A/n: Big HUGE thank you's to my usual army who've been helping through this venture from the start (hand holding, betaing, idea bouncing/sorting, and so on), especially Hope, who's balancing insane school life and beta duties. ILY!

You do not have to read Part 1 in order to understand Part 2. They are linked, but separate enough you can read them out of order.

IMPORTANT NOTE: this fic will not have the fast update schedule that last one had, unfortunately, but I will be doing my best to give you reasonable updates. Rest assured, this fic *is* happening, no matter what, and there will absolutely be a third and final part after this. (I don't abandon stories - ask my pals!)

Second: the POV's gonna bounce you around this first chapter, but it'll settle out after this. Trust me, there's reasons. ;) Enjoy, and please let me know your thoughts by taking a sec to leave me some feedback. :)

Warnings: This story is rated PG-13 for language, some violence and possible character death. There will be minor/background Clint/Natasha and Steve/Peggy, but this story is primarily Gen Action/Adventure.

Timeline: takes place after Iron Man 3, after Agent Carter season 1, but before Thor: the Dark World. Ignores Avengers: Age of Ultron (sorry Laura Barton).

it's in the past we can make this leap

[ CLINT ]

"If you call that being nearly killed, then you haven't lived yet. Just stay with me, and you'll get a lot nearer." – The Doctor, Doctor Who

Clint didn't like Hector Lazarus from the first minute he had laid eyes on the guy back in Sacramento two years ago. The feeling hadn't changed.

The scientist's eyes looked decidedly crazy, Clint thought, and based on Steve's expression, Cap agreed. Clint kept his bow trained on Lazarus while he claimed to be from the future and said he had come back in time to stop the Avengers from foiling his nefarious plans.

Yep, thought Clint. Bat-shit crazy.

The wacky, tricked-out machine Lazarus brought lit up like Christmas tree, and Steve's frowny face got even frownier.

After Thor planted his elbow against Lazarus' skull, sending the scientist to the floor in an unconscious heap, Clint wondered if this was going to be like Sacramento all over again—if the Avengers were about to be completely played by Lazarus, like the guy had played S.H.I.E.L.D. back then. Hell, maybe the machine wasn't even really a bomb.

That was about when the floor shuddered and there was a roar like thunder. When hefty metal walls clattered down and trapped the team, Clint knew they were screwed.

One one-thousand.

"What the hell?" Clint muttered, dread trickling down his spine.

Two one-thousand.

Lazarus' machine emitted a long, shrill sound followed by ominous whirring.

Three one-thousand.

Clint reached for Natasha. Steve made a grab for his shield. A wave of freezing air shoved the team off their feet, Clint shut his eyes against an explosion of white, and he tumbled, enveloped by noise and light.

Then, absolutely nothing.

Four one-thousand.

[ PEGGY ]

The clock on the far wall wound its way slowly towards quitting time. Peggy let out a sigh and rubbed her fingertips against the headache that'd been building all afternoon. She was exhausted. Balancing her everyday S.S.R. job with her and Howard's foundling, secret project kept her days and nights plenty filled. To top it off, the past few weeks contained too many nights in a row chasing down thugs for one reason or another.

While clearing Howard Stark's name several months back had finally earned her a level of respect at the S.S.R., it also came with Thompson pawning off petty case after petty case onto her desk. He spent his hours trying to earn glory collaring members of the big crimes families—"trying" being the operative word. He encouraged her to "earn some overtime," but she knew exactly what he was doing. If he thought he could burden her or wear her out to the point that she'd stop proving herself or requesting bigger cases, he didn't know a damn thing about her.

"Hey, Peg?"

Peggy looked up from the paperwork spread across her desk. "Yes, Daniel?" Rain pattered gently against the windows behind her.

"Got one for you." Agent Daniel Sousa plodded over, leaning into his brace for support with every other step.

Peggy raised her eyebrow. "Really?"

He passed her a couple papers. "Police got a call from a lady—said she heard gunshots. This was followed by a call from somebody else at the same location talking about gunshots and a tall man fleeing the scene."

Peggy skimmed his notes.

Sousa continued, "Thought it might've been mob-related, except the officer who first arrived said the body was floating and glowing blue."

"What? How?" asked Peggy.

Sousa's lips quirked up. "That's exactly what I said." He tapped at a line on the page. "He panicked—closed off the apartment and called us. Too scared to report in until we've had a look."

"Hmm." Peggy pursed her lips. "They do love to dump the crazy ones on us for fun, don't they?"

Sousa chuckled. "After the year we've had? I don't blame 'em."

"Too true," Peggy agreed with an amused smile.

They certainly had dealt with their fair share—and then some—of fantastical things at the S.S.R., especially while chasing down Howard's stolen inventions back in the spring. But Howard was fairly sure they'd recovered all the items, so this was likely something new and terrible.

She handed Sousa the papers back. "Sounds intriguing, to be sure. Let me know how it goes."

"You're not coming?"

Peggy sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "You know Thompson won't let me tackle anything with real meat on it. He's desperate to run me into the ground with menial tasks...though at least he's stopped asking me to fetch him a coffee."

"Ah," Sousa straightened. "Apparently he doesn't, and I quote, 'have the time to check out this Invisible Man shit when there's super-powered mobsters on the loose'." He held the papers back up and out.

"So he's dumping it in my lap?"

"Bingo."

Peggy stood and barely stopped a full-on grin. "Thought it was beneath him, did he?" She scooped up her coat.

"Very. Said it was a couple crazies with delusions, a paranoid lieutenant, and a waste of time. Told me to hand it back to the police—or give it to you."

"Charming. Well then, let's go solve a bizarre little murder and leave Agent Thompson to his very important crime bosses."

[ STEVE ]

If the shape of the thing wasn't his first clue, then the smell was a dead giveaway: Steve was in a dumpster.

He forced away a wave of nausea unrelated to the smell (which was plenty nauseating) and rolled his shoulders, fighting the ache in his muscles. Though glad to be alive—considering his last memory was of a bomb detonating—he felt pretty battered.

He groaned loudly and hauled himself out of the metal container, shaking off the bits of garbage that clung to his suit.

"Perfect," he shook his head with irritation. He wrinkled his nose at the odor now emanating from his torso.

With a pang of panic, he realized his shield wasn't in his hands—though he remembered reaching for it—and clambered back into the dumpster to retrieve it. Irrational sadness clawed at his chest when his search turned up empty. He tried in vain to assure himself that maybe it wasn't gone, just misplaced… Maybe it was back at the bomb site...wherever that was.

It's just a piece of metal, he thought, knowing in his heart even as he thought it that it was so much more than that. It was part of him and it had been with him for so long, through everything. He blinked away the sudden moisture in his eyes and refused to dwell on it. He'd find it or he wouldn't, but right now he had bigger things to worry about.

The dumpster he'd crawled out of was located in a narrow, filthy alleyway. Garbage and blackened newspapers cluttered the cracked stones beneath his feet. Everything was damp and glistening; the smell of fresh rain was stronger the farther he moved away from the dumpster.

Steve doused his hands in a shallow, muddy puddle, figuring it was better than nothing to clean off the garbage clinging to them. He couldn't do anything about his clothes yet, but at least his hands didn't reek as much.

The smell from the dumpster was nothing compared to the slimy mess the team had had to clean off themselves last month when a giant, blubbery alien had exploded in the middle of Los Angeles, but Steve suspected Tony was still going to tease him about this anyway.

Beside the puddle was a sodden five-dollar bill that someone must have dropped. Steve grasped it very gingerly, shaking off the excess water. He looked up, but no one was around, so he gently folded the wet paper and tucked it even more carefully, lest it tear, into his pocket. He didn't have his wallet on him in his suit, so—he figured it couldn't hurt to take the cash with him, since he had no clue where he was or how to get back to the team.

Just in case…

He fought off the wave of dread building in his chest and refused to finish that thought.

He looked around the alley, which was otherwise unremarkable, hoping foolishly that he would see his shield where he hadn't before. He wondered where he was. It didn't look familiar like New York, but then again Steve hadn't exactly been down every single alleyway in the city to know that off-hand.

He walked towards the street beyond the alley to locate the rest of the team, hoping they were close.

At first, Steve thought he'd accidentally walked onto a film set, so much so that he took an involuntary step back into the alley. Next, he fought down a near-crippling wave of panic and worry, because it looked like he'd woken up in the wrong decade.

Again.

[ CLINT ]

The first several seconds after Clint woke were pretty much like the last few seconds before he'd lost consciousness: loud, chaotic, and blurry.

A cracking boom had him instinctively rolling away from the noise. Something wet, smelling like salt, sprayed him. For a split second, he fell. His breath stopped short in his chest. Then he was underwater, waves roiling around him.

Panic shot through Clint, leaving him even more disoriented at the abrupt loss of oxygen. He kicked his legs hard, fighting to find the surface. He broke through with a gasp, choking on sea water, trying to shake it from his eyes. He'd been on a dock, he realized, glancing around, and it hadn't been an explosion, just thunder. Clint fought his way to the shore, which wasn't far—but with the storm tossing him like a piece of flotsam, he was lucky to make it there at all.

He clawed his way up the sand, away from the waves. Another deafening crack of thunder sounded overhead. Tossing a glance behind him, he could see lightning burning forked patterns in the sky. The wind kicked up around him, dousing him with even more rain.

Coughing and sputtering, he looked around for the rest of the Avengers but there wasn't anyone in sight. How the hell was he here, on some beach in a thunderstorm, and not in that sketchy house with Lazarus and the others? Cursing to himself, he spotted a small shack, perhaps fifty feet away from the water's edge and sought its shelter. On unsteady legs, he made a break for it.

Guess Bruce was right, he thought, thinking about the scientist's murmuring under his breath while Lazarus ranted. The bomb was a displacement thingy and threw us around the planet after all. Or me, at least.

As he neared the shack, he realized there was a padlock on the door, but that it hadn't been closed properly. He exhaled in relief, wrenched off the lock, hopped into the shack, and slammed the shuddering wooden door shut behind him.

The little shack was some sort of equipment storage unit, jammed with fishing rods, a canoe, life jackets, paddles, and various other sea-related paraphernalia. There wasn't much room for Clint, but he cleared a pile of nets off a stack of old crates and had a seat, still trying to get his breath back from his tumultuous arrival. And, damn it, his bow was gone and the quiver on his back was empty. He pulled it off and dropped it with a wet thud.

Still, he'd woken up worse.

[ PEGGY ]

The two people who'd called the police were neighbors, and they didn't have much more to offer than what they'd already said over the phone.

The woman heard gunshots, called the police, and hid in her bathroom until they arrived. The man had broken a coffee mug in his haste to get to his door at the sound of the commotion and spotted someone running away. The man had called after him, but wisely hadn't take chase, and instead had hurried to phone the police.

The door to the apartment of the victim had been unlocked, according to the first responding officer and his partner, Novak and Grimes respectively, implying the attacker was no stranger to the deceased. Novak radioed for dispatch to contact the S.S.R., while Grimes had run from the apartment and been unwilling to re-enter since.

"We've been standing guard," Novak reported with a shaky nod. His face was pale, but Peggy wasn't sure if that was his usual pallor, or if he was still shocked over what he'd seen. "No one's been allowed near the place."

Sousa thanked the officers while Peggy entered the apartment.

"Oh," she breathed.

Inside, the place was a mess, implying there'd been a struggle. In the middle of the living room, hovering above the wrecked coffee table, was the body: one Dan Smith. He simply hung there, horizontal and surrounded by a gentle, softly sparkling blue glow, with no visible way of staying aloft.

"It's magic," Novak said behind her. "There's no other explanation."

"Couldn't be," Sousa murmured.

Peggy grabbed the umbrella near the door and gave the body a poke.

"Carter," Sousa grumbled in warning, but nothing happened. He stayed at her side when she stepped forward to get a closer look.

Still nothing happened when she poked Mr. Smith's body a second time. It moved just as dead body being jabbed with the end of an umbrella should. Except for the fact that he had a rounded scorch mark on his chest, and he was floating and encased in blue, the body seemed perfectly normal.

"Well, this is odd," Peggy remarked.

She waved her other hand gingerly near Mr. Smith. Sousa tensed at her side, but once again, nothing happened. In fact, nothing happened the entire time as they took photos and statements or while Sousa coaxed people inside the room to help take stock of the evidence. After the body was pulled down, strapped to a gurney and removed, without trouble or incident, Peggy finally noticed an even stranger thing about the scene.

"There's no blood," she remarked.

Sousa glanced up from taking notes. "What?"

"Look." She gestured about the space: full of debris, bits of glass, a couple shattered vases, and the broken coffee table. "If there were gunshots, a fleeing suspect, and the victim was shot, where's the blood?"

Sousa blinked. "But if the mark on his chest was from a gun…?"

"Exactly. If it was, where's the blood?"

Sousa glanced around, his forehead crinkling. "Well, then…how did he die?"

"That is an excellent question."

"Theories?"

Peggy shrugged. "Magic?" She smiled at him.

"Ha, ha," he said humorlessly.

"Do you have a better explanation?"

Sousa exhaled, staring at the place where the man's bizarre floating body had been. "Not yet."

"Until further notice then," she replied. Peggy glanced at her watch. "Are you all right to finish up? I'm sorry, it's just that I've made plans I can't break."

"No, sure, go ahead." Sousa waved her on. "I'll take care of the last of this and leave the files on your desk."

"Thanks a bunch, Daniel." She offered him a warm smile and left the apartment.

She wasn't keen on ducking out on a case, especially such a strange one, but the Howling Commandos were in town and she didn't want to miss her opportunity to see them. It'd been far too long. At least Dugan would be sticking around to help her, Phillips, and Howard with their burgeoning project, but she rather suspected the rest of them would scatter without Dugan holding them together. They'd assuredly stay in touch, but subsequent visits would be trickier with them here and there across the continent.

When Peggy arrived at the lavish home that Howard and Jarvis had procured for her, she nearly opened the door on Angie.

"Whoa there!" her friend yelped, and jumped out of the way.

"Sorry!" Peggy bustled in. "Bad timing." She took in Angie's coat—the nice red one she wore when she was going somewhere important. "Audition?"

Angie nodded, grinning. "Yep. For a bit part, but a bit part in a Pat O'Brien movie!"

"Good luck!"

"You?"

"The Commandos are in town for likely one night only," said Peggy, doffing her coat and hanging it up in the front closet. Though Angie only knew a little of what Peggy really did at the S.S.R., she knew most of Peggy's wartime history by now, thanks to plenty of nights sharing this house, some wine, and lots of memories.

Angie lit up with excitement and Peggy rolled her eyes. Her friend was forever hopelessly hoping for juicy stories of romance from Peggy.

"No, nothing like that. They're dear old friends who I haven't seen in almost a year. One of them is going to be working at my job soon, though, which will be nice."

"Ooh, a workplace romance, English? Think of the scandal!" Angie winked.

"Oh, do go on," Peggy laughed, practically shoving Angie out the door.

"Have fun," Angie drawled over her shoulder. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Peggy waved her friend on and shut the door behind her, chuckling, then went to get ready for her evening out with the Commandos.

[ STEVE ]

Steve took a deep breath.

Even if he hadn't recently crash coursed his way through the last sixty-seven or so years of history he'd missed, the team had shown him enough shows and films for him to have a guess at where—or, more correctly he supposed, when—he was: the 70's were rather unmistakable.

While he was busy staring at the Afros and flowy bell-bottom pants, he tried to bring his heart rate down. The people passing him shot him odd looks, taking in the bright blue, red, and white uniform stained with dumpster debris that Steve sported.

He backed farther into the alley and fell against the stone wall of the adjacent building. This was déjà vu in the worst way. This was waking up in a foreign place, a foreign time, far removed from those he loved. Again, again, again.

Steve raised his shaking hand to cover his eyes and forced himself to breath. Because, no, this also wasn't like last time. This was a machine that sent him to the past and if there was a machine involved, then Tony could work with that. It wasn't hopeless and he wasn't so far removed that everyone he knew was dead. They were just...not here.

Or they're children, he thought wryly and the thought of toddler Tony out there somewhere in this time was amusing enough to startle a chuckle out of the captain.

No, it wasn't hopeless. He hadn't connected with and cared for a whole new team of people to lose them again—there had to be a way out, and if he couldn't find it, one of them would. He was sure of it.

Steve straightened, taking another settling breath, and let his hand fall to his side. Right, so the first thing to do was to get out of his outfit. It was probably about the least subtle thing he could be wearing unless today happened to be October 31 or he could claim he was on his way to a costume party. But how to get a new outfit with no money? He was pretty sure the fiver in his pocket wouldn't cover a whole new outfit, and he wasn't about to steal anything, so that left begging or borrowing.

Well, Clint always told him that he had a "good ol' boy, honest sorta charm" about him, so Steve figured he'd have to put that to use.

Exiting the alley again, this time Steve forged forward, and tried not to feel too self-conscious as his outfit garnered more and more stares. He also tried not to feel too wildly off-kilter walking down streets, still feeling like he'd accidentally fallen into a movie. He glanced at stores and shops as he walked, craning his neck to stare up at the buildings around him to try to determine his location.

Steve liked drawing and he enjoyed history; as a result, he had spent a lot of time sketching famous skylines. As his eyes landed on one building in particular, he realized what city he was in—the Sears Tower was unmistakable, if built well after Steve's original time.

He was in Chicago.