In Your Eyes // Steve Rogers

One Shot to Win

Our team settled into the arrangement of chairs in the Conference Room. We circled around the table, but faced the screens against the wall, which, currently, projected a bold label dubbed 'The Time Heist'. 

I was in charge of the tablet that controlled the screens, so I sat directly across from it. Natasha sat beside me, a notebook in her lap, and a pen flipping between her fingers. Scott was on my other side, claiming he needed the best view, because he knew little of the Infinity Stones. 

"All right, so the how works. Now, we figure out the when and where," introduced Steve, standing beside the screens. "Everyone in this room has had an encounter with at least one Infinity Stone."

"Or, substitute the word encounter with damn near been killed by one of the six Infinity Stones," said Tony passive-aggressively. 

"I haven't!" said Scott, nodding excitedly. "I don't even know what the Hell you're all talking about."

"Regardless, we only have enough Pym Particles for one roundtrip each and these Stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history," explained Bruce. 

"Our history. So, not a lot of convenient spots to drop in," admitted Tony.

"Which means we gotta pick our targets," said Clint.

Tony nodded. "Correct."

"When I still had my powers, I tried to follow them through time, to see if maybe there were other people who had encounters, who knew maybe how we could fix this. I could tell you where the Time Stone, Mind Stone, and Space Stone have all been definitively," I explained to everyone. 

As I mentioned the Stones, I projected photos of them on the three screens. Two Stones on each screen appeared, with labels underneath, and space for me to write down bullet point notes of what we would learn about them individually, but also of where they had been in time. 

I pointed at Nebula and Rocket. "But the Power Stone I know you both know more about, and I found little on the other one."

"The Aether," said Steve, nodding. "Thor, why don't we start there?"

When silence met our ears, everyone turned to where Thor had been slouched down in the corner chair. His sunglasses were still on, he still had a beer in his hand, and he hadn't moved when Steve spoke directly to him. 

"Is he asleep?" asked Natasha.

"No. Pretty sure he's dead," said Rhodey. 

I snapped my fingers underneath the table. When Kona's eager nose touched my hand, I pointed at Thor, and she trotted over to him and hiked her front paws on his stomach, licking his face aggressively. When he jumped awake with a battle cry, startled, he almost punched Kona across the room before he realized it was her. 

"What, what?" he asked. 

"The Aether," repeated Steve. "What do you know about it?"

Thor grumbled and stood from his chair. He walked, almost in slow motion, to the front. Once in front of us, he shimmied off his sunglasses and blinked rapidly at the brightness of the fluorescent lights. 

"Uh, where to start... Uh, yes, the Aether. It is not a stone, someone called it a stone before," he pointed at Steve, who furrowed his brow. "It's not a Stone, it's more of an angry sludge thing, so someone's gonna need to..." Thor paused to tilt his head back and put in eyedrops. "...Ammend that and stop saying that. But here's an interesting story though! Many years ago, my Grandfather had to hide the Stone from the Dark Elves. Oooh." He twinkled his fingers for dramatic effect. "Scary beings. So, when jane. Oh, uh Jane.. SHe was an old flame of mine. She stuck her hand inside a rock and then the Aether stuck itself inside her and she became very very sick so I had to take her to Asgard, which is where I'm from, and we had to try and fix her. We were dating at the time and I got to introduce her to my mother, who's dead, and Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, and, well, you know nothing lasts forever!"