Chapter 12
Steve’s knees hit the sand as he stared with horror at the sky where the time ship disappeared.
The ship was gone.
With Tony and Dean.
They’re gone.
Tony is gone.
These three words kept echoing through his head until it was the only thing he could hear. He was vaguely aware of Thor’s loud voice shouting, Rhodey’s panicked words, Bruce’s freak out, but he couldn’t tell what they were saying.
Because Tony was gone. And the toll of that sentence was slowly settling in. It felt like ice cold water was poured on him and soon found himself shivering even with the blazing heat of the desert.
He was cold. He was panicking. And Tony wasn’t there to keep him warm and sane.
He was alone again.
He felt someone landing on his knees next to him and something made him look over. Only to see an equally lost and horrified Castiel next to him staring straight ahead blankly. For the first time ever, Steve saw the angel looking defeated.
Cas felt Steve’s eyes at him and he turned slowly. Their eyes met, equally lost, equally blank, and a silent communication went between them. And a single sentence went through both their heads on repeat.
Dean and Tony were gone.
***
It was a very violent launch to space, that Tony and Dean felt like they were being crushed by the huge pressure as the ship darted towards space at a horrifying speed.
“Goddammit!” Dean screamed with all the pain and anger raging through him. “How the fuck did we get ourselves into this?!”
“No use in shouting, Dean” Tony exclaimed, barley able to pull the words out of his mouth. “It’s over.”
“I am afraid it is only the beginning.” Sydney yelled in frustration.
Then, everything suddenly stopped. Like the speed of the ship suddenly decreased to zero without warning. The strange thing was that they didn’t feel any pain from the sudden stop or they didn’t fell from their seats.
On the contrary, they felt a strange sense of calm.
“What happened?” Dean asked in confusion, looking around.
“We reached the Nil Zone.” Sydney sighed tiredly.
They looked at the white nothingness surrounding them from everywhere, with black holes scattered around with different sizes.
“What the hell?” Dean muttered as he stared through the large glass front of the ship.
“It is the zone where everything drop to zero.” Tony explained even though he was barley holding himself back from panicking. “Sound. Light. Even time.”
“Exactly.” Sydney confirmed, slumping in her chair.
Dean looked between them, obviously also panicking and having a hard time at hiding it.
“So, since we are going to apparently spend an awful long time together, I should properly introduce myself.” Sydney started with a sardonic smile. “Hi, I’m Sydney! I know who you guys are. I love you guys in the future. Not so much right now though.”
“Speaking of the future.” Tony started when he saw Dean’s face go red with rage at her attitude and tried to defuse the situation. “Who build this ship?”
“I thought the hot red and gold paint job is a pretty obvious telltale.” Sydney rolled her eyes. Then raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s you, dude. Yes, Tony Stark is the first one to manage to build a time ship. Congratulations! Can we go back to our current problem now?”
Tony stared at her with wide, disbelieving eyes, trying to absorb the important information she just carelessly and casually revealed. He looked back at Dean with the same wide eyed look.
“Again, not really surprised, dude.” Dean just shrugged with also a raised eyebrow. Which looked exactly like the way Sydney just did it that Tony stopped and stared at the both of them with confused eyes.
“Now that is out of the way, which hole do you want to go through first?” she waved her hand idly at the view outside the ship.
“The one that will take us home obviously.” Dean spat angrily. Looks like he chose anger to hide his panic in a very Dean way.
“How genius! Why didn’t I think of that? If it was that easy, none of that would have happened!” then she pointed at the holes. “Now, tell me genius, which hole should we go through to your home?”
“The one we came out from, you cocky bitch!”
“Where is it?! Watch the emptiness around us and you will realize that everything rotates or we are the one rotating. Nothing remains where it is. There is no coordinates. No directions. Or even stars to guide us. You don’t even know where we came from or where are we going.” Then she moved so she was directly in front of Dean and they both stared at each other with identical glares. “In conclusion, there is no way to return to a certain time. There is no way at all.”
“No.” Tony objected, making the both of them turn to him in surprise. “There must be a way to return home. We just don’t know it yet.”
“Well, future you didn’t know how to navigate through time. What makes you think you can?” Sydney snapped angrily.
Tony felt his own anger rising but Dean beat him to it.
“Shut up.” Dean growled at her. “Don’t talk to him like that! If anyone could get us out of this it would be him.”
“Great! The one who put us in this situation in the first place because he couldn’t keep his wandering fingers to himself is choosing the fantasy solution! Let me applaud you for your enthusiasm!”
“You little-“ Dean gripped her from her shirt and they raised their fists ready to punch.
“Stop, just please, stop!” Tony exclaimed grabbing his head and shut his eyes in attempt to calm his raising heartbeat and rapid breathing. “I am barley managing to keep myself from going through a full on panic attack here and you two are not helping! We are in a terrible situation. We are stranded away from home and our family are probably panicking right now. So, stop acting like angry teenagers and think of a way to get out of this!”
The two of them stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, then released each other with tired sighs.
“Sorry.” Dean murmured looking down in defeat.
“No, I’m sorry.” Sydney sighed again, looking away. “My existence is threatened heavily right now and it is making me anxious.” Tony and Dean stared at her in confusion but she just continued. “The only option here is to continue my journey. Across time.”
“What if we stayed here?” Dean asked nervously. “Maybe the team back home will find a way to lead us back.”
“Nothing could stay here for long.” Sydney shook her head tiredly. “It is not made for humans. Or even inanimate objects. If we stayed here too long, our molecules will disintegrate and we will be a mere energy floating around the place. Scattered forever.”
“Great. So we are doomed, aren’t we?”
“Not if we carried on with the journey.” Then she pointed at the holes again. “Come on. Choose a nice looking hole.”
“Well, the shortest distances between two places is a straight line.” Tony commented with a shrug.
Sydney smiled a little as she took the piloting seat. “Alright then.”
She pressed the launching button and the ship darted with its unbelievable speed towards the hole right in front of them and preached it.
Tony and Dean’s bodies jerked violently and they stared with wide eyes.
Around them, hundreds of colors and lights merged together. Sunsets and sunrises repeating over and over. Clouds gathering and scattering.
Then, suddenly, all of that stopped. And the sun shined over a countryside view that stretched at a wide range.
The ship’s speed decreased as it flew in the sky of this new era.
“Watch out!” Dean exclaimed suddenly, pointing straight ahead.
Just then, Sydney realized that she almost collided with an old fighter aircraft. She rose with the ship fast which shocked the pilot of the fighter aircraft and disoriented him so much that his aircraft leaned sideways dangerously and fell towards the ground, but soon managed to regain control and flew around with it like he was trying to find the ship that almost made him drop.
“Son of a bitch. Have you seen the type of this aircraft?!” Dean exclaimed as he stared at it.
“Yeah.” Tony answered as he also stared with interest. “Messerschmitt Bf 109. A German fighter, one seated aircraft.”
Sydney frowned anxiously at that as she landed the ship at a secluded area in the countryside.
“German? That means we went back in time.” Dean commented with a frown.
When the ship landed successfully, the three of them left it.
“Try to enjoy this era.” Sydney said while pulling out a small device from her pocket and pressed a button. “Since we are forced to spend a whole three days in it until the ship is able to do another time jump.”
Then the ship glowed and disappeared suddenly.
“Did it go invisible?” Dean asked curiously looking over at her.
“Nope. That will only make it invisible to the eyes but still touchable. This will make it invisible in both matter and vision.”
“Is it a dimensions thing?” Tony asked with interest.
“Nope.” She didn’t say anything else and Tony kept his mouth shut.
They started to walk carefully through the fields, trying to study the area surrounding them.
“I think we are in France.” Sydney commented carefully.
Tony looked at a country house from afar.
“Yeah. In the first half of the twentieth century.” Tony confirmed with a nod.
“Should have paid more attention in history class.” Dean sighed in frustration while looking around. Until he saw something at the horizon. “Hey guys, look there. At that hill.”
Sydney pulled out an advanced looking binoculars and placed it on her eyes to see what Dean was pointing at. Then she frowned deeply before giving the binoculars to Dean.
“I think you should see this.” she said grimly.
Dean took it and placed it on his eyes, only to freeze in panic.
“Crap!” Dean cursed loudly, making Tony step closer to him in anxious curiosity. “Of all the eras we could have landed in, we end up in that?!”
“What is it? Dean, let me see!” Tony took the binoculars from Dean and looked around with it on his eyes.
“I only see fields and old looking buildings and-“ he cut himself off with a sharp gasp as his eyes landed on a flag fluttering over said buildings.
A bloody red flag with a white circle in the middle and a crooked, black cross inside it.
The flag of Nazi Germany.