Timeline | Bucky Barnes x OC | (1)

Chapter 9- Where am I, When am I?

"Wait, wait, wait. You're saying I built a time machine?!"

"Yes." Clara sighed at how ridiculous it sounded. She must sound crazy to him.

"And you're telling me that it actually worked?!"

"Yes."

"Shitting hell!"

Clara had explained everything to Howard. She'd had no choice really, how else was she going to get back? But for the time being, it looked like she was stuck in 1942 as Howard hadn't yet built the time machine and had no idea how to.

"I've often wondered if it was possible but I can't even work out the technology to build this bloody flying car!"

"So I'm stuck here. In 1940 fucking 2!" Clara screamed, "What the fuck am I supposed to do?!"

"We could always cryogenically freeze you?"

"Oh can you? Can you really? Are you sure you're technology bloody works!" She ranted, the sarcasm dripping off each word.

"Well shouting isn't going to make anything better." Stark said as he rummaged through of draw crammed full of blueprints. Triumphantly, he pulled a particularly tattered one out, smoothed it out on a bench and presented it to Clara. She had no idea what any of it meant but the title written big and bold at the top was a give away: "Time Machine".

"Does that look familiar?" Stark asked. Clara was the only one at the current time who knew anything about time travel, which made her the leading expert, even though she was useless at science. She couldn't make out what any of the scribbled sketches or scruffy annotations meant. She shook her head.

"Bollocks...I mean, it's not perfect. It certainly needs polishing up. I sketched this one when I was pissed at 2 in the morning so of course it's not going to be finished yet." Stark mused which filled Clara to the brim with confidence. "I reckon it'll take another... three years to perfect and then 6 months or so to construct."

"So I'm stuck here for another three and a half fucking years!"

"Um...yeah. That's the gist of it."

"What the bloody fuck am I supposed to do until then?"

"Sight see?"

"Stark!" Clara snapped, having had years of experience shouting at Tony, who, at the present time, hadn't even been considered. She could definitely see the family resemblance though.

"Jesus woman, I'm listening." He protested. At least he was more compliant that his future son.

"What am I supposed to do? I have no where to stay. I have no way of getting home." She quivered as the severity of her situation hit her. She was truly stranded. "I don't even know where I am."

It took all of Clara's strength not to burst into tears. Her time at S.H.I.E.L.D had never provided her with much time for tears, one crisis swiftly followed the next, each one requiring the utmost concentration. But there was no S.H.I.E.L.D. There wouldn't be even an idea of S.H.I.E.L.D for at least another three years. Technically there was no Clara Lewis. Her grandparents hadn't even met yet.

"I could make up a bed here." Howard offered, his voice softened a little. Perhaps he had started to believe her. Clara couldn't blame him if he thought this was all some sort of a joke. She felt like a bit of joke. "Or," he continued, "I could give you an actual bed back at the house. If you'd like." He added once Clara had quite obviously blinked away all her tears but he had the decency not to bring it up. "Don't worry, doll. We'll soon have you home."

*

Two weeks had passed since Howard let Clara move into his 'house', as he had described, yet to Clara, any 'house' with more than ten bedrooms was called a mansion. Most of the rooms had already been turned into offices which Clara was under strict instruction not to enter. She had managed to keep herself out of the way easily enough by busying herself with making the smallest contribution to history she could think off: bringing Howard Stark cups of tea and keeping him company in the lab.

The two of them had reached an agreement. Seeing as it was partly Howard's fault that Clara was there (an argument had been made in which they settled it was only 30% his fault), he would dedicate 30% of his time in the lab to working on the blueprints and later the construction of the time machine. Clara was more valuable than she thought during this time for two reasons, one, she was very good at making tea, and two, she knew what the time machine needed to look like. Apparently this had a bigger impact on it's internal design than she thought as the overall construction was fairly small. The inside space was copious which left little room for the mechanics. This narrowed down the possible technologies that Howard would be able to use as the majority of them, at the time, were fairly bulky. Clara had been warned that she may well be stuck in 1942 for quite some time.

To cope with her predicament, she threw herself into work. It was a sort of coping mechanism for her. After her parents died, she had joined S.H.I.E.L.D and spent every waking moment either studying, training, or going out drinking. After Phil had died she had thrown herself into Project Insight. She may not have been very good at her job, but she spend every minute doing it. And now here she was, stranded seventy years in the past. It was 2014 one minute and 1942 the next but to stop herself thinking about it, she began furiously making cups of tea, as she, being a woman, wasn't allowed to do much else.

Howard had seemed to pick up on her mannerisms, after all, they had been living in close proximity for the past fourteen days. As Clara brought him his tenth cup of tea that day and left it on an unoccupied table in the lab along with the other six untouched cups, Howard put down his tools with a clunk and turned to face her. The gentle swirling clink of the silver teaspoon against the ceramic of the cup resounded throughout the stillness of the lab as Clara absentmindedly stirred in the sugar. Her face was a slate of utter indifference. Her pale blue eyes downcast and clouded over- vacant, her mind was elsewhere.

"Clara," Howard spoke, so quietly it was almost a whisper. The young woman's head sprung up and her eyes met his. They were still just as vacant. "Worrying about when you're going to get home won't make you get home any quicker."

"When did you get so wise?" She retorted, her head lolling back down, her eyes seemingly finding a great deal of interest within the cup of tea in her hands.

"Let me take you out tonight. See the world."

"I'd rather not." She put simply and set the down abruptly, a tidal wave of beige spilling onto the table.

"I'd be going out anyway. You're accompanying me wouldn't be preventing any progress on the time machine."

Clara lifted her head once again and met his eyes. It was hard find a fault with that ironclad logic. Reluctantly, Clara nodded. They had been in the lab since early morning working non-stop, save for the occasional cup of tea, and it was now 7pm. Both Clara and Howard were in need of a night out. What a night out would be like in this day and age, Clara had no idea.

Hey everyone!

Get ready for more banter between Clara and Howard, it's going to be wild!

Comment what you think,

if you liked it, give it a vote!