"No problem. Figured you two could use a bit of a break." Steve grinned a bit. "Undiluted Howard can be hard to take if you're not used to him."

"Thanks," Alissa said, taking the coffee and wrapping her hands around it. She was quiet for a moment, studying him, before she kind of blurted out the first thing that came to mind: "How come you have so much time to be babysitting a couple crazies?" She made a motion between herself and Taylor.

Bucky snorted.

"They're not sure what to do with us yet," he said, grinning. "So we've got some downtime. And nobody's got any idea what to do with you two, but they figure Steve's trustworthy enough to keep an eye on you until they figure things out."

"Gotcha." Alissa snorted quietly. "Wow. You don't even look all that put out, I'm impressed."

Bucky snorted as well.

"I'm glad they're not poking and prodding at me anymore," he admitted. "So hey, it could be worse."

"Yeah, it could be worse," Alissa agreed. It would be worse, for him, later. "I'd say it can always be worse, but..."

"But?" Bucky prompted. "That doesn't sound good. Come on, we're not dead or captured by Nazis right now."

Alissa actually flinched at that. "You don't have to worry about Nazis so much," she said before she could think. Then her eyes went wide and she bit her lower lip, because whoops.

Bucky saw the flinch.

"What do I have to worry about, then?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Guns, and shooting, and people." Alissa looked away, refusing to give away anything else.

Bucky raised an eyebrow again.

"Nothing that hasn't already happened, then," he said.

"Yeah sure we'll go with that." Alissa shifted her weight. "So, where are we exactly? No one ever actually said."

"You are on an American military base stationed overseas," Bucky replied. He knew full well he hadn't told her anything she didn't already know, and he grinned teasingly.

"That tells us nothing," Taylor ventured. "Where is the base?"

Alissa narrowed her eyes a bit at Bucky, tempted to tell him off.

Steve jumped in then. "This one is in France," he said.

"France?" Taylor asked faintly. She looked at Alissa. They were in France. Since when were they in France? That made no sense.

Alissa shrugged, looking just as bewildered.

Steve looked between them rather sympathetically.

"We'll probably be here a while," Bucky added with a slight shrug. "Though nothing's really concrete right now."

"Depends what the higher-ups decide," Steve said with a shrug. Although he knew his team would probably be sent out again fairly soon ish. "Howard pretty much stays here, though."

That made Taylor a bit curious.

"Does anyone actually know what he's working on?" she asked. Hey, best to figure out exactly when they seemed to have landed.

"Some things we got from an enemy base," Steve said rather evasively with a shrug. That was classified information, and besides, he wanted to see if they could figure it out on their own so he could technically still say that he hadn't told them anything.

"Things?" Taylor thought back to every museum exhibit she'd ever been to and school research project she'd ever done on Captain America. "Hydra things?" she asked tentatively.

Bucky gave the girls both a sharp look. How did they know about that?

Steve nodded. Yeah, they weren't faking, they could put two and two together.

"Hydra things." Alissa looked at Taylor. "So from the factory, remember? The one they--you--blew up?"

"The factory, right," Taylor agreed, nodding. She thought back to what she knew about that part of history. "So Howard is probably about to start working on alternative energy, then. Officially."

Steve looked at Bucky, a bit mystified. Apparently the future knew a lot more about what had happened than he was really comfortable with.

"I wonder how much he's blown up by now?" Alissa asked.

"I don't know," Taylor mused. Then she blinked as she thought of something, and she looked at Steve. "Are you still using that funky show-shield?" she asked, making a vague outline of the older shield in the air with her fingers. "Or is it the nice round one now?"

Bucky just shook his head a bit, eyes a little wide. They knew a lot more than he was comfortable with.

"Howard just gave me the round one," Steve said, looking a little bewildered. "Just before you two arrived."

"Okay, that explains a lot," Alissa murmured.