Wanda had spent most of the days at the hospital with the kids, tending to their needs and helping them to rest when their emotions wouldn't let them sleep. They refused to leave the hospital despite her urging, but she knew that leaving you now would only cause them more grief, and she didn't want to be the cause of that for them when they were under so much strain already. Regardless of their maturity, they were still children, and they needed someone to care for them as such when their own father couldn't do it.

"How long have they been asleep?" Vision asked her quietly, taking a seat at her side. He looked at the trio, stretched out across the cots that hospital staff had brought into your room for them, each of them covered in a hazy red glow as she kept them in a deep slumber.

"Only for a few hours. I hope to allow them to rest until sunrise, but they sometimes fight against me."

"I'm certain that their need to be with her is quite strong."

She simply nodded and looked past him to see Steve, ever present at your bedside, his eyes looking heavy and red, dark circles around them that aged his appearance. "He won't allow me to help him," she sighed, "and he has yet to realize that by not sleeping, he is only harming himself. He will not listen."

"He can't hear you, Wanda. He can't hear anything other than the thoughts filling his mind. I can only imagine that their volume is deafening to him."

"Hmm," she agreed, "have you spoken with Tony? I worry about him, too."

"No, I have not," Vision answered heavily, "and I'm not aware of anyone who has been able to reach through to him. He is very much lost to us right now."

Wanda looked away at the sound of one of the children stirring next to her, sensing that Anthony was fighting against her control once again. He had become so much stronger, and this used to be much simpler for her to do; rather than continuing to push against him, she lessened her power over him and allowed him to wake, leaving his siblings to sleep.

"Anthony? What is it?" she asked in a whisper when he bolted upright in a gasping urgency, turning to her and Vision with a look of panic in his eyes. The sudden shift caught Steve's attention as well, bringing him to stand next to Vision in the first time that he had left your side since your arrival.

"Ant, what's wrong?"

"Dad, you can't do this!"

Steve dropped his shoulders, the weight of the discussion that he was about to have feeling as if it were driving his body into the ground. He had been open with the kids from the very first moment, no matter how painful it was for them to hear. Today was going to be the worst day of all, and he hoped that they would at least have a few hours of rest to gather their strength for it. "Son, we talked about this. There isn't anything else that they can do. We have to let Mom go."

"No, Dad, please," the boy panted, trying to regain his composure as he pleaded with his father, "just wait one more day. Give me one more day, please."

"Ant-"

"Dad, I need to talk to Stephen. Just please, let me try."

~~~

"No, absolutely not," Stephen argued, emphatically waving his hand to dismiss Anthony's idea, "I will not use the Eye to heal her. I'm sorry, Anthony, but I can't do that."

"You can change time! You can turn it back to save her! I've read the books and know that there are spells that will work!"

"Do you understand what you're asking of me?" Strange snapped back, standing up over the boy to look down with a stern expression to stop him before his temper flared even more. "Do you realize the precedent that will be set if I use that for just one person? It's altering the laws of nature just to save your mother."

"She's not just my mother!" the boy screamed back, slamming his fists on Stephen's desk. "She's an Avenger! She's saved the world, which is the one that you live in, and still live in because of her! I shouldn't have to ask you to do this!"

"Anthony, come on," Steve interrupted, taking the boy's arm only to have him yank it away angrily. "Anthony Scott, you will stop this right now."

"How dare you give up on her," Anthony hissed at Steve, "the one person in the whole world that she trusts the most. You used to be the bravest person I know, and now look at you. You're a joke."

"Anthony!" Stephen scolded. "Mind yourself!"

"No, it's okay," Steve replied, holding up a hand to stop the Doctor, "it's okay." He lowered his hand and pushed both into his pockets, dropping his gaze to the floor as his son continued to berate him, not making any effort to argue; he believed every word that Anthony was saying just as much as he did.

"Grandpa has been working night and day to come up with something to save Mom, and what have you been doing, Dad? Crying at her side and wallowing in your own self-pity. You're not even trying!"

"I know."

Anthony's tears were flowing faster and more readily than they had ever before, as the realization that his idol was falling before him and he wasn't even putting up a fight. It was painful enough to be losing his mother, but even though he stood before him now, fully alive, he was losing his dad too, and it had brought him to desperation. "I'm not going to be like you, Dad," he whispered now, his voice growing colder, "I'm going to do something. I won't lose my Mom and my baby sister today."

Anthony extended his hand and opened a portal, jumping through before Strange could get around the desk to stop him. Steve was frozen in place as his weary and clouded mind struggled to catch up, and when it did, he was more lost than ever.

"What did he just say?!" Steve perked up, his eyes wide in absolute shock and stumbling back against the wall as if the air had been sucked from his chest. "Did you hear what I...oh my god...that can't be...where did he go?"

"Stay here," Stephen commanded, creating a path to Anthony to give chase, "go to your wife. I'll find him."

~~~

When sunlight began to rise, Anthony and Stephen had yet to return, but Steve had taken his place again at your side with a renewed sense of both despair and conflict; if what Anthony had said was true, if he had heard his boy correctly, he now faced a decision that he knew he wouldn't be able to make without you. When his father-in-law made his first appearance in your room in days, he was too caught in his thoughts to even notice.

Tony had arrived just as the other two children woke for the day, arriving to take Brooklyn with him to talk to your doctor. She took his hand readily, albeit with confusion, following him down the long hospital corridor, still in her pajamas and hair messy from sleep.

"Grandpa," she whispered, tugging on his arm as he continued on, "what are we doing?"

"I have an idea, baby. I want you to be here to hear it, is that okay?"

"Yes," Brooklyn nodded eagerly, "I want to hear everything."

Tony smiled proudly at the young girl, giving her hand a squeeze to bolster his own confidence when they reached the office door. "Okay, here we go," he sighed, reaching up to knock quietly, waiting for the voice on the other side to allow them to enter. He pushed the door open and held it to let his granddaughter go first, leading her to one of the chairs next to the desk so that she could be at the center of their attention.

"Mr. Stark, Brooklyn," the doctor greeted, "how can I help you this morning?"

"Right, listen," Tony began without any pleasantries, "if we could get the fragments out of her heart tissue-"

"Mr. Stark, we've gone over this. The bullet shattered. There are miniscule particles that we may not even be able to see to remove."

"Yeah, and shrapnel in the chest happens to be a specialty of mine."

"I've thought about that as well, Mr. Stark," the doctor argued, "and just the same as an artificial heart, her body will reject an arc reactor. Beyond that, even if we could use magnetics to pull each particle out, the damage to the tissue is extensive. The intricacies of that repair...to piece it all back together and then having no guarantee that the repair would even hold...she might not even survive the surgery. Her heart would literally be held together by thread, Tony, if we could even put it back together correctly."

"She heals."

"Okay, you're not hearing me-"

"Grandpa," Brooklyn broke in, "are you saying what I think you're saying? Is that why I'm here?"

Tony turned in his chair with a bright pride in his eyes, marveling at how smart this little girl was to think ahead and come to the same conclusion that he had worked out after days of trying. "Tell me what I'm saying, sweetheart."

"You're saying that if you could get the metal pieces out of the way, I could try to put her heart back together naturally and hold it that way long enough to heal itself."

"You're so smart, baby."

"Mr. Stark, I have to advise-"

"But I'm not strong enough, Grandpa," she continued, the two of them now completely ignoring the doctor, "I couldn't hold it for that long."

Tony reached out and took the girl's hands in his, leaning in close to hold her attention, his eyes looking at her with a desperation and hope that she couldn't look away from. "But you are if you have Vision with you."

~~~

Back at your bedside, Steve replayed the conversation that Anthony had with Strange and himself, finding his mind stuck on replay of what his son had said to him directly; he was right, he thought, he was giving up without a fight, but he didn't have any fight left. Anthony was too young to understand what this meant for Steve, and what you meant to him. He was too young to know all of the things that the two of you had survived together, and how this was a day that he never wanted to live to see. His son couldn't understand that a life without you wasn't one that he wanted to be a part of, but that having his children need him was the only thing keeping him here.

When Tony returned with Brooklyn at his side, they carried a strange air of hope that hadn't existed in this room since the first moment there, leaving Steve, Wanda, and Vision to stand and join them out of curiosity as to what was happening. Steve hadn't told Tony what Anthony had blurted out before disappearing, making him worry again that the news would strip away whatever positivity that Stark was clinging to. Before he could open his mouth to get answers, a bright light filled the room, and Anthony appeared at the foot of your bed, followed quickly by Doctor Strange near your door.

"Anthony, stop," he commanded, immediately securing the attention of everyone in the room. The young man held the Eye of Agamotto in his trembling hands, looking down at it in both fear and amazement that he actually had gotten this far.

"No, sir, I won't stop. I am a Rogers, and I am a Stark. If you don't realize what that means for you, Doctor, then you will never understand why I can't stop. If you won't help me to do this, then I have no choice but to do it myself."

"Anthony, you have no idea what kind of power you have in your hands. Put it down, or I will make you put it down."

"I won't let my mom die!" he began to cry. "You don't understand...I can't. It's not just her."

"Anthony, Dad is going to be okay," Grant joined in now, pushing past Wanda and Vision to see his brother. "We'll all be here for him. The team will help us."

"No, that's not what I mean, Grant. I'm trying to save our baby sister too. Dad didn't know...I don't know if Mom even knew yet, but I saw her in my dream, and I know...I felt it that she's real. All I know is that I can't stop now."

"No, Ant, don't do this," Brooklyn jumped out, getting in front of everyone with her hands out to him, "Grandpa and I have a plan, okay? We have a plan to save Mom that's going to work. That's what we came here to tell everyone. Just give the Eye back to Stephen, okay?" She stood still and waited, watching him as he struggled to make his decision, "just give it to me, then, Anthony. I'll take it."

"You promise that it'll work, Brooke?" he asked her softly, his eyes on the power in his hands.

"I promise that I'll use every last ounce of strength in me to try. I might even use every last ounce that Viz can give me, too," she smiled, finally getting a little laugh from her brother as well when he heard Vision quietly asking Wanda what she had meant.

"I trust you, sis," he finally relented, "here." She took the Eye from him and hurried to Strange, almost desperate to get it out of her hands. "I'm sorry, Doctor," Anthony continued, "I accept whatever punishment you choose to give me."

Stephen quickly placed the amulet around his neck, a sigh of relief escaping him to have it back in his possession and with no harm having been done. He stood silently and regarded the boy for a moment, thinking of what he should do next; the room was held in silence as they waited to hear, both Steve and Tony watching anxiously and knowing that this was a decision that they could have no say in.

"No, Anthony," Strange answered quietly, moving to stand by the boy with a gentle hand on his shoulder, "there will be no punishment. I understand why you did what you did. I think now we should all focus on giving strength to your sister. She's about to need all that she can get."