stark, peter parker

xvii. it'll take a miracle, and even then-- probably not

"we got a– problem." tony said as steve and hazel approached him, dakota, and scott. they hadn't gotten the tesseract, and were down on not only time but also one of the stones.

scott was beyond frustrated. "huh. yeah, we do."

steve locked his jaw, clearly angered himself. "well, what are we gonna do now?"

tony stood up, approaching him. "you know what? give me a break, steve. i just got hit in the head with the hulk."

"you said that we had one shot." scott said. "this– this was our shot. we shot it. it's shot. six stones or nothing. six stones or nothing–" he repeated.

tony turned to him. "you're repeating yourself, you know that? you're repeating yourself."

"you're repeating yourself. you're repeating yourself." he replied in a childish voice. "you never wanted a time heist, you went on board with the time heist–" he added. "you ruined the time heist."

tony scoffed. "is that what i did?"

dakota rolled her eyes, wondering why she and hazel were always grouped with men, and why they always felt the need to bump chests. "guys. shut. the fuck. up." she emphasized, stepping between scott and tony. "we blew it, yeah, which means we need to make a new plan. where else has the tesseract been?"

scott shook his head. "no, no, no. there's no other options. there's no do-overs. we're not going anywhere else. we have one particle left. each. that's it, alright? we use that– bye, bye. you're not going home."

steve nodded. "yeah, well if we don't try, then no one else is going home, either."

a lightbulb practically appeared over tony's head. "i got it." he exclaimed. "there's another way. to retake the tesseract and acquire new particles. we'll stroll down memory lane." he looked over at steve. "military installation, garden state."

the other man's brows furrowed. "when were they both there?"

tony gave a contemplative face. "they were there at a– i've a vaguely exact idea."

dakota looked over at him, wondering if he was thinking what she was thinking. "how.. vague.. are we talking?"

scott, on the other hand, was completely lost. "what are you talking about? where are we going?"

"well, it looks like we're improvising." kodie said.

scott nodded, still confused. "right. what are we improvising?"

the group all ignored him. "suit up." tony said.

"what's in new jersey?" the highly confused scott asked as he looked at the new coordinates.

tony looked down at the time watch. "0-4, uhh, 0-7." he guessed a random day. "1-9-7-0."

"are you sure?" dakota asked, looking up at her father as she finished punching in the date.

"cap." scott said, finally gathering everyone's attention. "captain. steve, sorry, america. rogers. look, if you do this, and this doesn't work, you're not coming back."

tony smiled half-heartedly. "thanks for the pep talk, pissant."

"do you think we can do this?" hazel asked, looking between tony and his daughter.

the younger stark shrugged her shoulders. "it'll take a miracle, and even then-- probably not." she answered.

tony turned to look at steve. "do you trust me?" he asked his friend.

"i do." he nodded.

"your call."

"here we go."

with a tap of the watch on her wrist, dakota was back into the quantum realm. she, tony, hazel, and steve each landed in 1970 on a military base. a man drove past the four, sticking his head out of his window. "hey, man!" he said. "make love, not war!"