need. It's too late buddy. Sorry. You know what I need?"

Scottie darted forward as Tony thrashed to his feet, waving his arms around as he tried to push himself out of the wheelchair that he was currently resting in. She moved Rhodey out of the way as she grabbed on to Tony's arms, stabling him as he tried to push the girl off him.

"I need to shave. And I believe I remember telling all youse..." Tony continued, firmly shoving Scottie back with a strength that she didn't realise the malnourished man would have had in him. The girl whimpered slightly as her arm with the cast on smacked against the counter, causing everyone to shoot up from their seats as Tony threw himself at Steve. "...alive and otherwise what we needed was a suit of armor around the world! Remember that? Whether it impacted our precious freedoms or not- that's what we needed!"

Steve moved back slightly as Rhodey pulled Tony backwards, restraining the man from trying to fight the supersoilder that was - at this point - almost triple his size. Tony moved backwards, tugging the liquid drip from his arm and not casting a second glance at where Carol Danvers had moved to check that Scottie was okay from her arm getting smacked against the counter. The blonde seemed very tuned into the fact that Scottie was on edge as it was, and she was very careful to make sure that the girl could see everything she was doing as she approached her.

"Well, that didn't work out, did it?" Steve softly said, his tone getting a little firmer as they continued the argument.

"I said, 'we'd lose'. You said, 'we'll do that together too', and guess what, Cap? We lost. And you weren't there. In fact, you even almost took Scottie from us again because you had your head so far up your ass that you couldn't see what was the greater good. But that's what we do, right? Our best work after the fact? We're the Avengers, we're the Avengers. Not the Prevengers."

Everyone stood in a stunned silence as Tony swayed slightly, Scottie no longer holding the dictation table to understand what he was saying. Carol looked between the arguing team and Scottie, noticing the look of lost and confusion on the poor girl's face.

"You made your point. Just sit down," Rhodey muttered to the man, but was brushed off as Tony continued to yell and snarl at the soldier.

"Nah, nah. Here's my point. You know what?" He turned to briefly look at Carol who was still standing next to Scottie, almost slightly in front of the girl in a protective manner. "She's great, by the way. We need you. You're new blood. Bunch of tired old mules!"

Everyone seemed to hold their breath as Tony moved right up to Steve so that their noses were almost touching. Scottie was still holding on to her arm, the pain slowly subsiding as she watched the scene unfold in front of her. Carol had given her back the dictation tablet, and she wasn't sure if she was glad or not.

"I got nothing for you, Cap! I got no coordinates, no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada. No trust. Liar!" Tony spat out, his hand reaching upwards and sitting on the Arc Reactor that rested in his chest. Scottie flinched slightly as she could just imagine the venomous tone that Tony would have spoken with, a ferocious look in his eyes as he stared Steve down.

His hand tightened around the arc reactor, before giving it a solid tug straight out of his chest and into Steve's hand. Everyone started moving towards the man, making noises of discouragement as he clearly wasn't mentally stable.

"Here, take this. You find him, and you put that on. You hide."

And with that, Scottie could do nothing but watch as Tony fell to the ground, collapsing in a heap at their feet.

_______

"Bruce gave him a sedative. He's gonna probably be out for the rest of the day," Rhodey explained as they all stood outside the hospital bed that they had put Tony in. Pepper was sitting next to him, her hand tightly clutching his as if she was afraid that letting go would mean she would lose him forever.

Scottie was taking something from Bruce's outstretched hand, before she too turned and left the room after Rhodey. Natasha sent the girl a small smile as she placed what looked like a pair of reading glasses over her eyes, looking between them all. They could all see the small pixelated light on the glasses that from Scottie's end was making up words as everyone spoke.

Bruce had told her that he had gotten the idea from a device Tony owned, but also from watching a french film with the subtitles on. He had spent the past 19 days working on creating a pair of glasses that were almost live subtitles of the events happening around her and while it wasn't exactly something that would make up for her lack of hearing, it certainly meant she was able to understand what was happening around them.

"You guys take care of him and I'll bring him a Xorrian Elixir when I come back," Carol told them all, turning on her heel as she began to move away from the gathering of heroes. The blonde seemed to be on a mission as she moved, not stopping to see the looks on everyone's faces.

"Where are you going?" Natasha asked, her highly trained eyes noticing that the woman had no hesitation in her movements. She clearly had some form of a plan as to what her next moves were and the ex-assassin was ready to hear it.

Carol didn't even look back over her shoulder at the team as she continued her pace out of the room. Her hair swished slightly as she walked and Scottie found herself amazed at how they all seemed to always have perfect hair even after moments like today.

"To kill Thanos."