i-love-tea-and-coffee- Leah is actually in her twenties. It was only her past thoughts on school and such. Sorry if that wasn't clear!

ILove2Write13- THANK YOU I'M GONNA CRY.

Counting Sinful Stars- Maaaaayyyybeeee...*winks*

Oh my gosh I'm actually really excited for this story.

Please Enjoy.

II

S.H.I.E.L.D Quinjet

Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean

1:00 PM

The rhythmic thrum of the quinjet's engines purred beneath Steve Rogers' feet as he sat, a strange modernistic tablet in his hands. As far as he could recognize, it was much like a small and portable TV but in color and high definition compared to the grainy screens or radios he was used to. Playing in the device was a video clip of the Hulk's attack on the Army at Culver University. The super solider watched with slightly wide eyes as he tried to keep his cool. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that he had awoken in a whole different century let alone there was a man that, when provoked, transformed into a raging green monster.

"We're about forty minutes out from base, sir," the pilot said as he passed Steve and Agent Phil Coulson, one of the other men on the quinjet. Just as the pilot returned to the cockpit, Coulson got up from his seat and walked over to where Steve was sitting. When he approached, Steve was ready with a question.

"So, this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the serum that was used on me?"

"A lot of people where," Phil confirmed. "You were the world's first superhero. Banner thought that gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

Steve watched as the Hulk gave a mighty roar and ripped a jeep apart.

"Didn't really go his way, did it?" Steve tried to joke.

"Not so much. When he's not that thing though, the guy's like a Stephen Hawking."

Steve's forehead creased in confusion.

"He's like a smart person," Coulson translated. "I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you officially."

Steve gave him a kind smile, modest as always.

"I sort of met you, I mean, I watched you while you were sleeping."

The Captain glanced down in slight embarrassment for not only himself but for Coulson's stumbling tongue. He clicked the button on the tablet to shut it off and stood up to put it away.

"I-I mean, I was...I was present while you were unconscious from the ice."

Steve nodded. Phil was still struggling to find the right words. He almost looked as if he was about to hyperventilate.

"You know, it's really...it's just a...just a huge honor to have you on board."

"Well, I hope I'm the man for the job."

"Oh, you are. Absolutely." Coulson nodded fervently as he fought to keep his cool. "You and Lea and the others."

"Lea?" Steve inquired. "Who's Lea?"

"Fury didn't tell you?" Coulson was shocked. He reached over and grabbed the tablet from its case, punching in his code, and scrolling through it.

"Amelia Maria Stark," Coulson started as he handed the tablet to Steve. The last name immediately rung a bell.

'No...she can't be...not only does Howard have a daughter but is she...?' Steve thought. There on the screen was a picture of a pretty girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes. On the opposite side of the picture was video footage of her in a silver and red iron suit as the mask slid down over her face. She then blasted a huge pipe apart, throwing it aside as if it weighed nothing.

"You know how I said there were many attempts to recreate the serum used on you? Well there was one serum that actually worked and it was made by Howard Stark."

'She is?!'

"She's a super solider?"

Coulson inclined his head. "The second to you and the first ever female super solider."

Steve tried to take a deep breath as his brain kicked into overdrive. For some reason he couldn't figure out, he suddenly found it very hard to breathe properly.

"I've got pieces of her file on here that Tony's allowing us to share," Coulson told him. "You can keep my tablet with you for a bit if you would like. Do you remember how to run it?"

"I've got the gist of it," Steve managed to get out. "Thank you. I-I'll...I'll look these over."

They were quiet for a moment, the Captain watching the footage with rapt attention. Then Phil broke the silence.

"Oh! Uh...we've made some modifications to the uniform. I had a little design input."

"The uniform?" That caught Steve's attention. "Aren't the stars and stripes a little old fashioned?"

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

Just as Steve was tucking the tablet away into his jacket for later study, the quinjet rumbled as it switched gears and touched down on a massive battleship that Coulson had called the Helicarrier. Steve peered out the window to see that they were traveling on one of the two runways upon the one with direct access to a hangar that was at the rear and it was aligned along the spin of the vessel.

As the quinjet came to a stop and the ramp slid out, Steve followed Coulson down the ramp and out into the startlingly bright daylight, rays of sun bouncing off the glittering ocean and into his eyes. It was so blinding at first that he barely noticed the red head that met them at the bottom of the ramp.

"Agent Romanoff," Coulson greeted. He then gestured to his companion and said, "Captain Rogers."

"Ma'am?" Steve noted while his eyes finally adjusted.

"Hi," Natasha acknowledge. She then turned to Coulson and went on. "They need you on the bridge. Face time."

Coulson dipped his head. "See you there."

"There was quite the buzz around here when we found you in the ice," Natasha explained as she lead Steve away from where they had been to the railing of the ship. "I thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?"

Steve's cheeks flushed slightly. "Trading cards?"

"They're vintage. He's proud."

Rogers opened his mouth to reply when a familiar face caught his eye. Dr. Banner, come to life from his tablet, was walking around as if he was nervous as hell. He was trying to figure out his way around but people kept milling about, cutting off his pathway in front of him. Steve felt a pang of sympathy for the poor guy. He knew the sensation of being completely and utterly lost all to well.

"Dr. Banner," Steve called. He strode up to him and stuck his hand out.

"Oh, yeah. Hi." They shook hands and Bruce swiftly returned his hand to his side. "They told me you'd be coming."

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

"Is that the only word about me?"

Rogers gave him an assuring glance. "Only word I care about."

Dr. Banner was dumb with surprise at the super solider's response.

"Must be strange for you, all of this," he replied after a beat.

"Well," Steve's eyes found the soldiers running about in lines, marching, training, and loading guns with the tiniest of beams. "This...this is actually kind of familiar."

"Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside in a minute. It's gonna get a little hard to breathe," Romanoff broke in.

Steve's heart leaped when the Helicarrier begun to shake. He quickly realized that it must have been normal and peered over the railing and down into the water where the engines were emerging out of the water.

"Is this a submarine?" he asked.

"Really? They want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" Dr. Banner declared, vocalizing his disbelief.

What Steve thought to be engines were actually four huge fans mounted on the four corners of the ship. He viewed in amazement as the fans spun and the ship began to rise in vtol flight. In awe he spun to see Dr. Banner smiling in even more incredulity.

"Oh, no," he chuckled. "This is much worse."

Inside of the Helicarrier upon the bridge of the ship, Director Nick Fury was sitting at the command chair and working on the different computers before him. The bridge was a flurry of activity as agents sat at their stations and were working at their viewscreens. Agent Maria Hill was shouting orders from her position as the Helicarrier took to the air.

"We're at a lock, sir," she informed.

Director Fury nodded in response.

"Good. Let's dance."

The Helicarrier continued to ascend high to the heavens. Director Fury watched as one of his main agents at near the top of the bridge was muttering directions into her earpiece. She then flipped on the camouflage, the ship becoming covered in reflecting mirrors so the enormous ship could not be seen in the sky.

At that moment, Steve and Bruce walked onto the gleaming bridge and separated; Steve moved to hand Fury ten bucks which the director stuffed into his pocket with a smirk and Dr. Banner stood at the science console.

"Gentlemen," Fury said as the two had entered. He then held his hand out to Bruce who reluctantly shook it. "Doctor, thank you for coming."

"Thanks for asking nicely," Bruce responded. "So, uh...how long am I staying?"

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

"Where are you with that?"

Fury glanced over to Agent Coulson who was waiting with Agent Romanoff.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it is eyes and ears for us," Coulson explained.

"That's still not gonna find them in time," Natasha piped up as she studied a picture of the missing Clint Barton on the computer screen.

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

"How many are there?" Fury asked.

"Call every lab you know and tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out tracking algorithm based on cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places. Do you have somewhere for me to work?"

Whatever that meant, Steve had no idea. It was all Greek to him.

"Agent Romanoff, would you show Dr. Banner to his laboratory please?"

Natasha dipped her head at the director's request.

"You're gonna love it, Doc. We've got all the toys."

When they were gone, Steve scanned the room in awe. He recognized what some of the stuff might have possibly been, but otherwise he had no idea. He smoothed out his leather jacket a bit self-consciously and directed his next question at Fury.

"When is everyone getting here exactly?"

Fury blinked. "The Starks? Soon enough. The eldest runs on his own time. I'm pretty sure he's in different timezones half the time."

"I see."

Apparently Steve's disappointment was evident on his face because Fury tsked with a simper.

"Don't worry, Captain. You'll be getting plenty of R&R with his sister."

Stark Private Jet

American Air

2:00 PM

"You know, we were supposed to head out this morning," Lea chided from her position on the couch. She was sprawled out on the luxury leather and still in baggy sweatpants and a Judas Priest t-shirt, her hair messily braided down her back. Tucked between her shoulder and ear was her StarkPhone and in her lap was a miniature and portable SmartScreen (which was about the size of the better known and more famous iPad. Then again, the SmartScreen had yet to leave the private lives of the Stark household and be released to the public.).

"We're in the air, aren't we?" Tony replied snootily.

"Yeah, only because I got tired of you not getting up and I dragged you out of bed."

"Can you blame me? I was exhausted! Can you imagine staying up all night running through tedious paperwork and clips of our supposed new allies while my sister got to have fun and play with her new armor and then sleep blissfully? Can you even imagine filing paperwork and cramming hundreds of pages of information into your brain?"

"I sometimes have to do it on a daily basis. Remind me to care another time. Now, Jarvis, where were we?"

"The thrusters and flight stabilizers, Miss," Jarvis's voice informed in her ear. "By the way, the coding for the camouflage has been completed. Would you like me to install it into the armor?"

"Muy bien," Lea praised. "Okay, sweet. Do you have Mark III ready for use? S.H.I.E.L.D is coming by to pick that up as backup and I've got Mark IV on the jet. I'll use it in the meantime until Mark V is ready. What's the time estimation on that?"

"Two days at the least."

"Thanks, J, you're a doll."

Lea groaned when her phone beeped to signify there was another caller on the line.

"Pepper's on the phone. I've got to head out. Send the files to Mini, will you?"

"I'm uploading the files to your portable SmartScreen now."

"How's your Mark V coming along?" Tony asked from his perch on the table.

"Good," Lea assured as she clicked the button to put Pepper on the line. "I'm adding a camo coat under layer for use incase I need to become invisible to the naked eye and why hello to you too, Pepper!"

Tony winced at his sibling's sudden shift in tone. He could hear the undertones of a pissed Pepper on the other end of the line.

"Oh, you want to talk to my darling brother?" Lea grinned which then caused Tony to wave his hands and mouth the word "no" in frantic repetition.

"I'm not here, I'm not-Hi, Pep." Tony forced cheerfulness into his voice and shot several nasty glares at his sister who had shoved the phone to his ear. "I'm a little busy can I...how do you know that-okay, so I'm not really busy, but-"

Lea grinned and tuned out their conversation as she focused back on Mini.

"Lea, tell Pep that we're not late, Lea tell her," Tony begged. It was obvious Pepper was giving him a hard time.

"I'm busy now, can I ignore you another time?" Lea said offhandedly.

"Out of 10,000 sperm, you had to be the quickest," Tony grumbled. "Wait-no! Pepper, I wasn't talking to you, my sister was being annoying."

"Not everyone is annoying, Tony, some are dead," Lea reminded as she flicked through the new paperwork on Mini.

"The point is, Pepper, I'm on my way now-"

Tony's voice suddenly disappeared and another was woven into the indistinct drone of conversation that had emerged from nowhere. She could hear orders being yelled, fingers flying over keyboards, and the overall bafflement that came with it.

"This is your room for now, Captain Rogers. Your locker is down the hall from the bridge-"

There were certain flashes of metal halls and gleaming screens, a small bed, couch, and TV.

Lea bat her eyes as hard as she could as she tried to wash away the images.

"Earth to Lea Bea." A hand waved in front of her face. Amelia grabbed her brother's hand and she composed a smile on her face. He must have been genuinely concerned if Tony was using her childhood nickname.

"I'm fine," she reassured, but the uneasiness and nerve agitation kept coming. "Sorry, I just zonked out. I was thinking."

Tony clicked off her phone and he slipped it into her hand. He could see clearly that she was having another round of nervousness. In turn, he moved out of her grip and wrapped his hand over hers to caress her knuckles with his thumb.

"You suck at fibbing, kiddo."

"Tell me something I don't know," Lea yawned. Sleep was usually her body's defense against the petrifying fear.

"That would be hard to do. I did teach you all you know."

Lea threw a pillow at him and collapsed face down on the couch.

"Your ego is the universe," she mumbled out of the side of her mouth and into the leather as her eyes grew heavy with fatigue.

Tony tossed the pillow back to his sister and she tugged in under her head. Lea adjusted herself and shifted her weight around for a few heartbeats to get comfortable. As exhaustion set and she drew her limbs close, she could hear the familiar and warm whisper of the voice that had been uttered in her dreams so many times.

"Golly, they recovered my shield too?"

"Is that okay, Captain?"

"Yes, it's perfect. There's just...there's a lot of memories in this shield."

The unexpected raw power of depression and weariness only ground down her bones more, only set the sleepiness deeper in her skin as Lea drifted off to sleep.

Unlike the emptiness of the void that recently came with the voice she had always known, Lea's dreams were pleasant. She dreamed of her childhood, of tattered sheet capes tied around her neck and fluttering in the breeze and reached for the summits of the clouds, circlets of flowers in her hair, a little hand tucked into big one, and tumbling through the grasses on the Malibu cliffside. She dreamed of the pitter patter of feet and rain splatters, little fingers drawing shapes on foggy glass and chasing drops as they rolled down the windows. The hum of her brother's voice resounding through her end of a paper cup, the vibrations of speech in the string, breathy laughter, and silly secrets. Dancing to rock and roll, air strumming to AC/DC, and her brother's baritone rendition to Hey Jude when she was sick and trapped in bed with a spiking fever. Tony guiding her hands to the placement of different machinery, quizzing her on science and engineering facts, and how to properly defuse a hard drive while hacking into a system. A city of skyscrapers, the great oaks of a concrete forest that were so high they seemed to break through the heavens, waves crashing and lapping at the shore, the smell of brine and the cackle of sea birds, and her reflection in the ocean of turquoise.

Then there was her in pictures that the press managed to snap at conferences she was forced to be dragged to because Pepper was busy or the agents thought it would make Tony look good. Him with a snarky smile and oozing confidence, his chocolate eyes sharp while Lea was balanced on his knee with bright eyes like shards of ice or pieces of the sky.

Lea could still remember her first time meeting the paparazzi and how they had practically chased them down the street.

"Tony? How come people want to take so many pictures of us?"

"Because I'm insanely hot and all the chicks dig me."

"Really?"

"You being gorgeous certainly helps."

The five year old wound her fingers tighter around Tony's pointer and middle finger.

"Will they always be taking photos of us?"

"Yup. It's one of the downsides to being incredibly photogenic. You want ice cream before we meet the board?"

There were other times, like when she was eight, that the strange photographers and press grew black-hearted.

"Tony!" she wailed as the herd of cameras and microphones grew tighter around her, suffocating her, compressing her down onto the sidewalk. Lea had gotten separated from her brother when they were exiting a huge board meeting and the vultures had taken advantage of it.

"Amelia-hey! Get away from her!" Tony shouted, cussing and shoving through the paparazzi. Lea's arms shot up and her brother hauled her up to his chest as his little sister hung onto him like a monkey. She buried her face in his suit and began to sob as he kept one arm under her and the other hand in her hair as he sprinted away and leaped into the limo.

That was when the anxiety had started and the late nights up with her brother when she felt like puking but nothing would come up and when she felt as if her throat was constricting and she was dying but air didn't stop rushing to her lungs.

When Lea's eyes fluttered open for a few brief moments, she noticed that her brother was sitting on the floor and leaning against her legs. A thick quilt was covering her from the neck down and the edges were folded under her tightly in a swaddle.

Too many assumptions had been made by the public about her brother. Once you got past his humor, barbed tongue, sarcasm, and selective hearing, in the recesses of his heart existed the coolest big brother in the whole wide world and the big teddy bear that had raised his sister.

~Illumini