Chapter Twenty - Returning The Stones

                                    

                                          
With the funeral over, there was little to be said now. It had been as expected but it was one day that had finished. The next day life had to continue and they all had to fix what they had broken in the past. Maria had had everything explained by Bruce. She had demanded to know what had occurred with her plan and learnt that they had to return each of the stones to where they had come from. This information had come to her a few days after her father's funeral and ever since Maria had been helping Bruce with getting the stones back to their rightful states. When they had collected the stones they had come in various forms (inside cubes of alien making, inside spectres, as a liquid) and now they had to all be put back into those states. 
                          
After some fiddling and brain scratching, Bruce and Maria had managed to get the stones back into their original forms. The Reality Stone was once more a liquid that was in a syringe to be re-injected into Jane Foster on Asgard; the Space Stone was once more inside the Tesseract, glowing a luminous blue; the Mind Stone was back inside the head of Loki's Spectre where it had resided for years hidden; the Power Stone had been placed back inside the metal orb that had concealed it; the Time Stone and Soul Stone had come as stones and so nothing had had to be done to return them to what they were.
                          
With them all ready, the journey back in time was to be done. Maria wasn't sure exactly what such a journey would entail but she was aware that it had to be done and that she had to take the journey herself. However, Bruce had other ideas. Overhearing a conversation between Bruce and other members of the team, Maria had discovered that Steve was the one who was to make the journey into the passed with the stones. A fact that perturbed Maria. She just had a feeling that this fact, that Steve being the one to go into the past, would lead to something else ... another loss.
                          
With all the stones set, Bruce had contacted the necessary people who could remake the Quantum Tunnel. They had managed to decrease the size of the machine creating a much smaller platform designed for a max of three travellers at once - though there was never to be that many travellers after all, the Tunnel was to be destroyed after its use. Maria had added in her penny's worth in discussions stating that different companies would be given different parts to build so that no one company knew how to build anything - much the same way the First Tunnel was built. Despite Tony having a top tech company he still knew it was imperative to send different parts of the design to different companies but he left the more intricate and tougher details to his own company- he even sent out decoys, plans that were not used in the actual Quantum Tunnel so that if anyone tried to rebuild it they would have some incorrect or unnecessary parts. Then there was the navigation devices Tony made himself which Maria had had to replicate using his frantic and unclear notes.
                          
Surprisingly, the Quantum Thnnel was completed within a matter of weeks and Maria had the devices and Timesuits built as well - the First lot had been lost in the destruction of the Avengers' Compound.  With everything ready, the day had come to travel back. Bruce had decided to set everything up in the small woodland that had been just beyond the Compound. The platform was ready for use, with four large poles coming out of the platform, glowing a soft red. 
                          
In the small woodland area, Bruce had set up the computers he needed to use the Tunnel whilst Sam and Bucky were stood to the side. They had come as moral support for Steve. It was strange how they had formed such strong bonds, Steve held an old friendship with Bucky but a new and solid friendship with Sam. Though Bucky and Sam were still learning about each other, still building a friendship, they were a tight knit group of three. That threatened to become two.
                          
Maria had had Happy drop her off at the Compound with a small suitcase in her hand. Inside the case were the much needed Time-Space GPSs. She had only created two knowing that no more would be needed. As Maria made it across the browning grass towards the collection of cars and machinery she found her heart speeding up, she was about to travel through space and time. She wasn't sure how she felt about that exactly. But she had no time to debate the issue.