I need to admit something. I do not understand how time travel works in the MCU. It is very, very confusing. I've tried to figure it out and I've done some research on it, and I still don't understand it. I'm not trying to throw shade at the writers and the directors, but come on, fam. They could have explained it better. That being said, I'm mostly just winging it at this point with the time traveling and making it up as I go along.

This chapter is for tonystark5ever on tumblr, because she's awesome and she helped me a lot with this chapter.

Chapter 2: All In

Carol Danvers did not enjoy time traveling as much as she expected. Her heart was racing and seemed to match the sudden throbbing in her head. It certainly didn't help that when she appeared out of thin air and right into Tony Stark's car, he screamed like a girl; loud and piercing.

"Who the fuck are you?" He asked, breath coming in rapid pants as though she had nearly given him a heart attack.

"I'm from the future." Carol gave a quick glance at the car display, informing her that she did not, in fact, come from the future. She didn't have time to explain branched timelines to this Alternate Timeline Tony, especially given the fact that she didn't quite understand the branched timelines herself. Life was a lot easier when she assumed there was only one timeline. She should have known better. There were infinite universes, so why wouldn't there be infinite timelines?

"You're from the future. Alright, well, I won't get into how I don't think that's possible. I need you to get out of my car." He reached over her and started to open her door, but her hand on his wrist stopped his movements. She looked at him for a moment. He looked so very much like the Tony she had known. He was handsome, and the air of arrogance surrounding him was really just a facade to hide his own self loathing. There had always been something that seemed broken in the Tony she knew, and there was that same sense of brokenness inside of this one.

She wanted to tell him he was doing great. She wanted to tell him he's the best damn superhero she's ever known. She wanted so badly to tell him that he had been the one to make time travel possible, and he was the one who saved the entire universe, but there wasn't enough time for her to explain that, either.

"I need to get you back to Pepper and Morgan."

"Pepper is right across the street. She's about to get married. Are you here for the wedding?"

Carol looked around, and she quickly realized that they were actually parked in front of a beautiful church somewhere in Manhattan. This Pepper was getting married and she didn't think it was to this Tony.

"No! No. I'm not here for the wedding. I'm here for you." Carol stole another glance at the clock. She didn't have much time left.

"Do you mind telling me who the hell Morgan is?"

Carol rubbed her forehead, "your daughter."

"I have a daughter? With who? Oh god. Are you here to tell me I'm the father of your child?" The panic on his face would be comical in any other situation. Right now, it only seemed to escalate her exasperation.

"No, you have a daughter with Pepper where I come from." Carol attempted to explain.

"Should I get you to a hospital?" He asked, concern crossing over his tired face. This Alternate Timeline Tony looked just as exhausted, if not more, than the Tony in her timeline had. She supposed it had something to do with this timeline's Pepper getting married to someone other than this Tony.

She shook her head, "no, I'm fine. Where I come from, you're married to Pepper and you have a five year old daughter with her. Your daughter's name is Morgan and you love her more than anything in the world. Well, you did at least. You're dead now. I'm trying to get you back to them. I need you to come with me."

He listened to her carefully, and he seemed to be taking the things she was telling him in stride.

"I can't. I wish that I could help you, but I've got things to take care of here."

Alternate Timeline Tony looked past her and across the street at the church again. Carol was almost surprised at how quickly she was able to assess the situation. This Tony was sitting in his car, outside the church where this Pepper was about to marry another man, and he was trying to decide between stopping the wedding or letting her go.

Well, this wasn't exactly what she had expected, but maybe it would be easy to talk this Tony into coming back to her timeline.

"Come with me and you can be with her."

He seemed to think it over for a moment before he spoke again, "I can't. There are people here who are counting on me for things I can't exactly explain. I just know that I can't leave."

Carol sighed and leaned her head back against the seat. Her head was still pounding and she took a deep, calming breath to fight the nausea that was getting worse by the second.

"How did you meet your Pepper?" She asked, looking out the tinted window of Tony's ridiculously expensive and utterly magnificent car.

She thought she could spot the bride-to-be inside the church. Perhaps she was just remembering the day Pepper and Tony from her own world had taken that last big step in their relationship. It was a small ceremony. She had attended it, accompanied by James, Nebula, Bruce, Harley and Natasha.

Natasha. It was best not to think of her in this moment. Perhaps even better to not mention her in front of this Tony. She couldn't know if they knew one another in this alternate timeline, but if he did, this definitely wouldn't be the time to mention that Natasha was dead in her version of reality.

"College. Well, at a frat party at NYU. I didn't go there, and neither did she. Pepper went to school at Columbia. She's brilliant. We dated for three years. It was hard and there was a lot of commuting between MIT and Columbia. Then we tried living together when we graduated, and I don't think I ever realized how difficult I was to live with until she left me. I had to live alone with myself for the first time in my life."

Carol listened to him intently. She thought about all the ways this Tony could fit into her Pepper's life. She turned her head once again towards the church; the sound of music coming through the open doors caught her attention. She watched as this alternate version of Pepper waited on the arm of a man Carol had never seen before, preparing to walk down the aisle to a new life.

Carol watched as this Pepper turned towards the open doors; her eyes scanning the outside of the church as though she was looking for something...or more likely, someone.

"Shit," Carol mumbled under her breath.

"What?" Alternate Timeline Tony asked.

Carol sighed a little, "you have to go, Tony. Before it's too late. She's looking for you. She's waiting on you to save her."

"I can't. I can't do that to her. She deserves to be happy."

"She will be, but she'll only be happy with you. I don't think you can help my Pepper, because your own Pepper needs you here."

Alternate Timeline Tony stared at her for a moment, waiting on her to stop him; to ask him to come back with her again. She wouldn't do that. She couldn't do it.

Carol wasn't quite sure why, but she felt uneasy in this timeline. She felt like there was a storm coming and if she squinted hard enough, she could see it on the horizon. She didn't think this timeline had much time left at all. That meant this Tony and this Pepper were on borrowed time. It was too late. She had wound up in one of the timelines Stephen and Nick tried to warn her about.

She couldn't push for this Tony to follow her. He didn't belong in her world. If this world was about to end, then this Tony and his Pepper deserved to spend the remainder of their lives together, even if that was only a few hours. Carol knew that she couldn't bring him back with her because he knew that something big was coming. He could feel it, too. If he went back to her timeline, he'd spend the rest of his days worrying about his Pepper and his friends.

There was an ache in her heart that felt something like guilt. She did feel guilty. She would be leaving this Tony here to die. She couldn't save him. She had already failed again.

Carol took another deep breath and pushed this Tony gently out the door of the car, and watched him run across the street with a small smile on her face.

The last thing she remembered was Tony shouting Pepper's name as he ran into the church.

When she awoke she was back in her own timeline. The rest of the team hovered over her and asked if she was okay before helping her to her feet.

"You're one minute late," Sam said.

"I had to talk that timeline's Tony into stopping that Pepper's wedding," Carol looked around as the other superheroes stared at her, wide-eyed and a million questions on the tips of their tongues.

"What the fu—" Quill started.

Carol cut him off, "I don't want to talk about it. He couldn't come back with me. I don't want to talk about that either." She made her way across the room for a bottle of water. She still had that unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Well, Bucky wasn't able to bring Tony back either. He died in the accident with his parents." Sam said.

"Come on, Sam! You could have at least mentioned it wasn't my fault this time!" Bucky whined. Actually, seeing the Winter Soldier whine was kind of adorable, and it brought a small smile to Carol's face.

Sam clearly did not think it was adorable, as he rolled his eyes before he spoke, "for the rest of this mission we're just going to assume, that unless I say something is specifically your fault — and you know how much I love to say that — it wasn't your fault."

Carol listened to them banter and closed her eyes for a moment. The throbbing pain in her head was starting to dissipate, leaving behind a dull ache.

"Captain Danvers, are you alright?" Stephen asked as he studied her face.

She opened her eyes and looked around the room at her friends' worried expressions, "It was...odd. I saw him there alive and well. I spoke with him and I knew that it was him, but it wasn't him. He told me that he couldn't leave his timeline because people were counting on him. I think that Thanos was coming. Something didn't feel right there. It was like I could feel that timeline slowly slipping away. I think he felt it, too. I...couldn't save him. Again."

Bruce Banner, who had been there to make sure everyone got safely to and from the timelines, took off his glasses and stepped away from the control panel. He looked exhausted and very, very stressed. She could understand that. All of their lives were in Bruce's hands, and he was flying solo without Tony there to help him.

"Captain, you weren't there to save him. You were there to bring him back. If he couldn't come with you, that's not something you can control. You said you think he knew Thanos was coming, right? Well, that Tony may not have been our Tony, but he's still Tony Stark. He would have never forgiven himself if he didn't at least try to save that world. You didn't fail."

Bruce took a brief pause and looked around the room, "none of you failed. It's not our place to save all of these timelines. I don't even know what would happen if they all co-existed with the main timeline indefinitely. If it feels like the timeline is ending, we need to let it. That doesn't mean any of you are failures. What you're trying to do here for Tony and his family is heroic enough. It has to be."

Everyone's attention was focused on Bruce. He usually didn't speak this much. He had retreated into himself since Natasha and Tony died; effectively closing himself off from the rest of the world.

"That was a pretty inspiring speech, doc, but I don't understand why we can't just go back to the battle and one of us can put the gauntlet on." Quill said.

"Because changing the past won't change the present. That's not how time travel works. I feel like I've explained this before."

Quill's face fell, "everything I thought I knew about time travel is a lie."

"This is why we have to attempt to bring him back from another timeline." Stephen explained.

Bruce nodded his head in agreement, "exactly."

"So we keep looking. Are we all good with that?" Sam asked.

Carol looked around the room again, but no one objected.

"Looks like we're all in. So, who's next?"