CopyCat | Bucky Barnes

77

Natasha and Bruce soon returned with Thor and Clint. Thor, looked astonishingly different. And Clint, looked as bad as I was. He had that same look in his eyes, that emptiness. I understood. He lost everything. I yearned to ease his pain. He didn't deserve to feel this way.

Most of the others were building the Quantum Tunnel, as Scott called it. I was watching with Clint as Nebula, Bruce, and Scott were getting to work on our suits.

"This is gonna work." I told Clint.

"Don't get ahead of yourself, CopyCat." Clint sighed, folding his arms.

"That's the worst nickname I've ever heard." I rolled my eyes.

"Time travel suit?" Rhodey asked them as he walked in. "Not bad."

I guess, too much white for my liking. Tony better not be making my new suit match his. I'll kill him if there's a single spec of red.

"Hey, hey, hey. Easy, easy!" Scott scolded Bruce.

I moved my eyes over, Bruce was holding a small red vile in his very large hands. "I'm being careful." Bruce tells him.

"No, you're being very hulky." Scott said, taking the vile.

"I'm being careful." Bruce says slightly offended.

"These are Pym Particles, alright?" Scott says holding up the small vile. "And ever since Hank Pym got snapped out of existence, this is it. This is what we have. We're not making any more."

"Scott, calm down." Rhodey tried to diffuse him. Although it was clear Scott was very irritated.

"Sorry." Scott sighed apologetically. "We've got enough for one round trip each. That's it. No do-overs. Plus two test runs."

Scott places the vile inside an opening in his suit, and it instantly shrinks him down. He's back to full size in half a second, his face gone almost completely pale.

"One test run." Scott amends.

"Alright," Scott shakes his head nervously. "I'm- not ready for this."

"I'll do it." I volunteer. Everyone turns their heads to me. I shrugged, walking over to Scott.

"I've always been a lab rat. Send me back." I insisted.

After a bit of hesitation, and objection from Steve and Dimitri, Bruce and Nebula were fitting me into my own suit. It wasn't as bad as I thought, the suit was made of Tony's nano tech, which meant it fit inside our wristbands.

"Alex, now you're gonna feel a little discombobulated from the chronoshift. Don't worry about it." Bruce tells me. I nodded, just standing there while they worked.

"Wai-Wait a second," Rhodey inserts. "Let me ask you something. If we can do this, you know, go back in time, why don't we just find baby Thanos, you know, and..."

Rhodey makes weird hand movements, in a strangulation pattern. All of us just stared at him until Bruce finally broke the silence.

"First of all, that's horrible...." Bruce scoffs in disbelief.

"It's Thanos." Rhodey pointed out.

"Then I wouldn't have been born." I pointed out.

"...And secondly, time doesn't work that way. Changing the past doesn't change the future." Bruce tells him.

"Look, we go back, we get the stones before Thanos gets them... Thanos doesn't have the stones. Problem solved." Scott suggests.

"Bingo." Clint chimes in.

"That's not how it works." Nebula sides with Bruce.

"Well that's what I heard." Clint says.

"What? By who? Who told you that?" Bruce questions.

"Star Trek, Terminator, TimeCop, Time After Time -" Rhodey begins listing movies.

"Quantum Leap." Scott adds.

"A Wrinkle in Time, Somewhere in Time -" Rhodey continues.

"Hot Tub Time Machine." Scott adds another.

"Hot Tub TIme Machine." Rhodey agrees. "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Basically, any movie that deals with time travel."

"Die Hard?" Scott asks. "No, that's not one..."

"This is known." Rhodey tells Bruce.

"I don't know why everyone believes that, but that isn't true." Bruce shrugs. "Think about it: If you travel to the past, that past becomes your future. And your former present becomes the past. Which can't now be changed by your new future..."

"Exactly." Nebula mutters.

"So... Back To The Future's a bunch of bullshit?" Scott scoffs in disbelief.

Nebula and Bruce finished the suit without any more questions from the others, and just in time as Tony finished building the Quantum Tunnel. Which was a large circular platform.

I wasn't nervous until I was actually up there, everyone else watching from the side anxiously, it didn't give me a lot of confidence.

"Alex, you ready?" Bruce asks from behind his computer.

I glanced at Steve and gave him a quick nod. I really wasn't, but I didn't have time to waste. "Yes."

"Alright, we're going in three.... Two.... One!" I barely heard him say one before I was being sucked down.

The ground below me was gone, and so was everyone else. I was falling in what felt like some endless pit. There wasn't time for me to think or process what was happening. I flew down past what looked like particles, and through several warped tunnels. The suit was controlling everything, and was throwing me around without say.

Maybe a minute passed before I passed through a shield of light and it pulled me out of the tunnel. I felt the ground under my feet again and fell to the floor.

"Shit...." I removed the helmet, trying to get a full breath of air. When I finally managed to stand, I looked around. I knew this place.

This was the last apartment Bucky and I stayed at before it was raided by the U.N.

I slowly inched around the apartment, until I saw Bucky's notebook on the table. I picked it up, flipping through all the pages. It was real, this was his. But this was lost in some facility when we escaped.

"Alex, have you seen my hat?" Bucky's voice echoed from another room.

Something on my wristband started beeping, they're bringing me back- No, not yet-

"Bucky!" I called out, running around the table to get to the bedroom. "Buck-"

I didn't make it before I was sucked back down. No!

I was thrown through the tunnels again, until I was back on the circular platform. I collapsed again, and noticed that I still had the notebook in my hands.

"Alex!"

"Hey, look at me, are you okay?"

Both Dimitri and Steve ran to my side, helping me up. Once I was standing, I opened the notebook, handing it to Steve.

"It worked."

Everyone was now crowded onto the platform, even Tony looked surprised after hearing my words.

"It worked." I smiled.