Back Before the Start of Us (on hold)

Ghosts from your past

Everyone had always said that Charlotte Barnes was the spitting image of her mother. And right now she looked more like her than ever. Her eyes were glowing red and she could feel something bubbling up inside of her, hot and angry. Angry at her stupid little sister for getting them all sent wherever the hell that machine had sent them, angry at—
She took a deep breath and forced the rage back down inside of her. She couldn't be angry at Immy. She was only 6 and was just playing around with something that she didn't know was dangerous. Once she had calmed down, she turned to the rest of the group who were still trying to untangle themselves from the ungracious heap they had landed in.
"Well, anyone else up for trying to find out where the hell we are?" she asked as Katia, Morgan and Noah all managed to pull themselves free.
"Yep I'm up for it as soon as Nate gets his stupid elbow off of my stomach. Dude you are so bony I'm surprised I haven't been impaled yet." Leo complained as he continued to try and remove himself from the knot of limbs.
"Yeah well I would be able to move if James wasn't sat on my legs. I can't feel my toes man!" Nate fired back.
"Okay okay I'm moving just, Kat could you come get Lena she's sat on my chest and won't get up." James replied with a wheeze as Lena made a sudden jolty movement from her place on top of him.
"Sure." Katia said as she removed her younger sister from her brother and then extracted Immy from the middle of the pileup too.
"My god guys this is worse than that giant game of twister we played at Nate's place." Tatum said from her place on the floor where she was stretched out comfortably several feet away from the mess of boys.

James shifted so he wasn't on Nate's legs and Nate removed his elbow from Leo's stomach - although not before using his elbow in Leo to help ease himself up which earned him a gruntled 'oof' and a sharp smack upside the head.
"Hey anyone else think this looks just like the training room at the shield compound?" Katia said at the boys were pulling each other up from the ground.
"Oh yeah hey you know what? It kinda does. Good spot little K!" Leo said, standing up and standing next to Katia.
In one swift movement, Katia had swept Leo's feet from under him and he was landing hard on the floor, palms out in front of him to stop his face from colliding with the ground. Thankfully, James had seen his sister's move coming from a mile away since he had been on the receiving end of her attacks since she had learned to walk and managed to slide a training mat under Leo before he hit the concrete.
A loud 'oof!' sounded from Leo as he hit the mat, relief clear on his face that he hadn't slammed into the floor.
"You call me that again and I'll make sure that next time James won't be there to put a mat in the way of you breaking your nose on the concrete." Katia said, stepping to the side as Leo hauled himself up off the ground.
"Whoo tough love Rogers." he said with a tight voice as he stood up and James moved the mat back to the wall where it had been propped up.
Morgan was stood laughing quietly at her friend's side and was just about to make an insulting remark about her brother when the bright fluorescent lights dimmed and a red light illuminated the room, flashing in tandem with a loud beeping alarm.

"Well shit. Our own fanfare. How regal." Nate quipped.
"What makes you think we set it off?" Noah asked as the alarm and the lights continued to flash and scream.
"Well haven't you noticed? Yes this room is almost exactly like the training room at the S.H.I.E.L.D compound, but it's a bit dated. The screens aren't the new model that Uncle Tony recently installed, they are from at least ten years ago. The punching bags are still full of sand, not the synthetic ones that Uncle Bruce specifically designed to make training easier and the prop weapons wall is not only smaller but the weapons are much less realistic and accurate than the ones Uncle Tony and Uncle Bruce developed around 15 years ago." Nate explained earning confused looks from everyone that he had actually spoken intelligent words.
"You think we've gone back in time?" Charlie inferred, sending a worried look around the group.
"Well we've all heard the stories right? About how our parents defeated Thanos?" Nate replied, looking around at the others' faces trying to find some shadow of understanding in their expressions.
"They got all of the stones before him by using a-" Katia started.
"-a time machine," Morgan finished, "you think that machine was a time machine and sent us back, when?"
"I don't know exactly but I do know that it's most likely waaaay before we were all born." Nate replied as the sound of pounding boots filled the hallway outside the door.