"So Tony is definitely helping them," Clint summarized, "and they didn't follow the flight plan he filed for Rome."

"Looks like," Natasha agreed.

They'd tracked Steve's stolen quinjet to an airport, and a little digging had revealed that Tony had flown a private plane out of the airport that same day. Clint and Natasha had assumed the flight plan was false, but the main goal right now was to buy Director Fury and Steve time. So, they'd followed the flight plan to Rome, and to no one's surprise, Tony's plane had never landed.

"Where do you think they really went?" Clint asked. "Germany or Russia?"

For a second Natasha wasn't in the quinjet; she was standing in a line of teenage girls, posture perfect and eyes straight ahead as the Madame introduced their visiting instructor, a man with a metal arm and the blankest stare she'd ever seen –

"Russia," Natasha said.

It wasn't just because of a mission gone wrong that she knew the Winter Soldier wasn't a ghost. But that was a piece of her past that was no one's business.

"You think?" Clint asked, glancing her way. "Hydra had the most bases in Germany initially."

Natasha shrugged. "It's still Russia."

Clint sighed. "That's a pretty huge area to search."

She arched an eyebrow. "And Germany isn't?"

"Not as much as Russia," he complained.

Light flickered behind them, a shade of blue Natasha instantly recognized. They were both on their feet in an instant, spinning around with weapons in hand.

Loki!

She was squeezing the trigger of her gun even as she registered his identity. The bullets just ricocheted off him with no effect. Clint let an arrow fly, and Loki did actually step aside to dodge that, moving slightly further away from –

The scepter!

Its presence had made Clint uncomfortable, so she'd left it out of the way in the back of the quinjet. A mistake, she now realized as she dove for it.

Loki got to it first.

Natasha tried to change direction, but she couldn't scramble away from him fast enough. The point of the scepter settled over her heart and –

There's no reason to fight him.

"Nat!"

She heard the horror in Clint's voice, but couldn't bring herself to care. Besides, it was only the work of a moment and Loki had Clint back in line too.

"Well," Loki said as the two watched him. A smile curved his mouth. "This was a fortuitous turn of events."

He strolled back to the seats in the back of the quinjet and settled down. "What were the two of you doing with this anyway?"

"The World Security Council sent it," Clint answered. "We were ordered to use it on Steve and the others if they wouldn't come back to SHIELD willingly."

Loki arched a brow. "Would you have?" he asked, tone mildly curious.

"No," Natasha said. "We never intended to use it."

"Of course, you didn't," he said. He waved a hand as if it didn't matter anyway. "Your friends located the base their Winter Soldier was being held at in Russia. Assuming they succeed in collecting him, what do you expect them to do next?"

Natasha considered. "Do they know you have the Tesseract?"

"They do," Loki said.

"They'll go to Tony's vacation home in Switzerland," Natasha said. A frown flickered over Loki's face, so she explained. "He has a lab at all of his homes. He'll most likely have the necessary equipment for Dr. Banner to track the Tesseract, or he'll be able to get a hold of it easily if he doesn't have it. They won't want to leave you loose with such a dangerous weapon. Getting it back will become their priority."

Loki sighed. "Inconvenient, but not totally unexpected."

"Do you want us to take care of them?" Clint asked.

"No," Loki said. "No, I might still have use for them. Right now, I need time to plan."

"There's a SHIELD safehouse in Sicily," Natasha said. "It should be safe to rest there for a few hours, and it'll definitely have supplies we can stock up on."

Loki nodded. "Take us there."

I don't know what I expected.

Steve sat in the cockpit, which was as far as he could get from everyone else at the moment, staring out the windows without really seeing anything.

Felicity had warned him. She'd told him that Hydra had brainwashed Bucky; that he was their assassin. But her warning hadn't prepared Steve for how it would feel to have his best friend look at him as a stranger.

The door to the cockpit opened, and Steve glanced back to see Thor ducking through the entrance. "Captain," Thor greeted. "How do you fare?"

For a moment, Steve was at a loss for words. He hadn't expected anyone to check on him, and certainly not Thor of all people. "I'm fine," he managed to say.

Thor nodded, though he probably knew it was a lie. Steve's stress was probably obvious to all of them. Thor sat in the chair Tony had vacated earlier after getting the plane on course to Switzerland and having JARVIS take over as pilot.

"How are the others?" Steve asked, partly because he should know, but also because he didn't want Thor to pursue the line of questioning about Steve's own wellbeing.

"Lady Felicity sleeps, and Dr. Banner and your friend watch over her," Thor said. "The Man of Iron does something on his…phone, I believe it is called?"

Steve just nodded, unable to find words to answer after Thor's reference to Bucky.

His friend. His friend who didn't know him anymore.

"I do not believe the Lady Felicity compels him on purpose," Thor said.

"I know," Steve managed. He might not know Felicity well, but she didn't strike him as the sort of person who would try to control anyone like that, and her distress when she'd said she didn't know how to fix it had been real enough. "I just…don't know how to fix him."

Thor sighed, gazing off into the distance. "Such control is not easy to break."

Steve turned his way, a frown flicking over his face. "You say that like you've dealt with mind control before."

"I have," Thor said. "Though I'm not sure my experience applies here. There is a sorceress on Asgard, Lorelei. She is able to control people through the sound of her voice alone. Some six hundred years ago, she used her ability to build an army for herself and attempt to overthrow my father, Odin. I could not face Lorelei myself, or I would have fallen under her spell as well. I had to face her army instead." Thor paused. "I had friends amongst them. There was no glory to be found in battle that day."

Steve supposed that was one small blessing for him; at least he hadn't had to fight Bucky. "How was Lorelei defeated?" he asked.

Thor shook himself out of his reverie and managed a smile. "A contingent of warriors who could not be ensnared by Lorelei's spells, led by my friend Lady Sif. Once Lorelei was captured and her magic bound, those she had bewitched were freed."

If only the solution for helping Bucky was that obvious. Steve didn't know how he'd been brainwashed, but he doubted magic had been involved.

Wait…maybe that's the key.

"I think…" he said slowly, "we need to know how Hydra did this to him. If we knew that, it might give us an idea on how to help him."

"It would be a good place to start," Thor agreed.

"I'll have to ask Tony to look through the records he stole from Zola," Steve said. "There's got to be something in there about what they did to him." It would be awful, whatever was there. Steve couldn't imagine what they must have done to him, to make Bucky willing to obey them. But he'd face it, if it meant finding a way to help Bucky.

Having a plan, or at least the beginnings of one, helped settle Steve enough to remember they had concerns other than just Bucky at the moment. So he straightened his shoulders and refocused on Thor.

"Do you have any idea what Loki might be up to now?"

Thor shook his head, a frown creasing his face. "No; I cannot guess his thoughts." He hesitated for a moment then added, "In truth, Captain, I still do not understand why he attacked Midgard in the first. He has never even shown a passing fancy for your world. Nor has he ever had dealings with the Chitauri or their – " He abruptly stopped talking, body going stiff.

"What is it?" Steve asked.

"The Chitauri have a master," Thor said. "I did not think of it earlier, while we faced them, but the Chitauri would not have been free agents for Loki to recruit to his cause."

Steve frowned, trying to decide what that meant. "Did Loki overthrow their master to take control of them then?"

"Unlikely," Thor said. "They follow the Mad Titan, Thanos. He has never approached worlds that fall under Asgard's protection, so we have not had to deal with him. But he is known for attacking planets and killing all or most of the inhabitants. His reputation is such that I do not believe Loki could have defeated him in combat, which is the only way he could have taken control of the Chitauri."

Steve couldn't help but wonder if maybe Asgard shouldn't have dealt with this Thanos regardless of which planets he attacked, given his reputation of wiping out entire populations. That wasn't the kind of threat that got better by ignoring it. But now wasn't the time for that sort of commentary, and it probably hadn't been Thor's decision to make anyway.

"If the Chitauri work for this Thanos guy, not Loki," Steve said, "then…what, Thanos just loaned his army to Loki? Why? What would he gain from Loki taking over the Earth?"

"I'm not sure," Thor said. "There is nothing on Midgard powerful enough to…Oh." He met Steve's gaze, expression somber. "The Tesseract is an Infinity Stone. Your scientists have tried to use it to create weapons, but that is not its primary function. It is the Space Stone. Utilized properly, it could take Thanos and his army…anywhere. Anywhere at all."

The military applications were immediately obvious to Steve. Thanos could take his army past any planetary defenses. Get assassins into the homes of government and military leaders. Could cut his supply lines down to almost nothing by teleporting whatever resources he needed. An army that could teleport anywhere would be near impossible to stop.

"So he promised Loki the Earth," Steve said slowly, "and peace, probably. And in return, Thanos would get the Tesseract."

"That is the deal that seems most likely to me," Thor agreed. "It still doesn't explain why Loki would wish to rule Midgard…but yes, I believe that was the likely arrangement."

And now Loki had escaped their custody with the Tesseract, running off to who knew where. "Do you think he's going to try and make good on that deal?" Steve asked.

"I don't know," Thor said, his fists curling in frustration. "It is not the sort of deal I would have expected Loki to make in the first place, especially with someone like the Mad Titan. Such a being cannot be trusted, and Loki knows this."

There's something we're missing.

"We'll have to talk to Felicity when she wakes up," Steve said. "Maybe she knows something about Thanos."

Thor sighed and nodded, glancing over the plane's controls. "I wish this machine could fly faster. We will not be able to do much of anything until we reach the Land of Switzer."

…Do I correct that or…?

He probably should. Given Thor was from another planet, English probably wasn't his first language. Steve would want to be corrected, if he was saying something wrong.

"Actually, it's just Switzerland," Steve said, gaining a look of surprise from Thor. "No one says Land of Switzer."

"Truly?" Thor asked.

"Yeah."

"Huh. Strange language."

Felicity walked through an endless maze of gray walls. Every stretch looked the same as the one before, with nothing to indicate if she was going the right way, or getting any closer to an exit. The walls were too tall and smooth for her to have any chance of seeing over them to get an idea of where she was. Nothing rose above the walls, and the sky was filled with a multitude of brilliant stars, too many for her to even guess at constellations.

"You must be more careful."

Felicity whipped around, looking for the source of the voice, but saw nothing other than more smooth gray walls. "Who's there?" she called out.

She didn't see anyone, and didn't know what direction the voice had come from. Couldn't even say what the voice had sounded like. It was as though the words had bypassed her ears completely and just planted themselves in her brain.

"The bond is not yet complete."

Felicity moved, unease pricking at her. "What bond? What are you talking about?"

"Use too much before the bond is complete, and you might break."

The walls rippled, and the surface went from plain gray to mirrored. Felicity saw her reflection, and for a moment her heart stopped. Her skin was cracked, like a porcelain doll that had been shattered and pieced back together. From between the cracks, a brilliant blue light shown.

Felicity screamed.

Felicity startled awake, body jerking slightly in her seat. She glanced down, and the skin on her hands was smooth and whole. Right. Duh. Of course I'm fine. People don't just crack like that. It was a dream.

A weird and creepy dream, but just a dream nonetheless. She glanced around, hoping no one had noticed the way she'd woken up, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to her, except Bucky. He watched her silently, which was kind of uncomfortable, but if he knew she'd had a bad dream, he didn't say anything about it.

She looked away from him, focusing on Bruce across the aisle. "Are we almost there?"

Bruce looked up from the tablet he was using, blinking as he focused on her. "Oh, yes. We should be landing soon. You've slept most of the flight."

She'd needed the sleep; she didn't feel nearly so exhausted now. Felicity was still starving though, her stomach gnawing at her. Hopefully their arrival in Switzerland meant they'd soon get some food.

They landed at a small airport. A large SUV waited to pick them up; Tony's handiwork, probably. Being rich had its uses. They climbed inside, Tony taking the wheel and Bruce sitting in the front next to him, Steve and Thor in the middle seat, Felicity and Bucky in the back.

"Any chance there's a drive through nearby?" Felicity asked as they left the airport. She couldn't be the only person who was hungry. It had to have been at least a day by now since anyone had eaten a proper meal; she wasn't a hundred percent sure on that given time zones, but they all had to be hungry.

"If memory serves, there's a McDonalds around here," Tony said. "It's a bit of a drive to my place, so we can go through there first."

McDonalds wasn't Felicity's favorite, but she was hungry enough not to be choosy. Besides, other than Tony and Bruce, none of them were really dressed to go inside a restaurant at the moment.

Tony found the McDonalds and ordered combos for everyone. By the time the food was given to them, Felicity's mouth was watering, and when she got her burger and fries, she eagerly dug in.

She inhaled the food in record time, not even really tasting it in her eagerness to get food in her stomach. She was almost embarrassed when she realized how quickly she'd eaten it, until she noticed that Steve, Thor, and Bucky had eaten their food just as fast as she had.

Guess I wasn't the only one who was starving – oh. They have powers. How many calories do they burn using them?

Felicity frown as she thought about it. The three were big men anyway, and that alone meant they'd need additional calories. But powers would have to burn extra wouldn't they? Teleporting certainly seemed to have done that for Felicity, given how tired and hungry it had made her. And she didn't know how being in statis affected Bucky; how soon was he supposed to eat after coming out? They probably needed food as bad or more than Felicity did.

Felicity wasn't sure where exactly in Switzerland they were, but the drive from the airport to Tony's vacation home took about two hours. His house was large and built into the foot of a small mountain that bordered a picturesque lake.

"I had groceries delivered," Tony said as he parked. "We can get a real dinner and figure out the next step."

He led the way to the kitchen, and once there, Felicity immediately went to the fridge to see what was there, considering what would be good to cook for a crowd. Some kind of pasta would probably be easiest. They could probably use the carbs anyway.

A quick perusal of the pantry as well revealed Tony had the necessary ingredients to make spaghetti with a meat sauce. Need to go a little heavy on the meat; they need the protein too.

"Can I help?" Bruce offered.

"Yeah, thanks," Felicity said as she gathered the ingredients she needed. "Could you start a salad?"

"I can help too," Steve offered, but Felicity waved him off.

"One helper is plenty," she said.

She'd seen the lists of weird foods people used to make in the 50s. Which was technically after Steve's time, but still. Felicity didn't think she wanted him in the kitchen.

There was a large island in the middle of the kitchen lined with bar stools on one side, and that was where Tony, Thor, and Steve settled. Bucky didn't sit, but silently stationed himself in an out of the way corner near the exit.

"Right so," Steve said, clearing his throat, "Thor and I were discussing Loki, and we think he might not really have been the one behind the attack on Earth."

"And how did you come to that conclusion?" Tony asked, derision in his tone. Felicity wondered the same thing; it had seemed pretty clear Loki was running the attack on New York.

"Because of who the Chitauri serve," Thor said. "The Mad Titan, Thanos."

Thanos? Felicity frowned as she used a can opener on cans of crushed tomatoes for the sauce. Have I heard that name before?

She kept mentally poking at the name even as Thor explained who Thanos was, and how they believed he was likely after the Tesseract, which was apparently also known as the Space Stone because of its teleportation abilities.

Abruptly, the memory clicked. "The stupid purple grape!"

The kitchen went silent, and Felicity could feel everyone's eyes on her. Her face flushed.

"The what now?" Tony asked.

"Sorry, that's what Ellie – my sister – that's what she called Thanos," Felicity said, busying herself with her work instead of actually looking at them. "He was the main bad guy in the movie that came out about you guys a couple weeks ago. Endgame? I think that's what it was called."

"Endgame," Bruce repeated. "That sounds ominously final."

Felicity nodded. "Yeah, I think it was supposed to be the last one in the series or something."

"Is there anything you can tell us about it?" Thor asked.

"I didn't actually watch it," Felicity warned. Ellie had invited her to go, but the idea of sitting through a three hour movie she wasn't interested in and probably wouldn't be able to follow had sounded like torture. "Ellie did though…um." She stirred the pot of sauce as she tried to remember what Ellie had had to say about the movie.

"It made her mad, for some reason," Felicity recalled. "She said…the time travel was stupid?"

"Time travel isn't possible," Tony said.

Felicity shrugged, glancing at him over her shoulder. "Not yet, but I guess it will be at some point." She thought back, trying to remember what else Ellie had had to say about the movie; she'd ranted about it more than once, but Felicity had never more than half paid attention to any of the rants. "She said…Nebula should have gotten to kill Thanos – I don't know who Nebula is, sorry – um, and, oh." Felicity paused what she was doing, turning to face Steve. "I don't know what happened with you, but she was really mad about it. Said they ruined your whole character arc, whatever that was supposed to be."

She hoped it didn't mean they'd killed Steve off. She didn't think so though. "Ellie said…the only thing they did right with you was confirm you were worthy?"

A frown flickered over his face. "Worthy? Of what?"

Thor straightened on his stool, eyes bright. He unhooked his hammer from his belt and held it towards Steve. "Here, take this."

Steve eyed Thor and the hammer, obviously baffled. "Why?"

"Just do it," Thor insisted.

Still looking confused, Steve took hold of the hammer and Thor let go. Nothing happened. Steve just sat there, hammer in hand, but for some reason Thor looked delighted.

"Hah! Lady Ellie was right! You are worthy, friend!" Thor slapped Steve on the back, a wide grin on his face.

Steve still looked like he didn't know what was going on. "It's not heavy?"

"Mjolnir is a magic hammer," Thor explained. "Only those who are worthy of sharing my power can lift it. Until this moment, the number of people who could wield it was two: myself and my father."

"So you're saying with your hammer, Steve could do the whole flying around and summoning lighting thing you do?" Bruce asked.

"Precisely," Thor said, his grin still wide. "Ah, this is a momentous occasion!"

"It's a ridiculous occasion," Tony scoffed. "There's got to be some kind of trick to it." He reached for the hammer, leaning around Thor.

"I would not," Thor cautioned, but Steve let go of Mjolnir, and the hammer dropped, dragging Tony off his stool to the floor.

Felicity winced at the thud he made, but the streak of swears he let loose meant he was probably okay. "I tried to warn you," Thor said, reaching down to scoop up his hammer.

"Alright, we're getting off topic," Steve said. He looked back at Felicity, ignoring Tony's grumbling as he got up. "Is there anything else from the movie?"

She pursed her mouth, trying to remember. "She said…you guys should have just reset the timeline…whatever that means, and at least –"

Felicity stopped herself, breath catching in her throat as she remembered Ellie's words.

"At least what?" Steve asked.

"At least Tony Stark is dead."

Felicity didn't know why Ellie would have said that. She'd liked Iron Man when the first movie had come out, and Felicity had no idea how or why Ellie's likes had changed.

"Nothing," she said. "It's not important."

She'd warned them before that Director Fury was supposed to die, but this felt different. She'd remembered enough from the Winter Soldier movie and Ellie's commentary to be certain that Director Fury was one of the good guys. Felicity had no idea why Ellie would be glad about Tony's death. It might not be anything big. Maybe Ellie had just gotten tired of his character. Maybe the actor had done something problematic and Ellie disliked Tony on principle.

Or maybe. Maybe at some point, Tony did something bad. Something Ellie thought was unforgivable.

Wasn't there an Avenger's movie called Civil War at one point? What was that one about?

Felicity didn't remember, but the name certainly implied an internal fight.

"Felicity," Steve said, his voice quiet but firm. "I think we can all tell that it isn't nothing. If there's something you know that could help us in this situation with Loki and Thanos, we need you to tell us."

She grimaced. She probably couldn't get away with refusing to tell them anything at all, but she didn't want to tell them the full truth either. She didn't have enough context for Ellie's comment for it to be anything other than harmful.

"It's not like that," Felicity said, refusing to look up from the pot she was stirring. "It's not anything that would help you in a fight. It's personal. For someone. It's not something that should be shared."

They were all silent for a long moment. Then finally, Steve said, "Alright. We'll believe you."

Felicity wasn't sure they did, but at least they weren't pushing for an answer right now.

"Is there anything else you can think of?" Steve asked.

She shook her head. "No, that's pretty much it."

"Sounds like we need to keep an eye out for this Nebula person, whoever they are," Tony said. "In the meantime, tracking down Loki and the Tesseract is still the priority."

"It'll take some time," Bruce said. "He could be anywhere on Earth. If he's even on Earth. For all we know, he could have gone to –"

"Sicily."

Felicity didn't realize that she was the one who'd spoken until it registered that everyone was staring at her. Bruce adjusted his glasses as he studied her. "Why Sicily?" he asked mildly.

"I – I don't know," Felicity said. "I have no idea why I said that." She certainly hadn't said it on purpose.

Bruce nodded slightly. "Okay. After dinner, that's the first place I'll check."

Felicity almost protested. The odds she'd guess the right place had to be slim to none, and it felt silly for him to start his search based on anything she'd said. Though given they had no idea at all where Loki had gone, Sicily was probably as good a place to start looking as anywhere else.

AN: Have y'all ever thought about how much the characters could have learned if they'd taken time to talk to each other during the movies? Because I have.

On another note, how about TFATWS? I'm really enjoying it!