Opposites

49

I stared for a few seconds in shock at the obvious mini version of Tony before quickly choking out a small, "Hi." Pepper smiled at me and I could tell she was fighting back a laugh, but I was too shocked to care. TONY HAD A KID! There was a living, breathing Stark offspring standing one foot away from me and eating a juice pop.

"Is she ok Mommy?" Morgan asked in a stage whisper as she looked up at Pepper with a confused expression. I let out a little laugh of either shock or amusement, at this point I couldn't tell.

"She's fine Sweetie," Pepper said with a small smile between the two of us. "Cecilia's just a little bit overwhelmed right now. Why don't you give her a hug?" My legs sere suddenly locked together by a feat of strength I had never experienced before. Is this what Bucky had felt like when I younger and had tried to tackle him at every given opportunity?

"I can't stay long," I told Pepper awkwardly as I wrapped an arm around Morgan. "I just wanted to come say hi to you and Tony and now Morgan. Steve is hoping that Tony knows how to time travel so if this doesn't work then I don't know when you'll see me." Pepper grabbed my free hand and held it tightly between her own. 

"Cecilia," she said firmly, grasping my attention with the way she said my actual name and not her normal endearing names for me. "I need you to know, no matter what happens out there or in the future, you always have a family here. God knows Steve is absolutely worthless when it comes to women and I know Natasha doesn't like to talk about girly things so consider me your personal guide. I'm always here for you and you know Tony loves you like you're his older kid so you always have a place here." I nodded through tear filled eyes and gently pried my hand off of Morgan, who was still resolutely attached to my leg, to hug Pepper forcefully. "Love you Sweetie," she whispered.

"Love you too adopted mom," I mumbled before letting go and glancing down at the five year old who was staring up unabashedly at me. "The tall, blonde guy out there has juice pops," I said, pointing to the door. Morgan gasped and sprinted outside leaving me to smirk and follow her to see how Steve would handle the juice-a-holic.

"You know, I am perfectly happy to test out the never been tried time machine!"

"No, your punishment for making me tell a five year old I didn't have sugar is to sit there and watch Scott do the cool thing instead." I grumbled and scuffed the ground with the toe of my boot but didn't otherwise raise any objections. Instead I watched as Scott grinned with the giddiness of a child promised juice pops as he stood in front of a van that was the supposed entrance to the Quantum Realm and time travel itself. Awesome. Steve and Natasha were clustered around the control board with a snappier dressed Shrek, I mean... a fused version of Bruce Banner and the Hulk that looked like the Hulk but sounded like Banner and was his level of IQ as well. He was helping us figure out time travel so I guess I shouldn't really make fun of him... actually you know what he's kind of braggy about it so screw him, the man has 7 PhDs but he didn't think fusing his two forms was a bad idea?? But I digress, anyway, Scott was getting ready to go tiny and when he disappeared we all tensed up, hoping that we didn't screw this up. Suddenly, someone was back! Only... it wasn't exactly Scott.

"Um, guys?" A teenage boy called out, as he looked at us in fear. "I think something's wrong!" We all started to panic and yell for Bruce to fix it as he started to freak out under the pressure. He finally did something and young Scott was sucked back into the van only to be pulled back out and be replaced by an old man that I suspect Steve would like if he actually aged. Bruce became flustered again as we all yelled once again for him to fix it. The old man was snapped back into the van and finally replaced by a baby who looked up at up with wide fear filled eyes.

"It's a baby," Steve said resignedly.

"It's Scott!" Bruce cried.

"As a baby! Bring him back!" With more tinkering of the control panel Bruce finally, finally, managed to return Scott to his normal form.

"Well," I said from my seat "that truly was an absolute shit-show. What next?"