In Your Eyes // Steve Rogers

Back to the Future

Before I knew it, the roof I looked over the edge at was beside the alleyway we were supposed to rendezvous at. I stepped off the roof and lit up discs of green energy to step down like stairs until I landed on the pavement again. 

Tony and Scott were sitting in an abandoned car. Tony had his arm on the window, fingers clenching his forehead. Scott sat behind him, one eye twitching as he stared at the back of Tony's head. They both turned their heads as I arrived. 

Steve hopped down the staircase of a Fire Escape. He landed roughly on his feet, shield in one hand, scepter in the other, and turned to see who had made it back. 

I extended my hand to his cheek. He had a bruise starting to form underneath his eye. He smiled at me and mumbled he was okay. 

"Yeah, guys, we have a problem," said Tony.

Scott scoffed. "Yeah, we do."

Tony rolled his eyes and explained how they had acquired the briefcase, were about to leave, and then Hulk busted through the staircase door and hit Tony while he was at it. The Tesseract went flying and was grabbed by Loki and they both disappeared. 

"What are we gonna do now?" asked Steve blankly.

"You know what, give me a break, Steve. I just got hit in the head with the Hulk," defended Tony. 

Scott exited the car to pace, control over his hands were gone as he yelled at Tony. "We only had one shot, this was our shot, we shot it! Six Stones or nothing--"

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

Scott turned and yelled, "You're repeating yourself, you're repeating yourself, you're repeating yourself," at Tony, who just stared at him. "You never wanted a Time Heist, you weren't on board with the Time Heist--"

"I jumped the ball."

"You ruined the Time Heist!"

"Is that what I did?!"

"Yes!"

"Are there any other options with the Tesseract?" asked Steve, his forehead scrunched with hope. He looked between all of us as we all tried to think.

"No, no, no there's no do-overs, no going anywhere else. We have one Particle left, each. That's it. No going home," reminded Scott. 

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

"Just shut up for a minute, will you?" I asked, putting my head in my hands. "There's a chance... I don't know, maybe I can go back to the Light Dimension, retrace the Tesseract's path when it leaves New York, if we can spare the time. There's gotta be a point it gets to a S.H.I.E.L.D property," I said. I looked at Scott. "Pym, he worked at the Triskelion, didn't he?"

"Um, I think," said Scott, unsure. 

Steve looked down at me, confused. He hadn't listened to my words past 'Light Dimension' and I knew by the way he looked at me with that flat brow, with his lips split just enough to convey confusion to me, and not everyone else. He was caught on my mention of my former home, the one I hadn't mentioned much in the last five years, and he knew exactly what my words meant. He was trying to find it in himself to believe it. 

Shyly, I held my hand in front of it. We both glanced to my hand as it glowed green. Steve's lips closed, then turned into a small smile.

"You... You got it back," he whispered in disbelief.

"The Time Stone being destroyed broke my soul, broke our connection. I thought I didn't have it anymore, but... It was just like Thor said," I mumbled. I let my hand fall. "It was in me all along."