Chapter 1519: 18
Chapter 18Summary:
Reunions
Plans
Actions
Chapter Text
Six hours later, Bucky wandered down to the kitchen looking for some coffee, he had the next shift watching Steve, even though Sam said it would likely be morning before he woke. He stepped into the kitchen and came to a sharp halt.
Steve was sitting in the sofa in the corner, that Darcy used when one of the girls was restless, in his arms was a small bundle of pink. He was singing softly, ignoring a snoring Tony who occupied the other half of the sofa, with a second bundle of pink in his arms.
"Hey, Buck." Steve kept a sing-song voice going. "Darcy did nice work on these two."
~~~
July 4th 2000
"That is so fuckin' typical… of both of you." Bucky grunted.
"Be nice, jerk." Steve grinned.
"Get over here and gimme a hug, punk." Bucky opened his arms and waited.
Steve sighed dramatically and heaved himself to his feet, tucking Fred more securely into his arms. He cautiously sidestepped Tony's feet and snorted quietly as Tony only rearranged himself on the sofa. Bucky's smile grew softer and Steve's grew brighter, as the two met in the middle of the large kitchen and with no hesitation, Bucky wrapped his arms around his friend and daughter.
"I missed you." Bucky whispered.
"Same." Steve said.
"Gonna catch me up on your life?"
"Yeah, sure, why not?" Steve answered and ducked his head as Bucky gently smacked the side of it.
Bucky gave Steve a flat look and sighed. "Always the punk, huh?"
"Always." Steve smiled brightly.
Bucky snorted and smothered a laugh. "Alright, let me get a bottle sorted for the monsters and we'll head into the great room, you can bare your soul in there." He moved around the kitchen with the sure movements of someone who had performed these actions hundreds of times. He handed Steve a bottle and carefully scooped George out of Tony's arms, patting at Tony's hands to let the man know that someone had taken the infant from him. Tony's only response to this, was to slump over onto the sofa's second cushion and go back to sleep.
"Come on, the great room's got better seats." Bucky said and lead Steve out of the kitchen.
"So, this is where you got to, huh?" Darcy shuffled across the room, pressing a gently kiss to Fred's head as she went passed a dozing Steve, and flopped down beside Bucky. "How's he doing?"
"Tired." Bucky answered. "But Sam thinks he's going to be like that for a while."
"Cool. What's he been up to?" Darcy knew that Steve had stayed with Peggy after returning the stones to their various points in time.
"Living, mostly." Bucky said. "Teaching self-defence, doing some counselling, that sort of thing. He's thinking that he might keep with it. The boys at Bayonne are always after me to teach some of the abuse victims some self-defence, Steve's been doing that for years, apparently."
"Yeah? I could see that." Darcy pointedly looked at Steve cuddling a sleeping baby. "He's a big softy, isn't he?"
"Oh, yeah. Most likely to pick up strays, of anyone I've ever known… and that includes Tony." Bucky snorted and handed George over to Darcy, before tossing a cloth over his shoulder and taking the baby back. He gently rubbed George's back until she gave a sleepy burp, then handed her back to Darcy and eased Fred from Steve's arms, doing the same to her as he had her twin.
"Why don't Darcy and I put these two back to bed and you can put Captain Snooze there, down on the big daybed?" Tony asked quietly from the kitchen door, rubbing at tired eyes and yawning.
"Sounds like a plan." Darcy handed George to Tony and scooped Fred out of Bucky's arms, giving him a slow kiss as she did. "Hurry back to bed Sergeant Barnes, I'll be waiting."
"That's an offer worth taking, Buck." Tony smirked and spun on his heel, disappearing from sight.
"Damn right it is." Bucky grinned as he watched his wife sashay from the room, before turning his attention to Steve. "Come on, punk, let's get you somewhere a little more comfortable, huh?"
"… 's fine, Buck… le' me be…" Steve muttered, still more asleep than awake.
"Nah, Stevie, you don't wanna sleep here, the daybed's better. C'mon." Bucky pulled and with a resigned sigh, Steve dragged himself to his feet. It was only a few feet across the room and Bucky eased him down onto a firm surface that had a soft cushioned top. "There ya go. Lie down, that's it." A cloud of softness was draped over Steve and he hummed as he rubbed his cheek against it. "Softy…" Bucky's voice was as warm as the hand on his face. "Good to have you back, Steve."
Steve smiled and let sleep take him away.
~~~
July 5th 2000
Steve studied the file given to him by Howard. And wasn't it a blast having Howard still alive? Seeing the man's absolute awe when Tony got serious was hilarious. But the file in his hands held most of his focus.
"Luca DeSousa? Who's he? Is he connected to Daniel?"
"Daniel's brother." Howard said.
"Ah, that's different." Steve nodded. "He died a few months before Peg and I were reunited. Heart attack."
"He had that here, too, but it didn't kill him." Howard said. "He went to stay with Daniel, that's where he and Peggy met."
"She loves him." Steve nodded. "I'm not surprised, Daniel said he was that sort of fella."
"Yeah." Howard grinned. "I don't know anyone that doesn't like Luca."
"Good." Steve nodded. "Good. Now, I can… let go…"
"Let go?" Howard asked.
"For me… Peggy died nearly ten years ago, Howard." Steve explained. "I've mourned and worked through my grief, but I still remember watching her die. Even if Luca wasn't around, I couldn't go through that again, it hurt too much. For now, I'll concentrate on getting fit and doing like Tony suggested. Learn to live in this world. Technology isn't quite the shock as it was last time. I've been there while it developed and progressed, that made a huge difference to how comfortable I was with it. And not being in a constant battle-ready state helped."
"Constant battle-ready state?" Howard frowned.
"I went from fighting the Nazis and HYDRA in 1945 to fighting aliens and gods in 2012. In the space of about eight or ten weeks. Looking back, I shouldn't have been allowed on the field, but we were all that stood between Loki and New York."
"Loki? I thought Thanos was behind it?"
"He was, but we didn't know that, at the time."
"Oh, right. Right, I remember Tony saying something about that." Howard nodded.
"Not used to facing Iron Man, yet?" Steve asked.
"Iron Man?"
"That's what we called Tony whenever he got serious or on the field. It was like all the light-heartedness vanished and he was a soldier. A battle-hardened soldier."
"Ah, yeah…" Howard grimaced. "It's not… it's a bit of a shock. I'm still getting used to a Tony that doesn't party all the time."
"Oh, his parties were wild, but you've heard the phrase… 'work hard, party hard'? That was Tony, all over."
"Yes, I'm beginning to see that." Howard sighed. "It's only taken me nine years."
~~~
"Steve?" James Morita blinked in surprise, for some reason he'd expected Steve to have aged. Even after having seen Bucky, seeing Steve looking as though he'd stepped straight from the Western Front, came as a surprise.
"Hey, Jimmy. How're ya doing?" Steve gave the man a wave from across the massive deck, where he was seated on the huge daybed, Fred in his arms.
"Holy shit, Cap." Dum-dum grinned, wide and bright. "It's good to see you. In the flesh, that is." He pushed at the wheels of his wheelchair and rolled towards his friend.
Steve sighed. "Buck took pictures, didn't he?"
"Yep." Dum-dum came to a halt in front of Steve.
"I still haven't figured out how he always managed get a hold of a camera…" Steve muttered.
"I bribed Carter and Phillips." Bucky answered, plopping George on Steve's lap and picking up Fred. "Have this one for a bit, Fred needs a feed and a clean diaper."
"Cap with a baby on his lap." Jones laughed, as he joined them. "Who'd have thought it?"
"Hey Jonesy." Steve grinned and waved with his fingers, not letting go of the squirming baby until she settled.
~~~
January 2nd 2001
"Tell me about 9/11, Tony." Steve said at breakfast.
"What do you want to know?"
"Who's responsible? Were they caught? If so, how? What type of retaliation happened? How did it effect America? The world? The repercussions, nationally? Internationally?"
"Okay…" Tony blinked a few times, he wasn't totally awake, yet. But that might not be a bad thing, he'd be more likely to not sugar-coat the facts, if he were half-asleep. "Four commercial passenger planes…" He talked for maybe an hour and half before falling silent.
"And that's the only thing, Avengers-wise, that you can see on the horizon?" Steve asked.
"The only thing that I'd consider suiting up for, yes." Tony replied.
"Right…" Steve nodded. "Let me think about it for a bit."
"Got it." Tony poured himself another coffee and sat watching Steve think, something that he always found fascintating. Steve's expression never changed but if you watched his eyes, you could almost follow his thought pattern and guess how he was going to react.
Another hour went passed before Steve focused back on the room around him.
"Well?" Tony asked, pushing a mug of coffee across the table to him.
"I think we can do something, but I'm not sure how much." Steve said. "It's such a pivotal point in the war on terrorism."
"Maybe buy out some of the seats on the planes?" Howard offered.
"And what about the towers themselves?" Riley asked. He remembered volunteering as a medic, within an hour of hearing about the attack.
"Emptying the towers it relatively easy." Yelena said. "Just pull a bomb threat or a fire alarm."
"Timing would be the biggest issue." Steve said.
"No, the biggest issue is the evacuation point." Darcy said. "Prior to 9/11 it was the forecourt. That won't work. The towers came down and the forecourt was just a debris field."
"So, we'd have to get the evac point changed." Steve grimaced. "To where?"
"The Pumphouse Park." Darcy said.
"Or St. Paul's Chapel." Pepper added. "Both are only a few hundred yards away."
"West Thames Park and Reactor Park are within two blocks, too." Clint added to the list. "So's Zuccotti Park."
"Any of them would work." Steve nodded. "Get the occupants far enough away, to be clear of falling debris."
"I can approach the NYFD commissioner and the Trace Centre's Fire Safety Manager and raise the subject." Howard offered.
"Maybe if we stage a few fire drills in our factories, first, dad. Run a few 'worst case' scenarios. It'll be more palatable if there's a reason for your concern." Tony suggested.
"Yes…" Howard mused. "We'd have needed to write some new protocols, if we'd done that, wouldn't we?"
"Yeah." Tony nodded. "If we-"
"How about we leave the evac to you pair?" Steve cut in.
Tony and Howard exchanged a questioning look and Howard nodded.
"Yeah, we can do that." Tony spoke for them both.
"Tony said four planes. One for the pentagon, two for the towers and the fourth was for either the White House or the Capitol Building, but which it was, was never confirmed. Right?" Steve waited for them to nod. "So, we've an idea for emptying the towers of personnel. We've an idea for limiting the number of people on board the planes, themselves. But what of the other buildings? Do we use the same principle with them? Empty the building and let the planes crash?"
"Are we not even considering stopping them before the planes take off?" Sam asked, in shock.
"How?" Steve asked. "How could we know anything?"
"The investigations, afterwards, proved that there was a little warning. But it was ignored by the CIA and the FBI." Darcy said. "If we were to act towards stopping the attacks before they happened, we'd have to justify our knowledge. And telling the FBI, the CIA and the White House that we're time travellers from 2023, or later, when the world was decimated by an alien who snapped his fingers and destroyed half the life on the planet? Yeah, that's not going to go down well, Sammy."
"Ugh…" Sam grunted in disgust.
"Stopping it is… there's just no way we can do it without exposing ourselves. And that's likely to make things worse." Steve agreed. "Imagine Fury's reaction and what he'd expect from us."
"He'd take everything we know and use it, to America's benefit. Not caring all that much about how our enemies faired." Howard sighed.
"Pretty much." Nat agreed, nodding sadly.
"Dammit all…" Sam huffed.
"But that doesn't stop us from acting, it just means that we have to be behind the scenes." Steve said. "Put things in place, far enough in advance that they're well established when things go down."
"And then when we pull an alarm, we do it early enough to get people out of the building and have the police and fire department on site to keep anyone from back heading in, too early." Darcy commented.
"Alright." Steve said. "Let's break it down. Evac points. Tony, Howard, that's you two. Check out all five sites and work out the best evac for each site. Get new IT and SI protocols in place, so that Howard can raise them with the City and the Trade Centre's people and at the Pentagon, let them take it to the White House and the Capitol's Fire Safety people. Pulling the alarms on the day, that's Darcy, Clint, Bucky, Nat, Yelena and Laura. Placing fake bombs or smoke bombs is Nat, Yelena, Pietro and Wanda. Buying up the seats on the various flights is Nat, Pepper, Darcy, Laura and Maria."
A round of agreeing noises came at Steve and he smiled at them all. "Let's meet each week to discuss our progress."
"Ah?" Sam raised a hand. "Rhodey, Riley and I are still Air Force and while we're here, now, we're on leave. We all have to report back soon. Riley and I are due back on Sunday night."
"And I'm due on Tuesday." Rhodey added.
"Then, it's a good thing we hadn't put you anywhere, isn't it?" Tony grinned.
~~~
August 12th 2001.
"Sir?" JARVIS call for Tony's attention.
"J? What's up?"
"Births, Deaths and Marriages have just lodged documents for the birth of Peter Benjamin Parker and for the death of Mary Louise Parker nee Johnson."
"Peter? Underoos?" Tony gasped, his breath lodging in his throat.
"Yes, Sir."
"Keep an eye on him, J?"
"For you, Sir, always." JARVIS replied.
"I think it's time we moved back to the city, don't you?"
"Shall I collate a list of suitable locations, Sir?"
"Yeah, that'd be good." Tony nodded. "What are the chances of buying some of the surrounding lots of our Bergen Point site? Otherwise try and get us some land around Green Point."
"For housing or factory space, Sir?"
"Factory space. For housing? I don't particularly want to stay with mom and dad, but maybe we could try and get the buildings behind them? Buy up the whole block? I know Clint wants to re-purchase the building he had in Brooklyn, maybe something near him?"
"It's worth investigating. Shall I look to acquiring the location that housed Stark Tower, Sir?"
"No, J. Let's steer clear of being so visible. Talk to mom about locations for housing. Just try to keep it a reasonable distance from the factory."
"There's a large plot of land off the 440 at Hackensack, Sir. Large enough to build a tower and have a factory on site."
"Talk to Pep, J, if she okay's it, go for it." Tony ordered.
~~~
September 11th 2001.
The atmosphere in Tony's factory workshop was tense. It was 8.10am and JARVIS had just informed them that the World Trade Centre was being evacuated, as was the Pentagon, the Capitol and the White house. Along with a dozen other buildings across New York and Washington DC.
All calls had been made by JARVIS, at 7.01am, using the National Emergency Broadcast Network, something that caused alarm in many places. The fact that the voice used had been a reworking of John F Kennedy's voice, had just made the alarm that much greater and meant that the authorities were in mass evac mode, buildings emptying as fast as was humanly possible.
JARVIS monitored the airwaves but other than posting impact times on a holographic screen, nothing was said by anyone.
By midday, the tension had dropped and people were more emotional. They'd basically handed out a death sentence to the few that were on the planes or hadn't got out of the buildings in time, and they were feeling it.
At 12.35, JARVIS spoke. "I have an estimated death toll for the World Trade Centre. Current belief is twelve people were inside the two buildings, but it could be as low as three and as high as twenty. NYPD, NYFD and the FBI are hypothesising that the calls via the NEBN are the result of an undercover operative, however no-one is claiming that operative. They are all stating that without that operative's warnings, the death toll could have been as high as five thousand."
"Two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-six." Tony whispered, spacing out the words.
"Not today, Sir." JARVIS corrected. "Less than twenty. We saved them. Less than twenty died in the New York attack."
"And Arlington?" Howard asked.
"Previously the toll was one hundred and twenty-five Pentagon workers and the aircraft carried fifty-eight passengers and six crew." JARVIS answered. "Today's toll is expected to be less than five from the building. And while the plane carried six crew and fifty-eight passengers, when the hijackers took the cockpit, the flight marshal on board activated an emergency destruct sequence just seconds before the plane reached the building. Ground forces reported that the tail of the jet detached from the fuselage and impacted some mile and a half from the Pentagon, itself. When emergency services reached the tail, they found five crew and fifty-seven passengers with minor to mid-range injuries. One crew member and one passenger, the flight marshal, had serious injuries but are expected to live."
"Oh, Lord..." Maria whispered.
"And DC?" Howard asked.
"Still uncertain whether The White House was the target or not, but someone from there got off a lucky shot and the plane crashed into the park between the White House and the Smithsonian. Casualties on the ground were nil, the White House had been evac'ed to the security bunker and the surrounding parks closed. There were twenty-one people on board and while there were a number of major injuries, the only deaths were among the hijackers. All surviving hijackers were identified by other passengers and were apprehended by the Secret Service."
"Total numbers, J." Tony ordered.
"Uncertain, but estimated to be less than thirty, certainly no higher than forty." JARVIS answered, promptly.
"Thirty… up against three thousand…" Howard looked from Steve to Tony and back. "We saved nearly three thousand lives, today… And it's thanks to you pair that we did that."
"We did it." Steve gave Tony a bright and happy smile.
"And that's how we plan to deal with Thanos, too." Tony reminded them. "Get in before him and make it useless for him to continue."
"I can live with that." Steve nodded, nudging Tony's shoulder with his own.
~~~
September 12th 2001
"Do you think Dr Stark could help?" Coulson asked.
"How?" Nick Fury demanded. "He makes weapons not search and rescue gear."
"That's Stark senior, Sir." Coulson corrected. "Howard makes the weapons, while his son, Tony, makes protective equipment. But I was actually thinking of Tony's skills in telecommunications."
"How does telecommunications equate to a search and rescue mission?" Fury frowned.
"Not so much equate, but maybe he could build something that could make the search easier." Coulson suggested.
"Not yet." Fury grunted. "Howard's been removing himself from Shield since we first found the infestation. I don't want to drag him back, not if I can avoid it. He sees too much."
"I've heard the son is worse." Coulson warned. "Although, when I met him, he seemed quite reasonable."
"Reasonable or reasonable for a Stark?" Fury asked.
~~~
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone