"I will go look for materials to make a Time-Space Bracelet. You keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn't run away."
Captain America grabbed Tony by the arm, frowned, and asked, "Are you really planning to take him back to the future?"
Tony replied flatly, "What else? Have you forgotten that you don't have a Time-Space Bracelet? This kid is smart and has definitely made a detailed plan and deployment. We have to prepare for the worst. If we can't get the Tesseract and the Pym Particles, taking him back to the future is our only option."
"But..." Captain America wanted to say something more.
Tony consoled him, "Captain, I know what you want to say. I mean... although we can take him back with us, as long as we get the Tesseract and save everyone, we can always send him back here later. After all, he's just an ordinary person."
"Just like returning the Infinity Stones?"
"Of course!"
Having reached an agreement, the two immediately split up.
Tony went to find materials to build a new Time-Space Bracelet, while Captain America trailed Rory, keeping an eye out for any opportunity to get the Tesseract and Pym Particles.
Humming a little tune, Rory drove his jeep into downtown Trenton.
After making a few turns, he parked the car, checked the rearview mirror to look directly behind him, and immediately hopped out and hurried into an apartment building.
Just as Rory entered the apartment, Captain America suddenly flashed out from around the corner.
Stepping softly, he followed Rory into the building, but didn't find anything unusual; it was just a very old, ordinary apartment building.
He looked left and right, but Rory was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly, the sound of a door opening and closing came from upstairs, and Captain America immediately headed up the stairs.
The moment Captain America stepped onto the second floor, a door on the first floor gently creaked open, revealing Rory's smiling eyes.
"Ha, I knew you wouldn't stay put."
Taking advantage of Captain America checking out the upstairs, Rory slipped out the back door.
Once he was clear of the apartment building, he crossed a street and entered an unfinished building.
In a corner of the skeleton building, he pulled a very inconspicuous ring, opened a hatch, and climbed down a ladder into the basement.
This was a secret base Rory had set up after his time travel, mainly used for various experiments and research. He originally planned to study the Tesseract here, never expecting to run into Captain America and Iron Man from the future.
Plans had changed; since he could go to the future, there was no point in staying here messing around blindly.
Once downstairs, Rory took a Browning M1911 off the wall and strapped it into a shoulder holster.
To Iron Man and Captain America, this pistol was no different from a toy, but he was bringing it for another purpose.
Next, Rory used various materials in the basement to rig up a low-yield rapid-blast explosive.
By the way, he also examined Captain America's Time-Space Travel Bracelet.
He found that the bracelet was completely impossible to dismantle. Tony Stark had manufactured it using nanomaterials, leaving no seams anywhere to take it apart.
The bracelet screen allowed the user to set the time, date, and location for time-space travel.
With a tap on the button, a white Time-Space Travel Suit, identical to the one in the movie, instantly appeared on Rory.
"Holy shit... that's cool as hell!"
It felt no different from a normal tight-fitting suit. He tapped the bracelet again, and the Time-Space Travel Suit vanished right back into it.
After testing it a few times, he stashed his homemade explosives and dragged a barrel of industrial alcohol from the corner, splashing it all over the basement.
Climbing back to the surface, Rory turned around and tossed a lit match inside.
*Whoosh.*
A sheet of flame suddenly flared up.
Rory walked away without looking back. There was no explosion, but he was a true man.
As soon as he hit the street, Rory ran into Steve, who was wandering around looking for him.
Rory smiled and greeted him, "Hey, it's so late, why aren't you resting?"
"Uh... I'm looking for a place to sleep..."
Rory smiled without a word, choosing not to expose Steve's awkward lie.
A moment later, he smiled and said, "Want to come stay at my place for the night? Consider it payment for bringing me back to the future."
Captain America was about to reply when he suddenly caught a pungent odor. He turned his head and immediately spotted the flames rising inside the abandoned factory.
"You just started a fire!?"
Rory shrugged and said nothing.
Captain America bolted into the unfinished building, wanting to single-handedly contain the fire before it burned the entire neighborhood to ashes.
Once inside, however, he discovered that although the temperature was high, the fire showed no signs of spreading; the flames rising from the basement quickly burned themselves out.
Though he had no idea what Rory was up to, in Steve Rogers's mind, Rory had already been labeled a bad kid.
When Steve emerged from the unfinished building, Rory had vanished completely.
Two hours later.
*Whoosh—clank.*
Tony Stark landed in front of Captain America in his iron armor, handed over a brand-new bracelet, and joked, "Captain, do me a favor and try not to give this one away, okay?"
The corners of Captain America's mouth twitched as he took the new bracelet. "You didn't say anything when I gave it to that kid."
It wasn't like he wanted to give it away; he simply had no choice.
"Where is the kid?"
"I don't know."
"Captain, that's not like you. How do you lose track of a living person?" Tony teased.
"You said it yourself, he's a living person. If he were a corpse, I guarantee he wouldn't have slipped away."
Standard banter between two old men.
"I think I know where he went." Tony looked down the end of the road, right toward the abandoned barn where they had found Rory yesterday.
Slipping back into his iron armor without even saying goodbye, he grabbed Steve and flew straight toward it.
A moment later, the two landed outside the barn, just in time to see Rory walking out of the warehouse.
"Hey, I thought I'd have to wait until dawn to see you guys. Didn't expect you to get here so fast."
Ignoring Rory's teasing, Tony looked at his right hand and asked, "Kid, can you tell me what you're holding?"
Rory raised his right hand and smiled. "Didn't you already guess? That's right, a bomb. A bomb wrapped around the Pym Particles. With just a gentle press, it'll go... boom..."
Captain America and Tony both tensed up, terrified that Rory might accidentally trigger the switch.
Rory waved a hand. "I'm not even nervous, what are you two stressing about?"
"Where is the Tesseract?" Steve asked, putting on a brave face.
Rory pointed toward a water well not far away. "At the bottom of the well. To show my sincerity, I can hand the Tesseract over to you, but I'm taking the remaining Pym Particles with me."
"Fine," Tony immediately agreed.
"Tony, what if he—" Steve started to say, but Tony gave him a reassuring look.
A few minutes later.
Steve climbed out of the well, soaking wet, hauling up the Tesseract, while Rory handed the return-trip Pym Particles over to Tony.
"You two, I'm afraid we have to part ways here. I said I wanted to go to the future, but I never said I wanted to go to *your* future. See ya!"
Rory had never intended to leave Captain America and Iron Man in this timeline, nor did he want their future world to be destroyed, which was why he was handing over the Tesseract and a small amount of Pym Particles.
As for himself, he planned to take the remaining Pym Particles and embark on a spontaneous time journey.
He set the bracelet's destination to New York in 2008.
With those words, Rory pressed the activation switch without a moment's hesitation.
*Whoosh.*
Rory vanished from before Captain America and Tony's eyes in the blink of an eye.
Captain America sighed, "I knew it would end like this."
A smile played at the corner of Tony's mouth. "Relax, I designed the bracelet. He won't be able to run away."