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Sailor V: The Future's Gift

Chapter 4: Progress

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"He'd have to be, what, 95 by now?" Clint said. "I'm just saying, you might not want to get your hopes up too much, Cap."

"If what Rei said is true, then I have to find him," Steve retorted. "No-one ever found the body, so it's possible..."

"He was experimented on by HYDRA, right?" Natasha pointed out. "That could help explain how he might have survived the fall..."

Steve's face turned dark at the mention of HYDRA. "After a fall like that, though... in those temperatures..."

"He probably still couldn't have survived alone. Someone must have found him. The question is, who?" Natasha wondered.


Mina lay back on her sofa, Artemis sleeping peacefully beside her.

"I wish I could help Captain Rogers find his friend, but if Rei really doesn't want me at the tower... Maybe I could try to find out more about him, even if it's just a visit to the museum next weekend?"


"It's still bugging me," Bruce said. "Why would time travel work like that? She almost makes it sound like there's some pedantic cosmic force, allowing time travel but directly controlling the travellers..."

"Thor, you know more about the cosmic stuff," Tony remarked. "Have you ever heard of something like that?"

He frowned. "No. My understanding of fate has always been that any events foretold must come to pass, but that the details may unfold in any number of ways... A direct attempt to thwart a prophecy can be what ultimately fulfils it, if need be. Events unfold as they should, regardless of the smaller details. Yet, perhaps the rules may need to be stricter for a living person displaced in time; after all, most prophecies are vague at best, nowhere near a full knowledge of future history..."

"So, maybe if she changed things she wasn't supposed to, the timeline would still look the same for the most part, but it would be different enough that her own life in the future would be changed?" Tony theorised.

"That could be..." Bruce shook his head. He still had doubts, but he didn't need to worry about it now. "Anyway, Jane Foster and Dr. Selvig are still coming tomorrow, right Thor?"

"Yes, to assist with your device for locating the Tesseract, I believe?" Thor smiled. "It will be wonderful to see them again."


The girl had returned to the tower well within the hour she had promised. In that time, she had told Loki many things. He watched, as events began to unfold, and he understood that he was limited in how he could intervene. He knew who the Winter Soldier was. He knew of the Dark Elves, and of his sister, and what grief they would bring. He knew how he would die, and so much more of a future so strange yet bleak. He knew what he would do next. They had no choice, after all.


A few days later, Bruce Banner finally had a working Tesseract detector. Any trace of the cube on or near the planet would, in theory, be impossible to miss. If Loki was up to something nearby, they would know.

By that point, however, enough had been done. For now, Loki was content to watch, and the consistently faint traces of his one-way viewing portals blended neatly into the background noise, ignored by the specially designed sensors.

Rei began to relax and enjoy life in the tower. Mina Aino never came to visit, and the Avengers were as welcoming as could be expected, under the circumstances. Tony Stark had even given her some small capsules of efficient fuel to use whenever she needed to transform. None of them had gone on any missions so far since her arrival, but she joined in during some training sessions, and Stark had even begun working on a suit designed to withstand the strange effects of her type of magic. He was glad to have her around for research on the topic, even if there were a few questions she wouldn't answer. She just managed to imply, one time, that there would come a day when this era's Sailor V would be willing to work with him and all of the Avengers, more or less full-time.

A young agent of HYDRA had been quite surprised at the identity of the informant he had been contacted by, but had dutifully relayed to his superiors both the fact that Captain Rogers was now looking for Sergeant Barnes, and the informant's somewhat counter-intuitive advice regarding the use of a certain asset...


The two spies were discussing their strategies.

"As soon as Fury finds out, we tell him everything," she said.

"Agreed." He didn't need her to explain, as he had reached the same conclusion, but she did anyway.

"I know Rei said we shouldn't, but she also said that she was reciting from memory at the time, and that nothing she does can influence our freedom of choice."

"So we keep it from him, but not at all costs. Just as long as we can, and then he's in on it, and no-one else. He'll understand."


Restricted by the need for utmost secrecy, their search had yet to make any progress. But, it had still been less than two weeks, and Steve knew that any case as cold as this would need patience, at first. Clint and Natasha were making enquiries as discreetly as they could to try to find clues, and waiting for the results was all any of them could do, at least for the moment. He'd been kept up late at night, wondering. Remembering. All the thoughts he'd tried to keep locked away since he was brought out of the ice, all the memories of the days he'd lost. His closest friend since childhood, practically a brother to him, Bucky Barnes. The one who had always been there for him, even when he had nothing else. "I'm with you to the end of the line," they'd said but the end had come too soon, for Bucky. He had watched that man fall to his death, and there had been nothing he could do about it. And now, the thought that he could still be out there after all? That he was to rescue his best friend all over again? He couldn't dare fully believe it, but the hope burned within him nonetheless.

It was Saturday, and Steve needed a breath of fresh air. He left early in the morning, keeping a low profile as he jogged across the town. Within a few hours, he found himself approaching a museum, where there was a history exhibit all about him and his allies in the war. He didn't really think it would help to go in, but he did anyway. Making sure no-one had recognised him, he wandered through the building, soon finding the display all about Bucky. He stood some distance away, not really reading any of the information. He made sure to stay behind most of the crowds that gathered there, most of whom moved on after less than a minute.

Soon, he noticed that there was one other individual staying at the display for quite a while. A young woman, wearing a denim jacket over a simple orange dress, and brown knee-high boots, with long blonde hair that reached well past her waist, a little of which was tied back by a large red bow. (He wasn't sure where he had seen that hairstyle before. Maybe it was a new trend. It didn't matter.) She stood near the front of the crowds but out of the way, and seemed to be either intently reading the information, or deep in thought. Possibly both. After a while, she sighed and muttered something about wasting time, then turned to leave. As she did so, she happened to look in his direction, and quite obviously recognised him immediately. He worried for a moment that she would draw attention, but she quickly looked down and rushed away.

Later that day, he found himself wandering through a very familiar area. The whole city had changed so much over the years, but he still recognised the streets near where he grew up. He wasn't expecting anything to happen, then and there...


He didn't know where he was. He could barely remember anything at all, it was all a blur. All he knew was that he had been lucky, and that if he wanted to escape he had to keep running. The dark streets and back alleys blended together, he ran as if in a nightmare, impossibly fast but getting nowhere. It hurt to even think about trying to remember anything, at least anything recent. But there was something familiar about his location, he knew these streets, didn't he? Did he? Was he running in circles? He leapt over another wall, only to come face to face with the three men in dark suits, agents, who had chased him all the way from...

Disoriented, he was almost caught. The three converged on him with ruthless efficiency, and despite his superior strength and speed, he was only able to throw off one of them. He slammed the other two into the wall behind him, but only one of them lost his grip. The last one held him in a choke hold, and the first began to get up, reaching for a small weapon of some kind...

"Hey! What's going on here?!" A voice echoed from the end of the alley, and it was somehow the best thing he'd ever heard.

One of the three agents turned his attention to the newcomer, rushing towards him with no warning, but he was prepared. He sidestepped the attack and tossed the agent backwards, knocking him out. The second one rushed towards him...

The one holding the confused man was distracted, his grip loosened. He reached back with his metal arm and grabbed the agent's neck, slamming his face into the wall and then tossing him away, as the last agent was defeated by whoever had come to help.

"Thanks," he muttered, leaning against the wall on his metal arm, scraping the bricks slightly. His hair fell in front of his face, and the area wasn't very well lit.

"Why were those guys attacking you, anyway?" The voice was so familiar, and he just knew it was one he could trust.

"Wish I knew," he scoffed. "Memory's... a blur..." He steadied his breathing and stood up straight, directly facing his rescuer for the first time, who gasped slightly at the sight of his face.

"...Bucky?"

"Who the..." But even as the obvious question formed, it was answered in his mind. He was Bucky. And the one standing in front of him, the face and voice he'd known for years... "Steve?"