★ ★ ★

Landing in New York had been relatively easy, at least for the men. The motion made Marlena sick, or maybe it was simply just the fact she had never time traveled before, especially not while pregnant. She was absolutely tired of the nausea; she couldn't wait to be done with it.

Marlena placed a hand to her stomach when her quantum suit dematerialized, and she walked to catch up with the men. They were in an alley full of debris. Above them, the Chitauri screeched as they shot through the sky, terrorizing the innocent civilians around them. Their pained screams could be heard, but no one felt them deeper than Marlena. It'd been years since she'd heard the familiar sound of innocent screams laced with absolute terror, and the feeling it enticed within her made her terribly uncomfortable. Marlena remained composed, however, as she stepped forward to meet Steve and Tony. She refused to slow them down.

"Alright, we all have our assignments," Steve told the group. "Two stones uptown and one stone down. Stay low, keep an eye on the clock."

A loud crash could be heard, and Steve turned around, throwing his arm out to keep his teammates away from the danger. They all stopped and looked to see a Chitauri taken down with a car by a very angry Hulk. Marlena could only watch with wide eyes as he continued destroying the car in a manner similar to that of a three-year-old throwing a tantrum. Even Bruce himself was embarrassed by it.

"Maybe smash a few things along the way," Steve told Bruce.

"I think it's gratuitous, but whatever."

Bruce ripped his tank top off and Marlena moved so he could get through. She watched him stroll onto the destroyed streets of Manhattan. Marlena was sure he believed himself to be channeling the spirit of the Hulk as he punched the roof of a car or threw an already-destroyed motorcycle onto the concrete, but it was much the opposite from her perspective.

"C'mon," Steve tore his attention away from Bruce and grabbed Marlena's hand.

Steve led Marlena down the street towards the Avengers Tower. Marlena withdrew her gun from its holster in order to aid Steve were he to need it during their trek to the tower. The Chitauri were relentless and just as aggressive. They were there to kill, and that was only evident in the loud screams that started and stopped in a single second. The atmosphere was filled with anguish, fear, and death. Marlena could feel every last bit of it, and she wasn't sure why or even if it that was supposed to be possible anymore. Either way, she absolutely despised the feeling, and was desperate for a way to turn it off.

"Marlena," Tony's voice sounded through comms.

Marlena shot two Chitauri in the head, while Steve took on one in front of her; they had another block or so to go. "Yeah, Tony?"

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked her worriedly. He had just received an alert from Friday regarding Marlena's well-being. Both Marlena and the baby were absolutely healthy, but mentally, for Marlena, Friday reported her being under moderate emotional distress. Tony wouldn't have been concerned had her levels not continued to rise. "Friday says you're feeling a bit distressed."

"Yeah, aren't we all?" Marlena shot one more Chitauri as the two closed in on the tower. "I mean, we're in New York in 2012 fighting a fight that's been over for about fourteen years. I figure we're all a bit distressed."

"God, I forgot what a smart ass you are."

"I'm fine, Tony," Marlena assured Tony. She didn't want anyone to know what was going on with her, although she wasn't quite sure herself.

"Okay," Tony responded halfheartedly. He didn't believe her whatsoever, but he wasn't prepared to tell her that; he was prepared to zap her back to 2026 should the need arrive. "You two better hustle, things look like they're about wrapped up here."

"We're approaching the elevator now," Steve told him.

Tony disconnected, and once he had, Steve looked over at Marlena.

"What was that about?" he questioned and pressed the button for the appropriate floor. "Are you okay?"

He was using his serious voice, and Marlena absolutely hated it. He rarely ever used it with her, though she wondered if she could blame the current situation. "I really am," she answered him, and for the most part she was. She just couldn't get over the dreadful blanket of pain trying to suffocate her mind.

"Don't lie to me, Marlena." Steve was nervously twiddling with his thumbs; he couldn't wait to get upstairs and get the scepter so he could just flash back home with Marlena.

"I can't explain it," Marlena sighed quietly, and the two stepped off the elevator while they waited for Tony to give the signal. She should've known she couldn't keep anything from him. He knew her better than she knew herself sometimes. "I'm fine, Steve, honestly, it's just this feeling."

"What kind of feeling?"

Tony's voice prevented Marlena from responding, but she was okay with that.

"Mr. Rogers, I forgot that suit did nothing for your ass."

Steve rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall, making a mental note to continue his and Marlena's conversation later. "No one asked you to look, Tony," he remarked.

"It's ridiculous."

"I think you look great, Cap," Scott's voice sounded, and an amused smile broke out across Marlena's face. "As far as I'm concerned, that's America's ass."

"Jesus."

"It's a pretty nice ass," Marlena added, earning a quiet laugh from Steve.

"Alright, guys, I've got our scepter in the elevator just passing the eightieth floor," Tony said to Marlena and Steve.

"On it." Steve pressed the elevator button, "Head to the lobby."

"Alright, I'll see you there."

Tony disconnected once more, and seconds later the elevator doors were opening. Marlena and Steve turned to get on, but paused for a quick moment at the sight of Rumlow. Steve had completely forgotten about Rumlow, and at the current moment he found it to be one of his biggest mistakes, purely because of the woman standing at his side.

The moment Marlena laid her eyes on Rumlow, she was met with a burning sensation of anger. He'd taken her mother away from her so many years ago, and while Marlena was among the two responsible for his well-deserved demise, she couldn't help but want to recreate the moment right there inside the elevator.

Rumlow looked surprised to see her, however, which didn't make much sense considering the current time stamp. The two weren't meant to meet for another two years, so his recognition of her was quite confusing.

"Chernova?" Rumlow spoke to her in disbelief, and Marlena furrowed her brows in confusion. Steve could only watch the two of them and hope Marlena didn't instigate a confrontation; Rumlow's hushed words confused him as well, but he didn't speak on the matter, nor did Marlena herself.

"Cap," Jasper Sitwell greeted the soldier as he stepped onto the elevator, and his eyes flashed to Marlena. "Who's this?"

"Agent Claire of SHIELD," Steve answered as he worked his way through the crowd of men, shocking Rumlow in the slightest; something wasn't right. "Fury appointed her liaison."

Marlena eyed Rumlow as she passed him and stopped beside Steve. She was fighting herself for Steve's sake and her little one's sake. Even through the flashbacks of watching EMTs roll her mother's dead body out of her childhood home, she could not risk this mission. Bringing her family back was worth more than taking someone's life for the second time. She just wished she could bring her mother back as well.

"I thought you were coordinating search and rescue?" Sitwell was confused, but that was to be expected.

"Change of plans," Steve looked over at Sitwell.

Marlena could feel the tension in the small space, and she looked around, watching as hands quietly found their firearms.

"Hey, Cap," Rumlow's voice could be heard, and Marlena looked at him, resentment still burning in her veins. She despised the sound of his voice; all she heard when he spoke was him berating her as he tortured her physically and mentally for the sake of becoming Hydra's greatest weapon. She hated him. She hated everything about him.

"Rumlow," Steve greeted him. "I just got a call from the secretary; I'm gonna be running point on the scepter."

Sitwell turned around to look at Steve, while Rumlow eyed him and Marlena suspiciously. "I don't understand," he said. "What is this?"

Steve glanced around carefully; he hoped his plan worked, as he didn't want to be caught in a fight in an elevator, especially with Marlena, who he knew was more than ready to get her hands around Rumlow's throat. He could tell just by the way she stared at him; she tried desperately to hide her emotions, and while she was succeeding on Rumlow's part, Steve saw right through her.

"We heard there may be an attempt to steal the scepter," Marlena answered for Steve after several seconds of him neglecting to find the right words for Sitwell. She glanced over at Sitwell, who was now looking at her with a confused expression on his face; he hadn't expected this at all.

"Sorry, but I'm afraid we can't give it to you," Rumlow took a small step closer to her.

"We aren't asking." Marlena spoke firmly, her tone indicating that the two were not leaving without the scepter.

"And exactly who the hell are you to give me an order?" It was clear to him she wasn't the person he thought she was, though the sight was still uncanny.

"I can show you if you'd like." The corner of her lip pulled into a smirk, and she placed her hands behind her back. She had her reasons for preventing the fight, all of which she stood by wholeheartedly, but she wasn't going to let him talk down to her. Not again.

"Enough," Steve warned Marlena, and she glanced at him before looking back at Rumlow with a glare on her face. Not only was Steve her fiancé, but he was also her mission captain, and she respected that enough to calm herself down.

"Look," Sitwell caught their attention again. "I'm gonna have to call the Director."

"That won't be necessary," Steve leaned towards Sitwell to whisper in his ear. "Hail Hydra."

Sitwell looked at Steve with a shocked expression on his face and looked at Rumlow, who was still watching and waiting for the petite brunette to make a move. "Go ahead," Sitwell urged Rumlow.

Rumlow grunted and handed the case to Marlena, who took it happily.

"Thank you," Steve thanked the men, just in time for the elevator to stop. The two pushed past the Strike Team and onto the floor, both thrilled with the outcome of the situation.

"That was a lot easier than I expected," Marlena said as she and Steve continued their trek down the hall. It'd been so long since Marlena had been to the tower, but she still knew her way around better than anything.

"Who's Chernova? And why did Rumlow call you that?" Steve asked her, though he doubted she even knew herself.

"Who knows?" Marlena shrugged. "I heard it's pretty hard to see clearly when you've got your head stuck up your ass."

"Well..."

"I could've taken him, y'know."

"I know you could have, but the less trouble you stay out of at the moment, the better," Steve told her.

"I still could've taken him."

Steve chuckled quietly, and the two rounded the corner. The sight in front of them stopped them in their tracks, and the two exchanged glances with one another. In front of them stood Steve, but from 2012, making the situation a lot more complicated than it should've been. Nothing was ever as simple as they wanted it to be.

"Think you could take him?"

"I think you got it, Cap." Marlena let out a breath and looked back at the man she knew to be her fiancé, but he didn't even know it himself. All he knew was that the two were a threat, and he was determined to handle them.

"I have eyes on Loki," he spoke, his eyes flashing to Marlena and the case she held in her hand. "Fourteenth floor, I have two hostiles in play."

"I'm not Loki," Steve assured, well, himself. Marlena began inching away slowly, readying herself to take off with the case once Steve gave her the word. "And I don't wanna hurt you."

Steve's words meant nothing to the version that stood in front of him, and instead of bothering to respond, he sprung into action.

"Go!" Steve called to Marlena as the two clashed.

Marlena turned to run, and as she neared the corner, Steve from the past threw his shield towards the brunette in an attempt to stop her, which only drove his counterpart desperate to protect her. Marlena could not only feel the wind from the Vibranium disk, but she could also sense the danger approaching her. She turned her head immediately, her eyes landing on the red, white, and blue shield flying towards her, and in the blink of an eye it had stopped a mere six inches or so from her face. Steve, who was holding the past version of himself in a chokehold, watched the scene unfold with wary eyes, while Marlena was just as surprised as he was. She wasn't sure what was happening with her at all, but she was ready to test it.

With a simple thought, Marlena was willing the shield to the floor, and after it dropped, she had the answer she was looking for. She spared a final glance at Steve before running off with the scepter, working furtively to make her way down to Tony and Scott. For the first time in five years, her abilities were making the slightest appearance, and she knew it had to do with the emotional circumstance of the situation. She hadn't been faced with such an emotionally compromising conflict in years, which was likely what kept her abilities buried after losing her family, so it only made sense that the current situation was leading her back to the part of herself she'd lost so many years ago. The thought made her ecstatic, but at the same time she wasn't sure how to feel.

"Tony, I'm coming to you now with the scepter," Marlena alerted him as she stepped onto the elevator.

"Right," Tony replied. "You okay? Your monitor went off again."

"That's a good question."

"I don't have time for vagueness, so spit it out, Claire."

Marlena sighed and tightened her grasp on the case. "I think I'm gonna need your help," she answered Tony. She wouldn't explain things over comms, but she would say enough to let him know he wasn't completely in the dark.

"It's gonna cost ya, kid."

"Please, Tony." Marlena stepped off the elevator and hurried to exit the building before anyone saw her with the scepter.

"Just buy me a cheeseburger," Tony said.

Marlena rolled her eyes and finally found her way to the alley in which Tony had told them to meet. She slowed to a walk once she laid eyes on Tony and Scott. They were both disgruntled and empty-handed, something of which worried the brunette.

"I don't want any onion on it either."

"Onion is the best part."

"Well, some of us don't like onion on our burgers, Lang."

"Alright, you two." Marlena noticed the battered car the two were sitting inside, and she let out a breath, "What happened? Where's the tesseract?"

"You see, I'm gonna need you to be a buffer when I give Cap the answer to that question," Tony answered her with an apologetic grin on his face.

"Answer to what question?" Steve jumped from a balcony and onto the ground, his eyes falling on Tony and his empty hands. "Where's the stone?"

"I'm sorry, but we got a problem," Tony answered.

Scott laughed bitterly from the backseat, "Yeah, we do."

"What happened, guys?" Marlena asked and sat the case down beside her.

"Hulk smash Tony," Scott said seriously, though Marlena could take him not. He got out of the car and looked at Steve and Marlena; he was incredibly stressed out. "That's what happened, okay?"

"What?"

"I got body-slammed by the jolly green giant, and Thor's greasy brother took off with the tesseract," Tony sighed and shoved his door open.

"So what do we do now?" Steve asked, a new feeling of anxiety flooding through his veins.

"Okay, gimme a break, Cap," Tony said to the soldier. "I just got hit in the head with the Hulk."

Scott was visibly freaking out by now. "He said we had one shot, this was our one shot, we shot it, it's shot, it was six stones or nothing, six stones or nothing..."

"You know you're repeating yourself?"

"You're repeating yourself, you're repeating yourself," Scott shot back at Tony.

Steve and Marlena could only watch the interaction between the two; they had no idea what to say.

"C'mon, man—"

"You know what? No, you never even wanted the time heist, you weren't on board with the time heist—"

"I dropped the ball!"

"You ruined the time heist!"

"Is that what I did?"

"Enough," Steve finally interrupted the two men. "Are there any other options with the tesseract?"

"No, no, no, no, no," Scott slammed the car door shut, startling Tony in the front seat. He was only getting angrier as the time passed by. "There's no other options, there's no do-overs, we're not going anywhere else. We have one particle left each. That's it, alright? If we use that it's bye-bye, there's no going home."

"Yeah, but if we don't try, no one else is going home either," Steve remarked with a curt tone.

"I got it." Tony very quickly hopped out of the car and stumbled over to the group, focusing his attention on Steve. "There's another way to retake the tesseract and acquire new particles. We'll stroll down memory lane—military installation, Garden State."

It only took Steve a few seconds to realize what and who he was referring to. "When were they both there?"

"They were there at a time...I have a vaguely exact idea," Tony stumbled over his words.

"How vague?"

"What are you guys talking about?" Both Scott and Marlena questioned the two.

"I know for a fact they were there..."

"Who's they?"

"Where are we going?"

"...and I know how I know."

Steve glanced to Marlena and back to Tony again before letting out a breath. "I guess we're improvising." Steve picked up the case Marlena sat on the ground moments ago and placed it back in her hand. He ushered her over to Scott before backing towards Tony, his eyes still on her. "I need you guys to get the scepter back to the compound."

"Where are you going, Steve?" Marlena was becoming worried. As Scott reminded the group, they each only had one particle left. If the two of them used their last ones to travel back to a time and place Tony was so unsure of, they risked not coming back at all, and that terrified Marlena. Of course, she knew once she and Scott made it back to the compound it would only be another split second before they arrived if they did, but as Marlena learned over the years, one second in a life or death situation could feel like a hundred years.

Steve didn't answer Marlena, as he and Tony were busy spouting out numbers to each other. This only frustrated Marlena, as well as Scott, who couldn't seem to grab their attention either.

"Steve!" Marlena called for the last time, and the tone of her voice was what finally caught his attention. "Do you understand what'll happen if you two screw this up?"

"You won't be coming back, man," Scott added with a shake of his head.

"Thanks for the pep talk, guys," Tony said and turned to Steve. "Do you trust me?"

"I do."

"Your call."

"Steve?" Marlena called to him, her voice shaking slightly. She couldn't believe he was about to risk it again—she couldn't believe either of them were about to risk it again—and while she admired everything about it, she found herself angry at the thought of losing either one of them.

Steve looked over at Marlena, taking immediate notice of the sadness in her hazel eyes. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew his decision was about to hurt her, but he didn't have a choice. "I love you" was the only thing he said to her before he and Tony disappeared, leaving Scott and Marlena standing in the alley.

"I can't believe he just did that," Marlena breathed out quietly.

"Me either," Scott scoffed and approached Marlena. "Let's sync up, we'll see 'em in a second."

"Hope so."

Both Scott and Marlena disappeared through the quantum realm and back to the compound, arriving in no time at all. She placed the case holding the scepter beside her on the floor. The moment Marlena's quantum suit had dematerialized, her eyes landed on Steve and Tony, and an immediate wave of relief flooded into her body. In fact, the sight of everyone relieved her, but it was short lived when she noticed the absence of a certain redhead. As Bruce and Rhodey addressed the team, Marlena's attention was on Clint, who was emitting a painful amount of grief and anguish. The dreadful expression on his face only helped confirm the reason for the fear Marlena felt, and her eyes began filling up with tears.

"Clint, where's Nat?" Bruce asked.

Clint fell to his knees in front of the group. His lip quivered, and the tears never ceased falling. He didn't answer Bruce's question, but a verbal answer wasn't needed. The answer was written all over his face.

Everyone shared the same reaction to the news, though some felt Natasha's loss at a much deeper level than others, including Tony, Bruce, Steve, and Marlena. Aside from Clint, they were her closest friends. They were everything to her, just as she was everything to them.

Marlena wanted to scream, as this very incident was exactly what she feared. To get her family back would be everything to the brunette, even after losing Natasha, but that didn't mean life would mean the same without her. Natasha was so important to Marlena, and she had been since Marlena was a 20-year-old kid afraid of her own shadow. She was a mentor, a confidante, and a friend, but most importantly, she was family.

Marlena quickly whisked away the last few tears that had fallen and began her slow walk off the platform. She removed her gloves on the way down the stairs, as well as her gun, and placed the items on the table beside the tunnel's monitor. She was feeling nauseous, though she wasn't sure if it was because of the pregnancy or the large pit sitting at the bottom of her stomach. Either way, she felt terrible, mentally and now physically as well. She'd almost forgotten the fresh pain associated with losing someone she loved, but she definitely hadn't forgotten just how much she despised it.

Steve looked to Marlena's retreating figure with tear-filled eyes and he shook his head as if to ward off the building cries. The fight was to be won through whatever means necessary, and that was something they all agreed upon, but Steve couldn't help but wonder just how much more the world planned on taking from him before finally giving him the life he longed to live. Only time would tell, and as they all knew, time could be an absolute bitch.