Red, White & Blue | Bucky x Reader

Chapter Twenty

We land on the roof of a nearby building, just above the main entrance to Stark Tower. Judging by the multiple armed agents running into the building, I realize we can't meet Tony in the lobby as originally planned.

"Tony, what's going on?" Steve asks, fiddling with his communicator. "Tell me you found that cube."

Receiving no answer, we scurry down the fire escape, avoiding crowds of people as we move away from the building.

"Cap'n'dash," Tony calls suddenly, and we turn to see him and Scott sitting inside a destroyed car, no Tesseract in sight. "Sorry, buddy. We got a problem. Loki escaped with the Tesseract."

"Well, what are we gonna do now?" Steve asks.

"You know what?" Tony answers, getting out of the car. Scott follows him. "Give me a break, Steve. I just got hit in the head with a Hulk."

"You said that we had one shot," Scott reminds Steve. "This was our shot. We shot it. It's shot. Six Stones or nothing. Six Stones or nothing."

"You're repeating yourself, you know that?" Tony asks, "You're repeating yourself."

"You're repeating yourself," Scott mimics. "You're repeating yourself."

Tony gives him a look. "Dude, come on."

"You never wanted a time heist," Scott argues. "You went on board with the time heist."

"I dropped the ball," Tony admits.

"You ruined the time heist," Scott states.

"Is that what I did?" Tony demands.

"Yeah!"

"Are there any other options with the Tesseract?" Steve questions, interrupting their argument.

"No, no, no," Scott answers. "There's no other option. There's no do-overs. We're not going anywhere else. We have one particle left. Each. That's it, alright? We use that, bye, bye. You're not going home."

"Yeah, well, if we don't try, then no one else is going home, either," Steve argues.

A memory clicks in my head. "There is a way. There's another way to get the Tesseract and more particles for the journey home."

Tony turns to me, reading my mind. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking we take a stroll down memory lane," I confirm, glancing at a bewildered Steve. "Military installation, Garden State."

"When were they both there?" Steve asks, finally understanding.

"1970," I answer.

"What are you talking about?" Scott cuts in. "Where are we going?"

"I know for a fact they were both there," I continue, ignoring Scott's questions. "Because I was too."

"Who's they?" Scott asks. "What are we doing?"

"Scott, get this back to the compound," Steve orders, finally acknowledging him as he hands over the case. He turns back to us. "Suit up."

We press a button on our Quantum GPS devices and our suits materialize.

"What's in New Jersey?" Scott demands.

I ignore him, giving Steve and Tony the date to punch into their GPS's. "0-4, 0-7, 1-9-7-0."

"Are you sure?" Steve asks.

"Cap," Scott interrupts. "Captain, Steve, sorry, America. Rogers. Look, if you do this, and this doesn't work, you're not coming back."

"Thanks for the pep talk, pissant," Tony replies.

I look back at Steve. "Do you trust me?"

"I do," Steve confirms.

"It's your call, Cap," Tony tells him.

Steve glances between the two of us, giving us a curt nod. "Here we go."