Why hello! Two updates in one week. Unheard of!
Well, it wasn't that uncommon a couple of years ago lol.
Anyway, only a couple of people to thank. kotono3, welcome to the fun. And p0mel0 and AliceCullen3 thanks for the review.
So...this is about to get a little bit interesting, and I've been on a roll writing too!
Enjoy
*EDIT* Sorry guys, not actually a new chapter. New chapter is back at 31 because it turns out, I missed a whole chapter when I uploaded. So jump back to 31 to see what I missed.
xo
Chapter 34
Whatever It Takes
Lex and Steve ran down the fire exit, leaping several steps at a time, Steve carrying the case containing the scepter as he ran.
"You think they stuffed it?" Lex asked as she looked over the side of the railing to see how many stairs they had left to go. She clenched her jaw when she saw they still had several floors to go.
"I don't know," Steve replied as he leapt down another five stairs with ease. Lex rolled her eyes, before deciding to leap over the railing. She dropped the five or six floors down to the bottom of the stair well, landing and rolling to prevent any injuries.
"Lex!" Steve hissed. "What if someone sees you?" He hurried down the last few stairs and gave her a warning glare.
"I knock them out and move on?" she suggested with a shrug and a smirk for the taller blonde as he drew level with her.
He narrowed his eyes and shook his head before opening the door to the back alley behind Stark Tower.
There they found Scott and Tony, looking exhausted and beat up.
"What the hell happened to you?" Lex asked, looking between the pair.
Tony ignored her and looked straight to Steve. "Sorry, buddy, we've got a problem."
Scott scoffed as he opened his helmet face and faced the pair. "Huh, yeah we do."
The duo explained the series of events that had caused them to leave empty-handed. Steve looked between the pair in silence, clearly thinking about how they could fix the problem.
"You lost the Tesseract, Loki got it and escaped? How the hell did that happen?" Lex exclaimed in exasperation as she rubbed her hands over her face.
"Well, what are we gonna do now? - You know what, give me a break, Super Widow. I just got hit in the head with a Hulk."
"You said that we had one shot. This, this was our shot it. It's shot. Six stones or nothing. Six stones or nothing," Scott began moaning, hunched over and breathing heavily.
"You're repeating yourself, you know that? You're repeating yourself," Tony scolded, looking at Scott in annoyance.
"You're repeating yourself. You're repeating yourself. - No! - Come on, you never wanted a time heist, you went on board with the time heist..." Scott retorted, raising his voice.
"Calm down!" Lex raised her voice, planting herself firmly between the two. "Before I calm you down permanently!" The two men looked at Lex in surprise, and she herself felt mild surprise. It was unlike her to put herself in the middle of something so juvenile. But they had more important things to consider.
Tony finally sighed and ran his hand through his hair. "I dropped the ball."
"You ruined the time heist," Scott muttered.
"Is that what I did?"
"Yeah!"
"Seriously?" Lex exclaimed, rounding on Scott with a glare that made him cringe and step back.
Steve finally stepped forward and spoke up, much to Lex's relief, handing her the case with the scepter. "Are there any other options with the Tesseract?"
"No, no, no. There's no other 's no do-overs. We're not going anywhere have one particle left. Each. That's it, alright? We use that... Bye, bye. You're not going home," Scott began to rant, pacing in the alley and kicking an empty bottle further down the alley.
"Yeah, well if we don't try, then no one else is going home, either."
Lex frowned, thinking about what she knew about the two organisations who had a hand in handling both the scepter and Tesseract. She didn't know much about SHIELD, lest for the information dump Natasha had done in 2014, but HYDRA had been on her tail for at least a century. Yet, there was little useful information she could supply right now.
Finally, Tony snapped his fingers. "I got it, there's another way. To retake the Tesseract and acquire new particles. We'll stroll down memory lane. Military installation, Garden State."
Lex raised her eyebrows at Tony, before glancing at Steve. "New Jersey?" He pressed his lips together and looked back at her, seeming to request her input. She shrugged. Any idea was a good idea at this point.
"When were they both there?" Steve asked curiously, looking back to Tony.
Tony's facial expression went blank for a moment, before he answered. "They were there at a...I've a vaguely exact idea."
Lex narrowed her eyes at Tony. "That literally makes no sense…"
"How vague?" Steve asked, ignoring Lex's comment.
"What are you talking about? Where are we going?" Scott demanded, moving to stand beside Steve as the two original Avengers looked at each other seriously.
"I know for a fact they were there..."
Lex looked between the two men with a bored expression on her face. This shit was getting old, fast.
"Who's they? What are we doing?" Scott demanded, apparently getting as frustrated as Lex was.
"And I know how I know," Tony said, smirking as he nodded to Steve, who looked determinedly back at his old friend.
"Guys, what's up? What is it?" Scott asked, looking expectantly at the pair.
"Well, it looks like we're improvising," Tony answered, beginning to walk away.
Lex folded her arms and looked seriously at Steve. "Are you at least going to let me in on the secret?"
"Right. What are we improvising?" Scott also asked, looking completely lost at what had just happened.
Tony turned and walked back towards them, taking the case from Lex and handed it to Scott. "Get this back to the compound. She comes with us, we might finally be able to put those good looks Cap was jabbering about, to use."
"Uh, come again?" Lex demanded, looking at Tony challengingly. He ignored her, walking to where their time jump suits were hidden. She looked to Steve, who motioned for her to leave Tony alone. She huffed slightly in response but said nothing more.
"Suit up," he ordered her as Tony handed her suit over.
"What's in New Jersey?" Scott asked as he stepped back from where they were now slipping into their suits.
"0-4, 0-4... - Uhh, 0-7."
"Really instilling confidence in me over here, Tony," Lex said as she finished zipping up her suit.
"0-7. Excuse me..." Steve demanded looking at Tony in disbelief.
"1-9-7-0," Tony corrected, motioning for the pair of Super Soldiers to correct their watches.
"Are you sure?" Scott asked, his voice containing all the concern that Lex felt. "Cap. Captain. Steve, sorry, America. Rogers. Look, if you do this, and this doesn't work, you're not coming back."
She didn't love this time travel crap as it was, but now they were going further back in time, where her existence might be more well known within HYDRA. It was a dangerous game for her alone. But they were risking everything for this now. If this didn't work, they were going to be stuck in the 1970s and could very well change the timeline they were about to enter. Not to mention it was not the most enjoyable time in history for women.
"Thanks for the pep talk, pissant," Tony said to Scott in annoyance. He looked straight at Steve with a determined expression. "You trust me?"
"I do."
"Do I get a say in this at all?" she asked finally, looking pointedly between the pair.
"Have at it," Tony said, looking at her expectantly.
She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath to calm down before addressing her concerns. "If we mess this up, we are stuck there. Fine for you two, well, sort of, but for me, its life or death. You both already know that HYDRA was active within SHIELD for years, from as far back as the late 40s. You could be basically handing me over to them if this goes wrong," she explained, looking between the two. "And I don't think we want a repeat of the Winter Soldier or worse, two going around causing trouble. You barely handled one." She looked straight at Steve as she spoke.
He stared straight back at her, and she could see the thought of what could happen as the different expressions passed over his face. Her life had certainly not gone the way she might have planned for it in the last ten years, but considering how she had ostracized herself from society for a time, she was happy with where she had arrived at. She had friends, she had purpose. There was still much she had yet to achieve in life now that she was actually experiencing it without fear of HYDRA, but none of this would have been possible if HYDRA had gotten their hands on her all those years ago, and she dreaded to think what they might achieve with both herself and Bucky at their disposal.
"That's a fair concern. We just make sure we don't mess it up this time," Tony said simply. He looked at Steve. "Your call."
Steve took a breath and nodded once. "Here we go."
Steve, Lex and Tony stood on the curb of the road as a car drove past noisily.
"Hey man! Make love, not war!" the man driving shouted out the window, a young woman draped across him. Steve raised his eyebrows as he watched the car disappear over a hill in the distance and disappear, although the sound of the car was still heard for a good few minutes.
He glanced at Lex, as she screwed up her nose in annoyance. "I forgot how bad premium fuel used to smell." She gagged slightly, before looking to Tony and Steve. He had to agree, obviously living in the year 2023 had meant they were all taking for granted how good technology was compared to their current present. Tony had managed to procure Lex and himself some military uniforms, while the billionaire was decked out in a suit with a briefcase.
"Clearly, you weren't actually born here, right?" Tony asked, looking to Steve as they all began walking towards the gates of the military base that sprawled for miles before them. The large gates loomed high above them.
"The idea of me was."
"You were still under ice, right?" Lex asked quietly, as she walked on Steve's other side.
"Right."
"Right. Well, imagine you're SHIELD, running a quasi-fascistic intelligence organization. Where do you hide it?"
"In plain sight."
"So, we sneak in, you get the Tesseract and we get the particles? How exactly?" Lex asked, eyeing off the soldiers who stood on guard duty as they slowly made their way towards the gate.
"No sneaking, here." Tony handed them each and ID card. "Little something I threw together while you were changing."
"How in the…" Steve murmured as he looked his ID over. He glanced at a soldier who marched by, their IDs were nearly identical lest for the face and name printed on it.
"You're welcome," Tony replied, smirking.
"Captain Stevens?" Lex mocked, glancing at Steve's ID. "Original, Tony. Well, let's get this over with. I take it I'm the assistant going by the short skirt and shitty rank?" Lex sneered, pinning her ID to her shirt pocket and straightening her hat. Steve looked at her rank slide and noted she was bestowed the rank of Corporal. As he appraised her uniform, he had to admit, the uniform suited her. Or, she suited it. If only her attitude suited it.
Tony ignored her passive aggressive undertone. "Now, you've got the ID, and don't be afraid to use those pins, I'm sure they'll knock a few fellas over," Tony joked, grinning.
"I'll knock you over in a minute," she muttered under her breath, earning her a warning look from Steve. He needed her to behave more than ever now.
The guards on the gate barely glanced at Steve and Lex's ID passes, but checked Tony's thoroughly, which was cause for concern to Steve. Clearly, security was lacking and now he could understand why HYDRA had their way with SHIELD so easily.
As they walked into the base, Steve couldn't help but notice how many men were stopping to stare at Lex, she was garnering a lot of attention. It made him increasingly nervous, and also slightly annoyed.
"Lex, are you okay?" Steve murmured in concern, pulling his cap down slightly as they headed for a building to the far left of the main military compound where Tony assured them that they would find the science wing.
"Fine, why?" she asked, looking at him with a nonplussed expression on her face.
"People are staring," Steve hissed, hoping Tony would catch their conversation.
"Lex, you need to drop back and walk behind Steve. This is the 1970s, women walking as equals with their superiors wasn't quite a thing yet…" Tony hissed, moving to stand closer to the pair.
"Ugh, I've already lived through this shit, do I really need to do this again?" she groaned, but slowed her pace and dropped behind Tony and Steve, albeit disgruntled.
Tony led them into the building and then onto an elevator, selecting two different floors as another woman entered the lift. Tony looked pointedly at Steve and Lex, who stood slightly behind him.
Steve could see the woman eyeing them off, looking each of them over skeptically. He didn't like it.
Finally, the elevator came to a stop and Tony moved to leave. "Good luck on your mission, Captain, Corporal."
"Good luck on your project, doctor," Steve replied as casually as possible, quick to look back to the numbers as the lights moved along to signify the floors they were passing by, doing his best to seem relaxed.
"You're new here?" the woman asked once the doors to the elevator had shut, smiling at Steve, although the smile never actually reached her eyes.
Steve nervously answered, careful to deepen his voice. "Not exactly." He glanced sideways to look at Lex, who looked completely relaxed and smiled back at the woman. The woman frowned slightly, looking them up and down again.
Steve was relieved when the elevator finally dinged again, signifying it was there floor. He nodded to the woman and moved to get off the elevator.
"Good day, ma'am," Lex said to the woman, her voice all smooth confidence, before she followed behind Steve.
"Uh, good luck."
Steve hurried down the corridor, Lex keeping pace with him easily, walking a step or two behind him as he made his way towards the labs Tony had directed him to find the Pym Particles.
"That was so smooth, Steve."
"Ssshh, someone might hear you," Steve retorted, grabbing her and pushing Lex into a room so he could regather his thoughts. He shut and locked the door behind them before he took a deep breath and looked around for a moment, moving to look out the window into the hallway outside. "How are we going to do this?"
She sat on the arm of a large couch positioned by the door of the office, crossing her arms with bored expression on her face. "Easy, get him out of the office, then we sneak in, take what we need, get out, get home and get this shit over with."
He looked at her dumbfounded for a moment. "You realise that is a hell of a lot easier said than done, right?"
"It really isn't," she retorted, rolling her eyes. "You really aren't any good at this espionage shit, are you?" She stood up again, muttering under her breath. "Tony should have put me in charge, not you." She moved towards the desk in the dark office they were in and began rummaging through the draws and files. "Here, extension 2458, Doctor Hank Pym."
Steve strode over to the desk to look at the paperwork she was pointing at. Sure enough, there was all Hank's details and even where his lab was located. "Alright, we should call him."
"Oh, you think?" she asked sarcastically. He narrowed his eyes at her but before he could even think of berating her, there was the sound of someone jangling keys outside the door.
"Come on," Lex moaned under her breath as they froze.
"Damn it," he said, going to grab her and looking around the room. There was no-where to hide.
Just as the door opened, Lex grabbed Steve by his shirt, spinning him around so he was now leaning back against the desk. She locked eyes with him. "Trust me." She pushed back against him, quickly crushing her lips to his and pressing her body against his own, stepping in between his legs so her body was completely flush against his.
He was reluctant at first, but he soon began to respond in kind, first with his lips as they began to follow her own movements against his, and then his arms, moving to rest his hands on her hips, just as the light was flicked on.
"Oh, dear god," came a voice. They split apart, Lex doing her best to look alarmed, while Steve really didn't need to try. His cheeks were pink as she jumped away and straightened her uniform, noting the rank slides on the intruding officer's shoulders.
"Sir," she murmured, as Steve stood up as well. He was a higher rank than the Lieutenant that had just walked in on them.
"Captain, sorry for…uh…"
Steve cleared his throat, straightening his own uniform up too. "It's quite alright, sorry for commandeering your office, Lieutenant."
"It's quite alright, Captain. I just needed to file some requisition forms. I'll be done quickly if you still needed it."
Lex was very careful to keep her face looking bashful, although she really wanted to burst out laughing at both officers' faces. Steve's look of utter shock that the other officer was so casual about what he had just seen, and the other officer's surprise at finding a superior doing such a thing in his office, no doubt. She was sure he had probably had his way in that office a few times, if the couch by the door was any indication. Ah the good old days, where officers having their way with non-commissioned female soldiers was seen to be a normal day's happening.
"No, no, that's quite alright. We will leave you to it, got some work to do."
"Alright, sir, sorry about that."
Steve began to stride from the office. "It's fine."
"Corporal." The Lieutenant eyed Lex as she began to move past him, a lecherous smile forming on his lips, earning a sneer in return from her as she moved past him and hurried after Steve. The 70s were really, quite revolting and she was glad she was hiding in the rocky ranges of Asia for most of it.
Steve was waiting outside the office and quickly grabbed her by the arm, leading her towards a phone at the other end of the corridor. "Are you insane?"
"I thought we established this already?" she replied with a smirk, before pulling her arm from his grasp. "What's wrong, Steve? Didn't enjoy little, old me?" she teased.
"That is not what I'm talking about," he hissed in annoyance. "What about Bucky?"
She furrowed her brow in confusion, feeling perturbed at his tone and the fact that he even brought Bucky into the conversation. What relevance was he to their current situation? "What about Bucky? I'm just doing a job, remember, whatever it takes?"
Steve stopped in front of the phone and looked at her incredulously. "Seriously?"
She shrugged, before nodding to the phone. "Seriously, let's get this done and have it out elsewhere, I really want to discuss your kissing skills and experience when we are less likely to get done for treason."
She swore she could hear Steve growl as he pressed the keys for Pym's extension.
He waited a few brief moments before he spoke again. "Hello. - Dr. Pym?"
"That would be the number that you called. Yes."
"This is Captain Stevens from have a package for you."
"Bring it up."
"Well, that's the thing, sir. We can't." Lex raised an eyebrow and smirked. He was getting good at lying on the run, although his facial expressions could still give him away if you really knew the guy.
"I'm confused. I thought that was your job."
"Well, it's just... Sir, the box is glowing and,to be honest, some of our mail guys aren't feeling that great."
There was a pause on the other side of the line. "They didn't open it, did they?"
"Yeah, they did. You better get down here."
The line went quiet before he hung up. The pair heard a commotion down the other side of the corridor and saw Pym, running down the hallway in his lab coat, shoving people out of his way.
Lex smirked as Steve pulled his cap down over his eyes further. "Nice work, Steve, you're really starting to come into your own for treachery."
"Shut up and move."
The pair hurried into Pym's lab, moving along the shelves until they found the vials of Pym Particles, both sighing in relief as they took as many vials as they needed, before slipping back out into the busy corridors.
Ooohhh... I'm an evil evil person...
xo
Krayzee