A/N: As I'm actively jobhunting, please forgive sparse updates and my lack of reply to your comments. Know I love every last one of them!

"And you're really not worried about using your wand with your magic, blue hands and all?" Steve asked Hermione as they leisurely walked across New York.

They were headed to the Stark Tower where they had a meeting with Virginia Potts, the new CEO of Stark Industries, and had decided to take the opportunity to rediscover their New York instead of speeding through its streets in a SHIELD-issued car, complete with driver.

"That only happened once, and you know it. Besides, my magic has been acting up for so long now, I don't think it will settle down anytime soon. Either I use the wand and it doesn't work for me, or… breaks." She swallowed hard and took a deep breath before continuing. "Or it doesn't work at all for me anymore. Either way, I have to at least try of we want to defeat this Loki fellow. Nothing to lose, right?"

"So… We just wing it?" Steve concluded.

"Isn't that what we do half the time anyway?"

"I have a plan. It's everyone else who's so bad at following it!"

"You keep telling yourself that," Hermione chuckled before she froze mid-step, squinting upwards. "Wow. That is one ugly building."

Steve dragged his eyes away from Hermione and followed her line of sight to one of the tallest buildings around, slightly curved on one side and with a narrower top.

"Is it just me or does that look like one giant dick?" he asked in a disbelieving whisper.

"No… it's not just you… this time."

Steve huffed and hip-checked her playfully, but she retaliated by making him levitate for a second, just low enough to make him stumble. He caught himself before he crashed into any passers-by, but his cheeks burned from embarrassment. She won this round, like many others. The team had regretted starting a prank war with her back in the day. She was kind of devious.

"After you."

He held open the door for Hermione. Everyone always said he had such good manners, but really, it gave him an admirable view on his girl's shapely behind as she walked past him. He was glad she could wear jeans again in public without being molested. Dames in pants were, without a doubt, his favourite thing in the future. It was a visible sign of the equality they had struggled for, and not even the most provocative of clothes women wore in this time and age.

The secretary at the front desk sent them right up without a second glance, even after giving their names, which was a nice change from all the gawking they had gotten lately. Looking at his surroundings, Steve had to admit the tower looked better on the inside. The reception hall was so spacious you could fit his flat in it several times over, but it was luminous, every surface gleaming to a fault, and the whole thing screamed of money, which wasn't surprising seeing the empire Howard had built.

"Do you think we'll get to meet Howard's son?" Hermione asked, echoing his own thoughts while they sped upwards in the elevator.

No music, Steve noted. Score two for the future. He should keep tabs.

"I'm not sure. Miss Potts was rather vague about that, wasn't she?"

Hermione nodded with a thoughtful expression on her face, but Steve attributed that more to finding her wand than any real worry about a man they had never met, even if he was their friend's son. Arriving at their floor, the elevator did not ding, the doors sliding smoothly open without a sound instead, revealing a stunning ginger lady in a tailored, white skirt-suit waiting for them. Hermione would look good in one of those, not that it would stay on her long if he had to be honest. And images of Hermione in white invariably led him back to the promise he'd made himself to make things right between them and ask for her hand in marriage, but emergencies had a knack of getting in the way.

"Captain Rogers, Sergeant Granger, it's an honour to meet you both. I'm Virginia Potts. Pepper. I mean, you can call me Pepper."

Her cheeks were a bit flushed, and she was talking faster than a flustered Morita, but Steve noted her handshake was much more enthusiastic when shaking Hermione's hand than his own. Looked like his girl had found a fan of her own. Pepper led them to her office, all high windows that overlooked the city. The view was breathtaking. The New York he had know unrecognizable, both in a good and a bad way.

"From what I understood during our phone call, you're looking for a specific item that may have been found on the last Arctic expedition? Would you care to be more specific? Everything has been catalogued so I can search for it in the database immediately if you give me a few details."

Hermione glanced at him and he nodded. Miss Potts seemed trustworthy and it's not like this information could be used against them.

"It's a small object made of wood, about eleven inches long," Hermione mimed the length and shape as she spoke, describing it in minute detail as if it was her very own hand, until she was cut off by a new arrival.

"I'll be damned! If it isn't Captain Antifreeze and Mini-Liberty!"

"Tony," Pepper admonished while Hermione stifled a laugh behind her hand. "I told you they'd be here, so your tardiness is absolutely inexcusable."

As far as first impressions went, Steve wasn't all that impressed, but he'd give him the benefit of the doubt since he was Howard's son. He certainly looked a lot like him, so much so, it was hard not to stare. Hermione was having the same problem by the looks of her, but Stark didn't seem to mind being ogled, so Steve left the beautiful view by the window to stand behind Hermione, eyeing the other man warily. He knew trouble when he saw it.

"I remember that thing. Wood," Stark snorted. "Couldn't figure out what was so special about it, but it was kept in a secure case, so there had to be something. Bugged me for days something fierce. I'll return it, of course…"

Steve could feel the "but" coming from a mile away.

"... if you tell me what it is."

"Tony!" Pepper exclaimed, appalled. "You can't blackmail Lady Liberty."

"Aha, so it's yours," Stark smirked and inched closer to her, lowering his voice as if in confidence. "What is it? You can tell me. I'll take your secret to the grave. Cross my heart and-"

"It's a very pretty stick," Hermione deadpanned. Steve let her have her fun. Stark was going to learn he was messing with the wrong person. "You know, to make chignons."

"Chignons," Stark repeated in a confused, flat voice.

"Hair buns," Hermione explained, using her levitation trick to twist her own hair around in a messy pile on top of her head, then taking one of the pens on Pepper's desk to pin it in place.

"I don't believe your for a second," Stark said, staring at her hair as if it might bite.

"You wanted an answer. You never specified you wanted the truth," she replied innocently, batting her eyelashes with such exaggeration, only a fool would not realized he was being played.

Stark looked shocked for a second, then began laughing.

"Oh, I do like you, Miss Liberty. You're nothing like the bimbos they used in the movies. You should sue the studios."

"Bimbos?" Steve asked with a touch of worry. He hadn't a clue what it meant, but it certainly didn't sound nice.

"All boobs and no brains," Hermione supplied with a shrug.

"What? We should sue," Steve said darkly.

Hermione was the smartest dame he knew. Making her out to be anything less was an insult.

"It's Hollywood. It sells. Bet you're a giant knucklehead in those movies," Hermione said with a teasing smile.

"You kind of are, actually," Stark said and whether he was agreeing with Hermione or just insulting him was anyone's guess. At Pepper's resigned sigh, Steve concluded the man simply had no filter whatsoever on him. "Alright, as promised, I'll have the wood thingy delivered right to your door ASAP."

"I don't want some random chum handling it. I'd rather retrieve it myself. Right now, if possible."

"For a hair emergency?"

"Well, you know how bimbos are with their hair."

"Oh man, Peps! Now I know why you've been fangirling over her all these years! She had a poster of you in her room, you know?" Stark said in a stage whisper which Pepper obviously heard anyway. "Come on, I'll give you two fossiles a ride. I think I left your mystery-wood-thingy in my old lab."

Pepper's fingers danced across the keyboard, a frown darkening her face the more she typed.

"Tony… Did you even bother logging the item out of storage. The inventory says it's still there."

Stark shrugged, already walking out of the office.

"As long as I know where it is, what does it matter? You guys coming?"

"Thank you for your help, Ma'am," Steve said, waiting until Pepper had said her goodbyes to Hermione, which consisted of given her a card and inviting her out for a dinner between girls.

"She's nice," Hermione said as she slipped the card in her pocket. "Why does it make me so suspicious?"

"You just walked off a battlefield. It'll take you a little while to adjust to civilian life," Steve reassured her, taking her hand to lead her back to the elevator. God knew he had needed some time before he stopped reaching out for his missing shield at every unexpected sound and shadow.

"Except we just joined SHIELD. I doubt I'll need to adjust."

"SHIELD, eh?" Stark butted in. "Didn't take them long to nab you two. When did you get here, Missy? Because I clearly remember you not pulling a sleeping beauty next to your Capsicle."

"Yesterday."

"Hu. I'm guessing it's no use asking you how?"

"Nope," Hermione confirmed. Stark fidgeted as the lift took them back down without a sound. "You can't stand not knowing, can you?" she needled.

"I'll find out eventually. I always do."

Steve chuckled. His father, Howard, had been a bit of a gossip too. Not surprising given the number of spying devices he had created for them. He'd had to test them on someone after all, but as a result, he couldn't stand not knowing something.

"But I thought hacking into SHIELD with two SHIELD agents standing right next to me was a bit cocky, even by my standards."

"Hacking?" Steve asked Hermione quietly. He still had a lot to catch up on, and had only recently found a reason to bother getting up to date.

"Uhm. That's a tough one, even for me. It's using your computer to spy into other people's computers?"

"Basically," Stark agreed before rounding on him with a shit-eating grin. "Didn't you get here long before her."

"Sort of," Steve replied with a similar grin, the one that said he had a secret and he was not sharing it. "But not really."

In the perfect timing Fate sometimes allowed him, the elevator doors opened and Steve walked out with Hermione's arm tucked under his. Stark didn't give up though and tried getting answers out of them from every angle, even as he drove them like a maniac across town to an older mansion, complete with wrought-iron gates and elaborate yard. Such a place had to cost a fortune, but he liked it. It had an old charm about it, something of the old New York, of his New York.

Amongst the lavish interior decorated with tapestries, paintings and statues, framed pictures hung on the walls of Howard and his family. Steve didn't recognize his wife, but baby Tony Stark was an adorable little thing. Shame Steve never got to attend his friend's wedding, or bounce his kid on his knee, left instead with this slightly irksome adult version who was a lot like Howard, and yet so different.

Stark got them through a door that needed both his handprint and a number code before they reached what looked the very picture of a mad scientist's lab. He riffled through the top of a table covered in papers, tablets and tools, before triumphantly holding up Hermione's wand. Steve recognized it immediately. Hermione, for her part looked ecstatic and relieved, but it soon turned to worry as her hand, which had been reaching for it until then, paused in mid-air.

"Maybe I should wait for a safe environment before I touch it…" she said with obvious reluctance. "Just in case."

"Just in case what?" Stark needled, twirling the wand in his hand. "It's just wood."

"You know nothing, Mister Stark. I've been known to explode, and this might set me off and destroy this whole room."

"Are you even human?"

"Of course I am. Don't be silly."

"Yeah, right, because people explode all the time and just walk it off," he mumbled like a sullen child before brightening up just as fast. "But I so happen to have a room I used for unstable experiments. You can use that, but it'll only fit you," Stark said, eyeing Steve who had admittedly been staying as close to Hermione as he decently could since she was returned to him.

"How much damage can it contain?"

"Let's just say my first drafts often ended up in smoke. Are you made of C4? Is it like spontaneous combustion?"

"No and no. The safe room?"

It was really just an alcove in his lab, and lucky for them Hermione didn't suffer from claustrophobia, because despite the room being made of clear glass on one side - reinforced and as solid as steel according to Stark - it was nethertheless quite small. Once she had stepped in and turned around, Stark deposited the wand on the floor at her feet.

"You sure about this?" Steve asked, still worried about the blue magic and whatever the Tesseract had done to her magic in Schmidt's lab. It felt like ages ago, but her magic had never been the same as what she had showed him before they went to war. Then, it had been tame, beautiful and practical, but after the Tesseract, her magic had become wild, more destructive and neigh uncontrollable. Let's just say it was a good thing all around Hermione was a good witch.

"I'll be fine, Steve. I always am, right? "

"Famous last words," Stark muttered next to him, and Steve kind of agreed, fighting the urge to take her wand and hide it.

With a final nod of reassurance, Stark closed the door and gave her a unenthusiastic thumbs up. Hermione took a deep breath while Steve held his own, then she leaned over and gingerly touched her wand with the tips of her fingers. Nothing happened and Steve began to relax. Hermione then picked it up and it shot out blue sparks from its tip.

"That normal?" Stark asked him.

"Don't think so," Steve replied, but only because he had never seen it do so before.

Hermione seemed surprised too, but not alarmed, and she began twirling it, saying words they couldn't hear through the secure glass door. Small blue birds appeared and flew around her head like a crown.

"Is that normal?"

"Yeah, that's more like it," Steve said with relief.

She'd used a spell and there was no explosion. Her wand worked and her magic too. Everything was under control. She would be the powerful witch she used to be, not that Lady Liberty with only her levitation spell at her disposal hadn't been, but against an opponent like Loki, he feared she would need more than one trick in her bag. Hermione pointed her wand at the door and it opened on its own, drawing an outraged protest from Stark.

"That's a wand!" Stark said when she stepped out of the safe room, pointing at it. "It's an honest to God magic wand! Why didn't it work with me? Do you have to know the magic words? Is there a magic school? Can you teach me?"

"No," Hermione said with a chuckle. "It only works for me. Sorry."

"So you're a magician? A sorceress?" he looked at the birds still twittering around her head. "A fairy?"

"A witch. But don't tell anyone. Colonel Phillips thought it would frighten our own people and now is not the time to make more enemies."

"Gotcha," Stark agreed but Steve worried that he was already typing on his phone. "Can I just tell Pepper?"

"No one. No offense, but I don't know her."

Stark reluctantly put his phone away while another rang. It took Steve an embarrassingly long time to realize it was his.

"Steve Rogers," he said once he'd managed to press the ridiculously small button to pick up the call.

"Agent Coulson speaking. We have a hit on Loki in Stuttgart, Germany. It's time to suit up."

They thanked Stark for his help and hurried out to hail a taxi when Hermione slapped her forehead, realizing she could just magic them back on the Helicarrier now that she had her wand back.

"But… it moves. I thought you needed a fixed place to teleport."

"The whole planet is in constant movement," Hermione explained with her usual patience. "It's the specific place I'm apparating to, in this case the Helicarrier's bridge, no matter where it is. Well… within reasonable distance."

"As long as you're sure."

Hermione had explained splinching to him and he didn't want to experience that, not even with his enhanced healing, but he would always trust her with his life. She smiled at him and took his hand, the horrendous feeling of being squeezed back to the size he used to be as a sickly runt overwhelmed him for the space of a blink before he expanded back into his full size, right in the control room next to Fury. The man must have nerves of steel because he didn't even flinch.

"You got your weapon back I take it?" he asked and Hermione nodded. "Good, because Loki is wreaking havoc as we speak. Can you teleport there too?"

"Something like that," Hermione said.

"Good. Suit up and be on your way. Bring me that son of a bitch."

They saluted and left for the locker room. His own suit was… colorful. Very patriotic. And tight. As tight as a second skin, but Hermione seemed to approve. Funny because her own was just as tight and she didn't like it at all.

"Look at the bright side, you won't trip on your skirt anymore. And it's a much nicer green than the original."

It had sleek lines all down the front that mimicked folds of cloth though and when Hermione snapped a sort of crown around her head, made of spikes that could cut or tase but also kept her wild curls out of her face, she never looked more like the Statue of Liberty as she did right then. She was a sight to behold and if only they had more time, he'd be peeling her right out of her catsuit again. Maybe keep the crown.

A polite cough behind them pulled him out of his thoughts though and he turned around to see Agent Coulson, who was either constipated or trying very hard not to grin like a madman.

"Your shield, Captain. Got here just in time, I see. Your uniform fits you well."

Remembering Clint's offhand comment that he had not been very warm towards Coulson, or anyone really, to the point the poor man hadn't dared ask him to sign his Captain America trading cards, Steve thought now was as good a time to correct that. Going into battle, every time could be the last chance he got to set right his wrongs.

"It does," Steve answered, flashing his best camera smile. "I heard you had a hand in the design, thanks for that."

"It was my pleasure," Coulson replied with a light blush creeping up his neck, just past his collar. "Yours looks very nice too, Lady Liberty. It's an honour to meet you."

"Agent Coulson," she said as she shook his hand. "The pleasure is all mine. Steve told me so much about you." Coulson looked stunned for a moment and Steve elbowed Hermione for laying it on a bit too thick. "But we really need to go now."

"Yes, of course. Loki was last spotted in Königstraße in Stuttgart. May I ask how you will be travelling there?"

"Portkey," Hermione replied, handing Steve a towel for some reason but not letting go of it herself. "Activate."

The towel glowed blue for the blink of an eye and they were gone. This mode of travelling was similar to Hermione's teleportation, and yet different. Instead of being squeezed through a tube, he was being spun around as if taking a spin in the washer. Steve wasn't sure which was worse and his super-stomach gave a lurch when he found his footing again in the dark street of a German city full of screaming people.

"Mustn't be far," Hermione noted as if the travel had had no effect whatsoever on her.

"Yeah… Uhm… That way," Steve said, taking deep breaths to settle his stomach as he pointed towards a brightly lit building with old columns. A museum, if he wasn't mistaken. All the while, he wondered if he could hitch a ride back to avoid another Portkey travel when they captured Loki. Given the way Hermione was looking at him, half amused, half worried, she wasn't fooled by his nonchalance.

Civilians suddenly poured out of the museum, their screams growing louder, then ran right by them. Women in revealing gowns that sparkled under the streetlights and men in their best black suits, all throwing terrified glances behind them. Steve looked up the steps to the museum's entrance just in time to see Loki walk out, his modern clothes glowing with a golden hue as they transformed into the strange armor he had first appeared in, his dratted spear held as high as his arrogant weasel face.

A couple of police cars suddenly appeared around the corner, siren and lights blazing, but far from deterring Loki, the bastard didn't even hesitate before he blasted them out of the way and sent them spinning across the pavements and into buildings.

"Kneel!" Loki commanded, his voice echoing all around them as doubles of himself appeared all around the street, stopping the people from fleeing.

Steve had no intention to kneel, although most people did, and Hermione snorted at the command.

"I said… KNEEL!"

Only he, Hermione and an older gentleman were left standing. The latter gave Steve a tired smile, which he returned with a nod, while Loki narrowed his eyes at them. Recognition finally sparked a second later.

"The soldier out of time," he said with a mocking tone. "And his companion, the magic-wielder."

Hermione winced but held her head up high, as well as her wand. Steve readied his shield. It was time to take an Asgardian god down a peg or two.