Qweb: Pepper was information seeking to better inform Dr. Knutz on observed behavior, there with Sam. And as for Steve and HitchHiker's Guide... yes, right now he is, even if he's the most likely person ever to identify with Arthur Dent. (Subject for next update, actually... as I have scene to fix. In fact, it's that one.)

Note the second, Re: Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy... of the books that Fujo's been reading, that one was probably the tamest. Why? Because she'd previously been reading Callahan's Crosstime Saloon series, and Forever War by Bill Haldeman.

A/N: On my way to this update... oh yes, I took the scenic route. Scenic route included more than one fire crisis, a parent in need of a pacemaker and assorted life dramas too numerous to mention. (This isn't the update I meant to write... that's next chapter. This... I had to make this LESS weird. By a lot. I eventually stopped trying to make the weird thing less weird.)

Nineteen Days Ago...

They'd been chatting for a bit, with Chris and Peter and Vincent engaging the young man in conversation while the rest of them listened when the woman with silver (or maybe gray) piping on her sleeves suddenly interrupted them with an odd question that caused Mason to turn and look at her funny. "Why do you want to talk to a lawyer?"

The woman, who had introduced herself as 'Ally', shrugged. "None of my teammates are lawyers, and I would like to talk shop with a fellow lawyer, Mr. Nettleton. The law is the law, no matter what dimension or timeline it is."

Mason paused, then spun and looked out over the crowd... "My oldest sister Allison is over there, chatting with Grandma Hannah. She's a lawyer."

"Old woman in wheelchair, wide-brimmed sun hat?"

"Yes."

"Ally," Peter spoke up as Ally stood, dusting off her uniform pants as she did so. When she looked at him, he tapped his wrist. "Be discreet."

"Of course." She glanced down at Mason, smirked. "Your sister's name is Allison?" At his nod, she looked at Peter again. "What do you think? Pass myself off as a Rachel, or..."

Vincent laughed. "Are you planning on staging a bird rescue on live TV while in Elephant morph?"

Ally paused, considering it. "Only in certain circumstances, you moron. "

"Then go have that talk."

Mason watched, puzzled, as she chuckled and then moved off into the crowd. "Bird rescue?"

"We've got stories," Chris told him with a smile. "Including one where my Dad, before he actually learned to drive, caused his team leader, also his best friend, to have hysterics involving trash cans while trying to stop a dust monster from Saturn from either eating or capturing someone else. And that someone was Ally's mother, Rachel, who once rescued a bird with her boyfriend on live TV." Mason stared at him. "What? You didn't have your parents tell you horror stories about driving?"

"Something about that feels familiar."

"Ah-hah!" Vincent said as he pulled something out of a pocket and handed it to Mason. "I knew keeping one of these would come in handy. Here."

Mason stared down at a book with a cover that had a girl in a purple shirt morphing to a horse. He stared at the Animorph book for a minute before raising his head to look at Chris, who was still looking back at him with a wry expression. "Oh. So..."

"We're from another dimension, Mr. Nettleton," Chris explained as his gaze shifted to the crowd. "And... Really, Vincent? Why do you even have one of those in your pocket? And why that one, anyway?"

Vincent shrugged. "Just in case we got kidnapped by an evil sorceress again. That dark dimension is not good for kids, and what better distraction than a government conspiracy based around an alien toilet?"

Chris glanced at Peter, who was fighting an outright laugh, then looked out over the crowd again with a frown. "Point. And... huh. That's interesting."

"What is?" Vincent asked as he turned to follow Chris's line of sight. Ally had stopped at the food table on her way to Mason's sister and his grandmother, and was chatting with a pair of young women, before moving on again. One of the young women turned so the group could see them, and Vincent blinked, startled. "Oh."

"That's just Ruth and Maria," Mason told them dismissively as he turned back. Then he frowned at the various expressions of wonderment and took in the fact that they all seemed shaken and thrown as one of the women stood up and really looked around. "Unless it isn't..."

"We might have a problem," she said, and pointed. She winced suddenly and put a hand to her ear, listened for a minute. Then she sat down again and glanced at him. "Actually not a problem." She winced again.

"What?" Everything about her reaction and her wording was setting off alarm bells. What kind of problem, and why would whoever was on the other end of her earpiece stop her?

"What Amy means to say," Chris interrupted, his tone a scary shade of neutral that made Mason wince, while Vincent sighed and spoke quietly into his communicator. "Is that we can't tell you, yet. When Ranko and the others get back here in a bit... yes. But right now... no." He motioned to the book still in Mason's hands. "I take it you're at least familiar with that book series?"

"Read the first couple," Mason admitted, making a mental note to circle back to the subject of why the sight of two of his cousins made everybody clam up so suddenly. "Liked other things more. The hysterics involving trash cans does stand out, though... Your father still drive erratically?"

Chris smirked. "No."

They were sharing a moment alone in the crowd of family when the woman in the dark, sort of out of place jumpsuit came up to them and simply watched. Allison frowned at her, wondering why that expression of... something... felt so familiar, before she beckoned her closer. "Hello."

The woman blinked, looked away for a moment, and then seemed to shake herself. "Sorry. I thought I could do this, have a chat lawyer to lawyer, but..."

Hannah nudged her and Allison glanced at her, frowning. "Bring her over here."

Allison nodded, stood up, grabbed the woman's left hand, and hauled her over. She pointed to the chair she'd been sitting on. "Sit."

"I-"

"You need a moment, Miss...?"

She blinked and sat as ordered. "Ally. Er... Rachel."

"Which is it?"

"Ally."

Allison continued to frown, but turned and went to drag another chair over. Then she sat down on her grandmother's other side and simply looked at the woman, her blonde hair up in a braid, the silver/gray piping on her sleeves... "So. Lawyer to lawyer, hmmm?"

Ally stared at Hannah, then nodded. "But can we do person to person first? It's easier. And... you remind me of my grandmother, ma'am."

Hannah smiled. "I do?"

"She passed. Not that long ago, really." Ally shook herself, then looked away. "Sorry."

Hannah reached over and caught her hand, and Ally looked at her with a puzzled expression. "Never be sorry, and I'd love to hear about your grandmother."

Ally smiled, glanced at Allison. "I feel like I'm interrupting a thing."

"You're not, really." Allison motioned to her jumpsuit. "You here with Mason's group of detail people? I'm never really sure how many there are."

Ally paused, then nodded. "He did point me in your direction, so... yes. And... this is going to sound weird, but I kind of wanted to discuss the legality of the Sokovia Accords with you. The military application towards enhanced individuals, I mean."

Allison's eyes narrowed. "Oh?"

"Yes. Aside from the danger of putting people on lists and those lists getting hacked like the IMF Agents list from Mission Impossible..." Ally shrugged at Hannah's amused expression. "...and this is the first chance I've gotten to discuss it with another lawyer, military or no."

Allison stared at her for another minute before nodding. "Fair enough. Mission Impossible? Really?"

"First comparison that came to mind."

Hannah was an interested witness to an intricate discussion on the applications in International Law for the Sokovia Accords...

He almost didn't notice them when they reappeared and noiselessly integrated themselves, due to Peter and Chris and Vincent still managing to keep him focused on them. In fact, the first one he noticed was the woman in the odd t-shirt and sweat pants, who hadn't sat down yet... "I Can't Keep Calm, I'm a Swim Mom?"

She glanced down at him, then looked out over the crowd again. "I wasn't on this mission until yesterday, and my uniform... too painful to wear right now. Still tender."

"You didn't have to come," Ranko spoke up from her seat next to Peter, which caused Mason to startle and look at her in mild surprise. She smirked and leaned into her husband with a familiarity borne of years and years of intimacy. "Some special agent you are, if a doctor can sneak up on you."

The woman still standing laughed as Mason took stock of everyone and suddenly realized they were short three people. "Ranko, let him be. We have forty years on him."

"True."

"Where are your other three?"

The woman glanced at him again, then sat down with a very visible wince on her face... wait. He blinked in recognition as she looked at Ranko with a sigh. "Don't start. I know my limits, and you'll have to help me up again. I know."

Ranko nodded, then motioned to Mason. "Actually, I was going to mention him and the hologram protocol. The range... he can see you."

She paused and glanced at him again, taking in his stunned expression. "Oh."

"Maria?" Mason wondered, staring at her. She was older, eyes weary, and expression a scary sort of neutral, but this was most definitely his cousin. "How in the-"

"Going to stop you right there," Maria interrupted, her familiar and neutral but authoritative tone startling him because it wasn't odd for Jill to say that, but he'd never heard his cousin speak that way. "And ask you where my brothers are. I see Andrea, but not Martin or James." He blinked, startled again at the mention of siblings.

Mason took a moment to compose himself, then shrugged. "Martin is in Boston for school... and I assume you don't mean my cousin James, who is over there with the camera."

Maria looked, and then shook her head with a wry smile. "No. Andi's triplet brother."

Mason smiled. "Oh. Thomas is at McMurdo Base for a year or so." For some reason, that caused Maria to laugh. "Why is that funny?"

"Some things are the same," Ranko explained with a smile. "Time line to time line, even if names and other details are not."

"Wait," Mason said, trying to get his bearings as he glanced at Maria, who was studying him with that scary neutral expression again. "Are you telling me that there's another Jillian Mackenzie out there in the multiverse who had children with Damian Pentel, and one of them wanted to work in Antarctica?"

"Sort of," Maria told him. "Though... my mother's maiden name was not Mackenzie, and I have three younger siblings. I don't see them here, and Elsie had a panic attack before she could give us any details beyond 'oh God, Jill's here!'" Maria shook her head, then glanced at Chris. "And then Susan had to pull them both."

"Which is wise," Chris replied, tapping his ear in acknowledgement. "Jess told me."

"You have younger siblings?" Mason wondered, still stuck on the idea of it. He blinked again when Maria pulled a small album from the pocket of her sweatpants, and opened it to show him a family photo containing... Rob, Kristy, Jill, Damian, and seven kids. He recognized four of them. "Oh."

"My younger sister Erin, and my brothers, Connor and Matthew," Maria explained. She handed the album to him and let him leaf through it. "And just between us: if someone finds a bat in a cave very soon, you don't get to say you already knew, Mr. Nettleton."

Staring down at one of the pictures as her words sank in, Mason nodded slowly. He didn't get that reference entirely, but he'd look it up later. The implication... "Right. Who are these two?"

Wincing as she moved closer to look, Maria peered at the picture of her mother and father with her and her grandparents. "Oh. Those are my mother's parents."

'The same, but not the same,' Mason thought to himself as he studied them. He remembered seeing pictures of them, but they'd been a bit younger, in formal attire, and that had been Kristy and Rob's wedding album or albums that Jill had let him look through. Slowly, he raised his head and looked at her, at this woman who was family, but not. "Thank you."

"For?"

"You didn't have to say anything, and yet, here you are, explaining as much or as little as you can." Mason noticed the strain on her face, and remembered how she'd winced when she had sat down on the grass. "Is something wrong?"

"No," Maria said as she took a breath and pressed her hand to her side. "Still recovering from surgery, three weeks ago, and it doesn't matter how advanced the procedure is. Abdominal surgery still hurts. I'm going to regret standing up again, but it was worth it." He started to give the small album back to her, but Maria shook her head. "No. I have another, and your Jill will be curious when she finally has time to ask Dr. Khamisi about their visitors who left her a letter that will make no sense."

"Speaking of," Ranko said, drawing his attention, and he saw the manilla folder in her hands. "Captain Rogers said that we could give these to you, Agent Nettleton."

Mason accepted the folder from her, at once noting the Avengers seal on the cover. "Oh. Thank you."

"You done scrambling him yet, or should I go and have another long talk with one of his family members?" Ally asked as she re-joined the group and Mason opened the folder to read the first page.

Maria snorted in laughter, then winced and rubbed at her side. "Oh, we're done. How was your chat?"

"Very good, actually," Ally answered. "I know more about Enhanced Persons Rights than she does, and she gave me some things to think about in regard to birthright law. I almost want to do what Mel did and stay here. Almost."

Maria laughed again. "Connor would never agree to move to another dimension."

"You sure?" She turned and looked at one of her team mates. "Exactly how hard was it to convince Whuki to move?"

Rala rolled her eyes. "That's different, and we haven't actually decided yet."

"But you already know you're going to."

"Dependent on what Dad thinks of the whole thing, sure." Rala watched as Mason closed the folder and raised his head to frown at her. "What?"

"You people are weird," Mason said finally. "Are you always this weird?"

Maria smirked. "Even when we're not dealing with odd cases of spatial genetic multiplicity." At the recognition in his eyes, her smirk deepened. "Why Mister Nettleton... are you a Whovian?" At his nod, she laughed again.

Ally chuckled as she sat down on his other side and nudged his shoulder. "And really, you have an uncle who was used badly by the Russians for seventy years. Pot, have you met kettle?"

"Ally," Ranko said, a hint of warning in her tone. "We are not here to be insulting, and at least his sense of weird is intact."

"Point." Ally glanced out over the crowd. "Mr. Nettleton?"

"Yes? And you can call me Mason. Mr. Nettleton makes me look around for my Dad."

Ally smiled. "What are the details in the case for your uncle? If you know, that is."

Mason stared at her. "You... want to help with the case?"

"If possible. So...?"

Two days after that...

It wasn't very often that Everett Ross found himself being surprised, but this was definitely one of those times as a woman who seemed to be in her early-thirties with blonde hair and blue eyes was led into his office inside the Joint Counter-Terrorism Task Force offices in Berlin. She was wearing a grey/silver pantsuit and carrying a brown briefcase, and frowning at him. "And who are you? Security wouldn't give me any details other than your last name..." He squinted at the business card that she'd handed to him. "Miss Fangor." What kind of law practice was Proctor & Camilli?

She set her briefcase down on the chair on the other side of his desk, then continued to regard him with that ever-present frown. "I'm the lawyer that you should have called, Director Ross."

Everett frowned at her in return. "When should I have called a lawyer?"

"In May, when Captain Rogers suggested it. You didn't, and here we are." She held up a hand, forestalling him from saying anything. "He wrote to Sergeant Barnes's sister, she brought said letter to my law practice. Be glad I'm here and not her. And that said... I also would like to speak to your prisoner. After you."

"I'm sorry?"

She pulled a slip of paper out of a folder in her briefcase and handed it to him. "This is a court order for any and all information on James Buchanan Barnes whilst he was in your custody, Director. You and I are going to have a conversation, and then I am going to have a conversation with Helmut Zemo. You won't like it, and neither will he, because I am here on my client's family's behalf, at his sister's behest, to get any and all evidence and statements required. If you have a problem with it, you can take it up with the UN Security Council, the International Criminal Court in The Netherlands, or the government of Romania. Did you know that the Romanian Government was and is upset with the JCTF for attempted murder of one of their citizens, among other things related to this?"

Everett stared hard at the piece of paper in his hand, then looked at her again. "You are the Winter Soldier's lawyer?"

"One of them, yes. And he has a name. I suggest you use it."

"I'm really not going to like this, am I?"

"Was that rhetorical, Director? I assure you, that you won't." Before he could retort or get enough leverage to think straight, she opened her briefcase again, pulled out a pen and a pad of paper, and sat down with an open smile that did nothing to put him at ease.

"When you say that your client's sister received a letter from Captain Rogers... did you bring that with you? For that matter, why would he?"

Allison's lips quirked momentarily before her posture seemed to relax slightly. "No, I didn't happen to bring it with me. As for why he would write to her... she's ninety-two and a handful, and from what I understand, he can't lie to her, not even by omission. He really, really can't. And it's her brother they'd been trying to find since the collapse of SHIELD. You remember that, yes?"

"Yes." Really... who didn't, and what kind of question was that?

"Then I don't need to lay out anyone's motivations, now do I? My client's sister wants her brother back. His family, including those who only know of him from family photo albums and history books, want him back." She glared at him, clicked her pen once. "Now that I've explained quite enough, why don't you start with the capturing procedure? How did that go down?"

The next hour or so was one of the more uncomfortable ones of Everett Ross's life.

To: BarnesFamilyLegalTeam
From: LegalBigSister
CC: HeadMinion, SilverWave
Attachments: SoundFile1, SoundFile2, LegalTranscripts
Subject: Someone went to Berlin for me...

...and I can't say that I'm sorry I let them do it. Attached, please find interviews with CIA/JCTF Director Everett Ross and Suspect Helmut Zemo. Do let Mike listen to those, Jane, because he needs a good solid chuckle.
As for who Miss Fangor is... she's someone Mason knows. Ask him.

To: LegalBigSister
From: BarnesFamilyLegalTeam
CC: SilverWave, HeadMinion
Subject: Re: Oh Lord...

Thank you, Allison. Will add this to the list of things we've got. And I will ask your little brother. Whomever this Miss Fangor is, she's exactly correct about Rebecca and Everett Ross being very glad she wasn't there.

To: SilverWave
From: HeadMinon
Subject: You did what?

Ally, when you said you wanted to help, you didn't tell me that you were going to basically gaslight a government official. Also, I don't recall introducing you to Aunt Becca.

To: HeadMinon
From: SilverWave
Subject: Re: Hee...

Allison introduced me to her at the party, after Hannah. She reminded me of my own grandmother, and Grandmother Naomi would have done exactly this to Director Ross. Plus or minus explaining things with finger puppets and having a Hork-Bajir along to look scary... which I didn't do to Mr. Ross, but I was utterly tempted.

To: SilverWave
From: HeadMinion
Subject: Re: ...seriously?

I'm not sure what's worse: the mental picture of a seven-foot walking weapon of an herbivore staring down Everett Ross, or that I now have to explain Animorphs to Jane. You do realize he could have arrested you, right, Ally?

To: HeadMinion
From: SilverWave
Re: Yes. Seriously
Attachment: JointPsychometryReport-WinterSoldier, ReadingListForMartin

(a) He was too off balance to think of it.
(b) In order to arrest me, you have to have charges that apply to extra-dimensional law. There are none for this situation. I checked and double-checked. Also, I broke no laws doing that, and I impersonated no one, save actually being an employee of Proctor & Camilli, but now I feel like apologizing to Bernie Rosenthal for stealing her thunder, even if I didn't.
(c) Have fun explaining the wacky book series that is, kinda, my life. If they ask, that is. I told Allison very little of my own background.
(d) I'm not sure if this will make sense to you, but Elsie wanted me to pass something along, no matter how odd. So: "Hazel suspected. She went back the next day alone to try to find the homeless guy who reminded her so much of her brother. She didn't find him." (If you read the attachment, Mason? Careful treading. Elsie and Dawn had nightmares for weeks afterward.)
(e) Dawn said Martin would find the reading list helpful. How or why all of that is going to help, I have no idea. Is Martin doing some kind of psychology research project involving complications of PTSD?

To: SilverWave
From: HeadMinion
Re: The Reading List

Actually, yes, he is. He had questions about a weird psychology tool presentation, and Jill is forcing him to read up on things so they can really talk about it. He'll be delighted to get more to add to the list.
And thank you for the nightmare fuel that I can't say how I got it.

When she answered the door, Jane found Mason standing on the doorstep, with a backpack on his shoulder. "Oh. Hi. Where's..."

"Shopping with Dan," Mason told her. "Can we talk?"

Jane took in the fact that he'd come alone and had a very pensive expression on his face, which was really unusual for him, and stepped aside. "Of course. About what?"

"Miss Fangor," Mason muttered as he led the way to the kitchen where Henry was doing the dishes. "Because she so spectacularly did what she did."

"I wasn't going to ask," Jane pointed out as she watched Mason set the backpack on the table and he pulled from it a binder, a small photo album, and a manilla envelope. "You know people of all sorts."

Mason sighed as he handed the album to her. "Maybe, but this... I'm not even sure I completely understand, and it happened to me. And," here he tapped the binder. "I got what we can rightly call nightmare fuel on Uncle James. Not that we didn't already have enough, that is."

"Understand what?" Henry wondered, curious as he laid the dishtowel on the counter.

"The ramifications of spatial genetic multiplicity," Mason told him honestly while Jane paged through the album. At Henry's frown, he shrugged. "You asked. How's Fran?"

"Stir crazy," Fran answered for herself as she entered the kitchen and carefully sat down in a chair at the table. She took a deep breath, and then noticed that her husband was mildly glaring at her. "What? I'm allowed to move around some, so long as I don't overdo it."

"Didn't say you weren't," Henry said with a smile.

"Oh wow," Jane breathed, startling them. "Mason, where did you get this and did you Photoshop?"

"There was no photo shopping, no. Those are real. As for where... the same place I got the in-exile reports."

Jane glanced at him, then continued to peruse the album for another minute or two. "I only met them once. You weren't even a year old yet."

"Mom?" Fran asked, and Jane brought the album to her, pointed at a specific picture. "Um... who are they?"

"Jill and Rob's parents," Jane explained and Fran took it out of her hands to really look. "Which is why I asked if these were photoshopped. If they're not... Mason?"

"What? Do I really need to say it? I'm still reeling and it's been a couple weeks." At Jane's very maternal frown, he sighed. "All right, so I met Maria's extra-dimensional twin who sounded far older than she looked, and also a lot like Jill."

Jane paused, unsure if she'd actually heard him right. "Of the things I thought you'd say, that wasn't one of them."

"Yeah. Me either. And if Miss Fangor hadn't gone and interviewed Everett Ross and imitated her grandmother while doing it, I wouldn't have had to tell you. I'm still wondering why she feels like she stole Bernie Rosenthal's thunder, even if she really didn't." He joined Fran at the table, turned a page or two, and pointed to a picture of two boys, very obviously nearly identical, about fifteen or so years old. "If I understand correctly, because it was not explicitly stated, Miss Fangor, whose name is Ally or Allison, I'm not entirely sure which, is married to one of these two. Connor, I think it was."

Fran studied them. "Huh... they remind me of Martin and Thomas. Definitely Damian. The other one's name?"

"Matt, I think. It was a lot to take in."

"I'll bet," Jane said. "And I'm sure Bernie Rosenthal would be amused, if we were to tell her, that a lawyer from another dimension feels that way." Mason frowned at her. "Bernie is helping us on the case, Mason. Pro bono. Allison even tried to set Steve up on a date with her, but he said he wasn't ready to date yet."

Mason blinked in surprise. "Really? I thought Ally was just rambling in text form. Also, you seem to be taking the fact that I know a lawyer from another dimension really well."

"We got invaded by aliens, Steve was frozen in ice for seventy years, Uncle James was dead, but not, and in enemy hands instead, and the Avengers fought each other at a German airport while one half was trying to stop the other half instead of actually working together. I'll accept that you know people from another dimension."

"Ah."

Fran reached over and picked up the manila envelope. "Can I open this?" At Mason's nod, she did so, only to frown at the group photo including Mason, a Maria who was older and not in uniform like the rest of them, and twelve other men and women. "This looks like it was taken at the party."

"That's because it was," Mason told her. "I had Kurt take our picture, just so I could have evidence of something this crazy. Also, I put a copy of that picture in the card I did for Steve, because I know he talked to Commander Johnson. Apparently, we need to take him to a Chuck-E-Cheese when this mess is solved."

"Commander Johnson?" Fran wondered, and Mason pointed to a woman who had red streaks in her blonde hair. "Oh." Her attention shifted to the Maria in the picture, and she smiled at the novelty t-shirt. "I wonder if I could get one of those?"

"I can't keep calm, I'm a hockey mom?" Mason suggested playfully. "Where are the kids, anyway?"

"Building a fort in the living room with cushions and a sheet," Henry said after he checked. "Awfully quiet for them, aren't they?"

"That's how you know they're up to no good," Fran said, smiling. She watched as Jane picked the binder up and opened it up to the first page, paused, and then read what was there again. "Something wrong?"

"Not exactly. What is psychometry?"

Mason sighed. "That? They had two natural, trained psychics with them, who did a reading on Uncle James to help the medical team in Wakanda. They confirmed what we already know, and added a whole bunch that we don't. From what I understand, both had nightmares for weeks afterwards, and one or both had to be pulled from the lab due to panic attacks. That, and that's how they found out Jill had been there, consulting. Their psychics told them."

Jane nodded slowly. "Right. We probably don't need this, but thank them for me, if you have a way to do that." At Mason's nod, she set the binder back down on the table and stared at it. "We would also have to explain how we got it, and we're already doing that for a thing."

"I still think I need to call all of the hockey parents I know," Fran muttered. "Someone had to have gone to Oymyakon."

"Maybe," Jane agreed. "If it comes to that, you can call as many as you please."

Eventually it came to that.