Chapter Eleven:
Barton's POV:
After hours of listening to the reports about Tony's side of the story, I couldn't take any more. I spoke to Steve and Bucky and we decided we would go public with our side of the story. Victor sent out copies of the letters Sophie had left behind for the three of us to various news outlets, along with certain other documents. Not long after, Steve, Bucky, and I took over the airwaves.
"My name is Clint Barton and most of you know me as Hawkeye. Today, I stand here beside the leaders of the superhuman registration resistance, which I have silently been part of since the beginning, but I also stand here as a father who has seen what this civil war of superhumans has done to his daughter, and I need to break my silence.
"Steve Rogers is my son-in-law. Sophie Rogers is my daughter, a fact I had learned after the Avengers and I were sent on a mission to capture or kill her two years ago. When I realized that she was my seventeen year old daughter who, yes, was on a killing spree, I vowed not to let her be hurt. I got to the bottom of why she was doing what she was doing. Sophie grew up in a lab, watching her mother be experimented on, knowing that the doctors wanted to do the same to her. When they made her believe her mother was dead, she started hunting down the doctors who she believed had tortured and killed her mother. She was not right, but she was a teenager in pain, lashing out.
I took a deep breath. I knew there was a slideshow of pictures of Sophie with all of the Avengers playing behind us. This was harder than I thought it would be.
"When Sophie was captured and with the Avengers, she became determined to pay her debt to society by helping people with her gifts. What she did when she believed her mother died were isolated incidents and she felt so bad that she was willing to endanger her life in order to protect those who couldn't protect themselves, just like all of us Avengers had done. I didn't want her following my footsteps. I knew the kinds of dangers that came with that life, but there was no changing her mind. She felt it was what she needed to do to atone for what she had done, so, along with Bucky Barnes, they both joined the Avengers.
"Everyone knows about the incident in the Sudan, where these two are blamed for killing all those women and children in the village square. But there is so much that isn't known. For example, Bucky Barnes suffered a PTSD episode in the Sudan that caused Sophie to take the risk that she did, not knowing about the bombs. And I know this for a fact. Not long after Barnes was found, while my daughter had been arrested the first time, he stayed with me, and he slipped into another episode in the middle of the night. It wasn't until I made him remember Sophie, who is like his little sister, his protégé, that I finally got him to calm down.
"Still, there is more that nobody knows. Before these two had been sent to the Sudan, they had been sent on other successful missions. One of those missions stopped an enhanced in California from kidnapping and experimenting on teenagers. Because of Sophie and Bucky, at least half of the victims were found, alive, and able to be returned to their families.
"In addition, there is a serum that is distributed to police and military personnel, that helps their bodies heal faster when injured to give them better odds of surviving injuries that were once fatal. It is distributed through Pym Tech, but that formula was created by Sophie. She knew that there were so many people who risked their lives to help others who didn't have the ability to heal the way she did, so she wanted to find a way to make them a little safer. The serum basically gives them the healing of an enhanced human without actually being enhanced, thanks to countless lab hours on Sophie's part. That is who my daughter really is. The person who wants to help people, who will risk it all to help.
"Tony Stark has painted Sophie Rogers as a monster, but he is the monster since the registration has become law. Whether or not someone is in violation of the law, they still hold basic human rights, of which Tony Stark, Maria Hill, and even my former partner, Natasha Romanoff, ensure the members of the resistance they arrest are denied. For example, my daughter, who both Stark and Romanoff mentored before the incident in the Sudan, tortured my daughter when she was in custody both times. Stark, Romanoff, or Hill sanctioned the kidnapping of two of my three other children, children who are not enhanced, and are still coping with the loss of their mother, and who are minors. When my daughter went to rescue them in my place, Romanoff and Deadpool, a dangerous and unstable enhanced mercenary for hire, were there waiting to arrest whoever went to rescue my son and daughter."
Steve put his hand on my shoulder then.
"There have been many casualties in this dispute," he started. "And Stark doesn't want a peaceful resolution. He wants his way in order to end this war, no negotiations."
"When Steve went into peace talks with him, Stark demanded a full surrender from the resistance," Bucky chimed in. "When Barton left the resistance for personal reasons, I went to him to find out what it would take to get this to end, and he said it would take my death. I went to him to talk to him like a man, nobody with me, no tricks, and he told me he wanted me dead because he thought Sophie would be better off without me."
I nodded at Steve, giving him permission to tell the truth about why I left. I couldn't do it. He looked at me questioningly. I nodded at him again.
"Clint Barton took his girlfriend, Anya Holden, my wife's mother, and left the resistance because Anya nearly died. She was so concerned about the precautions needed to take her to a hospital without getting anyone in the resistance arrested, she didn't tell any of us she was sick. She was the resistance doctor, and none of us knew that her kidney had failed, she had appendicitis, or that she was pregnant.
"On the very day that Sophie finally got control of new abilities she gained after being attacked by Tony's creation, Ragnarok, at our failed peace talks, Clint came to us in a panic. Anya was in bad shape. Sophie did everything she could to save her mother, but she couldn't save the life of her unborn brother or sister. It tore Sophie apart, and made Clint leave the resistance, needing time to spend time with Anya and his other children. Even still, Stark went after him. It was after the miscarriage that Clint's oldest son and youngest daughter were kidnapped, leading to my wife's second arrest. And it was during that time we found out just what kind of monsters are running the pro-registration forces," Steve said, motioning to Bucky, obviously not able to talk about his own tragedy either.
"In addition to the letters Sophie left for each of us that were sent out to various news outlets before we started this broadcast, we included records that I'm sure that neither Stark nor Hill would ever want seen by the public," Bucky said. "Deadpool arrested Sophie, my great-grand-niece, because yes, her mother is my younger sister's granddaughter, after shooting her point-blank in the chest. Her medical records from 42, the prison in the negative zone, showed that Stark and the others in charge knew soon after her arrest that she was pregnant. This didn't stop them from her daily 'interrogations' where, as Spider-Man told us after seeing the effects of these 'interrogations' she looked like she went five rounds with the X-Man Colossus.
"Sophie may only be nineteen, but she is brilliant and cunning. She did what nobody thought was possible… She broke out of 42, which Stark and Reed Richards didn't want anyone to know. After she broke out, she took refuge on Asgard, which is where she found out that she, like her mother, had lost a child… One that she didn't know she was carrying. It was why her enhanced healing had stopped. Her body was trying to protect both her and the child and it couldn't do that.
"Sophie was eighteen when she miscarried because of the treatment she suffered in 42. When she returned from Asgard, Sophie told Steve before she cried herself to sleep… then started screaming not long after. She was having night terrors of what she endured not once but twice at the hands of the Stark and his pro-registration forces. One month before she turned nineteen, she lost a child, and because Stark isn't interested in negotiating an end to this, she doesn't even have time to mourn."
"Tony Stark has been very vocal lately about my daughter killing James Rhodes. But just last night, when their meeting turned south and she was supposedly killed, Sophie went behind our backs because it was eating her alive that an accident killed James Rhodes. She felt she owed it to Tony Stark, her former mentor, her former teacher, to tell him the truth about what happened to his best friend, so he could have that closure. In the time since the death of James Rhodes, my daughter had been withdrawing from everyone, spending all her time in her lab, not training with the resistance. She stopped trusting herself because of her guilt.
"Just before we moved her mother and siblings somewhere that nobody on the pro-registration forces could find them, Sophie told me what happened when James Rhodes had been killed. He tracked her because she had hacked a Stark satellite to find something. He threatened to put her back in jail, but it wasn't until he went on the attack that Sophie drew her weapon, one that she is getting used to and didn't realize the power it held. She didn't realize when she threw it at him to give her breathing room, it would actually fully pierce the War Machine armor or that lightning would strike it as it made contact with the armor, frying him and the circuitry. Sophie told me she had wanted to try to save him, because Rhodey had once been her friend and she understood he wasn't a bad guy, just bound by his duties to his country and to Stark, but it was too late. It crushed her that she couldn't do anything for him.
"My daughter, my nineteen year old daughter, went to Anthony Stark alone, because the guilt of accidentally killing a former friend, his best friend, was eating her alive and she wanted him to know the truth. And what did Stark do? After everything else he's already done to her? He tried to arrest her again! Now, he's claiming she's dead! What happened, Stark? Did your plan blow up in your face? Or were you that threatened that you had been out-smarted multiple times by a teenager? Was your ego so hurt you had to take away my daughter?" I asked, finally breaking down.
"This is not what we want. It was never what we have wanted. This is not what the resistance is about. And yet, this is what Tony Stark has tried to make us into. We have tried to keep our fights away from civilians. His forces attack us in the middle of the streets. We try to subdue without killing. His forces seem to have capture or kill orders. Please, just consider the facts. Stark has made us look like the bad guys here, but all we're trying to do is preserve our freedoms peacefully. We're the ones suffering most of the casualties because we won't attack everywhere," Steve said as he had Victor cut the feed.
Bucky's POV:
We went upstairs and turned on the tv. Our message was playing on all the major channels. In addition to the video we sent, reporters were reacting to the letters and the documents showing that Stark tracked Barton after he left the resistance and that he knew Sophie was pregnant when she was in 42. It seemed that with us opening this can of worms, showing the kind of monster Stark was, the reporters wanted to hear from him. They wanted to know how he could justify torturing a pregnant teenager.
In the meantime, I didn't believe that Sophie was dead. She had to have had a chance to open a portal, but with an explosion leaving Stark believing she was dead, there was no telling where she was.
Sophie's POV:
When I realized that I was six years in the past, I knew I needed to be extremely careful. If I wasn't, I could change everything about the time I was from. Not knowing what else to do, I made my way to one of the two people I knew would believe me, even though in this time, I hadn't met him yet. Still, I made my way down to Greenwich Village, to 177A Bleecker Street, the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Sorcerer Supreme, Doctor Strange.
Knocking on the door of the Sanctum, Wong opened the door, looking surprised that I was there.
"Hi Wong, I need to see Doctor Strange. It's an emergency," I said.
"How do you know who I am or who lives here?" He demanded.
"I'm in trouble, Wong. I know you don't know me. Not yet. I don't meet Doctor Strange originally for another year or so… When I'm about fourteen. I've time-travelled from six years in the future and I'm not sure how to get back, so I've been very careful about not interacting with anything in this time and made my way here for help. So please, may I see Doctor Strange?"
"How do I know you're telling me the truth?"
I thought for a minute, then pulled out my wallet, where I kept the summoning spell Doctor Strange gave me in case of emergency.
"When I'm fourteen Doctor Strange gives this to me and tells me to use it if I am in dire need. It will call to him no matter where in the cosmos he is," I said, showing Wong the spell.
Wong looked from the spell to me in astonishment. Then he ushered me into the house and left me in a room, instructing me to touch nothing. Not long after, Stephen Strange walked into the room.
"Wong tells me that you come from the future with a spell I give you in about a year or so?"
"Yes, Stephen. I need your help. You will meet me when I'm about fourteen. But I'm nineteen now."
"How did you time travel?"
"I think I was trying to open a portal to keep someone from sending me to a prison in the negative zone."
"I won't ask who or why there is a prison in the negative zone."
"I wouldn't give you those answers anyway. Sorry. I'm trying to give you the minimum information to answer your questions because I'm worried about how it will affect my timeline."
"Alright, so you were trying to open a portal. Have you time travelled before?"
"No. Originally my portals could only take me across this world. After an incident where I was hit with an overload of electricity I was able to open portals to other realms… Which I realized when I woke up in Asgard with an angry Thor standing over me. Time travel was never part of my abilities."
"What are your abilities?"
I listed the current list of abilities.
"And you were born with them?"
"All but the ability to fully control electricity and realm-jumping. That all came after being electrocuted."
"And now time travelling. Were you electrocuted again?"
"I think the person who was trying to send me back to the negative zone, his device exploded as I opened the portal. I think that's how I wound up here."
"I think I may be able to get you back to your time. But I have to ask, do you have anyone in that time who may be able to teach you how to control this ability? Because if this is not a one-time thing, as I expect it is not, then you will do this again."
I thought about it for a minute. Realistically, the only person I knew who might be able to help me was Professor Xavier, but he wasn't around anymore in my time.
"Not really. When the powers of electricity and realm-jumping unlocked, Thor helped me. I don't think he can help me with this."
"Then, you might as well give me a name to call you by, because I think it best you stay here while I teach you to control this ability," Stephen said, making me realize I hadn't given either of them my name.
"You can call me Becca for now, Stephen. You will learn my true name when you meet me next time."
"Alright, Becca. I will respect that you are protecting your identity. Let's start your lessons. Time travel is no easy feat to control."
Natasha's POV:
I had been looking everywhere for any clues that Sophie Rogers was still alive. The resistance had successfully made the public start looking at us as the monsters, even though we were the ones following the law. No matter what resources I tapped, there were no signs of Sophie Rogers surviving Tony's explosion.
Tony and Hill called me to meet them. I needed to give them a sit-rep. When I walked into Tony's office, he looked more stressed out than I had seen him since the registration became the law. It was obvious that Hill and Stark had been arguing.
"Well, Romanov, what do you have to tell us?" asked Hill.
"I went back to the site of the explosion and double-checked Tony's results. There are no signs of teleportation there. I've also been digging around, calling on old contacts, any resources I have, trying to find out if the resistance is hiding her somewhere or somehow got her out of the country. So far, I've come up with nothing except the Wakandans are holding a memorial service for her in Wakanda. They are calling what you did to Sophie an outrage."
"The Wakandans? Why are they holding a memorial service for Sophie Rogers?" asked Hill. "She's a fugitive from the law."
"And apparently a friend of their Queen. The King and Queen have called a period of mourning as she mourns Sophie's death," I explained. "I didn't know that Sophie knew Storm."
"There was a lot we didn't know about Sophie Rogers, Natasha. I wonder if we could ask the X-Men for help on this?" asked Tony.
"You know we can't. They've made their stance of non-involvement in this conflict known. They won't get involved for either side. But, if Sophie knew Storm, chances are she knew at least a few of the others, too. Maybe a neutral party could get them to help us find out if she's alive? We'd have to guarantee that we wouldn't use their information to try to arrest her again, but if we did, maybe they'd help a neutral party find Sophie," I suggested.
"Absolutely not," said Hill. "If we find Sophie Rogers she is going right back to 42. I don't care where the information comes from."
"Well, we can count the X-Men out of the equation then," I said. "We've already guaranteed them immunity provided they don't get involved in either side of this conflict. If you try to use their information to arrest Sophie, you force them to break that agreement. They won't do it, Hill. Is that worth it?"
Hill glared at me before she stormed out of the office.
"Do you ever get the feeling that she's more threatened by superhumans than anyone else?" I asked Stark. "It almost seems as if she wants full control of them or out of the way completely, with or without a pulse."
"You may be onto something, Natasha. But unless we can prove this, we can't do anything," Tony said.
"And Fury is M.I.A. Probably helping the resistance. He's big on telling his superiors where to go as long as he can keep his toys to himself," I said.
"We could really use him right now," Tony said. "Do you think that maybe Cap is right? That we have turned into monsters?"
"I'm no different than when S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited me. I'm just using certain talents a lot more lately," I said. "But this registration act is costing us everything, Stark. Is it worth it? To go after all these people who have done so much good?"
Sophie's POV:
It had been days since Stephen and I had started working on controlling the time travelling ability. I wasn't getting anywhere really, so I didn't understand how I made a six year jump to begin with. The only logical answer to me was the explosion that overloaded my system and gave me the power to begin with boosted my power to push me back six years. However, now that I was trying to actively control it, I wasn't having any luck. The furthest I had been able to travel was half an hour. It was frustrating. I wanted to go home.
"Isn't there any way to help me learn faster?" I asked Stephen in frustration.
"Becca, you must learn to focus the energy that opens the time portals inside of you before you can manipulate it into a six year jump. Until you can learn to focus your energy completely, there is no way you will be able to focus the energies in order to make the portal bring you back home," Stephen said. "And before you ask to go see Charles Xavier again, I must remind you that your current self, from this time, is with him. If you go to see him, it could have untold repercussions on your timeline. It is best you stay here and not risk damaging the timeline you would be returning to."
I sighed in frustration. I missed my family. I missed Steve and Bucky. I just wanted to go home. I also knew Stephen was right.
"I know you want to go home, Becca. I understand you must have a family waiting and worrying about you. But if you try to go now, you may not only miss your mark when making the jump, but you may destroy your timeline in the process. The people you love and miss now may not be the same when you get back to them. That is why I think it's best that you stay and continue to learn about this new ability," Stephen said softening to me.
"I know you're right. It's just frustrating. I'm nineteen years old. My father is waiting for me. My husband and best friend. They need me. I miss them," I said looking at my hands, knowing I couldn't say more than I had.
"I promise you, I will get you back to your time. We just need to work. Now, continue working on your focus and meditation exercises. I will return in a bit to check on you. I have some business to tend to."
"Of course, Stephen. And thank you for being so patient with me," I said to him before he left.
I heard him tell Wong to check on me from time to time while he was gone before he left. Then I went back to trying to meditate.
Steve's POV:
"Steve?" Bucky called to me from the door of Sophie's lab.
I turned around to my best friend. We had been through so much together. Now we were both dealing with Sophie's loss.
"What's up, Buck?"
"There's something I need to tell you. About Sophie."
"What is it, Bucky?"
"I don't think she's dead, Steve. I don't know why or how I know, I just have a feeling somehow she got away from Stark."
"But Stark…"
"Stark wouldn't know what to look for when it came to Sophie if it bit him in the ass, Steve. I don't know. Maybe I'm connected to her because she gave me her portal ability. I don't understand this feeling. I just have this feeling deep down that Sophie isn't gone to us. Not forever."
"Then what do you think happened to her, Bucky?"
"I think Sophie did try to open a portal when Stark tried to send her back to 42."
"Stark said there are no traces of energy from a portal."
"What if we have an incident like when we lost her after the peace talks, Steve? What if the explosions overloaded her and affected her teleportation ability?"
I ran out of the lab and into the front yard, Bucky right behind me. I looked to the skies and started yelling out.
"Thor! Thor, if you can hear me, I need you to come to us! It's about Sophie! Please, Thor! I need your help more now than ever!"
It seemed like we had been in the front yard forever when the bifrost opened. Thor stepped out, looking concerned.
"Captain, old friend. Heimdall brought me your message. What has happened? Is Sophie safe?"
I explained to Thor what happened. His anger became more palpable by the minute.
"Thor, please. I know if Sophie had opened a portal to Asgard on her own you would have at least gotten word to us that she was safe, so I know that she is not with you. Is there any way to find out if she may have opened a portal somewhere else?" I asked him. "Bucky feels certain that Sophie is not dead. He thinks it may be they connected on a deeper level when she shared her teleportation power with him on their first mission. If he's right, Sophie is out there somewhere and we need to find her. We need to bring her home."
"Captain, my old friend, I will find out what I can and report back to you. I will return to Asgard and speak to Heimdall. He sees all. If she is in another realm, he will be able to tell us. If she is out there, I give you my word, we will bring her home."
Thor left us in the yard, returning to Asgard. We weren't sure how long he would be gone.
"We shouldn't tell Clint anything until we know anything for sure, Bucky. He's lost too much already. We can't give him hope that Sophie is still alive and be wrong."
"Don't you believe me, Steve?"
"Of course I believe you. But you're my best friend. I've known you forever. He's her father. He's only known both of you for two years. And in that time he's lost almost everything. His wife, an unborn child, his children and girlfriend are who knows where in the galaxy under Asgardian protection, his daughter has been through hell herself, his kids were kidnapped, his daughter had to kill her twin brother… do you see what I'm saying here? It's not that I doubt you, Buck. I'm just worried about Clint. With everything he's been through, everything we've all been through, we need to know we can bring Sophie home before we give him hope that she's out there."
"What if she's out there, but we can't bring her back? What if I can't even teleport to her?"
"We don't tell him that, Bucky. We can't tell him that she's out there but he'll never see her again."
"Then no matter what happens, we need to find a way to get her home, Steve. No matter what I need to do to strengthen or change my teleportation abilities like her abilities have changed, I'll do it."
"Buck… You realize that Sophie was electrocuted with high voltages of electricity when her portals changed, don't you? Can you handle the possibility of being subjected to being electrocuted again?"
"If it's the only way to get Sophie home again, I'll find a way to deal with it, Steve. I'm the one she shared her teleportation ability with, which connected us on a deeper level. It might have to be me. And I'm not gonna let PTSD be what makes you a widow or makes Clint lose another child to this war. I can't do that. Besides, she's my best friend. I can't let her down."
"We'll get through this together, Bucky. I promise."
Sophie's POV:
I had been with Doctor Strange for almost a month. With his training, I had successfully made my longest jump in time, six months. It was a huge difference than when I first started. The major progress gave me hope that I would be able to return to my time… but I was on a deadline. My current self in this timeline was going to meet Doctor Strange within months. I had to be back in my right time before that happened. Just like me going to Professor Xavier could have untold consequences while my current self was with him, so could me training with Doctor Strange when he met 14 year old me.
"Have you done all of your meditative exercises for the morning, Becca?" Stephen asked me.
"Yes, I have."
"Good. We're going to try your most difficult jump yet. One year from now. I will go to the point where you will meet me. Wait two minutes after my departure and then focus on finding me right here on this spot one year from now. I will see you in a year, Becca," Stephen said to me, before he disappeared.
I looked at my watch. I was counting down the time to when I needed to teleport. As I did, I focused my mind. I knew what the city and even the place I would be teleporting to were like in one year. When the two minutes were up, I opened my portal, my intended destination was Stephen Strange one year from where I stood.
When I stepped out of the fire portal and it closed behind me, Stephen Strange was standing in front of me, looking extraordinarily proud of me. He looked at me as if I had done more than I had been asked to. I was confused.
"Welcome, Becca. You have made your longest jump ever," Stephen said to me. "Three years."
"Three… three years?" I stumbled out. "You said to follow you one year into the future. How did I follow you three years into the future?"
"You used your instinct, which is what I needed you to start doing. You are very well trained with your portals, Becca. These new time travel portals, however, scared you. That was why you could not control you, even though the control was already there. It was why it was taking you so long to progress in your training. Your mind was holding you back," Stephen started explaining. "So I told you an exact place to find me, but changed the timeframe I would be in. This made your instincts kick in, and you just followed the energy to where you needed to go, not a specific time stream to find an energy. Which is how you find me two years later in the future than I told you I would be."
"So, this is why you've had me meditating so much? You've been trying to get me to stop using my mind as I teleported with these portals and use my instincts and other senses instead?" I asked.
Stephen nodded at me.
"Wouldn't it have been easier if you told me that weeks ago?"
"You needed to realize that this is what was holding you back on your own. Now, I will open a portal and return us to our point of origin. After you rest and practice a little more in the next week, I will make sure you will make it back to your family."
"I don't know how I can ever repay you, Doctor Strange."
"Don't abuse this ability, Becca. Time travel is a very dangerous thing. It can destroy everything you hold dear."
"I promise you, Doctor Strange, I have no intention of using this ability once I get home. Things happen for a reason. The things that already happened, if I changed them and the timeline changed because I did… I would be the only one who remembered… other than maybe you, wouldn't I?"
"Yes, you would."
"While it would be nice to save some of the people I love from the pain they've suffered, I don't know how it would change the way things are or how I would be able to hide what I would know from them. I couldn't lie to them and I couldn't tell them the truth and hurt them with what didn't technically happen. The past needs to stay in the past."
"You understand things most teenagers can't, Becca."
"Why are you sorry?"
"Because only children who grow up too fast have comprehension like this at such a young age. I do not know your story, and for reasons we both agree on, I can't, but I'm sorry that you've been through so much for someone so young."
"Thank you, Doctor Strange. All I'll say on that is when you do meet me and find out my true identity, you will help me in a major way. And I will never forget that kindness. Just like I will never forget this kindness."
"Becca, may I ask you one question about the time you come from?"
"Sure."
"You came to me here in this time to help you with the portals. Why did you feel you couldn't go to me in that timeframe as well? Unless I'm dead?"
"No, you are alive, Doctor Strange. It's just that… well… you spend most of your time in meditation, trying not to involve yourself in matters of nonhumans in my time. With reason, but I won't say more than that. You've already come out of hiding once for me, in a life or death situation, and I don't want to ask you to do it again."
"Alright, I won't ask anything more about your time. Obviously there are some tensions that, for whatever reasons, I have chosen to take a neutral stance in. We'll leave it at that and I will find out what the tensions are and why I decided to stay neutral in it when that time comes. For now, let's get back to where and when we need to go."
Steve:
"Steve," Sophie said to me. "Steve, I don't know how long I can keep this going. Please listen to me."
"Sophie?" I asked, not believing she was even in my dreams. "Are you really able to be in my dreams? Are you alive?"
"I'm alive, Steve. I'm working on coming home. I need time. But I love you, and am working so hard to get back to you. Tell Bucky and Dad. Nothing will keep me from coming back to you."
Sophie started to fade. I grabbed her and kissed her before she could.
"But where are you?"
"Trapped in the past," she said as she disappeared.
I woke with a start. I was sweating, but I could smell Sophie in the room. I could still feel her lips on mine and her body in mine, just like they had been in the dream. Rushing to get dressed, I hurried out of the door into the yard to where the bifrost had been opened so often before.
"Thor! I need you! It's about Sophie!" I yelled, knowing Heimdall would get Thor for this.
Moments later, Thor stepped out of the bifrost.
"What news do you have about Sophie?" Thor asked, as Bucky came out of the house.
"Heimdall hasn't been able to locate her through any of the realms, has he?" I asked.
"No, my friend. He has not. Heimdall is most distressed. There has never been a living soul in the nine realms that was not blocked by an infinity stone that he could not track."
"What if he's looking in the right place, but the wrong time?"
"What are you talking about, Steve?" Bucky asked.
"I saw Sophie in my dreams. And it was really her. I know it was," Steve said.
"Well, what did she say, my friend?" Thor asked.
"She said she was trapped in the past. She promised she would be coming home, she was working on it, but she was in the past, not dead."
"How do you know it's real?" Bucky asked.
"She told me to reassure you and Clint that she was coming home. No matter what, she's coming home. Tell me that wasn't Sophie."
"Sounds like that warrior spirit Sophie possesses," Thor said.
"Bucky?" I asked.
"It does sound exactly like something Sophie would say. But we promised not to tell Clint until we were sure we could get her back," Bucky replied.
"We did," I agreed, turning to Thor. "Can Heimdall locate a person through time? Because if he can tell us that Sophie, my wife, is stuck in the wrong time, we know what I saw in my dream is true."
"I'm sure Heimdall can do it. Now that he knows to look through time instead of through the realms, he may find her," Thor said as he stepped into the bifrost and disappeared.
"So we'll wait until we hear back from Thor before we tell Clint anything," I said to Bucky.
"I think that's a better idea, Steve. What if your dream was just your mind playing tricks on you, Steve?"
"I don't think so, Buck. When I woke up, I could still smell and feel Sophie in the room. As if she had just been in there. I haven't had that in so long, Buck."
"Well, hopefully, Thor will come back and tell us that Heimdall found her in another point in time."