Venus | James B. Barnes✔️

lxxvi. 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚝𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚜 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚋𝚎

EVELYN WANTED to say she was surprised to not find Tony in the house, but she would have been lying. She truly hoped Iron Man would grow a pair and realize that Steve and the others were ready to put the past behind them to bring everyone back. She grinned brightly when she walked into the kitchen to see Pepper and Morgan eating breakfast with the patriarch nowhere in sight. Pepper looked up with a smirk.

"Morning, Lynnie-dear," Pepper stated, sipping her coffee. "Tony wanted me to let you sleep in just for the fact that he wanted to make it to the compound before you."

Evelyn laughed. "'Course he would, the brat. I'll be on my way then."

Morgan frowned, her eyebrows furrowing in a way she had only seen Steve do once or twice. Evelyn made the face back at her. "Why the long face, shortie?"

Morgan huffed. "Daddy said he's getting my uncle back. Is he talking about Uncle Buck?"

Evelyn felt her heart grow warm at the fact that Tony did keep Morgan informed on who was family despite everything. Evelyn crouched to be Morgan's height. "Is that was your dad said? Well, then I better get a move on to go help him out."

"Is Daddy going to be okay?"

Evelyn smiled. "Of course. I'll make sure of it." Morgan narrowed her eyes, raising her pinky. Evelyn locked hers with the small girl's. "Pinky swear."

Pepper had tears in her eyes as she stood to hug Evelyn. "Be careful, sweetie. Tony was so excited to be able to help." When she was hugging the older woman, Pepper whispered in her ear, "He says he's doing it for everyone, but he's really doing it for you."

Evelyn squeezed the woman tighter. "Love you guys."

"Good luck!" Morgan yelled when Evelyn sent her a wink and left the house.

Putting the phone to her ear, she dialed Natasha's number. Natasha sounded hopeful for the first time as she greeted Evelyn with, "Where the hell are you, Evelyn!? We have the gang all here ready to get shit started."

Evelyn snorted a laugh. "Tell Tony he can suck my--"

"On speaker, dear. Get your ass over here!" Tony yelled cheekily. Evelyn found comfort in the familiar banter.

"Be there in twenty if I had a ride."

Tony chuckled. "Friday? Unlock 12C, autopilot to Compound."

Evelyn watched as a suit came out of nowhere from the house she was standing in front of. "No, Tone! No, no, no--" The suit attached itself to her giving the woman no room to argue as it blasted off toward the compound. "When I said ride, this is not what I meant!"

The call ended as she saw the compound coming into view ten minutes later. When she landed not-so-gracefully inside of the conference room in front of everyone, she immediately found a trash bin to vomit. Everyone grew silent as she retched, grimacing when she looked up to glare at Tony, the only one who was smirking at her.

"Wow," Rocket said, "you look like crap."

Evelyn gave the raccoon the finger as she leaned on the nearest wall. "You're lucky I made a pinky promise or your ass would be grass, Stark."

"Whatever you say, Barnes," Tony quipped back with a wink before pointing around the room. "Look, we found Barton."

Evelyn managed to feel less sick as she took a seat next to Scott, who awkwardly patted her back. "Hey, Clint."

Clint gave a nod of his head, but he said nothing else.

Steve let out an awkward laugh. "Okay, where were we?"

"I believe we were about to get Thor to explain the Reality Stone?" Rhodey said before looking over at him. "Though I doubt we'll get much out of him."

Evelyn grimaced at the sight of Thor. She knew everyone was taking this Thanos thing hard, but he looked awful. Finally glancing around the room at everyone else, her eyes widened at Bruce. "Jesus, Bruce! You and Hulk look cozy! I'm confused?"

Everyone laughed at her as Bruce simply shrugged and said, "These are confusing times."

Evelyn listened intently as Steve and Tony directed the Avengers to understand when and where each stone was brought up in their lives in the past decade. The Mind Stone was all over the place, starting in Loki's scepter and ending in Vision's head. The Soul Stone was on a planet called Vormir where Thanos killed Gamora. The Time Stone was kept in the Sanctum Santorium protected by the Sorceror Supreme. The Space Stone was all over their time being that they knew the stone as the Tesseract going all the way back to the 40s to when it was back on Asgard in Odin's treasure room. The Power Stone was found by Star-Lord on a planet called Morag, but then they gave it to Xandar to keep it safe (lots of good that did!). And finally, the Reality Stone was released by Thor's ex-girlfriend Jane when it sucked itself inside of her (because it was an 'angry sludge thing' as Thor called it). The Asgardians gave it to the Collector on Knowhere after managing to get it out of Jane.

They managed to figure out that three of the stones would be in New York in 2012--Space, Time, and Mind. In 2013, the Reality Stone would be on Asgard. In 2014, the Power Stone was in one part of space while the Soul was in another. It was brilliant.

When they practiced using the Quantum suits, Clint volunteered to try it, truly having nothing left to lose. Evelyn walked over to the settings, seeing what the geniuses in the room had come up with. Clint smirked over her way. "I hope you know what you're doing, Barnes. I'm trusting you with my life here." And then he was gone and back in no less than five seconds holding a baseball glove almost in tears while Natasha helped him stand. "It worked."

They all cheered, deciding to call it a night due to everyone being exhausted. "Get some rest. First thing in the morning, we'll go get the stones," Steve ordered. Everyone began walking off to do their own thing in the compound, all excited for what would come with getting everyone back.

Evelyn noticed Thor sitting alone in the kitchen with a beer in his hand. She cautiously made her way over to him. "Hey, Thor," she whispered, hoping not to startle him but causing him to jump anyway. "It's just me."

"Lady Stark," he greeted quietly.

"Evelyn," she corrected him with a small smile. "How... How is New Asgard holding up?" she decided to ask instead of asking how he was. She knew it would have been a dumb question.

"I... I think well. As well as it can be, I suppose," he said dryly while taking a swig of his drink. "And you? How are you?"

"I miss him," she whispered, "but that is every day. I already did my raging and acting out. Now, I have to keep moving forward whether this works or not. We just have to deal with the cards we were given from now on. After we run out of Pym Particles, there is no changing it without Pym himself, so... so I'm really hoping this works."

Thor could see the distress on Evelyn's face at the thought of it not working. He knew he had no one left in his family, but he saw he was not alone. "I thought I had lost everything, Lady Evelyn, but I should have remembered my family here."

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it softly. Evelyn nodded. "We would have been there for you. Always." She stood up. "Get some proper rest. Stop drinking so much, too." Thor snorted a laugh, chugging the rest of his beer while smirking. "I'll take that as your last one." His laughter echoed over the halls as she turned to walk to her room with a smile on her lips.