Chapter Text
“Move, or I’ll move you.”
Annoyed, you huffed a sigh and lifted your feet off the coffee table, shifting a few inches to the right, so Soldier Boy could pass by with a deep grumble. You rolled your eyes back slightly when he plopped down next to you on the worn, old couch in the office of the Flatiron Building.
“A ‘please’ wouldn’t hurt you every once in a while,” you muttered with a glare at the supe.
“Disagree,” he huffed.
When Butcher and his team tracked you down and recruited you almost a year ago, you surely hadn’t signed up to spend your days with a fossil from the past century. All they had wanted you to do was find the weapon that could destroy Homelander. That weapon turned out to be Soldier Boy.
And you had found him, freed the man from forty years of Russian torture without receiving so much as a ‘thank you,’ and helped the team take down Homelander, who was currently powerless and safely locked up in a CIA black site. Now, you were still here – as was Soldier Boy.
To your dismay, he wasn’t just the most powerful supe on the planet, especially after his own son’s steep fall from grace, but he was also the biggest motherfucking asshole that ever walked the earth.
Soldier Boy was obnoxious, loud, rude, sexist, racist, lazy, arrogant, selfish, cruel, deceitful, complacent, vindictive, inconsiderate, paranoid, ruthless and unsympathetic. Honestly, you’d need a whole dictionary just to get through every single character trait you hated about that man.
This morning he’d been particularly belligerent as soon as he had set foot inside the office and Hughie bumped into him, causing Soldier Boy to spill his iced latte. To be fair, the guy had just been standing in the doorway like a moron for a full three minutes – he’d stared at you the whole time, probably thinking of new ways to torture you.
Today marked your 30th birthday of all things, so it was only natural your over six-feet playground tormentor would be present for the occasion.
“Led Zeppelin, huh?” he noted with an arched brow, eyeing your choice of outfit. You mostly wore band shirts from tours you’d been to from your time traveling adventures.
“Yeah, I got it for my twenty-fifth birthday. I went to Zeppelin’s first tour in 1969. Only wear it on special occasions,” you told him with a smile.
In some rare moments, it was actually possible to have a normal fucking conversation with him. You hoped it was one of those. Aside from his grumpiness in the morning, maybe he’d decided to give you a break on your birthday.
“Oh, yeah, right…” He rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Happy fucking birthday, I guess.”
“That is so sweet of you, thank you,” you replied wryly.
He knew what you were doing. His smile rose – and then morphed into a provocative smirk. “So, thirty, huh? How’s that feminist bullshit working out for your biological clock, sweetheart?”
“Don’t kill him,” Annie reminded you of the office mantra with calm in her voice as she sat behind you at her desk, causing Soldier Boy to snort a laugh.
“Isn’t it time for your nap, gramps? You’re sundowning,” you retorted instead with a teasing smile.
You took his taunts lightheartedly. After all, you didn’t think you’d have to worry in that department – much like him. For some reason, you didn’t age… a lot. At least, it was slower than the average supe and human. You figured it might have to do with dropping in and out of wormholes. You had aged just fine as a kid but it progressively began to slow around your sixteenth birthday – the first time you’d traveled through time and jumped to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged show in New York of December 1993.
You remembered your parents had been fighting behind the broken and yellowing partition slider of a trailer you had called your home. You’d lain on the pull-out bed with your headphones on and a Walkmen, trying to drown out their screaming. You listened to that record and wished you could be there – and then you were.
You’d found your ruby slippers.
To this day, you still got ID’ed at every bar, club, and liquor store alike. Soldier Boy had never been carded. He’d once claimed it was because he was famous, to which you’d almost spat out your drink and told him the wrinkles didn’t lie. Least to say, that little joke hadn’t flown well with the supe.
“You know, doll, if you ever need that tension to disappear from your shoulders, I’m right here.” Soldier Boy smirked cockily at you and spread his legs a little further apart. Not a day passed by when he didn’t hit on you either – or anything with tits, really. “Just say the word, and I fuck it right outta you. I do like ‘em older, you know, so I don’t give shit. But if you wanna get cracking on this baby thing, we better fuck on this couch right now.”
“Please don’t,” Hughie pleaded in a high-pitched sigh, glued in his spot next to Annie.
“No, thanks,” you scoffed and scrunched your nose in disgust. “You’re a fucking pig.”
“Hey, c’mon, I know you want to,” replied Soldier Boy without an ounce of self-reflection, his smirk only widening as his hand crawled up your thigh. “Bet you’ve been waiting for a big dick like mine, haven’t you?”
“Get your fucking hands off of me!” You slapped his fingers away, huffing in frustration.
Not even your kindergarten bully had been this fucking annoying – and that kid threw a dodge ball at your face and broke your nose.
Fortunately, while your own powers were on the fritz, you still had some superhuman strength. Sure, not as much as Soldier Boy, but if he shoved, you could at least push back enough for him to leave you alone.
For, like, five seconds.
Soldier Boy laughed loudly at your rejection. “I do like ‘em feisty,” he murmured with a sultry voice, invading your space even more as he shifted closer on the couch. Lion king on the prowl. “You know, you’d be less useless if you spread your legs every once in a while.”
Jumping up from your seat, you rounded the table to bring space between you and face him properly. It was always smarter when he was in your view at all times and you could watch his brazen hands with an eagle eye – the same hands that currently began to roll a blunt on the coffee table.
“Hey, if it weren’t for me, you’d still be frozen solid in a box in Russia,” you bit.
“Well, we’d like to think we would’ve found him eventually, love,” Butcher threw in from across the room, the sly grin on his face telling you he was enjoying the show.
“See?” Soldier Boy sneered complacently. “Fucking useless.”
“You’re fucking useless!” you yelled, anger surging through every inch of your body. “No one fucking likes you! You don’t have friends, you don’t have family, and everyone in this room fucking despises you – just like your old team!”
Slowly, he rose from his spot on the couch, nostrils flaring, his sheer height imposing as he towered over you like the Empire State. A part of you was glad there was still a piece of furniture between you – even though that wouldn’t stop him in the slightest.
“You take that fucking back,” he snarled, one hand balling into a fist by his side while the other pointed a warning finger at you.
However, you stood your ground, crossing your arms in front of your chest, a challenging look in your eyes but a subtle swallow in your throat. “No,” you said defiantly and bristled. “I’ll drop you into the fucking Jurassic era where you belong, fossil. Watch you become a T-Rex’s fucking chew toy.”
Soldier Boy’s grin boldly widened, green eyes shimmering daringly. “Do. It.”
“Oi, simmer down, kids,” Butcher assuaged but didn’t even bother to glance up from the newspaper in his hands. Instead, the Brit leaned back in his chair and threw his legs up on the desk, settling into a more comfortable position.
Soldier Boy threw him a dismissive look, annoyed at the interruption, before his attention turned back to you with a spiteful sneer. “You know, if I were you, I would’ve used those powers properly. I would’ve gone back and fucking killed baby Hitler or some shit.”
You scoffed a humorless chuckle. “Yeah, not surprising you would’ve killed a fucking baby,” you retorted dryly.
“See, this is why you’re a fucking failure,” he taunted and stepped closer, his face only inches away from yours now. You could feel his hot breath against your skin. “Those powers were clearly wasted on you, doll. Women are too fucking soft.”
You snorted, shaking your head. You didn’t even know why you still argued with that asshole. He’d never change. And you sure as hell couldn’t say shit like:
What d’you know? You’ve never seen a war zone from the inside, you fucking bigoted coward.
“I’m not soft,” you insisted instead, narrowing your eyes to a glare.
“Prove it.”
“I wouldn’t hesitate to go back in time and fucking kill you!”
At this point, you wouldn’t. You really wouldn’t fucking mind at all.
However, Soldier Boy only laughed in your face like you were the bug about to hit his shield. “Oh, you can certainly try, sweetheart. But you can’t, can ya? ‘Cause you’re fucking broken. Like I said, useless,” he reiterated harshly, his sneer widening when his hand reached out and clasped your chin between his fingers. “Don’t worry. I’ll find some good use for you. Especially for that mouth.”
Furiously, you thwarted his advances once more. “I said don’t fucking touch me!”
“Yo, Soldier Boy, c’mon! Leave her alone now,” MM warned, finally getting fed up too. He usually avoided the supe to the best of his abilities, only snapping every once in a while when the asshole took it too far.
This time, MM only got involved because Hughie kept sending him frantic looks of panic during your heated exchange, probably worried you’d antagonize the supe so much he’d detonate the whole building.
“Mind your own fucking business, punk,” Soldier Boy dismissed the intervention, his venomous eyes still fixed on you.
The anger was storming through your body and closing your throat with a tight chokehold. You could barely breathe as your chest heaved and your ears rang. It was always worse when you got angry. Unfortunately for you, Soldier Boy had a way of pushing your buttons and setting off your triggers.
Your superpowers had the ability to control and bend time – or at least they used to. You had mostly used it to stop the clock and get an extension on your homework deadlines. But technically, you could also travel through time.
Once you had found out how that worked, well, you quickly became addicted. You went to concerts of bands that didn’t tour anymore, you’d shamelessly make money on Wall Street and placed bets on football games, and sometimes, you even ate dessert twice.
It was all about the little things.
But that all stopped when you accidentally cast yourself into the Middle Ages and almost got burned at the stake for witchcraft. For some reason, your powers wouldn’t work until the last second – you figured extreme distress had been a factor.
When you closed your eyes at night, you could still feel the scorching heat underneath your bare soles and smell the smoke reaching your nose and lungs.
Afterward, you didn’t want to use your powers any longer – not that you could. PTSD was a real bitch sometimes.
You had lived quietly and alone in a cabin near Montréal for years. After your parents found out they couldn’t make money off of you, they kicked you to the curb. And when you knocked on Vought’s doors, asking for help, they told you not to use your abilities – before they tried to kill you. That was the moment you’d realized you might be more powerful than you’d initially surmised. Until then, you had only used your powers for your pleasure and the occasional personal gain.
So, maybe, Soldier Boy was right when he said you had never used your gift wisely.
After your flight from Vought, you lived under a fake name and took up online college classes in physics and history to understand your abilities better and avoid grave mistakes.
And boy, time travel was a fucking bitch.
Years of study could be summarized to this, however: If you even so much so as killed the wrong fly in 1783, the whole world could go extinct.
Or in Vought’s terms: If you accidentally fucked up history, it might fuck with their business and money.
That was the reason why they had been trying to get rid of you for the longest time – until Butcher showed up on your doorstep. You had no idea how the Brit could’ve found you or even known about your powers in the first place. After your escape, Vought had kept your existence quiet. They knew if the wrong people found you, it would end direly for them.
Wrong people like William Butcher.
At first, he wanted you to go back in time and, in his words, “kill the chubby, little cape cunt.” Needless to say, you had declined. Even if Homelander was the worst creature to ever walk this earth, excluding his sperm donor, you wouldn’t kill a baby. You wouldn’t kill anything or anyone, really.
If anything, you could be classified as a bit of hedonist – or “a fucking hippie,” as Soldier Boy once had put it. Which, granted, was probably a trait you both shared. Although, Soldier Boy took the whole fucking cake and ate it, too. At least all you ever did was steal a tiny slice every once in a while.
In the end, you had never asked for these powers. You were just trying to make the best out of a bad situation.
But when Butcher then asked you if you could at least “hop back” to retrieve the weapon that had neutralized Soldier Boy in 1984, you finally told him you were essentially useless.
A part of you wanted to help, though. While you had closed yourself off from the rest of the world, you had still followed the news. You knew it had gotten bad out there. You could see Homelander spinning out of control and threatening to burn the world. You knew soon enough your house would burn, too.
You knew the monster needed to be stopped.
So, you offered Billy Butcher the only thing you could – a glimpse into the past, so he could find the weapon in the present.
And you did. You saw how Soldier Boy’s own team had despised him so much they handed him off to the Russians during an ambush in Nicaragua – but they hadn’t killed him.
The diabolical smirk on Butcher’s face had scared you. You knew he’d realized in that moment that you could be valuable after all. So, naturally, he threatened to give up your location to Vought if you didn’t join his team.
And well, here you were.
You’d traveled to Russia, you’d freed Soldier Boy, and you’d defeated Homelander. But even after the job was done, you stuck around.
Hughie, Annie, MM, Frenchie, Kimiko, and even Butcher – they had all sort of become your friends. And they protected you, even though Vought had sworn they were done hunting you. No one trusted Stan Edgar, and you knew he would probably still rather have you buried six-feet-deep if he ever got the chance.
So it was nice to know the whole team stood behind you. Well, all but one.
Part of the deal with Edgar had been a request to keep Soldier Boy away from Vought’s business. The guy was smart enough to know he wanted nothing to do with the ticking time bomb, either.
“And what are we supposed to do with that wanker, huh?” Butcher had asked as all of you stood in a very breezy office at Vought Tower – which had still been under heavy construction after the fallout.
“Let him play hero, keep an eye on him, and I’m sure we’ll have no issues, Mr. Butcher.” Edgar had smiled cunningly, his eyes flickering to you.
Afterward, you had decided to pack up like Maeve and finally live your life. You’d even applied as a physics professor at a small college. But then Soldier Boy made his own request: Either you’d stay, or he’d walk. And if he had walked, your deal with Edgar would’ve fallen through.
Soldier Boy was a bully. In fact, he could teach master classes in it. You didn’t think there was one good bone in his body. So far, you could count the times the guy had actually been nice to you on one hand – two fingers to be exact.
The first time had been the very first night you’d spent together in that rundown motel after he’d killed Crimson Countess. You took over the nightshift of babysitting while Hughie and Butcher took a snooze in the adjoining room. That night, Soldier Boy had shown you a glimpse of a human being.
“Well, currently, there are two working theories on time travel: The closed loop theory and the alternate timelines theory,” you’d explained after he had asked you how actual time travel worked. Most people gave up after a minute, but he had still been in it after five.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Well, lemme see…” Musingly, you had pursed your lips and thought for a moment. “Terminator came out in ‘83, right? You’ve seen it?”
His lips had slowly risen to a smile. “Yeah… Actually one of the last fucking movies I watched before the fucking Reds got me.”
“Right.” You’d nodded. “Still remember what happened?”
He’d scoffed and rolled his eyes a little. “I’m not that old…”
“Well, it’s been forty years since you’ve seen it…”
“Schwarzenegger comes from the future to kill that blonde chick,” he’d summarized with a cocky smirk that should’ve proven to you he wasn’t demented.
“Yeah, remember the soldier who came back to save her, too?”
“Oh. Yeah, that guy…” His nose had scrunched slightly. Of course he’d be rooting for the killing machine. “What about that fucking wimp?”
“The Terminator was supposed to kill Sarah because her yet-unborn son would defeat the robots in the future, but the soldier who came back to save her is actually the baby’s father.” There had been no way you could’ve explained it any simpler than that. “So, the Terminator actually created the circumstance, which made him go back in the first place. That’s a closed loop. Does that make sense?”
He’d nodded slowly, his brow creasing heavily in concentration. “Yeah, I think it fucking does…”
For hours, he’d asked you questions about your powers, and when he was through all of that, he even asked you about your life, what you did for work, and how you ended up here. And you’d figured he was trying to schmooze up to you to use you for his gain – or maybe he’d just been coming down from all the drugs he’d taken that day.
Either way, after what you’d seen the Russians do to him, you could understand why someone like him might want to turn back time and get a redo. The unpleasant images, the inhumane torture he’d endured, actually caused you to have sympathy for the supe.
For a second.
When you’d tried bringing it up and be his friend, he had quickly shot you down. He’d been an even bigger dick since then, as if the sheer thought of someone seeing his weaknesses scared him.
Yes, a little, gray mouse like you apparently fucking terrified the biggest and strongest elephant in this world.
Honestly, you didn’t know why the supe had insisted on your presence. Maybe he just needed the perfect victim to antagonize as he passed the time. Sometimes, you did feel like the new Black Noir of Payback.
There’d only been one other incident where he’d shown something remotely resembling kindness:
He’d complimented you.
A real, sweet compliment – and he’d actually meant it – and he hadn’t hit on you in the same breath.
One night, a few weeks ago, Annie and Frenchie had dragged everyone of you to a karaoke bar to “decompress.” Even Soldier Boy tagged along and seemed in somewhat good spirits all night – there’d been no heinous taunting, only the usual flirtatious teasing.
One of those flirtatious attempts had been a dare for you to sing.
“Oh, c’mon! One song,” he’d begged and shifted closer to you on the small leather sofa in the corner of the bar. “How about something from the fucking 80s? Like Cyndi Lauper! I’m sure you’d like that, huh?”
“What, you want me to sing ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’? Really? You?” You’d arched a brow at him.
He’d chuckled, and it’d been a sweet sound instead of a mocking one. “Hey, look, I’m all about the girls having some fucking fun,” he’d said coolly before a lick of his lips turned him a bit more serious, mysterious even. “How about something a little slower… Time After Time!” He’d grinned proudly and raised his expensive whiskey glass to your cheap beer. “That’s fucking perfect for you!”
And then you actually went on stage and sung. You weren’t a bad singer, either, but you were by far no Mariah. However, you could see Soldier Boy watching you intently the whole time with that strange look he sometimes carried whenever he was staring at you – something he did quite often.
In fact, he’d stared at you pretty intensely when he’d first walked out of his cryo-chamber, too. It gave you the creeps the same way that naked homeless man had once done in a subway after 1 AM. And then, he had fucking detonated, which had freaked you out so much you’d accidentally disappeared back to New York with a five minute time difference forward – the only time you’d actually managed to travel into the future.
But after your performance, Soldier Boy had passed you on your way down from the stage and intercepted you by placing a tentative hand on your arm.
“You have a really beautiful voice,” he’d said and even gifted you a small but genuine smile.
“Thank you.”
Sweetly, you’d even mirrored his smile after no other insults or advances followed. You’d been practically baffled. As you had glanced at him more carefully, though, you’d noticed something gleaming in his eyes, almost melancholic. You’d supposed after 104 years, he had probably been experiencing a ton of déjà vu.
“You okay there, gramps?” you’d checked with a bit of a teasing smile, and maybe that’d been your mistake.
“‘M fucking fine,” he’d huffed. He’d suddenly turned cold again, the hard lines on his freckled face crestfallen. He’d spun around, marched out of the bar, and ditched you there on the spot.
So, that was what you had done for the past few months – babysit Soldier Boy and keep the bomb from exploding. Which brought you back to this exact moment:
“What the fuck is wrong with you, huh? Seriously!” you snapped, feeling the fury overtaking you. “What the fuck happened in your life to turn you into such a miserable, toxic, overbearing, narcissistic, insufferable piece of shit?!”
“Insufferable?” He scoffed as if your words didn’t affect him, but you could see it was starting to get to him. “You’re the one who’s fucking insufferable, doll. Probably because you haven’t been fucked in a while by a real man.”
Exasperatedly, you gripped your temples. “Oh, it all trickles down to that, doesn’t it?” you deadpanned. “You sound like a fucking broken record, gramps!”
“Oh, you wanna fucking jump on me badly right now, don’t you?” he gritted through his pearly-white teeth, a challenging smirk playing on his plush lips as he leaned closer, his face only inches away from yours now.
“Please, it’s not gonna fucking make me like you more. Your dick’s not a magic eraser,” you bit sharply, your voice low and poisonous. “God knows you fucked your last girlfriend for years, and she still fucking hated you.”
Growling, he bristled, his jaw ticking. Mentioning Crimson Countess always hit a nerve. You knew as much.
“You’re just a drug-addicted loser with daddy issues. Nothing more, nothing less,” you nonetheless continued bitterly. “No one likes you! And believe me, asshole, I fucking hate you!”
As you looked up at him, you could tell he was close to exploding. Kimiko even desperately tugged on your arm to drag you out of the blast zone – not that it would’ve mattered.
“Butcher…”
Hughie’s panicked voice and wide eyes reached the Brit, who finally got out of his chair and slammed the paper on the desk.
“Oi, you two! Fucking stop it!”
And somehow, that had miraculously seemed to work. Soldier Boy managed to snap out of his temper tantrum, his breathing steadying, his smirk reappearing.
His lips twitched as he dipped his head and whispered into your ear, “You’re not fucking worth it.”
His thick fingers trailed up your hips before he grabbed your waist and pushed you closer to his body. You tried to shove him away, but this time he used his full strength on you to keep you caged.
“Get off of me!”
“Butcher!”
“Oi! What did I fucking tell you lot?!”
Kimiko tried to pull you away harder, but that only made Soldier Boy chuckle more.
“I said stop it! Get the fuck off of me!” you yelled louder, and he finally let go with a cunning laugh.
“Alright, you’ve had your bloody fun, mate. Why don’t you take a bit of a time-out now, huh?” It was the most Butcher could do as far as an intervention went. Everyone in the room knew Soldier Boy couldn’t be stopped.
“Fine,” the supe relented with a roll of his green eyes, but then his gaze landed back on you.
You hated to admit that he had gotten to you, but it was hard to deny when your whole body was trembling and tears stung your eyes.
“Fucking Christ on a cross, are you actually gonna fucking cry now?” Soldier Boy snorted condescendingly.
“Fuck you. Leave me alone,” you snapped with what little strength you had left and wiped the burning tears out of your eyes.
“Exactly why I said you’re fucking useless. This is the problem with women. Can’t even take a goddamn joke,” he ranted. The more he got to you, the more pleasure he took out of it. You could see it by the vicious twinkle in his eyes. “You keep talking how everyone hates me, but what about you, huh? You’ve got fucking no one, too. Your own fucking parents didn’t want you, and I don’t see an army of men lining up to take care of you, either.”
“Shut up!”
“Wanna know why? ‘Cause you’re a broken, useless, stupid, weak–“
“Stop it!”
But he didn’t. You couldn’t even hear the words properly anymore as they strung together into one explosion of abuse. Your vision blurred, and the ringing in your ears only got stronger.
“C’mon, fucking show me what you can do! Prove to me you’re not fucking useless! Do it!”
“I said fucking stop it!” you screamed loudly till he fell silent.
And then, poof. You were gone.
Soldier Boy blinked at the suddenly empty space before him. Knitting his brow, he shrugged your disappearance off only a second later and plopped down on the couch with an exhaustive groan.
“Fucking finally… Took her long enough,” he commented dryly and stretched out on the small two-seater, sighing blissfully.
“This isn’t fucking funny,” Hughie threw in, the anxious expression on his face only causing Soldier Boy to roll his eyes once more.
“Relax, squirt, she’ll be back,” the supe quipped, snickering. “Probably.”
“She’s got PTSD, okay? She can’t control it,” Hughie argued, placing his hands on his hips in upset, his gaze scolding. “You know, you’d think you of all people would be a little more sympathetic to that.”
Soldier Boy’s eyes glowered darkly. “What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t have that shit. I told you.”
“You know, kid’s right,” Butcher chimed in, catching the ancient supe’s attention. “I’d be a little more worried if I were you.”
“Why? Not my fucking problem. And like I said, she’ll be fine,” he reiterated with a careless grumble.
“I’m sure you’re right, mate,” Butcher replied with a conniving smirk and a casualness that made the supe wary. “Let’s just hope our little time jumper doesn’t take your advice to heart about the proper use of her abilities. But if I were bloody you, I’d hope old-me watches me back.”
Soldier Boy snorted a laugh of amusement. “Oh, I’d like to see her try,” he replied arrogantly and stretched his spine with a yawn. “Well, anyways, I’m taking my fucking nap now. Just wake me when she gets back. I’m not fucking finished with her yet…”
Hughie and the others hurried around Butcher’s desk, their voices only whispers as not to disturb the grumpy supe, and the Brit knew by the worried looks on his team’s faces that he’d have to deal with this bloody problem now.
“Butcher, what are we gonna do?” Hughie asked, eyes still wide and kind heart surely beating a marathon on his sleeve.
“Yeah, how are we gonna get her back?” Annie agreed, calmer than her boyfriend, questioningly folding her arms and arching a brow.
“Mon dieu, what if she changes the timeline, Butcher? I don’t want to wake up speaking German,” Frenchie threw in.
“And I don’t want fucking slavery back,” MM added.
“Oi, calm down,” Butcher spoke with placating hands. “She’s a smart girl. She knows more about this shite than anyone of you. I’m sure she’ll fucking figure it out.”
“What if she doesn’t, Butcher?” Annie pressed.
“Well, then, let’s hope worst she does is kill the snoring cunt over there.” Butcher smirked devilishly and gestured to Soldier Boy fast asleep on the couch as if he were hoping for that outcome. “God knows I’d be bloody fine with it.”
It took less than a second, a blink of an eye, but you felt it immediately, knew instantly what had happened as gravity itself stretched out its tentacles and wound them around your limbs, tearing and tugging until you ripped at the seams and atoms spilled out of you.
There was a stark drop in temperature – that was the first thing you’d noticed. Goosebumps formed within a beat on the bare skin of your arms, the biting cold making you not only shiver but fear for your life.
Please don’t be the Pleistocene... Death by saber-tooth? No, thank you.
But to your relief, you heard a strange, but familiar set of sounds around you – animated chatter, chiming bells and closing doors, and the occasional low rumble of a car. Your heart was pounding a furious and relentless rhythm in your ribcage as your eyes fluttered open and warily scanned your strange surroundings.
You’d landed on a street, your feet safely planted on a sidewalk. Glistening white snow covered the pavement in a thick veil, the sky a dull gray blanket above. Icicles hung from lampposts with patriotic banners flying in the chill, proclaiming messages to buy war bonds and save scrap metal.
Huh…
Powdered flakes swirled around you as a streetcar clattered past you on a cobbled street, the sound muffled by the snow. Storefronts and shops lined both sides of the road, shoppers bustling by you in coats, hats, and scarves. Your brow furrowed softly at the row of parked, snow-covered cars that looked a tad… old.
Oh no…
You had definitely traveled back a smidge, but luckily not as far as the Middle Ages again. Judging by the moderately busy street, you assumed you were at least still in New York City. A paperboy was shouting loudly further down, but you couldn’t understand him from the distance. The only word that was plastered everywhere was war.
World War I or World War II, maybe?
Wherever – or whenever – you were, you couldn’t get stuck here. Your short-lived fascination with your new environment was then quickly replaced by a rising panic in your throat.
You had to get home somehow.
Squeezing your eyes shut as tightly as you could, you tried to wish yourself back – unfortunately, you didn’t possess your pair of ruby slippers anymore that you could simply click. The more you tried and failed, the more anxious you became, and you knew a full-on panic attack was just waiting for you around the corner.
“Whoa! Hey, careful…”
With your hands on your knees, you bumped backwards into a man, your lungs constricting so much they barely let any air pass. You spun around, eyes wide and body trembling as a set of hands landed gently on your shoulders and waist for support.
“Miss? Are you alright?”
What little breath you had got caught in your throat as you stared into an all-too familiar set of outlandishly green eyes.
Soldier Boy.
“Don’t fucking touch me!”
It was a reflex at this point to slap his hands away and keep them as far from your body as possible. Of course the guy couldn’t leave you alone in any era.
Admittedly, he was hardly recognizable, though. While he was just as tall as his 21st century counterpart, he wasn’t as broad. Instead of the signature green outfit, he wore a long, black wool coat over a three-piece suit and a checkered flat cap. His hair was maybe an inch shorter, his beard replaced by a clean-shaven face. And while Soldier Boy surely didn’t look a 104, he didn’t look as young as the guy in front of you either. No furious lines from decades of anger management issues decorated his freckle-dusted face yet.
Maybe your reaction was ill-advised, considering the power he wielded. You figured any past version of the supe was even more ruthless than the current one you’d gotten to know. Moreover, you didn’t have the advantage of being spared because you had saved him from an ice box.
To your surprise, however, there was no detection of malice or offense on his features. To the contrary, he seemed strangely taken aback by your aggressive response, his hands swiftly shooting back as if your very skin was made out of scorching coals. They raised in surrender.
Surrender.
Well, that was new. He had never, ever, ever done that before. Did you land in some alternate timeline where Soldier Boy was a nice guy?
“I-I’m so sorry, miss. Please forgive me… I was just checking if you were okay,” he stammered and forced a reassuring smile, his hands still held high in good faith.
“Just stay away from me. Leave me alone, okay?”
You backed farther away from him, your eyes desperately flickering around for an exit. Your voice jittered in sync with your body before you bolted down the street and sought shelter in a dark and quiet alley.
“Miss! Wait!” he called after you, his hands picking something up in the snow that you’d dropped during your flight. “You’ve lost your–”
His brow furrowed as he twisted the thin, rectangular device in his hand, his thumb wiping bits of melting snowflakes off the sleek, black glass. As he glanced more closely at it, it lit up brightly and vibrated in his hold. He startled at the unexpected tremble, almost dropping it into a pool of mud by his shoes. Fuddled, his gaze lifted down the busy street in search of you.
“What the hell…”