Chapter 49
Horror, awe and shock.
These were the three emotions written all over the French resistance’s men as they stared at the empty place that previously held Holdstein’s hideout before it glowed and vanished right in front of their eyes.
They stood frozen for a whole minute like statues, their jaws slacked and their eyes wide.
“Did you see that?!” Bernard suddenly exclaimed, breaking their spell.
“It vanished right in front of our eyes.” Peggy murmured in shock.
“Was it really here or it was an illusion?” Bucky muttered with wide eyes.
Alain lowered his gun slowly, still staring at the empty place.
“We can’t handle this.” Alain stated with a frozen face.
“What are you saying, Alain?” Brigitte stared at him with wide eyes.
“I am saying that we can’t handle these devil games!” he turned to her sharply. “Maybe the future people are capable to face each other, but we can’t! We don’t even know what we are up against.”
“We can’t just abandon them!” Brigitte exclaimed starting to panic.
“And what about Steve?” Bucky objected nervously.
Alain was silent for a few seconds. “We have our fair share of losses since the war started.”
“What is that supposed to mean?! Are you going to abandon Steve?” Bucky shouted in anger.
“Who said we can even get him back?!” Alain shouted back. “Are you blind? Didn’t you just see what happened right in front of our eyes? We followed what the future men planned perfectly, and what did that get us? Nothing! We could have vanished along with this building. What would we have done then? How can we face such magic?”
“We can’t leave Steve and the future guys! They need-“
“He’s right.” Peggy sighed interrupting him. Bucky and Brigitte turned to her in shock.
“Peggy, what are you saying? This is Steve we are talking about!”
“I know.” She said looking pained. “But Alain is right. We can’t handle this. It’s too much. And this is war. We are bound to lose loved ones all the time. If Steve is truly alive he will find his way back to us. Until then, he is lost to us.”
Silence fell on them and Bucky stared at her as he felt his heart shattering in his chest, while Brigitte let her tears fall freely on her face in grief and bitterness.
“Our duty is to forget all of this.” Alain announced after swallowing the lump in his throat. “We will forget the future men. We will forget this fight. We are still in war. Our country needs us more than them. We are France’s last hope.” Then he straightened up to his full height. “The French Resistance is permanently out of this fight.”
***
The strangest thing about time is that it passes slowly when you want it to pass fast, and passes so fast when you need it the most.
So, the minutes passes in crazy speed inside Holdstein’s hideout and Steve started to choke for air.
He was trying to control his nerves so he won’t consume even more air, but his heart was beating hard in his chest in fear when his lungs started to hurt from lack of oxygen.
“He won’t let him die, right? He needs him.” Sydney murmured in panic as she stared at Steve.
“He needs us more.” Dean bit his lower lip bitterly. “He doesn’t care if Steve died. It will actually benefits him. That will change history drastically and the future will be messed up completely. Also, it will erase you and probably most of your family.”
“Thank you. I didn’t know that at all!” Sydney snapped in frustration.
“Just calm down! We need to think about a way out of this!” Dean was seriously trying to stay calm in this situation.
Meanwhile, Tony’s eyes were glued to Steve and watched him as his knees started to shake because of the damn drug, his chest rising and falling fast, trying to get in air that was thinning fast, his face that was trying to stay calm but Tony could see the fear in his eyes.
His heart was too weak to handle this.
“No. there is no time to think.” Tony shook his head sharply and turned to Sydney and pushed his hands in her pockets while ignoring her shocked yelp, and pulled something from inside. “I will not let Steve die right in front of my eyes.” then turned and yelled. “Holdstein! Where is the fuck are you?!”
Dean gripped his arm tightly. “Tony, stop and think!” Dean hissed. “We can’t give him what he wants! We need to find another way!”
Tony turned to him sharply. “If the roles were reversed and Castiel was there instead of Steve you wouldn’t have stopped and think!” Tony shouted and Dean flinched back since he couldn’t argue with that. Tony turned around again. “Holdstein! Show up you fucker!”
He suddenly felt a sudden force pull him out of the cylinder and threw him a meter from it then another cylinder wrapped around him, the same moment Holdstein showed up.
“I am here, lover boy.” Holdstein said with a victorious smile. “I believe that you made your decision.”
Tony glanced at Steve, who collapsed on his knees, face flushed and was staring at him with wide eyes and shaking his head at him, telling not to do it with his eyes.
“Yes, I did.” He said in determination.
“Tony, please.” Sydney pleaded and he looked back at her and Dean. They were looking at him pleadingly. He was saving the both of them too. He didn’t want to lose anyone from his family.
“Set him free and I will give you the key of the time ship.” He stated firmly, looking back at Holdstein.
“The key first.” Holdstein smirked and held out his hand.
“Set him free!” Tony objected sharply.
“The key. Now!” The general shouted firmly.
“Tony. Please, don’t.” Steve’s choked out voice called out to him.
“I’m sorry.” Tony looked at him, pained. “I have to.”
Then he opened his hand to reveal what he took from Sydney’s pocket.
The silver ball she showed him before.
And what must be the key to the ship.
***
“We made all the necessary arrangements.”
Fury announced as he entered the room. They all looked relieved at his words. “But it will take hours to start the broadcast.”
“It must be done after six hours from now.” Castiel stated anxiously.
“Why six hours?” Fury asked curiously.
“From what I coaxed from Steve in his coma, after six hours, they will be in that era for whole three days.”
“And this is all the time the ship needs to charge and be ready for another time jump.” Sam continued.
“And hopefully, they would be in the Nil Zone then.” Natasha finished.
“How can you be sure?” Fury inquired doubtfully.
“From what I managed to coax from Steve, he is still with them, which meant he will be until they leave the forties. Then, hopefully, he will wake up when they are out of that era.” Castiel stated while pinching the bridge of his nose, face pained a little.
“We are still preparing everything. The moment we are ready, you will manage to emit the needed frequency and will be broadcasted from all the space stations to surround the whole planet and change the color of our hole.” Fury reported in attempt to relax the angel a little.
“How did you make the arrangements so fast?” Clint asked curiously.
“Well, it was impossible to build a series of stations to emit the frequency around the whole planet. But Coulson reminded me that we already have old stations from decades ago that was used for old space experiments and we forgot about it when its technology became old. So, we made our calls to all the countries that have these stations to tell them we will reuse them for an experiment. After we got their acceptance, we started to prepare the stations to emit the needed frequency.”
“Great. That’s great.” Castiel nodded in relief.
Fury then turned to Bruce and Charlie. “What did you find about the second traveler?”
“We told JARVIS to compare Sydney’s genetic code with all the codes you have in SHELD and we are still waiting for the results to see if it matches anyone’s in its differences.” Bruce answered as he checked JARVIS’ progress so far.
“I have to admit, this was a strange idea from Queen. It is not even scientifically accurate.” Natasha commented with a shrug.
“I know.” Fury sighed tiredly. “But we are hanging to anything that might lead us to the spy. You have no idea how it affected everyone when he managed to hack into our most classified files.”
“That is not so hard.” Charlie shrugged nonchalantly.
“What are you talking about?” Fury turned to her sharply. “Do you have any idea how complicated it is to hack into-“
“I know that.” she rolled her eyes at him. “But it is complicated with our time’s standards only.”
“What do you mean?”
“Computer programs advance very fast. What looks complicated to us now will be a child’s play a year later. To the time traveler, we’re pretty much primitive.”
“How the hell didn’t we think of that?” Clint groaned. “It’s so obvious I-“
“Oh my God!” Bruce’s shocked gasp made everyone freeze and turn to him sharply.
“What? What happened?” Bucky ran over to them with wide eyes.
“Bruce?” Thor and Castiel called out anxiously, a little unsettled from the pure shock written all over Bruce’s face.
“Sydney’s genetic c-code.” Bruce started after swallowing the lump in his throat. “It-it matched four people.”
“What?!” Fury exclaimed while the others’ eyes widened.
“You mean there is four time travelers?” Castiel asked nervously.
“No, Castiel, you don’t understand! It matched in a way that only happens with first degree relatives! Plus, the four people it matched with could never be the time travelers.”
“Why is that? And what do you mean first degree relatives?” Sam asked impatiently.
“JARVIS, show them the results.” Bruce called out.
“As you wish, Dr. Banner.” The AI answered and the results showed in one of the holoscreens.
Everyone froze and gaped as they stared.
They knew why none of the four people could be time travelers.
Because Sydney’s genetic code matched with four Avengers.
Two of them lost in time. The third in a coma. And the fourth stood there, staring, frozen and heart beating loudly in his chest.
Even though he suspected it, he never actually thought it would be true.
He never actually imagined that Sydney would be the grandchild of the four of them.
He didn’t expect this one at all.
A sharp gasp broke them from their frozen trance and they all turned so fast to its source only to feel overwhelming panic.
Because the gasp came from Steve who was writhing on the couch, choking for air.
Everyone was immediately on their feet and rushing to him. Castiel and Bucky reached him first, almost shaking from panic.
“What? What is happening to him?” Bucky yelled in panic as he stared at Steve while he gasped for air and looked like he was struggling for it.
Castiel was immediately on his knees and gripped Steve’s thrashing head and used his grace to check him out and heal whatever was happening.
But he suddenly paled and looked up at his horrified team.
“What, Castiel? What’s wrong with the Captain?” Thor exclaimed in terror.
“Help him! He can’t even breathe!” Natasha yelled in panic.
“I can’t help him.” Castiel whispered with wide eyes, filled with fear. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” Bucky asked, his face paling.
“It’s not him who needs help. It’s his past self.” Castiel swallowed the lump in his throat. “Past Steve is currently dying from air deprivation.”