|Towards the Endgame|

•Chapter 50• Big Sister Instinct

"Alright, last phase of testing." She called out to the others. Behind them stood Yelena who crossed their arms over her chest. She has a slightly judgemental expression written across her face. "It's now or never." Y/n whispers to herself. Peter overheard her, of course, and looked at her briefly. She started tapping her fingers against the desk anxiously while biting down on her bottom lip. "Well, what are you waiting for? Press the button." Yelena spoke up, snapping everyone from the tense feeling that was hanging in the air. Y/n glared at her silently. "What? I thought you said this was it. I thought you were going to push the button, test it, and then we'd be done." Yelena replied. Her accent was shining through a lot. It's something Wanda used to have as well, but Nat never did. "It's a little more complicated than that." Yelena rolled her eyes. "If you are too scared to push the button, then I will. No shame in that, Stark. Just give me the word." She continued. Y/n shakes her no. "It needs time to warm up. That's all." Y/n tried to remain as calm as possible. She knew her nervous ticks were giving her away. Especially to Peter. For some reason, she could sense his eyes on her constantly. But, every time she glanced over her shoulder, Parker was focusing on the screen of the monitor. It was kind of frustrating. She inhaled deeply once she heard the little beep on the monitor meaning the machine was ready to be operated.

"Harley." Y/n caught his attention and gave him a slight nod. He pressed the enter button on the keyboard and Y/n did the same. "Stand back everyone." She called out as a warning. Everybody started to back up, even Yelena, as the machine started rumbling again. "This is it," Y/n added. Before they knew it, a flashing light appeared with a loud bang. Y/n squeezed her eyes shut and felt Peter's hand around her wrist. But the machine died down again. No explosions, no one got hurt. Y/n opened her eyes again and hurried toward the platform where they'd put down the notebook again. This time, it worked. Well, sort of. The cover was red instead of purple. Hopefully, she flipped it open. There were some words scribbled inside. Not many, though, but someone did use it. "Did it work?" Peter asks her. Y/n glanced down at the pages and nodded her head. "It worked." She cheered. She quickly stood back on her feet and hurried toward the others. She handed the book to Yelena before Harley or Peter. "See this? It's from another universe and time. That handwriting is almost identical to mine." She smiles. "So, this is working," Yelena smirked happily. Y/n nodded. Harley frowned at her a little at his friend. "But we're still testing." He reminds her. "That doesn't matter. Stark made the thing- she made the thing work. Now, I won't have to beat your ass until you do." Yelena spoke up. Was she joking?

Harley slowly approached Y/n and stood behind her. "Hey, can I talk to you for a second?" He asks her. Y/n looks up at Yelena. "Don't touch anything." The blonde woman shrugged and turned away, looking down at the notebook in her hands, while Harley dragged Y/n out of the lab. "Are you out of your mind?" Harley asked her. Y/n just glares at him, a small pout appearing on her face as well, and she didn't even notice. "Don't give me that face. Listen, this is not safe. We're not doing this today." Harley tells her sternly. "Lee, you saw what happened in there. It worked! Why aren't you happy about this? I thought you'd be more excited." She replied. "This was a test. The test worked, and that's great, but we're not ready for the real thing yet. Yel- Yelena is it, right? She's putting you under so much pressure. And I get it, I mean she can throw a punch, for real, but this won't end well. We don't even know from which universe or time that book came." He pointed out to her. "She smacked you?" Harley scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "I was checking her out. Don't judge me." He replied. He suddenly grabbed her arms. "Listen, this isn't safe. You keep saying none of this could disrupt the timeline or anything like that. If we pull them out, we could destroy everything. We don't know what we're doing. We need to test this." He tells her. "Lee, this could work." She says hopefully.