Chapter Text
Steve
Steve watched Tony snap his fingers in slow motion. All at once, he realized what was happening: Thanos’s army was disappearing, and so was the life in Tony’s veins.
He didn’t realize he was running, not at first. All he could think about was getting to Tony. Maybe he could find a way to fix him, make him better. But as he approached, he knew that wasn’t happening.
Peter was at Tony’s side, then Rhodey, then Pepper. And now here was Steve, feeling wholly out of place. He and Tony had never had a great relationship, even in the best of times, and these past times had been some of their worst. Steve wasn’t family, not like Pepper, Rhodey, and Peter. He knew that. But deep down, he hoped that Tony still saw him as a friend.
And Steve, knowing he was probably unwelcome but not able to help himself, knelt beside Tony. The man looked…terrible. Half his armor had been melted off or blasted away. His face was pale, and he was lying entirely too still. His eyes were wandering, like he was having trouble focusing. His breathing was shallow.
Steve stretched out a hand and gently laid it on Tony’s shoulder, not enough to hurt him, but enough for Tony to know he was there when his eyes weren’t doing the work.
“I’m sorry,” Steve whispered, and his voice didn’t break because he had had a lot of practice in keeping his voice strong when it needed to be.
But then Tony’s slow, blinking eyes turned towards him, and Steve felt himself shatter a thousand times over.
“I wish we hadn’t fought like that,” he said, and now his voice was breaking.
“I wish we’d found a way to stay together, because in the end, that’s what matters. I wish I could’ve stayed with you, Tony, and just been your friend.”
And Steve could see Tony’s body winding down to a close, but suddenly the man was looking at him with just a hint of that fire that usually accompanied him wherever he went.
“Me, too,” Tony whispered, his voice weak but conveying almost as much emotion, if not more.
And Steve wondered in the back of his mind if he would have to watch his friend die, like he’d watched so many die before him, but before he received his answer, the Infinity Stones on Tony’s hand began to glow.
Steve’s eyes widened as he glanced down at the Gauntlet, but that was all he was able to do before the world became entirely too bright.
He felt a strange tugging sensation in his gut, and suddenly, before he had any time to panic, he was sitting in a hardback chair inside the Avengers Compound, looking very much like it hadn’t just been destroyed by a battle.
As his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized he wasn’t alone. Sitting all around him at a table in a conference room were Sam, Natasha, Rhodey, Wanda, Tony, and Vision.
They were all staring back at him with equally shocked expressions.
“What the heck’s the matter with you guys?” a disgustingly familiar voice asked from the head of the table.
Steve dazedly tore his gaze away from the others to see Ross standing in front of a projector.
“Whatever trick you guys are trying to pull, it’s not gonna work because we have more pressing matters.”
Ross proceeded to gesture at a large packet of paper sitting on the table with a title all in capital letters: THE SOKOVIA ACCORDS.
Sam
Sam was a jumbled mess at this point. He’d just gotten the life returned to him and had jumped straight into battle. There had been revelations at every turn with no time to process them. Basically, it had been five years, Thanos was back from the past, Natasha was dead, Steve could wield Mjolnir, the Avengers had invented time travel, and Tony was a father now.
This was too much. Where was Bruce, everyone’s favorite therapist, when you needed him? But Sam also wasn’t about to allow himself to wallow in a corner somewhere, saying “woe is me,” not when he could be helping win the battle.
Though it didn’t seem as though they were winning at all, not until Tony snapped. And then Sam was left with this hollow feeling because he and Tony had been fighting ever since the Sokovia Accords, but that had never meant that Sam wished him dead.
And now, Tony had sacrificed himself for the rest of them.
Except…no, apparently. Because Sam could’ve sworn that all he did was blink as he watched Steve say goodbye to Tony, and suddenly, he was back in that darned conference room where it had all gone to blows.
He was sitting beside Steve. And he felt great–young and spry and not like he’d spent forever on the run before being turned to dust for five years.
Hang on, what was he wearing? Oh, he’d missed that shirt! But he could think about this later, because for now, Ross (ugh, this guy again?) was gesturing at something in frustration.
Sam, reeling from way too…much, just too much, woozily turned his head to try to figure out what Ross was pointing at. Then all the breath left him. He might as well be staring at a bomb, and a very effective one, too, because it had torn the Avengers to shreds.
The Sokovia Accords.
And suddenly, Wanda was muttering something in Sokovian under her breath like her life depended on it; Vision was repeatedly feeling his forehead with wide, blank eyes; Steve had jumped up from his seat and was how hugging the crap out of Natasha, who looked like she’d just gotten double whiplash and then some; Tony was very loudly shouting curses and just generally letting his presence be known in that lovely way he always did; Rhodey was gripping Tony’s hand with tears in his eyes; and Sam?
Sam was slowly shaking his head at that stupid packet of papers that had ruined everyone’s lives.
“What is the meaning of this!?” Ross yelled, but no one paid him any mind.
In the grand scheme of things, everyone had much bigger problems, and Ross could’ve been on another planet entirely for all that his presence was noticed.
“Mr. Wilson, care to explain?” Ross asked Sam angrily, likely because he was the only one not otherwise preoccupied with shouting obscenities or clinging to the other people in this room like they didn’t ever plan on letting go.
“We’re a bit distracted, sir. Do you mind giving us a moment?”
And now that Sam had something to do besides stare at his surroundings in utter astonishment and/or glare balefully at the Sokovia Accords, he was out of his chair in seconds, gently but forcefully ushering Ross out of the room.
“Hang on! I’m not finished! You can’t just–”
Thankfully, the room was soundproofed, so as soon as Sam closed the door in Ross’s face, the man’s whining could no longer be heard.
Sam took a breath and turned around to survey the room. Now Wanda was crying and had her arms around Vision, and Rhodey was pacing the room frantically, and Natasha was practically in Steve’s lap.
Tony was still looking around the room with wide eyes and cursing the heck out of it.
“Everyone. Everyone! GUYS!”
All the noise stopped, and all eyes turned to Sam.
“Listen, there are a few things we can be sure of right now.”
Sam held out his pointer finger.
“First, we have all been returned to this moment in time from the Battle of the Compound. Except Ross, of course.”
Sam added another finger.
“Second, we’ve all been returned to the bodies we had at this point.”
Then he shrugged.
“And that’s all I’ve got for you. You guys are gonna have to tell me the rest because, for all intents and purposes, I just got here and don’t know what the heck has been happening or is happening or will happen. So before we even look at those Accords again, does someone care to explain?”
“It…it doesn’t feel like a dream,” Wanda whispered, and Sam wondered with half-hearted frustration if she had heard anything he’d said.
“This doesn’t even feel like a vision that I could induce in anyone. This is…clear. Everything is so clear. I remember it all.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Vision said, directing his words at the whole group.
“The last thing I remember is Thanos destroying the Mind Stone. But Mr. Rhodes has been acting as if something terrible has happened with Mr. Stark. The same goes for Captain Rogers and Ms. Romanoff. I’m afraid I might be missing more than I originally thought.”
Sam swallowed hard. That had been a hard day for everyone. And just like Vision, that was the last day he remembered.
“It’s been five years since then, Vision,” Rhodey said tiredly, rubbing the side of his face.
Vision blinked.
“I had not thought of that as a possibility,” he said quietly.
Rhodey laughed humorlessly.
“None of us did.”
“I have some of the same questions as Vision,” Natasha said suddenly.
Everyone turned to look at her with varying levels of grief, and Sam was reminded of when Pepper had told him quietly what had happened while they were hiding behind a boulder during the battle until the enemy fire died down. He hadn’t given himself too much time to let it crush him, not when he still needed to help. Now, he was thankful that he would never have to let it crush him. Natasha was back.
“How long has it been since I died?” she asked, and everyone saw Steve flinch before reaching for her hand.
After Sam had yelled at everyone (that sounded very harsh; really, he’d just been trying to get their attention), she had moved to her own seat, but now it seemed that Steve wished she were back sitting with him.
“Not long,” Tony said, which was the first time he’d spoken up to say anything besides curses.
His eyes looked hollow, and Sam was reminded that Natasha had been his friend, too.
“Um, actually, I was wondering about that,” Sam said, suddenly reminded that there was some kind of larger story at play that had led to past-Thanos attacking the Compound.
“So…what did you guys do? How did you bring everyone back? And how did Thanos, unfortunately, join us? And what happened during those five years?”
Tony, Steve, Rhodey, and Natasha exchanged looks.
“Well, the world basically ended,” Rhodey flatly, “We didn’t know how to function with half the population missing. And what’s more, millions of people died from accidents caused by the Snap, like their drivers disappearing from behind the wheel and pilots disappearing from the cockpit.”
Rhodey added in a softer voice that thousands of children had died when their parents were dusted, and they were left with no one to take care of them.
“Our water got polluted, along with the air, from all the dust. We had no workers and were down a few billion adults. It was the apocalypse in the truest sense of the word. And we tried to make things work, tried to get the world back on track, but even five years later, everyone knew we were headed to human extinction. Losing half the population…it’s not something you bounce back from.”
“Geez,” Sam mumbled, shaking his head as he tried to blink away the images that Rhodey’s descriptions were conjuring up.
“It wasn’t pretty,” Rhodey finished, a haunted look on his face.
“But then Scott showed up,” Steve said with a slight smile.
“You mean that Ant-Man?” Wanda asked, confused.
Sam was wondering the same thing.
Steve nodded.
“Apparently, he wasn’t dusted, but had simply been stuck in the quantum realm this whole time. And for whatever reason, he’d found his way back out, thinking it had only been five hours. Was he in for a rude awakening.”
Sam winced, thinking about how he’d felt when he’d realized how long it’d actually been since he’d been with his friends. Once again, it had just been something else he’d filed away for later, but boy would he have needed therapy afterwards, if he hadn’t already.
“He came to us and told us that there might be a way to use the quantum realm to time travel so that we can get everyone back,” Natasha said, “And with that useful piece of information, we went to Tony.”
Everyone turned to look at Tony, but he didn’t appear to be paying attention. Instead, he was staring at his lap, a blank look on his face.
Finally, he whispered in the most broken tone Sam had ever heard, “Morgan.”
Rhodey, Steve, and Natasha all sucked in a breath, and Sam concluded that Morgan must be Tony’s daughter.
Vision and Wanda didn’t have enough info to figure that out for themselves, though, so they quietly asked Steve who Morgan was.
“Tony’s daughter,” Steve replied in a tight grimace, “She was born during the five years.”
“She’s gone,” Tony moaned hoarsely, wrapping his arms around himself.
“Hey, Tones, she’s not gone,” Rhodey said, gently shaking Tony’s shoulder so that Tony would look at him.
“She’s still half you and half Pepper. She isn’t gone, just…waiting.”
“No…I could never replace her like that,” Tony said, his eyes manic as he jumped from his seat.
“Don’t you see!? I couldn’t have another kid and name them Morgan and watch them become a different person! There’s only one Morgan, my Morgan. She has my brown hair and brown eyes, but Pepper’s smile, and she loves playing in her tent outside. And she’s gone!”
And then Tony deflated, as if he hadn’t just been up and shouting a moment before.
No one knew what to say, Sam was sure. How do you comfort someone who’s just gone through what amounted to the death of their child? Sam didn’t have kids, but he did have two nephews, and he knew that he would act very much the same if anything happened to one of them.
Hating to talk over Tony’s grief, but also knowing the man wouldn’t want so much attention on him right now, Sam quietly asked what happened next. Steve filled him in on the rest, how they’d made a plan to grab all the Infinity Stones from their different places in time.
Steve had gotten really quiet when he got to the part about the Space Stone, but then he had looked at Natasha and squeezed her hand, and the tension in his face had melted away. Natasha had smiled back, and now Sam was really beginning to think that something was going on there.
But that could be touched upon later. For now, he wanted to know how Thanos had found them in the future.
“Nebula and I were sent to Morag to get the Power Stone,” Rhodey said, and Sam would have to remind himself later to ask again who the “Guardians of the Galaxy” were.
“But the Nebula from that actual time was getting an influx of our Nebula’s memories, and Thanos was able to see them. From there, it was a hop, skip, and a jump away until he was fighting us at the Compound.”
“And…Vormir?” Sam asked slowly, glancing at Natasha and feeling his heart break when she gave him that sad, tight smile.
“Clint and I went to Vormir to retrieve the Soul Stone, but found out that to get it, we had to each sacrifice what we loved most. We fought over who would go over the cliff, and in the end, I won.”
There was another moment of silence, and while Rhodey comforted Tony, Steve put an arm around Natasha and held her close. Wanda put her face in Vision’s chest and cried.
“And, now…here we are,” Sam said tiredly, gesturing at the conference room.
“Thor had been able to make the gauntlet again and bring it to Bruce, who put it on and snapped everyone back. We had about two seconds to revel in our success before everything was blown to pieces,” Steve sighed.
“And then the Infinity Stones brought us all to the past?” Vision asked.
Steve shrugged.
“I guess so. That’s the only explanation I have, anyway. Of course, I have no idea why they did it, but at this point, it’s the least of my worries.”
“You know, now we’re gonna have to figure out what to do about those,” Rhodey said, gesturing at the Accords.
Steve took a deep breath.
“You’re right.”
He turned to everyone gathered around the table, all looking less emotionally stable and more just wrecked in general than they ever had in their lives. But there was a determination about them, a decisiveness that demanded that, no matter what happened, they would make sure things didn’t turn out as they had.
“We’re gonna need a plan.”