Steve's Diary

September 18, 2023

Dear Diary,

It took some convincing, but it eventually worked.

—————

Today's the day we test out the Pym Particles with Tony's new algorithm. Clint volunteered to do it because, well, I suppose he feels as though he has nothing left to lose.

"All right, Clint," Banner started. "We're going in three, two, one."

He left and within an instant he was back, screaming, on the ground, and clutching a baseball mitt.

Natasha and the rest o f us ran over to him to check and see if he was ok.

"Hey. Hey, look at me," she grabbed his face. "You okay?"

He stood up. "Yea... yea," he panted. "It worked," he showed her the mitt. "It worked," he threw it at Tony.

We all transferred to another room to discuss the game plan for our Time Heist.

"Okay, so, the how works," I surmised. "Now, we gotta figure out the when... and the where. Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter with at least one of the six Infinity Stones."

"Or, substitute the word 'encounter' for 'damn near been killed' by one of the six Infinity Stones," Tony added.

"Well, I haven't," Scott commented. "But, I don't even know hat the Hell you're all talking about."

"Regardless," Banner started. "We only have enough Pym Particles for one round-trip each. And these Stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history."

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

"Which means," Clint devised. "We have to pick our targets."

"Correct," Tony pointed at him.

"So," I began. "Let's start with the Aether. Thor, what do you know?"

We all looked over at him and waited. "Is he asleep?" Natasha asked.

"No, no," Rhodes replied. "I'm pretty sure he's dead."

So, we woke him up and projected the objective onto the screen: the Reality Stone.

"Uhm, where to start, uhm," he stumbled. "The Aether, firstly, is not a stone. Someone called it a stone before," he pointed at me. "Uh, it's more of an angry sludge sort of a thing, so, someone's gonna need to amend that and stop saying that... Here's an interesting story, though, about the Aether. My grandfather, many years ago had to hide the stone from the Dark Elves... ooh," he chuckled. "Scary beings. So, Jane, actually- oh, there she is," he pulled her up on the screen and pointed. "Yea, so Jane was an old flame of mine. Uh, you know, she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time and then 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, uh, 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 and, um," he started tearing up. "Oh, you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, so- yea, these things happen, though. You know? Nothing lasts forever. The only thing that-"

Tony stood and approached him. "Why don't you come sit down?"

"I'm not done yet," Thor argued. "The only thing that is permanent in life is impermanence," he chuckled.

Tony clapped. "Awesome. Eggs? Breakfast?"

"No," Thor replied. "I'd like a Bloody Mary."

We got him his Bloody Mary and sat him down at the table as Rocket gave the next session on another objective: the Power Stone.

"Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag," Rocket started.

"Is that a person?" Banner asked.

"No, Morag's a planet," Rocket corrected him harshly. "Quill was a person.

"Like, a planet?" Scott sounded shocked. "Like, in outer space?"

"Oh, look," Rocket mocked him. "It's like a little puppy, all happy and everything," he petted Scott's head. "Do you wanna go to space? You wanna go to space, puppy? I'll take you to space."

After Rocket was done making fun of an excited Scott, Nebula took over the next objective: the Soul Stone.

"Thanos found the soul stone on Vormir," she stated.

"What is Vormir?" Natasha asked, staking notes in the corner.

"A dominion of death," Nebula answered. "At the very center of celestial existence... it's where Thanos murdered my sister.

"Not it," Scott mumbled from the couch.

Natasha started next with the fourth objective: the Time Stone.

"That Time Stone guy," she began as she laid on the table.

"Doctor Strange," Banner jumped in from the side.

"Yea, what kind of doctor was he?" she wondered.

"Ear-nose-throat meets rabbit-from-hat," Tony joked, laying next to her.

"Nice place in the Village, though," Banner commented.

"Yea, on Sullivan Street?" Stark asked.

"Mmmm... Bleecker Street," Banner corrected.

"Wait, he lived in New York?" Natasha realized.

"Uh, yea, on Bleecker and Sullivan," he assured her.

"No, he lived in Toronto," Tony came in. "Have you been listening to anything?"

"Guys," she interrupted as I sat in the corner simply watching. "If you pick the right year, there are three stones in New York."

"Shut the front door," Banner sat up from the ground.

So, we reconvened in the room after hours of discussion and viewed the board stating all of our locations for Operation: Time Heist, including New York City, Morag, Vormir and Asgard.

"All right," I began. "We have a plan. Six stones, three teams, one shot... Five years ago, we lost- all of us. We lost friends. We lost family. 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."

We geared up in these new Team Suits and headed for the time machine.

"One round-trip each," I reminded everyone as we stood there waiting for Banner to hit the button. "No mistakes, no do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. That doesn't mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is there fight of our lives... and we're gonna win," Tony looked over at me and I met his eyes. "Whatever it takes. Good luck."

Rocket looked up at Scott. "He's pretty good at that," he commented as I walked off.

"Right?" he agreed.

"All right,"Tony started. "You heard the man. Stroke those keys, Jolly Green."

"Trackers engaged," Banner announced.

"You promise to bring that back in one piece, right?" Rocket asked Clint, regarding his space-ship.

"Yea, yea yea," Clint came back. "Okay, I'll do my best."

"As promises go, that was pretty lame," Rocket replied.

Banner came up and joined us all on the time machine and Natasha smiled at us all. "See you in a minute," she said.

—————

With that, we were all sucked into the machine and zoomed to our own locations. At first, it felt weird as we all went through together... like there was this incredible force pushing on all of us as we travelled through the time-space continuum.

Then, we separated and, as we each approached our locations, the force grew less and less until everything turned white, then black- until it all came into focus.

~ Steve Rogers