Felicity spun through the air, greens and browns on the ground blurring with the blue of the sky. She'd have screamed, if she'd been able to catch her breath well enough to do so. She spun again, catching a glimpse of a red streak in the sky barreling towards her before she flipped around to face the ground. A hand grabbed her ankle and yanked her back. Felicity slammed into a solid figure and clung to him for dear life.

It was Thor who had her, a part of her brain registered as one of his arms curled securely around her. The moment he had hold of her, he changed the direction of their flight. The abrupt motion made Felicity's stomach lurch, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to fight back the nausea.

Seconds later the wind died, and Felicity opened her eyes to see they were back inside the quinjet, the ramp closing behind them. Thor had settled back down on the floor, but he was tall enough that Felicity's feet still dangled in the air while she held on to him. She forced her stiff fingers to let go and Thor set her down, a hand at her waist to steady her.

"Are you alright?" Thor asked, concern creasing his face.

She was still reeling from the abrupt shock of dear lord, she'd almost died just now, but Felicity nodded her head. "I think so."

"Okay, how did you just do that?" Tony asked from the pilot's seat. "And why?"

Felicity blinked, looked around to see they were all watching her, their expressions ranging from alarmed to confused (or just interested, if one paid attention to Loki, which Felicity still emphatically chose not to do). "That – that wasn't me!" she protested. "I don't have powers!"

The words felt utterly ridiculous coming from her mouth; no one from her world had superpowers, it wasn't a thing, the fact that she even had to explain that was just – just-

They don't believe me. She could tell by the looks on their faces.

"Well none of us can teleport people," Tony pointed out. "Unless Loki has a magic trick we don't know about." He shot a glare at the alien in question.

Loki rolled his eyes. "I have plenty of tricks you don't know about, but teleportation isn't one of them."

Felicity shook her head, slashing her hand through the air in a negative motion. "I don't have powers! And if I did, I certainly wouldn't use them to just toss myself out of a freaking jet!"

Sure, right before the teleportation had happened, she'd wished to be anywhere else but there, but she hadn't meant it in the literal sense of "I'd rather be free falling to my death than sitting here in the awkward aftermath of my confrontation with Steve." If she had powers – which she didn't – that was not what she'd do with them.

Steve studied her with narrowed eyes, and Felicity didn't like the look on his face. It reminded her of the look worn by one of her more difficult professors when he was presented with a question that he knew would have a complicated answer. "The blue lights when you teleported," he said, "looked an awful lot like the lightshow that happened when you showed up on the plane seventy years ago. Is it possible that this is some kind of side effect from the Tesseract?"

No way. That's impossible.

"It seems likely," Thor said. He crossed his arms over his chest, eyes going thoughtful. "Most beings cannot survive interacting directly with the full power of an Infinity Stone." He looked down at Felicity. "It is possible that in order to bring you here alive, it had to change you."

That – that couldn't be right. There was no way it could have –

Except. Except she clearly recalled the moment when she realized that the force bringing her over was tearing her apart, shattering her down into nothing more than specks of blue light and then putting her back together again. And she remembered the dream. The weird dream she shrugged off, because after what had happened, was it really all that strange that she'd dream about floating in a blue void? She remembered the words, the ones that had crawled past her ears and planted themselves directly into her brain.

"You have been remade."

The Tesseract had ripped her apart and put her together, over and over. How could she be sure it had put her back the same?

Her head swam and her legs turned to noodles beneath her, but she didn't quite realize she was falling until Thor caught hold of her, turning her so she fell back into a seat instead of on the ground. He was saying something, but Felicity's brain couldn't process the words over the roaring in her ears. Her heart was trying to jump out of her chest and she couldn't breathe, why couldn't she breathe?

She felt someone's hand on the back of her neck and they pushed her down so her head was between her knees. They spoke in a low, steady voice, but Felicity still couldn't understand the words. She squeezed her eyes shut. Panic attack, the analytical part of her brain finally told her. You're having a panic attack.

Felicity had never had a panic attack before, but they'd been briefly touched on in her classes. For panic attacks I'm supposed to – to breathe. Just breathe, Felicity.

"That's it," the voice said, words finally sinking in. It was steady and calm and soothing, and Felicity focused on it while she breathed. "Deep breaths; in through your nose, out through your mouth." A hand rested lightly between her shoulder blades, the touch comforting.

As she got control of her breathing, her heart slowed and the dizziness passed. She blinked her eyes open and found herself staring at the jean clad legs of whoever was crouched in front of her. Felicity raised her head and found it was Bruce, his gaze concerned and analytical all at once. "Better?" he asked.

Heat flushed up the back of her neck and ears, embarrassment flooding her as she registered that she'd just broken down in front of them all. Felicity had always been the one taking care of others, ever since she was a kid. She wasn't supposed to be the one that needed help. She swallowed the sour taste in her mouth. "Yeah. I'm okay."

Bruce removed his hand from her back and Felicity sat up. She noticed Steve take a step towards them, his mouth opening, but Bruce shot him a look sharp enough that his jaw snapped closed with a grimace, leaving whatever he'd been about to say unvoiced. Instead he turned and took the copilot's seat that Bruce had vacated. Tony was already studiously looking out the window. Thor hovered a moment, but when Bruce made a shooing motion with his hand, he moved to take a seat by Loki, though he shot worried glances Felicity's way. Bruce sat in the seat beside Felicity, placing himself between her and the others.

A lump built in her throat as the silence stretched out. It wasn't real privacy. That was impossible on the quinjet. But they were giving her the closest thing she could get to it.

She closed her eyes, fighting down the urge to cry. She was not going to embarrass herself further. Not today at least.

Once she felt she had herself under control again, Felicity opened her eyes and sighed. "This is insane," she mumbled.

"Completely," Bruce agreed.

Felicity started slightly, looking over at him in surprise. She hadn't really expected a response, and certainly not that one. Bruce met her stare and raised an eyebrow. "What, you think we deal with alien invasions, alternate realities, and secret organizations with plans of world domination every day?"

"Kind of…" Felicity admitted. It all seemed like standard fare for superhero movies to her.

Bruce snorted, his mouth turning up in a wry smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. "I promise, we don't. This is out there, even for us." He shook his head. "You want to know what I was doing a few days ago?"

Felicity wasn't sure where this was going, but he'd sparked her curiosity. "Sure."

"I was living in Kolkata. I was working as a doctor. Hadn't changed into the other guy in over a year." He leaned his head back. "Thought I'd gotten myself well hidden, and that no one knew where I was."

Felicity's mouth parted. He hadn't been the Hulk in over a year? A stark reminder that she didn't know anything really about the timeline of the Marvel movies. Could be years between each one, and for all she knew, during that time they could be living relatively normal lives.

That wasn't the only thing about Bruce's story that caught her notice though. "You're a doctor?" Felicity had been two weeks away from taking her exam for her nursing license, and she was kind of surprised to find a sort of common ground with any of the Avengers.

"More or less," Bruce said waving a hand. "I've got seven doctorates, and an M.D. is one of them. Never really practiced in the States though. But the people I worked with in Kolkata didn't have access to any doctors, so I was better than nothing."

Felicity stared. Surely, he was joking. But no, he looked perfectly sincere. "Seven?" she repeated. "Why would you do something like that?" Even if someone could go through the process of getting seven doctorates, Felicity couldn't think of any reason why someone would need to. It was just so excessive.

Another wry smile; Felicity was starting to think most of his smiles looked like that. "If it makes it any better, I didn't set out to get seven. It just sort of happened."

Felicity narrowed her eyes at him. "No," she said firmly. "That does not make it better. That might make it worse."

Bruce actually laughed at that. Then he launched into the story of his frankly ridiculous academic career that had led to seven doctorates. He'd only gotten through his third one when Tony's voice interrupted.

"We're here," he said.

Already? Felicity had gotten wrapped up enough in Bruce's story that she hadn't noticed the time passing. Then she realized she'd also been wrapped up enough in his story that she hadn't had time to dwell on or stress about the possibility of the Tesseract changing her, or that she might have some sort of weird powers now, or the confrontation with Steve, or anything else.

Wait, was that the point? Was he distracting me? If that had been his intention, it had worked, and Felicity was grateful.

As soon as the quinjet settled on the ground, Steve was out of his seat, snatching up his shield. "Tony and I will find the computer. The rest of you stay here, unless someone shows up to attack you. Hopefully we'll be in and out before anyone can catch up to us."

Felicity blinked. He's…not trying to make me go? He'd seemed so set on his plan before, and now he wasn't even mentioning it. Maybe he'd decided after her panic attack that she was too much of a liability or something. She didn't know, or care, what his reasoning was. She was just glad he wasn't trying to drag her along this time.

"Though if you see any explosions," Tony said, moving to the suit, "feel free to come make sure we're okay." The suit slid open at his approach, and Tony settled inside with practiced ease. The panels closed, encasing him inside.

Steve hit the button to lower the exit ramp, and the two of them were off. Quiet filled the quinjet. Felicity reached up and toyed with the end of her ponytail. She didn't want quiet right now. Quiet gave her too much time to think, and she just couldn't process the newest twists that had been thrown at her. She just couldn't. She looked over at Bruce.

"So, how'd the fourth one happen?"

Bruce hmm'd. "Surprisingly easy, actually."

Steve studied the worn buildings that stretched away from the gate he and Tony had passed through. Camp Lehigh. It was obvious that the place hadn't been used in years, grass overgrown, paint nearly worn from buildings, and a general sense of emptiness plaguing the area.

But it wasn't just the fact that it was clearly abandoned that bothered Steve; it was the fact that it had also changed from the time when he'd been there for basic training. Buildings had been added. Buildings had been knocked down, or remodeled. Camp Lehigh had thrived and grown and died, all while he'd been in the ice.

It was a painful, sharp reminder of the time that had passed him by, of everything that he'd missed.

"JARVIS isn't picking anything up," Tony said, his tinny voice breaking through Steve's reverie. "If there's a supercomputer around, it isn't turned on. Any guesses where it might be?"

Steve shook his thoughts away. This wasn't the time for nostalgia. He was on a mission, and he needed to be focused. He scanned the area, this time more strategically. It was hard to guess; in basic the areas he'd been allowed to go to had been extremely limited, so he wasn't as familiar with the area as one might expect. Between that and the way Camp Lehigh had changed, there was a decent chance they might be forced to search building to building, but that would take far too long.

Then he caught sight of a building that he knew didn't belong, no matter how many years he'd been gone. "There," he said, moving towards it.

"Okay," Tony said, following along. "What makes you so sure it's that particular building?"

"Army regulations forbid storing munitions within five hundred yards of barracks," Steve said. Maybe he'd been frozen seventy years, but even that wasn't enough time for regs like that to have changed. "This building doesn't belong here."

"Good enough for me," Tony said as they reached the door. Predictably it was chained shut, but a swift blow from Steve's shield handled that issue. "Hey, Cap."

Steve paused, looking back at Tony. The faceplate of his suit slid up, allowing Steve to see his frown. "This isn't the best moment, but there probably isn't going to be a good one, so. Maybe ease up on the new kid? She's not a soldier, and she didn't exactly volunteer for this."

He winced, gaze sliding away. Steve had messed up with Felicity, and badly. He'd heard about Hydra and Bucky, and he hadn't been able to focus on anything else. Not even his understanding of how much she must be hurting over losing her world, and his initial plans of trying to help her adjust. No, he hadn't stopped to consider her feelings at all, only the way she might be useful in completing the mission.

That's why it had hit so hard, when she'd called him out for it. Because she was right; everything he'd done in pursuit of his goals had increased the risk she faced. And he could say he'd keep her safe, but she was also right in that he couldn't guarantee it. He could try his best, but he knew what it was like when those life and death fights started. There was never a guarantee.

He'd pushed too much, and it wasn't hard to connect the dots between his confrontation with Felicity and her sudden accidental use of the power she didn't know she had to try and get away from them. And if they hadn't been able to save her, if she'd actually fallen to her death, that would have been on him. That was an outcome Steve wouldn't stand for.

Like Tony had said. She wasn't a soldier. She hadn't volunteered.

Felicity wasn't the one still at war.

"You're right," Steve agreed. "I'll be more careful." He'd apologize too, when he got the chance.

Tony's faceplate slid back down. "Right then. Let's keep going."

Steve pushed the door open, and was immediately greeted by metal stairs. They went down the stairs, the light from outside making it just bright enough to help him spot the light switch on the wall. He flipped the switch, and was mildly surprised when the overhead lights actually flickered on. Steve studied the room. It was like someone had taken a bunker and tried to make an office space. Desks were still neatly lined up, though coated with enough dust to show they hadn't been used in a long time. On the far wall, a now familiar logo was painted; the eagle, its wings spread wide.

"This was SHIELD?" Tony said, surprise coming through in his voice.

"Where it got its start, maybe," Steve said. It made sense; this post had actually been a major area for the SSR, and the SSR had transitioned into SHIELD sometime after the war.

They moved through the room, scanning for any sign of the computer that Felicity had told them about. While there were some random items that had been left behind whenever this place had been abandoned, there was none of it was electronics, and there definitely wasn't anything like a supercomputer.

"Why are these here?"

Steve turned at the sound of Tony's voice, and moved to see what he was looking at. There were three pictures hanging on the wall; Colonel Phillips, Howard, and Peggy. He wasn't sure why Tony was so surprised at their presence. "They were the ones who spearheaded the transition of the SSR into SHIELD. I'd be more surprised if there were photos of them somewhere."

Tony's head snapped towards him. "They did what?"

It was Steve's turn to be surprised. "You…didn't know that?"

"I didn't even know that SHIELD existed until after I became Iron Man," Tony said, "much less that Dad or Aunt Peggy helped found them."

"…Aunt Peggy?" Steve repeated, because he couldn't help it.

Tony waved a hand. "Her and Uncle Daniel were my godparents. That's not important."

The reference to Peggy's husband sparked a sharp ache in Steve's chest. He'd already known about the man; Director Fury had given him files on Peggy and all the Commandos so Steve could find out what had happened to his friends after he'd been frozen. Steve didn't resent the man, and he certainly didn't resent Peggy moving on and living her life. Her happiness was all he could ever ask for. But such a casually spoken reminder of the life he'd almost had…it ached.

"How did they get mixed up with the SSR and SHIELD?" Tony demanded, gesturing towards the photos.

Steve shook his head, refocused on Tony. "They both worked for the SSR during the war. Howard designed some of the equipment used in Project Rebirth. Once that was done, he worked with us Howling Commandos. Made a lot of our stuff." He hesitated. "You didn't know any of that?"

"No." Steve couldn't see Tony's face thanks to the mask, but his voice sounded stiff. "As far as I knew, Dad's war efforts all revolved around the Manhattan Project."

Steve winced. "That was his cover story to keep Project Rebirth a secret. Far as I know, he never even consulted on that."

Tony didn't say anything, and Steve wished he could see his expression, get a feel for what the other man was thinking. Steve had no idea why Howard – or Peggy for that matter, since it sounded like she'd been a decent part of Tony's childhood – would have kept all of this a secret from Tony.

Before Steve could think of something to say, Tony turned away. "We should keep looking. If the computer isn't here, we'll have to figure something else out."

They moved on from the pictures, drifting by mostly empty built in bookcases. Steve let his eyes wander over the bookcases, then paused. There was a spot where the bookcases didn't quite line up like they should, for built ins. Could be shoddy workmanship, but maybe…

Steve was able to fit his fingers into the crack and he pulled. Metal groaned and clicked as the whole row of bookcases slid to the right, revealing elevator doors.

"Hidden elevators in a hidden office," Tony observed. "Nice to know SHIELD was always like that."

There was a keypad by the elevator doors, requiring a pass code to get them open. "Scan it for me, JARVIS," Tony said. The eyes of his suit lit up for a second, then faded again. "Bingo." Tony punched in the code, and the doors creaked open.

There was only one button inside the elevator, so Steve pressed it. The ride down was surprisingly smooth, considering how old the thing had to be. The doors opened again, and the lights hanging overhead flickered on automatically when they stepped out.

The room was just as large as the one they'd come from, but most decidedly not an office. In the center of the room was a raised dais, several monitors stationed on it. Machinery as tall as Steve encircled the room, thick cables leading from them to the monitors. None of it made any sense to Steve; he was getting a handle on the smartphone and tablet that SHIELD had given him, but this stuff in no way resembled that.

"JARVIS, scan for explosives," Tony said. Steve froze before taking another step. He'd been so surprised about the room, he'd almost forgotten Felicity's warning that the building might blow up. A moment later the suit slid open and Tony stepped out. "Alright, this place is not rigged to blow, so that's good news."

He marched towards the computer in the middle of the room, and Steve trailed after him. "So, this is Felicity's evil super computer?" Tony eyed the equipment and let out a snort of derision. "This thing is ancient."

Steve couldn't quite stop the twist of his mouth at Tony's comment. Ancient. It was younger than Steve was.

Tony paused as something caught his attention. "That however is not."

Steve drew closer to see what had caught his eye. It was a sleek black box with a blinking blue light that someone had connected to the computer. "Looks like someone comes here after all."

"In that case, I'd better get started," Tony said.

He examined the console in front of the monitors. It was nearly as large as a desk and had way too many buttons to make any kind of sense to Steve, but Tony must have understood it because he pressed one, and everything lit up, and the machines around the room began to whir and click.

A camera over the main monitor seemed to move of its own volition, turning to encompass both Tony and Steve.

"Initiate system?" a robotic voice asked. The words spelled out on the main monitor as they were said.

"Now that's a feature I didn't expect from something this old," Tony mused. He typed in 'yes' to the keyboard. Steve hovered just behind him, waiting to see what would happen.

The words vanished from the screen. Green lines flickered over it instead, almost but not quite forming a picture.

"Rogers, Steven, born 1918." Steve stiffened at the voice coming from the speakers. It was different than the one the computer had used a moment ago. It was familiar. "Stark, Anthony, born 1970."

"Okay," Tony said. "Definitely a feature I didn't expect."

"Your presence is also unexpected," the computer replied. "You should not be aware of my existence."

"That doesn't sound like just a recording," Steve said. A recording might explain why the voice was familiar, but this was like the computer was trying to carry on a conversation.

"I am not a recording, Captain," the computer replied. "Though I am no longer quite the man I was when you captured me in 1945."

A picture popped up one of the others screens, on that Steve recognized instantly, the familiarity of the voice suddenly making sense. Felicity had been right; he did know the evil super computer. "Zola."

"Uh, who?" Tony asked.

"Arnim Zola," Steve said. "A German scientist that worked for the Red Skull. He designed the weapons they made from the Tesseract."

"They left him out of the history books then," Tony said.

"Correction," Zola said, "I am Swiss. And – what are you doing?"

The question was directed at Tony, who'd fished something out of his pocket. "Go on, keep talking," Tony said. He plugged the item into the black box. "This is just going to let JARVIS access your systems."

"You – you cannot do that!" Zola protested. "You cannot hack into the human mind!"

"True," Tony said, "but you aren't really a human anymore. You're a program. And I promise you're not good enough to keep JARVIS out." The screen flickered and Tony smirked. The lines that formed a shadowy approximation of Zola's face vanished, replaced by lines of numbers and code that zipped across the screen. They meant nothing to Steve, but Tony was studying them with interest.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked, because he honestly couldn't tell.

"JARVIS is getting access to everything Zola knows," Tony said. "Once we've got that, he can search through the information for any mention of your friend. If Zola knows where he's being kept, JARVIS will find him. It'll take some time though. This is a lot of information. Aside from that, JARVIS has also cut off Zola's ability to communicate with anyone. As long as Zola didn't send off a message before JARVIS got into his system, Hydra might not know we found him."

Steve nodded. "At least until they discover that we've destroyed him." Because that was absolutely the next step.

"Well, yes," Tony said. "But we might have a small head start."

It took a few minutes, but soon enough JARVIS was done, and Tony had him wipe clean everything from Zola's servers. Then he plucked the whatever-it-was out of the black box and pocketed it again. "And we're set. Let's go."

They left the building behind, making their way back to the quinjet. Steve glanced around one last time, memories tugging at him, waiting to be examined. He squashed the urge, focused on the quinjet. This wasn't the time for remembering. He still had a mission.

AN: Well, I hope this cleared up some of the questions y'all had about what happened with Felicity last chapter (or maybe it created more; certainly gave Felicity more questions, heh).

A brief note on what I'm referencing with Howard, Peggy, and Daniel, if anyone is curious/confused by that bit. In short, I'm making use of bits of the Agent Carter TV show and some headcanons that I like. We know from canon that Peggy eventually marries someone; I'm saying she married Daniel Sousa from the Agent Carter show, because I shipped it a lot while that series was going. We also know from canon (both movies and show) that Howard and Peggy were good friends (and therefore it doesn't make sense to me that Tony never met her). So I'm running with the headcanon that Peggy was Tony's godmother, and Daniel by extension was his godfather.

As far as Howard and Project Rebirth/Manhattan Project goes, I think it's the second Iron Man movie that references Howard working on the Manhattan Project (though I could be wrong about which movie, but one of them does). However, given his extensive involvement with Project Rebirth and the SSR, I find it unlikely that he'd have worked on both - both projects in the MCU world would have been incredibly classified and important, and I don't see them allowing Howard to bounce between them, even if he'd had time to do so (which he likely didn't). Which is why I'm running with the idea that the story of Howard working on the Manhattan Project was a cover for his real work on Project Rebirth.