Seeker of Truth - Final Chapter(Avengers x Reader)

Seeker of Truth - Chapter 26: Changing the future


Within seconds the baron and his agents had found you again. You ran up the stairs, trying to get as much of a distance between you and them as possible. Before you knew it however the same man that had thrown you on the floor earlier, was standing in front of you. He slammed his hand in your stomach and you stumbled further, falling into the cold ground hard.

You quickly pushed yourself from the floor, seeing the baron coming closer to you. You knew you only had a few minutes left. After that you would no longer be in control of yourself. Maybe you should have told Steve about what had exactly happened, but then he would have definitely come to your rescue and the baron would have made you kill him… You had already lost Tony today. You couldn’t let more people die for you. No. This was where it stopped. This was where it ended.

You reached for the guns on your belt. You had accepted that you would have to die for so many others to live. You were sad that you didn’t get to spend the rest of your life with Steve. That you couldn’t be the friend that Natasha and Clint so badly needed. But it had to be done. It just had to. You could only hope your plan would work.

Your heart started to race as you realized your guns were gone. You looked up to the baron as he took his position at your feet.

‘Did you really think I would let you keep your guns?’ a laugh welled from his throat. ‘Do I look stupid to you?’

You shook your head, feeling the tears stream down your face. You had failed. They were all going to die…

‘Stand up,’ the baron ordered you and even though the device hadn’t turn back on again, you did as you were told. It didn’t matter anymore. You would soon dance to his every tune.

Your eyes locked on his while you were biting your lip. Your vision was blurry because of the continuous stream of tears, but you could still see the smock smile on his face. You would do anything - anything - if you could only wipe that smile from his face.

You closed your eyes and wiped the tears from your cheek. You tried to remember what it had felt like when Steve had finally kissed you after so many hours of hoping he would. The relief you felt when you had been able to save him. The soreness of your muscles after your first trainings with him and Natasha. The friendship you had with all of them. The look in Bruce’s eyes when he thought he had killed you and even that first feeling of realizing there was something different about you. You had felt it for as long as you could remember.

When you opened your eyes again, all the doubt had disappeared. If you couldn’t kill yourself here, you would have to do it somewhere else. A scream welled from your throat as an intense headache flooded your mind. You dropped to the floor, shaking and grabbing your head. The feeling had never been so intense before, but you had also never purposely tried to go back to the past.

You felt strong hands pulling you from the floor and dragging you away, but it was already too late. Your mind had wondered off.

Pictures flashed in front of your eyes. Everything you had ever done, even if you couldn’t remember anymore. All the happy moments and all the sad moments. You could even see your parents again. You had forgotten what they looked like. And even though they weren’t your real parents, you could still feel the love you had for them. They saved you. Or maybe they had only made it worse…

Your body was still shaking when you heard voices around you again.

‘Keep her still,’ someone cried out next to you. ‘We still need to put the last batch of the serum into her arm.’

‘She won’t hold much longer. According to the calculations she doesn’t even need the last batch.’

‘The baron insisted. Do you want to anger him?’

‘No…’

‘Then keep her still.’

You felt strong hands pushing you down into a metal table. You tried to move your arms, but they were strapped down. You opened your eyes slowly, getting blinded immediately by the bright lights. You turned your head, seeing a man in a white doctors uniform preparing a syringe. You slowly stopped shaking and turned your head to the other man. You gasped, realizing it was Ethan. He was several years younger, but it was definitely him.

‘Ethan…’ you mumbled, your voice nothing but a whisper.

He looked down to you, frowning. ‘How’d you…’

‘Listen,’ you whispered, quickly looking at the doctor again. Luckily he was still working on the syringe, ‘you have to help me. You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into. I know deep down you’re only trying to do the right thing. To make up for the mistakes you’ve made, but Ethan, this is not the right thing and you know it.’

Ethan swallowed hard, looking from you to the doctor. ‘I don’t understand. How do you know all of that, unless…’

You nodded. ‘Ethan, please. It’s not too late. Get out while you still can.’

‘Alright,’ the doctor said, turning to you again. He seemed flustered when he realized you were awake, but that didn’t stop him from trying to put the needle in your arm. ‘Hold her down, Ethan. This might be a little painful.’

‘No…’ Ethan mumbled, looking at you.

‘What did you say?’

‘No,’ Ethan said louder. ‘This is wrong. I came here because I thought you could help me atone for all that I have done, but this is wrong.’

The doctor nodded. ‘Have it your way.’ He took out a gun from his coat and shot Ethan in the shoulder, causing him to fall to the ground screaming.

The doctor placed a hand on your shoulder and pressed the needle into your skin, but before he could empty the syringe into your bloodstream you had broken your left arm out of the straps and punched him backwards. You quickly pulled the syringe from your skin and pulled your other arm of the metal table as well.

Before the doctor could compose himself, you had loosened all the other straps. You jumped off the table, helping Ethan get off the floor just as the doctor pulled himself up by the metal table, wiping the blood from underneath his nose. A small smile curled his lips.

‘Are you okay?’ you asked Ethan, looking at the large wound in his shoulder.

He nodded, pressing his hand against it. ‘I’ll be fine. We need to get you out of here.’

‘No,’ you replied. ‘You need to get out of here. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents will be here any minute, right?’

Ethan nodded again, looking at you confused, still not understanding how you could know that.

‘Give me your gun,’ you ordered him, as you kept an eye on the doctor. You thought he would have pulled out his gun again by now, but he hadn’t. He was just looking at you with great pride. ‘Give it,’ you told Ethan again, holding out your hand. He quickly did as he was told and handed you the gun. ‘Good. Now run as far away as you can. Go back to the city and search for the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. They could use men like you. It’s not too late, Ethan. Always remember that.’

He nodded, looking at the doctor a last time, before doing as you had told him. He ran away from you and out of the warehouse. You could only hope Ethan was the man you thought he had once been. At S.H.I.E.L.D. he would at least be able to do some good.

‘Where is everyone else,’ you hissed at the doctor, pointing the gun in his direction, ‘baron’

His typical laugh welled from his throat and a shiver went down your spine. ‘So it worked,’ he said, the same smock smile covering his face. ‘You are able to transport your conscious mind into your own future or past self.’

You nodded. ‘Yes, you’re a true genius,’ you replied. ‘That last batch. Was that meant to control me?’

The baron laughed again. ‘Yes, but I assume it didn’t work.’

‘No, it didn’t.’

‘You do realize you can’t change the future, do you?’ the baron smiled. ‘Whatever you do now, will only result in what you have already lived. You stopped me from putting the last batch into your bloodstream, with resulted in you not being under my control.’

‘You’re wrong,’ you hissed. ‘I’ve done it before. I can change what’s about to come.’

The baron nodded. ‘So you came here to kill me,’ he laughed again. ‘My dear girl, that won’t stop HYDRA. There are others like me.’

You snorted. ‘But there’s no one like me…’

The baron’s expression changed. ‘What do you mean?’

You smiled. ‘I assume you tried to recreate what you did with me, with others, but there are no others in the future, Strucker. Just me.’

‘No…’ he whispered. ‘That’s impossible. I would have…’

‘This ends here.’

‘No!’ the baron screamed, trying to stop you from what you were going to do next.

You pointed the gun at your own head and pulled the trigger. You felt the ground disappear underneath you, but when your body hit the ground, you were already gone, a smile curling your lips.

You had died.



***** ***** *****


You had been right. You were able to change the future.

After the baron had fled, two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents found your body laying in the warehouse, with no clue about what had happened. Ethan had listened to you and had gone to S.H.I.E.L.D. right away. He had explained everything that had happened and with his information they were able to find your real family and tell them what had happened to you after you had disappeared several months earlier.

Even though Fury was reluctant to let Ethan into S.H.I.E.L.D. at first – mostly because Ethan didn’t even know what organization he had been working for – he finally listened to a voice within himself that told him Ethan would be a valuable asset someday. After that first day at S.H.I.E.L.D. Ethan never went back to HYDRA. He became the man he had wanted to be, saving the lives of hundreds of people and atoning for what he had done in the past.

Your selfless act also had a great impact on the lives of the Avengers. Clint and Natasha always had the feeling they were missing a good friend, someone they could tell everything to without being judged. They found that friend in each other and for a while even started dating. They didn’t know where that would lead them and tried to hide it for everyone else. They hadn’t felt happier however, knowing that somewhere, someone had looked out for them.

Tony hadn’t died that day, because the baron hadn’t been waiting for you. He however always felt like he owed someone his life. A heavy burden was weighing on his heart, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Trying to get it off of his chest he invited the Avengers into Stark Tower, which from then on (amongst each other) would be known as the Avengers tower.

And then of course there was Steve… He would always think there was something missing in his life. At first he had blamed it on what had happened to him and the love he had lost with Peggy, but as time went by, he started to realize it was someone else he missed. Someone he loved even more than Peggy. Sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night and see your eyes staring at him from the shadows. He had no idea who you were and where he had seen you before, but he knew he loved you. He tried to find new love again, even dating agent Sharon Carter on and off, but he could never get you out of his head. Never.

You had been right. You were able to change the future. But you could never erase the footprints you had left behind. They would always miss you. Always