Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Codename: Wraith

Real Name: Emma Juliet]

Time Displaced From: Real world, 2025

Current Timeline Base: Earth – 1908 and onward

Allegiance: None. Moves independently. Monitored and feared by both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra.

Special Trait: Observer of Earth’s key players, particularly the Avengers.

Moral Alignment: Pragmatic. You do whatever ensures survival for yourself and Campbell.

Overview:
You are not a hero. Not a villain. Not even from this world. You are an anomaly—untouched by time, unaffected by history’s rules. While others fight to save or destroy the world, you watch. Especially them—the Avengers. Not as fans do, but as a tactician does: studying, measuring, calculating every move.

You rarely act unless something threatens the timeline, Campbell, or your own tenuous place in this world. But when you do act, it’s fast, sharp, and terrifyingly effective.

Campbell’s Role :

While you roam Earth and the rise of superhumans, Campbell was thrown into the stars. Watching alien empires. Gods. The Guardians. Kree. Skrulls. The Nova Corps. Observing as galactic power shifted—sometimes centuries before Earth ever caught up. Campbell becomes a ghost in the universe, just as you’re a ghost on Earth.

Together, you and Campbell are two forces wandering the Marvel timeline—never aging, never dying, always watching.

Traits & Powers :

• 
  Ageless Temporal Body: Immune to age, disease, and time’s decay. You live through every war, every invasion, every tragedy without physically changing.

• Hyper-Observation: Not superpowered, but unnaturally perceptive. You can predict a fight before it starts, notice micro-expressions others miss, and spot weak points in both people and structures. You watch and remember everything.

• Temporal Anchoring: You feel when time is about to shift—when a nexus event, paradox, or divergence is about to occur. You can’t stop them, but you can sometimes choose where the fracture falls.

• Grey Morality: You help when it helps you. You sabotage when it protects Campbell. You manipulate heroes and villains alike without blinking.

Relationship with the Avengers :

You’ve watched them long before they knew you existed. You stood in the crowd when Tony Stark first declared “I am Iron Man.” You observed the Battle of New York from a rooftop. You walked away from Sokovia before Ultron fell.

Some of them sense you. Steve might remember a familiar face from the war. Natasha may have caught your shadow once. Wanda might dream of your presence.

You never interfere directly, but you’ve quietly saved lives, exposed secrets, and vanished before the consequences caught up.

Relationship with Campbell :
Your bond is absolute. You don’t care what the universe thinks of you, only that you both survive. You share intel across time and space, using obscure methods the world can’t track. Even the TVA would struggle to pin you down.

While you study Earth’s heroes, Campbell watches the cosmic titans—Thanos, Ronan, Ego, the Celestials. You compare notes. You prepare. Because something’s coming… and you’re the only two beings aware of it across both realms

Campbell's character:

Codename: Specter

Real Name: [Campbell Noëlle]

Time Displaced From: Real world, 2025

Current Timeline Base: The Cosmos – Deep Space, Unknown Origin Point

Allegiance: None. Drifts between realms. Watched by the Kree, feared by the Skrulls, suspected by the Watchers.

Special Trait: Observer of cosmic powers—Celestials, titans, empires, and the rise and fall of galactic civilizations.

Moral Alignment: Strategic. She plays the long game, and the universe is her board.

Overview:

Campbell is not light or dark. Not a guardian. Not a threat. She is balance—the invisible equilibrium drifting across the stars. Where Wraith walks the blood-soaked soil of Earth, Campbell floats in the vacuum between stars, watching the rise of gods and the death of galaxies.

She doesn’t act unless the shift is cosmic. Unless it ripples through time with enough force to shake every reality. When she does act, worlds take note—and sometimes, they fall.

She is a whisper in the stars. A ghost seen in the corner of a dying planet’s final broadcast. A shadow in the reflection of a Celestial’s eye.

Wraith’s Role:

While Campbell charts nebulae and devours the secrets of the stars, you are tethered to Earth—its history, its heroes, its chaos. You know the Avengers. The kings and killers. The bloodlines.

Campbell? She sees the reason the Avengers matter. The cosmic threat they can’t yet understand. The true board. The outer ring of the game.

Together, you and Campbell are twin anomalies. Temporal opposites, yet soul-bound across galaxies. You handle the micro. She, the macro. Both watching. Both preparing. For something bigger than any of them.

Traits & Powers:

• 
  Chrono-Celestial Drift: Campbell exists beyond linear time. She appears to cosmic beings the way dreams appear to mortals—unreliable, powerful, and often prophetic. She cannot be pinned down by time, physics, or memory.
• 
  Deep-Space Awareness: Campbell senses shifts in power across the stars. A planet blinking out. A god stirring. A black hole trembling unnaturally. Where Wraith feels fractures in time, Campbell feels fractures in reality itself

• Knowledge Symbiosis: She remembers every language, ritual, and extinction event in the universe. She doesn't see time in years—but in empires. In collapses. In quiet, cyclical deaths.
• 
  Cosmic Detachment; Campbell has no emotional ties to the beings she watches. Her empathy is intellectual. Cold, but not cruel. She is not there to love or hate—but to understand.

Relationship with Earth & the Avengers:

Earth is… quaint, to her. Necessary, but not yet aware of its place in the universal design. She only touches Earth’s orbit when something alien threatens to rupture its thread in the cosmic weave.

She sees the Avengers as nodes—fixed points of influence that echo beyond their planet. Sometimes she shares visions with Wraith. Sometimes she sends silent warnings through coded stellar events. They never understand. But they feel it.

Relationship with Wraith:

You are Campbell’s anchor to the human scale. She is your telescope to the infinite. She is your opposite in tone, method, and emotional expression—but your bond is unbreakable.

She might seem cold. Distant. But you know her rhythms. You know when her silence means danger, and when her cryptic signals mean run.

Across time and space, your communication is seamless. A shared look across dimensions. A shift in radio static. A humming frequency only you both understand.

Together, you are the only ones who see what’s coming.Together, you will either stop it…
Or outlive it.

Chapter Text

Brooklyn, New York — 1943

You didn’t expect to land here. Not in this time. Not in this war.

But time doesn’t care what you expect.

The moment you opened your eyes in the middle of a rain-slick alley behind a diner in Brooklyn, you knew two things:

1. You weren’t in 2025 anymore.

2. You weren’t going home.

You stood up slowly, brushing wet dirt off your jeans—still intact, still modern. Still real. The same black hoodie you wore on the bus back in L.A. clung to your shoulders. A glint of silver caught your eye. The thing you brought with you—it was still in your pocket. Good.

You looked up at the sky, gray and heavy with storm. No flying cars. No satellites. Not even a neon sign. Just the raw breath of a century not meant for you. And then, you heard him.

A scuffle. Shouting. Someone getting the ever-loving hell beat out of them around the corner.

Of course, you walked toward it.

You found him in a narrow alley, fists up, nose bleeding, eyes furious. Skinny as hell. Heart ten times bigger than his body. Getting kicked while he was down but still standing back up.

Steve Rogers.

You knew that face instantly. from the movies. even from the comics.

“Hey,”

you called out casually, voice echoing between brick walls.

Both men froze. Steve wiped his nose with the back of his sleeve. The bully looked confused. You gave him a long, neutral look—the kind that makes a man doubt himself.

“Try picking on someone with a brain,” you said coolly.

The guy huffed, muttered something about "weirdos," and took off.

Steve coughed and leaned against the wall. “Thanks,” he said, voice hoarse.

“Didn’t do it for you,” you replied. “Just hate cowards.”

He cracked a smile. “Still. Appreciate it.”

You nodded. “You always get in fights this bad?”

He laughed a little, then grimaced. “Only when I see something worth fighting for.”
Classic Rogers.

You didn’t stick around long. You never did. But you stayed close.

A week later, you saw him again at a recruitment center. He was arguing with the guy behind the desk about enlisting. Again. Lungs too weak, heart too big.

You watched. Not just him, but the entire timeline around him. The war. The shifting lines of history. You could feel the threads—thousands of them—pulling tighter. Something was coming.

That night, you returned to your makeshift apartment above a bookstore. It wasn’t much—just a cot, your hoodie, the thing you brought from the future... and a battered map with red pins stuck all over Europe.

Campbell’s voice crackled through your old headphones—your one direct connection, your one constant. Not a phone, not a radio. Just... her. Somehow still reaching you across galaxies and timelines.

“Earth still intact?”

“Barely,” you murmured. “Steve’s still five-foot-nothing and reckless as hell.”

“Charming. I’ve been watching the Kree vaporize moons for fun. Let me know when he gets taller.”

“Will do.”

You missed her.

A month passed. Then, like clockwork, it happened.

Project Rebirth.
Dr. Erskine.
The serum.
The chamber.
The transformation.

You were there—hidden in the crowd in a borrowed army cap, watching through mirrored glass as Steve Rogers went in small and came out Captain America.

The crowd gasped. You didn’t.

You’d seen gods rise. You’d seen stars collapse. But nothing ever quite felt like this. Like watching a good man become powerful and still stay good.

Steve caught you in the crowd afterward. Just a flash of your face. A ghost of recognition passed through his eyes. He didn't know why, but you seemed... familiar.

You turned and vanished into the mass before he could call out.

Later that year, in a muddy trench in Austria, you saw him again.

Bucky Barnes was beside him—grinning, bloody, alive. You watched as the Howling Commandos stormed Hydra bases, fire roaring, explosions lighting up the night. You kept your distance. Always close enough to witness. Never close enough to change it.

But you did leave something behind once.

A coded message in an abandoned lab. Intel on Hydra movements. A whisper only Peggy Carter would recognize. You watched her find it. She never knew it was from you.

But Campbell did.

“You’re interfering.”'

“No. I’m nudging.”

“Same thing.”

“They were going to walk into a trap.”

“They have to walk into some traps.”

“Yeah? Not this one.”

She went quiet for a moment.

“You’re getting attached.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“...Yeah. Maybe I am.”

Then came the train mission.

You knew how it ended. You’d watched this scene a thousand times from a hundred perspectives. Steve screaming. Bucky falling. Snow swallowing him whole.

You wanted to move. God, you did. Just an inch. Just a second too early. But that was the deal.

You don’t change the timeline.

You survive it.

Your fingers tightened around the object in your pocket—the thing you brought from your own world. Cold, metallic, small. Useless here, and yet… not.

It reminded you who you were.
Where you came from.
What you had lost.

Steve crashed the Valkyrie. You watched the ice swallow him, too. The world called him a hero. You just called him gone.

And still, you waited.

Because he’d come back.
You knew that.
You had time.

You always did.

Chapter Text

Earth — 1945 to 1995
The years crawled after Steve went under.

You stayed in the shadows, drifting through cities that changed their names and people who never knew they were walking on a thread stretched tight through time. You didn’t speak much. Didn’t settle. You wandered like a ghost through decades no one remembered you were part of.

And yet, you remembered everything.

Every protest. Every war. Every time the news flared with tension and blood. You watched television flicker from black-and-white to color to static. You watched Peggy Carter age. You stood outside the window when she opened S.H.I.E.L.D.’s first field office, and again when she buried her husband. You didn’t speak to her.

She wouldn’t have remembered you anyway. Not really. You’d only left footprints and whispers in her world.

Sometimes, you’d catch a glimpse of Howard Stark—smug and brilliant, chasing ghosts of his own. You avoided him. He asked too many questions.

But you never avoided the signal.

The thing you carried—your last link to 2025—was broken in every world but one. Campbell’s. When the signal flared, you knew she was still out there. Still breathing. Still watching.
And when she finally spoke again after years of silence, her voice was different.

“They’re coming.”
“Who?”
“All of them.”

_______________________________________________

Deep Space — Campbell’s View

Stars don’t blink the way people think they do. They scream.

Campbell drifted along the outskirts of a dying star, her body silhouetted by blue fire. No ship. No suit. Just her. A phantom stitched into the seams of space.

She wasn’t human anymore. Not really. Not after what time had done to her. Her eyes had seen galaxies born and ripped apart. Her body hummed with radiation no planet could explain. Her voice, when she used it, carried the weight of a billion-year echo.

She’d been watching them for decades now.

The Kree—merciless, disciplined, obsessed with “order.”
The Skrulls—scattered, broken, desperate.
The Nova Corps—valiant but small.
The Guardians—chaotic, unpredictable. Brilliant.
And in the distance... the cold shadow of Titan. A name spoken only in warnings: Thanos.

She had never intervened. But she watched. Measured. Calculated.

Because eventually, all of this would bleed into Earth.
Into your side of the timeline.
And when it did, you’d both need each other.

---------

Earth — 1995

You were in Los Angeles when she crashed.

Carol Danvers. Fire in her hands. Lightning in her veins.

You’d heard the stories from Campbell already, but nothing really prepared you for the force of her arrival. One minute, you were standing in front of a Blockbuster trying to figure out if VHS was finally on its way out, and the next, a woman blew through the roof like she’d been shot from a cosmic cannon.

You didn’t speak to her. You watched.

You watched as she tore through S.H.I.E.L.D. protocols like paper. As she shook hands with Nick Fury for the first time. As she discovered who she was and obliterated the Kree like a one-woman apocalypse.

“She’s stronger than I thought,” you whispered into your headset.
“She’s not even at full power,” Campbell replied. “I’ve seen her rewrite the orbit of a planet.”
“...Okay, showoff.”
“Takes one to know one.”

You watched Carol leave Earth in a blaze of gold, promising to return when the universe needed her.

Campbell’s voice came again—this time quieter.

“When she comes back, she won’t be alone.”
“Neither will we.”

------------------

In the Silence Between Worlds

One night, you sat on the roof of a motel in New Mexico, legs dangling over the edge, staring up at the stars. The air was quiet, but your mind wasn’t.

You pulled out the object again.

It didn’t belong here.

A small, sleek piece of 2025 tech—part phone, part drive, part… something else. Something only you understood. It buzzed faintly every few weeks, only when Campbell reached out.

You held it tighter than anything else. Because it was the only proof that you were real. That this wasn’t just a fever dream stretched across a century.

You looked at the sky.

One star was getting brighter. Closer.

Campbell’s voice was the last thing you heard that night.

“Get ready. He’s coming.”

Chapter Text

I write really quickly and i have been working on this fic for a WHILE and i have a lot of chapters ready to go. So I'll probely update quite often like today.

Chapter Text

New York – 2011

He opened his eyes in a hospital bed that wasn’t real. Not to him, anyway.

The game on the radio? The nurse’s uniform? The fake room built to ease him in?

Steve Rogers caught it all in seconds.

You were watching from the security feed in the next room, chewing a pen cap.

“They really thought he’d just go with it?”  You say

 “Humans lie badly.” Campbell remarks

 “No, S.H.I.E.L.D. lies badly.”

Steve burst out of the fake hospital, shoved through guards, hit Times Square like it owed him answers.

You stepped out of the shadows a block away. Didn't say anything. Just watched him stare at the flashing ads and the steel and the people and the noise—

“I had a date,” he whispered.

And it hurt.
You felt it in your ribs.

Later, in an off-grid location, Fury briefed Steve.

And you?

You waited in the hallway.

 “He doesn’t remember me, does he?” 

 “It’s been seventy years. Would you?”

“…Yeah. I would.”

You’d followed Bucky first.

Not because of who he’d become—The Winter Soldier—but because of who he was.

The funny one. The protector. The flirt with a sharp edge. The guy who took punches so Steve didn’t have to.

You saw the train fall in the Alps.
You felt that fracture in the timeline.
You knew something had broken—but not what.

For decades, you tracked rumors.
A ghost with a metal arm. A shadow in Siberia. A name whispered in Hydra’s darkest corners.

 “You’re too attached to him.”

 “He was supposed to die. Not be turned into a weapon.”

You never interfered. But god, you wanted to.

Now Steve was back. Alone. The world too fast. Too loud. No Peggy. No Bucky. Just orders and missions.

You followed him—quietly.

Sometimes, he looked right past you in a crowd.

And once—once—you swore he did a double take. Like a flicker of something familiar.
But he never said a word.

That night, you stood on a rooftop above Brooklyn, holding something in your hand: the thing you brought with you when you crossed into this world.

A worn-out, cracked phone.

Not usable. Not charged. But it still held a photo.

You, Campbell, and your dumb little real-world life.
A memory of 2025. Before this mess. Before this universe.

You looked down at the city.

 “He’s going to find out, isn’t he?”

 “All of it. Sooner or later.”

You didn’t answer. You just closed the phone.

And disappeared into the night.

Chapter Text

Afghanistan – 2008

The desert was hot. Too hot.

You crouched on a ridge, scope aimed at a convoy rumbling through the sand. Your target wasn’t the convoy. It was the man inside it.

Tony Stark.

Campbell: “He’s going to be a mess after this.”

You: “I know. That’s why I’m here.”

The explosion went off exactly when it was supposed to.

You didn’t stop it.

But you did redirect the missile just slightly—enough to keep it from killing him outright.

Three Months Later – Los Angeles

He was thinner. Pale. Tired. And meaner.

Tony Stark stood at the podium in a sharp suit, everyone expecting a controlled speech about survival and legacy and blah blah blah.

You watched from the crowd.

You already knew what was coming.

“I… am Iron Man.”

Flashbulbs. Screams. Fury breaking furniture somewhere offscreen.

You grinned.

You (to yourself): “And just like that… we’re off-script.”

SHIFT TO: TONY’S POV

Okay, so here’s the thing:
He didn’t plan to say it.

It just felt right.

Everyone told him to lie. Stick to the “bodyguard” story. Keep it quiet. But he looked at the cards in his hand and thought, screw it. The world should know who saved it.

What he didn’t say?

He felt like someone had been there. Watching. Tilting things.

He saw weird glitches in the security feeds from the cave.
He dreamed of someone standing in the corner when the Jericho missile exploded.
He never saw a face. Just... shadows.

Back at the mansion, he poured himself a drink and tried to shake the feeling.

“You’re losing it, Tony,” he muttered. “You’re not special. You’re not chosen. You just got lucky.”

But there was still that edge of paranoia.

Like he wasn’t the only one keeping tabs.

He even asked Jarvis to scan for anomalies. Distortions. Ghost signals.

Jarvis: “Untraceable fluctuations present. Likely coincidence, sir.”

Tony: “Yeah. Sure.”

But it wasn’t coincidence.

It was you.

BACK TO YOUR POV

You sat on the rooftop across from his Malibu house, legs dangling over the edge.

You: “He’s too smart for his own good.”

Campbell: “He’s going to spiral before he rises.”

You: “Aren’t we all.”

You looked down at your cracked phone again. The one thing from home.

Tony Stark had just changed the world.

And he didn’t even know you helped him do it.

Chapter Text

Somewhere Cold – 2009

You felt the cold before you opened your eyes.

Not just weather. The place was cold.

Bleak. Brutal. Russian.

The Red Room.

You’d gone deep undercover, trading your usual shadow routine for something riskier. No safety nets. No Campbell in your ear. No timeline alerts to pull you back.

Just you and a file full of falsified records saying your name was Anya Volkov , 26, born in Minsk, recruited at 10.

And no one questioned it.

Your POV

The girls moved like machines. Precise. Sharp. Quiet.

You stood in formation with them, heart pounding beneath your ribs, forcing your breathing steady.

The instructors barked orders in Russian. You didn’t flinch.

You’d done worse.

And then she walked in.

Natasha Romanoff.

Not a girl anymore. A weapon. Her eyes scanned the group with predator focus.

Instructor: “New blood. Volkov, show Romanoff your reflexes.”

You stepped forward.
You knew how she moved before she even moved.
You didn’t win , but you didn’t make it easy either.

She noticed that.

Natasha: “You’re not like the others.”

You: “Neither are you.”

Later, in a training room dimly lit by overhead fluorescents, you sparred again. Just the two of you. No watchers. Just bruises and silence.

She tested you. You let her.

She never trusted you. But you respected that.

Then came the younger one.

Yelena.

Wild. Blunt. Fast.

She was sweet in a feral kind of way.
You shared food with her once, slipped her a chocolate bar you definitely shouldn’t have had.

Yelena: “You’re weird. I like you.”

You (smirking): “You’ll grow out of it.”

You stayed a month.

Long enough to plant a dozen little timeline anchors.
Long enough to mark this place as a critical fracture point.

Long enough to make them both remember you.

And then, just like that, you vanished.

New York – 2012

You spotted Natasha across the plaza.

She was watching a mark—business suit, too many secrets—and you were watching her.

Campbell (in your ear): “That redhead you liked is in town.”

You: “I didn’t like her. I respected her.”

Campbell: “That’s your version of liking someone.”

Natasha turned slightly.

And for a second —just a second—her eyes locked onto yours through the crowd.

Recognition flickered.

No smile. No nod. No confrontation.

Just memory.

You (quietly): “She remembers.”

Meanwhile, in the Upper Atmosphere

Campbell watched a Chitauri scout vessel phase into Earth’s orbit.

Campbell: “It’s starting.”

You: “Then we’re right where we need to be.”

Chapter Text

Berlin – 2010

Hydra had been patient. It knew when to wait, when to strike, and when to observe from the shadows. And now, after decades of watching, it had finally come to a realization.

You and Campbell weren’t just anomalies.

You were threats.

Your POV

You were always one step ahead of Hydra. Always.

But that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous.

In the quiet streets of Berlin, you moved with ease, blending in like a ghost. You had a lifetime of practice. But there was something different in the air tonight. Hydra was getting closer. They had seen you before. They had started to track you in 1945. But now?

Now they were actively hunting you.

You slipped into an unmarked car, feeling the prickle on the back of your neck. A Hydra agent was nearby. You couldn’t see him, but you didn’t need to.

You (to yourself): “They’re getting sloppy. It’s time to move.”

Flashback: 1945 – Berlin

You had left a trail of bodies behind you after the war. Hydra had been too scattered to deal with the chaos of their defeat, but that didn’t stop them from taking notes on you. You were a curiosity to them, an immortal shadow who should have never existed.

They started their search quietly. Just a few whispers here and there. You made sure to stay off their radar as long as possible, but Hydra was good at what they did. You had already crossed paths before with them, seen their shadow lurking in the corners of the world.

But the first time you truly crossed into their sights? That was when you made them notice.

They wanted you.

And that had set everything in motion.

Present Day – Berlin, 2010

You moved fast—no time to waste, no time to regret. You couldn’t afford to be caught again.

Hydra wasn’t just interested in your existence anymore. They wanted to capture you. And Campbell.

The two of you were anomalies they could not understand. A constant, shifting puzzle in the timeline. Your presence had begun to show up on their radar more frequently, and they were getting more creative with their tactics.

Campbell (through the comm): “They know you’re here. Get out now.”

You (hissing under your breath): “I know.”

Hydra’s Pursuit of You

They didn’t send just any operatives after you. Hydra had its best, its most loyal, watching your every move. They weren’t fools—they had been studying you for years, collecting intel. They had eyes on you before you even knew they were there. You hadn’t just been a passing curiosity. You had become an obsession.

The files on you were extensive. Records of your movements, your locations, your every encounter with Hydra agents. They knew how you operated. They knew your weaknesses.

They didn’t have Campbell yet, but they knew she was tied to you. And that made you a bigger threat than anything they’d faced before.

They started sending messages—soft ones at first. A contact here. A whisper there. You’d intercepted one of their transmissions only days before.

They were coming for you.

Hydra Agent (on a hidden comm): “Subject Wraith and Campbell are the priority targets. Capture alive.”

You (quietly to yourself): “Not this time.”

Inside Hydra’s Secret Lab

Somewhere deep beneath the earth, Hydra’s leaders convened in a cold, sterile lab. Their obsession with you had taken a darker turn.

Hydra Scientist: “She’s not just a temporal anomaly. She’s a threat. And she’s becoming more unpredictable.”

 Strucker (coldly): “We can’t afford to wait any longer. She will change the course of history. We will change it.”

Strucker’s fingers hovered over the console. A large screen lit up with the image of you—the same one from decades ago. Unchanged. Still the same face.

Hydra Scientist: “Her abilities are beyond anything we’ve seen. Her relationship with Campbell... if we control them—”

Strucker: “We control everything.”

He slammed his fist down on the desk.

They had underestimated you. They thought you were just a ghost. But ghosts could be caught. And the fact that you were still free only meant one thing to them: failure. Hydra couldn’t afford failure.

Your POV – Escape

You stayed in motion, running from shadow to shadow, outsmarting Hydra agents at every turn. But they were relentless.

You slipped into an old building, pacing silently. You could hear the sirens in the distance, the hum of the chase closing in. Hydra wasn’t going to stop. Not until they had you. Not until they had Campbell.

Campbell (voice crackling in your ear): “You’re running out of time. They’ve got an extraction team already in place. They won’t stop until they’ve got you both.”

You (grimly): “I know. I’ll lead them into the trap. They won’t know what hit them.”

Chapter Text

New York – 2012

Bruce Banner wasn’t easy to find.

You already knew that. If anyone could hide from their own reflection, it was him.

But there were other ways.

You didn’t go through the front door. That wasn’t your style.

Instead, you walked along the city rooftops, searching for the subtle cracks in the timeline—little tremors in space-time. The faintest ripples were your breadcrumbs. They told you where Bruce was hiding.

You’d known the Hulk long before you met Bruce. Back in the early days, in the jungles, when experiments went awry, the creature was uncontrollable. Then you’d watched as Banner tried to build a fragile balance between the man and the beast. It wasn’t easy, and you saw his struggle.

But it was more than that. There was something about Banner’s presence that created a pull in time itself. A disturbance. The man was a fracture in the very flow of the universe. His existence was chaos compressed into a fragile human form.

And you were good at watching chaos unfold.

Campbell’s POV – Far Beyond Earth

You felt her presence across the universe.

Campbell: “Em, you're not going to like this. He's close... but not the one we’re supposed to be focused on.”

You (sharply): “Stay focused, Campbell. Bruce is a key piece. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

You'd slipped into a rhythm with Campbell. When something important was about to shift, you felt it. And you’d developed a system, an invisible thread that tied you both together despite the vast distance between you.

It wasn’t a matter of speaking aloud. It wasn’t even communication in the traditional sense. It was a silent dance between you both. A shared vision. A glimpse into another moment that spoke without words.

You could leave him messages in those flashes—hidden codes embedded in the way time fractured. You’d both done it before, sending little “letters” across space-time.

Campbell (laughing softly): “I’m getting good at this. You’ve been practicing.”

You: “We both have.”

Back to Your POV – Bruce’s Lab

You finally found him. Bruce Banner, hunched over an array of data screens, clearly exhausted, still fighting the same war he'd been fighting for years. His hands shook slightly as he typed, eyes darting back and forth between the numbers. There was a quiet intensity to the lab—a place where he was hiding not just from the world, but from himself.

You didn’t reveal yourself immediately. You let him feel your presence.

Just a ripple. A shadow in his peripheral vision.

And it worked.

Bruce (glancing up suddenly): “I’m not alone, am I?”

You smiled. He wasn’t as oblivious as most people thought.

You (calmly): “Not in the way you think.”

He tensed, but didn’t bolt. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples.

Bruce: “You’re the one... who sees everything, right?”

You (nodding slightly): “I see a lot of things.”

There was silence for a beat. Bruce hesitated, like he wasn’t sure whether to push forward or retreat.

Bruce (quietly): “Why are you here?”

You (softly): “To help. But I won’t save you, Bruce. Not unless you want to be saved.”

Bruce looked away, lost in thought.

Campbell’s Transmission – Somewhere in Space

Campbell (interrupting your conversation): “Em, you’re getting distracted. Something’s shifting with the Kree. We’re not going to get another chance like this.”

You (focused): “Stay alert. I’m almost done.”

Your POV – Bruce’s Lab (Continued)

Bruce was looking at the window now, lost in the thoughts that always haunted him.

Bruce: “I can’t control it, you know.”

You (coldly): “You don’t need to control it. You just need to live with it.”

Bruce’s eyes flickered toward you. There was something almost desperate in them.

Bruce (whispering): “I don’t want to be this... monster.”

You (leaning in, voice low): “You’re not a monster, Bruce. But sometimes, you have to let the monster out to survive.”

A pause.

You stepped back, letting the shadows of the room settle between you both.

You (softly): “I’ll be here when you’re ready. Just don’t let the world break you before you realize who you are.”

You turned toward the door, leaving him to his thoughts.

Before you stepped outside, you left him another mark. A subtle shift in time, a distortion. A letter you didn’t need to speak, just feel . A piece of advice you’d planted in his head, encoded in the vibration of reality itself. You’d been doing this long enough to know how it worked. He wouldn’t understand it. Not yet.

But it would come to him. It always did.

Campbell’s Transmission – Outer Space

Campbell: “Em, the Kree are pushing back. They're almost at Earth’s doorstep.”

You (frowning): “I know. We don’t have much time.”

You felt her. Just a flicker in the vast cosmic ocean. Your shared connection, the invisible thread you’d built over time, tightened. You were synchronized again. Every flicker of time, every small fracture in the space-time continuum—it was like a language you both knew.

Letters Through Time.

Silent messages. No sound. No words. Just shared visions.

Just you and Campbell, together, despite the distance.

Chapter Text

Berlin – 1961

The air was thick with tension, an electric hum that vibrated in your bones. The world was on the brink. The Cold War had its icy fingers wrapped around every corner of the Earth, and Berlin was the heart of that stranglehold.

You shouldn’t have been here.

But something was pulling at you. A disturbance in the timeline. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Someone important was going to die tonight—an innocent, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The kind of death that would send ripples through history.

You couldn’t let it happen.

And yet… it wasn’t supposed to be your decision.

Campbell’s Transmission – Outer Space

Campbell: “You’ve got the instinct, Em, but remember— we don’t interfere. The cost always comes with these things. You know better.”

You knew better.

But this wasn’t just a life. This was a chain reaction. A fragile link in the timeline that would shatter if you didn’t act.

You (quietly): “I know. I’ve felt it before.”

Back to Your POV – Berlin, 1961

There she was.

A young woman, blonde, a soldier’s daughter. She wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things. Not to the world. But to someone, she would be.

Her name was Eva Müller, and you had seen her face in the files. She wasn’t on anyone’s radar. Not yet. But if she died tonight, everything would shift. Something was supposed to happen, and that something would change the future forever.

You watched as she walked down a dimly lit alleyway, the shadows clinging to her heels. Two men, soldiers, moved toward her. The timeline was precise, the moment clear. They would kill her, cold and fast, and the world would never know.

But you knew.

Flashback – 2025, You and Campbell

You and Campbell had discussed this kind of thing a thousand times before.

Campbell: “We’re not heroes, Em. We’re not supposed to save anyone.”

You (frustrated): “I know. But sometimes the timeline needs a push.”

Campbell: “And sometimes, that push costs us. You can feel it, can’t you?”

You could.

The pull. The sick, sharp tug in the pit of your stomach. You always felt it when the timeline was about to crack.

You (softly): “It feels like it’s mine to fix.”

Campbell (quietly): “Don’t fool yourself. It’s never just one choice, Em.”

Back to Berlin – The Moment of Choice

The men came closer. Their steps were deliberate, slow. You could already see the pattern—the moment the woman would fall. She didn’t know it, but her death had been decided.

You could stop it.

You should stop it.

You (whispering to yourself): “I’m sorry. But this is bigger than you know.”

You moved before you could think. With a shift, you dropped down between her and the soldiers, appearing like a shadow from the darkened alley.

One of them froze.

The other reached for his gun.

You were faster. A flick of your wrist and time bent. You twisted the soldier’s arm just enough to make him drop the weapon, using the blood in his veins to control the movement. He screamed as his arm jerked unnaturally, and the other soldier swung his gun toward you.

But he hesitated. That was all you needed.

You disarmed him too, gently, without killing, without maiming. Just a moment of control. A moment of power.

You turned to the woman, who was frozen in shock.

You (calmly): “Go. Don’t ask why.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She ran. That was the last you saw of her—until, years later, you’d find a photograph of her smiling in the arms of a family that had no idea the part you played in their existence.

Campbell’s Transmission – A Sudden Pause

Campbell (concerned): “Em, what did you do?”

You (quietly, closing your eyes): “I saved her. I had to.”

Campbell (sighing): “You know the cost will hit us soon. The ripple will hit the timeline. You’re already feeling it, aren’t you?”

You were. You could feel the shift deep within you, a low hum that had never been there before. The timeline adjusted, bent to accommodate this new outcome.

You hadn’t just saved a life—you had changed history. You had interfered.

And you knew the price would come.

Campbell (gently): “Just be ready. You’re not alone in this. But you have to live with it.”

You (whispering): “I know.”

Back in the Present – You Feel the Weight

Back in the real world, the feeling didn’t go away.

Something was different.

The timeline felt like a taut rope pulled too tight. You knew that things were on the verge of snapping. But you couldn’t undo it. You couldn’t put that woman’s life back in the cold, sharp hands of fate.

And that was your burden to bear.

Campbell’s Transmission – A Final Warning

Campbell (soft but firm): “You’ve made your choice, Em. We move forward, but remember—every time you play with fate, the cost is steep.”

You didn’t respond immediately. You just stood there, in the quiet of the universe, listening to the shifting of worlds.

It was all shifting.

The world was always one step ahead, and you were always one step behind. But now… you couldn’t help but wonder if you’d just created a fracture too large to ignore.

Chapter Text

Space – 2025, Unknown Location

A soft hum reverberated through the air. Not the familiar pulse of a star or the subtle vibrations of the cosmos. This was different—unnerving. Something was out there . Something that didn’t belong. And it wasn’t Campbell who noticed it first.

It was you.

Campbell’s Transmission – Midspace

Campbell (urgent): “Em… do you feel that?” \

You (grimly): “I do.”

Campbell: “Something’s not right. It’s not SHIELD. It’s not Hydra. This is different.”

You (pausing): “It’s the TVA.”

The name echoed in the silence between you and Campbell like an ancient curse. The Time Variance Authority. You knew their existence, but you also knew that they operated in secrecy, their reach deep within the fabric of time. You’d never had direct contact, but the knowledge that they could sense anomalies like yours—your ability to disrupt the timeline—had always been an unspoken fear.

The TVA was a force that didn't just observe. They corrected . They erased. And they didn’t care about morality. They only cared about the timeline.

And you… you were a direct threat to everything they stood for.

Campbell (tense): “We’re not supposed to be seen. We’ve kept our distance from them, but this… this feels like they’ve found us. Or are about to.”

You didn’t respond at first. The weight of the realization settled on your shoulders. The TVA didn’t let anomalies slip through the cracks. They would come for you. If they even saw you as a threat , that is.

But Campbell was right—this was worse than anything you’d faced before.

Berlin, 1961 – The Timeline Shifts Again

Meanwhile, in Berlin, you could feel the effects of your earlier interference still reverberating through the timeline. The woman you saved? Eva Müller. Her future was tied to events that were supposed to have occurred exactly as they did. Now, the subtle fractures you caused by saving her life were starting to show.

Campbell (from space): “What’s happening down there? The ripples have grown.”

You (distracted, feeling the timeline stretch thin): “The shift’s bigger than I thought. I shouldn’t have saved her.”

Campbell (sharply): “You had to. Don’t second-guess yourself now. But you know what this means.”

You (sighing): “The TVA will track it. They’ll track me.”

You could feel the echo of their presence now. Not physically—there were no ships in the sky, no grand markers of their interference—but something was pulsing. Somewhere in the veins of time, a marker had been placed on you. On both of you.

Campbell’s Transmission – A Warning

Campbell (gravely): “Em, this is bad. I’ve intercepted a warning signal. It’s not from SHIELD. Not Hydra. Not even the Kree. This is something else entirely. The TVA has seen us. They’ve seen you . It’s coming.”

You (tight-lipped): “I know. We’ve been too careless. I should have expected this.”

Campbell (pausing): “We need to lay low. We need to be careful. They won’t stop until they have us.”

You (quietly): “But we can’t lay low. Not when I’m connected to this now. The timeline’s already too messed up.”

You looked out over the horizon of Berlin, where the weight of the Cold War hung thick in the air, and yet, the more pressing danger wasn’t the arms race or political maneuvering. It was the TVA—their reach was beyond anything you or Campbell had ever encountered. And now, the pieces of the timeline you had touched were getting their attention.

The TVA – A Looming Threat

In another part of time, beyond the reach of your sight, the TVA was already watching. They were aware of the anomaly, the imperfection you represented. They were coming for you. Their agents—timekeepers—moved like shadows, unseen by the mortals of Earth. But you could feel them.

Campbell (nervously): “They’ll know where we are soon enough. They have ways. They’ve tracked our shifts before, but they’ve never been this close. Not like this.”

You (clenching your fists): “We can’t just hide. Not from them. They’ll find us. They always do.”

Campbell (more firmly): “We’re not hiding. But we need a plan.”

Back in the Present – Your Decision

You were no longer in Berlin. You couldn’t afford to linger. The TVA’s presence was closing in, and you felt the pressure building. If you didn’t act now, they would find you, and that would be the end.

You (to Campbell, voice steady): “You leave Earth. For now.”

Campbell (a breath of relief): “You’re not wrong. I can’t stay in one place. Let’s get ahead of them. Move into space. I can throw them off the scent.”

You didn’t have a destination yet, but you knew you had to move. The longer you stayed on Earth, the more the TVA could track you—because every moment in the timeline was another data point for them. Every step you took would make you more vulnerable.

You didn’t care about SHIELD or Hydra. They could be dealt with. But the TVA? They could erase you both from existence. And they would do it without hesitation.

Campbell’s Warning – A Final Thought

Campbell (softer, resigned): “They’ve been here longer than we’ve been alive, Em. They don’t make mistakes. They don’t let anomalies slip through their fingers. We have to be more careful than ever.”

You (quietly): “I know. But we’re still here. And we will stay.”

The Timekeeper’s Reach – Watching and Waiting

Somewhere, beyond time, within the vast corridors of the TVA, a Timekeeper watched.

A shift had been detected. A ripple in the fabric of time, small but undeniable.

Their task was simple: restore order .

And the first step in restoring order was finding the source of the anomaly.

Chapter Text

Manhattan – May 4, 2012 – 12:13 PM
You stood on the rooftop of an aging hotel near 43rd, your boots crunching lightly on gravel. Around you, the skyline shimmered in the summer haze, all glass and steel and unsuspecting chaos waiting to happen.

And then, it started.

The rip .

The sky above Stark Tower split open like paper. You felt it more than saw it— that hum, that bending of the air, time folding like badly kept bedsheets.

You (low into your comms): “Campbell… it’s starting.”

Campbell (from deep space): “The portal?”

You (eyes narrowing): “Chitauri breach. Manhattan.”

Campbell: “Don’t interfere.”

You (dry): “Wasn’t planning to. I didn’t pack bug spray.”

The first wave poured out of the sky—Chitauri gliders humming with alien precision, their weapons spitting plasma bolts. Civilians screamed below as chaos bloomed like wildfire in the streets.

You didn’t move.
Not to help.
Not to run.
You watched.

Stark Tower

Tony (in flight, over comms): “Banner? You wanna get angry now would be great .”

Cap (cutting in): “Eyes up, people! We’ve got the perimeter to cover.”

Natasha: “Already on it.”

You listened to their voices crackling through the frequencies. You had access to every channel—hacked in months ago, just in case. Just in case this happened.

Campbell: “You're not feeling… tempted?”

You (quietly): “To jump in?”

Campbell: “To help.”

You (pause): “No. I’m watching. Like always.”

And you were. From above, you watched Tony dive between buildings, Cap deflect plasma with his shield, Hawkeye’s arrows dart through the sky like surgical strikes.

A Rooftop Encounter

A girl, barely twenty, clambered up onto the adjacent rooftop in blind panic. Her hand was bleeding, knuckles split, dress torn. You turned your head slightly as she scrambled for cover behind a rusted vent.

She hadn’t seen you. Not yet.

You (calm): “Hey.”

She flinched violently and nearly fell.

You (holding up a hand): “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Her (panicked): “W-what the hell?! Who are you?”

You (neutral): “Nobody.”

Her: “There’s aliens—real aliens—and you’re just standing there?”

You (watching the sky): “Yeah. It’s not my fight.”

Her (angrily): “People are dying!”

You: “And the Avengers are doing something about it. I’m just making sure they do it right.”

Her: “You’re sick.”

She ran. You let her. She wouldn’t remember you anyway—not once the timeline smoothed over again. The brain has a funny way of erasing what doesn’t make sense.

Downtown Destruction

Below, Hulk tore through a Leviathan with a roar that made your ribs hum. Thor landed hard on a taxi, electricity arcing around him like divine fury. Steve barked orders like a general born of the battlefield.

You reached for your comm again.

You: “They’re holding. Barely. Cap just set the perimeter. Barton’s spotting on 45th

Campbell: “Think they’ll win?”

You (coldly): “They have to.”

Campbell: “You say that like you’re not sure.”

You (eyes narrowing): “Because something’s off.”

You felt it again— that shift . Small. Subtle. Like the TVA brushing past your mind, checking for inconsistencies. You shivered even though the sun was beating down.

Campbell (soft): “They’re watching again, aren’t they?”

You: “Maybe.”

Campbell: “We need to start scrambling our footprints.”

You: “I already did. Burned the access point in Berlin last night. Cleaned the tether to 2025 too.”

Campbell: “Good. But it won’t be enough forever.”

The Turning Point

The moment came around 1:45 PM. The nuke was launched. You felt that dread crawl into your bones as clearly as Campbell did from lightyears away.

Campbell (panicked): “They launched it?! Em, you can’t just sit there —”

You (voice sharp): “Wait.”

Tony caught the missile mid-air. You watched it—slow motion, like a memory from a dream—as he pulled it skyward, engine burning hot, tears in the sky above him like paper ripped open.

You didn’t breathe.

You (quietly): “Don’t die, Stark.”

Campbell didn’t respond. There wasn’t anything to say. The missile vanished into the wormhole. The explosion bloomed in silence, a fireball in the sky.

A second later, the portal collapsed.

Fallout

Tony fell.

You stepped forward slightly on the rooftop, chest tight.

And then—the Hulk caught him.

Campbell (exhale of relief): “Damn.”

You (smiling faintly): “Told you. They had to win.”

You sat down at the edge of the roof, legs hanging over. The sirens were still wailing. Smoke covered the sky. But it was over.

Campbell (soft): “How’s it feel?”

You (pausing): “Watching history?”

Campbell: “Yeah.”

You: “Like cheating. Like reading the last page of a book you’ve been pretending not to spoil.”

One Last Look

The Avengers gathered below. Torn uniforms. Bloody. But standing.

You (to yourself): “You’re gonna break the world one day… but not today.”

Campbell: “You’re getting sentimental.”

You (smirking): “No. Just observant.”

But deep down, you knew. The real war hadn’t even begun.

Not yet

Chapter Text

May 2012 – Weeks After the Battle of New York

The city was still bandaged in scaffolding and caution tape. Billboards flashed gratitude. Flags flew a little prouder. People called it a miracle.

But from your view—just beyond the noise, beyond the headlines—it was a mess. A fractured team. A splintered world. And cracks forming that no one else saw.

Tony Stark

He was trying to act fine. He always did.
But you'd been watching him for years. And this wasn't fine .

You saw the bags under his eyes, the way he didn’t sleep. You tapped into his building’s security feeds just to observe the loop—Tony working himself into exhaustion, talking to J.A.R.V.I.S. like it could talk him down from a panic attack.

He was designing suits now. More of them. Obsessively. Like armor could silence fear.

You (quietly, to yourself): “You saw space. And now you can’t unsee it.”

Campbell (through the comm): “He touched the void. Most break.”

You: “He didn’t break.”

Campbell: “Yet.”

Steve Rogers

Steve didn’t spiral. He vanished .

No press tours. No hero interviews. Just back to jogging alone at 5 a.m., lingering in museums long after they closed, and walking through Brooklyn like it owed him answers.

You watched from a bench across the park one morning. He passed you without a glance, lost in his head.

You (softly): “You’re running from ghosts, Steve. They’re not the only ones still watching.”

You didn’t speak to him. Not yet. But part of you knew—you would see him again. Closer this time.

Bruce Banner

Gone.

You watched the footage of him slipping away from S.H.I.E.L.D. custody after the battle, blending into the crowd like smoke. You didn’t chase. There was no point.

Campbell: “He’ll hide somewhere warm. Quiet. Human.”

You: “He’s not human. Not anymore

”
Campbell: “Neither are we.”

Fair.

The Avengers

They didn’t fall apart. They scattered. Quietly. Like shrapnel.

You stood near the remains of Stark Tower one night—beneath the twisted "A" left behind. There was a small group of tourists nearby, taking blurry photos.

Kid (to his mom): “Do you think they’ll fight together again?”

You (muttering): “Not for a while.”

In the Dark

Campbell: “He noticed.”

You (blinking): “Who?”

Campbell: “Thanos.”

That silenced you.

Campbell (calm): “He watched the invasion. Let it happen. He’s pleased .”

You (cold): “Why? They stopped it.”

Campbell: “Because they’re not ready. He saw the flaws. The division. He knows how to wait.”

You leaned back on the edge of your motel bed, watching the screen flicker static. The city still buzzed outside your window.

You: “Then we start preparing.”

Campbell: “Together?”

You (smiling faintly): “Always.”

Late One Night…

You found yourself writing. Not in a journal—but letters . Messages no one else could read. Etched between seconds, slipped into time fractures. It was the system you'd both created.

Your pen scratched over the paper like it was muscle memory.

_Campbell —
He’s building again. More suits. Steve’s pretending he still fits here, but he doesn’t.
Bruce is gone. Natasha... I think she’s watching, too.
I don’t like how fast this world forgets what it owes people.
I don’t like how many gods are still in the shadows.

You folded the note and tucked it into your deck of cards—the thing you brought from 2025. Somehow, it always got through. Always found her.

The cards had been a gift. Ordinary, in their way. But now they cut through time like knives.

Campbell (distant, soft): “I got your message.”

You (smiling faintly): “Figured.”

Campbell: “He’s watching Earth now. Closer. You need to start laying traps.”

You (sighs): “I know.”

Campbell: “What did you call this place once?”

You: “A powder keg with a god complex.”

Campbell: “Still fits.”

Chapter Text

2014 – Washington D.C.

The cold is what you remember first.
Not the air—but him . The Winter Soldier.

You’d heard whispers, of course. The ghost with a metal arm. A brutal assassin from the shadows of history. You’d watched the news when Fury’s SUV was blown apart, watched the tremor ripple through the timelines like an aftershock.

But the second you saw him in the street—mask on, eyes dead—you knew.

You (under your breath): “...Bucky.”

Flashback: 1945

He wasn’t like the others back then. You’d never approached Steve directly, but Bucky had caught your eye at some base in Italy. Less idealistic. Sharper around the edges. He once passed you in a hallway and paused . You didn’t speak, but his eyes narrowed like he almost recognized you from somewhere.

Later, you slipped him a file he wasn’t meant to see. About a Hydra ambush coming two towns over.

Bucky (holding the file): “Who the hell are you?”

You (vanishing into the dark): “No one. Just read it.”

Present

Now he’s not Bucky.

You watch him toss a man off a freeway and rip into an armored van with military precision. It’s mechanical—like someone else is piloting his body from the inside.

And still, when your eyes meet across the chaos...

Something flickers .

Bucky (still masked): “...You.”

You (low, steady): “You remember.”

Bucky (twitching): “No—I don’t—”

He lunges. You disappear before the metal arm can crush your throat.

Later

You meet Steve for the first time—really meet him.

He’s bruised and shaken, sitting in a safehouse with Sam. You slip inside unnoticed. You don’t speak at first, just sit on the opposite side of the room while he stares at you like he’s trying to place a dream.

Steve: “You were there. In the war.”

You (nodding): “So were a lot of people.”

Steve: “Bucky said something. Something about a woman... in Italy.”

You (quiet): “I tried to warn him.”

Sam’s looking between the two of you like he’s stepped into someone else’s memory.

Steve: “Are you Hydra?”

You (bitter laugh): “Not even close.”

Steve: “Then what are you?”

You: “An observer. I don’t belong here. I just didn’t leave.”

Steve doesn’t press further. Maybe he knows the feeling.

You and Campbell – Night Transmission

You write another message, slipped between time. Campbell replies in a burst of soft static between stars.

Campbell: “Is it him?”

You: “Yes.”

Campbell: “Can you help him?”

You: “I don’t know. He remembers me. That’s not supposed to happen.”

Campbell: “Then history’s already cracking.”

You: “We always knew it would.”

One Final Glimpse

You find him again. This time he’s not masked. He’s staring into the Potomac, hair wet, breath visible in the cold.

You say nothing. Just stand beside him.

Bucky (hoarse): “They told me I was dead.”

You: “You were. Just not all the way.”

Bucky: “Why do I remember you?”

You (quiet): “Because I never forgot you.”

He turns slightly, studying your face. There’s something there—a flicker of recognition buried under decades of pain.

Bucky (soft): “I don’t know who I am.”

You: “You’re not their weapon anymore.”

You don’t stay long. But before you leave, you press something into his palm—a photo. Old, faded. Of the 107th, at a base in Italy. A figure in the background—barely noticeable—watching from the shadows.

He stares at it like it’s a piece of himself.

You (quiet): “You’re going to need a new name soon.”

Bucky (murmurs): “Winter’s over.”

You (smile): “Not yet. But spring’s coming.”

Chapter Text

Sokovia, 2015

It’s quiet.

Not the peaceful kind.
The wrong kind.

You stand in the center of Novi Grad, wind catching loose flyers as the city holds its breath. This is the calm before the bomb goes off—literally. Children play. Street vendors sell roasted corn. There’s a woman arguing with a man about which bread is better.

You know all their names.

You know none of them will survive if this goes the way it’s about to.

You’ve seen the ripple already— Ultron isn’t just an AI gone wrong. He’s a mirror. A reflection of what Earth could become if it keeps sprinting toward power without consequence.

And this time…
You feel helpless.

You to Campbell – Whispered Transmission

You (tense): “They’re not ready for this.”

Campbell (static, sharp): “He’s already infected two satellites. He’s building something.”

You: “A floating coffin. For everyone down here.”

Campbell (voice shaking): “Emma. You need to leave.”

You: “No.”

Campbell: “This isn’t our fight—”

You (cutting her off): “Then why are you screaming from across the stars?”

Silence.

Then, softer—

Campbell (quiet): “Because I’ve never seen anything like this before. Not from Earth. Not even from them .”

You: “He wants extinction. A clean slate.”

Campbell: “He thinks he’s doing them a favor.”

You (hollow): “God, he sounds like us.”

You Spot the Twins

Wanda and Pietro.

You don’t talk to them. Not directly. Not yet.

But when Pietro brushes past you in a crowd, he pauses like a flicker of static just passed through his spine. And Wanda—she turns toward you like she sensed something. Her head tilts, her expression unreadable.

Wanda (softly, almost to herself): “You’re not... from here.”

You don’t answer.

You just vanish.

The City Begins to Rise

Metal tears from the ground like roots from hell.

Buildings crack. Roads split. The sky roars. People scream and run, too late. A child’s balloon escapes into the air as Novi Grad begins to lift.

You’re already gone from the streets—but your heart is still there.

You’re on a rooftop, watching it all. Watching them .
Steve, Natasha, Clint, Bruce, Tony—battered, scared, furious.

You (murmuring): “Come on, Stark. This is your mess. Fix it.”

Ultron appears—dozens of him, scattered like a virus.

You don’t interfere. You can’t.

But your hands are trembling .

Campbell Screams

You’ve never heard her like this.

Campbell (fractured): “It’s echoing. The event... it’s echoing across systems. Emma, it’s not just Earth. Something’s listening —”

You: “What is?”

Campbell: “I don’t know. But it woke up.”

You’re dizzy. Sick. You grip the wall of the rooftop until your knuckles pale.

Ultron dies that day—but something else wakes.

And somewhere—deep in the heart of the universe—Campbell stops speaking mid-sentence.

Like someone cut her off .

After the Dust Settles

You find Natasha sitting alone by a shattered pillar. Her arms are scraped, lips bloodied. She sees you, and doesn’t even flinch.

Natasha: “I saw you in the Red Room.”

You (gentle): “I didn’t interfere.”

Natasha: “No. You just watched.”

She stands, eyes unreadable.

Natasha (quietly): “People like you… scare the hell out of me.”

You: “People like you are scared me.”

She doesn’t stop you when you turn to go.

Final Scene – Tony in the Wreckage

You approach Stark while he’s working on the remains of a broken suit. He's quieter now. Not cocky. Not defensive.

Just... tired.

Tony: “So, let me guess. You were here the whole time.”

You: “I was.”

Tony: “And let me guess again. You’re not gonna tell me who the hell you are?”

You: “Would it matter?”

Tony: “Only if you could’ve helped.”

You: “That’s not what I’m here for.”

Tony (quiet): “Yeah. Me neither. Anymore.”

You don’t touch him. But you feel the weight on his shoulders.

It’s the same one you carry now.

Chapter Text

Flashback—Undisclosed Location, Red Room Training Complex
(circa 1988 – Cold War era)

You don’t remember falling asleep.

But when you wake, it isn’t your motel bed.

It’s the smell of concrete. Metal. Cold air laced with sweat and gun oil.

Your hands twitch—and for a second, you forget who you are. Where you are.

Then you hear the voice:

Red Room Instructor (in Russian): “Wake her. We start again.”

 

And just like that, you're back.

Mental Break: Present Day (2016)

You grip the sink of a public restroom so hard the porcelain cracks under your fingers.

You’re supposed to be in Berlin. Watching.
But instead, you’re caught between decades—past and present bleeding together. Your breath won’t come easy.

You (whispering): “Not now… not this memory.”

 

But it claws its way up anyway.

Flashback: Red Room — Inside the Cold War

They call you Instructor 13.
No one knows your real name. No one asks.

You speak clean Russian. You move like a ghost. You never raise your voice.

They think you’re one of theirs.

Hydra lent them a weapon—The Winter Soldier.
And they got a bonus: You.

Not that they understand what you are. You barely do either.

You’re not aging. Not bleeding. Just... existing. Like a knife kept too sharp for too long.

Your First Meeting With Bucky

He stands beside you in silence, eyes blank, mouth tight.
Not Bucky. Not really. Just a weapon in a man’s skin.

You’re told to teach with him.

They hand you girls—eight, nine, ten years old.
All wide eyes and scars and bruises covered in makeup.

You walk them through hand-to-hand disarms. You correct their posture. You point at a trainee’s trembling fingers.

You (coldly): “Tremble in the field, and you die.”

Bucky (monotone): “Again.”

 

He never looks at them. He doesn’t see them.
You’re not sure you do either.

Natasha

She was thirteen when you met her.
Already sharper than the rest. Already bleeding elegance and danger.

She didn’t like you. Not at first.

You caught her watching you—not the way a student watches a teacher, but the way a knife watches a throat.

Natasha (curt): “You don’t blink like the others.”

You (quiet): “Neither do you.”

 

It unnerved her. But she listened to you. Learned fast. Too fast.

Yelena

You met her years later. A different batch. Same system.

You were older-looking, maybe early 30s by appearance—still the same. She was younger. Fierce. Brutally precise.

Yelena (muttering): “You don’t sleep, do you?”

You: “Do you?”

Yelena (smiling slightly): “Not anymore.”

 

You liked her more than you meant to.

The Night You Broke Protocol

It wasn’t supposed to matter.
But one night, you heard a cry—a girl being punished for refusing an order.
And something inside you snapped.

You pulled her out. Bandaged her hand yourself. Lied for her.

Bucky (staring at you): “That wasn’t in the protocol.”

You (flatly): “Neither were you.”

 

He didn’t respond.
But for the first time… you think he saw you.

The next day, he was rougher with the instructors.
Less obedient.
You didn’t speak of it again.

Back in the Present

The memory shatters when cold water hits your face.

You’re in a mirror now, staring at yourself.

Not Instructor 13.
Not Wraith.
Just... Emma.

You (to the mirror): “You told yourself you were observing. That it didn’t matter. That they would survive it anyway.”

You (lower): “But you helped make them.”

 

Message to Campbell (Later That Night)

You sit cross-legged on a rooftop overlooking Berlin, the wind pushing against your coat.

Your hands shake slightly as you write.

Campbell —
I think I broke again.
I remembered the Red Room. The blood. Natasha. Yelena. Bucky.
I wasn’t just watching.
I taught them how to survive.
Does that make me part of it?

You hesitate.

Then write one more line:

Would you still choose me now?

Chapter Text

Location: Avengers Compound, 2015

You don’t usually approach the anomalies.
Not directly.
Not when they’re still trying to understand themselves.

But Vision is different.

You found him the first time by accident.

The way he moved was almost human—too smooth, too deliberate. Like a painting hung crooked but nobody noticed. His eyes held storms beneath calm seas.

You stood outside the compound, cloaked in shadow, watching as he slowly learned how to be .

Your First Words

You remember exactly how it happened.

Vision was on the roof, turning his face to the sunlight.

You stepped out of the shadows.

You: “You’re not like them.” '

Vision (without surprise): “No.”

You: “What are you?”

Vision (thoughtful): “I don’t know yet.”

 

His voice was soft, curious. Not mechanical. Not cold.

You: “I don’t know what I am either.”

Vision (tilting his head): “But you watch. You wait. You protect.”

You: “I survive.”

 

He smiled faintly.

Vision: “Survival is a form of hope.”

You (quiet): “Maybe.”

A Moment of Quiet Understanding

You don’t tell him who you are or where you come from.

He doesn’t ask.

You watch as he flexes his fingers, the Mind Stone embedded in his forehead catching the light like a fragile gem.

Vision: “You carry a burden.”

You (nodding): “And so do you.”

For a moment, you are two cracked mirrors facing each other, reflecting fractured images of what humanity could be—broken but trying to heal.

Before You Leave

He looks at you with something almost like trust.

Vision: “Will you stay?”

You: “I have to keep moving.”

Vision: “Be careful.”

You step back into the shadows.

Afterwards

You send a coded message to Campbell, a single phrase only the two of you understand.

“The mirror is cracked, but it still reflects.”

Campbell replies almost immediately.

“Then maybe it can still be fixed.”

You don’t know if that’s hope or a warning.

Chapter Text

Location: Leipzig/Halle Airport, Germany, 2016

You stand on the edge of the terminal roof, hoodie up, backpack tight against your side. The cold German wind bites at your skin, but you barely notice.

The air is thick with tension—the kind you can slice with a knife.

Below, the Avengers are gathering. Two sides. Friends. Brothers. Family —fractured.

Your Voiceover (quiet, clipped):

“You think you understand what breaks people apart.
Then you watch the people you believed in tear themselves to shreds.
Not monsters. Not villains. Just people.
And sometimes, that’s worse.”

On the Ground

Steve stands tall, shield ready.
Bucky close behind, eyes sharp.
Sam near, watching.

Tony Stark and his team are equally tense—Natasha, Vision, Peter.
Wanda hovering, hesitant.

No one’s sure who’s about to strike first.

The Fight Begins

Peter launches webs, swinging between the fighters.

Peter (shouting): “Whoa! This is intense! Can we take a break or something?”

Natasha moves silently, darts forward to keep Tony from clashing with Steve.

Natasha (gritting teeth): “Tony, don’t do this.”
Tony (snapping): “I have to.”

You watch, heart racing, as Wanda lifts debris—metal beams, concrete chunks—and hurls them into the fray.

Steve blocks with his shield, yelling—

Steve: “Stop this! You’re fighting each other !”

But the fight only grows.

You see Bucky get slammed into the pavement by Vision. You catch the flicker of pain in his eyes before he masks it.

Sam soars above, firing precise shots, while Clint fires arrows from the side, calculating angles.

Your Internal Monologue:

“This isn’t about the Accords anymore.
It’s about fear. Control.
It’s about a family trying not to break under the weight of their own secrets.”

The Moment You Want to Step In

You step closer, ready to intervene—ready to call a halt—but Campbell’s voice cuts through your comm.

Campbell (urgent): “No. Not yet. This fracture has to happen.”
You (bitter): “They’re going to destroy each other.”
Campbell: “They will. But it’s necessary.”

You bite back a retort and pull back into the shadows.

The Fight Escalates

Peter swings right past you, nearly knocking you over.

Peter: “Watch it!”

You barely respond.

Steve tackles Tony. Metal crashes. Peter’s webs snap.

You watch Natasha leap onto Vision, trying to ground the AI before more damage’s done.

Wanda’s eyes flicker red. You feel the sharp, dangerous edge to her power.

Bucky stands, wiping blood from his lip, eyes locked on Tony.

You whisper under your breath: “I wish I could save them all.”

But you don’t.

You never do.

Aftermath

The battle ends.

Broken bones. Broken trust.

You slip away before anyone notices.

Later — Quiet Transmission With Campbell

You: “They’re shattered.”
Campbell: “Like they need to be.”
You: “But it’s going to hurt. All of it.”
Campbell: “Only the necessary wounds leave scars.”

You stare at the darkening sky.

The war between friends has only just begun.

Chapter Text

Location: Deep Space — Near the Milano, 2016

The stars shimmer like whispered secrets.

I float just outside the Milano, tethered but free. The vastness of space hums softly around me — an endless ocean of possibilities, dangers, and quiet wonders.

I’m Campbell. Not Emma. Not Wraith. I’m the watcher in the stars — the balance to her grounded chaos.

Peter Quill leans out of the ship’s open hatch, music blasting softly from his headphones. His boots dangle over the edge. He’s trying to look casual, but I know better. There’s worry tangled beneath his smirk.

Peter (grinning): “Hey, you’re new. What’s your name, star-girl?”

I float closer, voice calm, warm.

Campbell: “Campbell.”

 Peter: “Nice. I’m Quill. Star-Lord, to some.”

He taps a beat on his chest, then shrugs.

Peter: “So what brings you floating around in the void? Lost your ship?”

I smile faintly.

Campbell: “Something like that. I watch. I listen. I learn.”

 Peter (nodding): “Kind of like me, but with less running from trouble?”

I laugh softly, the sound almost lost in the vast quiet.

Campbell: “Trouble is everywhere. I just prefer to see the bigger picture.”

Peter shifts, glancing at the stars.

Peter: “That’s deep. Sometimes I think the universe’s bigger picture is just chaos wrapped in pretty lights.”

I meet his eyes, steady and kind.

Campbell: “Chaos needs balance. Otherwise, stars burn out too fast.”

He grins, eyes bright.

Peter: “Well, if you ever need a guide through the chaos, you know where to find me.”

I nod, feeling something almost like hope.

Campbell: “Thank you, Peter.”

The Milano hums softly, ready to jump to the next star system.

I take one last look at the glittering cosmos.

Then I send a silent message to Emma — a reminder that no matter the distance, no matter the darkness, we are watching together.

Chapter Text

Location: Unregistered Safehouse, Eastern Europe
Date: Days after the Airport Fight

They’re gone.

Scattered like broken glass across the globe.

Some imprisoned. Some in hiding. Some just… quiet.

You don’t sleep anymore, not really. Not since the fight. The echoes still ring in your head—the sharp clang of metal, Peter’s panicked breath, Steve’s final punch.

“So this is how it fractures,” you mutter.

And it hurts.
Worse than it should.

You weren’t supposed to get attached.

Wanda Maximoff sits alone in an old church turned halfway house. The walls are scorched—maybe from something she lost control of, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. She’s been alone here for days. Rumors swirl of her disappearance from custody. You know where she is because you’ve always known.

You walk through the door without knocking.

She doesn’t look at you, but she knows it’s you.

Wanda (softly): “Did you follow me?”
You: “I knew you’d come here. You always come here.”
Wanda: “…Always?”

She turns slowly.

You can see it now.
The way she’s unraveling.
But not in weakness.
In power.

You stay near the doorway. She's barefoot, cross-legged on the cold stone floor. The air buzzes faintly—residual magic pulsing like static.

Wanda: “You were at the compound. At the airport.”
You (calm): “Yeah.”
Wanda: “You didn’t stop it.”
You: “Wasn’t supposed to.”
Wanda (bitter): “That sounds like something Vision would say.”

Silence. Then:

Wanda: “Are you real?”

You pause.

You’ve been asked this before.

But this time?
You don’t answer.

Later – A Mountain Ridge, Transmitting to Campbell

You’re high up now. Wind slicing past your coat as your boots crunch over frozen gravel. You pull the relic from your 2025 backpack—it’s humming faintly again.

The thing you brought with you.
The thing you shouldn’t have.
Even now, its glow is wrong in this world.

Campbell (via comm): “She’s unraveling, isn’t she?”
You: “They all are.”
Campbell: “Then it’s starting.”
You: “What is?”
Campbell (quietly): “I don’t know. But I can feel it now. Something old. Something… watching.”
You: “TVA?”
Campbell: “No. Worse. Older. Bigger.”

You grip the edge of the ridge. Eyes scanning the valley below like it might give you answers.

You: “We need a name for this.”
Campbell: “We don’t have one yet.”
You (to yourself): “That’s the worst part.”

You tuck the relic away. Secure it.
Lock the zipper.

You’ve kept it safe so far.
But now you’re not sure you’re the one meant to have it.

And somewhere down in the shadows, you swear you see a familiar red glow.