They all stand on the platform, suited up and ready, in a circle. Steve looks around at everyone, determined, serious, and hopeful.

"Five years ago, we lost," he says. "All of us. We lost friends. We lost family." He then glances at Grace, remembering the night when Tony came back and Peter didn't, the weeks afterwards. "We lost a part of ourselves. Today, we have a chance to take it all back. You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the Stones, get them back. One round-trip each. No mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know, but that doesn't mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives... and we're gonna win." He and Tony look at each other. "Whatever it takes." Tony smiles, and Steve turns to the rest of the team. "Good luck."

They all step back to the outer edges of the round machine, preparing to go. Rocket looks up at Scott. "He's pretty good at that."

Scott agrees. "Right?"

"Alright, you heard the man," Tony says, then pointing at Bruce, who's outside the machine at the controls. "Stroke those keys, jolly green."

He does as Tony said. "Tractors engaged."

Rocket looks at Clint, referring to the space ship miniaturized by Scott's Ant-Man suit technology in Clint's hand. "You promise to bring that back in one piece, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Clint replies. "Okay. I'll do my best."

Rocket shakes his head. "As promises go, that was pretty lame."

"Ready?" Bruce says. Grace looks at Tony, smiling, and he can't help but smile back. Tony surveys the rest of the team, who are about as ready as they'll ever be.

He nods. "Let's get this show on the road."

Bruce hits a button, and they hear a beeping. From across the circle, Nat grins at Grace. "See you when I see you."

Grace laughs at her lame joke, once again admiring her handiwork on Nat's braided hair. "See you when I see you."

Above them, machinery begins to spin, and they put the helmets on their suits up, most looking vaguely like Ant-Man's, while Grace and Rhodey's resemble Iron Man's.

"You ready, Grace?" Sai asks.

"As I'll ever be," she replies. The floor then takes on a orange-yellow color, and Grace, excited yet nervous, steels herself and says, "For Narnia... and for Aslan."

In an instant, they're all sucked into floor, and Grace's stomach jumps, that rollercoaster feeling she can only remember experiencing once — before her Dad became Iron Man, when he took her on a little coaster, though it felt giant to her. She now feels as though she's getting smaller, and she vaguely wonders how Scott does this all the time. Colors and textures swim before her eyes, making her sick, so she closes them tightly, waiting for it to be over.

"Please don't throw up in here," Sai says, though Grace hardly hears her.

Finally, she lands in a half-destroyed New York, people's screams and Chitauri roaring filling her ears. In the distance, she also hears the roar of the Hulk.

Due to nanotech, Steve's suit transforms into his Captain America one from all those years ago, his shield coming with it. Grace's turns into Savior with the helmet down, while Scott's transforms to his Ant-Man suit, and Tony's, per the plan, becomes a Shield uniform.

"Alright, we all have our assignments," Steve says. "Two Stones uptown, one Stone down. Stay low. Keep an eye on the clock."

They all hearing a crashing sound and turn in time to watch the Hulk beat a Chitauri into the ground with a car. He then proceeds to throw a tire in rage, then jump up and down on top of the car before running off.

Grace watches him go. "Is it weird that I kind of miss him?"

Tony chuckles. "Honesty? Not really."

Then, she turns back to her father with a sigh. "Well, I guess I'm off to find Strange. I'll meet you back here with the Time Stone shortly."

"And remember, if you get here early, you stay-" Tony starts, but Grace cuts him off.

"Right here. I know. I won't be going anywhere else." She steps forward and hugs him. "I got this, Dad. Don't worry."

He sighs. "Okay. Be safe."

"You too," she replies, stepping back. Jokingly, she salutes Steve, then waves at Scott before taking off, her helmet going up as she does so.

"Alright, Sai, you got the location?" she asks.

Sai scoffs as a map of New York pops up in Grace's vision, directly over top of the real thing, with line running through it towards Strange's sanctum — or whatever it's called. "Do I have the location? What kind of question is that?"

"A reasonable one," Grace replies. "This is the fate of the universe we're talking about."

"Yeah, yeah."

They finally reach the location, in a mix of buildings within New York, further away from the Chitauri chaos. Grace lands on the roof, in front of a door. She starts to open it, putting her helmet down, but then, to her right, she hears a voice.

"I'd be careful going that way; we just had the floor's waxed." It's a woman, bald, dressed in yellow robes. She's standing on the other part of the roof, the one containing a sort of work station, filled with plants and bags of soil. She looks powerful, quietly, in her expression and stance, though non-threatening at present, and Grace decides that that's simply because she doesn't see Grace as enemy. Or least not one she has to worry about.

Grace walks around to meet her. "I'm, uh, I'm looking for Doctor Strange."

Her brow raises a little. "You're about... five years too early." She begins walking further away, towards the right edge of the roof, and Grace notices rounded scars on her head as she turns. "Stephen Strange is currently performing surgery about twenty blocks that way." She points in the direction she'd been walking, and now she turns back to Grace, and it's then that she see the necklace around the woman's neck, with a large, gold, intricate pendant hanging from it. "What do you want from him?"

Grace points to the necklace; Bruce and Tony had told her about it, described it detail. "That, actually."

The woman looks down at it. "Ah," she says, though she seems unsurprised. "I'm afraid not."

Grace's hope had been wavering when things stopped going as planned, but those words send it plummeting. This can't all be for nothing. She can't go back to having lost when knowing that she was so close to gaining it all back. She steps towards the woman. "Please," she says, feeling as though she's about to cry. "It's our only hope."

"To what?" the woman asks. "Save half the universe?" Grace doesn't even ask how she knows, only nods. It's only then that the woman seems sympathetic. "And I suppose getting your Peter back wouldn't hurt either?"

Grace stops, a bit surprised. "But how do you-?"

"I know many things," the woman replies. "Not all things, admittedly, but many. Like, for instance, I know that you're ten years old and in Malibu right now, away from all of this. I know that Peter Parker is eleven in his apartment in Queens, with his aunt and uncle, probably watching the news for glimpses of Iron Man, his hero."

Tears spring to Grace's eyes then, and she tries once more to appeal to this woman's humanity, which she already clearly has, with the gentle way she spoke of Peter. She must understand. She just needs to hear more.

"Well, did you know," Grace starts, "that I'm in love with him, and I don't think I ever won't be? And- And did you know that... my father thinks of him as a son, and he misses him just as much as I do? And did you know that there's a little girl, in the future, who has heard about him so many times that she knows his story forwards and backwards and wishes wholeheartedly that she could meet him because she never got the chance to? Did you know that he helped so many people, even the little guy, even some of the bad ones, for good reasons — for the best reasons?

"Did you know that, in the future, everyone left doesn't know what to do with themselves, doesn't even know how to go on, still, after five years?" The woman stays silent for so long that Grace prompts, "Well? Did you?"

She smiles a little, softly. "Let me show you something, Grace." She steps closer, then waits a moment for Grace, interested despite herself, to finally nod. And when she does, the woman pushes her right hand forward, at Grace's chest.

Grace feels like she's flying, as if the Hulk himself had pushed her, though it doesn't hurt so much as knock the breath out of her. And then she's outside herself, watching as her body, still in Savior, falls backwards slowly, though it finally hits the ground, albeit not hard. She's left standing there, wearing Nat's clothes, though she's halfway to translucent. A ghost.

She looks at the woman. "What...?"

The woman walks around her body and to her consciousness, talking gently in order to calm her. "Grace... I need you to understand."

~~~~

Space seemed even cooler the second time, to all of them, but especially to Nat. Nebula made sure to show her and Clint the controls of the ship, as they would be dropping off Nebula and Rhodey on Morag before heading to Vormir. Nat had been flying with Clint, and she was a bit sad when they made it to Morag because that meant her time in space was running out — but it also meant she was closer to bringing everyone back.

She, Clint, and Rhodey are now on the surface of Morag while Nebula is lowering a pod down from the ship. Rhodey is giving directions. "Alright. Bring it down low. Right on that line. That's it. Down, down."

"Hey, can we hurry it up?" Clint asks. Morag has become less and less cool the longer they've been there, especially with the weird little alien rats running around. Nat's kicked a few of them away.

"Guys, chop-chop," she says. "Come on. We're on a clock."

Rhodey turns. "All that is really helpful," he says sarcastically. Nat chuckles as Nebula finally gets the pod lowered, then exiting the ship.

They all make their way to the lowered stairs, and Nat hugs Rhodey. "Take care, okay?"

"Yeah," Rhodey replies. He pulls back. "Get that Stone and come back. No messing around."

Clint walks over to Rhodey. "Hey."

"We got this," Rhodey says.

"Let's get it done."

Rhodey nods. "Yes, sir."

Clint turns to the ship. "I'll see you when we get back."

As Nat and Clint walk onto the ship, Rhodey calls, "You guys watch each other's six." They look back and smile at him before the stairs retract and the door closes. The ship soon begins to start up and take off, Nebula having put in the location for Vormir beforehand.

Clint and Nat are quickly strap in, just before the ship starts going at warp speed. All the colors passing by get Nat excited again. Clint looks over at her. "We're a long way from Budapest." She just laughs. She hasn't felt this happy or excited in a long time.

And, for a moment, she thinks that it would still be ten times better if Grace were there. But, then again, Tony was right. She's much safer on Earth, with him, talking to Strange.

It's hard to imagine the elation she'll feel seeing not only Grace reunited with Peter, but Clint reunited with his family, Rocket reunited with his — the whole universe getting back what they've lost, not to mention getting back what she's lost herself.

She can't wait.

~~~~

Tony transforms his Shield uniform into the Iron Man suit, now outside Stark Tower, up in the air and looking in on the scene in the living area. He remembers this day quite well.

"Better hustle, Cap," he says. "Things look like they're just about wrapped up here."

Steve replies, "Got it. I'm approaching the elevator now."

Tony then flies over, right up to the window, as all the Avengers' backs are turned, facing Loki, who's on unconscious on the ground. They'd been posing for a good five minutes, waiting for him to wake up, and this was when he finally did.

Present Tony slips through a broken window and goes behind a wall, changing back into the Shield uniform before sneaking past the portion of the wall that was just bars — so if anyone was looking, they could see through it. He mentally critiques his design choices.

"If it's all the same to you," Loki said, "I'll have that drink now."

Past Tony replied, "Alright, get him on his feet. We can all stand around, posing up a storm later." He turned and began walking away, though he looked at past Steve. "By the way, feel free to clean up."

Present Tony watches as Cap turned, and he sighs and says quietly into comms, "Mr. Rogers, I almost forgot that that suit did nothing for your butt."

"No one asked you to look, Tony," Steve replies.

"It's ridiculous."

Scott, from his tiny position on Tony's shoulder, chimes in, "I think you look great, Cap. As far as I'm concerned, that's America's butt."

Tony just ignores him, his attention now on past Nat with Loki's scepter in her hands. "Who gets the, uh, magic wand?" she asked.

Past Steve replied, "Strike team's coming to secure it."

Then, the elevator next to present Tony beeps, and the doors begin to open. Tony quickly turns, walking around the wall and hiding behind another part of it, facing the bar. He sees past Nat giving the scepter to the Strike team.

"We can take that off your hands," the leader said, and present Tony believes his name was Sitwell.

"By all means," past Nat said, handing it off. Sitwell admired it for a moment, causing Nat to say, "Careful with that thing," as she walked off.

"Yeah, unless you want your mind erased," past Clint added, handing Nat a drink, "and not in a fun way."

Another Strike team guy, Rumlow, brought a large box out to put the scepter in, and he opened it then. "We promise to be careful." Sitwell gently set the scepter inside.

"Who are these guys?" Scott asks.

"They are SHIELD," Tony replies, then going back on that statement. "Well, actually Hydra, but we didn't know that yet."

Scott is surprised. "Seriously? You didn't? I mean... they look like bad guys."

"You're small, but you're talking loud," Tony replies.

Then, past Steve walked towards the elevator, holding down the comm in his ear. "On my way down to coordinate search and rescue."

Past Loki, not then in handcuffs, transformed into Steve as he passed, imitating him. "On my way down to coordinate search and rescue!" He turned back into himself. "I mean, honestly, how do you keep your food down-?"

Past Thor quieted him with a tired flick of the wrist, which produced a device that he slapped on Loki's mouth, preventing him from speaking. "Shut up," Thor said, then leading his brother away by the elbow, the other Avnegers following.

"Alright, you're up, little buddy," Tony says to Scott, his eyes on the case that past him is locking up, containing the Tessaract, the Stone Loki stole from Shield. "There's our Stone."

"Alright," Scott says. "Flick me."

Tony does so, seeing a speck flying towards the case, though it gets too far away to see anything more until there's clearly a small dot running up past him's arm. Carefully, present Tony backs up, tapping his chest before jumping out of the window, the suit forming around him to catch his fall. He flies off, coming to a stop outside.

"Alright, Cap, I got our scepter in the elevator just passing the eightieth floor," he says, tracking the elevator with the suit.

"On it," Steve replies. "Head to the lobby."

"Alright. I'll see you there."