Heartlines | Steve Rogers

XXXV

THIRTY FIVE
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They went on their way to Tony and Pepper's lakeside cabin. When they pulled up, Tony was walking in with Morgan. He stopped when he saw them climbing out of Steve's sleek black car. He let out an audible sigh and took a couple of steps onto the porch. Meredith noticed he was holding the helmet he was making for Pepper in his hands. Morgan must've found it and pulled it out of the garage.

"Aunt Mer!" Morgan exclaimed. She reached out towards her, and Meredith walked over to her and took her into her arms, swinging her around.

"Hey, how's my little girl?" Meredith grinned at her.

"Good. Mommy told me you were coming to stay the night and I helped her make your favorite food." She told her as she played with her long brown hair. She loved Meredith's hair, and Tony was starting to notice that Morgan looked a lot like her, oddly enough.

"And what's that? Do you remember?" Meredith asked her as she brushed her messy hair out of her face. She had definitely been wearing the helmet.

"Soup like your mommy used to make." She said, and that brought a smile to both Tony and Meredith's face. Meredith turned and looked back at the other three, and Tony was definitely surprised to see Scott. He knew whatever they were about to say was serious.

"Here, I'll take you inside with mommy so you can help her some more, huh?" She offered, and Morgan nodded.

"Will you help too?"

"I've gotta talk to Daddy, Aunt Nat, and Uncle Steve." She gestured back, and Morgan nodded. Meredith hated that the others didn't have that great of a relationship with Morgan, especially Steve. He loved kids, but always felt hesitant when it came to Morgan considering everything that happened between him and Tony. Meredith took her inside and came back out to see the four of them sitting around talking.

"No, trust me, we know what it sounds like." Scott chuckled slightly as Tony poured them some drinks, just thinking. Meredith politely declined, and he gave her a look.

"Tony, after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible?" Steve asked, but was quickly cut off.

"Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?" He glanced around at them. Meredith and Scott nodded.

"Thank you." Steve mumbled as Tony handed him a drink.

"In layman's terms, it means you're not coming home." Tony continued, hoping to quickly shut them down. The thought of all that scared him to say the least, and now that he realized Scott was onto something, he was trying his best to push every bit of it into the back of his mind.

"I did."

"No. You accidentally survived." Tony scoffed, dismissing them with his hand. "It's a billion-to-one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull a... what do you call it?"

"A time heist." Scott stated proudly as Tony handed him a drink.

"Yeah, a time heist. Of course. Why didn't we think of this before? Oh, because it's laughable. Because it's a pipe dream." He said obviously as he looked at all of them.

"The Stones are in the past. We could go back, we could get them." Steve began.

"We could snap our own fingers. We could bring everybody back." Natasha continued.

"Or, screw it up worse than he already has, right?" Tony was always pessimistic, but while trying to put the thoughts in the back of his mind, he was also trying to turn them away from it.