Timeline | Bucky Barnes x OC | (1)

Chapter 8-Safe House

He was looking straight at her. Did he remember her? Did he remember how she was his mission? Was he now going to finish the job? It had been six years since her last field mission, six years since they had last met. Clara wasn't ready. She wasn't ready before and Phil had died. Who was going to die this time?

"Clara, we need to go. Now!" Stark said, once again grabbing her wrist. This time Clara didn't argue. The assassin was advancing toward her, Director Fury's body lay at his feet.

How Stark managed to turn the car around in such heavy traffic she had no idea and was too dumbfounded to express her gratitude. Clara twisted her body around to peer out of the back window. In the not so far off distance, she could see the Winter Soldier still advancing. There was no way he would catch up with them at the speed they were going at but Clara was still terrified. That man was a legend. No one at S.H.I.E.L.D even knew if he really existed. There was a whole file dedicated to him, but her clearance had always been too low to get access. Maybe now she'd be able to find out who was responsible for all her injuries. She had no idea how accurate that file would be though, hardly anyone knew anything about him. Some speculated he worked for HYDRA but that organisation hadn't surfaced in over 40 years, most S.H.I.E.L.D agents thought they'd disappeared all together. One of Clara's previous colleagues, agent Sitwell, a remarkable agent, had once told her that no one had seen HYDRA in years.

Soon, they were out of the city but it did not calm Clara's nerves. It would only be a matter of time before he found her again. The only upside was that she couldn't possibly go to work the next morning.

"Stark, I can trust you, right?" Clara asked solemnly, ashamed she even had to ask, but one couldn't be too careful. Stark was right, she needed someone to talk to.

"Of course." He answered bluntly.

"Then I have something to tell you." She said and she told him everything, from the very beginning. Starting with her parents, her father's involvement with HYDRA. Their deaths. How S.H.I.E.L.D had saved her when she needed it most by giving her the opportunity to make sure no one else suffered like her family did. But HYDRA had not forgotten her and when she posed too big a threat to ignore they did what they always did: they sent the Winter Soldier to eliminate her. He put a bullet in her chest and left her to die. If Phil hadn't issued a last minute extraction plan she would have died. She owed Phil her life and she had watched him die.

They sat in silence for the rest of the journey. Stark had explained that he was taking her to a safe house his father had built in the war. Not even S.H.I.E.L.D knew about it so she knew she'd be safe. Stark dropped her off,let her in, then left almost immediately to stock up on supplies. Clara half expected him to come back with armfulls of tampons. The safe house wasn't like any of the S.H.I.E.L.D safe houses that all looked like log cabins from the outside and tin cans on the inside. This safe house was a concrete mess. It was grey and ugly on the outside and a shiny metal box on the inside. Each room was rectangular and drafty.

Most of the rooms were for storage and were almost empty with a few old timey lockers full of tinned food that had all gone off in the 50s. Clara began to wonder around, slowly making her way down the bleak corridors. She pushed on a grey double door and it swung open and she was plunged into darkness. Eventually she found the light switch. Two fluorescent light flickered to life immediately above her. Then another two a step in front of her, then another and another and another. More lights flickered on until the whole room was lit up. It was lab, full of cluttered benches with designs that were once futuristic but now all looked too bulky. Clara meandered in between the benches, occasionally picking up a half finished contraption, some of which had labels that were just weird. 'Hovering toaster'. Who would that help?

But the one that caught her eye was tragically unlabelled. She couldn't tell what it was as it was completely hidden under a sheet of tarpaulin but it was far bigger than anything else in the room. She sauntered over to it and tugged on the sheet that came toppling away to reveal a sort of chamber which would comfortably conceal a man twice the Clara's height. It was the shape of coffin but made out of rounded metal, the same khaki green as army uniforms and had a sort of window where the head of the person would be, covered with a thick layer of dust. Clara, stood on her tiptoes and strained to clear away the dust. Half, expecting to see a human face staring back at her, her foot slipped. She leant forward to steady herself against the chamber door. With a click, it sprung open.

From what she could see, there was nothing inside it. Perhaps it was a kind of bomb shelter, built for one person. The door was wide open now and Clara couldn't resist getting a closer look inside. Clara hauled herself up by stepping up with one leg to see a cluster of inactive buttons and screens. It wasn't very interesting. It would have been more exciting if she had found a body in there. Now disinterested, Clara turned herself around to step back out of it. As she did so her arm brushed against on the inactive control pads and it flickered to life.

A horrible whirring noise drowned the noise of Stark returning. The whole thing flashed with a burning, brilliant white light. A second later and it had stopped. Clara got out of it, steadying herself as the light from the chamber had momentarily dazzled her and blocked her vision with a series of white dots. When they cleared it looked as if she were in a different room, maybe it was a doorway that lead to an adjacent lab. It looked the same though. All the benches were in the same position and so were the lights and so was the door. But she couldn't be in the same room, all the benches were clear. Clara turned around to examine to chamber again only to find that there was nothing there, just a blank wall.

"Stark!" She called out, her panic getting to her now. What had just happened.

"I'm on my way!" A voice responded and Clara sighed in relief. Clara heard the doors swing open and went to tell her exciting, yet confusing tale to Tony, only to be met by an old fashioned looking man in a suit and shirt, no suit jacket, not Tony's style. The man looked up at her, equally surprised to see her there.

"You're not Janice, my assistant. Who are you? How did you get in here?"

Clara stood there motionless, unable to think of anything to say to explain herself or to find out who he was and what exactly was going on.

"Stark?" She asked, "You responded to Stark, who are you?" She stressed.

"Howard." He said in confusion, pulling at the collars on his shirt sleeves. "Are you one of the nurses?"

"Nurses? What makes you think that?" Clara asked quizzically and angrily now. Something weird had just happened to her. She was scared and she was panicked and this Howard Stark was perfectly casual.

"You're wearing trousers."

Then it hit her. Howard Stark. Not Tony. Howard.

"What year is it?"

"Now I know you're really not okay. 1942 of course, Miss. Shouldn't you be getting down to the soldiers?"

1942. It was 1942! That chamber had taken her to 1942!

Hey everyone!

It's 1942, you know what that means! Tiny Steve!

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