"I don't see it," Steve replied. "Granted, we know this really was a Hydra base of operations, but we have no evidence Bucky ever came through here."

"This," Natasha replied with a dismissive wave towards the summoning circle Hermione was finishing to erase. "What we just saw… It's bigger than just finding your friend-"

"What?" Steve barked, his pent up anger just begging for a release.

Natasha stepped back, looking wearily between him and Hermione.

"I'm sorry. I mispoke. Of course it's important to find your friend, you know I understand, and we will find him, but don't you realize the importance of what we saw?"

Steve frowned, replaying the scene, but honestly, Hydra experimenting on some poor soul wasn't anything new to him. He shared a look with Hermione who shrugged, not seeing what had the Russian spy so riled up either.

"Those guns? The laser pointer? Hell, even the cut of their clothes, their hair style, their boots!"

Hermione gasped beside him, catching on faster than he did.

"Oh. They're too modern for the forties, aren't they?" he asked.

Him and Hermione skipping through time did not make those details as obvious as they were to someone living a more regular timeline.

"I'm guessing the nineties," Natasha said.

"But that means…" Hermione began, turning to give him a stricken look.

"Hydra," Steve growled.

Not only had that organisation survived the downfall of their leader, most of their assets, and the nazi party, but they had continued to grow through time, carrying on with their experiments and God only knew what else.

"We have to find out how bad the situation is," Natasha said. "If they have been secretly thriving all this time, right under our noses, without anyone the wiser…"

"Luckily, I have a feeling both missions coincide. We find Bucky, we find Hydra."

"Save the soldier, save the world," Natasha muttered, but she gave him a firm nod.

Steve was glad he didn't have to fight this point with Natasha. To be honest, they needed her to continue as neither of them spoke Russian well enough to even navigate the country, let alone try to flush out an evil organization which had successfully hidden for decades.

Once they had erased all traces of their passage there, Hermione apparated them back to a hotel they had stayed at a few nights ago. They desperately needed to regroup and plan their next move. With Hydra now a possible threat, and one which might hold their friend hostage, or at least know what happened to him, they had to act with more caution. If those bastards even had the hint of a doubt that someone was onto them, who knew how they would react? Violently, of course, but when and how was anyone's guess. Steve didn't like being so blindsided.

"I think they were still trying to replicate the super-soldier serum," Steve confided. "That man in the chair, his strength…"

"But completely out of control," Hermione reassured him. "If that's all they managed in all this time, we might just be safe on that front at least."

"Maybe," Steve said uncertainly, recalling how mentally unstable Schmidt had seemed at times. "But I remember something Dr Erskine said, when I asked why he chose me when he had stronger candidates. He said a side effect of the serum was to exacerbate a character flaw. The good becomes great, and the bad becomes worse. Pride in Schmidt's case, became a delusion of grandeurs so huge he thought he could kill half the world and rule over the rest. That guy they experimented on was a fighter, a brawler even I'd wager. He might have had anger issues, poor impulse control…" Steve trailed off as that reminded him eerily of the Hulk, but as he had not known Dr Banner previous to his change, he didn't know if that's what had cause the Hulk to be born.

"That makes sense," Natasha said, nodding her head absentmindedly. "I never heard about this side-effect before. Does it mean you have one too?"

"Erm… No. I don't think so actually," Steve replied, wondering if he was wrong after all.

Hermione snorted at his answer however, and Natasha bit back on a smile.

"You know how you used to jump into dark alleys to save a dame from a bully?" Steve nodded, remembering fondly of how they met. "And them how you jumped into the middle of a Hydra facility, alone, to rescue several hundred allies from a literal army of bullies?"

"Oh, alright. I see your point."

"Yes," Natasha agreed. "Your idiocy knows no bounds now."

"I think you meant bravery," Hermione said, but her tone was teasing.

"Synonyms," the Russian sighed. "So, by this logic, Hydra would have searched for tamer subjects to test the serum on?"

"Or just people they could control somehow," Steve agreed. "Suggestible people, or those who had something to lose, like a family."

"So… Hydra, super-soldiers, and we still have an impending alien attack hanging over our heads. Should we think about bringing in someone else?" Hermione asked.

"I should inform Fury," Natasha agreed.

"Wait!" Steve said, grabbing the redhead's arm, although she hadn't even stood up yet, but the sudden realization he'd just had horrified him to the core. "How do we know we can trust him?"

"He's the director of SHIELD?" Natasha drawled, but her brows drew down when she took in his expression. "What do you mean?"

"In the beginning, Hydra was just a branch of the nazi party, it grew using their resources, as much financial as human, but then used them for their own means. On the Valkyrie, there was a bomb meant for Berlin," he confided, having never shared that bit of the story with anyone. It had felt strange saving that city from its fate when they were the enemy, almost like an act of treason, but just thinking of the children living there, the babes, the innocents…

"You think… No," Natasha said with a shake of her head.

"How else could they grow this strong, yet remain undetected?" Steve countered.

"They're like a cancer," Hermione agreed. "Slowly seeping into every recess of society until it is completely rotten from the inside."

"You think they've been biding their time? All these years?" Natasha asked, still seeming bewildered by the idea.

"I've seen it happen before," Hermione said. "On a smaller scale of course. But those kind of people, when they lose, they hide to lick their wounds, they grow stronger, and they wait until their prey feels safe, until they're just a story to scare children, then they strike again."

"We wouldn't have found any of this out if it weren't for Hermione's magic, which is not something Hydra could have expected or prepared against. This is our chance to strike against them before they do."

"But we don't know anything!" Natasha said sharply. "Just that they are. How do you strike a shadow? How do you even find it when you have no light to shine on it. We need help."

It took some arguing, but Natasha was coming to terms with their theories while they agreed to her logic, and they spent the better part of what was left of the night to make a list of people they may be able to trust. Fury was on top of that list and Natasha would not hear otherwise. Followed by Clint's name, then Stark's. Steve refused to put Banner on the list because he had been researching the super-soldier serum, which was such a Hydra thing to do. Steve would have added Thor, but him currently being off-planet with the damn Tesseract made him a completely useless asset. This was a purely human problem however, so he might not even want to help. Steve's only certainty was that the Asgardian could not be Hydra and was therefore 100% trustworthy.

"I think we need more friends," Natasha finally said when they couldn't agree on a single other name. "Hermione, you're sure you can vet them?"

"As long as I can read their mind when you flash them your ugly ass pin."

Natasha looked down with distaste at the octopus pin Hermione had created with magic from the ghost image of those they had seen.

"I hope we got the colour right," she sighed.

"Just yell HAIL HYDRA if they look confused," Steve suggested.

"Oh, very subtle," Natasha snorted.

"Well, as long as I can read their mind, it's a good plan B."

"You know Fury is gonna skin us alive when he finds out about this? That not only we went looking for your buddy without leave, but that we tested his allegiance by reading his mind. We might not make it out alive of his office."

"Doesn't look like we have a choice," Steve replied easily. They would do what needed to be done, because that's what heroes did.

Steve hated to think their search for Bucky was put on the back-burner, and had to remind himself several times that they needed more allies and ressources if they wanted to go forward.

Natasha knocked on the door to Fury's office, looking as bored as an agent sent on babysitting duty for a couple of misbehaving agents could look. Fury snapped at them to enter and Steve lingered just long enough in the doorway for Hermione to cast her privacy charm. She had warned them there would be a faint buzzing sound, but it was the only spell she knew that would keep eavesdroppers out without frying all the finicky technology. All the light bulbs exploding would be a bit of a giveaway she had cast a spell.

"You found them," Fury said as he absentmindedly rubbed his left ear. "Where the hell did you two disappear off to?"

"A hotel, sir," Steve said with his bond-selling smile. "With a King sized bed."

Hermione was bright red beside him but she stared straight at Fury without blinking. She squeezed his hands, giving him the signal that she was in, and he nudged Natasha who swiped her hair away from her shoulder, revealing the Hydra insignia. Fury glared at her, then his eye caught the tacky pin and his frown deepened, but he otherwise didn't react. Steve wasn't sure if it was a sign he was a good or a bad guy. He glanced at Hermione who was now blinking rapidly.

"He's good," she said. "He knows what it is, just not why you're wearing it. He was planning to interrogate you later, you know, and not in a nice way."

"Told you," Natasha smirked.

"What the fuck are you talking about. How- Were you in my head?"

Fury was furious, enough so that Steve stepped forward while Hermione tried to explain as fast as possible she was just reading his passing surface thoughts, nothing too intrusive.

"Nothing too-" He suddenly cut himself off and narrowed his eyes at her. "Since when?"

Hermione's blush returned tenfold.

"I can't believe it," Fury said. "If you value your life, don't tell a soul. I hope you have a good excuse for this farce."

Thankfully, they did. It took a while to convince him, but he agreed to look into it and not trust anyone with the information. He also agreed to let them continue their own investigation, but Steve had a feeling it had more to do with him wanting Hermione out of his sight.

One down, two to go. They cleared Clint first, because he was already half-cleared, Hermione having peeked into his mind quite deeply after the whole Loki mind-control fiasco. But they flipped him the insignia and hailed Hydra to him anyway, only to see him go from laughing it off, to confusion, to suspicion. Steve had to give it to them, SHIELD agents were an observant and distrustful bunch. Maybe they were being too paranoid and infiltrating such an organization as SHIELD wasn't as easy as he'd feared.

Caution was mother of safety however, so they replayed the gig on Stark, with Clint now tagging along.

"Wow," Hermione said when she was done perusing his thoughts.

"Is that a good wow? Or we-need-to-put-him-down wow? " Natasha asked with a raised brow.

"He's not in cahoots with Hydra, but you should see his mind, it's a whirlwind in there."

"Wait! What just happened here?" Stark asked. "I'm confused. I don't like being confused."

And so, they had to explain everything from the beginning once more. It was a long and tedious process, but a necessary one.

"Okay. Alright. So… Hydra. You guys know I only believe you because Cap here says it's true, and he wouldn't lie about it, right? Just so we're on the same page. And can I please, please, tell Pepper Lady Liberty was inside me? She's gonna be so jealous."

"Ew, no!" Hermione exclaimed. "That's not at all what it was. Not… Physically."

She shuddered at the mere thought and Stark mock pouted.

"I'm going to start to think you don't like me, Glinda, but anyway, bigger fish to fry: how the hell are we going to sort out this clusterfuck?"

"Well, you're the genius here," Natasha drawled, lazing back in a chair now that there was no danger to deal with.

"Good point!" Stark agreed with a grin as he paced, hands fidgeting. "So we have one evil organization of unknown size, location and members, and who could literally be anyone except for us five and Fury?"

"And Thor," Steve added.

"And one impending alien invasion of unknown size and at an unknown date, but at least we know they're in space and not human."

They nodded.

"Why the fuck does the human threat scare me more than the frigging aliens in this scenario?" Stark exclaimed, hands in the air. "No, its okay. We can do this. We've got a team, and a goal."

"You mean NOT DIE?" Natasha mocked because that's about all they had achieved so far by miraculously staying off HYDRA's radar. .

"Yes. Solid plan that, and it starts with baby steps."

Steve had to admit, Stark was pretty darn good at coming up with a plan, and breaking down the two seemingly impossible missions into more manageable tasks, which lightened the mood considerably. First off, Stark had apparently just been building an army of Ironmen for some reason. He said it was because he couldn't sleep, but he never said why it was he couldn't sleep. Unfortunately, this was no time for self-care and introspection, so Steve let it slide, making a note to make sure later that Stark was actually alright.

In the meanwhile, he programmed Jarvis to sneak into any available nook and cranny he could find in SHIELD's operating systems as well as any other governments and governmental organizations in order to find patterns and exchanges that were either suspicious or which simply had no valid reason to exist. He would be breaking every law concerning privacy, but as long as no one found out… It was a complicated task which would depend a lot on the AI's own judgement too. The cherry on top was when, without Steve having to ask, Stark also gave Jarvis the side-task of finding anything referring to Bucky since his alleged death. Steve couldn't be more thankful. Finding Bucky quickly was even more important than before.

Natasha and Clint offered to put their spy skills into use and assess more of their colleagues to find those they could trust and those who seemed suspicious. They would also check in with Fury and find out what he was up to and if he needed help.

"What about us?" Hermione asked.

"You're coming to dine with me and Pepper because your boyfriend promised-"

"I did not."

"That's old age for you. Gramps here promised to ask you about it. Not my fault he dropped the ball. And if you could just make sure Pepper is not a creepy squid zealot, that would be great. Not that I don't trust her. I trust her like 99%, but, you know, I've trusted the wrong people before, and me and Peps live together. It's going to be a bit difficult Hydra-hunting if I've got a Troyan horse in my backyard."

Steve looked at Hermione, letting her decide, but honestly, Stark presented a pretty good case, and Steve would feel terrible refusing when he had been so helpful.

"Makes sense," Hermione said with a nod. "But we should eat here, not out, just in case we need to take care of her."

"I can't believe I'm planning the hypothetical removal of my girlfriend. She's going to kill me when she finds out."

But it was necessary. Just like it had been with the others. To be honest, Stark was dealing with it much better than Steve would have if he'd been in his place, but he supposed 99% was pretty good odds.

The dinner went far better than he expected. The food was really good, wherever it came from because Stark did not cook, and Pepper was rapidly dismissed as a possible Hydra agent, Hermione giving Stark the thumbs up before they had even sat down. And Pepper was nice, despite being a complete fangirl where Hermione was concerned. Soon, Steve and Stark found themselves being pushed out of the ladies conversation when the two bonded pretty fast over the strangest things.

"Women," Stark concluded. "But I'm glad that's out of the way. Pepper kept nagging me about your girlfriend. She's so over the moon right now, I'm going to be a very happy man tonight."

Steve rolled his eyes at Stark's unsubtle eyebrow wriggle. Good for him, he supposed.

"I'm glad Hermione found a new friend in this time. It can't be easy on her being uprooted all the time."

"Yeah, I meant to ask how she does that."

"Your guess is as good as ours. There's magic, sure, but there seems to be something that ties her to the Tesseract. She appeared not long after it opened a portal for Loki, but she also disappeared soon after it disintegrated Red Skull. I don't know what happened to the Cube to make her appear in New York the first time, but it could be around the time Hydra unearthed it." Steve shrugged. "We'll probably never know."

"So if the Tesseract happens to give off another large discharge of energy…" Tony asked.

"I'd rather not think about it," Steve said honestly.

It was only a theory, but they didn't have much to go on, and it might just have been coincidences. If they were right however, there was nothing they could do against such a force of nature. All they could do was try finding one another, again and again, as they had been doing since they met. Just like they were doing with Bucky, whether he was a prisonnier, old, or even dead. They would find him.

"Bummer," Stark said then drained his glass, putting it back on the table with a bit too much force, startling their dames. "But we'll figure it out. Just like everything else," he said confidently.

Steve smiled at him. Maybe Hermione was not the only one who had found a friend tonight.