For dealing with an over time logic there is many ways to do it but in my opinion here in your case . it is more simple to execute it this way.
creating a component is more ideal way. super simple to create and add component to your actor it does it’s job and after that you can destroy it or keep it if you need it. Timeline component made by Epic it has its own use cases for sure.
and you can make your own component and you don’t have to use any CPP if you are more comfortable with BP
create a child from actor component a event with float input in it and add delay and connect that parameter to the delay node.
again not an efficient way to do it but it is simple and clean enough for now since you are prototyping i guess.
Cheers!