CHAPTER FORTY-ONE—December 2039

Bucky could tell Natasha was holding back, sliding condiments across the counter as they dressed four sandwiches: hers were for herself and Bruce, whenever the Council released him from questioning, and Bucky's were for himself and Tony, who Bucky had been recommended to look after the past week.

Natasha set the mayonnaise down with a thud.

"They're out for Tony's blood," she started quietly, matter-of-fact and cold in her precision. "At least Cushing is. T'Challa and Shuri tried to keep Sam's name out of that Namor business, but without explaining the wave, Wakanda couldn't get sanctions on Atlantis."

Bucky smeared even layers onto the bread.

"They want the weapon that destroyed the ships," Nat whispered.

Bucky continued with cold cuts. Then cheese. Then heaps of lettuce on Tony's and less on his.

Nat put a hand over his. "Do you understand?"

He slid his hand away to press the tops down and slice the sandwiches in half, grabbing fruit to add on the side.

"James?"

"Why would I need to understand it? I just do whatever I'm told, like a good little soldier." His voice was low and hard. He didn't look up at her.

Nat's dark, sly tone met his. "Someone's called you little?"

Bucky smirked but kept to his task. "When I left to sleep two days ago, he shouted at me 'on the next episode of Schroedinger's Kid!'" Bucky shrugged. "Apparently, I'm not supposed to know what that actually means."

Natasha passed the mustard, holding onto the bottle, forcing him to look up at her momentarily. "Look, Bruce is in there right now and he isn't trained like us, so if Council wants Tony or Lil'Sam—"

"They can get in line," Bucky snapped.

Heavy footsteps climbed the stairs across the room and soon Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson reached the landing.

"Boys," Nat popped, not a trace of her concern from a moment before. "How's that lovely lady of yours?"

Wilson strode over to lean on the countertop, face grim until he broke for a smile. "Danny is okay. She'd be better if that kid of hers would respond to calls and texts." He turned to Bucky. "You on the list, too?"

Bucky shook his head. The Sokovia Accords Enforcement Council could not officially interview James Buchanan Barnes. After Hydra entanglements were exposed in every major government throughout the world, taking S.H.E.I.L.D. down with it, he was thought of as the perfect scapegoat.

Quickly and obviously, the Council was wrong.

Hundreds of requests for interviews concerning what (Hydra) governments ordered the Winter Soldier to do which (Hydra) assassinations flooded in, and a USSR-exclusive pawn revealed a network of linked attacks between several dozen precarious sovereign nations. Wars could erupt all over the world if they knew what they'd done to each other, even under Hydra's influence. The US, and the SAEC in particular, realized interviewing the Barnes under oath was a land-mine-laden field no one dared tread.

The unspoken rule: don't ask about the past if you don't want to know. The trade: James Barnes will do whatever you ask in payment of undefined debts to society.

Bucky would remain in debt for the rest of his unnaturally long life. Steve, having fought to serve his country for most of his child- and adult-hood, never quite understood that burden.

"Sharon and I are up after Sam," Steve said. "I'm grabbing her a water."

Bucky tossed him the bottle closest which Steve caught with ease, offering a stoic nod.

Wilson leaned onto the countertop. "Why do they need us again? We weren't in the building when it happened."

Bucky huffed nostrils flaring.

"I think they're trying to witch-hunt Tony," Natasha answered. "Cushing doesn't have a real clue. Hill only explained the status of the ships, but I'm guessing he wants evidence that Tony never retired at all and has been hiding assets from Council." She wiggled the butter knife at Wilson. "And probably your brain thing."

"So…" Wilson mumbled, "nobody's gonna tell me the actual ship story till later?"

"She's not a weapon," Bucky grunted.

Nat cleared her throat, but Steve spoke up first. "Well, then they won't find evidence, will they? Because there was no machine." The words were chosen deliberately but gave no comfort.

Bucky scraped the plates off the counter. "I gotta go." He turned for the hallway behind him.

Wilson followed him out. "Hey—" he tapped Bucky's elbow to slow him "—I just…I hope Lil' comes back, man." His sincere brown eyes held no sarcasm.

For the last six days, Bucky had remained silent. He didn't make a fuss. He didn't push Tony for answers. He kept all his worry and disbelief and confusion jammed into the pit of his stomach, creating a sharp diamond of rage.

This unqualified gesture of support from Wilson was the first bestowed upon Bucky personally. Then Steve Rogers had to shove his perfectly punchable face around the corner, and he just couldn't take it anymore.

"Buck, I—"

"Do you know the last thing I said to her?" Bucky's face grew hot and irritated. He wanted to punch a bag, but he had to hold the plates straight.

Steve stalled mid-stride.

"'Save a dance for me.' Ring any bells?" The fruit rolled as Bucky vibrated.

His oldest friend's blue eyes widened under a furrowed brow.

Reopening that particular wound made Bucky's heart seize. Steve could finally understand the unfair, unworthy, unfinished pain coursing through his veins. They both knew war, knew the big-picture priorities of life, but to be alone…

These two knew that brutal loneliness could diminish all other experiences in life better than any others on this planet. They could finally be equals.

Wilson looked back and forth between the super-soldiers as Bucky took a breath and continued. "You've been giving me these lectures for months—years—oh, but now, not her. Of course! Did I tell you 'you can't have Peggy's niece?' 'It's wrong?' 'Think of all the history there?' 'The age?' No, not a word about it. What did I say to you?"

Steve froze, still struck dumb by the irony. Bucky could have throttled him, but the undertow of shame ripped back his temporary release. A vein snapped like a rubber band in his tense neck.

Before he could continue, however, Bruce rushing past.

"Guys, where's Nat? We have a problem. I think I messed up."

Bucky bowed out before his clenching fists could crack the plates.

'Whatever makes you happy,' he repeated the answer to himself all through the halls, but apparently, Steve—the self-righteous punk—only reciprocated that sentiment in fair-weather times.

One hundred and sixty hours since Samantha and Mistress disappeared, Tony had barely stopped. He watched all footage, scoured hundreds of documents, rewatched and reread.

Time is relative, he considered, so why aren't they back yet? That was the million-dollar question. That and what could hurt Sam?

Also, if something can hurt Sam, is Pepper ok?

And, if something can hurt both of them, can they come back at all?

Returning his tired eyes to the work screen, Tony shook his head. Fifteen years ago, Containment's live-feeds recorded and synced on approximately a fifteen-minute delay, so once the facility had blown up, the last fifteen minutes of security footage was lost.

Currently, all Tony had to show for his immersive, week-long bender was a single camera at Containment whose feed cut out nearly two minutes before the others.

The last synced frames of the broken camera though…look the same as Sam's flash signature, Tony thought, comparing the clip Bruce flagged from Wakanda months before.

"It does."

Tony startled.

Barnes stood behind him. "You're talking out loud again." The soldier handed the genius a sandwich and dutifully returned to a seat on the other side of the room.

"How long have you…"

Bucky shrugged, staring down at his food. "Thirty seconds."

Tony's stomach growled as the smell of the bread wafted up, but just when he bit through all the delicious layers, the workbench dinged behind him.

"Anthony," came Nat's voice, deliberate and flat.

Tony's back straightened. "Natalia?"

"Apologies for the interruption. Would you mind coming to the conference room? Hill would appreciate a word with you."

Tony swiveled the chair around with huge brown eyes and a lined face. His voice came disparately calm. "No problem, doll. I'm in the middle of shaving, so I'll be a few minutes."

"I'll let her know," she replied, ending the call.

"The British are coming." Tony, holding on to his sandwich in one hand, tossed the plate onto the bed. "We're getting the hell out of dodge. Right now."

Bucky watched Tony pack in a flurry around the room. "Agents are everywhere. They aren't gonna let you out of the building."

"Natasha being nice is code for 'shit has hit the fan. Run.' So we need to—grab those, right there—no. To 'da righ'. 'nd dat—" Tony let Bucky take the sandwich from his mouth "—and doggy bag those. This way!"

Tony rolled open the mirrored door to his closet, shoving his hanging pants aside. "I let her know you're with me—" he shot a glance back to Bucky "—doll. Hold your closet jokes, please…" After a gruff wipe of his hand down his shirt, he placed a palm on the back wall.

"Mens et manus," Tony barked.

Stark heaved his duffle over his shoulder, letting Barnes follow with cloth-wrapped food and a bag full of books down a concrete shaft barely passable as a hallway.

At the hall's end, a ladder moved up as they gripped a rung each. "Hands and feet inside the ride at all times."

Bucky marveled at the plain tunnel so out-of-character from Tony's usual style.

Tony said nothing directly to Barnes. He muttered out of context from racing thoughts, but he hadn't pieced it all together yet.

A hatch opened above them a few stories higher. Tony focused on tossing his bag out of it the instant his rung was high enough, and on the ground outside, tucked his feet beneath him to reach down to help Bucky.

No sarcasm, no jokes. Bucky's chest tightened further.

The calm, practiced expression on Tony's face triggered Bucky to think of why that hall existed. That was Tony's way out for his family, for Pepper and Sam if they were in danger. The way he reached back to help, Stark always planned to save someone, in any time, in any building. He planned their way to safety. If the roof were compromised, Bucky would put money down that there were at least two other exits only Tony knew about.

After clearing the hatch, the pair took up their bags again, Tony leading the way to the solar panels on the roof. Bucky mirrored Tony's crouched approach, unsure why until he heard the whir of helicopter blades. The air whisked around them, and still, Bucky could see nothing.

Tony lifted himself into a tan leather seat floating two and a half feet off the ground, again reaching back to take Bucky's cargo, ignoring the confused look.

As far as Bucky knew, no helicopters had ever been commissioned with reflective-panels and stealth technology, so the moments he spent getting his bearings in the luxury seat beside Tony were understandable.

The muttering continued. Finding he had not packed any in his duffle, Tony plucked out a spare pair of sunglasses from the console. He didn't coherently speak until they were high in the air.

"I'm approachable, right? I'm easy to talk to?"

Believing the question rhetorical, Bucky reclined stiffly into the leather.

"So why did my kid have to time-travel before anyone would tell me…anything?!" With agitated swipes on the panel between their seats, Tony pulled up the info he had abandoned from his workplace below.

"Did you know she asked Rhodey about joining the military?"

Bucky's head snapped towards the other seat.

Tony's white knuckles curled beneath the panel. "Yeah. Neither did I. Makes a whole lot more sense that she attempted some sort of attack—hell, why she weaponized herself—when someone tells you that."

"When was that," Bucky asked in a low tone.

"When she was lying in a hospital bed with half a body cast, and she didn't want to go to boarding school like I said she would. Kid would rather turn to your lot—" he sneered and motioned to Barnes "—than do what I say."

There was a pause before Tony muttered, "family trait," and swiped again. "Then there's this."

Bucky audibly sucked in the air.

The projection in front of them showed the hall outside the bowling alley, and Sam holding Bucky's face while they kissed.

"Stark, I wouldn't—" Bucky croaked, but he couldn't think of an explanation before Tony waved him off.

"Down, Chivalrous America. It's pretty clear who started it…" Tony snorted and swiped again. "We are an excitable breed. Billionaires, geniuses, playboy—girl—persons." He grimaced. "Unfortunate thing to inherit from good ol' Howard and me. Certainly explains Sommerson's bruised-ego vendetta. Had my share of those." He smacked the back of his hand on Barnes's chest. "Can't account for taste though."

All of Bucky's muscles remained tense. Of all of the ways Bucky thought Tony might react, this wasn't one he'd considered, especially once Tony breathed his final evaluation.

"Whatever brings her home," said exactly the same way Bucky remembered telling Steve 'whatever makes you happy.'

Silence descended while the helicopter soared through the cloud cover. Bucky unclenched his hands slowly, hoping Tony hadn't noticed anything while dreading the possibility that Tony, in fact, noticed everything. He focused his attention out the grey window, unable to see the ground or a hint of where they were heading, and his thoughts returned to the same sharp pit and the diamond of facetted questions.

"Here we go," Tony announced, interrupting Bucky's internal tailspin. The projection cleared. A string of light seared across the cabin with marked numbers around a loop.

Bucky swallowed against a dry throat. "What am I looking at?"

Tony traced the image in the air with his finger. "Our timeline, the one Strange chose, is…was in a knot. See—" he pointed to the first joining of strands "—it doesn't just cross once. It's twisted on top of itself in three places. Here, Sam moves me and the Benatar into Earth's orbit." He moved to the next point. "Here, Danvers and Thanos, and then—" Tony wouldn't even point at the last area "—she goes after Pepper."

"And then?"

"Well, the experience of time is different, so I don't know if there's another crossing. This is based on best guess for Samantha's specific existence, though she's not even alive until about here, so it's inextricably tied to mine and half of the universe's, give or take the other half because there should be infinite permutations—"

Bucky coughed. "What happened to her—them?"

Tony brought back up the flash caught on a Containment camera. He tucked his chin and mouth into his hand and stared. When he failed to respond, Barnes tried again.

"So…where are we going?"

Tony stared over the top of his sunglasses. "Do you know why it took eleven years to create the memorial garden?"

Bucky shook his head. From his look, Professor Tony was about to school him.

"Daniel Toshirushi, the architect, once told me this weird story about landscaping that site. He said there was one area where everything he planted just died. Special topsoil. Fertilizer. Didn't matter. Nothing grew. So he turned the area into a beautiful little amphitheater with plaques, statues—whole nine yards—"

Bucky blinked, anticipating a point of clarification.

"It's a radiation hotspot, or spot rather." Tony returned to his visuals, swiping away his knotted map to show various graphs before landing on a map of the gardens. The center of the amphitheater was marked with the little caution wheel. "Nothing in the red. Nothing dangerous to visiting crowds. Hell, none of it would even affect humans unless they stood for—" Tony swished a hand in the air to move himself on.

"Funny thing is the level—the radiation—it never deteriorated. Nearly fifteen years and the level is still the same, tiny fluctuations, but never less than. No half-life."

Bucky rubbed a temple, reminded how this family refused to simplify explanations for him.

"The absolute weirdest thing about it, you ask," Tony offered. "The convergence is twenty-three feet in the air. It's not an object. How can that be, you ask? Well, air can't hold radioactive particles in one place because it's just gas and physics tells us—you know, I can hear the rambling now and maybe my sandwich would help me focus."

Tony held out his hand for Bucky to oblige. "Anyway, twenty-three feet, you say? What's that about? Just so happens that is the original ground level when Containment was there, and the exact spot—" Tony pointed a finger at the caution wheel "—is the loading bay, Pepper's last known location."

He took a bite for dramatic effect. When Tony didn't receive the shock and awe he anticipated, he continued.

"I think we are seeing Sam's trail. The explosion or the Time Stone, energy is seeping through—which I could prove if Strange would answer my calls. I'm starting to see why people find that annoying." The genius munched on another large bite, satisfied for one brief moment by his findings.

Thirty years with Tony Stark and a few extra years with Howard allowed Bucky to read between the jokes. "Can we skip to the part that you don't want to say out loud?"

The swallow thumped through Tony's throat, and he put out a hand to preempt calm in Barnes. "Pepper went that day to supervise the Mind Stone. We got it back…to recreate Vision."

Bucky shot forward in his seat so fast that he kicked the bag of books over. "And this is the first I'm hearing about it—"

"Need-to-know basis," Tony offered, further pressing the hand. "The negotiations to bring that thing back…no wonder Cushing is up my ass."

"So. Why does that—"

"We know there was a massive, unexplained explosion," Tony yelled, "that left a slightly radioactive epicenter at a location that one Infinity Stone at least had to pass through. We also know a person carrying two other Infinity Stones was heading for another person at that exact same location." His voice shook even though his words tried to distance him from their meaning. "I think Sam used the green one and unwittingly crossed the blue and yellow in space-time."

Bucky let out an exasperated grunt.

"Think of their power! Even occupying the same space for just an instant…" He rocked back and forth in the leather seat, rubbing at his eyes. Tony took a long look out of his window, chest tight to control ragged breathing.

"I know what they do." Bucky had flashes of the Hydra weapons made from the Tesseract by Red Skull. Soldiers didn't just die from them; they ceased to exist. Bodies evaporated from the inside while the last shrivels of skin floated off like embers in the wind. He tried to force out the image of Sam dissolving the same way.

"Do you know what this means?" The question came softly from the opposite seat.

Tony, his tone notably more reserved, crossed his arms and let his chin rest against his chest. "It means…I always failed. I was always gonna be a terrible father. Sam was always gonna be this thing—" Bucky bristled at the phrase "—because I wouldn't be alive if she weren't. If Pep had been there, Sam would be a happy kid who would never—"

Tony covered his mouth. His eyes shut behind copper lenses.

There was that word again: if. It teased a happy ending, a life full of possibilities, a future their loved ones deserved. However, as far as Bucky could tell, the only fair use for it was 'if you stay away from us, you have a chance.'

"You mess with time," Tony whispered, "it tends to mess back."

Bucky could feel the plane decelerate in their approach to land. Since he could think of nothing else to say, he returned to the window.

Muffled sobs, faint as the thrum of propellers above, came from beside him.

Bucky's own soul cracked, acid churning in his empty stomach, and he instinctively overwrote the feeling by pressing his fingernails into the palm of his hand.

He was not hungry. He was starved, starved for control of his life, control of his sanity at times, and this moment made him feel as empty as being dragged, mortally-wounded, through the snow at the base of a mountain.

Tony mumbled something and pressed a button. His body reclined into an Iron Man suit building itself around him, and he disappeared into the floor. Bucky watched a brief flicker of hot-rod red zip through the last cloud cover and, once the helicopter breached the grey, watched Tony land at the edge of the amphitheater below.

"Calling Stephen Strange," F.R.I.D.A.Y flatly stated as the helicopter landed a few hundred feet away at the tree line.

Bucky moved to open the door but found his foot tangled in the strap of the book bag. Out poured Sam's notebooks and the yellow sleeve of her hoodie, the same bag she'd packed in the quinjet she and Tony were supposed to take to Alaska.

The call kept ringing.

Bucky flicked open the top notebook, huge red markings everywhere in Tony's chicken-scratch above Sam's orderly notes. Her father had circled page numbers and labeled them: longitude, latitude, and altitude. Tony had even found the reference, in the next notebook, that Bucky had once seen.

But not him.

Tony had circled it multiple times, but when Bucky looked at what came before it, he realized he'd assumed all wrong.

'I wish I didn't like him. I want to ignore it, but he's nice to me. If I was stronger, I'd get over it. Jeez, idiot, pick anybody! Anybody else but not him.'

Strange finally picked up the line. "Stark, I told you I don't have any inform—"

"Shut up. I know where she is. You ever been to the Containment Memorial site?"

Strange hesitated. "Is that where you are now? Is Samantha there?"

Bucky dropped the book and slid open the door. The wind took the rest of the words on the call. White flurries fell from a bright, blank sky as he hustled through the cold towards Tony. Patches of dormant and dead plants lay frosted over in the great circular pattern between beige-brick walkways.

With his helmet still closed, Tony's conversation remained secret to Bucky, until suddenly the gold and red split apart and screaming rang out.

"Samantha!"

"Is that gonna work?" Bucky watched broad metal shoulders shrug before cupping his hands around his mouth.

Over and over, Tony yelled Sam's name into the silent void. The snow sucked away any echo from the concrete. Bucky joined him, growing hoarse quickly from the drying wind.

As they paused for a breath, Strange appeared a flowerbed away.

"'Bout time." Tony turned, shoving his forearm up to engage an energy shield, a red flash appearing to warn him in the plane. Bucky heard him faintly gasp "oh shit" before the sky split and air exploded high above them.

Iron Man's boots clamped into the dirt, keeping him upright as the force pushed him backward.

Strange was steadied midair by his cloak.

Bucky wasn't so lucky. He went tumbling back until his stomach slammed into a bench rail, knocking the wind out of him.

Scrambling to return to his feet, he looked back to see Mistress holding Sam's hand as they dangled two stories above the ground. He began to run back.

She had no second arm, only a glowing red patch against her ash-covered shirt.

Sam dropped to the concrete, limp.

Mistress twitched violently, sharp, erratic thrusts from her boots easing her to the ground.

Tony regained his forward momentum in time to catch Pepper, wildly thrashing and hugely pregnant, as she fell out of Mistress's split open form.

"Honey—Pepper—I," Tony strained to compose his face and voice. He maneuvered her to the ground, looking up as Strange approached Samantha writhing on the ground.

A spell swirled at his hand.

"Barnes," Tony cried, unsure what Strange intended to do.

Bucky charged forward, tossing himself between Sam and the sorcerer, clutching her body to his.

Possessed by an unseen force, Sam's remaining arm curled around Bucky's back, lifted towards Strange until the tiny green jewel popped out of its snug band and flew into the waiting spell.

Her arm dropped, and her eyes snapped open, a thin clear ring of blue shining inside dark irises. Violent as slow-moving lava, her left arm rebuilt itself, Sam's face remaining sunken and flat.

Tony had to read Sam's lips through the snow, but Bucky heard her in his ear. "I know all their names."

Tony felt delicate fingers on his face. As he turned down, Pepper spoke his name as a question, her gaze darting furiously over his features. Then her own clutched in pain.

Tony yelled for the wizard. His heart raced and his ears buzzed with fear. He didn't know what words he even screamed, but the concrete beneath them glittered yellow, spreading open to let him and his wife collapse onto short, brown grass.

The towering campus of New York Headquarters appeared above them, along with a swarm of armed agents.

A familiar, burning glow rippled under Pepper's skin as they both cried out for help. Bucky, Sam, and Strange were nowhere to be seen.

A/N: so if anyone feels these chapters are getting too long/dense etc, please let me know. I love that stuff, but I don't want you guys to feel totally frustrated and confused (like poor Bucky rn). Anyway, comments and reviews always welcome, and thank you for reading!