"You are going to help me locate the sergeant, aren't you?" Loki asked a little sharply.

"Mr. Stark and I have already been working on that since Captain Rogers and Agent Romanoff returned to the Tower, which was two months ago. But I do believe that we're getting close. We first spotted him in Washington, DC, but he seems to have made a comfort zone out of Brooklyn the past month. I believe he's getting his memories back."

"That's a good thing, correct?"

"Not necessarily; he was – I repeat – a brainwashed assassin for HYDRA. That means a lot of horrible things occurred at his hands, unwillingly though that may have been."

"So he would benefit from being in Captain Rogers presence, then, yes?"

"Soulmates do tend to have a knack for soothing one another," JARVIS replied. "So it may be worth the attempt."

"Wonderful," Loki groaned, folding himself down onto his… well, it was nothing more than a mattress, actually. "Can we perhaps speed up your process of finding him?"

"No, Mr. Stark and I cannot; we're pooling all of our resources on the subject as it is."

"Then speed up the 'resource-pooling'!"

"We're doing the best we can already. Calm yourself; your heart rate is showing an unusual spike."

"Forget you!" Loki snapped. "Maybe I have my own way to find him," he murmured to himself before declaring to JARVIS, "I'm returning to Asgard temporarily. I should be back in New York within 24 hours."

"Would you like me to inform the others you were here?"

"No," Loki replied with a sly smile. "I think I would like to surprise our dear captain instead."

Without another word, Loki was gone again. He went back through the portal he'd used to go to Midgard and once he was on Asgard, he went straight to Heimdall.

"I require your services, gatekeeper," he announced. "I must have the location of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, one of Captain Rogers' soulmates. You can give it to me, could you not?"

"I could," Heimdall replied. "But in this case your assisting of fate is unnecessary. Let the sergeant care for himself; your efforts are better directed towards the warrioress, Margaret Carter."

Loki stared silently at the gatekeeper for a long moment wanting to protest, but he'd slowly learned to trust Heimdall's judgment over the past two years and he would do so now. "Very well, I will go request one of Idunn's apples instead then."

"You're no longer king, my prince," Heimdall pointed out. "She does not have to oblige you; your strange request may well be better received if you wait until morning instead of waking her now. You should return to your chambers and sleep for a few hours."

"Why do people continue to insist upon that? I do not wish to sleep!" He took a deep breath to calm himself, deciding, "Research. I shall go to the library and research a spell that I'll require."

And he moved in that direction, leaving Heimdall alone in the observatory, sighing at him.

It had been seven in the morning when the Avengers had gotten the call to assemble from JARVIS – the AI had located another HYDRA base, and this one housed enough explosives to level all of New York, so it couldn't wait. Three hours later, though, Clint was half-dead on his feet and running out of arrows. None of the other Avengers were faring any better… and he realized suddenly that they might just be losing.

He was on one of the few still-standing roofs on the secluded countryside estate, and he couldn't get a good enough look at his teammates on the ground.

"Cap, I'm out," he cried into his comm. "I don't have any ammo left!"

"Sit tight and stay low," came the order. "Nobody else is in any better shape; we may have to retreat and come back later."

"They'll move the explosives if we do that!" Natasha protested.

"We may not have a choice," Cap sighed.

But then someone dropped in out of nowhere beside Clint, already sniping HYDRA agents before the archer could even think to be startled. "Maybe we do have a choice," Clint informed Cap, watching the sniper in slight awe as he asked him, "Who are you?"

"You got Captain America on that comm?" he muttered, ignoring Clint's question.

"Yeah."

"Tell him you've got somebody up here who… wants to give him some of his stupid back."

Clint did a double take, mentally blaming the man's first-rate sniping for the fact that he hadn't noticed the metal arm before now. Realizing who he was looking at, Clint muttered an oath and relayed the message to Cap with a smile.

And then received dead silence on the comms. "Cap, you there?"

"Nope," Steve said, landing on the roof on Barnes' opposite side – courtesy of Ironman, apparently. "I'm right here."

Barnes smiled, but he had yet to stop gunning down HYDRA goons. "Hiya, punk," he greeted, still not taking his eyes off of his task. "What do you say we finish these guys off and then find a place to talk?"

"Sounds like a plan," Steve answered, beaming.

"Then get back down there; I've got your six."

"Always," Steve replied, grudgingly doing as he'd been told.

"Hey," Barnes called, tossing a box of bullets after him. "Give these to the girl; she's getting too low on ammo."

Clint smiled, informing him once Steve was gone, "I like you already."

"Then you're about to like me a lot more." Barnes reached into a hidden pocket on his vest and pulled out a dozen arrows that he'd reclaimed on the way to Clint. "Let's get this done; I have a soulmate to talk to."

Loki was back on Midgard by 10:30 that morning, shape-shifted into Captain Rogers as he walked into the nursing home that, according to information from JARVIS, was home to Margaret Carter.

A nurse winced as he walked in, declaring, "I'm afraid she'd having a bad day today, captain. She's taken a turn for the worse."