Steve Rodgers enjoyed playing tourist. When Tony got a hold of him, it was usually to show him the newest and greatest tech, quite often some gadget that he had to spend half a day learning how to turn on, let alone use.

They’d gotten off on the wrong foot, but Stark did grow on you.

At times, like a fungus, Natasha had said, but in a tone of affectionate exasperation.

But Steve had never really been excited about the tech—it was a tool, nothing more. But this…

The America he’d grown up in had been groaning under the greatest depression in history, dictatorships springing up like rotting corpses all over the world, and then he’d been in a war where the tech Tony liked so much had been perverted into the service of monsters.

And they’d won, and now this nation was more prosperous, more at peace than any time he’d remembered.

Hell, among his coworkers, not a single one had lost a child or known someone who had lost a child to illness.

The world wasn’t perfect, but it was so very much brighter than the years of his childhood.

Which is why he was going to fight to keep it this way.

But this town, under the bright surface, had some secrets…

“So, there’s a curfew?” he asked the waitress he’d struck a conversation up with. “I was riding around on my bike last night and didn’t see many people out of the city center.”

“Oh, no curfew!” she said, stuttering. “But there are wild animals in the woods around here. It’s safer to just, you know, stick to the lights.”

Really. Wild animals meant sending out the humane society. But not here. Here people just stayed in after dark unless they were going directly to or from home. Steve had ridden around the streets, and by nine everyone was indoors. Nobody lurking around, no kids riding bikes, risking grounding. They weren’t asleep—you could see plenty of TV’s on in living rooms… They just didn’t go out in the night.

“Been that way for a while?” Steve smiled at her as she filled his coffee cup.

“Oh, like forever. I mean, I grew up here, and you just don’t want to risk it—also, don’t leave your cats outside. They go missing a lot.”

“Well, I don’t have a cat, but thanks for the advice.”

Okay, that’s interesting. Loki was only on earth for a few weeks… which means that there’s something else going on.

And Steve was starting to wonder if Loki had anything to do with this at all. Fury thought he might, but Fury really hated being caught off balance, so Steve wondered if he saw Loki plots in every shadow.

But just because it wasn’t a Loki plot didn’t mean there was nothing going on.

Clint watched as the last of the kids headed for the front of the school. It was nice, sometimes to get out and see normal people, people who didn’t need to push their bodies as hard as they could, because that was the difference between life and death.

But there were things under the surface here that didn’t quite make sense. When Jim had come back the next day, he’d worn long sleeves and had been very careful to not show his bruises.

But he didn’t act like an abuse victim, though to be fair, people responded to abuse in many different ways.

No, he acted like he thought Clint might attack him at any minute, and so did his friends. They stuck together in PE and only relaxed once they were out of it.

“I used to think school was safe before we were attacked by those nightmares…” Claire had murmured as she and her friends had been running around the track.

“And isn’t that interesting,” Clint said to himself. Attacked. Everyone else had talked about the accident, but Claire had said attacked.

Then there was the way Jim tensed up around Stricklander. Break room gossip was that Stricklander was dating his mother, with the typical jokes about jealous teens.

But Jim didn’t act jealous. He acted both afraid of Stricklander, though he concealed it well, and like he hated the man. The “I will end you one day” style hatred.

And speak of the devil, there they are.

“We’re going to be so late!” Jim said. “Ugh! I wish Senor Uhl hadn’t picked today to hold us late!”

“Shortcut?” Claire asked.

“Yeah, let’s go!” Toby said, and the three were running, laughing like ordinary teens, before they vanished behind a building.

That’s odd. None of their homes were in that direction. Guess they have a show or somet—

“Barton!”

“What is it, Stark?” Clint subvocalized.

“SPYEYE just picked up a portal, 40 meters south of your position.”

Forty—Clint moved as fast as he could. That was where the kids had gone. He ran past the corner…

And nothing. No kids. An irrigation ditch on one side was blocked off by a chain-link fence, and on the other side, there were the backs of shops, locked delivery doors facing the road. Clint moved to check the ditch. Nothing.

“I just had some kids vanish.”

“Well, we picked two flashes. One where you are, and the other one about three miles away.”

We’re going to be so late. Shortcut?

“I… understand. Natasha bugged Jim Lake. Can you pick up the beacon?”

“Yeah—well. It was where you were, then it blipped out and reappeared. Guess where.”

“Three miles away?”

“Got it in one, and—that’s interesting. It just vanished. Geolocator has them be… By one of the bridges over the river.”

A bridge wouldn’t block the bug…

“Keep watch. I bet they’ll reappear before too long.”

“You think they’re in trouble?”

“Or part of the trouble. They were running late.”

Tony fell silent for a moment. “Tell me you don’t think Loki left a present to help teens with their scheduling issues.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if this has anything to do with Loki.”

“Another group with space portal powers?”

“Yah. I’ll get together with Nat and see if Steve has found out anything, but Fury’s gonna have kittens over this.”