After the Battle of New York, the heroes had gone their separate ways. So, Ana didn't really understand why the Stark Tower should become the Avengers Tower instead. But it was what Tony Stark himself wanted, so they were all going along with it. Thor had returned to Asgard with Loki, Romanoff and Barton already worked for SHIELD, Captain Rogers was going to join SHIELD as well. Only Dr. Banner had officially been hired by Stark Industries. Even her dad and Pepper had returned to Malibu after they helped Dr. Banner get adjusted to the life in New York, leaving Ana in charge of the building once again. Not that Ana complained. He acted like it was no big deal, but Dr. Banner had beaten the shit out of Loki, and saved her dad's life. Best. Neighbor. Ever.

But once the dust settled, Ana realized what Loki and his scepter had done had affected her more deeply than she thought. It had broken something within her. She couldn't even find the courage to go to Norway.

"I can't wait to see how Thanos will humble you both in the end."

"There is darkness in you, Ana Stark."

"If he chooses to adopt you, you will watch your father die screaming. If not, your father will watch you die screaming first."

She had been avoiding Shuri as well. She must have broken some rules by telling her about the vibranium car. But one evening, Shuri came to see her, saying they needed to talk. She had even brought cupcakes, and Ana decided to open up a bottle of wine. One of those ancient ones Pepper saved for special occasions, but who cared, right? Half an hour later, Ana was one of the few outsiders who knew that Wakanda was anything but a poor third-world country, and Shuri had to pretend to be the spoiled daughter of an African dictator to protect her nation's secrets.

Ana didn't care how much vibranium they had, or how advanced their tech was. All she wanted to know was how much trouble Shuri was in now because of her.

"Your brother said I was your responsibility. What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means if you, as an outsider, ever betray Wakanda, I'm going to have to deal with you myself," she replied in a serious voice, but then burst into laughter. Yeah, they were both getting drunk.

"Why did you choose to trust me? Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered, but still…"

"You passed the test. With flying colors."

"What test?"

She crossed her arms. "Why do you think I left a vibranium car in your garage? And why do you think I let you and your dad see my jet? You knew I was hiding something, but you didn't even touch the car while I was gone. If you had, I would know."

"So, you did it on purpose… To see if I could be trusted."

"I knew you would pass, but…"

"Your family insisted. Okay. You say I passed the test. Now what?"

"Now, I can ask you about your scrapped researched on quantum physics."

"Time-traveling," she mumbled. "Did you read it?"

"I did. So did my brother. Especially the part where you said why premonition might not be impossible. If Einstein is right, and time is an illusion—AKA the fourth dimension—then what is known as premonition, or foresight, is simply a glitch, right? A temporary failure in that illusion?"

Yeah, Ana remembered that chapter, but now she couldn't help but feel a bit betrayed. She really cared about Shuri as a friend, but was she only interested in her scrapped research? Was that why she had approached her?

"You could've just sent me an e-mail, you know," she said bitterly.

"I'm sorry. I value our friendship, that's why I have decided to tell you the truth. But this is more than a scientific curiosity, Ana. This is personal. For both of us."

Her mouth went dry. She knows. How? "W-What do you mean by personal?"

"In Wakanda, there is a sacred cave. I went into that cave once, when I was a little girl. And I saw something. A vision."

"What did you see?"

"The future. We were survivors, but also slaves."

Maybe Ana had become so paranoid that she was imagining connections everywhere. Or maybe, she wasn't. "The only survivors are the ones Thanos chose to adopt." Could Shuri be one of them? Okay, maybe she wasn't so paranoid after all. Maybe "adoption" was just a euphemism for "slavery."

"And why is this personal for both of us?" she asked warily, not sure if she wanted to hear the answer.

"Because you were in that vision as well."

Ana remained silent.

"You don't seem shocked," Shuri observed calmly.

"No…"

"I need you to tell me if you really believe the future is inevitable, Ana."

Inevitable. That word again. Her worst nightmare. No, this couldn't be a coincidence. She was so close to a mental breakdown.

"That research was far from complete," she said frantically. "There's another possibility. The multiverse theory."

"An infinite number of parallel universes? Can it explain my vision?"

"It can. Maybe your sacred cave is an intersection point between those universes. What you saw, will never be our reality."

"At this point, it's just speculation, though. We need proof."

"What if I told you we had proof?"

"What?"

There was one last question she needed to ask her before doing this. "You said your brother read my research as well. Does he know? About your vision?"

She smiled. "Of course. I don't keep secrets from my family. Baba always says lies weaken the family."

Maybe she should take a page from Shuri's book and stop being so secretive about the time-traveler. She had already told Loki. She might as well tell her only friend. At least she was drunk enough to do this.

"JARVIS, activate the Nexus Protocol."

"Nexus Protocol activated. What do you need, Miss Stark?" JARVIS asked obediently.

"What is the Nexus Protocol?"

"A dormant protocol to help me keep some secrets. I hid the code in the mainframe and broke it down into hundreds of small fragments. Only two things can activate it: My voice, or my confirmed death."

"What if someone imitates your voice?"

She rolled her eyes. "JARVIS is smarter than that."

"Thank you, Miss Stark."

Shuri giggled. "What exactly is JARVIS, anyway? He's too sassy to be a simple UI."

"Well, JARVIS was indeed just a natural language UI at first, but I'm not sure what he is anymore. I think he is… evolving, you know what I mean?"

"He seems to have a… personality. I've never seen anything like this."

"Cognitive calibration," she explained. "My dad cracks like a hundred jokes per hour, so JARVIS has a pretty solid foundation to learn from."

"Well, I suppose that's the problem. I'm the only royal with a real sense of humor."

"That sounds lonely."

"I don't know, secret dormant protocols sound lonelier to me."

"Yeah, about that…"

She didn't know where to start, so she just let her watch the videos instead. First, the warning from the future, then her first meeting with Loki in the penthouse, and finally, Loki's interrogation.

Either Shuri had the best poker face in the world, or she had expected to see something like this.

"Say something," Ana finally begged her. "Did you know about this? You don't seem shocked either."

"When I heard that your research had been scrapped, I suspected you were afraid of something. I just didn't know what it was. Does your dad know?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I should've told him, right? But I… I didn't want to scare him."

"You know, at some point, you'll have to tell him."

"I know. How old were you? When you saw that vision?"

"Six."

"Shit… And I thought I was having it rough."

Shuri chuckled mirthlessly.

"I'm going to tell him. But everything is so… vague now. If I'm to tell him that Thanos is coming for him and everyone he cares about, I must give him more than just a name. Otherwise, the uncertainty will drive him crazy."

"Is this why you want to join SHIELD? Do you think they can help you find something?"

"I feel like we're going to need their help one day."

She nodded. "You should tell that to my brother. He wasn't very happy when he found out you were having a Ph.D to enter their academy."

"He doesn't trust them, I see."

"SHIELD approached us in the past."

"What did they want?"

"I don't know. Baba said they had come to a mutual understanding. But T'Challa has never been one for diplomacy."

Ana sighed. This was madness. Yet somehow, it all felt… connected.

Suddenly, Shuri grinned, as if she had come up with an idea. "That interrogation, though… It was so badass!"

"Are you kidding me? I totally screwed it up!"

"No! Loki gave you a name, didn't he? That means you did something right."

"Sigyn…"

"We have to find her."

"We? Together?"

"Do I really need to say it? We're in this together."

"Is she even going to help us?"

"Oh, I know she will."

"Why?"

"Because if she is who I think she is…. She was in my vision, too."

Ana smiled reluctantly. There was no such thing as coincidence, indeed. At least not in their lives. "Tonsberg it is, then."

…

There were very few pilots with whom Ana felt truly safe during a flight, and Shuri was one of them. She now had a different concern, though. What if they got caught in the Norwegian airspace by the authorities? As a member of the Wakandan royal family, Shuri probably had diplomatic immunity, but Ana would have to call one of the Stark Industries lawyers. Then, she was going to have to explain what the hell she was doing here as an illegal visitor.

But both Ana and Shuri had agreed that they couldn't come here as tourists. Or rather, the former had insisted that they couldn't come here as tourists. If they were wrong about Sigyn, they might have to run fast. Plus, they couldn't go anywhere near the airport security with all the guns they had brought with them.

Thanks to the Wakandan stealth tech, none of her fears came true, though, and they landed on an empty field, not too far from the town where Sigyn lived. The jet would remain invisible while they were gone, but Shuri's vibranium car wasn't exactly helping them keep a low profile. But neither of them owned a car that would help them keep a low profile, so instead of buying a cheap throwaway one, they had decided to bring the fastest, and the strongest one they had.

After about half an hour of driving, Shuri finally stopped in front of the address Loki had given Ana.

"Let's do this," Ana said, clicking the safety off her gun.

"Will that be really necessary?"

Ana shrugged. "Hopefully not. Look, I know you think she's going to welcome us with open arms, but what kind of decent person would tie the knot with a homicidal maniac?"

"Better safe than sorry," she agreed, and readied her own gun. "Do you still have those Chitauri metal replica bullets?"

"Yep. Would you like some?"

"I got vibranium."

Right. Ana rolled her eyes. "Show-off…"

"Why don't you show those to your dad? I'm sure he'd be proud of you."

"You know it's illegal to experiment with alien stuff without government approval, right? Dad would freak out if he knew."

After the Battle of New York, Stark Industries and the government had purchased Damage Control, and they were now making sure no alien artifact would fall into the wrong hands. And Ana Stark, the CTO of Stark Industries, was secretly designing weapons based on said artifacts. Talk about hypocrisy…

They hid their guns under their jackets, and got out of the car. The plan was to make an amiable first impression, but like Shuri said, better safe than sorry.

Ana knocked on the door, and waited. She could hear the faint music coming from inside the house. She didn't understand the lyrics, but it sounded like a Viking song. A really sad one. A requiem, maybe?

The door was finally answered, by the most beautiful woman Ana had ever seen. The slender young woman's golden-blonde hair had been tied into a messy bun, she was only wearing a wrinkled old t-shirt and a pair of yoga pants, and the look in her mesmerizingly blue eyes somehow explained the sad Viking song she had been listening to, but she was still the most beautiful woman Ana had ever seen.

Yep, definitely a goddess…

"Good afternoon," Ana started. "Sorry to bother you, but we were, uhm… We wanted to—"

"Come inside," Sigyn simply said.

"Were you expecting us?"

"I was expecting a visitor after what happened in New York. Just… not Howard's granddaughter."

Ana and Shuri exchanged confused looks. Sigyn turned her back and gestured them to follow her.

"Did you know my grandfather?" Ana then asked Sigyn as the latter led them into a living room. It had been decorated in a modern, but also modest and cozy fashion. For an alien, she seemed well-adjusted to the life on this planet. But then, Loki had said she had been here for decades.

"He was a good friend of mine. As was Peggy… This realm used to be a simpler one back then. Now, nothing is ever going to be the same."

Howard Stark, and Peggy Carter… The founders of SHIELD. Ana wondered if there was a secret third founder.

"Your name is Sigyn, right?"

"Yes. And I assume you're here to learn more about your mother?"

Ana froze. She hadn't thought much about her mother, not after scrapping the time-travel project. Giving up on answers about her had seemed like a small price to pay to save the world. But now, for some reason, Sigyn thought this visit had something to do with her.

"Please, have a seat."

Not knowing what else to do, she obeyed. So did Shuri. She was still uncharacteristically quiet, but she wrapped an arm around Ana's shoulders.

"Coffee, or tea?"

"No, thanks," Ana murmured. She didn't think she could drink anything right now. Shuri shook her head as well.

"Loki." Sigyn sucked in a sharp breath before continuing. "My husband has always been one for mischief… I don't know what he told you, but I did what I did to pay my debt of gratitude to Howard."

"Wait… You're not my mother, are you?" If Sigyn had cheated on Loki with Tony Stark, that would explain why Loki loathed him—and humans in general—so much.

"If you had Aesir blood in your veins, you would know it. And I'm still faithful to my husband." Her voice was full of disgust now, which actually reminded Ana of Loki.

She decided to play nice. "Sorry. I meant no offense, of course."

"Look, Irene had no right to hide a child from her father. I had to do something about it."

"I—I don't understand. Who is Irene?"

"Irene Clarke. Your mother."

Irene Clarke. After 20 years, Ana finally had a name.

"Tony and Irene were both studying at Cambridge. That's how they met."

"Was she just a one-night stand, or…"

"I don't know the details of the… affair. I took you from the hospital after her death. She was already ill by the time you were conceived… Stage four breast cancer. She died three weeks after your birth."

"How come does my father not know about this? Didn't she try to contact him?"

"Contact him? She was too proud. Too proud to admit that she had been seduced by a playboy, and then left with a broken heart. She was hoping Tony would never know he had a daughter. That would've been Irene's posthumous revenge."

"So, it was you who left me on my dad's doorstep…"

"Yes. You were born in London. After I took you to your father, I tracked down everyone who knew about you, and erased their memories."

"Why did you do that?"

"To make sure Tony could raise you in peace. Anyway, what else do you want to know about your mother?"

"Nothing," she blurted out, and felt Shuri's arm tighten around her. Maybe she was going to regret this decision later, but right now, it was what she wanted.

"Are you sure?"

Her breathing had become rigged. Focus, she reminded herself. Focus on what really matters.

"I wasn't here for my mother," Ana then admitted. It helped.

"Why, then?"

"Loki said you could help us defeat Thanos."

A look of horror crossed Sigyn's face.

"You know what I'm talking about," Ana observed.

She let out an exasperated sigh. "What do you want from me?"

"We were hoping you could tell us what the Nexus is."

"I don't know what that is," she said, and Ana believed her.

"It has something to do with the Infinity Stones."

Her eyes widened, and she jumped to her feet. "Get out," she hissed.

Ana and Shuri stood up as well. "Please," Ana begged. "You said you owed Howard Stark a debt."

"And I paid that debt when I took you to your father. That was the last time I meddled in mortal affairs! Perhaps I shouldn't have done even that. My duty was to guard the Tesseract, not the Starks!"

"You were in my vision!" Shuri finally spoke. "You were helping us send Ana back in time and stop Thanos!"

"You are not ready!" Suddenly, a double-bladed sword materialized in her hand, and she pointed it at them. Ana and Shuri both took out their own guns.

"I'd warned Fury about the Tesseract," Sigyn went on. "He didn't listen to me, and look what happened in New York!"

"You're going to regret this!" Shuri was furious. For a moment, Ana thought she would really pull that trigger. "I know what Thanos will make you do."

"So do I," Sigyn said solemnly. "But I'll never trust mortals again. Take your friend, and leave in peace now, Ana Stark. I'm giving you one last chance, for Howard's sake."

"Okay," Ana said, and lowered her gun. "Come on, Shuri. Let's go."

After Shuri, too, lowered her gun, the sword in Sigyn's hand disappeared. Ana gently grabbed Shuri by the arm and led her out of the house.

"BITCH!" Shuri shouted one last time, when they were still on Sigyn's porch, and a couple of people in the street turned to look at them. But the Asgardian simply ignored the insult, and shut the door.

"I'll drive," Ana suggested. Shuri was still shaking.

…

"Well, your Asgardian fairy godmother was a dead end," Shuri, who had calmed down significantly by the time they returned to the jet, sighed.

"Oh, we're not calling her my fairy godmother…"

Shuri was right. Sigyn was an arrogant, self-righteous bitch. And yet, deep down, Ana couldn't help but feel immensely grateful for what Sigyn had done for her. She couldn't even imagine what it would have been like to grow up without her dad. Not because he had spoiled her with expensive gifts, or not even because he had taught her how to use her genius, no. It was because they had always been each other's biggest supporter. When your mind had the potential to change the world, it was hard to tell who truly cared about you and who only saw you as a golden goose. She had never had that dilemma with him. Some people called Ana the Heiress, but he had never tried to shape her into the perfect heir to his empire. He had never forced her to be someone she didn't want to be. He had only taught her because he knew science made her happy. Studying at MIT, working at Stark Industries, preparing to join SHIELD… These had been her choices.

"Do you want to talk about your mother?"

"No," she said firmly. "That woman was almost going to ruin my life for her petty posthumous revenge. As far as I'm concerned, I don't have a mother. That's the only way I can get back at her."

Maybe Loki was right. Maybe there was some darkness in her. At first, she had thought the scepter had broken her, but no. It had unlocked something within her, she could see that now.

"Okay… What now? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually out of ideas."

"Shuri," she said softly, "Who else was in your vision?"

"Just the three of us."

"And what exactly happened in that vision?" She had never asked her before. But now, she had to. "You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to," she added quickly.

"No, it's okay. We were on a spaceship, trapped in a room. Sigyn was casting a spell on you. An illusion spell, to make sure you looked like your 17-year-old self again. We were trying to send you back in time to fix things. You were trying to open a portal, but we knew Thanos was coming for us. There wasn't enough time. Then I decided to buy you some time, you tried to stop me, and…"

"And?"

"And I said I had already died when Thanos killed my brother. Sigyn said she, too, had died when Thanos made her kill Loki. We were ready to sacrifice ourselves. But you said it wasn't fair, because your death was going to be much quicker compared to ours. The next thing I remember was waking up crying in T'Challa's arms."

"Terrible sacrifices have been made, just to make sure I get to deliver this message." Ana shuddered. "I'm sorry."

She took a deep breath, then smiled. "Hey, remember what you said? That won't be our reality. If we act, of course… So, let's try to come up with something on the way back to New York, okay?"

She turned back around in the pilot's seat and started preparing for the take-off. Without a word, Ana fastened her own seatbelt in the co-pilot's seat and closed her eyes. As an engineer, she knew the riskiest parts of the flight was the first and the last few minutes. Once the jet was switched to autopilot, she opened her eyes. Of course, she could still think of a hundred different things that could go wrong while they were in the air. A bird in the engines, a disintegrating fan blade, metal fatigue, a simple glitch in the navigation systems…

"I bet SHIELD knows about Sigyn," Shuri said, spinning around in her seat to face Ana again.

Probably. Sigyn had said something about Fury… And guarding the Tesseract. This had to be in the SHIELD files. Ana unfastened her seatbelt, and went to fetch her laptop. She didn't think she could wait until she joined SHIELD and had a clearance level high enough to find out.

"What are you doing?"

"Hacking into SHIELD."

"Look, I like this rebellious version of yours, but are you sure this is a good idea? They'll probably figure out it's you."

"They won't… I'll make sure it looks like the Rising Tide."

"The Rising Tide?"

"Never heard of them?"

"Nope. Who are they?"

"A bunch of hackers and conspiracy theorists. Only, their videos aren't fake. One of them even tried to hack the Stark Industries Central Database once."

The last part seemed to pique Shuri's interest even more. "How did it go?"

She shot her a smug look. "Do you really need to ask? She was good, though. I had to reboot the systems in the end."

"She?"

"The alias was 'Skye.' Sounds like a girl name to me."

In the meantime, Ana had been able to hack the Triskelion's servers. It wasn't going to take long until someone realized she was there and locked her out. But she was able to download everything on the Tesseract before that happened. She had also tried to find anything related to Sigyn, but there was nothing.

Unfortunately, the files she had downloaded didn't mention Sigyn, or any other guardian either. There wasn't anything they didn't already know in those files.

"This doesn't make any sense," Shuri said. "Sigyn clearly knew Director Fury!"

"The thing is, SHIELD is Fury, but Fury is not SHIELD. My dad says his secrets have secrets."

"And Sigyn is one of those secrets?"

Ana shrugged. She couldn't think of any other explanation.

"Do you think we should go to Fury now? Do you trust that guy?"

"I'm not sure. But I think he cares about us. I mean, his life would've probably been much easier if he'd just let my dad die of palladium poisoning, but he did everything he could to save him."

"Okay. What are you going to do?"

"I'll do what I do best. I'll go to the Academy, play by the rules, earn his trust, and be a part of his inner circle. That should give me access to some of his secrets."

"Sounds like a long-shot."

"How much time do you think we have?"

"I wish I knew. But you and I looked older in that vision than we are now. Like, in our mid-thirties. At least before Sigyn gave you a magic botox. That explains how the future you fooled Obadiah Stane and saved your life."

Shuri was right. Stane would have been able to tell the difference if her future self had looked like in her mid-thirties.

"Okay, fine… So, we have more than ten years. That doesn't sound so bad."

"Yeah, but how can we know when exactly we were adopted?"

"Right," she had to admit. She had been too optimistic.

"Well, I think I'll go back to Wakanda."

"What?" she cried. "Why?"

"I don't have access to all of Wakanda's resources in New York."

"What about your Ph.D?"

"Ana, I didn't come to New York to have a Ph.D. I came to meet you. But before I leave America, I want you to take me to Disneyland first. You promised me, remember?"

Ana blinked a few times, trying to understand if she was serious. "We're trying to save the world from an evil alien mastermind, and you want to go to Disneyland?"

"I don't see why we can't do both."

Ana had different priorities. "Fine, I'll take you to Disneyland. But once you return to Wakanda, we're going to need a private, secure server for our conversations."

"That's easy. Are you going to tell your dad?"

"I think I will, yeah. I've officially run out of excuses."

"Good, because T'Challa wants to work with him."

"Really? I thought he didn't trust outsiders."

"I've finally convinced him to make an exception for the Starks. He has a suit, too, you know."

"So, he's another superhero? Lovely… What do you call him, Vibranium Man?"

Shuri rolled her eyes. "The suit itself is called the Panther Habit. The Black Panther has been the protector of Wakanda for generations. It's more like a mantle, passed from warrior to warrior. My father was the Black Panther in his youth, but he decided to retire a few years ago, and let T'Challa take over. So, now it's his duty to protect Wakanda."

"Wow… That sounds deep," she said thoughtfully.

"Vibranium Man," Shuri repeated, snickering. "T'Challa needs to hear that one."

"Oh, please don't!" she begged her, but knowing Shuri, she was pretty sure her ignorance would soon become an inside joke among the Wakandan royal family.

"You're afraid of my brother," she observed.

"Well, he sounds like an overprotective big brother…"

"That's why he and Mr. Stark will get along just fine."

…

Ana was back at the Stark Tower by three in the morning, but she didn't think she could sleep, knowing that she was going to have to talk to her dad in only a few hours.

"JARVIS, let me know when my dad wakes up."

"Mr. Stark is actually awake."

"Really?" she cried. She had thought she would have at least a few hours to prepare herself, but now, she couldn't delay this any further, or she was going to chicken out. She couldn't do that. Shuri and her brother were relying on her for the next step.

It's now or never, Ana. "Call him, JARVIS."

Five seconds later, she heard his voice. "Hey, kid. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine," she lied. "What about you?"

"Pepper has officially moved in. Everything's great… You don't usually stay up this late, is something wrong?"

"No, nothing is wrong. I was just wondering if we could talk, face to face."

He remained silent for a while. "Uhm, is it urgent?"

"Yeah, it kind of is."

"JARVIS, is Midas ready?" he asked, but for some reason, Ana couldn't hear JARVIS' reply. "Ana, give me thirty minutes, okay?"

"Dad, it's not that urgent." If he wanted to be here in half an hour, he needed to fly at supersonic speed.

"Too bad, you already said it is," he said and hung up. Ana went up to the penthouse and started waiting for him.

Indeed, half an hour later, a new Iron Man suit painted in gold landed on the balcony. Well, at least that explained why it was called Midas… Some pieces of the suit seemed to be missing, though.

When the suit opened up and her dad stepped out of it, she immediately realized that something was wrong with him. Mostly because he was trying too hard not to look like a mess.

"Mark 21?" she asked, inspecting the suit.

"Yeah, it was designed for supersonic flight, it's perfect for situations like this."

"And is it supposed to be breaking apart at supersonic speeds?"

He ruffled her hair. "Smartass…"

To her surprise, instead of heading straight to the bar, he flung himself down on a couch. Ana joined him.

"Maybe you should take a break, Dad."

"From what? Making suits?"

"Yeah. One perfectly functional suit is better than a dozen crappy ones."

"I can't."

"Why not? Has someone threatened you again?" They had no shortage of enemies.

"No, it's not that. It's just… Whatever. I'm here for you, just tell me what's going on."

Okay, she had promised herself not to delay this any further, but… This was clearly not a good time. "First, you tell me what's going on."

He hesitated for a second, then jumped to his feet and began pacing up and down frantically. "Do you remember what you said when you first heard about Loki? About gods, and magic? You were right! You were right, kid, and I was wrong."

"Look, I know I should've left the tower. You'd warned me. It's not your fault that I didn't listen."

"No, you stayed here because I'd told you to study and understand the threat. You did exactly what you were told to do! That's on me."

"Dad…"

"The threat, the real threat, it's still up there," he said, pointing at the sky.

She shivered. He had no idea how right he was.

"I saw it," he went on. "I still see it, every time I close my eyes. I can't sleep. And I don't know how to explain what I saw. All I know is Iron Man is not good enough."

PTSD? This had never happened before, not even after Afghanistan. But then, a cave in the desert and a portal in the sky weren't exactly the same thing. Ana wanted to say that she understood him, probably better than anybody else. She had seen some shit, too. But he didn't seem ready to hear about her own struggles.

"And what would be good enough, in your opinion?"

He sat down next to her. "An Iron Legion…"

No, she thought. They needed the Nexus, whatever that was. But an Iron Legion wouldn't hurt either.

"Sorry, kid," he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "I didn't mean to scare you."

"I'm not scared," she lied.

"Anyway, why did you call me here?"

Ana gulped. She couldn't tell him. How could she? He was almost going to die saving the world, and now suffering from the mental consequences of his sacrifice. How could she tell him that everyone he loved might be tortured to death because of what he had done? But she had to give him something, otherwise he would get suspicious.

"It's Shuri…"

"Don't tell me you girls had a fight. Is it because of that vibranium car?"

"No, we didn't have a fight. She's just decided to drop out of school. She must return to Wakanda and sort some things out. Family stuff… It doesn't have anything to do with me. It's embarrassing, actually. I shouldn't have called you here at this hour for something like this."

"No, I'm glad you did. I'm sorry she has to leave. I know you don't have many friends."

"Yeah, it took me like 20 years to find someone I could call friend," she scoffed. "I'm hopeless."

"That's not true. I mean, you never had a problem trusting Pepper, Rhodey, or Happy, for example."

"Yeah, I trust them because you do. Shuri is the first person I chose to trust."

"If it's any help, I think you made the right choice."

"Thanks, Dad… So, are you going to stay here, or…"

"If you, uhm, need me, I can stay for a couple of days, sure," he said, but he was visibly uncomfortable. So, that was apparently why he had been hesitant to come here in the first place.

"The nightmares are worse when you're here, aren't they?"

"I can handle it."

"Dad, we can move to a different building if you want. This tower… It's full of bad memories."

"Memories? How many times do I have to tell you, I'm not a sentimentalist…"

They both knew that was a lie. "Does Pepper know?"

"Not yet. But I'll tell her, I promise."

"Yeah, you should."

"Tell you what, I'll stay here until Monday. Let's see how it goes."

Now she was feeling even more guilty. "You don't have to…"

"No, it's fine. Midas needs fixing, anyway. JARVIS, take him to my workshop, will you?"

"Yes, sir."

After he set off to the workshop, she grabbed her phone and texted Shuri. "He's suffering from PTSD now. I can't tell him. Sorry."