Music is "Emerge Part I" and "Emerge Part II" by Ruelle.

Picture is Tatiana Maslany as 2012 Emma and present-day Emma.

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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: Battle Symphony

"I'm not Loki, and I don't wanna hurt you."

Steve slowly lowers the scepter, and his decade younger counterpart charges him full-throttle. Shield against shield, soldier against veteran, his younger version gets the better of his balance and tosses Steve across the glass walkway, muttering his signature line: "I can do this all day."

"Yeah, I know," Steve replies, exasperated. "I know."

As he pulls himself up and the two let loose their shields towards each other, I make a break for the glass elevator resting at the interior of the building, settled at the thirteenth floor. The trajectory is perfect in my line of sight, a perfect place to get the better of 2012 Steve without permanently hurting him. I can throw him off, into the elevator, and lock him in there for the time being. Now, just how do--

My thought is cut off by a shadow in the corner of my vision. Dodging to the side out of instinct, I barely miss a familiar metal staff whiz past my face, crackling with electricity at one end. I don't even have to look back to know who it is. Spinning out of the way and taking shelter behind one of the metal conference tables inside the building, I hear soft footsteps follow me, oddly quiet despite the metal they're made of.

"Since when did Hydra get shapeshifters at their disposal?" the 2012 version of me shouts across the room.

In place of a reply, I pull my staff from my back holster. Lucky for me, it's had some work done since this year. But if there's any person on Earth I wouldn't want to fight, it would be myself. Especially at this time. The anger and mercilessness of Lady Justice still flows through her veins, as does the guilt. If she's come to the conclusion -- and I can't exactly blame her -- that I'm the enemy, that I'm Hydra, she will do absolutely anything in her power to take me down.

I don't think this is exactly what they mean when they say "fighting with yourself," but it's as bloody close as you can get, I suppose.

"Would you believe me if I said I'm you from the future?" I shout back, keeping myself hidden behind the table despite knowing it gives me little cover. The only thing it can give me is a moment to think, to plan, to find a way out of this mess without completely mucking up the timeline.

She sneers in response, and I can tell she's thrown that possibility out the window, even without seeing her face. "And I suppose the one out there is also from the future? The other Steve?"

"Yes! We are."

"Unlikely. At first, I thought you were Loki as well, but now I see you're something else."

Before I can respond, outside the glass walls of the room, glass shatters, and both Steve's fall in tandem. They hit just about everything in the way on their descent. Both the other Emma and I shout for our respective friends at once, and then she looks at me like I'm crazy, as if she can't believe the tone of voice and worry in my voice is the same as hers.

Taking advantage of the shock, she scoops up her weapon and launches at me, throwing me into the wall nearest us. Pining my neck to the surface with the metal staff, I'm forced to use my boots to break free, lifting them and pushing hard so she goes soaring back. Her own hoverboots break her fall, and she's flying at me at a breathtaking speed less than a second later.

Dodging, I take the fight out into the open by redirecting her unbridled energy towards the glass wall. It shatters on contact, and I take after her at top speed. We tangle in the air, a mess of fists and staffs and similar fighting styles. I know my combat skills better than anyone, but even I have difficulty anticipating what she does next. It takes me fighting with myself -- literally -- to realize just how varied and diverse my combat regiment got over the decades. What may have started as a simple military strategy evolved into far more than that after several lifetimes.

Eventually, I do get the best of her. For a split second, she lowers her guard, eyes shifting slightly down towards my chest. I take advantage of the hesitation and thrust my staff into her chest, letting loose a surge of electricity that's not enough to kill but definitely enough to hurt a damn bit. Blonde Emma stutters at the shock, her eyes rolling back, and she begins to fall.

Not wishing her, or me I suppose, a migraine of falling that far, I sheath my weapon and grab her arm, bringing her to land on the ground level a few feet away from where Steve and...Steve landed. They've taken their scuffle away to the other side of the corridor, and I can see my Steve pulling the winning move.

Blonde Emma, still conscious, heaves an aching breath as she lies with her back on the tile. She stares up at me, or rather, at the item around my neck. "Where did you get that?" she asks, voice breaking as she winces in pain.

Sensing she isn't up for another round, I glance down and only then realize that my ring and dog tags are visible over the collar of my uniform. Clutching them tightly in my fist, I shift my gaze back down to her. Kneeling down by her side as she pulls herself up onto her elbows, I give a watery smile and mutter the words I know she's not going to believe, but ones she's been waiting to hear for so, so long.

"This is why we're here. He, and so many others, is why we're here." I feel a tear slip from my eyes as her eyes flicker back and forth between the necklace and my face. "Bucky...is alive."

Emma's breath catches in her throat, and she shakes her head vehemently. "No, no he's not. I've been down this madness before--"

"--I know," I cut her off, sensing her about to spiral into the past. "I know, I was there. I lived it. I felt all those nightmares, all those hellish visions where the memory of him almost tore us apart. But Emma, you've got to trust me on this one. I know you don't trust many right now, or yourself for that matter, but what I am telling you is God's honest truth. Bucky is alive. He's alive, but he's in danger. That's why Steve and I are here, to get the Infinity Stones to save him, Grant, and so many others you will call family in the next few years."

Her attention is caught once again by the mention of her son, our son. "Grant is in danger?"

I nod. "I wish I could explain more, but we're running out of time."

Emma stares me down for a moment, then asks, "What was the name of the priest at Saint Agnes, the church in Luxemburg?"

My memory shifts back to the priest I spoke with all those years ago, right after Bucky had died. Or, when we thought he had died. "It was Saint Paula's, not Agnes, and it was in London, not Luxemburg. And we never found out his name; he vanished into thin air, not leaving a trace...and believe me: we looked."

She cracks a smile, at last, heaving herself up into a seated position. "No one could have known that. I never told anyone."

I return the expression and offer her a hand to get to her feet. "You will."

"I doubt I'll ever trust anyone that much ever again."

As she pulls herself up by my grasp, I lock with her gaze and push on to her as much confidence and hope as I can muster. "Oh, you have some good days ahead, Emma. If you believe anything I say, believe that."

She chuckles under her breath. "Unlikely, but I like your spark."

I shrug. "I can't convince you, but I hope you remember that beyond the battle symphony, there is another life waiting for you. And by George, it will be worth the wait."

Biting her lip, Emma asks, "Can you tell me where he is?"

I don't need clarification on who she's referring to. "I wish I could, but it wouldn't do you any good. Besides, I think we've messed with this timeline enough just by interacting with you. Try to keep that to yourself, if you can. I know it's an impossible request, but given a couple of years, you'll thank me I think."

Even though she seems hesitant, 2012 Emma nods once and eyes my year's Steve as he approaches with his shield in one hand and Loki's scepter in the other. "You're from the future as well then?"

Steve looks at me with caution, but I not my reassurance. "Yeah...and we're in a bit of a crunch. How's this gonna go then...?"

Emma waves her hand, the other clutching her side. "I'll come up with something. Honestly, hallucinating doppelgangers wouldn't be the most far-fetched thing we've had to deal with today." She jerks her chin towards the door. "Go. Do what you have to to keep Bucky and Grant safe."

I give a soft murmur of gratitude, then take off after Steve. We rush down the corridor, exit out one of many broken windows, and land in the alleyway beside the Tower.

"Cap..." Tony's voice comes from the other side of the street, and we turn to see him and Scott sitting in a debris-covered car. Tony looks less than happy, and Scott's eyes show concern. "Sorry, buddy, we got a problem."

Scott scoffs, "Yeah, we do!"

"What kind of problem?" I ask, voice harder than usual.

Tony opens the door of the car to speak to us easier, and Scott exits the vehicle to pace in place. "The kind of problem where, not only did we royally fuck up and not get the Tesseract, Loki escaped with the damn rubik's cube of destruction. We got nothing. Nada. Zilch. Nein. Nothing."

"All right, all right," I cut him off with a calming gesture of the hand, seeing the veins start to bulge out of his neck. "We get the picture."

"Well, what are we gonna do now?"

"Give me a break, Steve. I just got hit in the head with the Hulk."

"You said that we had one shot," Scott exclaims, gesturing madly with his hands. "This! This was our shot. We shot it. It's shot! Six stones or nothing. It was six stones or nothing--"

"--You're repeating yourself, you know that? You're repeating yourself--"

"--You're repeating yourself! You're repeating yourself!"

"Dude, come on! You never wanted a time heist. You weren't on board with the time heist--"

"--I dropped the ball!" Tony defends.

"You ruined the time heist."

"Is that what I did--?"

"All right!" I shout, cutting both men off mid-insult. Crossing my arms, I give each of them the look I used to give in two instances: to soldiers below me back in World War II and to Grant when he royally screwed up. "Are you quite happy with yourselves?"

Scott shrugs his shoulders, looking much closer to his child I'm sure than the adult he's supposed to be. "Actually--"

I hold up one finger to cut him off a second time, my glare getting more intense. "Don't."

As silence falls for a second, Steve steps in. "Are there any other options with the Tesseract?"

Even though they've stopped bickering like children, Scott is still verbally and physically agitated. Honestly, I can't blame him. "No--No, there's no other options. There's no do-overs. We're not--" he shoves the car door closed, "going anywhere else. We have one particle left. Each! That's it, all right? We use that, bye-bye, you're not going home."

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

"--I got it," Tony interjects, hopping out of the car with the wide eyes of a genius that has a spark. "There's another way to retake the Tesseract and acquire new particles." He approaches Steve and I, shifting gazes between us as his words come faster. "Little stroll down memory lane. Military installation, Garden State."

His words click into place in both Steve's brain and mine at exactly the same moment. Camp Lehigh Army Base, the place Captain America and Lady Liberty were born, the place where Steve and I trained, the place where we got our start to the grand story that would unfold for the next hundred years.

"When were they both there?" Steve asks.

"They were there at a time... I ave a vaguely exact idea."

"How vague?" I ask, eyebrow cocked.

"What are you talking about?" Scott asks from a few feet away. "Where are we going?"

Tony ignores his questions as they keep coming. "I know for a fact they were there and I know how I know."

Having no better alternative, I shrug my shoulders at Steve and state, "Do you have a better plan? Because I think he is our best bet."

Steve sighs in haphazard agreement. "Looks like we're improvising."

"What are we improvising?"

Steve walks over to the man with a million questions and shoves Loki's scepter into his hands. "Scott, get this back to the compound."

Tony turns to me and taps the base where my helmet should be. "Suit up?"

"Mostly," I nod. "Had to shed the helmet somewhere between here and the lobby."

"What's in New Jersey?" Scott asks again.

Tony turns to Steve and I with the coordinates, an eight-digit code representing the year. "Zero-four, zero-seven, one-nine-seven-zero."

"Are you sure about this?"

Before either of us can answer, Scott interrupts yet again. "Captain! Sorry, America, Rogers. Look, if you do this and it doesn't work, you're not coming back."

Frustration finally gets to Tony, and he spits, "Thanks for the pep-talk, pissant." He turns to Steve and me, primarily looking at the de-facto leader of the mission. "You trust me, right?"

"I do."

"Your call."

My oldest comrade glances at me, and I nod my agreement. "I'll follow you anywhere... and anytime."

Steve clicks the coordinates into his wrist device, and I do the same. "Here we go."

With a final click at the same time as my companions, we fade down to the size smaller than microscopic and fade back in time.

END CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: Battle Symphony.