Steve had gone for a run early that morning. He needed to do something, anything to get rid of the frustration building up within, because he couldn't help Bucky, because he couldn't help Hermione, because he felt trapped within SHIELD and as powerless as he used to be before the serum. He stopped when the light shifted from dark blues to hues of gold and pink with the rising sun. It might have been beautiful if he wasn't so alone once more.

As if conjuring her, Hermione suddenly appeared in front of him, holding his wrist. Not the real her, but her flickering form he'd seen once before. It was a relief though. She was still there, still trying to make it back to him. Her lips moved, but no sound accompanied them. He was convinced she was saying his name though, and… apologizing? Although he couldn't fathom for what.

"Where are you?" he asked in return, hoping she could hear him at least, because he would find a way to her if she couldn't find one to him.

She said some words, but his confusion must have been evident, because her shoulders slumped in defeat, and she shook her head. She motioned for him to hold his hand open instead, palm up. He mirrored her movements, and she held her other hand over it, then focused on that until he felt something appear there. She took her hand away, and indeed, a small, round, green ball lay there, real and solid. It was Robin, her pocket A.I.

Before he could ask her anything, she leaned towards him, her ghost-like lips on his, then she let go of his wrist and was gone.

Steve pocketed Robin. Theoretically, only her voice could activate it, but he was sure its creator had another way into the device. He ran back to Stark Tower, knowing without a doubt she had left a message for him inside, an explanation as to where she was and how he could help her return.

He ran, and before he knew it, he stood, panting and sweating, in front of Tony. Instead of answering the dozens of questions Tony had already asked, Steve reached into his pocket and opened his palm.

"Robin? But how?"

"She always finds a way. Can you activate it?"

"Can I?" Tony scoffed, leading him back to his lab.

It took longer than Steve anticipated, or it was just that every second stretched into an eternity of doubt and self recrimination.

"It's ready," Tony said, finger hovering over a button.

Steve hesitated. Of course he wanted to hear it, but he had no idea what to expect and it felt like one of these forks in the road he'd come upon several times already in his short life.

"I can leave," Tony assured him, misreading his hesitation. "You just have to hit this key here. Any idiot can do it."

"No. Stay," Steve said in earnest. "Please? I have a bad feeling… I could use a friend."

"Yeah, that's turning into a full-time job," Tony joked, which kind of fell flat since it was all too true. "Alright, here goes nothing."

"Steve."

Hermione's voice rang out, loud and clear in Tony's high tech lab, as if she was right next to them.

"I don't know if you're on your own listening to this. Last I saw, Bucky was still comatose, and I guess you probably went to Tony to unlock Robin… Hi, Tony. Your lab is an absolute mess by the way."

Tony huffed, but he looked pleased at being acknowledged.

"Anyway, whoever is listening, I don't think it matters at this point."

Steve's insides twisted. This is not how you prefaced good news.

"I'm sorry, Steve. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to abandon you and Bucky in Sokovia. I was in so much pain, I must have apparated away… Honestly, I don't remember, but I woke up in the hospital. I don't know if I can forgive myself if Bucky doesn't wake up."

Steve clenched his fists. She got it all wrong. He didn't think she apparated, because there had not been that tell-tale cracking sound which happened whenever she did. He'd thought about it a lot, and come to the conclusion the yellow stone had sent her away, much like the Tesseract had brought her back along with Loki. He could be wrong, but he knew without a doubt she would have been a dead weight for them had she stayed. Steve and Bucky had barely made it out without her unconscious body, so it was actually a good thing she'd disappeared.

Tony glanced at him, hand hovering over the device as if asking if he wanted him to stop it, but Steve shook his head. He needed to know.

"I can't come back," Hermione continued, the blunt words everything he'd feared, but he forced himself to keep listening and not go on a rampage on the sandbags in the tower's gym.

Tony laid a hand on his shoulder, grounding him. He wasn't alone. If anyone could figure out a solution, it was Tony Stark.

"Not now. Maybe not ever. But I'll try. I'll never stop trying, Steve. I promise."

The silence that followed started to make him panic that was all there was to the message, because he couldn't help her with so little information. Thankfully, she must have just been gathering her own thoughts because she went on.

"I know you'll believe me of all people, Steve, but a woman who calls herself the Ancient One has locked me into this other dimension. It's so weird here. Everything is a reflection of the dimension you're in currently. Or everything except the people since they're just reflections of you. I can't talk to them, they're just empty shells copying your movements. But if you got this message intact, there's still hope, I think. It means this dimension is not completely airtight, and I can use you as an anchor, Steve. From my side, you have a mark on your wrist. I never noticed on your side so maybe look into that. Oh! I'm probably looking at you right now from my side so no need to figure out a way to give me the results, I'll have them in real time."

Tony paused the message as he chuckled, and he looked around as if he might see her somewhere, but then he looked at his wrist.

"You might have told us which one, Sabrina, because from here, Mr Perfect has, unsurprisingly, two perfect looking wrists," Tony told Hermione as if she really was here with them.

He still had trouble wrapping his head around the concept. On the other hand, he knew exactly which wrist she was talking about: the one her ghost had been holding onto, the one the Tesseract had burned in New Mexico, not long before she reappeared. He held it up to Tony as he explained it to him.

"The serum's done its work alright. There's isn't a trace of that burn, but maybe we can find something more in depth," Tony agreed, pulling him by said arm towards a scanner of sorts, humming at the results as he spoke to empty air next to him.

Hermione must be loving it if she was truly standing in a mirror dimension to theirs. He let Tony babble about gamma rays and dimensions and wormholes, but eventually he got too antsy wanting to hear the rest of the message.

"I wish I could tell you more about the Ancient One, but I don't have much, not even a name, just that she's old, bald, and probably lives in your dimension. She said she's been keeping an eye on me since I dropped in yours in 1942, so obviously she is not from my own home dimension."

The message cut unexpectedly followed by Tony exclamation.

"Whoa! What does she mean 'not from my home dimension'? She's from another other dimension? Did you know that, Cap? Because your mind doesn't look blown enough."

"Well… yeah."

"Don't well-yeah me. This is fucking huge! I have so many questions. Wait… Who else knows? Please don't tell me I'm the last one out of the loop again. I hate that."

Steve winced.

"No, just Bucky. I promise. Like she said, it's a bit too unbelievable, so we tend to keep that part out."

Tony tried not to smile, but it was a failure.

"Okay… so what about the timey-wimey stuff then? That never made sense either. Is her dimension running ahead or something?"

"I don't think we ever figured that out. She was in London in 1999 when she dropped into our dimension in New York in 1942."

Tony was taking notes, looking more serious than ever.

"But she did time travel over short periods of time in her dimension before that, and then she disappeared in 1945 in the Alps and reappeared in 2011 in New Mexico. We were afraid she might disappear again one day."

"Doubtful… she disappeared when you technically did, and reappeared when you were marked. Unless you disappear first, looks like she's safe."

Steve nodded. That actually made sense. It was the first price of good news he got in a while.

"Huh," was all Tony said, before looking at him, then shaking his head. "No wonder nothing ever fazes you. You're dating an impossibility."

With that, he pressed play once more.

"She says I'm too dangerous, that I've been marked by artifacts, three of them to be exact, so I'm guessing the Tesseract and the yellow stone we found in Sokovia, but I don't know what the third one is..."

"Something to do with time travel, obviously," Tony snarked. "The Tesseract is used to move through space, and the yellow stone… well, that, I'm not sure what it does yet, but if it really came out of Loki's staff, it's got to have something to do with mind control. I'll find out though. I always do."

Steve hoped Hermione heard that. He knew they would need Tony's brain, secrets be damned.

"She intends to keep me here, but I'll escape. I promise. I love you both. And… don't do anything stupid."

The message ended for good this time. Tony left it plugged into his computer though, and gave him a sly look.

"She meant Bucky," Steve said, rolling his eyes.

"I don't know. I'm irresistible. Let's get her back and make sure."

Tony winked, making a joke and a promise all rolled into one, then he just went to work, mining his A.I. for more information on the Ancient One, on Space and Time travel, on the multiverse, and God knows what else, all the while talking to the empty air next to him.

He wondered what they did to deserve such a friend as Tony Stark, but whatever it was, he'd do it all over again, despite the ups and downs they went through to get here.

Feeling useless with all the science stuff, Steve went to check in on Bucky, sitting by his bed to tell him everything that had happened since he left for a run. He didn't know if Bucky could hear him, nobody did, but if there was the slightest chance he could, he wouldn't let him feel lonely.

As he did though, he realized the Ancient One could be right here in New York right this minute. After all, if she had been observing Hermione since her arrival in New York and had now locked her in a parallel dimension, again when she'd set foot in New York, this entity had to have some kind of attachment to the city, right? It wasn't much to go on, but he pretended like Bucky had twitched his eyebrow in approval, and he ran back to Tony's lab to tell him about it.

Of course, Steve couldn't then just stay at the tower doing nothing, even if Tony promised Jarvis would notify him about old, bald ladies in the city, so he walked the streets of New York, hoping fate would just put this Ancient One on his path. There were surprisingly few, but Steve did spot Spiderman slinging from building to building after someone using wings. It wasn't Sam though, because his wings were metallic and sleek, not dark and bulky. Sam would never cause so much damage to the people below him either. The thought occurred to Steve to help out, but he couldn't match their speed and he suddenly felt like an old man again. Dejected, he went back home to Bucky.

To make matters worse, Fury was still on his case, and summoned him a few days later when Natasha had tracked down Strucker and his two experiements.

"Turns out you hit gold when you found Strucker," Fury told him. "He is by far the most influential head of HYDRA left today, but you destroyed his research facility and means to create a new army before he could rally more HYDRA cells under his banner."

"Great. So where is he now?" Steve asked, but who he really wanted was the red witch.

"Agent Romanoff tracked him back to his motherland."

"Germany," Natasha added before Steve had to ask.

He'd be a lot less annoyed by these meetings if Fury stopped being so cryptic all the time. His Pierce glamour was not helping matters either. Steve just wanted to punch his smug, ferrety face half the time.

"So we're leaving for Germany," Steve concluded.

"No need," Natasha smirked. "A little bird told me he was planning a trip to New York. He's coming to us."

Steve couldn't believe their luck. Of all the places… He frowned. There had to be a reason.

"Why? Is he planning revenge against us for destroying his facility?" he asked.

More likely, he was coming for the yellow stone, but Fury wouldn't know about that.

"Remember all the Chitauri tech being stolen these last weeks?" Fury asked instead.

Steve nodded. He'd informed Pierce-Fury himself about the thefts, suspecting HYDRA to be behind it.

"It appears Strucker wants to make use of it. He must have a haul hidden somewhere in or near the city, but we haven't been able to locate it yet."

So in fact, there was no reason for Strucker not to come here. He probably wanted to kill three birds with one stone. HYDRA was generally efficient, if nothing else.

For this mission to be successful, they needed the Avengers to assemble. The last powerful HYDRA cell plus two enhanced agents were too much to take on by his own. Their failed mission with Bucky and Hermione proved as much, and Steve, for one, was glad for the back up. It wasn't all the Avengers, of course. Bruce was not welcome to hulk out in New York, Thor was still off planet, and Hermione was off dimension. As for Bucky, Steve wondered if he counted as an Avengers now that Tony didn't want to murder him on sight.

Fury's plan to take Pierce's place had finally paid off too, because Strucker made direct contact with him as soon as he set foot on American soil. A courtesy which might be some HYDRA protocol concerning tetritories they weren't privy to, but which Fury took full advantage of, offering Strucker whatever assistance he needed for "the cause".

Thus, they knew exactly where to find him, and he was quickly isolated and surrounded by the Avengers along with a troop of loyal SHIELD agents, namely Broderick's infamous Furies, a faction Nat and Clint couldn't stop laughing about, and vowed to join as soon as this mission was over.

When the order came, Steve was one of the first ones in the warehouse. He ignored the piles of Chitauri ships and weapons, as well as the alien whale carcass which was giving off the pungent smell he had attributed to the piers' muddy waters. All his attention was laser focused on the woman dressed in red, standing behind Strucker with a bored air about her.

Tony was the first to hit, hard and fast, as he flew in through the rafters, sowing chaos in HYDRA's ranks, just the way they liked it. And Steve would have knocked the witch out, his shield gliding true through the dust, smoke, and bullets, until it was knocked off course at the last second by an invisible hand, or it would have been invisible if it wasn't for the trail he left in the dusty air. Taking out his pocket shield, Steve fully intended to get rid of the obstacle in his way, but the enhanced menace dropped right before he could throw, one of Clint's arrows sticking from his calf, creating a tiny thunderstorm in the settling cloud of dust.

Steve ran, picked up his real shield from the floor and immediately had to use it to protect himself from another thunderstorm of red lightning filling the warehouse from above. When he peeked out from the shield, most everyone had dropped to the floor like flies, eyes open but vacant. Hovering above the battleground was the red witch in all her fury, and Tony, facing off with her. Judging by what he was hearing, they had history of sorts. Steve hesitated, but when stray shots from the aerial battle almost buried Clint under the pile of alien tech, he got his priorities straight and pulled his comatose friends and assorted SHIELD agents out of the rapidly collapsing warehouse.

Conscience clear, Steve returned inside. Tony seemed to have made little progress on taking down the red witch. He needed an opening, a diversion to get a hit in. Looking around, Steve grabbed the largest piece of Chitauri ship and threw it at her. She blasted it in pieces, shielded herself from Tony's attack, as well as his pocket shield, but not the other one he'd made rebound around the warehouse beams to hit her from behind. She dropped limply to the ground, landing on the decomposing space whale.

"Finally," Tony muttered, landing beside him while Steve pulled the witch off the beast to secure her with these special handcuffs SHIELD had given them.

Supposedly, they would prevent her from using her powers. They secured the other enhanced HYDRA agent, and put them on Strucker too, just in case. They had no proof he was enhanced, but you never knew with these fuckers.

"I'm borrowing her," Steve said, picking up the limp form of the red witch. "Tell Fury I'll bring her back when I'm done."