The Other Symbiote

TIME TRAVEL!

"Are you sure you don't want to help?"

"No, no, I'm just, uh... I'm gonna stand here."

Natasha nodded towards Raiva with a smile as they watched Bruce work, dozens of buttons and levers that the Widow didn't really understand.

"Okay, here we go. Time travel test number one." Bruce declared.

"Scott, fire up the, uh... the van thing."

Scott, in his suit, walked towards the dark orange and brown van to open the back doors, a slight flash of light that captured Stella's attention from Raiva's shoulder.

"Pretty." She gurgled.

"No touching the pretty lights, got it?" Raiva warned her and the symbiote nodded.

"Breakers are set, emergency generators are on standby." Steve reported as he walked in from outside.

"Good, because if we blow the grid, I don't wanna lose, uh, Tiny here in the 1950's." Bruce muttered to the trio as they collected behind him.

"Excuse me?" Scott exclaimed.

"He's kidding." Natasha sang with a strained voice.

"You can't say thing likes that." She hissed at Bruce.

"It was- It was just a bad joke." He mumbled.

"You were kidding, right? Rai, please tell me he's kidding."

"I have no idea! This is time travel we are talking about - either it's all a joke or none of it is." She chuckled softly, both her and Stella giving Scott a thumbs up as he looked at her warily.

"You're gonna do great! Put your helmet on."

"Scott, I'm gonna send you back a week, have a walk around for about an hour, and then bring you back in ten seconds." Bruce explained.

"Make sense?"

"Perfectly not confusing." Scott waved his hand as if to shrug off his nerves, something Raiva wished she could do.

"Good luck, Scott. You got this." Steve encouraged.

"You're right. I do, Captain America."

And just like that, poof - Scott was gone

"Did anybody else hear that differently? Possibly in a situation where two beings are binded lawfully?" Raiva chuckled before Nat elbowed her in the ribs lightly.

"What?! You and I both know how many nights we have spoken about this. He's literally in love."

"And you don't have to say it out loud." Nat hissed back at her.

"Alright!" Bruce gave Raiva a weird look.

"On the count of three. Three... two... one."

With four button presses and three switch flicks, Scott reappeared. Except... it wasn't quite Scott.

"Uh, guys? This doesn't feel right." A scrawny looking teenager spoke from within the suit.

"Who is that?"

"Is that Scott?"

"Yes, it's Scott."

Again, he poofed away and the trio turned to Bruce, his eyes averting their gaze as he tried by digging underneath and rearranging a few wires.

"What's going on, Bruce?" Steve asked before the suit reappeared, an eighty-something-year-old man inside now.

"Oh, my back."