POST-SNAP, 2023
AVENGERS COMPOUND, UPSTATE NEW YORK

Shelby's brain could understand a lot of difficult concepts. Theoretical physics, black holes, advanced calculus: she got it. Math and science had always come easy to her. The two subjects were something she'd relied on during her early years, when so much instability had rocked her young life.

However, she still had a bit of difficulty understanding the Infinity Stones.

Space.

Reality.

Power.

Soul.

Mind.

Time.

Time.

The way Bruce Banner explained things, however, made sense. Shelby didn't need to understand the Infinity Stones' powers exactly to understand the power they offered the Avengers.

They could go back in time, find the stones, and stop Thanos. Without altering their current reality.

That was important to Tony -- they couldn't just erase the present, go back to the past. People had rebuilt their lives, found joy and happiness once again. Even if his and Shelby's post-Snap reality was built of more darkness than life, that didn't mean they didn't have a moral obligation to the rest of the universe.

Somehow, she and Tony always had a moral obligation to the rest of the universe.

That was how she found herself spending days inside the helmet and gloves of a welder, working alongside a talking raccoon (who insisted he was not a raccoon), and two of the brightest brains of the universe -- her husband and Bruce Banner -- building a time machine.

The Avengers were still not whole, however. They were missing two very integral parts: the Norse god Shelby had come to know as a friend, and a scorned ex-SHIELD agent who'd lost his entire family in the Snap.

The Avengers had been a crazy concept in the beginning: a group of ragtag, powerful heroes, selected by a government agency to fight off aliens, with Tony at the helm. Years before that, Shelby's husband had become a hero in his own right. After being abducted overseas, he became Iron Man -- an ordinary man in an extraordinary super suit -- and the two of them had never looked back.

Shelby knew that marrying Tony Stark meant she'd never live a normal life ever again, and she was okay with that. She just never knew how abnormal things were going to get.

Somehow, Tony was supposed to save the world, along with Steve Rogers -- Captain America, of World War II origin, Natasha Romanoff -- Black Widow, an ex-HYDRA spy, Dr. Bruce Banner -- the Hulk, a genius of the highest remarks, Clint Barton -- Hawkeye, a SHIELD agent with a penchant for archery, and Thor ... the real-life actual God of Thunder.

There were others along the way of course, like Shelby herself, Rhodey, from MIT, and Steve's longtime pal-turned-lover (or so Shelby had always secretly suspected, without confirmation) Bucky Barnes. Bucky, who'd been brainwashed by HYDRA -- during which this time he'd killed Tony's parents in that car accident on Long Island -- was the reason the Avengers weren't exactly a team anymore. Steve and Tony had never really gotten along to begin with, unlike Steve and Tony's father, and Steve's protection of Bucky was the icing on the cake.

Mary had always idolized Steve. Somehow, this little girl who had never known anything but wifi and cell phones and the other wonders of the twenty-first century had an understanding with an ex-WWII soldier who'd been asleep since 1944.

Steve was the reason Shelby had agreed to this project in the first place. He was the only one that had managed to give her any sense of hope.

The design was foolproof -- if time travel could actually be achieved, that was. Shelby still had her doubts, even if the science was seemingly sound.

Banner and Rocket (the aforementioned not raccoon) had left the compound to round up Thor, while Natasha Romanoff was off in Japan trying to track down Clint Barton.

Starting to get hot behind her welding shield, Shelby set the welder down and flipped the visor up, standing back to take a look at her work. Tony insisted that they had robots to complete the actual construction of the machine, robots that probably welded neater lines than Shelby. Shelby, however, found that welding, like her gardening back home, was oddly therapeutic.

She was alone in the workroom, a KISS song playing loudly through the speakers, when the music abruptly stopped, and the door flew open. She turned as Tony ran through the doorway, his face red and breathing unsteady. He looked undoubtedly flustered.

Shelby dropped her helmet, her heart racing as she took in Tony's concerning appearance.

"What's wrong?" she asked, a large lump swelling in her throat. Something was wrong. Something was wrong. "Is everyone okay?"

"Everyone's fine, Shelbs," he said, his voice a step below its usual confidence. "I just ... um... you're needed. In the lobby. The Space Lady is back."

Shelby felt her panic retreat, and the corners of her lips twitched up into a smirk. "Which one?" she joked. "The blue one?"

"No," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Danvers."

"And she needs me?" Shelby asked, unconvinced. Carol Danvers had rescued Tony and Nebula (the blue "space lady") from a distant planet after the Snap, and Shelby was forever grateful. However, Shelby really didn't have much to say to Carol. The woman was kind of intimidating, and she and Shelby didn't exactly share any common ground -- except space, Shelby guessed. Carol explored space, and Shelby had been there ... once.

Tony grabbed the redhead's hand, impatient and at a rare loss for words. He tugged her through the hallway, coming to a stop in front of an office. The office was the Avengers' -- if that's what they were even called anymore -- unofficial headquarters for Project Infinity Stone.

"Okay, umm... before we go in there..." Tony gently pulled Shelby to a stop, his other hand on the office door. "Brace yourself."

Shelby felt her stomach flip. "Brace myself for what, Stark?"

Tony took a deep breath. "Honestly, Shelbs, I don't even know where to begin."

He pushed open the door, leading Shelby inside. Shelby recognized the blue space woman, named Nebula, along with Steve Rogers and Scott Lang. They sat at the conference table with Carol Danvers, and a man Shelby didn't know.

"Hi, everyone," Shelby said, nodding at them all. She looked at the unfamiliar man, holding her hand out to him. "Hi, I'm Dr. Shelby Colewell."

The man gave her an incredulous look, staring at a hand before finally shaking it. He let out a slight chuckle, tilted his head, and glanced up at the redhead. "I know who you are, Dr. Colewell. Do you not remember me?"

Shelby studied the man's face, which was heavily scarred -- burns, maybe. Below the burns and the wrinkles that had accumulated over time, she supposed the man was once handsome. His left eye, on the more scarred side of his face, was gone, replaced by one of technological origin, and it glowed an unnatural blue, the whole eye, not just the iris. The other eye was a welcoming dark brown, and it beckoned to Shelby, like maybe she had met this man before. The corner of his real eye creased as he smiled, and he laughed again.

Shelby realized she knew that voice. At least, she had, a long time ago.

"I don't look that different, do I, Red Fury?"

author's note:

i last updated this book in october 2022, and i'm sorry. i'm not here to make any promises about updating, but today (aug. 24) is shelby's birthday, so i felt like writing.

thank you so much to all of you who are still here, and those of you who have joined the journey along the way. your support, through my unstable updating schedule, means more to me than you could ever seriously know.

when i started this book on nothing more than a headcanon of tony stark in college in the 80s, i NEVER imagined it would end up with almost half a million reads (462k and counting!) and that it would become SO LONG.

when i say this has been a journey, it has been a fucking journey, hasn't it? we've traveled from boston to new hampshire to florida to the moon to new york and everywhere in between. we've had some pretty great boyfriends (robbo is still my fave, sorry not sorry), made some pretty great friends, and taken so many side quests it's hard to keep track.

anyways, happy birthday to shelby, and thanks for reading!

xx,

madi