Time Bomb

Chapter 26

—5 years later—

I woke up to the sound of a loud car pulling into the compound. I got up and got myself dressed. My usual, one of Bucky's shirts, one of his jackets and a pair of jeans. I put on a pair of boots and left Bucky's room. I still can't sleep in my own room. I tried but the nightmares were worse in there. Ridiculous, I'm almost 28 and I'm having nightmares every single night.

"Miss. Ackles, your presence has been requested on the 3rd floor basement." Jarvis said over the intercom. Good god this place has more than one basement? I'm pretty sure I haven't even seen every floor in this place.

I shook my head and made my way to the elevator. Pressing the bottom for the floor Jarvis mentioned. After a few seconds, the doors opened and I stepped out.
"My presence was requested?" I said out loud and heard big foot steps and saw Hulk or technically Bruce come around the corner.
"Hey you! Long time no see! Come on, we wanna show you something." He said and waved me over to him.
"Hold on a minute! When did this happen??" I asked, referring to him being one with Hulk now.
"Oh it happened awhile ago. After the big loss, I took some time to focus on myself and figure out what was going on with Hulk. And well, this was the outcome." He said as I walked around the corner. Stopping in my tracks at the sight in front of me.
"What... what is this?" I asked, staring at the giant machine in front of me.
"This is a quantum Time Machine." Tony said as he came out of a room behind me.
"Uh huh. And what are you planning on doing with it?" I asked, walking up into the platform and taking a closer look.
"We are going to attempt to fix our biggest loss." Tony answered as he started screwing something into a panel.
"You must be Dani! Hi, I'm Scott Lang. Or as some people know me as, Ant Man." A man said as he approached me.
"That's great. So what's the plan?" I asked, ignoring Scott. Not that I don't like him or anything, my thoughts are just elsewhere.
"The plan is for a group of us to go to different times in the last to retrieve the time stones. Bring them back here, and put them into a new gauntlet that I created myself. Someone with the right strength will have to do the snap. And the intention of the snap is just to bring everyone who went to dust 5 years ago, to now. Nothing changes except that they come back." Tony said and sat down at a computer.
"How do you know it will even work?" I asked.
"We don't. But we have to try." Steve said, coming out of another room.
"We've got everyone we could already here. Oh and don't be alarmed when you see Thor. He uh... he's changed." Bruce said and as he finished his sentence, Thor came prancing into the room with a beer in hand. I had to clench my jaw just to be sure it didn't drop. Wow. He really has changed.
"Hey!!! There's my favorite girl!" Thor said happily and pulled me into a hug. Oh god he smells like beer and sweat.
"Okay, I love you but you need a shower." I said and laughed lightly.
"Oh you're just being silly. Isn't she being silly?" He asked as he looked around the room. I managed to slip out of his grasp.
"Alright everyone, go get fitted for your suit. Oh and Dani? You will need to stay behind. We need someone to keep an eye on everything while we're gone." Tony said as he came to my side.
"I didn't really wanna go anyway. I wasn't ever a part of the team in the past so it wouldn't make much sense for me to go. I'll keep an eye on things. Promise. Hey, how's little Morgan? I haven't seen her around in awhile." I asked and walked with him to the back room where everyone was trying on different sizes of the suits.
I leaned in the doorway and watched as everyone fiddled with their suits.
"We only have enough pym particles for a round trip for everyone and 2 test runs." Scott said and suddenly became tiny and back to normal size again.
"Okay, 1 test run." He corrected himself.
"I'm in. I'll do it." A familiar voice said from behind me. I turned around to see Clint. He had buffed up, got a different hairstyle and many more tattoos.
"Clint..." I said, I'm complete shock to see him after 5 years.
"Hey you. Can we talk?" He asked and offered me his hand. I nodded and took it. He guided me to another room away from the others. Once we got there, he pulled me into a tight hug. I wanted to be mad at him for not contacting me over the last 5 years but I couldn't be. I missed him too much to be mad anymore.
I allowed myself to feel the safe net he provided me in a hug. The familiarity.
"I'm so sorry, Dani. I should have called. I should have been there for you. I just.. I got stuck in house arrest after a stupid altercation in a bar and I didn't even know what happened until my entire family disappeared." He said against my hair. I pulled away and looked up at him.
"We both lost people we love. I could have called you but I've just.. I've shut myself out from everyone. I still can't deal. I don't eat much if anything at all. I don't sleep hardly ever. The nightmares are just too haunting. I'm sure it's the same for you but you at least look better than how I feel." I said, turning his arm over in my hands to look at his tattoos.
"My wife.. my kids.. they're all gone. And I retaliated. I won't go into detail, just know it's bad. How are you? Really? No lies, no faking. Truly, how are you?" He asked, sitting down in a chair. I sat beside him in another.
"Clint... I'm broken. I mean.. I literally feel like my insides are tore apart. A part of myself is just gone. And it happened right in front of my own eyes. Even 5 years later, I can't get that image out of my head." I said, unable to cry anymore tears at the moment after the nightmares of last night.
"Oh, sweetheart. I'm so sorry." He said and held my hand in his. We sat there in silence for awhile before Nat came looking for Clint.
"We're ready for the test run whenever you are." She said and smiled at us both.
"Okay, I'll be right there." He said and stood up.
"Let's do this." He said with a weak smile and walked out.