meet me at our spot | n.r x oc | ✓

2 - can't help everybody

[third-person pov]

Stefaniya, Steve, Scott, and Natasha's footsteps crunched across the twigs and leaves on the ground leading to Tony's luxurious cabin.

Tony walks back from the lake with his daughter, Morgan, in his arm.

"Aunt Stef, Aunt Nat!"
Morgan squeals. Tony sets her down and she goes running over to the two Russian women.

"Hi, peanut!"
Stefaniya opens her arms and lets Morgan tackle her in a hug, overjoyed at the sight of hers and Natasha's goddaughter. Morgan wraps her arms around Stefaniya's neck as she lifts her up.

"How are you doing, Little Stark?"
Natasha gives her a smile, tucking some of Morgan's hair behind her ear.

"I'm good. Mommy made lunch, will you join?"

"Nat and I have to talk to your dad for a few minutes, okay? But I'll ask him, promise."

Stefaniya and Morgan links pinky fingers, each of them kissing their thumbs with a loud "mwah." Stefaniya sets Morgan back down and her little legs sprint into the house.

"Careful, Morgan,"
Tony says to her as she rushes up the stairs, following her through the front door.

Natasha looks over to Steve and nods towards the house. The four of them make their way to the porch.

A few moments later, Tony comes out with a tray of empty glasses and a pitcher of a chocolate drink. He pours it into the glasses, handing it out to the guests while Scott explains his plan to him.

"No, we know what it sounds like,"
Scott stammers, seeing Tony's blank expression.

"Tony, after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible?"

"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck scale,"
--Tony interrupts Steve,
"--which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition, can we agree on that?"

Stefaniya and Natasha meet eyes, the scientific terms falling short on them.

"In layman's term, it means you're not coming home."

"I did,"
Scott corrects him.

"No. You accidentally survived. It's a billion-to-one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull a... What do you call it?"

"A time heist?"

Tony chuckles humorlessly.
"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."

"The stones are in the past. We could go back, we could get them."
Steve says.

"We can snap out own fingers. We can bring everybody back,"
Natasha finishes Steve's thought.

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

Steve shakes his head.
"I don't think we would."

"Gotta say it, I sometimes 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,"
Tony sits back onto the woven lawn chair.
"I believe the most likely outcome will be our collective demise."