Stranger Who Knows All My Secrets [A Marvel FanFic]

Chapter 47: Nobody Panic

If there was one thing Bucky never understood, it was why anyone allowed Tony Stark access to advanced technology and dangerous chemicals. Sure, the man was a brilliant inventor and entrepreneur but some of his ideas were highly questionable like the psychotic robot Ultron which tried to destroy the planet, and the laser knife that would toast bread while you were slicing it except it only toasted one side at a time, and his Baby Speech Translator which he invented after Morgan was born and quickly discarded because it turns out, babies are almost always pint-sized assholes.

In Morgan's case, Pepper was a milkmaid while Tony was you with the face, and every time Happy entered the room, Morgan would hiccup, and the machine would announce ugh, not this fucking guy again. Natasha thought it was hilarious, she laughed the whole time she told Bucky and Sam about the translator after they spotted it on Tony's shelf of failed projects a week before Christmas when the team assembled at the compound just for the hell of it. There were never many assignments around the holidays, and Rhodey was always looking for a chance to get the Avengers together to thank them for keeping society from collapsing in on itself.

If you asked Bucky, Tony Stark was the greatest threat to society, too curious and ambitious for his own good which was probably why her lab had been moved to another building across the campus. It was an arrangement that Tony hated mainly because it was too far of a walk from the cafeteria than he would have preferred but it was a safety precaution he understood just in case he did something insane like create a black hole while attempting to heat a frozen burrito. It seemed like a joke at first but if the last two years had taught Bucky anything, it was that Tony Stark liked to meddle with things he had no business meddling with.

There really should have been a rule against fucking with the laws of nature and this was exactly what Bucky said while observing Scott and Tony messing around with their newest iteration of the Quantum Tunnel. Steve chuckled and Tony merely pointed out that society wouldn't be where it currently was without somebody poking the unknown with a stick. It still seemed like a bad idea to Bucky as he, Sam, and Steve sat in the makeshift lounge in the lab, which consisted of a lumpy couch and a piece of plywood with several cinder blocks acting as a table. There was a good old-fashioned jukebox, a mini fridge, a microwave, and a hot plate along with an ice cream machine that Bucky enjoyed way too much.

It was less a lab and more of a man cave really, one that allowed women because Natasha would have knocked Tony's lights out if she wasn't allowed in, and during the days before and after assignments when the team had nothing to do, they would occasionally hang out there while Tony did whatever the hell it was that he wanted. On that day, during the lead-up to Christmas, he and Scott just so happened to be fucking with time which again, Bucky was not thrilled about. Yet he watched the two engineers fiddle with wires and circuit boards while they explained how the new project wasn't at all intended to replicate their prior venture into time travel.

"Time travel has been outlawed." Steve reminded him.

"Since when?" Bucky asked as he shoved the remainder of a butterscotch-filled waffle cone into his mouth.

"Uh, since we discovered it and used it to save everything and everyone. No big deal, not like we unlocked the greatest mystery of the cosmos!" Tony grumbled with great annoyance.

"So, if you're not going to use that thing to time travel, what are you planning on using it for?" Sam asked as he played a game of solitaire on his phone while the two men worked on the device sitting on the table.

"When Bruce and I were preparing the Quantum Tunnel we had a few setbacks. Instead of pushing me through time, we kept pushing time directly through me." Scott said, focusing intently as he soldered wires together.