A.N: Hullo again.

He explained the basics of what they were trying to do, and she organized computer files and brought tea and snacks while he worked, and let him talk out his ideas.

"It's late," Banner realized, a few hours later. "You can head to bed if you'd like."

Jaya shook her head. "I don't want to leave you here alone." She picked at her fingernails uneasily.

"And you don't want to be alone either?" Bruce guessed.

She nodded.

"All right."

She eventually curled up in the corner of the lab behind a desk, a blanket tucked around her, and fell asleep to the steady hum of the computers. When she woke up a few hours later, there was another man in the lab, one with a goatee and a Black Sabbath T-shirt, working busily on the screens. A blue and gold scepter was sitting on the desk. "Where's Doctor Banner?" she asked, standing up.

The man gave a startled yell and turned around, holding out a stylus as if it was a weapon. "For crying out loud!" he said, grabbing at his chest. "Where did you come from? You're gonna give me a heart attack, kid."

"Who are you?" she asked warily.

"What do you mean who am I? Which rock have you been living under?" he retorted, staring at her.

She stared back at him. "Where is Doctor Banner?" she repeated.

"Jolly Green is just getting some tea. Who are you, kid? Don't tell me SHIELD is hiring straight out of high school."

She frowned at him silently.

He sighed. "I'm Tony Stark." He raised an eyebrow at her blank stare. "Iron Man? Billionaire? Ring any bells?"

She shook her head.

"All right, so who are you?"

Bruce came back at that moment, carrying two cups of tea. "Oh, you're awake." He handed her a mug. "I see you've met Mr. Stark."

"Who is this?" Tony asked, eyes lighting up. "I didn't know you had a daughter."

Bruce shook his head. "This is Jaya."

"Nice to meet you, kiddo."

"You too," she replied politely, even though she was still eyeing him cautiously.

"You adopting, now?" Tony asked his fellow scientist.

"Nope. She's my assistant."

"Hm." Tony gave Jaya a critical glance and returned to his work.

Jaya sat on the counter and sipped at her tea, watching the two men work. After a while her gaze turned to the scepter on the table. "Bruce?"

"Hm?"

"What is this?" She reached out to touch the sleek gold lines.

"Don't touch that!" both of them yelled, making her flinch backwards.

"I'm sorry," Bruce apologized, giving her a side hug, and pulling her away from the scepter at the same time. "But it's dangerous and we don't know what it does really."

"Except the last person who was touched by it got turned into a brainwashed puppet, so keep away from it," Tony finished, giving her a look of concern. "Okay, kiddo?"

She nodded. "Where did it come from?"

"Did you not tell her anything?" Tony asked, raising an eyebrow at Bruce.

"There wasn't time."

Tony sighed. "All right, short stuff."

"I'm not short," she protested.

"Sure, miss 5'2" and a 1/4." He smirked. "So, there was this guy named Loki who's insane, and-"

Between the two of them and Agent Romanoff who came in later, Jaya got the whole story, and went back to sitting behind the desk as she processed that the world really was in danger and they might all die at the hands of aliens. Real, proper aliens, not the computer puppets from the movies.

And then Captain Rogers came in again, and he was mad. Everyone who showed up to yell was angry, and they got angrier and angrier and Jaya was hiding under the desk in terror until suddenly Bruce was holding the dangerous golden scepter and everyone was staring at him and Jaya was silently praying to all the gods that ever were that Bruce would not turn into a brainwashed puppet.

"Put the scepter down, Banner," the captain ordered.

Bruce came back to himself, and dropped the scepter on the table. There was a beeping noise, and Jaya looked up, interested. The results were back from the computer. It was a place in America- Suddenly there was a loud boom and a whoosh, and everything went black.

"Jaya! Jaya!" A loud voice pierced the thick fog in her mind, and she dragged her eyes open. Warm, concerned blue eyes stared back at her. "Jaya, can you hear me?"

"Captain Rogers?" she asked, her tongue feeling thick and cottony.

"Yes." He helped her to her feet.

She gasped as a ripple of pain spread from her ribs down to her feet and she toppled.

He scooped her up in his arms and headed off down the corridor. "Doctor Banner has turned into the Hulk and Loki's men are attacking," he informed her as they swept through the corridors. "I'm taking you to the med bay and you will stay there until it is safe, all right?"

"All right." She was dropped carefully onto a bed in the bustling medical bay, and Captain Rogers swept out again. She curled up slightly, trying to breathe against the pain in her ribs. She must have been thrown against the desk when the explosion happened. She hoped everyone was all right.

A tremendous roar filtered through the ship. Bruce. That was Bruce, as the Other Guy. The Hulk. He must be terrified.

Jaya winced in sympathy.

A nurse came over to her. "Are you shot or broken?" she demanded.

"No." Jaya knew she was only bruised, and even now the pain was receding. She carefully got off the bed. "Let me help, I was a doctor's assistant."

The nurse gave her a doubtful look but didn't argue. "Bandages, gauze, and antiseptic in drawers beneath each bed," she said. "Go on."

Jaya tried to ignore the shouting, gunfire, and roars echoing through the helicarrier as she worked, cleaning surface wounds and diagnosing broken limbs, giving comfort to people in pain. She tried to ignore the fear in her own mind as she pressed hard on a gushing wound in someone's thigh. Please be okay please be okay please be okay… She watched in awe as the wound began to heal right before her very eyes.

The agent stared at her and she stared back at him, astonished. "You a superpower?" he asked, touching his leg gingerly.

"Are you?"

"No."

She checked his other wounds. "I don't know, then, but you'll live. Go."

"Thanks." He rolled off the bed and out the doors.

She stared at her hands. They looked normal. There had been no glow, nothing to suggest she had superpowers like Bruce or Thor or Steve.

"Hey kid, over here!"

She snapped out of it and went to the next casualty. Whatever this was, it could only help. She used her newfound powers to heal the serious injuries and when the doctors stared at her, slack-jawed, she could only shrug.

Suddenly a med team came in with an emergency patient. It was the nice agent from before-Coulson. His chest had a gaping hole in it.

"You, super girl," the lead doctor barked, as the trauma unit worked over him. "We need to repair his heart, can you do it?"

Jaya stared at the blood everywhere, and swallowed hard. She pressed her hands down on the man's chest and focused. The entire world narrowed down to his heart almost literally in her hands. Somehow, she could feel the tissue knitting itself together. There was a terrible silence, and then suddenly he gave a great gasping heave and alarms and monitors began to go off.

She was shoved away and the other doctors surged in to finish saving his life. Jaya stared in shock at the man who was now alive because of her. One of the nurses grabbed her, and eased her down to a chair. "Just breathe," the nurse soothed, "you did good."

Jaya suddenly realized that she was hyperventilating and the whole room was spinning, her body trembling from exhaustion. She pressed shaking hands together and closed her eyes for a few minutes, trying to find her balance. After a minute she looked up, prepared, and went to the next patient. She worked for a few more minutes, healing gunshot wounds and broken limbs, and then two people came in. One was Agent Romanoff, carrying an unconscious agent on her shoulder. "I hit him really hard," Romanoff said, laying the man down gently. "Needs an MRI before he wakes up. We don't know if his mind's been tampered with."

"He's got some brain damage," the doctors reported after a minute. "Someone got in there and messed him up pretty good." One of them looked at Jaya. "Can you repair neural tissue?"

She hadn't tried it, so she had no evidence to suggest otherwise. "I think so."

"Give it a shot." The doctor went off to more immediate injuries, leaving a nurse to supervise.

Agent Romanoff stared at Jaya, her expression inscrutable. "I didn't know you had a superpower."

"Me either," Jaya replied nervously. "It just sort of happened."

"You're not touching him," the redhead stated, looking dangerous yet vulnerable as she stepped in front of Barton's unconscious form.

The nurse stepped forward. "Agent Romanoff, she saved Agent Coulson. She basically brought him back to life. She can help Agent Barton."

Natasha stepped back after a moment. "Hurt him, and I will kill you," she warned.

Jaya nodded, and stepped forward to put her hands on either side of the man, Barton's, face. She closed her eyes, and suddenly it was like she was sucked into a web of light and connections. All around her were blue tendrils of light and shattered bridges of pink stuff. Am I seeing his brain? She asked mentally, and nearly withdrew in disgust. But the blue stuff was still there, and it looked like it was rotting the pink stuff. She took a deep breath and dove in. Whatever her power was, it was getting rid of the blue stuff and repairing the pink and lightning connections. It almost looked like it was rewinding to a previous state. That was interesting.

She realized her power was dwindling, and pulled herself together. With one last push, the blue energy was gone, and she fell backwards out of her trance-like state, nearly falling to the floor. She was caught by Agent Romanoff. "It's done," she gasped, trying desperately not to pass out.

"All the brain damage has been reversed," the doctor confirmed, coming over to look at the scans.

Jaya caught a glimpse of Natasha's thankful gaze, and blacked out.