Chapter 47
Steve was struggling with keeping himself on his feet as Tony held him up firmly and close to him, while Holdstein continued to laugh like a maniac.
“I have to admit, your plan was good, and it could have fooled me if I wasn’t a genius.” He walked closer to the cylinder and continued viciously. “You played your parts perfectly, that I believed that poor Tony had a breakdown so bad that he let it out on the resistance’s men and they had to kill him and his friends. But thanks to the Captain here, I remembered what I read about James Barnes and Peggy Carter that confirmed to me that they won’t really lose it like that. Besides, no matter how stressed you are, you are not stupid enough to provoke an army of armed men.” He smirked before adding. “Then came the dental check.”
“Oh, that explains it.” Sydney sneered at him.
“Lucky me that the dental check is an old thing, so it didn’t take long for the doctors to know the real ages of these burned bodies.” He let out another laugh. “And as you can guess, they didn’t really match your ages.”
“Fucking bastard.” Dean snapped angrily.
“No need for insults, Castiel’s bitch. Just admit that you lost the fight.” Holdstein leaned towards Dean. “Come on, say it.”
“You really think so?” Dean said coldly instead.
Holdstein, obviously taken aback by Dean’s words, glared at him. “What did you do? What are you planning?”
“You mean, what was already done.” Dean smirked at him.
“We didn’t come alone, Fucker.” Tony growled as he adjusted his tight grip on Steve, who leaned heavily against him from how weak he was. That fucking Holdstein must have injected him with a large dose of that fucking drug. “Your hideout is surrounded by an army of the French resistance, waiting for us to get out, and if we didn’t? They will storm in and turn this place into dust, which means you only have two choices: either you accept to live in this era and let Sydney wipe your memories again or die.”
Holdstein was silent for a few seconds, his face was emotionless.
“What if I told you that there is a third choice?” Holdstein said slowly.
“What choice?” Dean asked carefully.
“This.” Holdstein then, turned to one of his machines and pressed a blue button. “Now the resistance’s men won’t find anything to attack.”
The room glowed with a blue light and Tony felt Steve stiffen in his arms.
“What is that? What is happening?” Steve demanded but only Tony could hear the note of fear in his voice.
“Teleport again, pretty face.” Holdstein answered with a smirk. “The whole place is teleported to another place, miles away from its original spot.” Then he leaned towards Dean again. “By the way, Angelic fuck toy, this cylinder you are in is made of pure energy. It can let in sound and light, but unfortunately it doesn’t let in air, which means the air inside will only be enough for one hour.”
Dean and Tony tensed, while Steve just stared at Tony and pulled him closer.
Meanwhile, Sydney’s attention was drawn elsewhere. She was too busy staring at one specific machine.
A machine that made her ignore everything happening around her.
“Now I will take the words of our handsome genius here.” Holdstein started gesturing towards a fuming Tony. “You have two choices, either you accept living in this era forever and hand over your time ship or die here in this cylinder like trapped rats.”
Dean was about to say something but Sydney beat him to it.
“It’s you!” Sydney exclaimed suddenly, startling all of them.
“Me what?” Holdstein asked in confused surprise.
Sydney moved forward and pushed Dean aside so she was facing Holdstein head on.
“You are that guy who sent the death messages!” Sydney shouted in anger while pointing at him in accusation.
Dean, Tony and Steve stared at her in confusion.
“Death messages? What messages? Is this another trick?” Holdstein snapped sharply.
“This is a space transmitter, right?” Sydney yelled while pointing at the machine that caught her eyes earlier.
Holdstein turned to look at what she was pointing at before saying carefully. “It is supposed to be a time transmitter. I can send messages with it through time and space to any era I want.”
“Of course it’s you. You are responsible for the destruction of earth in the future!”
Dean and Tony’s eyes widened in understanding while Steve just trailed his eyes between them completely lost.
“What do you mean, you fucking bitch?” Holdstein shouted in frustration.
“You! You are the crazy man who sent universal messages saying in it that you are the fucking emperor of earth and soon will be the emperor of the whole fucking universe!”
Holdstein’s body flinched. “How the hell did you know that?”
“I should have fucking known! Only you would be crazy enough to do this! You will destroy everything!”
“Just say what you mean already!”
“What I mean is that your ego that made you send those two messages through time and space will cause the destruction of earth with no way to save it!”
“How?” Holdstein demanded angrily.
Sydney’s fists clinched in anger and was vaguely aware of her eyes lighting up bright blue by her grace which made Holdstein step back feeling that he was looking at Castiel himself instead of his descendant.
“The whole universe received your egotistic, narcissistic messages. One planet took it as a warning of an upcoming invasion, so they decided to wipe out Earth before the invasion, and the cosmic map you sent along with the messages helped them locate us and send their strongest bombs to Earth after receiving their first message, and it almost wiped out the planet when it reach it after decades, but it was stopped by the first Avengers.”
“You mean that bomb is coming in our near future?” Tony asked with wide eyes.
“Yes! And it was so strong that when you guys blew it up thousands of kilometers away from Earth it made a huge black hole that almost consumed the Earth.”
“How the hell did we stop that?” Dean’s face paled at that.
“The point is, the second bomb is ten times stronger than that one!”
Both Dean and Tony gaped at that.
“H-how strong is it going to be?” Tony asked anxiously.
“It will be strong enough to wipe the whole solar system.” Sydney answered bitterly.
“Bullshit!” Holdstein muttered angrily.
“It is the truth, asshole! When those aliens received your second message where you said you are the emperor of the universe no doubt, they panicked and made a powerful bomb then sent it to Earth to do what the first one failed at. It took them a while to make it and send it. This time, there was absolutely no way to stop it from destroying us all."
“There was a way.” Dean murmured as he stared at Sydney. “An unusual way.”
Sydney glanced at him then and Dean was struck with how much she looked like Cas right then. Filled with righteous fury, eyes glowing dangerously. He felt his heart banging loudly in his chest. His future self must be really proud.
She turned back to Holdstein, anger coming off of her in waves.
“Because of you, my whole world is gone! I have been stranded through time for years searching for you! Years of feeling like I failed my family! Years of being away from everyone I love!” she snarled as she stared him down. “You are going to pay for this! You will pay for every single moment I wasted from my life looking for you to stop your insanity!”
“Bullshit. All of this is bullshit.” Holdstein shook his head vehemently. “Your whole story is just bullshit. You are just trying to scare me.” then he leaned towards her with a smirk. “Besides, I only sent one message.”
“Really?” Sydney’s eyes let up in hope.
“But I will send the second one after my victory.” He added, his smirk widening. “After the ship is in my hands and I get control of history.” Then he looked down at his watch. “I don’t think I will wait long for this. Everything will be over after fifty minutes.” Then he made his way towards the door with a laugh. “Enjoy the air while you still have it.” He turned back to them before laughing again. “I bet the resistance’s men are confused as hell right now.” then he slammed the door behind him.
“Dammit!” Dean yelled in frustration, while Steve looked at Tony sadly and tiredly. Tony pulled him closer to wrap his arms around him, ignoring the fact that this wasn’t his husband yet. He doesn’t care anymore and seemed that neither did Steve judging from the way he wrapped his arms back around him.
Sydney sat down on the floor and hid her face in her hands then tried to take deep breaths to calm herself down.
“Syd?” Dean called gently as the three of them lowered themselves on the floor next to her.
Sydney raised her head towards him. Their hearts broke as they saw the tears in her eyes.
“For seven years.” She whispered, her voice pained. “For seven years I have been in this. I didn’t see my family for seven fucking years.”
Steve reached out carefully to take her hand gently and squeezed it comfortingly.
She looked at him and saw that he was smiling gently but weakly at her. Even though he was tired and weak he was still trying to comfort her.
“I think I’d like to hear your story, Sydney.” He stated with a small smile.
“Yeah, me too. The whole version. Not the clipped one you told us in the present.” Tony added with a raised eyebrow.
“Right now? Shouldn’t we try to find a way out of this first?”
“This first, find a way out after.” Dean said stubbornly.
“Fine.” She sighed. “I will tell you the full version.”