"Okay, so the how works. Now we have to figure out the where and the when," Steve said. The screens in front of us had different graphics pulled up to show all the things we were looking for. The stones' vessels.

"Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones," Steve continued, and I nodded to myself as I thought of all the times I had come across them. There were a few.

"Or," Tony interrupted from the other side of the screens, "substitute the word 'encounter' for 'damn near been killed' by one of the six Infinity Stones." That drew a small chuckled out of me, because that was very true for a few people in the room.

Scott spoke up from beside you. "I haven't... but I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about," he said.

I sighed. "Right, you're one of the few lucky ones in the room," I told him, giving him a pat on the shoulder.

"Regardless," Bruce (Hulk?) jumped in. "We only have enough Pym Particles for one round-trip each. And these stones have been in a lot of places throughout history."

"Our history. So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in, yeah?"

Clint, off to the side sporting his new look, joined in. "Which means we have to pick our targets."

Tony pointed at him. "Correct."

It all came full circle back to Cap. "So, let's start with the Aether. Thor, what do you know?"

Everyone's attention moved to Thor, sitting in the back corner with his shades on. When he didn't speak for a few seconds, Nat asked, "Is he asleep?"

"No, no, I'm pretty sure he's dead," came Rhodes sarcastic comment.

I let out a sigh and turned to Steve. "Is he the only one who's come in direct contact with that stone out of us?" I asked, hoping someone- anyone- else could jump in instead. Maybe one of our new space friends, Nebula or Rocket.

My hopes were dashed when Steve shook his head. "All right then, let's get him up."

"THOR!" Everyone's hands went to their ears as Bruce yelled.

As annoying as it was, it worked. Thor woke up, gasping and mumbling words. He looked around at everyone, seeing them all staring at him, then looked at the screen. "What?" he asked, genuinely confused.

"You got some wisdom to share on the Reality Stone?" I asked him, after having removed my hands from my ears. They were still ringing a bit.

A look of recognition crossed his face. "Ah! Yes, yes, I understand," he said as he got up fro his chair and went to the screen, now solely displaying information on the Reality Stone.

"Um, where to start, um..." he fumbled a bit, deciding to remove his sunglasses and focus on the problem. Gesturing to the screen with said sunglasses, he got his footing. "The Aether, firstly, is not a stone. Someone called it a stone before..." he said, pointing at Steve.

"Oh Jesus," I muttered, already seeing this was not going to be a smooth process.

Thor went on. "It's more of an angry sludge sort of thing... so someone's going to need to amend that..." I tilted my head to the side as Thor did something with his eye before getting back to the point. "... And stop saying that.

"Here's an interesting story though, about the Aether. My grandfather, many years ago had to hide the stones from the Dark Elves." He made a weird 'ooh' noise that had me sighing and putting my head in my hand.

"Scary being. So Jane, actually... oh there she is." I felt everyone's silent groan as an imagine of Jane Foster was brought up on the screen. I didn't know much about her, other than she and Thor used to be together before they broke up. Obviously, it didn't go well, if Thor's reaction had anything to say.

"Yeah, so Jane was- was an old flame of mine. You know, she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time and the Aether stuck itself inside her and she became very, very sick and so I had to take her to Asgard which is where I'm from and we had to try and fix her.

"We were dating at the time, you see and I got to introduce her to my...mother... who's dead..." When Thor started to talk about Asgard, I knew this wasn't going to be productive anymore. Rather, it was going to be extremely painful and awkward.

"Oh you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, so..." A grimace was on my face as I heard Thor stumble through the sad things. "Yes, these things happen though. You know? Nothing lasts forever. The only thing that-"

Tony, thank god, saved the day. "Why don't you come sit down."

"I'm not done yet." Thor waved off Tony and gave out his final word. "The only thing that is permanent in life is impermanence."

With a short applause, Tony finally got Thor to sit back down and end the awfully painful presentation. "Okay, what's up next?" I asked, looking over at Steve while Tony directed Thor to his chair with promise of a Bloody Mary.

Steve was going to reply, but Natasha beat him to the punch. "How about food? I'm starving," Nat said, hoping we could get back into a better atmosphere. Plus, we did need to eat food at some point.

I shrugged. "I could eat. How does Chinese sound?"

Nat was the one to stand up first. "Everyone text Rey what you want, we'll go out and grab it. We could all use a break from this," she said. The others nodded, mumbling things as Bruce retrieved the menu for the Chinese take-out place we frequented the most.

"Rey?" Nat asked.

"Sorry, I'm coming." I stood up with her and followed her out of the room. "I assume you know what you want and all?"

She nodded, and I pulled my phone out and wrote down her order.

"I'll grab the food if you don't mind driving?" I offered, knowing she wasn't as big of a fan of going out into places. She was always on edge, always getting looks from people. As if it was all her fault.

I had the luxury of not having a recognizable face anymore. People stopped caring about me a while ago.

"Sounds good," she said, and we got into her car in the garage.

The drive started off rather quiet, but I had thoughts that were begging to be set free. "I'm scared, Nat. Not the same scared that I felt when we faced Thanos, but I just... I can't seem to be calm."

"Anxiety does that to you," she said. I didn't respond right away, so she added on, "Talk to me."

I sighed, and then adjusted the way I sat in her car to be more comfortable, and I was facing her as best as I could. "You heard Tony when we talked to him at his cabin. I just... I can't help but think this isn't going to work out for all of us. That someone won't come back- maybe more than one! This is a risky mission. We're risking all of our lives and possibly the timeline trying to do this. Trying to pull this off."

Speaking the thoughts out loud finally allowed me to drop my shoulders some. The anxiety was still there, but at least it wasn't all weighing down as much anymore. Now I just hoped I wasn't pushing all of the weight to Nat instead.

Lucky for me, Nat smiled and looked at me briefly. "It's always gonna be part of the job, kiddo. We risk our lives for a living. But... I get it. This is definitely bigger than anything we've done before. I guess that's kind of the point. But you're allowed to feel that way. As long as you can still do your job."

I let out a short laugh, not able to put the humor in it. "I guess. And trust me, I'm always able to do my job."

We didn't speak for a few minutes, Nat moving her right hand to hold mine. My phone chimed and I ended up placing the order for the team in decent time. When we got to the place, I hopped out of the car and was able to grab all of the food and get back in.

The ride back took on a happier tone, considering the smell of food brought some joy to us. I let the others know the food was retrieved and we'd be back at the facility in no time.

We listened to music on the radio, some songs I had never heard and wouldn't care to ear again, but they did a good job of making us smile. My head bobbed along to the beat and Nat hummed along to a few of the songs.

It was such a shift from the drive away, and I felt bad for shifting it back to that depressing tone, but I had more. I wanted to try and keep it to myself, and it felt like that was going to work for a bit.

But then a few minutes out, I couldn't help the thought that came out. "Promise me something?" She hummed. "Whatever it was the Steve told Barnes all the time? Don't do anything stupid? Or at least try not to."

We pulled into the garage and Nat turned the car off. "You know I can't keep a promise like that."

"I know," I sighed. "But I can at least try."

"Then I'll try, too."

A/n: we're getting into the meat of this section :)