Alternative Timeline
by 16woodsequ is an AU fanfic series of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It can be found on FanFiction.Net and Archive of Our Own.
The series is set in the 2012 alternate timeline caused by the Time Heist in Avengers: Endgame, and deals with the repercussions of the time travel. Steve and Tony learning of HYDRA’s existence is not the only ripple they will have to deal with.
There are four fics in the series: Alternatively, The Alternate Handler, An Alternate Approach and The Alternate End. After completion, a tie-in story titled Alternative Options was published, featuring additional scenes and different points of view from the series.
Alternative Timeline contains examples of:
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
- Because Steve and Tony are left facing a potential HYDRA uprising by themselves with no idea of who to trust, the two get much closer much faster than they did in canon. They also learn that the Winter Soldier assassinated Tony's parents at the same time, so they don't have a falling out over it.
- Tony also ends up forming a genuine friendship with Bucky.
- The Avengers as a whole qualify. They have no problem working as a team in canon, but are only able to do so when there's a bigger threat happening and while they are a tight-knit group of friends in their own right, they tend to gravitate towards one specific person or another, contributing to them being fragmented. In this timeline, the Avengers are more united than in canon, as they all help Bucky get acclimated into a life of normality, with everyone frequently living in the Compound together as a byproduct and developing growing friendships with each other as a result. Even during the Accords situation, both Tony and Steve have grown to trust each other to the point that their disagreement over it didn't escalate into a full-on fight.
- Adapted Out: The Maximoff twins, Ultron, and Vision, due to HYDRA being exposed earlier and the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron not happening.
- All for Nothing: Brought up when Rumlow is revealed to have staged the U.N. bombing with the goal of regaining control of the Winter Soldier, only to be confronted with the fact that the Avengers have spent the last three years making sure the trigger words don't work any more.
- Big Damn Heroes: When Beck tries speaking Bucky's trigger words, JARVIS immediately alerts Tony, who comes crashing into the room in his Iron Man suit. Steve is close behind him.
- Call-Back: Tony tells Steve that he doesn't have to deal with his PTSD by himself. Steve is immediately reminded of Bucky reassuring him on the day of his mother's funeral.
- Damsel out of Distress: Pierce takes Councilwoman Hawley (the real one) hostage after the Helicarriers are destroyed. She responds by elbowing him in the face and slapping his phone out of his hand, allowing Fury to shoot Pierce dead.
- A Day in the Limelight: Bruce, Clint, Natasha, and Sam each have a POV chapter in Alternative Options.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- As Bucky's handler, Steve knows all about the trigger words. Unfortunately, he doesn't think to warn anyone else about them. Clint accidentally says a shutdown trigger word, causing Bucky to black out.
- It didn't occur to Tony or the Avengers that playing one of the trigger words through BARF to help deprogram Bucky (whose memories have begun resurfacing) would instead bring up a memory of the entire sequence and nearly activate the Winter Soldier. Tony then clarifies to Bucky that he can alter or switch the holographic memories if he so chooses, allowing him to begin making real progress.
- On the other side of the equation, Rumlow tried to get access to "the Asset" without considering that the Avengers would have managed to deprogram him from the trigger words over the last three years.
- Everyone Has Standards: Tony's feelings for Bucky are complicated when he learns that the latter killed his parents, but he still recognizes that Bucky doesn't deserve his current situation and helps Steve rescue him. He later shows subdued anger after learning of the different forms of dehumanizing treatment HYDRA put Bucky through.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Steve is first introduced to the Winter Soldier, he reflects that if anyone in HYDRA honestly thinks he would ever be alright with what they've done to his best friend, then they're clearly stupider than he thought.
- Evil Is Petty: Despite Thanos claiming that he wished to carry out the Snap to bring "balance", it's revealed that he singled out Earth to halve all life on the planet, including the animals and plants that people needed to eat, as punishment for Earth being a particular thorn in his side and delivering his most decisive defeats.
- Exact Words:
- Steve tells Bucky to injure Fury enough for him to be presumed dead. Bucky does exactly that, enabling Fury to fake his own death just as he did in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. This makes Steve realise that Bucky will follow his orders over HYDRA's.
- Bruce intends to bring back everyone killed by Thanos. Not dusted, killed. This includes all the Asgardians, and a VERY angry Loki.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Invoked and averted. Tony realises why Strange was so determined to keep him alive and why they only had one chance out of fourteen million. He's determined to save everyone, but he survives thanks to Steve, Thor, Bucky and other Avengers absorbing the Stones' energy into themselves.
- In Spite of a Nail:
- Clint still reveals the existence of his wife and children to the Avengers.
- The Accords are still passed, just under a different name.
- Tony still becomes Peter Parker's mentor and father-figure.
- King T'Chaka is still murdered, and Bucky is still framed for it. However, the culprit is not Zemo, but is instead Brock Rumlow.
- Thanos still Snaps half of all life away. Everyone who dies in the original timeline is killed in the alternate.
- After the Battle of Earth, Steve still plans to retire and pass the mantle of Captain America to Sam.
- Lack of Empathy: Quentin Beck, as per canon. He doesn't like BARF being used to desensitise Bucky to his trigger words, and has his own ideas as to how the Winter Soldier's "talents" should be used.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Alexander Pierce orders Steve not to tell Clint or Natasha about his involvement in HYDRA. This indirectly tells Steve that they are not part of HYDRA. However, Steve and Tony initially decide to keep their discoveries a secret from Natasha and Clint, as telling them might put everyone in serious danger.
- Loophole Abuse: When Clint and Natasha go for the Soul Stone, they decide to take a chance and try to claim it by pushing Schmidt over the cliff, reasoning that since he's such a narcissist, the person he values most would be himself. It works.
- The Mole: Tony is able to help Steve learn more about HYDRA's plans by suggesting that he pretend to be loyal to them, allowing Steve to be appointed Bucky's handler and subsequently help expose the truth of 'Project Insight'.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Steve playing The Mole inside HYDRA means that Project Insight becomes a reality much sooner than expected.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Steve and Tony realise that since HYDRA obtained five bags of the serum, there might well be five other Winter Soldiers out there. Subverted when Tony points out that they would have noticed if there were six powerful assassins causing damage, and that if Howard did have a working version of the serum, he would have marketed it to his advantage.
- Double Subverted when Tony has a look at Bucky's memories through BARF and sees that yes, there are five other Soldiers - and Natasha points out that HYDRA just might be desperate enough to break them out.
- Point of Divergence:
- Due to Steve and Tony becoming aware of HYDRA's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. thanks to their time-traveling selves, they willingly place their trust in each other and work together while Steve is undercover there. As a result, their friendship is much stronger than it is in the original timeline.
- Tony learns about his parents’ deaths much earlier than he did in canon. In fact, he finds out at the same time Steve does. Thanks to this, they don't have a falling out due to Tony learning the truth under very different circumstances while in an environment that doesn't cloud his judgment and allows him to see Bucky for who he really is: A man forced into servitude under an evil organization with little, if any, agency. While understandably wary of Bucky at first, Tony actually develops a friendship with him to the point where he's willing to build Bucky a new prosthetic arm after some complications caused him to want it gone.
- Tony doesn't return to California after the Battle of New York, but instead stays and helps Steve investigate HYDRA. As a result, the events of Iron Man 3 do not take place.
- Since all the Avengers have helped to rehabilitate Bucky, most of them frequently live in the Avengers Compound and see each other more often. As a result, they're much more united than in canon, where they tend to suffer from infighting and intense disagreements despite being close themselves.
- Likewise, because Thor is given the scepter earlier than in the original timeline, the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron do not take place either.
- The events of Captain America: Civil War don't happen because Steve and Tony are more willing to communicate with each other due to not only seeing therapists to help cope with their PTSD, but having had to rely on each other to expose HYDRA, which strengthened their friendship; even if they don't agree on what to do about the Accords, they don't have a fight over it. It helps that unlike in canon, it was Rumlow, not Zemo, who triggered a bomb and framed Bucky. Even if Zemo were to go after them, unlikely as it is due to Ultron not being created and thus leaving Sokovia intact, both Tony and Steve are aware of Bucky's situation, which loses any form of leverage that can be used to tear apart the team.
- Sam shows the other Avengers footage of his fight with Scott Lang. Steve recognises Scott as one of the time travellers, and the Avengers decide to try and find him.
- Because of the above, Scott is released from the Quantum Realm after five months instead of five years, allowing the time travel to go ahead earlier than the original timeline.
- Clint does not turn to vigilantism after losing his family in the Snap. This is because he was with the other Avengers during the fight with Thanos, and as a result has a lot more support.
- When Tony is about to make the final snap, Steve grabs his arm and transfers some of the Infinity Stones' energy to him. This buys enough time for more Avengers to do the same, saving Tony's life after he snaps Thanos and his army out of existence.
- Steve chooses to remain in the present after returning the Infinity Stones. This is because unlike in canon, Steve's friendship with Tony and having found Bucky earlier have given him more reason to stay. He has no need to go to the past when he genuinely has people that need him as much as he needs them.
- Rule of Symbolism: Suggested when Tony offers to rebuild Nebula's artificial limbs, with Nebula all-but-explicitly asking Tony to rebuild her in his colours rather than the colours used by Thanos to reflect how she is moving past her father's abuse.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Basically Bruce's justification for "hulking out" when Thanos's forces arrive in New York even though he never signed the Accords. Tony also muses that given the controversy of the Accords and the scale of the current threat, it's unlikely that anyone will actually "complain" about the Hulk joining the fight even if he never signed them (particularly since Bruce has achieved "Smart Hulk" in the last year).
- Secret Test of Character:
- After Beck is caught trying to trigger the Winter Soldier, hearing about all the little signs that he was ‘off’ prompts Clint to suggest that they should start a system where anyone being cruel to Bucky gets a red flag at the least, described it as a ‘true test of character’.
- Looking over the files of his past assignments, Bucky learns that one early mission where he killed the target and the target's young daughter was HYDRA's equivalent of one; they sent the Winter Soldier in to kill the target without informing him in advance about the daughter, with the goal of testing to see if the Soldier would kill a child to obey the order to eliminate any witnesses and thus confirm for HYDRA just how ingrained their control of him was.
- Spared by the Adaptation:
- Loki (2021) reveals that just after Loki escaped with the Tesseract, the TVA pruned the timeline he came from, presumably meaning that everyone in that timeline is dead. This fic instead explores what might have happened had the timeline kept going.
- Due to Tony never building Ultron, JARVIS remains operational.
- In-Universe, Tony and Natasha survive unlike their original timeline counterparts. Also, Frigga is still alive by the time Asgard comes to Earth.
- Spotting the Thread:
- What finally makes Tony and Steve accept that the Steve look-alike that Steve fought was a time-traveler and not Loki is Thor revealing that Loki's illusions can't be physically touched, meaning that Steve couldn't have fought Loki while he was accounted for in the lobby.
- When Steve begins to freak out that Bucky could never regain his memories after seeing his situation, Tony points out that HYDRA had a chair specifically designed to wipe his memory to keep him under their control, something that they wouldn't keep anymore if they didn't think they'd need it. It can only mean that HYDRA thinks he might regain his memories, and thus Bucky can still be saved.
- Tagalong Kid: After the Snap, Cassie Lang is basically this to the Avengers at the compound; Scott had the Avengers down as potential guardians, and with Cassie's grandmother too far away to collect her given the current chaos, she is taken by the team, with Tony noting how Cassie's presence gives the Avengers something else to do besides grieve and blame themselves for losing.
- That Man Is Dead: Discussed. When Rumlow admits to the still-undercover Steve that he's surprised Steve is so accepting of "the Asset", Steve claims that as far as he's concerned, the Winter Soldier just looks like someone he once knew rather than actually being Bucky.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted. Tony encourages Steve to see a therapist in order to deal with his PTSD and panic attacks. Unfortunately, Steve is terrified of therapists and for good reason, as nobody wanted to be sent to the 'therapists' in his time. Tony reassures him that he's not going to be locked up because of his problems. Steve is only persuaded to go and see a therapist because Tony says "I'll go if you go".
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: As in the original timeline, Alexander Pierce may be a fascist but he believes he has good intentions for the world as a whole. Steve manages to convince him that he's loyal to HYDRA by playing to these seemingly good intentions.
- You Are Not Alone: After the helicarriers have been destroyed, Steve is at a loss at how to take care of Bucky. Bruce and Sam tell him he doesn't have to do it by himself.
