Hey everyone, I got another chapter done. Two days in a row lets see how long I can keep this up. Any way just a heads up some parts of this chapter get a bit disturbing, blame it on watching American Horror Story in the background while writing this chapter. Writing the end of this chapter made me want to cry while writing it and chances are you're going to hate me after reading it. On the plus side it one of the longest chapters I've written so YAY. Please let me know what you think.
After Bucky's birthday we were in London for two weeks before we were sent out again. There weren't any solid leads so we went to where there had been reports of Hydra weapons and started our search. We were dropped off in France again and made our way through Europe. We helped out along the way and eventually we got a lead.
We were passing through Italy when we rescued a group of soldiers that were stuck behind enemy lines. There we captured a few Hydra superiors before they used a cyanide pill. They told us that since we were taking out some of their main production they had to resort to using what he called a labor camp. According to one of the prisoners the shipments arrived on a train from Poland. So that's where we had to go. The only problem, Poland was right at the center of the Nazi offensive against the Russians. It was hard to get through and the Russians were not exactly welcoming.
Most of the time we were on our own, wandering through the wilderness avoiding Hydra and Nazi soldiers. It wasn't until we got to this small isolated town that we got our real lead. The town was practically empty. For its size most of its buildings were unoccupied. We found an informant the SSR had in the area and he explained that when the Germany invaded most of the town's people which were Jewish were relocated to a camp a few miles away. During one of the days we were in the area it started snowing. The only problem was it wasn't snow. It was grey and that's when it all clicked. The town's Jewish population wasn't relocated or deported they were sent to concentration camps. It just so happened that the camp close by also happened to be run by Hydra.
The Holocaust is taught in American history in the future but there are a lot of things the books left out. Things I really wished I didn't have to see. The prisoners of the camp were not only used as slave labor but one of Zola's protégé's used children and women to continue his experiments. He wanted to create a super soldier in the womb not as an adult.
The rest of the team did not have an easy time dealing with what we saw. Bucky was furious and even more determined to capture Zola after seeing the lab. Of course this also lead to our first major fight.
We had just blown the generator to the factory and were making our way through the camp where all the prisoners were being held. Everyone there was starving and looked like they might fall and die at any second. The commandos were going around trying to distribute food rations to the newly freed prisoners. I had found the lab and was going over the notes I had found along with the bodies of the victims. I was caught up in my thoughts and I didn't notice Bucky and Steve come in.
"Are those…" Steve asked and I just nodded. I read through the papers.
Serum injected into pregnant woman at five months pregnant. Fetus was aborted, mother did not survive. Autopsy on the fetus showed no signs of serum only halted development.
Mother developed tumors at site where the serum was injected into womb, possible cause of death. Serum could have caused unregulated cellular regeneration. With some alterations could be possible candidate for trials on older subjects. Will ask Doctor Zola for a second opinion.
"You have got to be kidding me." I muttered.
"What's going on doll?" Bucky said and started reading over my shoulder. "Zola?!" He practically shouted.
"What about him?" Steve asked looking concerned.
"Zola has a student that's continued his work." I said handing Steve the file while I continued to look over another one.
"I thought you said Zola was the only one that was with you in Azzano." Steve said.
"He was, apparently his student was here, must've evacuated before we could catch him" I elaborated. I kept reading through the files. More failed experiments on pregnant women. None of them made it past the fifth month of pregnancy. It wasn't until I opened the file numbered 274 where a four-year-old boy was mentioned as a possible success I got curious. It just said see closet #3.
"At least we stopped him from doing more harm the prisoners are safe." Steve said.
"We have to find that monster." Bucky just yelled out from the room on the side.
"Bucky that isn't our mission, taking out Hydra is." I argued. "You have no idea how much I wanted to go after that asshole but there's a lot more at stake."
"How can you say that?! You experienced first hand what that monster did to us and now he's going after innocent people." He yelled.
"Bucky, I know how you feel but you can't focus on revenge. You really thought Zola was the only butcher working under hydra or the Nazi's for that matter. You think the people at this concentration camp are the only victims?" I said slowly raising my voice without realizing.
"Wait, what did you just say?" He says glaring at me.
"We can't focus on revenge." I said calmly.
"No not that, What did you call this place?" He said. Oh shit, Concentration camps aren't really known as that until years later. I just stayed quiet there was nothing I could say to make this situation better.
A look of realization crosses his face "You knew. This entire time you knew exactly what this place was. That's why you didn't react when we walked in. Why the hell didn't you say anything?!" He yelled making me flinch.
"The same reason I can't tell you about the future." I said calmly keeping my distance. I knew Bucky wouldn't hurt me but people tend to do things they wouldn't normally do when they're angry.
"How would saving innocent lives alter the future?!" He yells.
"Buck calm down." Steve said moving so he was standing in between us.
"No Steve you saw those people. How could you let this happen Nora?!" He yelled out.
"You really think if I could stop this I wouldn't have. You don't know what jumping through time is like. You don't know what its like knowing things before they even happen and how no matter how bad you know things are going to get, you can't stop any of it because if I do I might just make things worse in the long run. You have no idea how what its like meeting someone you never thought you would get the chance to meet knowing how they will die but not being able to tell them because if I did then I'd never be born. So get off your god damn high horse and back the fuck off!" I yelled.
Bucky was just shaking in anger. He turned around and just left the lab practically fuming.
"Nora," Steve started.
"I don't want to talk about this right now. Not the time or the place." I said shutting him up. He just sighed and read through any files he found.
I couldn't look Steve in the eye after that. I just focused on looking through the files in hope that there might be a lead. There were more files in but I couldn't get number 274 out of my head. I started looking around the lab. There were a few doors in the back. Steve stayed close to me trying not to be obvious about his hovering. I found a door with the number 3 on it. I had the file in my hand and confirmed it was the right door.
I twisted the door know expecting it to be locked but it opened. I opened the door and saw that it was a walk in closet. I turned on the light and what I saw made me want to throw up. On the shelves were jars with what looked to be formaldehyde and organ. There was even a hand and foot that looked to be small. I swallowed back a bit of bile and looked at one of the labels on a jar that looked to be someone's eyes. The label read:
Eyes obtained from Vivisection on Subject 274.
I looked at two more labels before I realized all of them came from the same person, a four-year-old boy. I couldn't breathe I had to get out of there.
"Nora, what is all of this?" Steve said from the doorway.
I pushed the file against his chest and said, "I need some air," before running out of there.
I walked outside and ended up running behind a shed. When I got there I threw up. By the time my stomach was empty. I had my arms up supporting me as I leaned against the laminate wall of the shed. I couldn't breathe the only thing I could see when I closed my eyes was the face of my future godson and those jars in the closet. I couldn't breathe and to make matters worse I started getting the very familiar chills.
By the time I started glowing my face started going numb. I closed my eyes as the light got too bright. When the light finally dimmed I was back in the kitchen of my house.
I was standing leaning against the kitchen island barely holding myself up. I was gasping for air.
"Nora?" I heard a familiar voice say. I looked to the hallway leading into the kitchen and saw Wren standing there looking worried.
My arms started to shake and I started to fall. Before I hit the ground Wren was next to me and caught me.
"Nora what's going on?" He asked as he sat me on the ground. I was hugging my knees to my chest and with my back against the counter. I tried to say something but it came out as a gasp and I couldn't say anything. My breathing was heavy but my chest was tight.
"Shit, you're hyperventilating." He said he moved fast. He opened a drawer and pulled out a paper bag.
"Auntie Nora?" I heard a voice say from the hallway.
"Connor go back to the living room." Wren said shouting.
"But…" He wanted to argue and he sounded like he was going to cry.
"Now!" Wren shouted making the little boy run away.
He kneeled down on the floor and pried the paper bag into one of my hands. "Nora you need to slow down your breathing. Breathe into the bag."
I put the bag against but my breathing was still off.
"A bit slower, come on. Breath in, hold it…" He waited until I did and then said, "Now let it out." We did this a few more times until I was breathing normally.
"Better?" He asked and I nodded.
"You want to talk about what happened?" He said. Before I could answer Connor walked up next to me and sat down. He was holding bear in his hand.
"Auntie Nora, are you okay?" He asked looking right at me. My eyes started getting watery and I had to hold them back.
"Uh, yeah sweetie I just felt a little sick that's all but I'm okay now. Your uncle helped me." I said wiping my eyes.
"Did he give you yucky medicine like he does to the people at the hospital?" he said with a face. I couldn't help but smile.
"Not exactly sweetie, he used doctor magic." I said. I just assumed Wren was a doctor. I mean Connor said he worked at a hospital so it's probably a pretty good guess.
"What happened to you?" Connor asked. I was having a hard time not just bursting out crying but I didn't want to scare him.
"I saw something that scared me. It made me sick, that's why your uncle told you to go to the living room." I explained. I gave Wren a look.
"Connor, I'm sorry I yelled at you. I didn't want to scare you but I needed you to give your aunt some space so she could get better okay. You didn't do anything wrong." Wren told the little boy that was practically glued to my side at this point.
"It's okay Uncle Wren. Auntie Nora said you had a scary doctor voice." He said. Wren just sent me a look like 'really'. I just shrugged I didn't say that, at least not yet.
"Hey Buddy how about you go watch a movie, while your uncle and I talk." I asked him.
"Can I watch Monsters Inc?" He asked.
"Of course you can." I said giving him a small smile.
"Okay," He said getting up. He took a few steps but then turned around and walked back to give me a hug. I wrapped my arms around Connor and couldn't help but cry a bit. "Here Auntie, mommy said that Bugsy can keep me safe from the ghost. You can borrow him so you won't be scared." He said handing me the bear. Before walking back to the living room.
I couldn't help a few tears that slipped out. Wren just gave me a side hug and let me cry it out. I should have felt awkward crying on the shoulder of someone that I had just met once before but for some reason I just felt safe.
When I finally stopped crying I said, "June 17th, 1944"
For a second he look a bit confused but then he remembered and got up off the floor. I stood up and leaned against the granite counter. He pulled out the red notebook and looked through it. He read the page and just closed his eyes and sighed.
"It's been a crazy few months huh?"
"That's one way to describe it." I answered.
"You're having a hard time just watching history happen and not trying to change it." He said.
"Random time jumps aren't exactly making it easier." I said looking down at the counter. "The only thing that's gotten better is that I can more or less aim it so that when I go back I'm not gone as long."
"It's causing problems between you and your soulmates right?"
At the mention of Steve and Bucky and just felt horrible. "I used the term concentration camp in 1944, when the term wasn't coined until later on. I didn't react the right way when we got there because frankly there isn't a right way to react to something you read in history books and then later on see in person. I was prepared mentally and emotionally for what I thought I was going to see." I argued.
"Judging by your reaction when you got here and the way your hugging Bugsy I'd say you weren't as prepared as you thought you were. What happened?"
"Bucky and I fought because he realized I knew what was going on. He walked out after I went off on him. I was reading the files about the experiment being run in the camp before we arrived. There was a file about one of the victims, a four-year-old boy. The file said he was a possible success and that more tests had to be run and the number of a closet. I went to go see what was in it." I said trying to say calm and holding back tears.
"What was in it?" Wren asked.
"They performed a vivisection on him and the closet had Jars filled with formaldehyde and him." I said wiping the tears that I couldn't hold back.
I looked up at Wren and his face was pale.
"I gave Steve the file and ran out of there. I threw up, started having a hard time breathing, and then I was here." I explained.
"You were thinking of Connor when you saw the boy's age." He said.
"Yeah. I started thinking how scared that kid probably was and how much pain he was in. When I though of that I started picturing that being Connor and I just couldn't breathe."
"That's why you came here. You can't force it to take you exactly where you want it to go but it can make it focus on someone or something. It won't take you exactly when you want it to but it will get you to a specific place." Wren explained.
"I can't trigger the jumps though. Once I get somewhere I have to wait until it activates on it's own."
"I can't exactly elaborate on that right now. This is the second time we meet. The first time we met is ten months from now. Your not going in a specific order Nora, you're skipping around and you have to be careful. Messing up your time line will change things and not in a good way." He explained.
"I'm trying Wren but it's not exactly easy. Three months ago I somehow ended up in 1992 and ended up meeting my Mom before she met my Dad. I almost caved and told her to avoid him at all costs. I didn't even care that I would cease to exist but I couldn't do it. So now I'm twice as responsible as I was before for her death. I killed her twice, once when I was born and the second time when I didn't warn her. Not only that but I have to live through one of the bloodiest wars in history knowing every horrible thing that will happen but not being able to stop a single thing. Time traveling sucks." I say.
"Did you tell anyone about meeting your Mum?" Wren asked.
"Gramps, was there when I got back from 1992. I told him what happened and he got angry I even considered risking my existence. But other than him and now you nope."
"You bottle up way too many things."
"I don't bottle things up, I filter myself." I defended.
"Same thing, you need to stop doing that. Nora you're only hurting yourself by doing so. I'm going to take a guess and say that when you went off on Bucky you blurted out what happened in 1992 or something vague describing what happened."
"Maybe." I mumbled.
"You've never really dealt with some of your more personal issues and instead you ignore them by occupying your time studying or burying yourself in work. You need to work on that because if you don't, you may end up losing them."
"Does future me have these problems?" I ask.
"I'm not talking to Future you, I'm talking to the Nora Stark standing in front of me but I have mentioned it to you a few times."
"Do I ever listen?" I ask right before I start glowing again.
"We'll just have to wait and see." He says giving me a small smile. I put the bear on the counter and close my eyes.
"Thanks Wren." I said before I couldn't see anymore.
When I opened my eyes I was back in 1944, behind the shed again.
"Where could she be?" I heard Steve ask.
"I don't know Steve, she couldn't have gone far." I heard Bucky answer.
"She's a time traveler, she could literally be a century away from us." Steve retorted.
I walked out from behind the shed to let them know I was okay.
"Hey." I said walking up to them.
"Where the hell have you been? We looked everywhere for you." Bucky said obviously still mad at me.
"Sorry needed to get out of that place and had another time jump. How long was I gone this time?"
"A few hours, don't worry you didn't miss much. Reinforcements got here and are taking care of the prisoners." Steve said reassuring me.
"That's good, Anyone injured?" I asked a bit worried I may have disappeared and left someone without medical attention.
"Besides prisoner that were being starved to death, no. Everyone's being take care of already." Steve said.
"That's good, I'm gonna go see if anyone need help." I said but before I make it further than two steps Steve grabbed my arm and made me turn around.
"No you're not. We need to talk about what happened." Steve said using his Captain America Voice, as Bucky had named it. This means no arguing.
"Of course we do." I mumbled. "Where do you want to start?" I asked.
"Did you know about what was going on here?" he asked. Of course he would start of with this one.
"I had a hunch when it started snowing a few days ago."
"What does the snow have to do with anything?" Bucky said.
"It wasn't snow, it was ashes." I said
"Ashes from what?" Bucky asked not taking his eyes off of me.
"People." Is all I say.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Steve asked again giving me that look that makes me want to melt.
"Because like I told you months ago, I can't tell you about the future. It'll change the way thing happen and have ripple effects that will change the future in really bad ways. No matter how much I want to tell you and trust me when I say I really wanted to, I just can't."
"When you were shouting at me you said you met someone you never thought you'd get to meet but you considered saving them even if it meant you'd never be born." Bucky said.
"What did you mean by that?" Steve asked.
I sighed and took a deep breath before telling them. "The day of your birthday, while you were both out and I was cooking I had another Time Jump. I ended up in Los Angeles, 1992. I walked around until I went into a coffee shop. I was sitting at a table until this girl came up to me and asked if I could share the table."
"What does that have to do with…" Bucky started before I interrupted him.
"She was my mom, ten months before she died." I explained.
"You said your mom died in childbirth." Steve pointed out. That's when they both realized where this was going.
"Please tell me you didn't." Steve asked.
"I'm still here aren't I?"
"How could you be so selfish?" Bucky said angrily.
"What's selfish? Considering erasing my own existence to save my mom or letting her die to save myself." I argued.
"What about us Nora?! You know your soul mates, the people you say you love." Bucky said loudly.
I looked him in the eye with my red, puffy, watery eyes and said, "What do you think stopped me from telling her?"
At that Bucky just couldn't say anything. Steve just stayed quiet.
I wiped the tears that I couldn't hold in and said, "I'm gonna go check up on things." I said walking away from them.
"Nora wait." I heard Bucky but I didn't stop I just kept walking.
Two days later we were called back to London. The second base in Poland was too deep into Nazi territory and launching an attack on it would not be a good idea at the time. There weren't any complains from the team. After what happened in Poland things between Steve, Bucky and I were a bit tense and awkward. We tried to pretend things were good between the three of us so the team wouldn't notice and wouldn't affect them but they could tell something was wrong.
We got to London early in the morning and just like last time we reported directly to SSR Head quarters. Peggy gave me the paperwork and I filled it out with everything that happened with the obvious exception as to the fight we had and the Time Jump.
"You look bloody horrible." Peggy said while I was filling out the forms.
"It's been a rough few days." I said.
"Steve and Bucky looked a bit ragged as well." Peggy pointed out.
"I'm done with this, anything else?" I said not in the mood to talk.
"No that's everything, you sure you're all right." She said looking concerned.
"I'm fine, is Gramps in his lab." I asked.
"He should be." Peggy said.
"Okay, Thanks Peggy." I said heading to the door.
"Nora, I'm here if you want to talk."
"I know, Thanks Peggy." I said forcing a smile.
I walked into the lab and found Gramps tweaking one of his inventions.
"Hey kid when did you get back." He said smiling. He turned around and his smile faded. "What's wrong?"
"I need to ask for a favor."
Two hours later-
I was sitting on the couch waiting for Bucky and Steve to get back. There wasn't a lot to report so this debriefing shouldn't take so long.
I heard the familiar jingling of keys and the locks on the door being unlocked. Steve and Bucky walked in and greeted me.
"Hey beautiful, we were wondering where you were, Peggy said you went to go see Howard so we thought you were with him." Steve said. I got up and turned to see Bucky at the door looking at the suitcase I had packed.
"Nora what's going on?" Bucky said.
"I need to work some things out."
"Then why do you have a suitcase ready to go?" Steve asked.
"I need to work them out on my own."
"You're leaving." Bucky said.
I didn't know what to say so I just put on my coat and walked towards the door.
"Nora please don't go we can work things out." Steve said.
"Steve its not anything you or Bucky did, it's me. I need to sort myself out and I can't do it here." I said trying not to cry. "I love you." I said pulling him down for a kiss before pulling away.
I wanted to say something to Bucky to let him know this had nothing to do with out fight but he wouldn't even look at me. I reached for my suitcase and then the doorknob. Before I could open the door Bucky put his hand on mine and stopped me.
"Nora please don't do this, Please doll." He said looking like he was about to cry.
"I need space Bucky, Please let me go." I said wanting to take the words back as soon as they came out of my mouth.
He reluctantly took his hand off of mine and I opened the door. I closed the door and walked downstairs where Gramps was waiting in the car.
Jarvis took my suitcase from me and put it in the trunk of the car while I got in the back seat next to Gramps.
"How'd they take it?" He asked.
He was answered by the sound of someone screaming upstairs.
"I think that answers that question." I said just looking down.
"You know, it's not too late. You can go back up there and pretend the last twenty minutes didn't happen." He said trying to gauge my reaction.
"They're not the problem, I am. If I went back there right now, it wouldn't solve anything it would probably just make it worse in the long run."
"If you say so. Jarvis, the Dorchester please." Gramps said.
"Yes Mr. Stark" Jarvis answered before turning on the engine and driving away.