Collide (Steve Rogers)

Chapter 38

I drive Nat and Scott to Tony and Pepper's cabin and park the car in the driveway. I step out first and smile as I see Morgan and Tony. "UNCLE STEVE!" Morgan runs, bolting towards me and jumping into my arms. I lift her off of the ground and swing her around before kissing her cheek.

Nat and Scott follow me out of the car and towards the house. "Good to see you, Steve." "You too, Tony." We shake hands and I set Morgan down. "Maguna, go inside for a bit okay? Daddy needs to talk to Uncle Steve and his friends." Morgan nods and runs off inside while we sit down on the patio.

We then begin to explain to him why we came. Scott goes into detail about his plan and about the quantum realm. I watch as Tony sits quietly, ingesting all of the information and nodding along.

"Now, we know what it sounds like..." Scott starts but I interject.

"Tony, after everything you've seen, is anything really impossible?" I say, hope laced in my tone of voice. "Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition. Can we agree on that?" The three of us stare at him. No idea what he just said. "In Layman's terms, it means you're not coming home." Tony concludes.

"I did."

"No, you accidentally survived. It's a billion to one cosmic fluke. And now you wanna pull off a... What do you call it?" Tony asks. Scott smiles sheepishly, "A time heist?"

"Yeah, a time heist. Of course, why didn't we think of this before? Oh, because it's laughable? Because it's a pipedream?" I sigh as Tony shoots down the idea.

"The Stones are in the past. We can go back and get them." Scott tries to convince him but I knew Tony had already made up his mind. I knew he wanted Liv back too but he had too much to lose now.

"Tony, we can snap our own fingers. We can bring everyone back." Nat said, pleading with him to help. "Or screw it up worse than he already has, right?" Tony looked directly at me and I knew he was thinking about Morgan.

"I don't believe we would." I said. Did I mean that? I don't know. I didn't know anything about this time travel stuff. Just that I had a chance to see Liv again. Our child could be brought into this world.

"Gotta say, sometimes I miss that giddy optimism. However, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said time heist. I believe the most likely outcome would be our collective demise." Tony said, sitting back on the chair. "Not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel. That means no talking to our past selves, no betting on sporting events -"

"I'm gonna stop you right there, Scott. Are you seriously telling me that your plan to save the universe is based on Back To The Future?" Tony cut him off and raised his eyebrows. Scott looked embarrassed and mumbled a quick "no".

"Good. You had me worried there. Because that'd be horse shit. That's not how quantum physics works." Tony said, glancing from him back to me. "Nat, Scott, could I get a moment alone with Tony please?"

Nat nodded and pulled Scott up and towards the car. "Tony, we have to take a stand. We have to at least try." I said. "We did stand. And yet here we are. I know you lost Liv. I did too. But you know I've got a lot on the line. A wife. A daughter." He said. I looked down slightly. "Not just Liv was lost Tony. So many people lost their loved ones and we could have a chance to bring not only Liv back, but everyone back..."

Tony shook his head and Morgan ran outside and sat herself on his lap. "Tony, please consider it. Olivia was the love of my life. If it was Pepper on the other side..." I trailed off before sighing. "Just think about it, please." I pulled the pregnancy test out of my pocket and set it down on the table in front of him. "What is this?"