Point of View
by: Shadow Chaser
Part 5 – Before I Sleep
Maria Hill always prided herself on her skills not as a hand-to-hand combat specialist, but rather keeping a level head in the midst of any crisis – be it an alien invasion in New York, discovering Grant Ward's betrayal of Coulson's team, or even the sudden appearance of three people displaced from time. So the abrupt appearance of a metal-armed man that should have been Steve Rogers, cratering Tony's very expensive coffee table in the middle of the common area of the penthouse, did not phase her at all. Instead, she coolly and instinctively reacted, rolling away from her virtual station and drawing her gun, firing several bullets towards the blue-black clad super soldier.
At the same time, she shoved Howard behind her, pulling them towards a loveseat for cover, noting how he was gaping at the sight, seemingly paralyzed by the shock of seeing Steve attacking them. Out of the corner of her eyes, she noted that both Edwin Jarvis and Agent Peggy Carter had reacted by ducking behind one of the other loveseats. Carter had drawn out her handgun and Maria inwardly grinned to herself.
The woman that was to be one of SHIELD's founders and its first Director was one of the two reasons why she had accepted Nick Fury's offer to join SHIELD in the first place. She joined after her second tour of duty was up from the Balkans and Kosovo Wars in the late 90s. She had been ONI then, Office of Naval Intelligence, and had been considering a job offer to join the CIA before Fury had offered her a SHIELD mission to Brazil, specifically São Paulo. It was there that she had met Clint Barton and Clint Barton had ended up recruiting the deadly agent known as Black Widow, Natasha Romanov after the destruction of a children's hospital through a deadly fire.
She and Romanov had joined SHIELD around the same time, but had taken completely different paths, Maria working behind the scenes with her understanding of intelligence and information gathering; Romanov far more suited as a field agent and asset. Her rise up the ranks of SHIELD had been aided by her mentorship with former Director Carter who had retired then, but had not begun to show the symptoms of her dementia. Carter had somehow taken a shine to her and begun to mentor her – but in the oddest of ways. There would always be subtle clues left for her whether she woke up one morning or came back from a mission, leading her to learn certain information for missions she had been on or if there had been questions that lingered after a mission.
Seeing Carter here, when she was at the beginning of her long, illustrious career, Maria had been amazed in the short time to see the fiery passion and gumption that drove her to be the woman she had come to know in the late 90s and early 00s. She had never quite understood Steve's devotion and love for her until now. Agent Peggy Carter was already an independent self-made woman that inspired others even before Steve had been turned into the super soldier. She understood that Carter inspired Steve and could easily see in turn that Steve inspired her with his stubbornness and earnest need to not let those who would bring them down win.
And she could easily see the traits that had driven Steve twisted for evil purposes in such a way that it was evident in the man that was crouched in the cratered remnants of the coffee table. The blond-haired blue-eyed super soldier that had suddenly appeared in their midst was definitely not their Captain America, and instead, looked more like a corrupted version of the Winter Soldier – metal arm and all. She had tried to hail her reality's Steve to let him know that the Winter Soldier was attacking, but the EMP burst that had pulsed out from the metal arm had shorted her radio as well as plunging most of the electronics within the vicinity into darkness.
Where this version of Steve Rogers came from she did not know, but she had a feeling that he might have come from the 0-8-4 that sat in Stark's workshop. She had only thought that it was for transporting people back and forth through time, at least that was what Stark had said. But it seemed now – especially with Steve fighting the Red Skull who had taken over his body just mere minutes ago – people from alternate realities were also coming through. They needed to find out how to send Carter, Jarvis, and Howard back and figure out how to stop others from coming through.
"That's not Steve," Howard sounded stunned as he made to peer back out, but Maria yanked on his collar, pulling him back behind the loveseat.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" she hissed at him, as she fired blindly towards the Winter Soldier's general direction. She took a quick look at where Carter and Jarvis were crouched behind their loveseat and frowned. Carter still looked pale and disoriented from her bout with entropic cascade failure, nonetheless, she was still clutching her silvery handgun, cognizant, and aware of her surroundings.
Maria had never seen someone suffer from what Stark had called entropic cascade failure until moments before the Winter Soldier had attacked. She had gotten the gist of what Stark had been rambling about and had a chance to observe the three, but she had never actually seen it happen until then. It had frightened her, to see the ghostly images of Carter seemingly pulled from her own face as she shook with seizures. The odd thing was that those ghostly images had variations, like different hairstyles, scars, and even expressions, but the only constant thing was that it was Carter's face in all of them – and all of them seemed to be in agony.
"But- But, that's-" Howard's words ended on a yelp of fear at the sudden intrusion of a knife in between their faces, rammed through layers of foam and pillow.
Maria immediately reacted on instinct and shoved Howard towards the others before she vaulted over the seat, landing a flying kick towards the Winter Soldier's face. It was like hitting a very hard brick wall as she grimaced, feeling the pain shoot up from her foot. But the force of the kick did some damage as the blond-haired Winter Soldier's face twisted to the side. She landed and rolled into a crouch, firing her gun twice to which the Soldier blocked with his gleaming metallic arm, a sick parody of the stars and stripes of his shield painted on his arm.
Maria could help the sudden thrill of fear that she immediately quashed by coolly reloading and firing again. Each one of her bullets pinged off the metal arm before she fired towards the man's legs. Though she was an Agent, and proficient in hand-to-hand combat, she also knew that she was woefully out of the leagues of people like Romanov or super soldiers like Steve. Her primary skill set was that of an intelligence officer, not a field agent or asset.
She saw the Winter Soldier crouch, stopping his advancement before the louder report of a gun going off behind him signaled Carter's firearm bursting to life as the Soldier half turned, blocking a few of the bullets, but also allowing others to hit his kevlar body armor. This close to the blond-haired version of the Winter Soldier, Maria could see that it was Steve, but not the Steve that she knew. Half of his face was covered in a black balaclava reminiscent of the Winter Soldier of her reality, but his expressive eyes were utterly blank; as if the soul of Steve Rogers had been ripped out, more than likely through the many mindwipes she could imagine him going through. It was eerie, that she thought she could see the Winter Soldier in front of her, Steve trading places with Bucky Barnes; Barnes as the heroic super-soldiered Captain America while Steve was the Howling Commandos' Sergeant. For some odd reason, she thought she could also see that this Steve Rogers in front of her had ruthlessly killed his former best friend instead of sparing him, and was on a mission to apparently kill Howard, or even Carter judging by his entrance.
"Agent Hill!"
The warning came too late as Maria realized that she somehow been distracted by a mirage, an overlaid image, something that left her disoriented and gasping as the images cleared in time for her to see spots appear before her eyes. She made to raise her gun before she cried out in choking pain at the sudden flash agony of her gun arm being twisted. She dropped her gun before her fingers could be broken as she scrabbled against the cool metal vise-like grip on her throat. "S-Steve-" she tried as she pulled at the unmovable metal arm that had gripped her throat, lifting her high into the air. She wheezed, the spots in her vision growing darker as she could feel the grip slowly tightening-
And just as suddenly the grip loosened and she dropped unceremoniously to the floor, gasping and clawing at her throat. She violently coughed as she sucked down greedy lungfuls of sweet, sweet air, her chest heaving at the sudden intake of oxygen. The spots before her eyes still hovered in the air, but she managed to squint and look up in time to see the Winter Soldier that was Steve Rogers thrown unceremoniously into the wall by the actual Winter Soldier – James Buchanan Barnes.
"Is that-"
"It can't be-"
Maria ignored Howard and Carter's exclamations as Barnes charged at the Winter Soldier, slamming him back into the impact crater with a knee to the chest before punching him and ripping him from the wall. He threw him into one of the long couches, destroying it in an explosion of foam cushion and wood. She pushed herself up to a sitting position as she rubbed her throat, still feeling light-headed and dizzied from nearly dying in the metallic grip of the Winter Soldier. As their fight clashed near her, she groped for her gun, feeling the pull and tug of cuts and glass that had cut into her.
She closed her eyes briefly and tried to will the dizziness away as she heard further grunts and whines of mechanical arms destroying the penthouse. The sudden cry from the three behind the loveseat made her snap her eyes open and she nearly threw up from the sudden movement. She barely caught both Barnes and the Winter Soldier crashing into the massive television set, glass and electronic wiring shattering around them. The two traded punches, kicks, blocks, and throws with the speed and power that only was like a blur to Maria. She saw the three scrambled from their hiding spot, Carter, holding her gun out to try to find a weak spot; but Maria noticed that even then she looked quite stunned, as if she could not believe what she was seeing.
Maria finally felt the butt of her gun and grasped at it, grimacing at the shooting pain that traveled from her sprained wrist to her hand before reaching over with her good hand and picked it up.
"Agent Hill," Jarvis' kind voice spoke up behind her before she felt hands pull at her shoulder and gently lifted her to her feet.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," she tried to say, but only managed to whisper it. She could feel the grating hoarseness of her own voice against the bloom of pain from even trying to speak. She absently rubbed the bruises on her throat as she lifted her gun to try to find someway to help Barnes, or at least distract the Winter Soldier enough for Barnes to finish him.
As she watched the two fight, twisting and turning from blows or absorbing them and retaliating with their own, she could easily see that the Winter Soldier had the upper hand in the fight by sheer virtual of being better equipped than Barnes. Barnes was only dressed in his familiar black combat pants, but had been wearing just a tee-shirt. It was apparent that he must have been listening in and was aware of what had been happening, but had been watching from afar. He had only joined in when the Winter Soldier had attacked and while Maria was grateful for his intervention and saving her life, she knew that he was probably carrying much weaponry on him, having starting to discard them days ago on his current path to recovery.
After Steve had brought Barnes in from the cold a couple of months ago, she had noticed that he had stayed constantly armed, but in the past few weeks had only recently begun to actually wear something other than the grime-covered combat gear he had been found in. Though she had her doubts back then that the Winter Soldier had readily disarmed himself, his occasional lapses and attacking Steve not withstanding, it was only now that she realized the extent of how far James Barnes had gotten in his rehabilitation and reintegration into Steve's life. The fact that he was defending himself and trying also to pick the knives off of the Winter Soldier's tactical vest to use himself was telling.
And to Maria's trained eye – even with the blur of combatants tearing up the common area of the penthouse – Barnes was losing.
Maybe it was something to do with Barnes' last mission that he was supposed to have completed for Pierce's HYDRA, maybe it was the fact that he, like them, was shocked to see Steve's face plastered on a body with a metal arm that defined the Winter Soldier. But she could not deny the fact that she could see that Barnes was slowly, but surely, losing. Maybe something had been rattled in Barnes' brain, making him hesitate in finishing his mission, maybe it was because it was Steve, maybe it was something else... Maria gritted her teeth and pushed herself from Jarvis' arms and took a dizzying step forward, trying to find someway to help Barnes.
She saw one knife go flying towards the wall, taken by Barnes for his use before the Winter Soldier kicked it out of his grip with a snap kick. Barnes retaliated, slamming his shoulder into the man's chest and twisted to the outside, looking for a knife to steal in the back before he was violently grabbed by the neck and slammed into the ground with a sweeping kick.
Maria fired, her bullets impacting the Winter Soldier, but he seemingly shrugged it off as he tightened his grip on Barnes' neck, the other man's arms rapidly punching and kicking to try to stave off the choke-hold.
Just as suddenly the Winter Soldier was knocked off kilter in the head by the impact of a very familiar red-white-blue shield. It rebounded off of a wall and Maria suddenly drew back as the blurred form of her Steve Rogers ran past them, catching his shield before slamming into the Winter Soldier. He caught him right in the middle and with a yell, carried him clear across the common area, shattering the glass overlooking the balcony before the two of them slammed into the metal railings that denoted the border of the balcony.
The bars held for a second before both gave way and Maria could not help the gasp that escaped from her lips, echoed behind her by Howard, Jarvis, and Carter, as the Winter Soldier and Steve fell-
Barnes pushed himself up and ran towards the edge of the balcony where he suddenly extended his metal arm and a grappling hook of sorts shot out of it and down towards where Steve and the Winter Soldier had fallen. There was half a second that Maria thought he had not caught anything, before Barnes suddenly braced himself against the bent and broken metal railings with his flesh-and-blood hand as he was half dragged across the floor. Maria ran forward, not caring about the broken glass she stepped on, as she saw Barnes push himself back and made to pull whatever he had caught with his grappling hook. A few seconds later, the familiar gloved arm and shield of Steve gripped the edges of the balcony before his exhausted face appeared and Maria breathed a sigh of relief.
"I had him on the ropes," Barnes growled out quietly as Steve released the grappling hook that had saved his life.
"Sure you did Buck," Steve gave him a tired grin before looking at her, "Hill..."
"Steve," she returned a little hoarsely before stepping to the side to allow him to pull himself up. She took the opportunity to peer down the side of the Avengers Tower to see the smallest of specks - the glint of a metal arm telling her that it was the Winter Soldier - on of the green copper-lined rooftop of Grand Central Station. The speck did not move and she suspected that he had died. However, just as she was watching, she thought she saw the silvery arm slowly fade away and disappear from her eyes before she blinked and rubbed at them.
"Steve, the Winter Soldier-"
"He's gone, right?" Steve approached her and also peered down, a frown on his face, "that's what the Red Skull me did too after I killed him."
"But..."
"I don't know, Tony might know, but I did see another flash forward, alternate reality, something that wasn't...the here and now," Steve said quietly as they both drew back and Maria glanced up at him, wondering what he was talking about.
However, Steve did not face her as he answered and instead looked at Barnes who was staring at him with a seemingly blank, but intense look. "I saw you, Bucky, watching from afar as the Avengers fought some robot and his drones named Ultron. You were there for support, sent by Fury, but you didn't want me to know you were there. You hadn't come in after the Helicarrier like you did, and instead, stayed away, watching me, watching the others. You were still...wrestling with your memories, programming, something, but you knew that you were there to help and you did. You killed several of the drones and even scored a hit on Ultron with your rifle and I was looking for you, but you disappeared after the fight...after we won."
"Director Fury is dead," Barnes stated and Steve nodded.
"Yeah, which makes me think it's another reality's memories, or maybe some alternate future that we avoided," Steve said and Maria knew that Steve was horrible at lying, but it seemed that Barnes believed him – or like the rest of them, was still in a state of numbed shock at what had just happened that no one was reading into anyone's words too closely.
"Wait," she caught Steve's previous words, "another flash forward?"
"Tony and I got a...vision of sorts before the Red Skull's body disappeared," Steve grimaced before tapping his ear, unwilling to explain further, "Tony? Yeah...situation's contained here. It...was another me...just...yeah, I'm fine." He glanced at them, "Are you all okay?"
"We will be," Carter stepped forward, still pale looking, but her eyes shone with determination, "you, however, are injured, as are you, Agent Hill, and..." She turned to stare at Barnes who met her look unflinchingly, seemingly not even recognizing her and Maria saw her take a deep breath and let it out quietly as she stared at him. "It's really you, isn't it Sergeant Barnes."
"...Ma'am," Barnes' reply was so quiet that Maria barely heard it over the distant roar of New York traffic and the wind this high up in the air, but something in Carter's gaze softened before she nodded once.
A sad smile appeared on her face and she turned to Steve, "There's a story behind this, isn't there? And you can't tell me because of the time loop."
Steve reluctantly nodded, his face crumpling into something so personal that Maria suddenly felt like she was an outsider listening into a very intense and private conversation. She turned away, trying to somehow give the three of them their privacy on the balcony, but the crackle of her own radio coming back to life followed the familiar hum that had gotten so common place in the common area, alerted her that JARVIS had managed to reroute and repair the damage done by the Winter Soldier's EMP.
She tapped her ear as she stepped away, "Stark, you copy?" she asked, hoping that it gave the three a chance to talk, but instead, she heard Carter's footsteps behind her followed by the thump of Steve's boots. Barnes' quiet tread joined them and it was only because she suspected that he deliberately stepped on the broken glass to let them know that he was coming in. She suppose that working with three consummate professionals meant that they would keep their personal feelings to themselves until the mission was over.
"Yeah, loud and clear," Stark's voice boomed and sounded a bit electronically warped as the speakers in the room transmitted his voice. "Hey, Hill, get my Dad on the line, I need to talk to him about something I found here-"
"Do you need me back there Tony?" Steve touched his own ear and Maria realized that he sounded a little winded. Just how fast did Steve run from the lower east side to the Avengers Tower and even up it to get here?
"Nah, just get Dad on the line, not too sure of what I'm seeing here, would like his help," Tony's voice boomed and Maria saw Howard blinked and stare up at the speakers at his words. She had to smile a little at the fact that the 1946-Howard was more than likely not used to hearing the words 'Dad' come out of anyone's mouth when it came to him.
"Agent Hill, I have not been able to repair the external microphones at the moment. It seems that the initial EMP has damaged the circuitry beyond my capabilities," JARVIS' tinned voice spoke up and Maria nodded before taking her earpiece off of her own ear.
She stepped around the debris and handed it to Howard, "Here, use mine. I'll get a spare one from my office downstairs." She also needed a massive ice pack and several pills ibuprofen along with a cervical collar, but those thoughts she kept to herself as she immediately headed out of the common room. Maybe Steve would not tell Howard, Carter, and Jarvis the whole story about Sergeant Barnes' fate after he fell from the train in 1945, but at least hoped that they could come to terms with what had happened while she was gone.
Even though the sun was shining, the windows were so stained had a layer of grimy, dirty film on it, that there was little light shining through as Tony climbed the stairs to the brownstone. His sensors were pointing him to the strongest source of the anomalous reading he had initially scanned for and gotten. "J, it's the same as the one that brought Dad and the others here, right?" he asked as he kept an eye out with his HUD for any more hostile forces.
The perimeter outside of the brownstone was secured by Sergeant Sousa and his team and he left strict orders for no one to enter until he gave the all-clear. It turned out that Sousa had been one of the responding officers that Steve had initially given orders to during the battle of New York and also apparently an ally on the NYPD against those who thought the Avengers were a bunch of loose cannons after the fall of SHIELD.
"It is a ninety-eight percent match, sir," JARVIS replied, "I do not detect another metallic object similar to the 0-8-4 though."
"Nothing so far right?" he asked as he cleared another room and continued on, the creak of wooden floorboards holding the weight of his suit. The building was abandoned, but there was something oddly familiar about it. He did not know why, but as he stared at the paints, the floorboards, even the door and some of the old curtains, posters, and furniture left behind, he could not help but feel a sense of deja vu about the building.
"Tony, where are you?" his father's voice suddenly crackled over his headset, "Agent Hill gave me her earpiece. She says she's got a spare. JARVIS says that the damage to the...external speakers, right? The external speakers are beyond his capabilities for repair and rerouting."
"Must be some EMP then," Tony commented sourly.
There was a slight sound of something rubbing against another microphone before Steve's voice came over, "Bucky says...he had been given a choice between a grappling hook or EMP blast when they, uh, gave him the arm..."
Tony paused, staring at nothing in particular as he digested what Steve had relayed. "Excuse me for a second," he said politely before muting his microphone.
He took a deep long breath and let it out slowly, trying to dissipate the anger that had boiled up in him at that statement. He wanted to swear, wanted to curse to the high heavens for what HYDRA had done to Barnes, but instead, he focused his anger and let it out slowly. HYDRA had killed his parents, made it look like an accident. They had taken Steve's best friend and turned him into a remorseless killing machine. They had destroyed his father and Peggy Carter's legacy by infiltrating it from the start. They were dead, and though Tony was aware that cutting the head off of one would result in growing another, he was determined to burn the stump so that no more heads would ever grow from the monster that was HYDRA. This whole business with fighting the Red Skull who had somehow possessed Steve's body was hitting him a little too close at the moment. He took another deep breath and released it slowly, forcing himself to focus back on the task at hand.
He unmuted his microphone and cleared his throat, "I like working with my hands. More things for me to fix."
There was an audible groan of annoyance from Steve over the microphone and Tony grinned as he resumed his search. "So, to answer your question, I'm at a brownstone near the corner of Henry and Grant Streets-"
"Is there a knife score on the seventh floor of the stairs near the second door from the stairs-"
"Uh, hang on," he looked up to see two more floors above him and hurried up the stairs before checking the railings where Howard had indicated to see that indeed there was a deep score of sorts. In fact, it looked well worn and rubbed in; the roughened edges already smoothed out by years and years of people touching the hand rails. "It's kind of large, looks like it's been rubbed over several times-"
"...Yeah..." Howard exhaled in a tone that Tony did not recognize his father ever used, er, future father. "That's what I thought. Um...go to the apartment four doors away from that."
"The readings are definitely stronger here," he commented as he followed the other man's orders and arrived at what looked like a faded green-blue painted door. There was the faint imprint of the number six on the door and the knob was missing. He pushed it open to find the apartment empty, a few broken glass scattered along the floors. "All right...I'm in, apartment six...seventh floor."
"There's two bedrooms from the main common area, right?"
"Yeah," Tony saw two tiny bedrooms that could barely fit twin-sized beds let alone a family.
"One's got a radiator that's visible from the main room, right?"
"Yeah, I see it," he spotted the remnants of an old looking cast iron radiator from where he was standing. He held out is hand, surprised to see a spike in the tachyon readings. "Huh," he commented absently, "they're really strong...like there's something in there."
"Tony, if it's an 0-8-4-"
"Yeah, I know, don't touch it or else I might end up in some weird-ass future where we're all dancing seals and Loki turned the streets into cotton candy," Tony cut Steve off and heard the faint snort of amusement in reply.
"The last two panels on the radiator are fake. I...built a convection system where the heat exchange doesn't affect the last two panels. Stashed all kinds of things in there, money, guns...things I didn't want people finding out until..."
"You..." Tony trailed off as he knelt down and gently tugged at the last two panels. He realized that this apartment...this brownstone...this was where his father grew up.
Tony paused for a second at the revelation. He had always known that his father had made his money through government contracts and sheet determination, building the Stark Industries empire through the war and by weapons contracts. But even then, he himself had never really asked about his father's childhood. When he had asked about his grandparents, he had only known his mother's parents, his father saying that his own had died before the war. Pictures of his father in his childhood were likewise almost non-existent, the earliest ones of him was him working with Dr. Erskine on Project Rebirth. Even then, most of his early pictures were with the SSR and the Howling Commandos. Never did he thought his father was trying to erase his past, or even hide it – he had never considered that until now.
Based on his knowledge of old New York before gentrification had really set in, the lower east side was home to a lot of the immigrant population, shirtwaist factories, and the like. The fact that his father had all but pointed out his childhood home to him and directed him to here... Tony could not even begin to comprehend what his father had to do to get himself out of the neighborhood and become a self-made man.
He snapped out of his thoughts as he pried open the panels and to his surprise, saw that it was mostly empty save for a few sheets of faded and yellowed paper. "I...uh, I found...something," he swallowed as he felt his mouth dry up, still reeling from the revelation.
"Wait...y-you did?" Howard sounded confused and Tony shook his head again, trying to clear his previous thoughts from his head. "I didn't think I left anything in there after all these years, not that-"
"Uh, yeah, there's a few pieces of paper-holy shit..." he had unfolded the papers and saw a bunch of formulas and what looked like a cipher code of sorts that he vaguely recognize.
"Sir, some of the cipher matches that of what was in the 0-8-4's notes that Director Coulson had sent with the object in question," JARVIS' voice piped up and Tony blinked.
He stared down at the paper he was holding, faded and yellowed from time and age in the radiator. It was a miracle that it had not been subjected to the ravages of time sitting in the cast iron radiator. He would have thought that a fire or something would have destroyed it by now; thought that someone would have stolen it or something- Wait a minute...Tony's thought screeched to a halt as he stared down at the paper. "J, this has the tachyon readings right? A very high concentration of it, right?"
"Yes sir," his A.I. confirmed.
"Stable time loop?" he guessed as he held the thing out and shook it. Maybe it was alive...
"Possibly sir," JARVIS replied, "there is no way of determining it-"
"But there could be," Howard cut in thoughtfully, "I mean, if it was here and I didn't know about it until now, maybe it's proof that we did get back to our time and I just put it there and left it-"
"-So what, that we could conveniently find it now? Of all times-"
"-You said so yourself that somehow it's a stable time loop-"
"But we don't know that, Dad," Tony shook his head, "for all we know you could be stuck here for all time-"
"But then how do you exist?"
"I-" Tony blanched and stopped as he felt faint, "no, no, no I am not having this conversation with you of all people because even my genius brain can't handle this much time speculation and whatnot going on. No Grandfather Theories, nothing like that."
"Maybe somehow I got hold of it, took it back, but didn't know what it was, but knew it needed to be kept safe?" Howard suggested and Tony shook his head again.
"But that would imply that somehow you've forgotten what's been happening here and you've went back in time with no memory of what's going on-"
"Tony, Peggy...did say that she knew of this day, but didn't remember what was so special about it..." Steve cut in quietly and Tony fell silent, pondering his friend's words. There was one giant factor that prevented him from readily believing what Steve had relayed from an older Peggy Carter – namely her dementia. Stark Industries had a small devoted group dedicated to check and hopefully reverse Peggy Carter's condition, and the hospice she was at was paid for in full by Stark Industries so that her children and grandchildren would never have to worry about her care. But for all of the medical and scientific advances, there was no cure or significant treatment plan that could reverse a lot of the dementia that Peggy suffered from. It was still a miracle that they had managed to keep her sharp a tack on some days, though he supposed Steve's visits had something to do with that also.
"It's at least something that could help maybe get them home," he said before something pinged on his HUD. "JARVIS, what's up buddy?"
"Sir, I have been running a background trace of the tachyon fields in which the HYDRA creatures as well as the Red Skull had come from and I believe it is a match to what is in your hands," JARVIS replied and Tony wrinkled his brow, a little confused as to what his A.I. just said.
"Come again?"
"Sir, I believe that the paper you have in your hands is part of a time rift that apparently is connected to the 0-8-4," JARVIS replied, "it would explain why the Red Skull and the others first appeared here and why the Winter Soldier appeared at the Tower."
"There's a bad news to all of this, isn't there?"
"Yes sir," the A.I. sounded regretful, "I believe that the time rift, if you will, is expanding. The tachyon particles have grown exponentially in a field of sorts that is not part of the visible spectrum, but can be read from the radiation spectrometers. It was originally contained when Mr. Jarvis, Agent Carter, and Mr. Stark arrived, but then it seemed to have expanded since then. It seems stabilized for now-"
"But it'll probably expand again...J, how many hours since our guests arrived to when the Red Skull was first reported here?"
"Twenty-one hours and sixteen minutes since their arrival," JARVIS replied and Tony blew out a quiet breath.
"All right then..." he muttered mostly to himself.
"Tony, want to explain for those of us who don't follow the laws of time travel here?" Steve spoke up, sounding extremely confused.
"I think we've got less than twenty-four hours before we probably find variations of yourself, or even worst, something else coming through whatever that...thing is," Howard replied and Tony nodded, even though he knew no one could see it.
"Yeah, I'm headed back. Dad, meet me in the workshop. It's got your hand writing on it, so maybe you know what you wrote down whenever you wrote it," Tony said as he folded the piece of paper gently in his hands and put it in a small slot near the hip side of his suit. They had less than a full day to figure out how to reverse the 0-8-4, if it could be reversed, and hopefully send the three time travelers back to their time, or even just close the thing so that variations of Steve Rogers or even others could not come through and affect this world.
Author's Notes:
The original title for this part was supposed to be "Window of Opportunity," but I felt like it referenced the light-hearted (and hilariously funny episode - even though it had a slightly downer ending), which would not have matched the mood of this chapter. So it got changed to "Before I Sleep" which is a far more somber episode in terms of tone.