Steve arranged for Hermione to apparate next to him a few days later after Fury finally gave him the go ahead to check out Broderick's true allegiance. He didn't seem to know him, personally or otherwise, but he was quite interested in this rogue SHIELD faction of loyalists. More than likely, he was just chuffed it had been named after him.
Hermione appeared precisely at the time they agreed on with a bang of displaced air, which is why Steve had chosen the changing rooms near the gym for her arrival since no one should be here at this hour. Of course, he still hoped to accidentally cross paths with Dobson, but today was not that day.
"You know, I'm starting to kind of hate your disguise-rings," Steve said as he looked at the unfamiliar mousy blonde woman in front of him.
"Can't say it's much of a change for me," she teased, her hand cupping the side of his face. "Bucky has got to see you in the flesh like this before you switch disguises."
"He's teased me enough when I call," Steve replied, searching her pale gray eyes for any trace of his Hermione, ultimately giving up. He would just have to be patient before seeing the face of the woman he loved. In the meantime, he led her to Broderick's lair and knocked sharply, not waiting for an answer before entering.
"Ah, Jones! You're back with an answer then," he greeted him with a jovial smile.
Steve wanted to believe he was genuine, but he had been fucked over too many times to trust so easily.
The man noticed Hermione enter behind him, and tilted his head in thought.
"You've brought a friend," he said, stating the obvious to fish for information.
But that's exactly why Steve brought Hermione. They were the fishermen, he was the fish, so Steve cast the line with its stinking bait.
"HYDRA," was all he needed to say.
Next moment, Hermione giggled. Steve turned to see her covering her mouth, shoulders still shaking but she managed to whisper "Fury fanboy" before they were interrupted.
"Agent Jones, I'm being very patient here," Broderick snapped.
"Sorry, sir. I needed to make sure you were being truthful," Steve explained.
Broderick's gaze returned to Hermione.
"She's enhanced?" he asked. "A human lie detector?"
"Something like that," Hermione replied, her voice strong and confident, completely at odds with her current looks.
Her wand jumped into her hand and she cast about. Privacy charms, Steve guessed. Broderick gasped, face splitting into a smile once more.
"No… You're Lady Liberty?"
Hermione winked at him, twirled her wand and made the items on his desk tap-dance. She would have been fantastic at those bond-selling shows. Better than him for sure. The things she could have done to fake-Hitler. It would have been beautiful.
"Who are you?" Broderick asked him next. "Why are you in contact with Lady Liberty?"
The man wasn't an idiot. Maybe he suspected already, but Steve fished his pocket-shield from his trousers and it sprung out with a clear metallic sound.
"You've gotta be shitting me," he muttered under his breath. "Well, at least I'm a good judge of character. Your disguises could fool anyone. Magic, I imagine?"
Hermione nodded.
"Which is also how I know your goal is noble. You're loyal to Fury, even after his death."
"HYDRA killed him," Broderick said with barely contained anger. "And they'll continue to take out every good man and woman working for SHIELD if we don't stop them."
"You're doing good work. I can only encourage you to continue. Know there are others working in the shadows towards the same goal, but I think it's best we keep these groups separate for now," Hermione said.
Steve let her deal with this situation since she literally knew what was going on in the man's head. Broderick was nodding too.
"Like resistance cells," he said, more to himself than them. "I suppose it's best if HYDRA can't wipe us all out in one fell swoop."
"But we do need information," Steve said. "We're looking for the more proactive agents of HYDRA, eventually some big fish if you can point us in the right direction."
"We're mostly separating the wheat from the chaff for now, which, believe me, is a full time job already," Broderick replied and Steve tried not to let his deception show. However, he wasn't done. "But I have noticed a trend. It might be nothing important, but several confirmed HYDRA agents amongst us have been 'promoted' to a post in Sokovia, which, let's face it, is not a promotion at all."
"Sokovia?" Hermione repeated. "What the hell is in Sokovia?"
"A pretty solid lead," Steve said, thanking Broderick and promising to keep in touch.
Fury was still not answering their calls and his secretary was no help, so they decided to track him down themselves, with a little help from their friends. Natasha told them he was last seen at the Triskelion, but even once they were there, they had to comb through the building before finding the man deep in the archives. Fury with his leathers and eyepatch wouldn't look out of place in the dark, cold place, but Fury in Pierce's expensive three-piece suit and perfect hairdo sure looked strange.
"What the fuck are you two doing here?" he asked upon recognizing them.
"You're not answering your calls, sir," Steve said stiffly.
"This better be important then," Fury said, dropping a pile of files on a cabinet like he would slap down a glove for a duel.
Fury was in an even worse mood than that time they'd made a life-sized doll replica of him by plucking his chest hair out after he got shot multiple times by Bucky, which was as shitty a day as Steve could imagine, so he wondered what had his panties in a twist this time.
They didn't wait to be asked twice though, and told him about the suspicious promotion of HYDRA agents to Sokovia, and Fury's eyes lit up.
He motioned for them to follow him, and they headed further into the stacks where crates were kept. He opened one, the lid banging against its side. It was all very dramatic, but there was nothing there to see.
"Your point?" Hermione asked with unmasked impatience.
"Loki's scepter is missing. It's not been logged out, but the last person to study it is one of our agents, a scientist by the name Mark Smith." Fury paused, but the name did not ring any bells. "He was transferred a month ago. Last known whereabouts?"
Oh no… Steve and Hermione share an exasperated look before answering at the same time: "Sokovia."
"Right in one. Which means you just won a trip to the old continent. Congratulations. Pick up your one-armed buddy and leave asap. I don't want to hear from you unless you've got good news."
He waved them away, and Steve knew it was no use arguing with him, not that he wanted to, because it was sounding more and more like HYDRA were actually planning something big.
They immediately contacted Bucky through the mirror, but it took a few tries before he answered.
"Where's the fire?" Bucky asked, trying to sound annoyed, but he looked too pleased to see them to pass it off.
"We're picking you up. Got a place for us to apparate to?" Hermione asked.
"I'm in the supply closet, it's a tight fit. Can you manage it?" Bucky asked in return, showing the space she had to work with.
"At least give me a challenge," Hermione scoffed as she wrapped her arms around Steve.
This was now, by far, his favorite method to travel. In a pop and a crack, they were suddenly surrounded by stacks of printing paper, staplers, pens, and toilet paper. An additional arm snaked around him, and Steve basked for a few moments in being sandwich-hugged by his two loves.
"I missed you," Bucky mumbled in his back.
This had been the longest since recovering his memories that Bucky had been without either of them.
"We missed you too, Buck," Steve replied, letting go of Hermione to shift towards him.
Bucky's soft expression turned to mirth upon seeing him though. It was that damn disguise again.
"It is uncanny," Hermione noted, just as Steve reached for his ring to undo the disguise.
They had no need for it anymore after all. It could even be a liability. However, Bucky's good hand caught his, and he smirked.
"Wait before you switch. I wanna try something."
And he did. He certainly did. Steve could never refuse a kiss from Bucky anyway, no matter how weird he wanted to make it. But Bucky actually pulled away pretty fast.
"Not as fun as I thought it would be," Bucky pouted.
"I dunno," Hermione mused. "Narcissism aside, two Buckys kissing each other was pretty hot to look at. Shame I can't brew polyjuice. Now that would have been fun."
"Polyjuice?" Bucky inquired, and she explained what it was and how it could be used. In graphic detail. Tony and Natasha had been a terrible influence on her too it seemed. Whenever they were part of a team, Hermione somehow managed to pick up all their worst habits, but that's also why he found her so endearing.
"Okay, that's enough," Steve interrupted her, turning the ring around his finger and sighing in relief when he saw his own familiar hands. "We do actually have work to do."
The fastest and easiest way to make it to Europe was once more by magic. The closest Hermione could take them to Sokovia was near the Eastern border of Austria. From there, they would have to travel by train like other tourists. They should be able to approach HYDRA while remaining completely under their radar. They wouldn't know what hit them.
"If you were a big bad nazi villain, where would you hide?" Bucky asked them once they had reached the center of Novi Grad.
Steve and Hermione peeked out from under their touristy baseball caps to inspect their surroundings. They had raided enough HYDRA bases during the war to know what to look for, so it was without hesitation that they both pointed towards the fortified castle looming over the city.
They made it to its ancient walls, following groups of tourists, before Hermione turned them invisible in the shadows of its looming walls. Bucky then found them a point of ingress which lacked the high tech security that might have uncovered them despite their invisibility. Weight and heat sensors were the bane of Hermione's modern life if you were to believe her. They did have to get more creative the more they advanced, using distraction techniques to sneak by, or at the worst, have Hermione use her confusion spell, but Bucky really hated messing with anyone's mind, even when it was the enemy's.
"It's just not right," he'd say.
They eventually make it to the heart of the bastion anyway. Overall, it wasworse than they expected. Not only were there a lot more agents here than they accounted for, but they were experimenting on civilians to boot. They hunkered down in a corner of the room, observing the going-ons. Steve whispered that he would take care of the monocled guy in the long leather trench coat who seemed to be directing this operation if he could believe the boring speech he just gave. His minions should come to his help when he did, leaving them free to do their own thing. Hermione wanted to secure the scepter first since it had a mind controlling ability which Buck would not touch with a ten foot pole. So that left him in charge of freeing the prisoners, which, given he only had one arm, was a better job for him. Not that he couldn't fight, he just couldn't fight as well as Steve. Maybe that would make him reconsider Tony's offer.
So, as planned, they separated, each on their own mission. As he winded his way through agents, furniture, and bizarre machines and computers, he came across the scepter. He didn't worry about it though. Hermione would find it eventually. What did worry him was that it had been dismantled, and he could have sworn it used to glow. Now it just looked pathetic and dead. Knowing Hermione would figure out the how and why better than he could, Steve moved on towards his target, ready to flick his lights out with an epic sucker punch, when the room suddenly glowed with a bright yellow light.
Everyone's noses turned up to look at the brilliant tentacle of light that slithered out from a metal container trapped in a machine in the middle of the room. It was so mesmerizing and beautiful that Steve did not realize the threat it represented until things fell around it: the tools on the workbench, the pile of files on the desk, then a Hydra agent got knocked over as if by an invisible force… or by an invisible someone. The tentacle was chasing Hermione or Bucky. Steve raised his shield and hurried forward to come between them, but too late, the tentacle curled around something unseen and Hermione screamed, reappearing suddenly in the room for all to see, her wrist trapped, her body curled in pain, her face a mask of agony.
"Seize her!" the monocled Nazi screamed.
The two agents nearer to her, and him accessorily, jumped forward, but Steve knocked them back just as fast. Their chief and several more agents then crashed against the walls, courtesy of Bucky on his way to Hermione, if he had to take a guess.
As soon as the room was cleared of HYDRA men, Steve crouched next to Hermione. The tentacle had let go of her while they fought their way to her side, leaving her groaning in a heap on the ground. Bucky must be holding her head up in his lap given her strange position, but it was hard to tell since he was still invisible. Steve took hold of her arm and lifted her sleeve, checking her wrist where the light had touched her, half-expecting a burn from the contact with the tentacle, but he found nothing there.
"I don't feel so good," Hermione gasped out, and she did look sicker than he'd ever seen her before, pale and her eyes unfocused. "That… that thing… like the Tesseract…"
Her breathing became more labored, like she couldn't get enough oxygen, or maybe she was panicking. Suddenly, she began fading, as if turning invisible, but she disappeared instead. Gone. He knew, because he couldn't feel her hand anymore, he couldn't hear her labored breathing, and worse, Bucky reappeared in front of him, his own invisibility gone too.
Bucky was sitting there in shock, his arm open as if he was still holding Hermione, but Steve could tell from his panicked eyes that he couldn't feel her either.
"Where did she go?" Bucky asked, before looking up at him, eyes pleading as if he had an answer. "Where did she go?"
All Steve knew was that if the invisibility spell ended so soon and so abruptly, it meant she wasn't anywhere nearby. He also knew it was not of her own doing. Hermione would never leave them stranded like this without warning.
"She'll find us," Steve replied forcefully, trying to convince Bucky as much as himself. "She always does."
Right on cue, an alarm went off. Given the racket they'd been making, Steve was surprised it had not sounded before now. He supposed knocking out their boss had brought them some extra time.
"Free the civilians," Steve told Bucky. "I'll fetch whatever touched Hermione."
Looking into the container held in place in the middle of the machine by several bolts, Steve was surprised to only find a small yellow stone inside, when he had expected to find something big and square like the Tesseract after Hermione's last words. It was the right color though, so Steve reached for it when it sparked, as if warning him off. Maybe not such a good idea. He could recall with crystal clarity what the Tesseract had done to Johann Schmidt when he touched it with his bare hands after all. If this stone was a distant cousin, he'd better take precautions. So, Steve ripped out the whole container out of the contraption, the metal screaming as it was torn apart. He glanced around for something more practical to carry it in when he noticed Bucky, standing eerily still next to the two cells, the woman who had been occupying one of them standing right behind him, in his shadow, her fingers dancing along his temples, red light like the tiniest storm thundering on his skin.
"Bucky!" he screamed, but got no reaction.
Fuck, she was attacking him, doing something to him. Steve dropped the yellow stone's container and rushed her, but something barreled into him, like the world's largest bullet, and he was thrown back, breaking two tables before he rolled to a stop. Steve jumped back to his feet and ran… got knocked down again, crashing into a wall. He did it again, feeling increasingly frustrated and desperate to get to Bucky. This time he heard laughter and his eyes snapped towards the sound. For a split second, he saw a man there, the other prisoner if he had to take a guess, except he only now realized they were not prisoners at all. They were HYDRA agents, willing and enhanced. Cocky, too. The fast man has given himself away, lost his edge, and this time, when Steve got back up, he pulled his shield off his back and, at the last second, oriented it right where he thought the point of impact would be.
Steve dug his feet in, the shield ringing loud and clear from the impact as a shockwave reverberated outwards. It wasn't as strong as the blow he'd taken from Thor's hammer, but they were in a small, ensconced, and ancient room. Dust filled the room, falling from above, a few bricks fell with ominous thuds as if the whole place was one breath away from toppling over.
Steve rose and stumbled through the rubble. Everything looked the same, covered as it was in dust, like a lunar landscape, the only light coming from the glow of the yellow stone, a tiny little sun in this dark universe. He found Bucky, lying unconscious, having fallen backwards on top of the creepy mind-fucking woman. Good. Steve hoped he had smothered her to death.
The situation was not in their favor however. With Hermione gone, Bucky out of commission, and at least two enhanced Hydra agents on top of their regular footmen, Steve could admit when a mission had gone to shit, or when he was in over his head. He had to cut his losses, so, heaving Bucky over his shoulder, he backtracked and picked up the container with the stone in it. He then came across the unconscious prick who'd been knocking him down when he tried helping Bucky, and he viciously kicked him out of his way too. It made him feel better, for about a second. Finally, grabbed Loki's dismantled scepter on the way out, just in case, and bolted.
He hoped to God Hermione would not reappear in there, trapped and alone, but the last two times she had vanished from one place against her will, she had then reappeared near him. It couldn't be a coincidence, and they had known whatever forces were toying with her might one day decide to yank her around time and space again. They'd known it, but it still hurt.
Willing himself not to break down just yet, forcing himself to believe she would come back to him, Steve hurried forward, ducking into one corridor or another to avoid contact with the enemy, until he managed to make it back into the Sokovian streets. He didn't dare stop however. HYDRA would send their agents after him soon enough. They wouldn't let him get away with what he'd stolen, so he continued onward until he was on the fringes of town, and set Bucky down against a dilapidated shack. He looked at the yellow stone, wanting to crash it to dust under his fists to know what it had done to Hermione, but it was just sitting there like a stupid, inanimate stone. Nothing he could fight. But what if… what if it had actually killed her?
He shook his head. He couldn't get into that headspace, not yet. Hopefully not ever. Not again. He had to keep going, if only for Bucky's sake.
One thing he knew for sure though was that this stone was dangerous, and if he was right, it came from the scepter. However, SHIELD had lost it once already, and Steve didn't want to risk it again. There was only one person he trusted to keep it safe from greedy, dangerous, or careless hands. Fishing his mirror out of his pocket, he called Tony's, glad they'd left him one "just in case" or "got emergencies". He just had not expected to be the one needing the help…
"Cap?" Tony greeted jovially as always, but his face fell immediately after. "Steve? You look like shit. What's going on?"
Steve's throat tightened, but he talked past the lump, past the fear for Hermione and Bucky's lives.
"Too much. I'll fill you in, but right now, I need you to smuggle us out of Sokovia as soon as possible."
Tony came through, and faster than he had thought possible. Within an hour, S.I. employees of his herded him and Bucky in the back of a dark van. Steve wouldn't have if they hadn't given him the password he agreed on with Tony. They were both getting as paranoid as Fury, but given the shitshow they usually got caught in, today's being no exception, he felt pretty justified.
They were smuggled back to the States on a Stark private plane, with warm meals, soft blankets and an honest to God doctor. Steve could have kissed Tony. Unfortunately, the doctor could not find anything physically wrong with Bucky except for the obvious missing arm and scrapes from the fights and falling bricks. Steve fucking knew that creepy woman had been messing with Bucky's mind. He'd recognized that lost, unfocused look in his eyes, his stiff posture, and stillness. For a moment there, he'd seen the Winter Soldier. Whatever she had done to him seemed to have locked him inside of his own mind, so Steve spent the whole flight talking to him, touching him, trying to bring him back.
"You look worse in person," Tony said when Steve walked into a level of his tower he wasn't familiar with.
"Yeah," Steve mumbled, exhausted from a day of fighting and another of traveling.
He lay Bucky on a sofa, having refused to be separated from him for even a second, and he made him comfortable. He hadn't regained consciousness, and still looked pale and feverish. Whatever mind magic the woman had done on him was still wrecking havoc. He should have killed her. All he could think was that he needed Hermione. They both did.
Once Bucky was tucked in, Steve backtracked to drop the container at Tony's feet. Another thing he had refused to let out of his sight.
"I need you to hide this thing," he told him seriously. "I don't know what it is, but HYDRA is using it to enhance its agents and it attacked Hermione. I don't trust Fury with it."
Tony looked between him and the box at his feet.
"Wow, you're serious," he deadpanned. "You going rogue on SHIELD? I'm not surprised Sleepyhead is going along with it, but how the hell did you convince Hermione?"
The silence was answer enough, but Tony still asked the question, fidgeting anxiously as he looked around, as if she was going to appear out of thin air any second now, any second… until he couldn't hold it in any longer.
"Where is she?"
Steve shook his head, knowing he had to explain lest he think she was dead.
She wasn't. She couldn't be.
"She vanished after that thing touched her," he said, pointing down at the container once more.
"And you're giving it to me," Tony said flatly. "And here I thought we were friends."
Steve folded in on himself. He hadn't been this tired in a very long time, probably not since trekking through Europe with his Howling Commando. He let himself fall on the sofa next to Bucky's feet.
"Sorry, I really need to crash. I'll tell you everything tomorrow, but that thing should be fine as long as you don't touch it directly."
Tony looked about to protest, worry evident on his face.
"Please?" Steve pleaded, on the verge of breaking down.
Tony nodded, picked up the container with the damned yellow stone and left. Steve let go, tears burning his eyes, replaying every event, every decision he could have chosen differently to come to a different outcome, a better one, hoping and praying Hermione and Bucky were going to be alright.