Back in time (Steve x Reader) Chapter 1

Back in time - Chapter 1


Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong. You felt blood dripping from a cut in your lip and your whole body felt sore. What had just happened?

You pushed yourself from the floor looking around you. Your room in Stark Tower was completely destroyed, a cloud of ashes rained down on you. You had only been here a week – since Fury had asked you to join the Avengers in the hunt for the remaining HYDRA agents – and now everything was gone.

You tried to stand up, but your legs were stuck under a part of the ceiling that had come down. You looked up, seeing a large hole, leading up to the blue sky – it was already morning. Through the smoke it was hard to see anything, but you were almost certain you could see helicopters flying away.

You coughed up blood, trying to wriggle yourself from underneath the heavy concrete.

‘Damn it!’ you cried out, still not able to move.

You wondered what had happened to the other parts of the tower and you could only imagine what had happened to the rest. You weren’t even really part of the team yet and everything was already falling apart. You still couldn’t figure out what exactly it was that had happened.

You remembered laying in your bed watching the late night news. You remembered hearing some noises outside, but you didn’t make much of it. You were born and raised in New York. You were used to all the noises. It probably was just a car crash or a drugs deal gone bad. Those sort of things happened all the time. It was nothing.

But it hadn’t been nothing. It hadn’t been nothing at all. Stark Tower had been attacked and the Avengers… you could only hope you weren’t the only survivor.

Tears streamed down your face as you screamed desperately in an attempt to pull your legs away. If someone didn’t come to your rescue, you would surely die. Maybe not of your injuries – you didn’t seem to have many – but surely of dehydration or hunger.

Somewhere far away you thought you heard a voice calling your name, but you could almost hear nothing. Your hair stuck to your face with the blood that had come from your ears.  The large explosion had probably perforated your eardrums.

‘[Name]!’ you heard again. ‘[Name], are you alright?’

You turned your head, seeing Steve standing in what was left of the door opening leading to your room. He held his hand in front of one of his eyes, blood dripping from his fingers. His other arm hung loosely next to his body, as if it had been dislocated from the shoulder.

Steve rushed over to you, kneeling beside you. ‘What happened?’ he asked you, scanning you with his good eye to see if you were alright.

‘Someone dropped a bomb on the tower!’ you screamed, but you still didn’t hear yourself.  ‘The ceiling,’ you pointed at the large piece of concrete on your legs, ‘it came down.’

Steve nodded, lowering his hand from his eye, revealing a large cut running from his forehead, through his eye all the way to his nose. Blood was still dripping out of it and you swallowed hard looking at his face.

‘I’m sorry,’ you mumbled, looking at him.

‘Don’t worry about it. I hope I have enough strength to pull you from underneath. Can you still feel your legs?’

You nodded, after which Steve placed his good hand underneath your arm pit and pulled you from underneath the piece of ceiling, all the while screaming in your ear. You didn’t mind. You couldn’t hear it anyway.

When you were finally free, you picked yourself off the floor. You wobbled on your feet for the first couple of seconds, but soon you had found your balance again. Your muscles ached and there was a large cut in your right thigh, but other than that, you were good to go.

You helped Steve put his shoulder back into its socket and made an improvised eye-patch, by ripping off your sleeve and tying it around his head.

‘We need to search for the others. The tower can collapse any minute, but I don’t want to walk out of here without at least trying to save them.’

Steve nodded. Your rooms had been closest to each other and on the top floor. The bomb would have hit you first. You figured the others would be just fine. That was, if it had only been one bomb…

You quickly made your way down, dropping yourself through the hole in your room, that led you to the hallway underneath. The whole floor was covered in dust and you could barely see a thing. Electricity wires were hanging from the ceiling, which itself was cracked all the way through. You could almost hear the wind coming through the cracks. It wouldn’t hold much longer.

This floor was Tony and Pepper’s private floor. You had never been here before, but it seemed Steve had, as he pulled you along with him, walking somewhere you could only guess.

A part of the upper floor had crashed through the ceiling, taking down half of this floor as well. You could only make it until the bedroom. The whole living room was gone, plunged into the streets of New York.

The bedroom door was still closed, but you could see rays of sunshine coming from underneath. You could only hope Tony had opened the blinds…

As you stepped in, you gasped, feeling a shot of pain going through your heart. Steve swallowed hard as you both looked at Tony’s bedroom. The whole outer wall was destroyed, the bed only holding on to the floor by a few inches. Tony was kneeling on the floor, holding Pepper’s lifeless body in his hands. A large wound on her forehead explained to you what had happened. He cradled her in his arms, holding her tightly against his chest.

You bit you lip trying not to cry, but the sight of Tony, holding the one person that was dearest to him, send shivers down your spine. You could only imagine how he felt.

‘Tony,’ Steve whispered, walking towards him and laying a hand over his shoulder. ‘We need to go.’

‘No,’ he cried. ‘I’m not leaving Pepper. I need to get her to a hospital. I need to…’

‘Tony…’ Steve swallowed hard. ‘Pepper is gone. We need to leave, now.’

Tony looked up to Steve, tears in his eyes. ‘No, I can save her…’

‘Tony…’ Steve started.

‘We need to find Fury,’ Tony said resolutely, pushing himself from the floor, carefully letting go of Pepper. He stroke the hair out of her face and kissed her forehead. ‘I will come back for you, my love.’

‘We don’t know if anyone else survived,’ you said, watching Tony walk out of the room, followed by Steve. ‘He could be dead for all we know.’

‘We need to find him. Alive or dead,’ Tony replied, pushing you out of the way. ‘I know who did this.’

‘What?’ Steve cried out, running after Tony as he made his way to the large hole in the floor. ‘What do you mean you know who did this?’

‘There is no time to explain. J.A.R.V.I.S. are you there? J.A.R.V.I.S?’ Tony lowered himself down to the next floor, not even waiting for you to follow him.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘The lower levels of the tower, are they still intact?’

‘Yes, sir. The electricity had been cut off, but the back-up generator is still functional. The south stairwell is also almost completely intact.’

‘Great,’ Tony mumbled to himself, as Steve helped you get down from the hole Tony had just carelessly lowered himself through. ‘What about casualties. Who are still alive? Can you perform a life function scan?’

‘Right away, sir.’

Steve and you ran after Tony, while he quickly made his way to the south stairwell.

‘Are you going to tell us what is going on? You are acting like it doesn’t matter that the rest might be dead,’ Steve said angrily.

‘Because it doesn’t!’ Tony cried out, turning to Steve. ‘All of this,’ Tony put his hands in the air and pointing at everything. ‘It wouldn’t have even happened if you had done what you were supposed to 75 years ago!’

‘What is that supposed to mean…’

‘Wake up, cap. This was HYDRA.’ Tony resumed his path to the south stairwell again, pulling the door to the stairs open and slamming it against the wall.

Steve turned to you, looking flustered. ‘But we have taken down most of HYDRA… How could they have had such a large bomb without us knowing about it.’

‘I don’t know,’ you sighed, laying your hand on his shoulder, ‘but we can’t leave Tony here like that. And the others…’

‘Sir, the results of the scan are in. I can only detect one other person with a pulse. Mister Fury is two floor down, leaning against his bedroom door. He is fatally wounded. I estimate that he only has three hours to live.’

‘Thank  you, J.A.R.V.I.S.’

You felt tears welling up in your eyes as you realized that Natasha, Clint and Bruce were all dead – even though it was hard to believe the hulk hadn’t come out (or maybe he had and he had disappeared). Your heart was racing in your chest as you followed Tony and Steve down two floors.

It was relatively easy to get to Fury’s room. A few pieces of concrete were blocking the way, but Steve was able to get them out of the way very easily. Fury actually smiled, seeing the three of you.

‘I never thought I’d say this,’ he panted, ‘but am I glad to see you…’

‘There is no time, Nick,’ Tony spoke. ‘The rest is dead. We need to start up the machine.’

‘They used it?’ Fury sighed, rubbing his eyes. ‘But I thought you said the machine wasn’t ready?’

‘We have no other choice.’

‘Wait a minute!’ you cried out. ‘What the hell is going on here? Who used what? And what machine?’

Steve nodded, backing you. ‘I think we have the right to know what’s going on.’

‘Pull me up, will you, cap,’ Fury told Steve. ‘We need to get to the basement first. Then we need to decide who of us is going in…’

Steve pulled Fury off the floor and helped him get to the stairwell. He continued talking while you were walking down to the basement.

‘We uncovered some old HYDRA files, dating back to the 1940’s. It talks about some sort of weapon of mass destruction.’

‘The Tesseract you mean,’ Steve cut in. ‘But what does that have to do with what happened here. The Tesseract is in Asgard. Besides, Schmidt couldn’t control the power without Zola. So, with Zola gone, HYDRA could never harness it’s powers.’

‘The Tesseract is in Asgard, yes,’ Fury continued, ‘but as much as Schmidt was a psychopath, he was not a fool. The Tesseract isn’t the only artifact that holds so much power. Loki’s scepter for one contains much of the same energy and power. We could never find out how much power it had, but Tony and Bruce figured that HYDRA did find out. The weapon of mass destruction that was in those files, was just a vessel for such an artifact. In fact created by your friend, doctor Erskine,’ Fury said, turning to Steve. ‘We have been trying for months to find a way to stop them from using the weapon, but as you can see, we weren’t very successful. That is why Tony and Bruce started working on something revolutionary. Something that is only theoretically possible and we couldn’t even hope to apprehend.’

You had reached the bottom floor and Tony led you into the basement, where his and Bruce’s lab/workplace was located. The lights flickered on, revealing the chaos that had also erupted here. Most of the equipment was broken and files and folders were laying everywhere. The only thing that didn’t seem broken was a strange looking cell standing at the back of the basement.

‘One of us needs to go back in time, find those files and destroy them before anyone can ever lay eyes on them again.’

A laugh welled from your throat as you looked at Tony, who seemed to be very serious. ‘Back in time? Are you talking about time travel? Are you insane? That’s impossible. Even in theory.’

Steve stood beside you, letting his good eye shift over Tony and Fury. ‘They’re serious, [Name]…’

You had stopped laughing, looking at the key Fury pulled from his neck and handed to Tony.

‘We’re very serious. We have succeeded in transporting items into the future. Books, pens, apples, even rats. We haven’t tried the past, but we… I mean, I assume that would be the same.’

‘One problem, how are we supposed to get back?’

‘That’s where the key is for. It activates the machine and by pressing this button,’ Tony showed you the little button on the key. ‘You should be able to come back.’

‘You… wait, you mean me?’ you mumbled, looking at Tony.

‘Fury is not gonna make it long enough to perform the task. I need to operate the machine, and Steve can’t go. He’s already there.’

‘What do you mean already there?’

Steve sighed. ‘He means to send you back into the 1940’s.’

‘1944 to be exact…’

Your heart started to race and you had trouble breathing. ‘I can’t do this.’

‘You have to,’ Fury said. ‘We’re all dead if you don’t.’

‘But what am I supposed to do!’

‘Get the file, destroy it, come back. Oh, and don’t get caught,' Tony said.

Tony walked over to the weird looking cell at the end of the room, putting the key into it and turning it around. The machine started making weird noises and a light flickered on inside. Tony pulled the key back out and handed it to you.

‘You are our only hope, [Name],’ Tony swallowed hard. ‘I wouldn’t ask you this if there was another way. I’m asking you to trust me.’

You nodded slowly, taking the key from his hands. You weren’t even part of the team yet and you were already handed the most important mission there was. Saving everyone’s life.

You looked up from the key and turned your head to Steve. He was standing over Fury, who had collapsed on the floor. Maybe Tony was right. If you didn’t try, you would be dead for sure. Maybe it was worth a shot.

You swallowed hard. ‘What do I do if they catch me?’

‘Just work your charms,’ Tony tried to reassure you. ‘Once the files are destroyed it doesn’t matter.’

‘I don’t have any charms...’

Tony sighed. ‘Well, that way they’ll at least know you’re not a spy. Female spies back then had a lot of charm.’

‘Okay,’ you whispered. ‘I’ll do it.’

You walked towards the cell and opened the heavy door. Inside, it smelt like metal. You had to suppress the overwhelming feeling to vomit. You quickly composed yourself and turned around, watching Steve close the door behind you. You could hear the squeaking of the metal wheel turning the door shut.

‘Steve…’ you mumbled from inside the machine. ‘If I don’t come back, tell my mother I love her.’

Steve swallowed hard, laying his hand against the glass. ‘You’re going to be fine, [Name]. I know I don’t exactly know you that well, but I have faith in you. We all have.’

‘Ready?’ Tony asked you, looking at you one last time. 'The machine will take you to the date, time and place Bruce and I thought the file would most likely be.'

You nodded. ‘Ready.’

Right when Tony pressed the button, for you to be send back in time, the ceiling came crashing down. You could see the fear in their eyes and the determinate look on Tony’s face as he held on to the button. After that there was nothing left but darkness.

You felt like the air was slammed out of your lungs as you imagined what had happened to Tony, Fury and Steve. Tears were streaming down your face as you were slamming your hands against the glass of the cell. You were screaming as loud as you could, but no one could hear. No one was left. They were all gone.



TO BE CONTINUED...