"I guess," said Sam, "the good thing is that we were planning on going to the Ghost Zone anyway."

"You were what?" asked Maddie. She looked sideways at Stark. "It was my understanding that the problem had to do with aliens. Not ghosts. Not our area of expertise, but of course—"

"We'll beat up anyone that messes with our kids!" The statement was emphasized by the sound of the bazooka cocking.

The effect was slightly ruined by Sam's knowledge that the sound was an entirely unnecessary addition Jack and Maddie had built in. A flip of a switch could disable it entirely.

"Ow!" yelped Jazz.

"Well, if our doctor hadn't just been zapped into a hell dimension, you'd be getting better care," said Romanov.

"And if your arrow guy didn't shoot me, I wouldn't need medical care."

"I said I was sorry!" said Barton, who was doing some kind of wrist exercises now that he was no longer tied up. "I was being mind controlled."

"Stuff you do while being overshadowed doesn't count!" agreed Jack.

"I don't blame you for shooting me," said Jazz. "I am judging you for the whole unsecured interdimensional portal thing and missing the obvious Nazis."

"They're not that obvious," said Romanov.

"We are wasting time," said Thor. "Open your portal to Helheim and retrieve Banner so we can continue our search for my brother."

"That is the reason Dr. Banner was brought on board," said Romanov.

"I'm not sure we do need to search for him," said Jazz. "It's something I've been thinking about. The things Danny wanted from us, I mean. I'm sure Sam and Tucker have, too. But, Mom, Dad, you remember the ecto-converter? How much power could it…" She shook herself subtly. "How much power could it extract from a level seven ghost? How many places can produce that much power?"

"A level seven ghost? Where would Loki even—" Maddie cut herself off. "Oh, right. Phantom."

"Danny," corrected Sam.

Maddie sighed. "He'd need a power plant. For a portal like the one he's creating…" She trailed off.

"Didn't you guys make a portal in your basement?" asked Barton.

"The Ghost Zone's different! It's always around us, right next to us, even now, and it's chock full of energy! Once it connects, it's—Well, not easy to make it self-sustaining, but it's doable!" explained Jack. "But his portal, it goes somewhere in this universe. Somewhere really far away, right?" He looked to Thor for confirmation.

"I believe that to be so," agreed Thor.

Jack pumped his fist. "Yeah! So, Loki's gotta get some power to punch through that difference!"

"But the reason HYDRA and SHIELD wanted the Tesseract in the first place was the power it could produce," said Captain America. "Wasn't it?" He shot Romanov and Barton a look that wasn't quite a glare.

"Oh, yeah, Mr. America, sir! That thing has loads of power!"

Captain America pointed a finger at Jack. "Don't call me that. It's Rogers. Steve. Even Captain America. But if the Tesseract has power, then what—"

"Think of it like a potential barrier," said Stark, who was tinkering with a piece of his armor. "Or activation energy. Or, if that's too scientific for any of you, needing to heat something up, put energy in, before it burns, puts energy out. Which is technically activation energy." He jerked his head sharply to one side. "So, that checks out. I don't suppose he told you where he was going?" he asked Barton.

"Not really. The last few days are a bit… Blurry. And I didn't need to know. What I didn't need to know, I didn't ask about. I mostly remember Loki and Danny arguing about it. One of the places was apparently pretty heavily populated."

Natasha paused. "Fenton—Danny was arguing with Loki?"

"Not real arguments. More repeatedly stating his opinion. But he did seem… different from… the rest of us."

"Well, knowing that might help us rule things out," said Maddie. "Beyond that, we can eliminate anything too inconsistent, like wind power. Probably not hydroelectric, either. Nuclear? Coal?"

"I don't know," said Stark. "That doesn't seem like Loki. I mean, far as I can tell, there was no reason for him to be walking down the street in the middle of Amity Park. He was grandstanding. Whatever he's doing, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience. I know the type."

"Because you are the type?" asked Romanov.

"Ha ha, very funny. I might be a narcissist, but Loki, Loki's a full-tilt diva."

"Stark."

Stark waved Thor off. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. He's still your brother. But we've made him run twice, now. How's he going to react to that?"

"Loki has never liked losing. But then, neither of us has."

"He wants to beat us." He pointed a screwdriver at Thor before turning it on Maddie. "He wants parades, he wants flowers, he wants monuments with his name plastered—" He froze.

"You thought of something?" asked Jazz.

Stark rubbed his hand over his mouth. "He's going to Stark Tower."

"Great," said Jazz. "So we can get going!"

Maddie nodded and turned to the control panel to punch in coordinates. "But don't think we forgot what you were saying about going to the Ghost Zone, young lady."

"It's not like we were going to hide it from you," said Sam, exasperated. "We're going to go fight an army, right? So, we're going to need an army. We have contacts on the other side, or at least Danny does."

"I don't think introducing ghosts to this situation is the right thing to do," said Maddie.

"Come on, you can't think that all ghosts are evil after—"

"Danny's not a ghost, he's a unique case—"

"Wow, I can just imagine that conversation going well. 'Danny, we only think you're half evil—"

"Sam!" snapped Jazz. "That's not necessary. Mom, I've met some of these people, and if we don't manage to stop the portal from opening, and everyone on the other side can do stuff like what Loki did when he was fighting Tucker, we'll need back up beyond a bunch of people with guns. No offense."

"None taken," said Captain Rogers. "I agree. We should notify the local police and National Guard—"

"About what, an alien invasion?" asked Stark, whose work on his armor had become notably more frantic.

"Well, we can't exactly tell HYDRA."

"Wait, wait," said Barton. "That was real? That was a real thing? SHIELD has been infiltrated?"

"Yep," said Romanov. "Not the news you wanted?"

"Not really, no," said Barton.

"The army," said Captain Rogers. "They're reliable? You can really get them to come?"

"At least some of them are," said Jazz. "The Far Frozen, Dora's people, the Greeks."

"And even for the unreliable ones, a lot of them used to live here." Tucker shrugged. "They might still care enough to help."

"Then we need them. Dr. Fenton, Dr. Fenton, will you be able to build a portal?"

"Between the porta-portal and the rest of what the kids brought, we should be able to make a stable portal if we start now," said Maddie.

"Actually, we don't need to do that," said Tucker. "Not for this part, anyway. Might need it later, for the actual army. Can I have my staff back now?"

Romanov frowned deeply, but swung the long, thin bag off her shoulder.

"Thank you. I can send a few of us straight to the Zone."

"Are you okay to use that?" asked Jazz.

"I can handle it," said Tucker, notably not yet opening the bag. "I didn't go full megalomaniac when I was fighting Loki in Amity Park."

"You tried to bite me," said Iron Man.

"I'm sure that's a common problem," said Sam, dryly. "Who's going?"

"I was thinking me and Val," said Tucker.

"I will join you," said Thor.

"The Ghost Zone isn't for everyone," warned Sam. "It takes some getting used to. And you kinda need to be able to fly."

"I can fly, and while I am sure you are both fine warriors—" he inclined his head towards Tucker and Val "—returning Banner to this realm will require strength."

"Isn't anyone going to ask me if I want to go?" asked Val.

"Don't you?" asked Tucker.

"Sure, but…" She swallowed. "Jeez. This is really happening. Yeah, I'm going to go. How do we do this?"

"Just stand near me. Uh, Mrs. Fenton, where will your portal be in the Ghost Zone?"

"We'll try to put it near our home portal," said Maddie. "But we don't have a lot of experience with placing portals in specific places in the Ghost Zone. There hasn't exactly been a point."

"Oh! I've got an idea!" exclaimed Jack. He dove sideways, making Barton jump out of the way and opened a cabinet under one of the dashboards. "You can use this!" He chucked a blocky item at Tucker.

"The Fenton Finder?"

"Upgraded!"

"We added a feature to find the Ops Center after it got lost last time," explained Maddie. "The signal should be able to work through a portal."

"Okay," said Tucker, "got it."

"Great," said Captain Rogers. "You three go. Fentons, you build the portal—"

"One of us will have to keep the Ops Center on track. Our autopilot isn't that good."

"I can do that," said Jazz. "And Sam can tell the rest of you guys what you can expect from fighting Danny."

"I'm not telling you how to kill him or anything," warned Sam. "But his powerset and how to manage ghosts in general… I can do that."

"Cool!" said Tucker. "Now that we've agreed on that, can we go now? You do need to get closer to me, Mr. Thor. Great. Now let's hope Egyptian magic and Norse magic don't explode on contact or anything like that!"

Val did a double take. "Wait, what—"

Sand swept over the three of them, leaving a thin layer on the floor.

Sam clapped her hands together. "Okay, let's get started on Ghost Fighting 101!"

"Aw, I want to do Ghost Fighting 101…"

"We've got a portal to build, Jack."

"Oh! Yeah! Gotta love portals!"

.

"… And those are the basics," finished Sam.

"The basics," repeated Natasha. "Okay. The basics."

"Hey, fighting people who can turn invisible and intangible isn't easy," said Sam, "and Danny's our heavy hitter."

"I don't suppose you have any arrow-type things?"

"I don't know, but I can take you to the armory. If you promise not to shoot Jazz again."

"You've got it."

"And after that, we should all get some rest," said Captain Rogers. "Some of us have been awake for over twenty-four hours."

"Not like an extra hour is going to mean much," said Stark.

"You'd be surprised," said Captain Rogers. "Soldiers learn to sleep when they can."

"We're not soldiers. These kids we're relying on? Especially not soldiers."

"Hey, it's us or HYDRA," snapped Sam.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I have to work on this, anyway." He rapped his knuckles against the faceplate of his helmet.

.

"Wow," said Sam, sitting in the copilot's chair, "that was tiring. Who knew that assassins were so obsessive about weapons."

"Literally everyone," muttered Stark.

"Yeah," said Jazz, "that tracks. Shouldn't you be sleeping?"

Stark snorted. "If anyone is sleeping, I'm a teetotaler. We saw capsicle go thataway, and no one with that kind of expression on their face is sleeping. Drinking, maybe."

"You are a teetotaler, though, aren't you?" asked Jazz.

"What?"

"I mean, I know you used to always be in the paper partying, but given everything, I know you're more responsible than to get drunk when you have direct access to some of the most dangerous weapons in the world."

"There's a huge gulf of difference between getting drunk and having drinks now and again."

"Welp!" said Sam, before Jazz could reply. She did not need to be in the middle of Jazz trying to expand her 'billionaires I have interrogated' list. "I'm going to go see if anyone is sleeping."

She walked out of the control room. The Ops Center was surprisingly large, all things considered. Or maybe not surprisingly. It had more or less doubled the size of Fentonworks. Greater emphasis on more.

Now, if she were the one sulking around, where would she go?

Observation deck, probably. Assuming she knew it existed. She walked through a couple more doors and slid down a ladder. Sure enough...

Well. She had wanted to talk to him.

"Captain Rogers? Are you okay? I thought you wanted to sleep."

"You know," said Captain Rogers, staring down out the window at the rapidly passing countryside, "one of the first things I used the internet to look up was how the war went. SHIELD told me, but the joke about military intelligence, that's an old one. Books had more. Went to my own museum exhibit. Figured out the internet." He shifted his hands slightly on the rim of his shield. "I didn't like the Neo Nazis, wanted to…"

"Kill them all?" asked Sam.

"Something like that." He smiled at her, thin and tense. "I understand why they're not all in jail. I don't like it, but I understand it. I can… live with it, most of the time. There's always going to be bullies. HYDRA, though?" He shook his head, not turning his gaze from the window. "I thought… I really thought we had gotten them. It just feels like all of it was for nothing."

Sam shifted her weight, tapping her foot behind her. "My great-grandparents were from Germany," she said. "I'm Jewish. So, yeah. Kind of a do the math thing." Captain Rogers turned to look at her and she shrugged.

"Miss, you don't have to—"

"You're right, I don't have to. But I am. They, um, they didn't get out in time. But they still got lucky. Sort of. They were caught about the same time the Kreischberg Facility needed more laborers. Slaves. Test subjects. So, they got sent to Austria. It's how they met, actually. You know, other families have cute stories, but- Never mind. They were—The one time I heard it from them, it sounded like they were on the operating tables when you came in." She paused to swallow. "From the beginning, everything you did, it wasn't for nothing. If it was, I wouldn't be here."

The captain looked up at her.

"Just, you know, something to think about. And you really should take your own advice. Get some rest."

.

Danny craned his neck, gazing up at the glittering expanse of Stark Tower from the safety of the alleyway. He'd never seen a building this tall in person. It was honestly giving him a little bit of vertigo.

"Impressive, isn't it?" said Selvig, with a chuckle. "But that's nothing to what we'll have in the next couple of hours."

The part of Danny that was Fenton giggled along with Selvig. Phantom, however, was hoping his friends got his messages, such as they were. Danny as a whole… He had mixed feelings. Obviously. "Yeah, I guess not."

Loki's hand dropped onto Danny's shoulder. "Enough talking."

"Right," said Danny, letting invisibility and intangibility wash over all three of them. "Let's go."