A/n: Sorry for the typos that slipped through and my British-ism shining through.

Thank you for all the amazing feedback. If I haven't replied, know it is loved, I am just squeezed for time.

Enjoy my muse while it's there. You deserve it :)

Hermione looked down at her hands, just as surprised as he was. Upon closer inspection, she seemed to be drawing on the energy the Tesseract had been leaking all this time and which pooled above them on the high vaulted ceiling in a swirling maelstrom.

She looked back at Loki with that wicked smile that had so terrified Bucky, then sent him flying with such force, his limp body embedded into the concrete wall. Steve smirked. See how the bastard liked a taste of his own medicine. Clint was out of the way now, helping his new master, which was a relief, because Steve wasn't sure how to deal with him. They had just began getting friendly and he didn't want to hurt the archer if he was acting against his will.

Steve hurried forward, Hermione jumping off the platform and into his arms as soon as he was close enough. Steve hugged her to him. She was solid, warm, real. She was really here. He buried his face into her wild hair, surprised to smell the familiar scent of the battlefield on her already.

"Get a move on, kids."

Steve startled at the rough voice. He's hadn't expected qto see Fury alive after getting shot multiple times in the back. Body armor, he supposed, but the SHIELD director still seemed in a load of pain if his frown and the way he was sweating was anything to go by.

"Take this to Coulson, or SHIELD, whichever you find first," he continued and thrust the case containing the Tesseract at him. "This whole place is coming down soon."

"What about you? You can't stop that guy, and I'd rather he didn't turn you into one of his puppets."

Fury grimaced and slumped a little.

"Can't run," he admitted.

"I can float him out," Hermione offered. "Looks like you're having trouble of your own."

Steve nodded. Running out of the base before it collapsed on them would already be pushing his limits after the thrashing he got.

"Let's go, then," Hermione urged him. "You lead. I don't have a fucking clue where I am."

Steve chuckled, checked Loki was still indisposed, then headed towards the door. There was an underground parking a level down. It was a risk, going down instead of up when the place was about to bury them under several feet of stone, but it might pay off. Worse case scenario they'd have to jog down the road to get out and pray they were fast enough. Hermione was a step behind him, Fury bobbing above her head with an expression of embarrassed anger which was hard not to laugh at. At least he didn't suffer of levitation-sickness like Morita, because they still had a ways to go. Or would have if the gun in his face hadn't stopped him short.

"Freeze!" The woman ordered. She had a SHIELD uniform, but that didn't mean much nowadays. Her eyes seemed normal enough though. "Drop… the Director. And the case."

"I'd rather she didn't," Fury growled from above. "Get us out of here, Hill. The complex is about to implode."

Hill looked about to argue, but thought better of it and holstered her gun. She spoke briefly into her talkie as she jogged them down a side tunnel Steve hadn't explored yet, but it turned out to be a shortcut to the road tunnel where a jeep was already waiting for them with a driver and engine running. Hermione settled the director in the front seat and they all piled in the back.

"Someone care to explain?" Hill asked.

Steve shrugged, not entirely sure himself. He only had eyes for Hermione right now, needing the proof she was really there. Hermione mirrored his shrug, but she was smiling from ear to ear, her gaze not leaving his. Fury groaned from the front seat.

"Tesseract summoned some nutjob from Asgard. Thor's brother. He flipped Barton, Selvig, at least three other agents, and was handing our asses over to us until Rogers' girlfriend arrived. Am I right to assume she's your girlfriend, Captain?"

"What? You mean-" Hill's chuckle died on her lips as she took a closer look at Hermione and her uniform. "Lady Liberty? How?"

"Don't ask me. One second I was in the Hydra base in the Alps and now I'm here. Where's here?" she asked him.

"New-Mexico. 2011," Steve said immediately, wishing someone had been more straightforward with him when he woke up. Besides, Hermione wasn't a stranger to time jumps herself.

"Oh. That explains a lot."

"It does?" Hill exclaimed with an incredulous tone. "How-"

A blue bolt of energy whizzed past them, cutting Hill off short and taking out the rear view mirror as well as a part of the windshield. The jeep swerved and grazed the tunnel's wall, sending sparks flying everywhere. Steve pulled Hermione to him then looked behind, not surprised to see Loki and his puppets coming after them.

"Whatever happens, he must not get his hands on the cube," Fury said.

Hermione wiggled out of his grasp, intent on the car behind them.

"You can't lift a car," Steve said, knowing it was too heavy for her for having tried during the war.

She tried anyway, but it merely lost control for a second.

"Umph, I was hoping I still had blue hands. Maybe the driver, think he put his seat belt on?"

Steve winced. He recognized that agent, even if he was now working for Loki.

"Do it," Furi said.

The driver was yanked right out of his seat, landing on the road behind where he rolled several times. He might make it if the complex above them didn't bury him alive. With no one behind the wheel, their jeep lost ground on them before Barton hopped in the vacant seat.

Steve ducked behind the seat when he saw another blue bolt heading straight for them, pulling down the two women with him. Luck was not on their side this time. The bolt hit their driver right behind the head and he slumped forward, hitting the gas pedal and blocking the wheel. Fury was trying to kick him out to the side while Hermione tried levitating him, but too late, the car swerved against the wall again, hit a bump, then flipped over. Hermione's still active levitation spell must have helped because they sort of bounced right off the asphalt on the first impact instead of crushing them. To pieces. Unfortunately, with the speed they had been going at, they rolled over a couple more times and got stuck under the jeep.

"Fuckin'hell," Fury muttered.

Good, he was still alive. Hermione and Hill, he could still feel breathing, so that meant they'd all made it relatively intact, excerpt for the poor sod who had been driving them. Under normal circumstances, Steve could lift a car, but these were anything but. If he hadn't been beaten to a pulp just before and if he wasn't pinned at an awkward angle, maybe, but…

"Damn it," Steve cursed under his breath when he realized what was missing. .

"You got more good news, Captain?"

"The case, it slid way over there."

Steve jutted his chin out towards the opposite side of the tunnel where the small briefcase had stopped its course. He tried pushing the car up, muscles straining, and he moved it, but not enough to free them. He needed help.

"Hermione. Hermione, wake up, love."

With their powers combined, they could do it, but Fury shushed him and pointed towards where the case was. Sure enough, the other jeep had stopped next to it. Clint jumped out and picked it up, then his Tesseract-blue eyes narrowed in on them. He looked their way, then at his jeep. Steve held his breath. They could finish them right now, shoot them down like dogs where they lay, unable to defend themselves. That explained why Fury wanted to play dead. The ground shook and stone fell around them, large chunks of them. When the cloud of dust dissipated, Barton, the Tesseract and the jeep had disappeared.

"Now would be the time to wake Lady Liberty," Fury said, voice raspy from the dust they had breathed in.

Steve wished there was an easier way, but all he could do was call her name as he shook her shoulders gently.

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Just give her a good slap. Wake her right up," Fury growled.

"I can't do that!" Steve protested.

Fury huffed, rolling his eyes, then leaned over, wincing in pain at the movement, to slap her back into consciousness. Steve's hand gripped Fury's hand before he could try it again, and they glared at each other, locked in a silent argument over the treatment of dames. Steve was the first to look away when he felt the buildup of magic next to him.

"Now you've done it," he told Fury as magic began to grow in pressure around Hermione.

On the bright side, she was unconsciously pushing the jeep up so Steve wiggled around the newfound space beneath him until he was in a good position to push the car up.

"Get out," he told Fury. "Grab Hill if you can and run before Hermione explodes."

"Files about her sure were incomplete," he muttered but followed his instructions and rolled out from under the car.

His leather-clad arm soon appeared on the other side, dragging the unconscious SHIELD agent away painfully slowly. At this rate, they were going to get caught in the magical backlash. But he couldn't worry too much about them as he already had enough on his hands. Now that they were out of harm's way, Steve braced his feet on the right side near Hermione and pushed up as hard as he could. The jeep tipped up on its side, wavering for a moment there as if undecided whether to crush them or give them a break for once. Steve let out a breath of relief when it tipped over to the left to land back on its wheels. He wondered if it would still work, but first, he needed to take cover. Hermione was about to burst and could really pack a punch when that happened, so he took cover on the other side of the car. He could just make out Fury's silhouette now, , hobbling down the tunnel as he helped Hill along. Man had probably slapped her back to consciousness too, but at least they were now far enough that Hermione's discharge of magic didn't reach them. It did a number on the Jeep however, and he didn't even try to start it up, just picked up his girl in his arms and hurried towards the light at the end of the tunnel while Hermione slowly woke up, blinking up at him like the first time she had discharged on top of the tank, a cute air of confusion about her.

"I think I'm going to miss the Forties," she said.

Steve had to laugh at that given how much she had complained about how backwards society was back then.

"I doubt it's going to get any better," Steve agreed, because he still had to get used to modern times too. "But at least I've got you."

Medic teams took them in charge as soon as they made it out to fresh air, despite him telling them they only needed a bit of rest. Steve drew the line at them trying to separate them though. There was no way he was letting Hermione out of his sight. He had so many questions to ask her, so much to tell her, but all he wanted right now was to hold her and kiss her to his heart's content. Not an easy task with all the activity buzzing around them. He had to wait until they were put in a plane with other SHIELD personnel from the complex for some modicum of privacy.

"What's SHIELD? Is it named after your shield?" Hermione asked.

Steve had opened his mouth to answer it was the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, then closed it again. He hadn't even thought of it that way. It almost seemed to make more sense than that overlong and complicated acronym.

"Don't think so," he finally said with a chuckle. "But it was founded by Peggy, Howard and Phillips, so… "

"It is so named after your shield," Hermione concluded. "Are you working for them? How long have you been here? Who was that psychopath with the spear?"

She added a dozen more questions to the list and he spent the better part of the plane ride filling her in before they fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion, leaning against each other as they held hands. He had plenty of questions of his own to ask: where she had been? How she had found him? Why her hands glowed blue? Not to mention that when he had dreamed of being reunited with her, it had always been a whole lot more romantic, but he wouldn't have it any other way. This is who they were.

…

"You wake them up."

"Are you crazy? It's almost sacrilegious. Those two are like… legends. It would be like waking up dragons… Or Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia."

"You realize none of those are real."

"Shut up! You know what I mean."

"Nerd."

"You wake them if you're so keen."

"No!"

"You'd rather tell the director you couldn't do it? At least I've got an excuse."

"Want to know where he'll shove your-"

The hushed whispers woke Steve up and he blinked at the two young SHIELD agents who abruptly stopped bickering, only to stare at him like two startled rabbits, nose twitching and all.

"Fury wants to see us?" Steve asked, having processed the tail end of their conversation.

"Yessir!" they answered in unison. Cute.

"Take us to your leader," Hermione said, having woken up too, now giggling next to him. "What's with the gaping?" she asked in a whisper when their guides and many other agents they crossed paths with, gaped at them.

"We're kind of a popular thing. They made movies about us and the team."

"Really? That's a bit weird... Did you watch them?"

"I might now."

"Movie night?"

"You betcha."

"It's a date then."

Their banter died down as they were led into a large control room buzzing with activity. Fury stood on a platform to give orders to his minions below, but he swished around to greet them. Well… Greet them was a generous way to describe his: "Sit."

But they did. Man looked to be in a foul mood. Steve wondered if he had even bothered to stop by the infirmary, but he supposed they were in the middle of a crisis and a few bruised ribs could wait. He was glad he had made them sit though, because the boat they had landed on was taking up to the air.

"Okay, I'm officially impressed," Hermione commented lightly.

"Cars still not flying though," Steve pointed out.

"You two…" Fury pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, let's cut the crap. Loki has the Tesseract, several of my best agents and an astrophysicist. It's bad. I need you-"

"Me, or him? I'm not sure who your eye is looking at," Hermione asked, waving between them. "Because I was fighting nazis just this morning and I was hoping to take a hot shower, maybe even a bath, and sleep in a real bed when the war ended, and you're just asking me to sign up for another one?"

Steve winced. She had a point. He had had several weeks himself to rest and wrap his head around the fact the war had truly ended. Hermione had just walked straight from 1945 into 2011. She was still wearing her Lady Liberty uniform, splattered with the blood of her enemies and in rather poor shape from having been worn across half of Europe. A lock of her curly hair was still sticking out, singed from when she'd had a narrow miss with the flamethrower. Ideally, she should take a break.

Fury's mouth snapped shut as he stared at her.

"That, I did not know," Fury conceded. "I would apologize, however, the situation is dire and you are the only one who has had any success at stopping Loki. The world needs you. That said, I will arrange for you, the both of you, to have a comfortable room with a shower attached if that's all it takes."

"Still a better deal than I got with the US Army," Hermione grumbled to herself.

"So you want us to join SHIELD?" Steve asked.

Coulson had been nagging him for days to officially join since he was a consultant of sorts on the Tesseract, so he wasn't surprised by the offer.

"Yes. I am gathering several people with useful skill sets as we speak, and I intend to have you working together to stop Loki and secure the Tesseract."

"Like a team?" Hermione asked.

"Ideally," the note of defeat in his reply did not go unnoticed, so Steve wondered what sort of individuals he was gathering and how they could possibly be worse that the Howling Commando.

"What do you think?" Steve asked her. "We can just walk away if that's what you want."

"Can we, though?" Hermione sighed. "Loki must be using magic to control the minds of people. What if I really am the only chance we have at stopping him, magic against magic. And there's the Tesseract…"

Steve nodded. They both had a history with the damn thing and she probably felt just as responsible for it than he did. Hermione returned her focus to Fury.

"If you want me to go toe to toe with this Loki, I'm going to need more tricks than levitation. I need something that was stolen from me, and I suspect it was aboard the Valkyrie when Steve crashed it in 45."

Fury hummed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"I don't recall any weapons logged into the finds around the crash site, apart from your shield, Captain, which we will return to you as soon as possible. Stark industries were responsible for the find, so you will have to get in touch with them directly for personal effects."

"Stark? I thought Howard-" Steve said in confusion. Not many of his former friends were still alive and those who were very, very old. He doubted they would even remember him.

"His son, Tony Stark. He's not an easy person to deal with, but I think your request will go over better if you ask him directly. Agent Hill will give you his contact numbers."

Hermione nodded decisively, a sharp glint in her eyes. She would be much safer with her wand. Steve would do anything to get it back to her.

"One last thing," she added. "I'm not wearing this… costume."

She held up a fold of her green uniform between two fingers with her nose wrinkled.

"I'm sure our engineering team can come up with something better," Fury assured before glancing his way. "I'm afraid agent Coulson already had a hand in your uniform ever since we found you in the ice."

Steve groaned then had to explain to Hermione that the man was a "fan". She covered her mouth, but her shoulders shook with silent laughter. He loved seeing her so happy, but he guessed it was part exhaustion and part relief at finding themselves together once more, safe and whole, and that once she had gotten over the shock of it all, she might feel different. However, he would bask in the moment for as long as it lasted. Fury must have had enough of it because he told them to scamper off before they made him nauseous, which was fine by him. They followed a new agent to their assigned room.

"Bunk beds," Hermione said. "Of course."

Steve snaked his arms around her, pulling her back against his chest.

"As if that ever stopped us before," he crooned in her ear, enjoying the way she shivered against him.

She wiggled in his arms until she was facing him and lifted up on her tiptoes to kiss him chastely, just a peck of her lips before she backed away. Steve pouted.

"I smell of 1945," she explained and headed for the bathroom. "Help me wash it off?"

Steve didn't need to be asked twice. He shed his shirt before he was even through the door and helped her out of her battle-encrusted uniform. She still had a couple of grenades attached to her belt, which he carefully set aside, before helping her with her boots. They got a little sidetracked, touching leading to kissing, desire flaring between them. Steve was so hard, even getting rid of his pants wasn't much of a relief and he had Hermione pinned against the shower's wall as soon as her last item of clothing dropped to the floor. He held her up and fumbled for the taps, hissing at the cold water hitting his back before it got to the right temperature. He shifted Hermione under the steady stream and kissed her neck, rocking gently against her.

"Reckon they're still good?" Hermione asked breathlessly, holding up a familiar looking army-issued condom wrapper.

Steve chuckled.

"Time-jumps aside, they should be fine."

Steve took one and Hermione levitated the others back to her uniform. He rolled it up on himself, anticipation making him buck against her as soon as he was done. It had been a while. Offers from many, many women, and men, had come his way, but he had been certain he would end his life a bitter old celibate. He was happy to be proved wrong though. His cock too as he thrust into Hermione. It was hard, fast, and a bit desperate, this need for the other, to reconnect, to make their hearts beat again and fill the space where another was missing.