- Beau Young Prince, Let Go

(in these next few chapters (when they are time travelling) I will be using ‘nicknames’ for versions of the characters that are in the past. This is to differentiate the different versions. Some of these make sense and some of them are strange - what I’ve chosen is just to make it easier for both me and hopefully you. These names will not be used in dialogue from other characters.

2012 Tony - Stark, 2012 Steve - Rogers, 2012 Nat - Romanoff, 2012 Clint - Barton, 2012 Thor - T, 2012 Hulk - Hulk, 2014 Gamora - Mora (I understand that the other version of her is dead, however I do not harbour the same logic for her name as I do for Thanos), 2014 Nebula - Neb, 2014 Quill - Star-Lord, 2014 Thanos - Thanos (since the other Thanos is dead, this just seems like the easiest compromise))

Thor walks through the Compound’s Testing Chamber, hoodie on his back and beer to his lips. Tony walks behind him, moving to the side of Thor.

“Drifting left,” Tony says. “On the side there, Lebowski.” He looks at Rocket, working on something underneath a glass platform. “Ratchet, how’s it going?”

“It’s Rocket,” Rocket hisses. “Take it easy. You’re only a genius on Earth, pal.”

--

In a side room, Scott talks to Bruce, Steve and Rhodey. Scott wears a red and white suit, not that different to his Ant-Man suit.

“Time travel suit?” Rhodey questions. “Not bad.”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Scott slaps Bruce’s hand, who was touching the suit and handling a red substance in a glass tube. “Easy, easy!”

“I’m being very careful,” Bruce defends.

“No, you’re being very Hulky.”

“I’m being very careful.”

Scott holds the glass tube up. “These are Pym Particles, alright? And ever since Hank Pym got snapped out of existence, this is it. This is what we have. We’re not making any more.”

Rhodey interrupts. “Scott, calm down.”

“Sorry. We’ve only got enough for one round trip each. That’s it. No do-overs. Plus two test runs.” He accidentally presses a button, causing him to shrink and then grow back to normal again. “One test run.”

--

Steve, Nat, Tony, Scott, Bruce, Rhodey and Nebula stand at the control panel of the glass platform in the testing chamber. Clint stands on the platform, wearing the same suit Scott had been wearing.

“Clint, now you’re gonna feel a little discombobulated from the chronoshift,” Bruce explains. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Wait a second,” Rhodey starts. “Let me ask you something. If we can do this, you know, go back in time, why don’t we just find baby Thanos, you know, and…” He makes a few gestures with his hands, suggesting that they strangle baby Thanos with a rope.

“First of all, that’s horrible…”

“It’s Thanos.”

“...And secondly, time doesn’t work that way. Changing the past doesn’t change the future.”

“Look,” Scott interrupts. “We go back, we get the stones before Thanos gets them...Thanos doesn’t have the stones. Problem solved.”

“Bingo,” Clint agrees.

“That’s not how it works,” Nebula says.

“Well, that’s what I heard.”

“What?” Bruce asks. “By who? Who told you that?”

“Star Trek, Terminator, TimeCop, Time After Time-” Rhodey starts to list off movies, counting them on his fingers.

“Quantum Leap-” Scott adds.

“A Wrinkle in Time, Somewhere in Time-”

“Hot Tub Time Machine-”

“Hot Tub Time Machine. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Basically, any movie that deals with time travel.”

“Die Hard? No, it’s not one…”

“This is known.”

“I don’t know why everyone believes that, but that isn’t true,” Bruce says. “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.”

“Exactly,” Nebula nods.

Scott pouts. “So...Back To The Future’s a bunch of bullshit?”

Bruce turns to Clint. “Alright, Clint. We’re going in 3...2...1!”

A helmet very similar to Ant-Man’s - but matching the suit Clint is wearing - pops over his head, and he goes quantum. He flies through the quantum realm and through and opening, growing back to normal size as he exits. He’s definitely not in the Compound’s testing chamber, and seemingly not in the same time.

He looks around at his family home, more lively than before his family was snapped. The helmet pops off his head, looking around bewildered. He sees a baseball glove on the ground and recognises it as belonging to one of his sons, and pucks it up. A yell comes from the house, a voice Clint hadn’t heard for five years.

“Cooper? Where are my headphones?”

“Lila?” The device on his hand starts beeping, a sign that he was going to be pulled back. “Lila!” He dives for the door, managing only to open it before shrinking back into the quantum realm.

Lila runs downstairs, looking around for her dad. “Yeah, dad?” She glances around, but can’t see him. “Dad?” After a few moments, she goes back upstairs.

--

Clint rematerialises on the glass platform, breathing heavily and sitting down. Nat walks up to him quickly.

“Hey, hey. Look at me. You okay?”

Clint holds up the baseball glove and throws it to Tony. “Yeah, it worked. It worked.”

--

The Avengers sit around a table in a room, hologram displays showing each of the six Infinity Stones. Tony, Steve and Bruce pace at the front, clearly the leaders of the mission planning.

“Okay, so the ‘how’ works,” Steve starts. “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.”

“Well I’d substitute the word encounter for damn well near been killed by one of the six Infinity Stones,” Tony retorts in usual fashion.

“I haven’t,” Scott mumbles. “I don’t even know what the hell you’re all talking about.”

Bruce sighs. “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.”

“Our history,” Tony corrects. “So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in.”

“Which means we have to pick our targets,” Clint continues.

“Correct.”

“Let’s start with the Aether,” Steve starts. “Thor, what do you know?”

Thor sits in a chair with sunglasses on, making it impossible to tell if he is sleeping or awake.

“Is he asleep?” Nat asks Rhodey.

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

Thor very suddenly wakes up, standing. “Where to start? Um...the Aether, first, is not a stone, someone called it a stone before. It’s more of a...an angry sludge thing, so...someone’s gonna need to amend that. Here’s an interesting story though, many years ago...my grandfather had to hide the stones from the Dark Elves…”

He wiggles his fingers to imitate a spooky ghost. “Wooooh, scary beings. So Jane-” An image of Jane pops up on the screen. “-Oh, there she is. That’s Jane...she’s...an old flame of mine...she...she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time...and then the Aether stuck itself inside her...and she became very, very sick. So I had to take her to Asgard, which is where I’m from. And we had to try and fix her. We were dating at the time, you see. I got to introduce her to my Mother...who’s dead…”

Thor looks sad, almost on the verge of tears. “And oh you know, Jane and I aren’t even dating anymore, these things happen though you know, nothing lasts forever.” Tony starts to push him back into his chair. “I’m not done yet, the only thing permanent in life is impermanence.

“Awesome. Eggs? Breakfast?”

“I’d like a Bloody Mary, thank you.”

--

The Avengers sit around a different table eating, with Rocket pacing on the table itself.

“Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag.”

“Is that a person?” Scott asks the pacing raccoon.

“Morag’s a planet. Quill was a person.”

“A planet? Like in outer space?”

“Oh, look. It’s like a little puppy, all happy and everything.” Rocket changes his voice to imitate baby talk. “Do you wanna go to space? You wanna go to space, puppy? I’ll get you to space.”

--

Back in the planning room, Nebula stands at the front. Nat writes down notes.

“Thanos found the Soul Stone on Vormir,” Nebula starts.

“What is Vormir?” Nat questions.

“A dominion of death, at the very center of Celestial existence. It’s where...Thanos murdered my sister.”

Silence fills the room, an awkward silence. Nat writes down what Nebula said, and Scott tries to break the moment.

“Not it.”

--

Tony and Nat lie on a table surrounded by papers, with Bruce lying on the floor. The Time Stone pops up on the display.

“That Time Stone guy…” Nat starts.

“Doctor Strange,” Bruce corrects.

“Yeah, what kind of doctor was he?”

“Ear-nose-throat meets rabbit from a hat,” Tony responds.

“Nice place in the village, though.”

“Yeah. Sullivan Street.”

“Hmm...Bleecker.”

“Wait,” Nat sits up. “He lived in New York?”

“No,” Tony says. “He lived in Toronto.”

“Guys, if you pick the right year, there are three stones in New York.”

Bruce sits up quickly. “Shut the front door.”

--

Holograms show the Infinity Stones in their locations, in the different years. The Soul and Power Stones in space in 2014. The Reality Stone in Asgard in 2013. The Space, Mind and Time Stones in New York in 2012.”

“Alright,” Steve says, standing at the front of everyone. “We have a plan. Six Stones, three teams. One shot.”

--

The Avengers walk in a file towards the Quantum Time Machine, each wearing a version of the Quantum suit. Rhodey essentially wears a repainted War Machine suit.

Steve begins a pep talk. “Five years ago, we lost. All of us. We lost friends...we lost family...we lost a part of ourselves. Today, we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams, you know your missions, Get the stones, get them back. One round trip each. No mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. But it doesn’t mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives. And we’re going to win.” Tony shoots him a look. “Whatever it takes. Good luck.”

“He’s pretty good at that,” Rocket comments.

“Right?” Scott agrees, looking unnecessarily excited.

“All right,” Tony says. “You heard the man. Stroke those keys, jolly green.”

“Tractors engaged,” Bruce responds.

Rocket stares at the shrunk Benatar in Clint’s hand. “You promise to bring that back in one piece, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I’ll do my best.”

“As promises go, that was pretty lame.”

Nat smiles excitedly at everyone. “See you in a minute.”

They all shrink and enter the Quantum Realm, splitting at different intervals to go to different times. The first group - consisting of Tony, Steve, Bruce and Scott - travel to New York in 2012. They materialise in a side street.

“All right, we all have our assignments,” Steve starts. “Two Stones uptown, one Stone down. Stay low. Keep an eye on the clock.”

Hulk from 2012 passes by, smashing everything in his path. Bruce shields his face in embarrassment.

“Feel free to smash a few things along the way,” Steve says, patting Bruce on the shoulder.

“I think it’s gratuitous, but whatever.”

He begins pretending to smash things, tearing his shirt off while making growling noises. He lightly punches a car, leaving a small dent. He then picks up a motorbike and throws it at the wall, wincing as it hits.

--

The Ancient One stands on the roof of the Sanctum Sanctorum. Bruce tries to enter through the roof before noticing she is there.

“I’d be careful going that way. We just had the floors waxed.”

“Ma’am, I’m looking for Doctor Strange.”

“You’re about...five years too early. Stephen Strange is currently performing surgery about twenty blocks that way. What do you want from him?”

“That, actually,” Bruce replies, pointing at the Eye of Agamotto, where the Time Stone is kept.

The Ancient One looks at it. “Ah! I’m afraid not.”

“Sorry, but I wasn’t asking.”

“You don’t want to do this.”

“Ah, you’re right, I don’t.” He reaches for the Eye. “But I need that stone, and I don’t have any time to beat it-”

The Ancient One pushes Bruce’s astral form out of his body, who looks at the Ancient One in horror.

“Let’s start over, shall we?”