"… So… We've just been waiting for you wake up, for the last four days." Bucky said. "Do you know how boring it is, sitting here and reading to you?" He snorted. "Well, you're awake now, so time to get back on your feet, Cap. You need a shower and I ain't helping you. It's bad enough having wash kids, I ain't washing you." He pointed to a door beyond the foot of the bed. "That's ya bathroom, there's clothes in there and towels. We'll wait here for ya, won't we, Peg?" Bucky ran his hand down the back of the cat that had been at Steve's hip.

"Peg?" Steve asked and was stunned when the cat huffed and changed into a very familiar young woman. "Peggy…?" He whispered.

"Shower, Rogers." Her voice was exactly as he remembered and he reacted exactly as he'd always done.

"Yes, ma'am."

Bucky leant against the wall and watched as Peggy verbally laid into Steve over his actions and the decision that lead to Steve crashing Schmidt's aircraft into a frozen ocean.

A few moments later, Harry wandered by.

"How long has that been going on?" Harry asked.

"About three minutes." Bucky replied and after slowly nodding, Harry conjured himself a chair and sat down.

"How's the knee?" Bucky asked.

"Better, still tender but much better. I just wish skele-gro didn't taste so bad." The two chatted quietly as they watched the show.

Time passed and Coulson paused in the doorway.

"How long?" He asked.

"Seven minutes." Bucky replied.

"Hmm…" Coulson hummed, nodded to both men and kept going,

More time passed.

"Ah….?" Kingsley made a questioning noise.

"She didn't like his plan to nosedive a plane." Bucky answered the unasked question.

"Ah." Kingsley grunted. "She doesn't seem to be running out of things to say."

"Not yet." Buck replied cheerfully. "But it's only been eleven minutes."

"I see." Kingsley shook his head and headed back down the corridor.

Draco was the next to appear.

"How long?" He nodded into the room.

"Fourteen minutes." Bucky said, his focus clearly on the two people on the other side of the room.

"Right." Draco huffed. "Time to get a coffee before the finale, then."

"Yep." Bucky agreed.

"Not finished yet?" Coulson reappeared a little later.

"Seventeen minutes." Bucky said instead of answering the question.

Tony and Luna appeared, Luna conjured seats for them while Tony carried a tray with drinks and popcorn.

"Nineteen minutes." Bucky said in reply to Luna's tilted head and held out a hand for Tony to pass him a small bowl of munchies.

"Come to watch the show?" Harry asked.

"Yep." Tony smirked.

"How long, now?"

"Twenty-two minutes." Bucky barely glanced at Coulson as the Director appeared at his shoulder.

"Hmm..." He nodded and left. Again.

"Oh, my…" McGonagall's brows rose. "How long has this been going on?"

"Twenty-four minutes." Bucky said.

"Twenty-four?" McGonagall replied.

"So far…" Bucky grinned.

"I'm back." Draco said hugging a coffee pot to his chest with one arm and fending off Clint with the other. "What've I missed?"

"Jumping out at low altitude." Bucky said.

"Would that have worked?" Draco said.

"For him or me, I'd say so." Bucky answered. "We're a bit more durable than the average soldier, thanks to the serum… even if I did get the knock-off version, I'm still hardier than a base-line human."

"Still going?" Coulson joined them.

"Yeah. Twenty-eight minutes." Bucky nodded. never having looked at a clock or watch the entire time. "Think we're getting closer to the end, though. She's on about digging and snow. So…?"

"Hmm…" Coulson didn't leave this time, instead he gave Harry a small smile and accepted the seat that appeared behind him and sat down. "Thank you, Harry." He turned to Bucky. "Should I interrupt and call an end to this or let her get it all of her system?"

"Catch her just before she's finished, remind her that you're the Director, now, and Steve has yet to hand in his mission report." Bucky answered.

"Hmm…" Coulson rocked his head slightly as he thought about that. He stood and glanced between Harry and the conjured seat, watching it vanish in the shadows. He straightened his shoulders and spoke. "Miss Carter, if you don't mind? Captain Rogers has a report to finalise."

"Sir?" Steve spun in place to face Coulson and those crowded around the door watching Peggy tear him to strips.

"Agent?" Peggy drew herself taller.

"Director, please, Miss Carter." Coulson's voice was a touch firmer, reminding Peggy of his new position. "Captain Rogers is conscious, comprehensible and mobile. In which case, he is capable of completing his after-mission report. His is the only report not filed on the Schimdt mission, without it we cannot declare the mission closed." He cocked an eyebrow at the pair. "So? If you please, Captain, your report and then I would suggest you join us for lunch followed by a more in-depth briefing than what Sergeant Barnes gave you, earlier." He smiled gently. "There's a lot that's happened and a lot to go over."

Steve studied the group around the table. "Animals? Really?" He looked at Bucky. "You can do that, too?" Bucky stood and stepped back from the table before leaning down and shifting into his rottweiler form, earning a laugh from Steve. "A dog." Bucky shifted back into Bucky and sat back down. "You always were the most loyal person I knew."

"You needed a bloody guard-dog more than anyone I've ever met… before or since." Bucky muttered.

"You got that right." Peggy gave Steve a dark look.

"Indeed." Coulson dragged them back onto the subject at hand. "So? We'd like Andi to monitor you and when she's happy that you're completely stable and fully recovered, we'd like you to take the potion, too. So far, of the four-hundred-eighty-nine people working for the Avengers Initiative and The Unit, all bar eighteen have taken the potion or have not had the potion work on them. Six of them are magical, one is a squib and the others are older muggles that felt it uneccesary that that point in life."

"What's the staff breakdown, as far as magical-to-squib-to-muggle numbers are concerned?" Steve asked.

"Roughly fifty percent are magical, with the rest being fairly evenly divided." Coulson replied. "We don't judge between our staff, excluding where medical treatment is concerned. Some potions don't work quite the same on squibs or muggles, that's the only descrimination factor."

"Although we do insist that every team has at least two full-magic users attached." Harry added. "Most teams are made up of four to six people. Frontline teams must all be animagi and capable of using a wand, whether they use it or not, they must be able to. But two must be fully trained magicals."

"And weapons?" Steve asked.

"We have five types of weapons." Bucky was the one to answer this time. "Wands, whether they are dedicated to free-use doesn't matter, everyone carries a wand. Guns and projectile weapons, this covers a huge range from bow and arrow, like Clint uses to handheld rocket launchers and everything in between. Potions, they can be explosive, sedative, hallucinogenic, acidic or just camouflaging. Blades, every staff member has at least one on them at all times, ranging from a boot knife to a… in Harry's case… four-foot sword. And lastly, our bodies. Everyone can fight, hand-to-hand, whether it's wrestling, martial arts, boxing or a combination of them."

"How would they stand against the Howlies?" Steve asked.

"They're all as good as us." Morita entered the ballroom and took a seat near Bucky and Sirius. "Some are better. Harry, Draco, Neville, Dennis, Eugene are better than anyone, other than you and Bucky."

"Jimmy…?" Steve blinked a few times.

"Yeah, Cap." Morita nodded. "Me, Dum-dum and Falsworth are here."

"Howard?"

"No." Tony shook his head. "Dad died in 1992, cancer from smoking." He paused. "Both from cigarettes and from when his experiments exploded."

"Dad?!" Steve asked.

"Tony Stark, Cap. Good to have you back." Tony nodded seriously. "Dad searched for you for years after these two entered the Veil. Never succeeded but he never gave up."

"I'm sorry…" Steve said.

"Sometimes, I am too, Cap, but sometimes…" Tony trailed off. "He was a good man but he was a piss-poor father. He never hit me but he also never spent any time with me, you understand. All his time outside of work was spent looking for you."

"I…"

"No, Cap, no." Tony held up a hand. "I'm not resentful, not of you, you weren't… you didn't even come into it, not for me, it was all him. I resented him and I used to get so hurt that he could never see anything other than work or you. It wasn't until just recently that I got a wake-up call, in the form of a kidnapping and torture." He paused and took a deep breath. "It… it was… bad. It made me rethink a lot of things. No more bombs. SI has gone in a new direction, now. Technology to help. That's what I want my company to be known for… Helping. Helping the man on street, not giving some army weapons that will kill thousands of people. Especially as my godfather was selling them on the Black-Market to terrorists. The only weapons I make now, are handcrafted and I know exactly who's going to use which one and why."

"Custom weapons?"

"Yep." Tony nodded. "The armoury is entirely custom, each person has a small collection that is designed, built and maintained, just for them." Another pause. "So that they can protect those that can't protect themselves."

"Good." Steve nodded sharply. "So, where do you see me fitting into this… Initiative? Did you call it?"

"Well, now…" Coulson sighed. "As much as I would love to announce to the world that we found Captain America… I can't see any way that we can explain it, not without exposing Project Rebirth and the fact that the Us Government and the SSR employed, condoned and encouraged, defected Russian and German scientists to experiment on our troops. Not after so many Nazi personnel were convicted of war crimes, for doing exactly the same thing, on their own troops and on POWs."

"Then what's the plan?" Steve frowned.

"In light of the Avengers Initiative being privatised… can we use the same method of camouflage on him that you used on Barnes?" Tony asked.

"Which is… what?" Steve wanted to know.

"We put documentation in place to say that he's actually the great-grandson of James Buchannan Barnes, named after him. Until his marriage, his 'documented' name was Buchannan Steven James." Coulson replied.

"And that worked?"

"It did." The Director nodded.

"And you think you can do the same for me?" Steve tilted his head. "What about my face? The army took pictures and films."

"Minor transfiguration to change your colouring." Sirius said. "We can make you blonder or darker, change your eyes from hazel-blue to bright sky-blue. Change the shape of your nose, fractionally, just enough difference to make people blink and say 'the resemblance is uncanny', but not enough for anyone to speculate on even the remotest possibility of you being the same person."

"Just like they did to Peggy and the rest of us." Bucky said.

"You've been in public? Like this?"

"Sure." Bucky nodded. "We've all done the memorial stuff, attended the ceremonies, each year."

"As who our documents say we are, the great-grandchildren and nephews of the original Howlies, who we were named after." Dum-dum said. "It stands to reason that we'd all come together, if that means working for Stark? Well, now that he's no longer being touted as the 'Merchant of Death' and is actively working to protect the innocent, none of us really have any objections, anymore."

"And having the great-grandson of the original Captain America signing on, is a great excuse to dust of the patents and copyrights to the name." Tony said. "We've got an obviously British contingent, so we clearly need a American one, too. Who better than a Captain America? Emphasise the international aspect. How we're here to protect, not just the US or the UK but wherever we're needed."

"We've staff from the US, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa, France, Spain, Ireland, China, Germany, Russia and Norway, seeing as we're encompassing The Unit's personnel under the Avengers' flag." Peggy said. "We're supported by nearly every country on the planet and even those that are too poor to support us, approve of what we are and what our charter says we will do. Some are hesitant, we are a very new organisation, barely a week old and we've only been called in on one incident, officially, but they are all willing to give us the benefit of the doubt, as we have laid out the ground rules for complete transparency, the only thing we withhold is the identity of our staff. All our actions are visible for the public to see."

"Except the fact that you have five of the original Howlies, that are young enough to pass as their great-grandchildren." Steve said.

"That falls under the staff identity clause." Coulson smirked.

Six weeks later, Coulson stood before the group. "S.H.I.E.L.D Director Fury is asking for us to attend an incident in New Mexico. There's something going down that he believes will be Avengers related but he doesn't have enough information to request a full team. My niece, Darcy is right in the middle of it, so I'd like to be involved."

"What's the deal?"

"Someone falling from the sky." Coulson said. "Without a parachute and he just got up and started ranting." His smirk grew. "At least until Darcy tased him." A smattering of chuckles went around the room, most of them had heard of Darcy's fondness for her taser and her intolerance for stupidity. "Yes, well, a partial team?"

"I wanna go." Clint said. "I owe Darcy for the cookies."

"The two of us should be enough, we're really only on a fact-finding mission." Coulson went on. "It may come to nothing but Darcy's not one to exaggerate, not when it comes to important details."

"In that case? May I suggest having a full team on stand-by?" Peggy tapped her fingers on a blank sheet of paper. "You might not need them but if you do…?"

"They'll be ready." Steve nodded.

"And an emergency beacon." Sirius said.

"I'll go, too." Harry said. "As Ares." He named his Animagus form. "Black Hawk-Eagles aren't common in New Mexico but there are sightings."

"Actually…?" Clint got a sneaky look on his face. "How would you like to be a… pet?"

"Uh…?" Harry grunted.

"I'm Hawkeye." Clint explained. "I commonly use a bow and arrow. No-one is going to think twice if I go for something as exotic as having a hawk for a pet, not given my code-name."

"And it would give you the excuse to be out and about, flying Ares." Harry said.

"It would also degrade the importance of your presence." Steve added.

"It would also cover me in the long term, if I need to use my animagus form or Harry needs to use his, again." Clint said.

"I can also take that one step further." Coulson said. "There's two S.H.I.E.L.D agents that Fury is aware of that we have investigated and are considering recruiting. It would be unusual for the Director of an organisation to do a recruitment assessment, personally, but when you add in the fact that I have been in this position for less than two months, throw Clint and 'his' hawk, and it could be construed as 'the Director taking a shakedown assignment, to take a get a handle on operations and so his bodyguard can take his pet to work', type of assignment."

"Particularly if you can get someone to 'overhear' Fury and you talking about it." Harry nodded. "Something along the lines of 'It's a simple milk-run and Barton needed the break'. You know how to get the right reaction out of Fury."

"It might be easier to just speak to him." Coulson said. "He's quite good at setting up a scenario to play out and give just the right impression."

"We'll leave that to you, sir." Harry said. "Clint and I will be ready to fly out… Are we flying out? Or are we portkeying?"

"We'll portkey to New York, then take a S.H.I.E.L.D jet to Albuquerque and drive from there to the site." Coulson said after looking at his notes.

"Want me to shift before we leave or wait until we get to New York?" Harry asked.

"I'd prefer before we leave." Coulson said. "Let S.H.I.E.L.D think you're just a bird, right from the start. Less chance of them letting something slip."

"Right you are, boss." Harry nodded. "When do we leave?"