Tony stumbled as his surroundings changed from the Barton homestead to the conference room in the Avengers Compound, his stationary suit afloat right beside him.
Turning his head, he met the gaze of Steve and Natasha, who looked much more used to the rapid change in surroundings than he did.
"Why does he do that?"
"Because it's fun," was the reply from Pietro, who sat in one of the chairs at the table with a plate stacked high with sandwiches in front of him. "Also, I helped myself to your fridge. Don't you have anything there other than stuff for sandwiches?"
"They're the easiest thing to make," Tony replied, taking one and biting down only to grimace at the taste. "Seriously? Peanut butter, chicken and tuna?"
"Not for the taste, but for the protein."
"Peanut butter isn't needed."
"I'm not using that fat-free butter or anything lower than 40% fat spread butter," Pietro replied with a snort, drawing a smirk from Tony as he shrugged and put the sandwich back on the plate.
Ignoring the look of ire it drew from Pietro, he turned to the others in the room only to remember the problems that previously plagued them all as he and Steve stared at each other.
"Oh, come now, ladies. Just talk to each other, apologize and we can continue on with our lives," Natasha spoke with a roll of her eyes as she walked around the table, Pietro raising an eyebrow as the woman ate one of his sandwiches while taking another two.
"Didn't think someone would actually eat them with me. Also, she ain't wrong. Just get it over with."
"Easy to say when you weren't there."
"They're not wrong though, Tony," Steve countered, drawing his attention as the first superhero sighed. "I admit that I should have told you everything. Perhaps, if I did, everything may have turned out differently. For that, I'm sorry."
"Well, I suppose I was in the wrong, too."
"Tony, your arrogance is peeking its head again."
"You go back to eating whatever monstrous cooking disaster that one concocted, please."
"That one?" Pietro whispered, shaking his head as Natasha just shook hers while Tony turned back to Steve.
"Look, I shouldn't have let Ross box us into a corner nor should I have let my emotions stop me from seeing how Barnes was just a puppet being used by HYDRA at the time."
"No, you had every right to react the way you did. I could not blame you for that."
"Cap, please. Let me...let me talk," Steve smiled and nodded, Tony letting out a slow breath before continuing, "I know that with everything we said and di, our friendship may never return to what it was. So, let's forget about that and make a new one. Hello, Tony Stark. Billionaire and superhero."
"What?"
"Play along before I decide to go back to being angry with you," Tony replied and Steve looked at the outstretched hand before smiling and gripping it with a sharp nod.
"Steve Rogers, hero and friend to all."
"Friend to all?"
"I know. I want to cringe at it," Pietro whispered loudly, drawing simultaneous sighs from the two men as Nat giggled and took a final sandwich.
The speedster blinked as he looked at his empty plate and towards the spy, who gave a wink as she bit into the sandwich. To her surprise, the uneaten other half vanished from her hand and into Pietro's hand, who ate it with a smug smirk.
"I always get the last one. Also, glad to see that you two ladies made up. The sexual tension was beginning to get suffocating."
"You know, you're pretty talkative for a guy that shouldn't be revealing so much about our future."
"Eh, you'll come to learn that I'm not the secretive type," Pietro replied with a shrug, drawing a snort from Tony before the speedster turned his head.
The others turned to where he was looking at only to see empty air, but only the speedster could perceive the events happening.
It started out as a ripple, the vibrations of the empty air distorting before gold-orange sparks appeared. That caught everyone's attention, Steve and Nat preparing themselves while the Mark XLVII wrapped around Tony.
"Anyone we should know, Flash?"
"No, not for a few weeks, at least," Pietro murmured, rising from his seat as the sparks spread out with a spiral and formed a circular gateway of eldritch magic.
Out stepped two people only Pietro recognized and he frowned as Dr. Strange's eyes immediately locked onto him.
"You should not be here."
"Depends. Here as in alive or here as in at this point in time?"
"You know which one, Pietro."
"I do. Hey, Wong. Fancy seeing you here and not in Kamar-Taj."
"Am I suppose to know you?" Wong asked in genuine confusion, drawing a chuckle from Pietro as he waved his hand with a smirk.
"No, not in this timeline at least. So, Strange, given that you've arrived, I can only assume that I've massively altered the timeline?"
"Oh, 'massively' is an understatement," was Strange's reply, drawing a sigh from Pietro before Tony chimed in.
"Okay, gentlemen. For us that are very confused here, who are you, how do you and Pietro know each other, and how messed up is everything that we've planned so far?" Tony asked, stepping out of his suit again now that it has been established that there was no danger.
"I am Doctor Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts and Sorcerer Supreme. This is Wong, another Master of the Mystic Arts and a close friend. We are part of an organization that protects your reality from mystical threats, Start, or at least, we try to when timeline anomalies aren't busy raiding your refrigerator."
"Not an anomaly, according to the TVA."
"The who?" Strange asked, to which Pietro waved his hand dismissively.
"Oh, don't you worry, then. Can't have the timeline being erased."
"Oh, timeline erasure is the last of my concern. What you've just done is shatter almost a nigh-infinite number of possibilities and created an infinite number more."
"So, the future's still the same?"
"The near-future? Not in the slightest. The far future? We can worry about that if we survive the near-future."
"And what does the near future look like then, Doctor?" Steve asked, drawing a frown from Strange as Pietro narrowed his eyes.
"Unpredictable is the best way I can put it. Thanos still wishes to erase half of all life with the stones, but every path I saw is now no more than a blank slate."
"That's not good. We at least had a script to work with, but unpredictable just threw that script out andddddddd-"
'Well, if Thanos is going to attack the Asgardian space ship in three weeks, then perhaps...' Pietro had a thought in mind as golden-blue sparks danced along his body, time coming to a pause as he stepped out and ran towards the field outside the compound.
Looking up at the sky, he crouched down, taking shallow breaths while feeling out the vibrations around him.
'Think back to the Quantum Realm. Think of the flight and the sensation it brought,' Looking up at the sky, his feet sank a fraction of an inch into the ground as he pushed off the ground and lunged upwards.
Running along the vibrations that felt similar to that of the Quantum Realm, Pietro's form grew faster and faster until he was but a golden blur, shooting up through the clouds and into the higher levels of the atmosphere.
As he began to approach the higher levels, he began to vibrate himself to the vibrations of space itself. It felt immense, its slow, low, inaudible vibrations much deeper compared to the vibrant ones of the planet below.
Still, he kept altering his body, twisting and turning it as he pierced through the atmosphere and into space. That was when he was blinded by a bright light, squinting his eyes before grunting as he slammed into something solid.
'Wait, solid?' Pietro opened his eyes and pushed off of whatever he was on, but his eyes widened as he found himself staring at pale ground.
His body drifted up for a brief moment before he fell back towards the Moon's surface, turning his body and staring at the sight of Earth not too far away.
To his surprise, his body felt fine. There was no death from the radiation, extreme temperatures or even the vacuum, which confused the speedster as he clenched his hands.
'Could I always have done this? Or is this an effect from my being in the Quantum Realm?' he thought as he crouched down before shaking his head. He can think about that later.
For now, he needed to get back.
Picking up one of the rocks beside him, he tossed it and watched it slowly fall back into his hand, giving a nod before the golden-blue arcs of energy grew around his body once more.
With another lunge, he vanished, shooting through space and piercing back through the atmosphere of Earth again. The friction of entering Earth's atmosphere resulted in a massive blaze erupting around his body, but it ceased as Pietro came to a sudden stop and ran through the air in a wide circle.
Forming a tornado to put out the flames, he immediately ran in the other direction to nullify it, also deactivating his Super Form and instead dropping towards the ground.
At the last moment, he kicked off the air and ran forward, racing from his landing point at Everest and towards the Avengers Compound in the blink of an eye.
"-ddd left us with a clean slate to work with," Tony finished his sentence, but both he and everyone in the room winced at the strong stench of gunpowder and smoke clinging to Pietro's form.
The speedster was also standing in the doorway instead of where he was in front of Strange, drawing a frown from the sorcerer as the speedster spoke.
"Alright, I just found out that I can survive in space so what's going to happen is that I'm going to go get Thor and his spaceship, bring him back to Earth and then we'll continue our preparations."
"...I need a drink," Tony grumbled as he walked off, making Pietro chuckle before the speedster turned as Steve approached.
"Are you certain you can find him?"
"Almost certain, yeah. It's just going to take me a while to figure out exactly at what point in space he is."
"Then, we can't risk it. Tony, could you send out-"
"Steve, the kid can run in space. Run...in space. I don't have anything that can run even a fraction as fast as him," Tony replied, drawing a frown from Cap.
"Still, I kind of get what Cap means. It might take me a few minutes to find him or I might be stuck up there for weeks, which could result in me dying in the process."
"I believe it's best for you to stay on Earth," Strange spoke, drawing everyone's attention. "I will be divining the futures the moment I leave, but your help here on the planet would be much better than having you wander around in space."
"I suppose that's true. Fine, I'm going to stay here, but the moment Vision has that stone out of his head, you hide it in the same spot you're currently hiding the Time Stone."
"Uh, the thing's still around his neck."
"Illusion," Pietro replied, drawing a narrow-eyed stare from Tony as he turned to Strange who smirked.
"You crafty bastard."
"I am a sorcerer. Illusions are what we are good at. In the meantime, I shall see you all tomorrow."
"Sure thing and Wong, nice to meet you."
"The same to you all," Wong spoke with a bow of his head as Strange formed a portal, the two sorcerers walking through and closing it with a low pop.
"It's not even been an hour since I stopped being on the run and I've already grown tired of being back," Natasha spoke up, a look of utter exasperation on her face as Pietro chuckled and shrugged.
"That's something normal when you're around me. Speaking of which, anyone have dinner plans or can we just eat here and begin our plans?"
A/N: And this is where we end. Next chapter, we jump over to Thor and Hulk before jumping back.
As always, read, enjoy, review and until the next one...
Ba-Bye~!