A/N: This story now has two betas! Blueowl is now checking my grammar and being a very nice wall to bounce ideas off of. Between Blueowl and Emerald2211, this story might actually be good writing wise.

Steve wasn't planning on going back to Stark's tower. He had a room back with Shield, and while he was planning on getting his own apartment (maybe in another city), there was no point to consider Stark's offer to stay.

Then they were fighting aliens from space and Bucky was alive.

Bucky was alive, had a metal arm, and a kid.

Somehow, waking up in the future was more believable than those three things in the same sentence.

The little girl telling them that Hydra was still around and had members in Shield was easier to deal with. When Steve first woke up he assumed that he got captured by Hydra, so it wasn't too big of a shock. He hoped it wasn't true, but he wasn't surprised. It was at least something familiar.

Bucky on the other hand...

He was different. Different from the sharply dressed lad from Brooklyn, but Steve realized that during the war. Steve thought after saving him from Red Skull that everything would be back to the way it was before. It wasn't it though. Bucky hardly smiled, which Steve shrugged off as the fact they were in war, but it was more than that. It was now Bucky refused to go into the medical tents and had one of the howling commandos fix him up instead. Steve always wanted to talk to him about it, but there was never time. They just never had the time to discover all that changed between them before...

His hair was longer. He walked differently. Steve kept trying to meet his eyes in hopes of recognizing something that was familiar, but his old friend mostly looked confused.

He didn't remember. It made sense, but it was just a punch to the gut every time Steve was reminded of that. However, there was something in Bucky that recognized Steve, and that was enough. His best friend was still there, and maybe now Steve will have time to learn what has changed.

Maybe he'll learn how Bucky had a kid while stuck with Hydra.

"Looks like your index and middle metacarpal had a clear break, and there is a hairline fracture in your middle phalanx on your ring finger," Bruce told me as he held the x-rays up to the lightbox.

"Good to know. I still don't think I need a cast though."

There were way too many people in the room. I didn't want to leave Bucky alone, so I had him come with me into the medical bay. However, Natasha apparently didn't feel comfortable leaving Bruce alone with us, so she came in, and Steve joined because... Bucky I assume. Tony, I had no idea why he was in the room. He probably just wanted in on the action, or thought that Clint and Thor were boring to talk to.

"Lani, you need to put something on it to keep it from moving until it heals. That is at least three weeks for a normal person."

"And I'll be healed by this time tomorrow. Can I just have a wrist guard so I don't mess it up while I sleep or something?"

Bruce looked like he was finally starting to get annoyed by my refusals, and looked to Bucky.

"Does she really heal that quickly?"

"I'm still here."

"Yes," Bucky said, and for a moment I wondered how he knew that.

It's not like I got injured much during our time together. At least, nothing that wasn't fixed by a reset. Unless Bucky was aware of how my training with Hydra ended up going most days, he really shouldn't know. Was he just trusting my words?

"Why don't you two compromise with little Lani here getting some wrapping, and then if it's not healed by tomorrow, you can put the cast on," Tony said, looking to Bruce first then to me.

It was nice they were at least letting me make my own decisions for the most part. I know how easy it would be to just force me into a cast, but Bruce has been very non-threatening this whole time.

"Sure," I agreed, since it wasn't like we were planning on staying the night, or even still be in this state come tomorrow.

Bruce wrapped my hand and wrist up in some blue gaze that was thicker than what Bucky used. By the end, I couldn't move my hand at all, which was the point.

"How's the pain?"

"I've had worse, but it's also no walk in the park."

"Any numbness or tingling?"

"No, I think my nerves are fine."

I've had nerve damage before and while it was extremely mild, it took years for that side of my face to feel completely normal.

Bruce came back over to me with a glass of water and some mysterious white pills.

"I'll give you some acetaminophen for now, but let me know if you still feel any pain or if it gets worse."

"Hell yeah, free drugs!" I said before I swallowed the pills, and almost choked because I forgot I had a tiny throat.

There is a reason why there are child-sized pills, and only 80% of that reason is because of the dosage.

"You didn't need to take it all at once."

I just glared at Bruce for a quick sec even though I wasn't really mad at him.

"Now that all that is done, want to check my lab now?" Tony asked and I hopped off the exam table.

"Hell yea- I mean, yes please."

Once in a lifetime chance.

Tony chuckled as he led us out of the room, Bucky right behind me along with Steve while Natasha and Bruce followed him. Unfortunately, just as we got to the elevator, Natasha spoke up.

"Barnes, can you tell me where all the Hydra bases you know of are?"

I stopped walking even as Tony continued.

"Yes. I could," Bucky replied evenly, his voice not betraying any thoughts he was having.

"Kid, are you coming?"

I pursed my lips as I realized what was happening.

"I don't think so. Sorry, but I don't trust any of you enough to leave Buddy alone with," I said, and it was clear that Bucky shared my thoughts, though the other way around.

Probably even more so since I knew these were the good guys. I just wasn't sure if they considered us to be the good guy as well.

Yeah, maybe we should just leave. Bucky might get mad at me if I pass out after apprating us to where we parked the bike, but this was obviously a bad idea. The promise of cool sci-fi like science isn't worth Bucky getting kidnapped by Hydra... or even Shield.

"Lani, it will only be for a little while and, I promise you, I won't let anything happen to Bucky. Not again," Steve told me as he squatted down to my level.

[Relationship level up]

[Steve Rogers friendship 1]

[Steve recognizes you are important to Bucky]

[Quest reward]

[Relationship level up]

[Relationship level up]

[Steve Rogers friendship 3]

[Steve will risk his life for you]

I closed my eyes and resisted the urge to groan. Of course, Steve would be willing to die for a friend at only level 3. His whole deal, for better or worse, is being able to do anything for a friend. And not even close friends, just friendly acquaintances.

Which in this case is very useful. Steve won't let anyone take Bucky. I'm just worried that there might not be a choice. But maybe I was being a little paranoid. There was just a huge alien battle. It should take them more than a few hours to be able to track us down, and like before, I really doubt they would do anything now.

Worst case I'll just reload, save Tony, and then leave after lunch like originally I planned.

"Okay," I said with way less resolve than I wanted.

Steve still smiled, gently patting me on the shoulder as he got up and looked to Natasha.

"We'll only be gone for a little while."

I'm not sure if Steve was telling me that or Natasha, or even Bucky.

"Don't do anything stupid, Lani," Bucky said, and I couldn't help but snort.

"Pot, meet kettle."

Bucky gave me an unamused look, but I saw the corner of his lip twitch. Dude was just trying to play it cool.

"Great. Jarvis? Have everyone meet up in the lounge once they are done," Tony said as he pressed the button to the elevator.

"Yes sir," the disembodied voice said.

Holy shit, it's Jarvis.

"Please tell me that is an AI," I said even though I knew the answer.

"Lani, meet Just a very intelligent system or Jarvis for short. Jarvis, meet Lani, aka our mysterious wannabe hacker from 2009."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Lani."

Holy shit.

"It's nice to meet you too, Jarvis!" I said, looking up at the speaker in the elevator.

I wonder if I could get a relationship thing with Jarvis.

[Quest: relationship thing with JARVIS]

[Form a relationship with the AI JARVIS]

[Reward: additional perks with each level up]

[Failure: none]

[Timelimit: none]

[ ] Accept

[ ] Decline

Finally, a fun quest that would be cool if I did it, but nothing bad would happen if I failed.

[x] Accept

When we got to the lab, Tony went ahead and gave me a pretty thorough tour of the place. Obviously, there was a lot he didn't tell me, like current projects he was working on, but I still felt overwhelmed with what he did show off.

"...And this is the particle accelerator I mentioned before. Used it over a year ago to make a new element to replace the palladium in my arc reactor," Tony said, tapping his chest over the glow unconsciously before looking back at me.

"Thanks for that tip-off about the palladium poisoning. How did you even figure that out by the way?"

"Oh, I was trying to figure out how your arc reactor works since the only thing you mentioned publicly was that it's a miniature version of the one powering your lab in Miami... before it exploded. Then I was thinking how the blue light reminded me of a nuclear reactor producing Cherenkov radiation but the fact you called it an arc reactor suggests that you are using some sort of electricity. Or at least electrons, which led me to thinking how palladium-107 beta decays into silver-107 and you might be able to use the electrons produced by that as a type of electrical cell.

"But you would need something to jump-start the beta decay and I wondered if you could use palladium-103 and capture the electron to produce a gamma ray which in turn would excite the palladium-107 and that would be an endless cycle between the two. But if that's how the arc reactor worked, you would have silver and rhodium leftover from the reactions.

"I don't know what rhodium does in the body but it's highly toxic on the skin and silver poisoning is bad and I read once that Palladium can cause the membrane of the mitochondria to disintegrate so that is also bad and... I was worried," I word vomited in an effort to make it look like I wasn't lying off my ass.

"You were worried," Tony repeated like that was the part he was concerned about.

I didn't really think that Tony would ever question my warnings. Though in my defense, I wasn't expecting to meet with him either. And I was curious in how the arc reactor worked, both this life and my past life. It was only a semi-lie, but I was well aware that with the right questions Tony will see through the holes in my narrative.

"Yeah, I was worried but you made a new element to replace it... right?" I asked before Tony could question me.

I don't think my whiplash speed talking really threw off Tony, but he seemed content to let me change the subject.

"Jarv, pull up the model for the Badassium."

"...Badassium," I repeated in a deadpan voice, and Tony just smiled smugly until a blue hologram materialized between us.

"Took a while to get that name, but it was either that or Starkium."

It was your classic Bohr Model, which was a little weird since I bet Tony could model something way more accurate, but then I noticed some of the symbols.

"Wait, is that a positron?" I asked when I saw the little β+ floating around where the electrons should be.

"Yep," Tony chirped, arms crossed and looking like a very smug cat.

"You made antimatter?"

Antimatter isn't that impossible. They made an antihydrogen in my past life before. You just used an antiproton instead of protons in the nucleus and positron instead of electrons in the electron cloud. Problem is it only lasts for a little bit because as soon as antimatter comes in contact with normal matter it annihilates each other. Kinda like how adding -1 to 1 gets you 0. The only reason why sciences before would know they succeed was because of the energy produced by the collections.

"Not quite. See, only the p-orbitals are positrons. The rest are electrons and the nucleus is made up of both protons, neutrons, and antiprotons."

"But what's keeping the matter/antimatter pairs from just annihilating each other?"

"Nothing. That's where all the power for this bad boy comes from."

Holy shit.

"Is it even an element if it's made out of matter and antimatter?"

"Probably not, but if it looks likes an element and works like an element..."

"Holy shit, that is so cool!"

This was just the type of theoretical physics BS that I was into before, and here it was right in front of me. In more ways than one, what with Tony and the model before me.

I lost track of how much time I spent just asking Tony any question that came to mind. Not that he seemed annoyed by all my questions.

"Sorry to interrupt, sir, but Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff, and Sergeant Barnes are done with their meeting and have been waiting for you for the past 90 minutes."

"Has it really been that long?"

So much for my 'only stay an hour' plan.

"Right, you're probably tired. I know I am. Been a long day, what with the alien invasion and almost dying... You know, you never did get around to explaining how you saved me."

I was hoping that Tony would have forgotten to ask until we left.

"Magic," I answered, walking back to the elevator even though I was not sure where we were heading in order to meet back up with Bucky and everyone else.

"Magic? I want to say that can't be, but unfortunately I have recently discovered magic is apparently a real thing that alien/god people can do. But really? You have teleporting into space and exploding giant flying alien magic?"

"I don't know for sure. I think it's like a personalized wormhole, though I can bring others with me if I touch them. Kinda works like apparition in Harry Potter in that I just need to visualize where I want to go and then I go. So, calling it magic is quicker." I said, ignoring the 'blowing up giant flying aliens' part of the question.

Sure, I could just be vague about my powers, but I just spent over an hour with the man talking about particle physics and I was in a talking mood. Besides, maybe Tony has a few ideas on how it really works.

"Aren't you a little young for those movies?"

"I don't know. I was talking about the books."

I was like 6 or 7 when I first started reading the series, so I didn't think it would be too weird for a kid my age to know it.

"I have all the movies, besides the last one since that isn't out yet. We could watch a few tonight if you want. A little thank you for saving me twice."

"Oh, thanks... but it's starting to get dark and I'm tired so I thought Bud-Bucky and I would just leave."

"You don't need to do that. I've been planning on making this into the Avenger tower, so there is plenty of room. In fact, I have enough space where the two of you could have your own floors for the night."

"That's really nice but... we really shouldn't," I tried persuading him.

I would love to stay, but already I felt like Bucky and I were pushing our luck. We need to leave before Hydra figures out we were here. If they don't already.

"Kid, I can't imagine what you have been through, but I promise that we will keep you safe here. I wasn't joking before; no one knows that you two are here. We aren't letting Shield know about you until we know who to trust. Hydra isn't going to find you. We won't let them," Tony said, looking oddly serious before cracking a small smile. "Besides, how is Bruce going to check on your hand tomorrow if you two just disappear on us?"

I wanted to roll my eyes at that last bit, but I was still wrestling between wanting to live every Avenger fanfic back in 2012, and not dying. Or worse.

"It's not me that I'm worried about."

"Well, I don't think our good old captain is going to let anything happen to your 'buddy' either. And if you stay the night, I'll show you some of my current projects in the morning."

That time I did roll my eyes.

"You can't keep bribing me with science."

"Better than blinding you with science," Tony joked, and I laughed despite the dumb reference.

A silence fell once we got into the elevator and started going up. Tony probably thought he won. Honestly, I was going to wait until I could talk about it with Bucky. It was getting a little too late for us to leave so that we could check into a motel in another city. Bucky could always just drive through the night, we have done that before, but he must be tired from fighting today.

"Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but the reason you are here is because of Steve right?" Tony asked suddenly.

I only gave him a nod before the man continued, staring at the closed door rather than me.

"And I didn't get a good look at that list you gave Natasha, but you must have been looking for people in Hydra for a while now. Years even?"

"Yeah?" I asked, having no idea where Tony was going with this.

"Right, so was... is the reason you knew about Obadiah because he was with them? That he was part of Hydra and you knew he would betray me because of that?"

"Oh."

I had no idea if Stane was part of Hydra. He could have been, but he also could have just been your usual greedy businessman. Still, here Tony was giving me a viable reason to know why Stane was a bad guy.

"I don't know if he was really with Hydra, but he had dealings with them. Like black market stuff," I said instead.

I did at the very least know that. Of course, I didn't find out until after I sent Tony my little message, but he doesn't need to know that part. It made sense that Hydra would be interested in Stark weapons, I just don't know if Stane even knew he was dealing with Hydra. I mean, if he was involved with Hydra then there might have been other members in SI, but I'm pretty sure Tony got rid of anyone who was loyal to Stane. Hopefully, that included any potential Hydra spies.

"Huh," was all Tony said, and a few moments later, there was a ding and the doors finally opened.

A/N: So the little 'he will now risk his life for you' is based off how in Persona 4 right off from level 1, your party members are willing to die for you. There is even an old comic by Hiimdaisy that is a nice abridged version of the game if you want to know more. Also sorry about the science I thew at you, but that did you expect when Tony and Lani were in a lab together?

This chapter broke last chapter's review/comment record by one review, therefore the new record is 29 for this site and 44 total for one chapter. Not to mention there are 351 favorites, 478 follows, 115 subscriptions, 240 kudos, and 81 bookmarks for this story. Like if you consider follows and subscriptions to be the same thing (which they are), that means 593 people read this story! That's a lot of people! Probably more since I know it took me a few years of reading fanfictions to cave and make an account. Thank you so much!

Super thanks to KyraKuran, Rosiekay, Roxycall18, the guest called 'Guest G', RedDragon395, the guest who loves this story sooooo much, Mitsuo the Universe jumper, The guest named 'Sabbie' (your review was so nice and you thinking this is just like watching a new Marvel movie is so amazing), Amir-015, CooKie-Chaan, The guest named 'Reader12', the guest named 'Fan' (you are very right about Lani giving Bucky heart attacks), Emerald2211, Cboylan, sephchipmunk, Drunken Hamster, Triflight, BlackDove WhiteDove, Death Fury, Goldenfightergirl, XenoLucifer, JoshDaDirt, Blueowl, kossboss, the guest named 'SunnySides', Inu-Angel Z, thanzintay.2000, Brunolmg, bojangles8894, and Nameless Angel 00 for taking the time to leave me a review.

I got a fun little end of the chapter question for you all: What superhero name would the public give Lani?