I FEEL YOU || Sᴛᴇᴠᴇ Rᴏɢᴇʀꜱ

thirty four

Hopefully

I sat down on the bench behind of the facility and just tried to breath slowly. Everything I held in for the last five years just resurfaced when Scott came here with his idea. Knowing we couldn't get them back, I had to make some kind of peace with their deaths. Every year on my birthday I felt more empty than usual, but that was nothing compared to this feeling. Even with my 29th, or 95th, birthday coming up.

I heard the door open beside me. It was, of course, Natasha. She sat down next to me and we just sat in silence for a moment. 

"You knew it was going to be hard from the moment they started disappearing." she said, keeping her gaze straight forward "What changed?"

"Hope." I summed it up "I had hope. Yesterday. And now it evaporated again."

"Hope is a tricky thing." she nodded "But you can't lose it now." she looked over at me "Even though we don't know what to do in the moment."

I nodded and sighed "You know, that day, when Bucky came for my birthday, I felt so lucky." I smiled, remembering the moment "I wanted to laugh, I wanted to cry. I was just...the happiest I've ever been because I had everyone I loved around me. And now that I lost the two people I loved the most and the third one doesn't want to help me get them back... I don't know how to continue my life knowing there could be a way to get them back and we're just...not doing it."

"We are going to do it." Nat assured me "We'll figure out how, we always do."

"I don't know if I can...wait that long." I looked over at her, tears filling my eyes "It's the loneliness. The hole inside of me." I admit "I can't take it anymore. I need him back. I need them both back."

"I know." she smiled and put her hand on my leg.

"Maybe we just need the whole team, right?" I asked her, like that was our only problem.

"Yeah, I thought so too." she smiled at me "I already gave out orders to make that happen, soon I'll leave too. You stay here."

I nodded "Good, good." I looked at the woods in front of us again and sighed "Well, no one's ever stuck with me for so long besides Bucky, no one tried to get so close to me." I continued "Even with the long list of reasons why he shouldn't have. No one cared enough to help me. No one realized I needed help." I smiled while thinking about him "Of course, you, Tony and the others helped to but... When I looked at him, I could feel. I could feel all these things I never knew I even could." I laughed, wiping the tears from my cheeks "I felt safe. He was everything I never knew I always wanted. And I never got to tell him I loved him."

"Maybe you'll get another chance." a familiar voice behind us spoke up.

I turned around to face Tony who was standing in the door frame.

"How long have you been here?" I stood up and wiped the tears from my eyes.

"Long enough to know that I should've agreed to help you when you came to me." he took a deep breath "I'm sorry for that. I should've realized that you deserve a second chance too."

I smiled, tears prickling my eyes again, and hugged him as tight as I could "Thank you so much."

"Don't thank me yet." he said and pulled back "Thank me when we get them back."

...

"Did you figure out how to do it?" I asked Tony as we made our way to the others.

"I think so, yeah." he nodded "You, on the other hand, I'm guessing turned Scott into a baby." he said with a smirk.

"We did, yeah." I chuckled, thinking about all the chaos that occurred a while ago.

"Why did that happen?" Natasha asked.

"It's the EPR paradox." Tony explained "Instead of pushing Lang through time, you might've wound up pushing time through Lang. It's tricky. Dangerous."

I shook my head in disbelief "When did you become an expert on time travel?"

"Last night." he smiled and entered the hangar. Bruce was still there.

"You did it?" Nat asked with the same amount of disbelief.

"Well, did I?" Tony smirked "Regardless, I fixed it." he said and showed us some kind of a bracelet on his hand "Fully functioning time-space GPS."

"Woah." Bruce as he made his way towards us.

I smiled at Tony. He really did it. 

"I just want peace." he smiled back at me. But I knew that's not the only reason he was here. And I was thankful for that. "Turns out, resentment is corrosive, and I hate it." he added.

"How are we going to do this?" Bruce asked him.

"Well, first of all, we have another shot at getting those stones, but I gotta tell you my priorities." he said, his face dead serious "Bring back what we lost? I hope, yes. Keep what I found? I have to, at all costs." he paused "And...maybe not die trying would be nice." he turned around and faced Natasha and I.

She looked at me and back to Tony "Sounds like a deal."

They shook hands and then Tony looked at all of us "We are getting the whole team, right?"

"We're working on that." I nodded and looked at Bruce and Nat. They nodded back and left. 

Tony and I left the hangar not long after that and sat in the meeting room. We were just waiting for the rest of the team. Hopefully, all of them. Our chatting was interrupted by the Benatar, Guardians' ship, landing on the compound. Not long after, we heard Rhodey land in front of the building with his suit as well. Soon, Nebula and Rhodey joined Tony and I around the table, talking about the last five years and the next move and waiting for the others.

...

Soon, there were more of us and some of us were walking the through the compound's testing chamber (or a hangar, I like that better, it's easier to say).  I was walking with Tony and Thor, who was in a hoodie and, well, bigger that before and with more...hair.

"Drifting left. On the side there, Lebowski." Tony picked on Thor "Ratchet, How's it going?" he asked Rocket who was working under a big glass platform in the middle of the hangar.

"It's Rocket." Rocket said for the hundredth time "Take it easy. You're only a genius on Earth, pal."

"Try not to fight all the time, will you?" I interrupted them "I'll go check on the rest of the team and wait for Natasha." Tony nodded and I turned around to walk to another 'testing' room.

"No, you're being very Hulky." I heard as I entered the room. 

"I'm being careful." Bruce defended himself.

Scott took the red glass bottle from Bruce "These are Pym Particles, alright? And ever since Hank Pym got snapped out of existence, this is it. This is what we have. We're not making any more." he explained.

Rhodey was trying to calm Scott down as I walked over and stood next to him.

"Sorry. We've got enough for one round trip each. That's it. No do-overs. Plus two test runs." he said and just as he did, he accidentally pressed a button, shrunk, and then grew back to his normal size "One test run." he corrected himself.

I face palmed myself. Everything was supposed to go smoothly. And it was very much not.