Meant To Be (Loki x reader)

Chapter eighty three - Time Travel

One short plane flight and an even shorter car journey later, you were at Tony's place. He was already outside, carrying Morgan towards the house; his expression moved from confusion at the sight of the car to delight as you got out, and then reluctance as he saw Steve.

"Y/N!" Morgan cried joyously when she saw you walking towards them, wiggling out of Tony's arms and making a beeline towards you. You picked her up and swung her around as she reached you; she shrieked in delight. Nat was smiling behind you.

"Hey squirt, I missed you!" you told her happily as she attached herself to you, running a tiny finger down the scar on your face, as she always did.

"Kid, what are you doing here?" Tony asked, looking past you at Nat, Steve and Scott. You smiled at the nickname as you gave him a one armed hug, holding Morgan in the other.

"We need to talk to you. It's kind of urgent." you told him, following his gaze to Pepper who had appeared in the porch.

"Morgan, go tell Mommy I'll be in soon, alright?" Tony told his daughter. She nodded and you set her down, watching as she ran back up towards the house. Tony was looking at you in concern; you had a feeling you knew exactly what his response to all this was going to be.

Tony led you all up to the porch, where Scott than explained everything to him as he'd explained it to you hours earlier. You'd spent the entire plane journey trying to beat down the exhaustive hope which kept threatening to rise in your chest.

Scott had finished explaining everything to Tony; the look on his face confirmed your suspicions.

"Now, we know what it sounds like..."

"Tony, after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible?" Steve asked almost desperately.

"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?" Tony asked you all, handing Steve a drink. You shook your head, at a loss; Nat, Steve and Scott looked equally confused.

"Thank you." Steve said simply, taking the drink.

"In Layman's terms, it means you're not coming home." Tony said bluntly.

"I did." Scott protested.

"No. You accidentally survived. It's a billion to one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull off a... what did you call it?"

"A time heist." Scott replied proudly.

"Yeah, a time heist. Of course, why didn't we think of this before? Oh, because it's laughable? Because it's a pipedream?" Tony asked, almost aggressively. There it was: disappointment. It was your own fault, how could you have let yourself even begin to hope?

"The stones are in the past. We can go back and get them." Steve said.

"We can snap our own fingers, we can bring everyone back." Nat continued, hope clear for everyone to hear in her voice.

"Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?" Tony asked.

"I don't believe we would." Steve replied defiantly.

"I gotta say, sometimes I miss that giddy optimism. However, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said time heist. I believe the most likely outcome would be our collective demise." Tony told you all matter of factly.

You heard what Scott was about to say before he said it and quietly prayed that he would keep his mouth shut. He didn't.

"Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel. That means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sports events-"