What Goes Up

Olivia couldn't help but flush slightly at her position on the quinjet she and Steve were taking to SHIELD's base for this operation. They had agreed, after reading the briefing file left for them in their apartment, to take on this mission. In a way, they already agreed to take it on the moment they found out the Tesseract was involved. They had contacted Fury quite soon after going over the file and talking about it, and had met with a lovely man named Phil Coulson the next morning to accompany them to the new base.

He had provided them with his tablet, which held additional information on the other people being recruited to assist SHIELD on this mission. But he only had one tablet and there were two of them and the seats were not quite close enough to be able to share the tablet. Steve had come up with, what she was sure he would claim was, an ingenious way to get around that.

And that was how Olivia found herself sitting on Steve's lap, his arms around her, while she held the tablet for both of them to view. Phil seemed oddly excited to see such a thing, she had caught the man glancing over at them and fighting a smile from the moment Steve had pulled her down. But he had at least given them the privacy of looking over the files themselves, answering any questions they might have.

Currently the footage playing on the tablet was a video clip of a very large green man smashing his way through the army near what appeared to be a college. From what she understood of the file attached to this clip, it was a being called the Hulk. It was an entity that appeared to live within another man, Dr. Bruce Banner, and only showed itself when the man was injured or angry. After which, it was a nearly unstoppable force that destroyed anything in its path.

"We're about forty minutes out from base, sir," they heard the pilot inform Phil, as the man stood to approach them, likely to tell them the same thing, but they had heard it with their superior hearing.

"So, this Dr. Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used on us?" Steve asked Phil as he approached.

"A lot of people were," he agreed sadly, "You two were the world's first superheroes. Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

Olivia quickly flicked the tablet off as the Hulk roared in fury and smashed a jeep apart, "I don't think he quite managed it," was her polite reply, earning a smile from Phil.

"Not so much. When he's not that thing, though, guy's like a Stephen Hawking..." he trailed off when both Olivia and Steve looked at him questioningly, "He's like a smart person."

"Like Howard?"

Phil nodded, recalling Howard Stark had been a friend of hers, "And his son, just in different fields."

"And these other specialists," Olivia continued, according to the files, there would be one other person besides Dr. Banner and Tony Stark joining them, an assassin, a woman named Natasha Romanoff, "Is there anything not in the file we should know about them? The Black Widow?"

Phil considered it for a moment, before offering, "The only thing you need to know about her is that she's on our side, and one of the SHIELD agents compromised by Loki, was important to her."

Olivia nodded her head slowly at that, "Was he her Steve?"

Phil let out a chuckle when he noticed Steve starting to flush slightly at her phrasing, "Not quite," was all he could say without giving away too much confidential information about Barton, "Speaking of...I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you both, officially that is," he began to gush, "I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping."

"Excuse me?" Steve shook his head at that, slowly standing and maneuvering Olivia to stand with the action, though he appeared to be just a little in front of her, not entirely certain what Phil meant by that remark.

Phil quickly seemed to realize how that came across, "I mean, I was...I was present while you were unconscious from the ice. You know, it's really...it's just a...just a huge honor to have you both on board."

"Right..." Steve nodded, though he eyed Phil with a bit more caution than before, "Well, I hope we're right for the job."

"Oh, you are. Absolutely. Uh..." Phil reached out to take the tablet from Olivia, turning it on once more and flipping through other files, intending to show them that they very much were the right people for the task, SHIELD wouldn't have gone through the effort upgrading something for them if they weren't, "We've made some modifications to your uniforms. I had a little design input."

He handed them the tablet once more with the file open, showing them the new designs in mind for Captain America and Major Britannia.

"Aren't the stars and stripes a little...old fashioned?" Steve had to ask when he saw he is very patriotic uniform, one that looked less like combat garb and more like stars and stripes.

"With everything that's happening, the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old fashioned."

"Oh I don't know, I think I might like the new uniform," Olivia offered with a bright smile when she saw the designs for her own uniform, "Well done, Mr. Coulson."

"Phil, please," the man said quickly, with a faint blush at the praise that only served make Steve narrow his eyes slightly.

"Well done, Phil," Olivia corrected, "And, please, call me Liv."

She let out a soft laugh when Steve made a faint groan at her words. She usually reserved 'Liv' as a name only her dearest of friends called her, but the man was clearly someone who was truly just and good, and he had gone through quite a lot of effort, she could tell, in designing her outfit. She was quite sure there were numerous records of exactly what she thought of her old outfit, and it appeared Phil had actually take into account some very specific critiques she had mentioned herself about it. It was the least she could do to offer him that informality.

So she reached out and lightly hit Steve on the chest with the back of her hand in a gesture to stop it.

"It's nothing," Phil flushed more, seeming beside himself that she liked his work.

"It's wonderful," she insisted.

Phil just beamed.

~8~

"Well it's certainly large," Olivia murmured to Steve as the quinjet landed down on a massive battleship. They had gotten quite a good look at it from the air, it was huge, with two runways, one that appeared to have direct access to a hanger at the end, "But not surprising."

Steve snorted at her words, they had made it into a game ever since they accepted Fury's mission, trying to identify what Fury might think was surprising to them. First with the jet, then the others who were being brought in to assist on this mission, now it was the battleship. It still wasn't as surprising as Fury probably thought it was, they had come from the middle of a war, they had seen things they had never thought they'd ever see, it would take more than a large ship or green man to surprise them.

Phil smiled at them as he led them down a ramp as soon as it was down. There was a ginger woman at the bottom, waiting for them, arms behind her back, her stance was at ease, but also rigid. Olivia recognized her from her hair and the file she'd read, it was Natasha, the Black Widow, probably the one person on this ship most keen to get back the missing SHIELD agent than anyone.

"Agent Romanoff," Phil greeted, before gesturing to the two soldiers that had followed him, "Major Williams and Captain Rogers."

Olivia was quite relieved that Phil had introduced her by her last name instead of the title many others seemed to know her by. Even though neither she nor Steve had gotten a say in what 'superhero name' they would be given, she definitely thought she had drawn the short end of the stick. She could come up with at least five other names that were just as patriotic yet more sensible than the one she had, but it was one many people knew her by, it was one her people had given her, and she didn't have the heart to ask them to stop calling her that. It appeared Phil truly had done his research on them, to introduce her as Major Williams instead of Major Britannia.

"Ma'am?" Steve asked when he noticed an odd expression on Natasha's face.

Natasha glanced between both of them before a small smirk grew on her face as she looked to Olivia, "You outrank him?"

"Technically, yes," Olivia offered, understanding the woman's reaction now.

It seemed like many people knew her and Steve only by their superhero names, Captain America and Major Britannia, and took it to be just that, a name. To hear she actually was classified a Major in the army and that she did actually outrank Captain America, would be a surprise to anyone. Especially considering her role as a medic during the war and how she had often, as a woman, been kept from the front lines while Steve had been battling HYDRA head on. She hasn't had as much of an active role against HYDRA the way Steve had, he was the battles and she took care of the aftermath.

"But we're a team," she continued.

Natasha nodded at that, a look on her face that told Olivia she knew exactly how that felt, to have one of a team outrank the other yet never use that against them, to act as true partners. Perhaps that was what this Agent Barton, for that was what the file called him, was to Natasha.

Maybe Barton was Natasha's Peggy.

"They need you on the Bridge," Natasha told Phil, "Face time."

Phil sighed, glancing at Olivia and Steve, not pleased to have to step away, but it was his duty, "See you there."

Natasha rolled her eyes when Phil departed, having notice his reluctance as well.

"I'm quite glad you're part of this team Mr. Coulson's put together," Olivia offered in the slight awkward silence that followed, "It's wonderful, I'm glad I won't be the only woman here to keep the boys in line."

Natasha smiled at her, "I think we're gonna work together just fine. I mean, if Coulson's willing to let you both out of his sight for more than a minute," she began to lead them towards a railing along the ship, wanting to give them a wider view of the top deck, "There was quite the buzz around here, finding you two in the ice. I thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his trading cards yet?"

"Trading cards?" Steve blinked at that, startled.

"They're vintage, he's very proud."

"That's actually quite precious," Olivia remarked, even when Steve looked a little befuddled by the statement. She nudged him with a teasing smile, "You're his hero."

"Not just him," Natasha smirked, looking at Olivia, "He's got about three cards just for you."

"Me?" Olivia pointed to herself as though she couldn't believe those words. She could believe there were trading cards made for Steve, he really was the face of Dr. Erskine's experiment. She had always been tending the wounded, making sure everyone was safe and looked after.

"Oh yeah," she smirked even more, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say he has a crush on you."

"...ME?" Olivia repeated, honestly not sure if Natasha was teasing her or not.

It was just something unbelievable to her, that someone would actually have an interest in her, let alone a crush. There were some days she still couldn't believe that Steve had taken an interest in her. There were some days she still thought she imagined how he had noticed her. When she thought of herself, she still thought of that girl in the hospital, not the Major from the war. So, in that sense, it just seemed mad that someone would have had a crush on her. Bucky had once insisted that Steve would have noticed her even before the serum, that she was just his type. She couldn't imagine herself being anyone else's type.

"Makes perfect sense to me," Steve smiled at Olivia, but with a teasing look in his own eyes, "The man has impeccable taste...but he's going to be disappointed though, you'll have to let him down very gently..."

Olivia rolled her eyes and punched Steve in the arm playfully as he laughed and rubbed his arm as though it had hurt. It actually had. They couldn't feel many blows dealt by other people, not thanks to the serum, but they were both of equal strength so they could feel each other. Though he had a sneaking suspicion Olivia was a little stronger than he was. She was certainly faster. They didn't hold back with each other, her punch really had hurt. Not badly, but enough to be felt.

Something neither of them saw Natasha notice.

Olivia shook her head and looked back to Natasha, only to frown when she saw something past her shoulder, "Is he alright?"

Natasha looked over to see Dr. Banner behind her, standing in the middle of a crowd of people walking past him, seeming too nervous and hesitant to push past them, but unable to make his way around the steady stream.

"Dr. Banner," Steve approached with Olivia and Natasha, reaching out to shake his hand.

"Oh, yeah," the man returned the gesture, moving to extend the same courtesy to Olivia too, "Hi."

"Olivia," she offered, "And this is Steve."

"Bruce. They told me you'd be coming."

"Word is you can find the cube," Steve remarked.

Bruce scoffed in a somewhat self depreciating way, "Is that the only word on me?"

"No," Olivia said honestly.

"But it's the only word we care about," Steve finished.

Bruce smiled a little at that, "Is that so?"

"I rather prefer getting to know people for themselves rather than what others think," Olivia replied, earning a soft look from Steve. He knew she had been a large factor in him being selected for Dr. Erskine's experiment, she had seen past what others thought of him and got to know him for him.

"Must be strange for you, all of this," Bruce murmured.

"Well, this is actually kind of familiar," Steve shrugged.

"Not to interrupt," Natasha spoke up, "But you may wanna step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe."

Olivia quickly reached out to Steve to steady herself when the base began to shake somewhat, clearly starting up.

"Is this a submarine?" Steve asked, moving closer to the edge to look down at the water.

"Really?" Bruce huffed, "They want ME in a submerged pressurized metal container?"

Just as they reached the edge, they saw four huge lift fans coming above the water, mounted to the side of the ship, and beginning to help it rise into the air.

"Oh, no," Bruce groaned loudly over the noise, "This is MUCH worse!"

"Surprised?" Steve shouted over to Olivia, "Cos I am!"

"Honestly?" she looked at him with a smile, "No."

"No?!"

"Iced tea, Steve! ICED tea!"

Steve just lauhged.

~8~

Steve, Bruce, and Olivia followed Natasha through the halls of the base which was steadily rising higher into the air with every step they took. So the opposite of a submarine then. Olivia could admit she understood why Bruce felt this was much worse a place for him to be. From what she knew of his file, the Hulk was unpredictable and the file made it seem like anything could set him off. In a submarine, if anything went wrong and the Hulk went on a rampage, it would be horrible, but only for those in the water. In the air, the fallout of the base being attacked could be even more horrific. If it fell from the sky, it could crash into land and hurt far more people than just them.

She now had the sneaking suspicion that Fury hadn't just asked them to join this mission for their knowledge and experience with the Tesseract, but to help contain and stop the Hulk should he be triggered. A small part of her whispered that she knew Fury had probably asked them for very specific skills they had too. Steve was the true soldier, he had the experience being IN battle and fighting, while she was the Medic, she would be able to help tend to any wounded that might come from an attack.

She shook her head from her thoughts, focusing on the present and the mission as they entered the Bridge. It was quite large, as was the rest of the ship, gleaming and new looking, very high tech with machines and consoles everywhere, multiple agents working at them.

"Gentlemen, Ladies," Fury approached them, smirking when Steve handed over some money, "Five? I bet ten."

"You surprised Steve," Olivia explained. He had bet ten bucks THEY would be surprised, if only half of them were, then he only got half the money.

"You aren't?" Fury eyed her, putting the money in his pocket.

"Not yet," Olivia patted his shoulder as she passed him to stand beside Steve and look out at the clouds. The base was large and it could fly, but looking out at the view, at the clouds, she had seen such a sight before, on the Valkyrie.

She reached out to take Steve's hand at that, if she was thinking it, he might too.

Fury shook his head at them, moving over to Bruce and offering him a hand to shake as well, "Doctor, thank you for coming."

"Thanks for asking nicely," Bruce hesitantly returned the shake, "So, uh...how long am I staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear."

"There's been no new intel about its location?" Olivia called back as she and Steve moved nearer to Natasha to see what she was looking at on a computer, an image of Agent Clint Barton.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet," Phil assured them, "Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

"So no?" Steve asked, his voice a mixture of seriousness and disappointed, the longer the Tesseract was in enemy hands, the worse it was for everyone.

"That's still not gonna find them in time," Natasha expressed her own concern.

"You have to narrow the field," Bruce stated, "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"How many are there?" Fury asked.

"Call every lab you know, tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition…what?" he trailed off when Steve and Olivia turned to look at him, Steve with something of a wide-eyed expression and Olivia with a smile.

"You are a brilliant man, Bruce," was all Olivia could say, "Try not to forget that, yeah?"

Bruce blinked at that, before realizing she sounded quite proud of him, and smiled when he realized why she'd said it. He had never been or sounded more confident than when he'd been in his element and talking science. Just because the Hulk was hanging over him, didn't mean HE wasn't in control right now and HE was just as useful to SHIELD for his mind.

"At least we could rule out a few places," he finished, "Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

"Agent Romanoff, would you show to his laboratory, please," Fury looked to Natasha who nodded and began to lead him away.

"You're gonna love it, Doc," she told him, "We got all the toys."

"What nice people," Olivia murmured to Steve as they left.

Steve just had to laugh at that, winding his arm around her and shaking his head. Her words about getting to know people never more true. Their files would lead people to believe that Natasha was a cold blooded murderer and Bruce was a monster, yet they were nothing of the sort. Natasha was a woman who clearly cared about this Barton fellow, and Bruce was a man who just wanted to help and used science to do it. They were people first, not files.

Steve couldn't help but think of their last remaining asset, Tony Stark. If this change in the files held true, the man couldn't possibly be as arrogant and lone-wolf as the file made it sound.

He was looking forward to meeting him and he knew Olivia would love the chance to meet Howard's son.

~8~

Olivia and Steve stood off to the side of the Bridge, waiting for the programs Fury instructed to find Loki to run. Phil had join them a short while ago, doing exactly as Natasha remarked to them, and bringing up his vintage trading card collection, asking if they would be willing to sign them.

"I mean, if it's not too much trouble..." he kept saying.

"No, no," Steve reassured him, "It's fine."

"We'd be happy to," Olivia promised.

Phil beamed at that, "It's a vintage set," he told them, proud of himself for it, "It took me a couple of years to collect them all. Near mint, slight foxing around the edges, but..."

"We can sign them now, if you'd like," Olivia offered.

"What, now, really?" it was clear Phil was just a wee bit short of jumping in place with the excitement that was clearly audible in his voice.

"Of course," Olivia laughed, "What better time than the present?"

Steve smiled when he saw Olivia playing with the end of the necklace he had gotten her, understanding her sentiment. They had both learned, in the middle of the war, that there really was no better time than the present, because tomorrow was never a guarantee. And if their enemy had possession of the Tesseract, tomorrow really was not a guarantee again. There was no telling who would survive the upcoming battle. After all that time during the war, it had become their default mentality, when it came to something very important never to put it off, to always get it done as soon as they could.

These trading cards were clearly very important to Phil, he deserved to have them signed as soon as possible.

"Yeah, I can go get them right now," Phil only just turned to do exactly that, when one of the other agents called out a report.

"We got a hit! 67 percent match. Weight, cross match, 79 percent."

Olivia reached out to pat Phil on his shoulder when the man bodily slumped, knowing he would have to put off getting his cards and having them signed, to deal with this threat, for it was for more important to the sake of the world.

"Location?" he called.

"Stuttgart, Germany. 28, Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding."

"Major," Fury strode over, "Captain, you're up."

Olivia and Steve looked at each other, before nodding and not leaving the room, two SHIELD agents leading the way to where their new uniforms were being held.

~8~

Steve stood before his very own locker room, a steel cabinet with the doors already open showing his new and improved Captain America uniform, his shield recovered and resting beside it. He took a moment to look it over, not quite sure how he felt about it.

It was more brightly colored than he was used to, with very obvious red and white stripes down the middle section. The star on the center of the chest was more noticeable, the stark white color contrasting with the bright blue even more. Even the gloves and boots were a much more noticeable shade of red. The material too appear to be almost light weight in quality, certainly more modern in its creation, more like a uniform than army garb. His old uniform was more muted colors, with two red stripes and made out of a thicker leather material in order to stand against knife strikes and bullets.

On one hand, he would have preferred his old uniform, for the sense of familiarity, to really stay in the mindset of a soldier about to go to battle. The one in front of him reminded him too much of his show uniform, where he was just a mockery of what he could have been. But, on the other hand, he understood that Phil had quite a large hand in designing it, and with times like these, from what he had heard about in the paper and seeing it himself, perhaps they could do with more stars and stripes.

He shook his head, right now it really didn't matter how he felt, he was about to go to battle and he needed a uniform. This was the only one he had. So he stepped forward and pulled it out of the cabinet, quickly putting it on. He shut one of the metal doors of the cabinet in order to look at his reflection in the shiny metal. But he couldn't help the less than pleased expression he made, it wasn't his favorite uniform.

"Now you're getting a taste of what I felt," Olivia's voice said behind him, for once not sneaking up on him as he could see her approach in the reflection of the metal, blurry though it was, "Though, still, it isn't quite as bad as mine was."

He smiled and turned to face her, only to lose track of exactly what he was about to say when he saw her in her uniform.

Olivia fidgeted under his gaze, her left hand coming to rubbing her right elbow, "Is it awful?" she asked him, looking down at herself, "I thought it was quite nice..."

Steve just stepped closer, reaching out to take her hands, and leaned in to kiss her quickly, "You can wear a potato sack and still be the most beautiful woman in the world," he told her, smiling gently, "It suits you."

Olivia smiled from he praise and looked down at herself once more.

Her uniform was quite different than what it had been. It wasn't completely white to start off, it wasn't like a spandex jumpsuit, she didn't have a cape any longer. But there were some aspects of it that were somewhat similar, enough where she could be recognized as major Britannia, just an updated version.

It was still something of a jumpsuit, but red in color, dark red, almost burgundy. From the waist down it was red, but the top half was white. She still had boots, though they were a very dark blue leather, almost navy, up to just below her knees. And she still had gloves, not nearly as obnoxious as her last uniform. They only went up to a little past her wrist, the same navy blue, and fingerless. Phil had clearly taken into consideration her role as a Medic, sometimes the gloves she used to wear were too big and bulky and she couldn't get the right grip on bandages or other objects that she needed. She would often end up ripping them off with her teeth just to try and get things, which would not be a problem now that her fingers were exposed.

She had a jacket as well, instead of a cape, the same burgundy as her pants. The arms went down to covering just over her gloves, made of leather. It didn't close in the front, but laid open, though not enough where it was a large space, more like a single white stripe down her middle. It was just long enough to reach her hips, and there was a horizontal white patch, like a stripe, across the middle of it. She also had a white medic pack with a red cross on the back of it, with straps that crisscrossed over her front. Once removed from her back, it could also function like a bag she'd learned.

The uniform was very tastefully done. It was a very clear nod to the Union flag with the colors and the way her jacket and straps of her pack were designed. But it was a subtle impression, Phil had taken into account just how much her country had wanted her to represent them, but also making a suit that was actually practical for a medic on the field of battle. She even had a utility belt for some of the smaller items that she could use. She didn't even have a helmet like Steve though, which was something she was actually pleased with.

"For what it's worth," Olivia squeezed his hands once more before letting go to reach out and pick up his helmet as a rested off to the side by his shield, "You wear this suit well."

Steve smiled as she set the helmet on his head and strapped it, before he reached over to pick up his shield, "You ready for this?"

"I may need to stop off at the loo first," she joked, making him laugh.

A/N: Lol, that old joke keeps coming back around :) I wanted to give Olivia a uniform upgrade, since it was one we didn't really get to see her wear in the last story both because she didn't like her original and the only other one she wore was basic army garb. So it speaks to the Union Flag, in sort of pattern and somewhat in color, it's clear the symbol it's trying to be, it's just done in slightly different colors and in a different style than Steve's :)

But while she's dressed to be a medic...things are a lot more active and engaging in these times and Olivia may not be safe if she can't fight or have a way to defend herself... ;) ;) We'll have to wait and see how that develops ;)

I hope you enjoyed the parts with Coulson, he's just such an adorable fanboy I could NOT imagine him not having a crush on Olivia too lol :)

Some notes on reviews...

That may actually end up being the title for Civil War. Here they assemble, there they fall apart :'(

That is something I'm going to explore in this story, why Steve acts the way he does when he is slightly different in other movies. I think he's still sort of in the mentality of a 1945 soldier, and the rules of war and combat and everything have changed since then. His method of soldier-mode doesn't mesh well with everyone else who was born and raised in the modern era and learned to fight in the now. It's something I have big plans for when it comes to Olivia, because even though she's from 1945 like him, NOW is really where she'll be learning to fight and how to fight with teachers who have a very modern outlook. I think it's something that will help transition Steve and help him find balance along the way :)

I'm glad you like Olivia's way of coping :) That was actually something I used to do when my dad was sick. I would try to find at least one good thing about the day, beyond 'he's still here' to help keep up strength for the next day. It's something I still do when I'm having a hard time or things get to be too much, find just one thing, even if it's 'I tried to eat healthy' or 'a commercial made me laugh' :)

Olivia might be a bit in shock of Tony, since she only really had Howard to go off of, lol, but once that wears off I picture some teasing moments for them to come throughout the series :)

I'm not sure when exactly I'll get to Ardeth, but I'm hoping for next year or, at the very latest, the year after :) I'm really glad you're enjoying the stories so far :)