Tragic Hope

05

CABIN IN THE WOODS AT THE BANK OF A LAKE

Tony was sitting outside a tiny shed and clapped his hands to a beat. "Chow time! Maguna? Morgan H. Stark. You want some lunch?"

"Define lunch or be disintegrated," Morgan ordered as she put on a silver and blue helmet similar to Iron Man's.

Morgan, about three to four, with long dark hair walked out in front of Tony.

"Okay, you should not be wearing that, okay?" Tony told his daughter. "That is part of a special anniversary gift I'm making for Mom." He took the helmet off Morgan's head. She emerged out smiling mischievously.

"Okay."

"There you go. Are you thinking about lunch? I can give you a handful of crickets on a bed of lettuce."

"No."

"That's what you want. How did you find this?"

"Garage."

"Really? Were you looking for it?"

"No. I found it, though."

"You like going to the garage, huh? So does daddy. It's fine, actually. Your mom never wears anything I buy her."

They started walking towards the house, but Tony noticed a black Audi pulling coming to a stop a few meters away. Steve, Natasha and Scott got out of the car. Tony sighed.

After Scott had explained their plan to Tony, he said, "Now, we know what it sounds like..."

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

"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition," Tony said. "Can we agree on that?"

Scott, Steve and Natasha all looked puzzled.

Tony gave a drink to Steve and he replied, "Thank you."

"In Layman's terms, it means you're not coming home," Tony explained.

"I did."

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

Scott, trying to hide his pride, said, "A time heist?"

"Yeah, a time heist. Of course, why didn't we think of this before? Oh, because it's laughable? Because it's a pipedream?"

"The Stones are in the past," Scott told them. "We can go back and get them."

"We can snap our own fingers," Natasha said. "We can bring everyone back."

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

"I don't believe we would," Steve replied.

"Gotta say, sometimes I 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. I believe the most likely outcome would be our collective demise."

"Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel," Scott stated. "That means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sporting events-"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, Scott. Are you seriously telling me that your plan to save the universe is based on Back to the Future?"

Scott, embarrassed, replied, "No."

"Good. You had me worried there. 'Cause that'd be horse shit. That's not how quantum physics works."

"Tony... We have to take a stand," Natasha told him.

"We did stand. And yet, here we are."

"I know you got a lot on the line," Scott said. "You got a wife, a daughter. But I lost someone very important to me. A lot of people did." His voice got louder as he tried to sell his desperation to Tony. "And now, now we have a chance to bring her back. To bring everyone back. And you're telling me that won't even..."