Steel Hearts

- 49 -

After returning the time stone, Steve and I decided we should go back only about ten or fifteen minutes and return the space stone while we were at it. After jumping through the quantum tunnel for the third time, we found ourselves in the foyer of Stark tower waiting for our past selves to come literally crashing in.

"Why were you even fighting Rumlow?" Steve asks as we position ourselves far enough away from the doors I'll be coming out of and out from directly under where he falls, behind a half wall. "You never told me."

"It wasn't so much fighting as much as I just wasn't trying to have my face smashed in by him. Apparently in this timeline now, he's gonna hold a lot of resentment for me," I grimace at the thought before shaking my head, looking up at Steve who held a look of questioning firm in his features. With a sigh, I explain, "Fury was the one who told him that I got the job over him in our timeline. This one, I told him and he lost it."

Holding a hand out, my past self along with past Rumlow come crashing through the doorway. Perfect timing. Seconds later, both past Steve's crash through the ceiling and fall to the floor.

"You've really gotta stop falling for me, Rogers."

"I was right, you do," I smirk up at Steve and earn an eye roll in return. He pulls me closer to him and plants a kiss on my temple.

"Ella, scepter now!"

Steve pulled out the scepter from his belt and used one of the Pym particle disks to make it normal sized again while I plucked the mind stone from the briefcase and placed it inside the scepter again. Once we had gotten it reassembled, our past selves were already walking away.

"I guess it pays to have been on the S.T.R.I.K.E. team," I mutter when Steve sets the scepter down near his original self from 2012. Footsteps sounded over the crunching of shattered glass. Both of us whipped around to see Rumlow hauling himself back to his feet. "Ahh shit."

Before the man could even look up to see us in different clothes, I hit him with a purple blast of energy and sent him back into the wall behind him. Slumping down unconscious, Rumlow went limp and I let out a large sigh.

"We should probably go before I wake up too."

"Why? You don't wanna sit around sharing war stories with your past self?" I bump my shoulder against him with a sarcastic grin.

He shook his head and deadpanned, "Not really, no."

"Oh come on! It could be fun."

Steve doesn't bother acknowledging my protests as he grasps my wrist and pulls me toward the doorway our past selves had exited. Without saying a word, he corners the two of us in an alleyway and programs both of our watches. I was never informed of where we would be going as the quantum suit revealed itself once more before we're both sucked into the tunnel again.

The two of us are spat out in an empty hallway. All I could do was look around in confusion.

"Steve, what are we-"

"Shh!" He shushes me and pulls me down the hallway and into a storage closet, leaving the door cracked open slightly behind him. Leaving a hand over my mouth to keep me quiet, he glances over his shoulder and out into the empty hallway.

I pry his hand off of my face and question, "Steve, where are we?"

As he looked down at me, there was a glitter in his eyes, "We were just talking about this last night."

As my face screws up in confusion, I open my mouth to speak only to be silenced once more. Not by my husband, but the sound of my voice ringing out through the hallway.