Broken Remains || Bucky Barnes

It Worked

Nikita's POV

"All right, Clint." Bruce pressed a few buttons as we all gathered around. "We're going in three, two...one." The time machine fired up and Clint was gone.

In ten seconds Clint was on the floor screaming. "Lila!" That was the name of his daughter. I met her a few years ago.

We all ran up to him to make sure he was okay.

"Hey. Hey, look at me. You okay?" Nat rushed to help Clint up.

"Yeah. Yeah" He held up what looked to be a baseball glove. "It worked. It worked." He repeated tossing the glove to Tony.

***

"Okay, so the how works. Now, we gotta figure out the when and the where." Images of each Infinity Stone came up, along with the name, what it was encased in, and what it does.

"Almost everyone in this room has had an encounter...with at least one of the six Infinity Stones," Steve said.

"Or substitute the word "encounter"...for "damn near been killed" by one of the six Infinity Stones." Tony intervened.

"Well, I haven't...but I don't even know what the hell you're all talking about." Scott said.

"Regardless, we only have enough Pym Particles for one round-trip each. And these stones have been in a lot of different places throughout history." Bruce came to the front.

"Our history." Tony specified. "So, not a lot of convenient spots to just drop in, yeah?" Tony walked around the room.

"Which means we have to pick our targets." Clint was brooding in the corner.

"Correct."

"So, let's start with the Aether. Thor, what do you know?" Steve asked and we all looked to the lump in the back.

He didn't move, and I could have sworn he stopped breathing.

"Is he asleep?" Nat asked me.

"No, no. I'm pretty sure he's dead." I told her.

***

"Uh, where to start? Um..." Thor took off his sunglasses. "The Aether, firstly is not a stone. Someone called it a stone before." He pointed to Steve. "Um, it's more of an angry sludge sort of thing...so someone's gonna need to amend that and stop saying that." He looked up, clearly trying to get something out of his eye.

He kept talking while digging in his eye for something.

"Here's an interesting story, though, about the Aether." I looked over at Nat, and we just stared at Thor. "My grandfather, many years ago...had to hide the stone from the Dark Elves. Ooh." He held his hands up and wiggled his fingers. "Scary beings. So, Jane, actually...Oh, there she is." A picture of Jane Foster popped up. "Yeah, so Jane was an old flame of mine. You know she stuck her hand inside a rock this one time...and then the Aether stuck itself inside her...and she became very, very sick. And so I had to take her to Asgard, which is where I'm from, and we had to try and fix her."

Scott just kept nodding with a dumb smile on his face.

"We were dating at the time you see...and I got to introduce her to my mother..." Thor's mood seemed to change. "who's dead and, um...Oh, you know, Jane and I aren't even dating anymore, so."

He suddenly decided to tell us all the sad parts of this story. Bruce tried to silently tell us to cut it short.

"Yes, these things happen, though. You know? Nothing lasts forever. The only thing that..."

"Why don't you come sit down?" Tony tried to go and get Thor to sit but he kept going.

"I'm not done yet. The only thing that is permanent in life is impermanence."

"Awesome." Tony clapped. "Eggs? Breakfast?"

"No. I'd like a Bloody Mary."

***

"Quill said he stole the Power Stone from Morag." Rocket stood on the table as we all ate ice cream and chinese food, like the weirdos we are.

"Is that a person?" Bruce asked.

"No, Morag's a planet. Quill was a person." Rocket corrected him.

"Like-like a planet? Like in outer space?" Scott asked.

"Oh, look. It's like a little puppy, all happy and everything." He started to rub Scott's head like a pet. "Do you wanna got to space? You wanna go to space, puppy? I'll take you to space." He said in the most annoyed baby voice.

***

"Thanos found the Soul Stone on Vormir."

"What is Vormir?" Nat asked Nebula, who was up to tell us about the Soul Stone, given she was the only one who knew anything about it.

"A dominion of death...the very center of celestial existence. It's where Thanos murdered my sister."

A silence fell over all of us. Except Scott.

"Not it." Scott said out loud.

***

"That Time Stone guy." Nat said. She had her feet on the table while she laid her back on the floor.

"Doctor Strange." Bruce told her.

"Yeah, what kind of doctor was he?" I asked them. Flipping a pen in my fingers, poking Nat's foot out of my face.

"Ear-nose-throat meets rabbit-from-hat." Tony said on the table beside me.

"Nice place in the Village, though." Bruce said from the floor.

"Yeah, on Sullivan Street?"

"Mm...Bleecker Street."

"Wait, he lived in New York?" Nat asked.

"No, he lived in Toronto." Tony said sarcastically.

"Uh, yeah, on Bleeker and Sullivan."

"Have you been listening to either-" Tony started.

"Guys." I cut Tony's insult short. "If you pick the right year, there are three stones in New York." The two of them went dead silent. And Nat's feet dropped to the floor.

"Shut the front door."

Nat and I had just outsmarted the two smartest people on the planet.

"All right. We have a plan. Six stones, three teams, one shot."

***

"Five years ago, we lost. All of us. We lost friends. We lost family. We lost a part of ourselves. Today we have a chance to take it back. You know your teams. You know your missions. Get the stones. Get them back. One round-trip each. No mistakes, no do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know. That doesn't mean we should know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. This is the fight of our lives...and we're gonna win. Whatever it takes."

Him and Tony gave each other trusting looks.

"Good luck."

"He's pretty good at that." Rocket said.

"Right." Scott agreed.

"All right. You heard the man. Stroke those keys, Jolly Green."

I looked down at the smaller version of a spaceship.

"You promise to bring that back in one piece, right?" Rocket asked me.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll do my best." I nodded.

"As promises go, that was pretty lame."

We all got in a circle and activated our time GPS's

"See you in a minute." Nat told Steve.

My helmet closed around my face and the knot in my stomach was killing me.

I felt the weirdest feeling throughout my body. I saw everything around me turn into almost a different world.