Blue || Bucky Barnes

49. Tony Stark

Steve drives the car with Leia, Nat and Scott through the forest landscape, pulling up in front of a log cabin. They all slowly get out the silver vehicle and shut the doors, looking up to see Tony carrying a small child up to the cabin doors.
Leia looks at the little girl who closely resembles Tony with her gorgeous brown hair.

Nat looks at him and gives a nod to which he returns a small one. Steve looks at Nat for their next move and she gestures for them to follow her.
Tony walks outside to meet them carrying a jug of some brown liquid Leia assumes to be coffee. Between the four of them they manage to explain Scott's hypothesis to the billionaire.

"No. We know what it sounds like." Scott starts.
"Tony, after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible." Steve makes a good point.
"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?" Tony interrupts handing out glasses to everyone.
"Thank you." They all praise him.
"In layman's terms, it means you're not coming home." Tony adds.
"I did." Scott pipes up.
"No. You accidentally survived." Tony sighs, grabbing another glass for Scott. "It's a billion-to-one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull a... What do you call it?"
"A, uh, a time heist?" Scott sounds as if he's asking a question.
"Yeah, a time heist. Of course. Why didn't we think of this before? Oh, because it's laughable. Because it's a pipe dream." Tony looks between everyone.

"The stones are in the past. We could go back, we could get them." Steve starts.
"We can snap our own fingers. We can bring everybody back." Leia's eyes are wide as she suddenly realizes the possibility of what they're proposing.
"Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?" Tony looks at her with an eyebrow raised.
"I don't believe we would." Ah Steve, always the optimist.
"Gotta say it. I sometimes miss that giddy optimism." Tony says to Steve sitting down. "However, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible way for me to safely ecocide said 'time heist'. I believe the most likely outcome will be our collective demise."

"Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel." Scott states sitting down on the deck chair by Tony. "Alright? It means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sporting events."
"I'm gonna stop you right there, Scott." Tony holds his hand up. "Are you seriously telling me that your plan to save the universe is based on Back to the Future? Is it?"
"No." Scott shakes his head.
"Good. You had me worried there. Cause that would be horseshit. That's not how Quantum Physics works." Tony says.

Steve leans up against the deck railing and Nat looks down at her feet.
"Tony." She says, her voice strained. "We have to take a stand."
"We did stand... And yet, here we are." He looks up at her.
"I know you got a lot on the line. You got a wife, a daughter. But I lost someone very important to me. A lotta people did. And now, now we have a chance to bring her back... to bring everyone back, and you're telling me that you won't even-" Scott raise his voice but Tony interrupts.
"That's right, Scott. I won't even. I can't." Tony says and the door creaks in the background.

Tony's daughter runs out and he picks her up into his lap.
"Mommy told me to come and save you." She says and a smile grows on Leia's cheeks.
"Good job. I'm saved." Tony says to her. "I wish you were coming here to ask me something else. Anything else. I'm honestly happy to see you guys, I just... Oh look, the tables set for eight."
"Tony. I get it." Steve catches his elbow. "And I'm happy for you. I really am. But this is a second chance."
"I got my second chance right here, Cap. Can't roll the dice on it." Tony looks at his friend. "If you don't talk shop, you can stay for lunch."

Tony takes Morgan back inside and the four of them walk back towards their car.
"Well, he's scared." Leia says to Steve.
"He's not wrong." Steve looks around the scene.
"Yeah, but, I mean, what are we gonna do? We need him. What, are we gonna stop?" Scott asks them.
"No, I wanna do it right. We're gonna need a really big brain." Steve looks up.
"Bigger than his?" Scott motions towards the cabin.