Author: Black Dragon on the Rocks/animealam

Rating: T

Pairing: None so far, mentions of one sided Steve/Peggy

Summary: The Universe stared at the boy for what seemed an eternity to him, only to change into a decrepit, dirty alley, and that was the last thing Steve saw before loosing consciousness. The small frail boy banished in a flash of blue flames. Be warned VERY AU Young Time Travelling genius tech savvy Steve.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers, I'm just borrowing them. I'm using a good number of the movie dialogs, even if I added bits and pieces so some of them. So if something looks familiar they are obviously not mine, and belong to their respective owners.

Warnings: NOT SLASH, AU, Completely totally AU, Time Travel, Younger Steve, Violence, Adoption, Smart Steve, Technopaths, Technopath Tony, Technopath Steve, Canon Character Deaths, Minor Character Deaths, OOC-ness, there are quite a lot of movie dialogs which I decided not to change but I did add my own twists and turns to make them a bit more interesting.

Characters: Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton, Thor, Nick Fury, Phil Coulson, Maria Hill, Sarah Rogers, mentions of Bucky, mentions of Peggy Carter, mentions of Howard Stark, mentions of Colonel Phillips, mentions of the Howling Commandos, Jarvis, Pepper, Happy, Rhodey

Timeline: Pre Avengers, Captain America: The First Avenger, Avengers, Post Avengers. I use the Marvel Cinematic Universe Timeline in Wikia for all date purposes.

Author's Note: Well another long chapter, but all of the Avengers make an appearance here. I added an author's note at the end of the chapter, just some comments about things I did.

Also, in chapter 3 I wrote Steve was born in the year 2000, which was a mix up with a previous plot I had for this story since I wanted to make him 15. It could work, and I'm probably going to use the idea in another story, but for this one Steve's sixteen. I'll correct the chapter so Steve's year of birth would be 1999.

Total size without notes: 6,275

Keys:

"Speaking aloud."

'Thoughts'

'Name: /Mental interfacing between technopaths and/or tech\'


The Helicarrier

They landed on board a huge ship, an aircraft carrier. Its deck was teaming with activity, and there were several other jets there. While it was massive, Steve did not consider it was enough for Fury to win their bet, and neither were the different types of aircraft he could see on deck. He had been on board other aircraft carriers before, as well as seen all of those planes, except for the quinjet.

When the quinjet's hatch opened Coulson led him off their transport. Steve said farewell to all the aircraft's equipment, and thanked them for keeping him distracted, then he followed the agent carrying a back pack with his gadgets. He left on board the duffle bag with some changes of clothes and toiletries he brought, since Steve had no clue how long the mission would take, and it was better to be prepared. Coulson told him a staff member would deliver it to his temporal cabin on board the ship; he ranked high enough to have a private, albeit small, one.

Steve had chosen casual and comfortable attire for the trip. Khaki cargo pants, a light blue shirt, his brown bomber jacket, and brown combat boots. He was rather fond of the later, and they were very comfortable; Ray Ban sunglasses complemented the attire. So he left no doubt the fashion statement of the past week would stay. He was definitely not wearing 1940's styles anymore.

Once on deck a beautiful red haired woman, with a body too good to be true approached them. It was all Steve could do not to drool, and check her out. He had seen her dossier of course, it was on the debriefing packet and the tablet they left at his place. Natasha Romanoff, alias the Black Widow.

She was a deadly spy, an assassin, and in the photos part of her dossier he could tell she was a beautiful woman. Still, seeing her in person was... Well... Wow! He really hoped not to start babbling like the mostly inexperienced teenager he was. She was to be a member of his team, and it would not do to give her a bad impression.

"Agent Romanoff, Captain Rogers," Phil introduced them.

"Ma'am." He was expected to show at least some 1940s manners. His Ma had indeed instilled some good ones, but surprisingly, so had Bucky since good manners in both time periods were slightly different.

"Hi," she said then informed Coulson, "they need you on the bridge. They're starting face trace."

Steve frowned a bit at hearing that. After the research he did last night, he did not believe they would be able to use face trace to find Loki, unless he wanted to be found. For one, the Asgardian had taken one of SHIELD's best covert ops agents and assassin. Clint Barton knew how to defeat face trace easily, and he was sure Loki would interrogate him for any damaging information on SHIELD. At least that's what he would do in the Asgardian's place.

Then there was the other agent he took, one which SHIELD had dismissed for some reason. Perhaps it was because, unlike Barton, agent Walter Phelps had been with SHIELD for only two years. He was still considered a junior agent, despite being older than Barton, but Steve had looked at the man's resume, and... Well Phelps was not a man he would have wanted under Loki's control.

Phelps had worked ten years in the CIA counter terrorism unit. The man had been one of their highest ranked agents, and had had quite a few people under his command. He left because of personal reasons, which after some more research Steve discovered were to take care of his terminally ill wife, and their three young children. It did not sit well with Steve SHIELD was ignoring this man who had a family waiting for him.

After the woman's death, Phelps looked for a simpler job with more regular hours. He ended working in logistics for SHIELD, in the weapons and specialized equipment acquisition department. For some reason, Phelps, along with Barton and Selvig, had been at Puente Antiguo when Thor visited Earth last year. It was too much of a coincidence that the Asgardian took those three men.

If Loki wanted to recruit America's enemies for his cause, as well as arm them, he had the right guy to do so, and that was not counting whatever contacts Barton had. Steve expected SHIELD's analysts were taking this information into consideration, and they had just not uploaded their work to their mainframe yet, otherwise they were in more trouble than he thought.

Natasha took a moment to admire the man before her. Captain Rogers was indeed a beautiful specimen of the male gender, and he looked well in modern fashion. He carried himself with the confidence she expected of a soldier, but when he noticed her admiring his amazingly round and firm ass, he blushed all the way to his ears. That was... endearing.

"See you there," Coulson told them then went into the command area of the ship.

"It was quite the buzz around here, finding you in the ice." Agent Romanoff said as she began walking. He followed and matched her pace. "I thought Coulson was gonna swoon."

Steve shook his head, expression slightly pained. He rather not have a repeat of the conversation on the jet... ever. "I don't doubt it," he muttered to himself not expecting to be heard over the noise on the deck.

"Really?" Natasha raised an eyebrow surprised.

Natasha had not expected him to comment. But the pained expression on his face said it all. Coulson had made a fool out of himself, embarrassing the hell out of Rogers in the process. It was hard to believe since Coulson was usually so unflappable, but she had to admit her handler was probably Captain America's number one fan.

"Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?" She asked mischievously wanting to see what his reaction would be. It did not disappoint, he blushed again looking rather embarrassed. This let her know the Captain was clearly uncomfortable with being famous. Quite the opposite from Stark.

"Trading cards?" He knew they existed, as he still owned a few. But for a man like Coulson to have them? He was getting more embarrassed by the second.

"They're vintage." She told him

Now Steve looked surprised. Those were the ones printed during the war, when he had been still 'alive'. They were really expensive in mint condition, and very difficult to find. He actually owned two sets in mint condition. They had originally belonged to both his grandfathers but they had passed them on to their only children. His Ma and his Da. His Ma had given them to him when he was eight.

"He's very proud," she informed him.

'He should be,' he thought. As a former wanna be collector and fan he did know how much merchandise about him cost. He was probably going to end signing the trading cards, despite how awkward it would be.

They approached a man who looked rather out of place, and slightly nervous. Steve recognized him, Doctor Bruce Banner, and steeled himself to avoid having what in his mind he was going to call from then on a Coulson moment. He really admired the man's intellect. He had read his work on anti-electron collisions only a few weeks before he disappeared, and skimmed it last night to refresh his memory. It had been incredibly interesting.

"Doctor Banner," Steve called. The man turned to look at them and approached.

"Oh yeah, hi." He said nervously, and they shook hands. "They told me you were coming."

They had actually presented him the dossiers of Captain Rogers, agent Romanoff, Tony Stark, what little they had on the Asgardian Thor, as well as on Clint Barton, and Erik Selvig who were under Loki's control. He had thought it rather odd pto be presented with that information when SHIELD only wanted him to search for their missing radioactive Cube.

"Word is, you can find the Cube." He said just to start a conversation.

"Is that the only word on me?" Banner asked defensively.

"Only word I care about." There was an awkward silence before Banner spoke again.

Steve really was doing his best not to start blurting out all the questions he had about the man's previous work. With Romanoff there he was not sure he wanted to reveal he knew much more about science than his official file implied, or what little he revealed to Coulson. Specially since doctor Banner's work was way too recent for someone from the forties to know about.

Another thing that had piqued his attention was Banner's work on the Super Soldier Serum. Steve wanted to know why he chose to use gamma rays instead of the vita rays from the original experiment, as well as to know if he had taken into consideration the Super Soldier Serum did affect the psyche of the volunteer.

It had not been just a catchy phrase when Doctor Erskine told everyone the serum made 'Good great, and bad worse'. It was actually the core effect of the Super Soldier Serum, and the reason why Erskine had rejected all of those candidates Phillips presented. They did not have the 'right' frame of mind. Perhaps once they found the Tesseract and secured it, he might have the chance to speak with the doctor about it.

"It must be strange for you, all of this." Bruce looked around at the activity on deck. It made him nervous.

"Well, this is actually kind of familiar," which it was. "It is not my first time on an aircraft carrier, but the rest? Yes, it is... different," Steve offered.

"Gentlemen, you might want to step inside in a minute," Agent Romanoff suggested. "It's going to get a little hard to breathe."

"Is this a submarine?" Steve asked thinking he really was going to have to pay Fury the ten bucks if it was. They began walking towards the side of the ship.

"Really. They want me in a submerged pressurized, metal container?" Banner's voice was full of disbelief, and more than a little concern.

'Good God, this thing flies!' Steve mentally exclaimed when he saw the large turbines emerging from the side of the ship, and beginning to displace the sea water as they slowly began raising the massive aircraft into the air.

Yes, Fury managed to impress him with something he did not think was possible yet. The sheer mass of the aircraft was astounding, and it actually flew. Amazed did not begin to cover how he felt. Besides him Banner looked as shocked as he was.

"No, no, this is much worse," Bruce exclaimed horrified as he saw the huge ship start rising. There might have been survivors if the Other Guy got out and sunk the ship, but he doubted there would be if they were flying, not even if everyone had a parachute.


The Bridge

Agent Romanoff led them to the bridge. She was walking before them, and his traitorous eyes could not help but check her out. She had one fine behind, and shapely legs. He found he liked her. But she was way out of his league, at least ten years older, not that she looked them; and agent Romanoff was an even deadlier woman than Peggy had been. What was it with him and dangerous older women?

Besides him Doctor Banner actually caught him checking out Romanoff's backside, and Steve blushed furiously. The doctor raised both eyebrows in surprise, but then winked, smiled, himself sparing a quick look, and said nothing. Both knew Romanoff could kill a man twice her size with only a paper clip, so it was better to remain on her good side, ogling her butt, no matter how shapely, was not going to accomplish that.

At the bridge Steve got the chance to gape a little. People were busy with their chores as the ship went higher. He also took the time to block most of the impressive electronic noise. It was slightly overwhelming to be in the same room with so much advanced technology, and all were talking to each other to ensure the ship operated smoothly.

Taking a few deep breaths he calmed his mind, and identified the main consoles, as well as a couple of terminals he could use to interface with the system should it be necessary. He found some of his code was still running on the servers, mapping the system without anyone the wiser. It did find out something rather odd.

There were some cloaked servers which were running parallel to the mainframe. He mentally tweaked his code to allow it to map and index whatever if found on those servers. He did not have enough storage capacity in either the tablet or the laptop to download what he found. So as soon as the mission was over, a shopping trip for additional hard drives was in order.

Perhaps he should also build himself a better system now that he had money. He had been wanting to make his own AI, and while he had already coded quite a bit towards its creation, Steve had been limited by his lack of funds to buy more powerful equipment.

"We are level Sir," Fury's second in command informed him.

"Good. Let's vanish," the Director instructed.

"Engage retro-reflection panels," Hill ordered. The moment he heard about the panels Steve knew he had truly lost the bet.

"Gentlemen," Nick said as he turned towards his two passengers, and approached the meeting table. He saw the Captain take out a ten from his pocket and pay him off without saying a word.


Steve took his time looking about the bridge. Once he located the terminals where the face recognition search was being processed, he kept a metaphorical ear on them. Although Steve was sure they would not be finding Loki unless the Asgardian wanted to be found, and he wondered if it was not a waste of resources.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet," Phil informed doctor Banner, "cell phones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

Agent Coulson's words caught Steve's attention. That was some very impressive hacking, and had Loki taken anyone else he was sure they would have him in no time. This also made him even more wary of SHIELD, as he could see it would not be easy to go under the radar with all the resources they clearly had at their disposal.

Then Romanoff told them she did not believe they would find them soon enough despite the technological display, and Steve was inclined to agree. Doctor Banner proposed using as many spectrometers calibrated to detect gamma radiation as SHIELD could get its hands on, and he could take care of the tracking algorithm.

It was not a bad plan at all, specially because the Tesseract clearly emitted gamma rays. But it worried him, he had brought the blue gem on board. In fact it was in the back pack with his gadgets. If there was a spectrometer on board, it would most likely pick the emissions from the gem, and that could affect the search. It was done though, and he would have to see what to do about it if it became a problem.

When Romanoff told them she did not believe they would find them soon enough, she had been looking at a screen with agent Barton's profile. He could see they were still not mentioning the other agent, and Steve was almost certain they had dismissed the man as not important, and most probably collateral damage; which Phelps definitely was not. Never mind the fact the man had three young children waiting for him at home.

He decided to draw their attention to him, so SHIELD would not be caught unprepared should Loki choose to take advantage of Phelp's knowledge and contacts. Steve would need to be careful not to reveal he already knew more than enough about the missing agent, as there was no way to explain it.

"Agent Coulson," Steve called to get the man's attention while Fury instructed Romanoff to show doctor Banner to the laboratory they had prepared for him.

"Yes Sir, what can I do for you?" He asked the Captain solicitously.

"Would it be possible to know the name of the second agent Loki took?" He asked doing his best to look like it was a simple innocent and concerned, question.

"The other agent Captain?" Phil asked a bit surprised. He had no information about the Asgardian taking another agent. "I believe he only took agent Barton and doctor Selvig."

"He didn't," Steve informed him rather surprised this was not something the agent was aware of. "In the video included in my debriefing packet I can clearly see Loki brainwashing an older agent after Barton.

"I was surprised there wasn't any information on him, because Loki killed everyone else, except for Selvig, Barton, and this agent; and the first two have very valuable skills or knowledge. So this man must have something which Loki can use against SHIELD, otherwise he would have been killed like the others."

"Hill," Nick said surprised at the conclusion the Captain reached, and which clearly had slipped the minds of his analysts. He had only been informed the Asgardian had taken a junior agent. "What can you tell me about this agent?"

"In a moment Sir," she said already working on getting the file of their other missing agent. "His name is Walter Phelps Sir, he's been with SHIELD for two years. He..." she trailed off eyes widening as she read the man's profile.

"He what Hill?" Nick did not like the way she trailed off.

"Agent Phelps works in the logistics department, in the weapons and specialized equipment subdivision Sir. He... Worked for the CIA for ten years, and was sub director of the New York's CIA counter terrorism unit for four of those years, until he quit due to personal reasons."

"Son of a bitch!" Nick exclaimed.

That definitely bode no good. He was not pleased, not pleased at all their analysts had easily dismissed Phelps just because he was a junior agent, and some heads were certainly going to roll. Nick could bet his eye patch that between Barton and Phelps, they had access to a good number of people and weapons which would make stopping Loki even harder.

"How the hell did that crazy bastard manage to get his hand on two people who can definitely become a serious threat to us?" Nick demanded. "And I also want to know why the fuck someone with Phelp's credentials is a junior agent?"

"There's more Sir, all three of them were at Puente Antiguo," she told him somberly.

"Hmm... Too much of a coincidence, isn't it?" Steve commented with a slight frown. Well it seemed SHIELD was more inept than he thought. At least they now knew there was possibly more trouble coming their way, and hopefully would design some kind of contingency plan.

"You can say that again Captain," Nick agreed, and he had to admit the younger man impressed him with his observational skills as well an analytical mind. "Well spotted by the way."

"It was part of my job to notice this things Director, and since we're at it, I find it extremely suspicious the fact doctor Selvig did not run like the other scientists. He in fact, stood only a couple of paces behind Loki.

"After the Asgardian killed so many, I would have expected the man to at least keep a... Reasonably safe distance even if his curiosity led him to remain. Either he has absolutely no sense of self preservation, or..." Steve trailed off and shrugged, leaving the rest for Fury to interpret however he chose.

The Director did not disappoint, he began cursing, and ordering people about, demanding answers, as well as requested for some people to meet him in his office ASAP. Steve nodded to him satisfied by the response, at least now SHIELD had better chances of not being caught unawares, should Loki and his people try something.

The implications he left hanging about Selvig would also make them investigate the possibility of Loki having been on Earth before. Most likely when his brother had been in Puente Antiguo. The little town was something all three men had in common, along with the Tesseract.


Fury and Hill went to what was clearly an office at the back of the bridge, and not long later some other people began trailing in. There was clearly an emergency meeting to deal with the potential threats agent Phelps could add to their already dangerous situation.

The meeting left Steve with apparently not much to do, so he found himself an unobtrusive spot to stand, while he waited to see if face trace found Loki. He rather hoped they did not. As agent Romanoff mentioned earlier, agent Coulson did approach him about signing his trading cards at the first opportunity. Steve had already decided he would do so, but it did not mean it was any less embarrassing. He never liked signing autographs, and neither did he liked being famous.

"I mean, if it's not too much trouble." Coulson was telling him.

"No, no it's fine," he said absently

The code mapping the cloaked servers was finding a lot of resistance, and was risking detection. The fire walls were rather impressive. But unlike a normal computer program, Steve's mind made corrections on the go, and used his own quick thinking to evade detection.

He had to admit being surprised at how different the security for those servers was. The system was actually more intelligent, and was actively searching for intruders. Steve did not think SHIELD had an AI, but the behavior reminded him of one. While he was busy battling with the second set of servers' security, Coulson went on about his trading cards.

"It's a vintage set. It took me a couple of years to collect them all," Phil said proudly.

Steve did not say anything, his mind too busy at the moment. Although he appeared rather detached to anyone who was looking. He had not had a challenge like that since he tried to break into Stark Industries' servers; and then he had been working against a true Artificial Intelligence.

"Near mint," Coulson went on. "Slight foxing around the edges but..."

"We got a hit," one of the agents surveying the terminals informed them.

But Steve had known the moment there was a match, as he had been linked directly to the terminal. His eyes were already on the screen an instant before the agent had spoken.

"A 67% match. Wait cross match, 77%..."

"Location," Coulson asked becoming all professional and approaching the terminal.

Steve remained where he was, having connected with the terminal and getting the visuals in his mind. Then directed his attention at withdrawing his mapping code. It would be detected if he was not there to run interference and make modifications. He could have accessed the servers directly, but that would most certainly draw attention, which he did not want.

"Captain," Fury called him. "You're up."

Steve just took a deep breath, then he decided to warn Fury. "There's something he wants there, and there are no signs of the people he took. Check for any rare equipment, substance, or high security facility in the city.

"It must be something that might not be readily available elsewhere, and which an astrophysicist would know about. Loki has one of your best operatives, and an expert on terrorists under his control, so I'm not guessing when I tell you he knows about face trace and has decided to play decoy.

"Also check on the possibility of Barton, or that other agent he took and which you don't mention, having the contacts to hire mercenaries. You can't conquer a planet with just three brainwashed minions Director, and since they are not there, we can assume Loki can control them at a distance."

Fury stared at him for a moment, clearly the man had not considered the possibility of Loki extracting information from Barton, or from agent Phelps. Both of which did have the know how and contacts to hire a mercenary army in a blink.

"You heard the man," Nick told his people. "Get moving, I want that information now. Captain," he said the title with a nod of respect. The younger man did not disappoint. The strategist and tactician had come to the fore in a blink, and reached a conclusion none of his analysts had considered yet.


As he made his way to the lockers were the TAC suits were, Steve began mentally preparing for another plane flight. He still was not comfortable flying. He also had the code dump what he had already mapped into the hard drive of one of the unused terminals on the bridge, encrypted it, and secured it with a password. He would need to find a way to upload that into the cloud storage he had signed in the past weeks without anyone noticing.

An agent led Steve to the locker rooms where his suit was in a type of shrine, set apart from the other TAC uniforms in there. His shield was there though, and it was like seeing an old friend he had not seen in a while. Steve had not realized how much he had missed having his shield by his side.

The suit was... more form fitting than his old one, and he felt exposed. It nearly left nothing to the imagination. But it was not the time to be picky, so he suited up (not an easy feat with how skin tight the thing was), and departed towards Germany.


Stuttgart

They arrived to see Loki dressed rather oddly, he wore a golden helmet with two curved horns besides what looked like armor. The Asgardian looked like a reindeer, or some type of crazy mountain goat. He was also keeping a bunch of people on their knees giving some kind of stupid discourse that reminded Steve of another megalomaniac on German soil.

Loki was about to take down an elderly German man who defied him, so Steve asked agent Romanoff to drop him before the man. Just in time too because Loki fired an energy ray from the scepter he carried. The shield blocked it, and sent it back to the caster. It was good to see that just like it did with the HYDRA weapons, the vibranium of the shield blocked those rays.

"You know," Steve began as he walked towards Loki, "The last time I was in Germany, and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."

"The soldier." Loki stood up. "The man out of time," he said mockingly.

"I'm not the one who's out of time." Behind him he could hear the quinjet, as the aircraft was called, ready to be his backup.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down," Romanoff voice came off the jet's speakers. The Asgardian chose to attack with one of the blue rays.

Steve acted launching his shield at Loki while he was open. It made contact, and ricocheted back to him. Steve caught it and engaged the Asgardian, staff against shield. Loki did pack a wallop, but he had been expecting it from what he read on the brother, Thor.

They traded blows, and Loki got a bit of an advantage when he managed to hit Steve and sent him flying. He landed flat on his stomach, and tried to get up as soon as possible, but Loki was there faster than Steve expected. He ended with one knee on the ground, and the lower part of the scepter pressed against the back of his head in a rather vulnerable position.

"Kneel!" Loki demanded.

"Not today," Steve growled. He was not giving in to that maniac, alien, god, or whatever he was. He managed to extricate himself from that vulnerable position, then round-kicked the asgardian. All in one swift movement. Loki had not expected it.

The fight went on. Then out of the quinjet's speakers some loud Heavy Metal music resounded. Steve was not much of a fan, but his father had been, and his mother still kept his Da's old CD collection and played them on occasion. If he ventured a guess, he would say it was AC/DC.

Then Iron Man came out of nowhere and blasted Loki. Oh man, two of his idols in one day! He would really need to be careful and not do a Coulson, from what he had read Stark had a rather large ego. No need to make it any bigger.

"Make a move, Reindeer games." Iron Man entreated their opponent, while having all his heavy weaponry ready to take the asgardian down.

Steve managed to stifle an unmanly snicker at the fact he and Stark had noticed the resemblance of that helmet to a deer's antlers. Then he moved to stand besides Iron Man, just as Loki did something to change his armor into what Steve supposed was normal Asgardian wear. Loki used magic most probably.

"Good move," Iron Man said powering down his weapons.

"Mr Stark," Steve said still panting a bit from his fight with Loki.

"Captain," Stark returned.

They handcuffed their prisoner and boarded the quinjet. It was their transport back to the helicarrier, which Steve found was the name of the big airship acting as SHIELD's mobile command center. The aircraft took off, and they made their way back, with Iron Man on board as well.

Steve stood thoughtful, not liking how easy it was to capture Loki. Something was afoot, and he just knew it. The Asgardian's people were no where to be found, but apparently their mission was accomplished. Romanoff told them they had stolen a large piece of iridium.

They had secured the scepter as well, and Steve had taken a good look at it. The scepter, which also morphed into a staff, had a gem much like the one which transported him to the past, although larger. It glowed softly, and was making Steve rather twitchy on top of everything.

"I don't like it," Steve whispered to Stark.

"What, Rock of Agers giving up so easily?" Stark whispered back.

"I don't remember it being so easy. This guy packs a wallop. They rarely give up, unless they have an ace in their sleeve."

"Still, you're pretty spry for an older fellow." He had seen the Captain take on Loki before he decided to intervene.

Steve turned to keep an eye on their prisoner, and keep from laughing out loud. If Stark only knew. The billionaire was actually the true older fellow. He was nearly forty-two, while Steve was barely legal to drive, never mind drinking in the 21st century.

"What's your thing, Pilates?"

"What?" Steve asked a bit confused as to what that had to do with anything.

"It's like calisthenics. You might have missed a couple of things doing time as a Capsicle," Tony told the man, who looked shockingly younger than he expected.

If Stark thought he was going to have fun easily at his expense, he had another thing coming. "My thing," he stressed a bit, "are Tai Chi, Yoga, and I just started practicing Parkour. How about you Stark?" Steve asked blandly, then added, "chronologically I may be older, but in years lived you're about double my age."

Tony gaped, that was absolutely NOT what he was expecting from Captain America. "I'm not that old," he protested offended. "You're what, twenty-six?"

"According to the info on my enlistment form, that would be my age, yes." He did not outright confirm it was true, but neither did he deny it, he just left it open enough for interpretation to mess a bit with Stark.

Tony narrowed his eyes. Did the good Captain just admit to lying on his enlistment form? That answer had been surprisingly vague, and rather unexpected. "How come you know those disciplines when you spent a lot of time as a Capsicle, didn't they just thaw you recently?"

"Tai Chi and Yoga aren't new Stark," Steve responded. "Both have been around for a few hundred years."

Yoga had not been 'new' to some people back then either. While not wide spread there were more practitioners than people in the future would think. It had been a fad in some circles, and some rather famous people practiced Yoga since the thirties. On the other hand, Tai Chi was practically unheard off by anyone not of Chinese origin, so he had been an oddity.

"They were both a surprising help with my asthma back then. They were the only type of exercise I could practice," Steve added, and the billionaire gaped. Stark was not SHIELD, but there was nothing to say he could not mess with him too. "I heard they are using them now for that purpose as well. I was also one of the few Yoga instructors in Manhattan before I enlisted. It paid much better than my other jobs," he reminisced.

He charged three dollars an hour per person, when the minimum wage at the docks was thirty cents an hour, and Steve usually had a minimum of three students per class at least twice a week. This was why Bucky encouraged him to keep teaching despite teasing him so much about it. It was definitely the better paying job. Then Steve chose to change the subject before he got melancholic.

"Fury didn't tell me they were calling you in." He could see the older man did not like the change.

"Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you," he snarked a bit.

"I never had any doubt of that," Steve admitted. Fury was too secretive, but then, he was THE Spy.

"What? Not a fan?" Tony was surprised, this was unexpected. Captain America not dancing to Nick's tune?

"Shocking isn't it? He's such a personable fellow, and his many agents such gentle, kind hearted people," the sarcasm dripped from his voice.

His response shocked a laugh out of Stark, a couple of snorts from the cockpit, and even a smirk from their prisoner. The Master Spy reminded him of a bald, dark skinned Dumbledore. Unfortunately his experiences with Doctor Kraft, as well as the agents Frampton, Wilkins, Johnson, and Lozano were anything but good. It took all he had not to visibly shudder, but he surreptitiously put some space between him and Iron Man.

The flight had been going smoothly, then the quinjet entered some unexpected turbulence, and what appeared like a bad electric storm. The instruments in the cabin chattered nervously, as they did not like the static accumulating outside. For his part Loki began getting as nervous as the instruments.

"What's the matter, scared of a little lightning?" Steve could not help mocking Loki for it.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows," was Loki's response.

Something landed hard on top of the quinjet at Loki's words, both he and Iron Man suited back up. Then Stark opened the rear hatch. A blond giant boarded. The man... god? Was taller and more muscular than Steve, as hard to believe as that was. He was dressed in some type of armor, and wore a red billowing cape of all things. He was Loki's brother, Thor, if he was not wrong.

Iron Man tried to stop the blond as he made his way to Loki. But Thor pushed him aside like it was nothing, and Iron Man landed on top of Steve. The damn armor was heavy. The blond grabbed a hold of the other Asgardian and simply went back out into the storm.

"Now there's that guy," Tony muttered to himself as he made his way to the open back door.

"Another Asgardian?" Romanoff asked from the cockpit.

"That guy's a friendly?" The file on him said he was, but Steve was beginning to doubt it.

"Doesn't matter. If he frees Loki or kills him the Tesseract's lost," Tony responded as he made his way to the rear hatch. His intent clear, he was following the Asgardians.

"Stark, we need a plan of attack." Steve called trying to stop him. They did not know if Thor was a hostile or not at the moment.

"I have a plan, attack!" Stark said before launching off the quinjet.

Steve just sighed, talk about impulsive, and he was the real teenager on board. Stark was supposed to be an adult; but then one was young only once, immaturity though, could last forever. Which was clearly Stark's case. There was not much he could do but follow as well, so he grabbed a parachute and suited up.

"I'd sit this one out Cap," Romanoff suggested.

"I don't see how I can." He responded as he finished securing the parachute. Steve was not willing to leave the success of the mission on Stark's impulsive hands. "Someone clearly has to baby-sit Stark."

Natasha snorted. "Too true Cap. But these guys come from legend. They're basically gods." She informed him.

"I've read the legends. Let me tell you though, if they are not from Earth, then they are aliens. Besides, there's only one God Ma'am, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that." He grabbed his shield and followed them down.


Author's Note: Another note here, just a bit of an explanation about the OC, which is not quite an OC since I did go over the movie in detail, and Loki did brainwash another SHIELD guy... Or perhaps he was a NASA guy ::shrugs::

Anyway, it just really bothered me that they never mention Loki took that other guy. He was just a bit player, probably just filling, but for the same reason, the movie plot would have worked the same way if this guy was not there. You know, why take the guy if he was not going to be used for anything?

Well, the guy, which now has the name of Walter Phelps, will still just be a bit player, but now he has an identity, and is helping move the plot as well as letting Steve show a bit more of his abilities.