╔═════════╗
𝑺𝑼𝑹𝑽𝑰𝑽𝑶𝑹
-𝒔𝒆𝒃𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏
╚═════════╝

╔═══════╗
fourteen.
new plan
╚═══════╝

❝THIS IS OUR TIME, NO TURNING
BACK. WE COULD LIVE, WE COULD
LIVE LIKE LEGENDS.❞

⋆

          STEVE landed on his feet swiftly, with Christina, his shield and the sceptre in his arms. Giving her a short nod, he gently let her onto her feet.

"Cap, Christina..." Tony spoke up. The two turned to his voice. There, Tony sat in the drivers seat, his head resting against his hand. Scott sat behind him, a pout on his face. "Sorry, guys...we got a...problem."

Scott huffed sharply. "Huh, yeah we do."

Christina's brows furrowed as she slowly approached the car. "What happened?"

Tony sighed, rubbing his face before glancing back at Scott.

          "WELL, what are we gonna do now?" Steve asked calmly once the two men explained how they lost the Tesseract.

"You know what? Give me a break, Steve. I just got hit in the head by the Hulk." Tony shot back, giving Steve a look.

Scott paced around the street while Tony remained in the car, with his door opened. Scott turned on his heel to Tony. "You said we had one shot. This was our one shot. We shot it. It's shot! Six Stones or nothing! Six Stones—"

"You're repeating yourself, you know that?" Tony raised a brow, gesturing his hand at him. "You're repeating yourself."

"You're repeating yourself, you're repeating yourself!" Scott spat rudely back at Tony. Christina stepped in front of him.

"Hey!" She barked angrily. Scott's anger washed away, replaced with a frightened look. She pointed a finger at him. "Cool it! Now."

"Dude," Tony rolled his eyes, directing his comment at Scott. Scott stepped around Chris, brows furrowing.

"You know what? No, you wanted the Time Heist. You were on board with the Time Heist..." Scott started to rant on, ignoring Chris' last command.

"I dropped the ball!" Tony defended himself.

"You ruined the Time Heist."

"Is that what I did?"

"Yeah!"

"Is there any other options with the Tesseract?" Steve asked, looking at Tony. Christina stepped away from Scott, rubbing her eyes in defeat.

"No, no, no. There's no other options." Scott commented, answering for Tony. He angry slammed his car door, turning away. "There's no do-overs! We're not going anywhere else. We have one particle left—each. That's it! All right?! We use that; bye bye! You're not going home."

Tony's face suddenly blanked as an idea came to mind.

"Well if we don't try, then no one else is going home either." Steve replied.

Tony exited the vehicle and looked at Steve. "I got it. There's another way. To retake the Tesseract and acquire new particles." He approached the Captain. "Little stroll down memory lane. Military installation, Garden State."

Steve's face also blanked as he got Tony's idea. His expression slowly went back to confused. "When were they both there?"

Chris glanced at Scott, equally confused.

"They were there when—" he stuttered. "I've a vaguely exact idea."

"How vague?"

"What are you talking about? Where-where we going?" Scott asked, getting ignored by both men.

"I know for a fact they were there..." Tony went on.

"Who's they? What are we doing?"

"Scott, shh!" Christina shushed loudly, allowing the men to talk.

"...and I know how I know." the billionaire said with confidence.

Steve didn't reply, looking around the street. "Well...looks like we're improving." He moved towards Christina, offering the sceptre. "Chris, get this back to the compound. Bring Scott with you."

"Will do, Cap." Christina nodded, knowing there wasn't much she or Scott could do since it was their idea and really only a two-person job.

"Zero-four..." Tony started to dilate his watch with Steve following. "Zero-seven...one-nine, seven-oh."

"Are you sure?" Steve asked, setting the coordinates.

"Cap! Captain, Steve!" Tony turned to Scott in annoyance. Christina rolled her eyes and Steve slowly looked at Scott. "Sorry—America. Rogers... Look, if you do this, and it doesn't work..." he shook his head. "You're not coming back."

Tony clenched his jaw, almost biting his tongue. "Thanks for the pep-talk, pissant." He looked back at Steve. "You trust me?"

Steve nodded once. "I do."

"Your call."

He nodded again, "Here we go."

Both activating their watches, the quantum suits morphed over their clothes and in a flash, they were gone to a different time.

Scott looked around, shoulder dropping in defeat. Christina sighed through her nose, turned, and walked away.

"Hey, where you going?"

"To return this to the compound, like Steve said!" she called back, holding the sceptre up.

"H-Hey, wait up!"

          IN a collective circle, almost everyone reappeared on the platform. Steve and Tony had successfully gotten the Tesseract, and Clint had gotten the Soul Stone.

Simultaneously, their suits disappeared and everyone looked around.

"Did we get them all?" Bruce asked timidly.

"Holy shit, I think we did." Holly nodded proudly.

"You telling me this actually worked?" Rhodey smiled, holding up the Orb. Glancing at Holly, they high-fived.

A heavy thump made them all turn to Clint, who fell to his knees with a deadpanned and hollow expression. Everyone's smiles and light-hearted feelings disappeared.

"Clint, where's Nat?" Bruce asked, taking a step forward.

Clint didn't reply as he continued to stare at the floor in silence. At once, it dawned on everyone that she had been sacrificed for the Stone.

He looked up at Bruce as a tear escaped. Steve turned away. Bruce lowered to his knees, hitting his fit against the floor loudly

          THE team had taken a much-needed break. Each pair or person had departed into a section of the compound, away to collect their feelings and thoughts respectfully.

In the lab, Tony, Rocket, Bruce and Lexi stood. Tony guided a small grapple machine holographically, trying to line the Soul Stone up with the others perfectly.

With slow movements, Tony synced all the robotic arms to carefully hone in and place each Stone in a the Iron-Gauntlet he had created.

Everyone paused, staring at the gauntlet when the Stones fitted perfectly.

"BOOM!" Rocket shouted, making Tony, Lexi and Bruce flinch away. The three turned, glaring at the raccoon who only laughed at their paranoia.

"What the hell, Rocket?" Lexi hissed, walking away with Tony.

"ALL right, the glove's ready." Rocket said as the gauntlet hovered in their holding machine. He had fixed the last piece on, making it ready to reverse everything. "Question is, who's gonna snap their frickin fingers?"

"I'll do it." Thor nodded surely, early making this way towards the glove. He raised his hand as everyone's heads snapped towards the god.

"Excuse me?" Rhodey mumbled. When Thor neared the glove, everyone put their hands up, distancing him from it.

"Hey, hey, hey..."

Lexi placed a hand on his chest. "Thor, Thor. Hey. Think about this, and the cost of it. Remember Thanos' arm from five years ago?"

"Thor, just...wait." Steve said sternly. "We haven't decided who's gonna put that on yet."

"Oh, I'm sorry. We're just all sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?" He remarked, looking around at everyone.

"We should at least discuss it." Scott looked up at him.

"He's right. We should." Christina nodded, now wearing her Wasp suit.

"Look, sitting here, staring at the thing is gonna gonna bring everybody back." Thor pointed at the glove. "I'm the strongest Avenger, okay? So this responsibility falls upon me, this is my duty—"

Lexi moved when Tony stepped in front of Thor, starting to bicker and argue with him. After a moment, Thor placed his fist on Tony's chest. He swallowed shakily as tears pricked his eyes. "Just let me do it, okay? Let me do something good; something right."

"It's not just the fact that that glove is channeling enough energy to light up a continent. I'm telling you; you're in no condition." Tony replied calmly.

"What do you think is coursing through my veins right now?"

"Cheez Whiz?" Rhodey quipped. Thor shot a look at him before gazing back at Tony.

"Lightning."

Tony nodded. "Yeah," he patted Thor's arm a few times.

Thor repeated the word, nodding as if trying to suddenly convince Tony of his qualifications to do this task.

"Lightning won't help you, pal." Bruce spoke up, standing to his feet. "It's gotta be me."

"Wait, what?" Lexi's head turned. Thor shook his head, letting it hand in defeat.

"You saw what those Stones did to Thanos; it almost killed him." he went on, walking towards the glove in wide strides. "None of you could survive."

"How do we know you will?" Steve asked in his monotoned voice.

"Y-Yeah, there's gotta be a different way, here." Holly suggested nervously.

"We don't." the scientist replied to them both. "But the radiation's mostly gamma. It's like..." he paused, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "I was made for this."

Bruce reached forward, carefully taking the gauntlet out of its holding. He let it sit between his fingers; the device much smaller than his large hands.

"Good to go?" Bruce asked, looking at Tony as he walked by. Tony nodded back. "Let's do it."

"Okay remember, everyone Thanos snapped away five years ago; were just bringing them back to now. Today. Don't change anything from the last five years."

"Got it."

Everyone stood around him, each in their uniform to protect themselves from any sudden harm. Steve slowly lifted his shield as Scott's and Christina's masks flipped over. Glancing at one another, they nodded before staring up at Bruce. Rhodey's mask flipped over his head next as he got into a fighting stance.

Rocket put his goggles over his eyes as Thor ushered the animal behind him. Lexi took out her gun, holding it ready just incase she had to shoot the thing off Bruce's hand. Tony tapped his chest twice, and the nano suit quickly formed over his body. Raising his fist, a holographic shield flashed, covering himself and Clint. Holly looked around, before reaching behind her back and flicking out two metal batons.

"FRIDAY, do me a favour and activated Barn Door Protocol." Tony said inside his suit, looking around the room.

"Yes, boss." she replied. Suddenly, over all the windows and exits, metal doors slid over, trapping everyone in, and not letting anything enter.

"Everybody comes home." Bruce mumbled to himself, before slowly sliding his hand towards the opening of the gauntlet. The mouth of the glove opened as his hand neared, and it slowly formed around his hand. When the glove finally snapped into place around his hand and wrist, it flashed brightly with a rainbow of colours.

Bruce fell to his knee, groaned as the full strength of the Stones flowed up his arm. The gauntlet itself let out a creaking groan as Bruce's arm suddenly flared up, burning his skin up to his shoulder.

"Take it off, take it off!" Thor shouted as Bruce continued to cry out.

Steve held up his hand. "No, wait! Bruce, are you okay?"

"Talk to me, Banner." Tony commented in.

After a moment, Bruce gritted his teeth. With his left hand, he clutched his right wrist. "I'm okay. I'm okay."

Thor nodded with wide eyes, giving a thumbs up at him. As Bruce continued to try and harness the power, he clenched his teeth and forced himself to his feet. His groans turned into yells as he held up his right hand. With all the strength his could muster left in his body, his brought his thumb and middle finger together and...

Snap.