Chapter Nine

The night before Thanksgiving, Tony announced to the team that they would be cooking their own dinner. In the Tower. Together.

"Team building! Right, Cap?" he said, clapping Steve on the shoulder, "I've already got the recipes picked out! I ordered the food! Our kitchen is totally stocked and ready to go!"

"You're insane," Nat said, leaning her hip against the counter, arms crossed, the tiniest hint of a smile on her lips.

"You're in charge of the potatoes!"

"Midgard has an entire day dedicated to giving thanks?" Klara asked, "Why have we not celebrated this before? Is it only on certain years?"

"It's not celebrated everywhere," Steve explained, sounding like he was still trying to process Tony's big announcement (and think of a way out of it), "It's a time to remember how much we've gone through to get to where we are."

"And the people we stepped on to get there," Bruce muttered, and Alice snorted a laugh. Bruce put his arm around her shoulders and squeezed.

"Come on, what's everyone look so worried for?" Tony said, still sounding way too happy about this endeavor, "I gave you guys the easy parts. I'm doing the turkey!"

Everyone groaned. It was official. They were screwed.


It was official. They were screwed.

Alice dropped her head down to the table, covering it with her arms. Everything was on fire. Or at least had been at some point. Natasha was the only one that hadn't managed to burn anything, but that was only because she had point-blank refused to actually cook the potatoes. Alice lifted her head and peeked at the blackened mass that was supposed to be green bean casserole.

"I don't even like green beans," she grumbled, "Or onion strings. How did I get talked into this?"

Bruce didn't answer, only put an arm around her and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head.

"Is it supposed to be so...sweet?"

That was Klara's voice. She and Thor had been put in charge of the sweet potatoes, and Thor had gone a little wild with the marshmallows, under the impression that more was always better. They had bubbled over, coagulating in the bottom of the oven, and causing the second fire of the night. Tony was currently putting out the fourth. He and what was left of his turkey were now covered in fire suppression foam, and he was surveying the damage with the wild look of a man who still thought he could make it to work on time, even though he was supposed to be there five minutes ago.

"This was the best idea ever," Nat said, popping a handful of onion strings in her mouth from the open can.

"Your sarcasm is not appreciated," Tony said, running a hand through his foamed hair and making it stick up at weird angles.

"You realize I've never actually baked a pie, right? Apple or otherwise?" Steve said, quirking an eyebrow. He was covered head to toe in flour, his sleeves rolled up (not that it had saved them) and poking at the lump of what was supposed to be pie crust on the counter. It crumbled at his touch.

Tony waved a hand in his direction without looking at him. "It's American. You know, American as apple pie? How could you go wrong?"

"Oh, so many ways," Steve said, poking at his crumbly crust again.

Alice couldn't help it. She giggled. She tried to bury her face in her arms again to hide it, but once she started she couldn't stop. Apparently, it was contagious, because she felt Bruce start vibrating with laughter beside her, and then Steve was laughing, and Thor, and Klara, and eventually even Tony broke down into slightly mad-sounding cackles.

That was how Pepper found them, bent over, nearly crying from laughter, smothered in smoke and fire suppression foam.

"Did I miss the party already?"

"Pepper!" Alice shouted in delighted, breathless surprise, "Thank god you're here! Tony's trying to facilitate our deaths by forcing us to cook!"

"Well, we can't have that," Pepper said with a small, self-satisfied grin. She touched a finger to her ear. "Bring 'em up, Happy."

A few seconds later, an armada of men and women carrying armloads of boxes exited the elevator, directed by a large man with an old-style security earpiece. From the containers wafted the most delicious smells Alice's nose had ever had the pleasure of detecting.

"Pepper Potts, I could kiss you," Alice said, leaning over the table and taking a big whiff of the fresh rolls.

"Me first!" Tony exclaimed, vaulting over the back of the lounge couch and grabbing Pepper around the waist, dipping her over in dramatic film style, and subsequently covering her in foam. She came back up laughing and smacked him on the shoulder.

"Okay, your turn," Tony said, turning to wink at Alice over his shoulder.

"You're an idiot," Pepper said, walking over to give Alice a big hug, either unaware or unconcerned with the foam and soot stains on her nice, cream business suit.

"I didn't know you were coming!" Alice said, "How long?"

"'Til the New Year, I think," Pepper said, "No point puttering around the LA office by myself when I can just as easily work from here."

A shadow briefly crossed her face and Alice thought she understood. Christmas was a bad time to be in LA. Alice smiled and squeezed her hands.

"I'm really glad you're here."

Pepper blinked and then smiled back. "Me too."

"This is really very generous of you, Miss Potts," Steve said, trying to brush the flour from his hands and out of his hair as he approached her, "Thank you."

"It's Pepper, Captain Rogers," she said, holding out her hand and taking his floury one with no hesitation, "And believe me, it's my pleasure."

"Oh right, there are people you need to meet," Tony said, putting an arm around Pepper's waist and turning her to face the rest of the room, "Everyone, this is Pepper! Pepper, everyone! Good, you're acquainted. Can we eat now?"

"Everything's ready, Miss Potts," Happy Hogan said, eying the group with a strange sort of protective suspicion, "Should I take up a post-?"

"You're gonna take up a post right in that chair, Hogan," Tony said, pointing to the now fully stocked table, complete with cornucopia even, "I haven't seen you in weeks, I want to hear about what happened with that nurse in rehab."

With his arm still glued around Pepper's waist, he took the other man by the sleeve of his suit jacket and steered him reluctantly to the mentioned chair. Everyone else settled around the table, and soon they were laughing again as they recounted various moments during the cooking debacle.

"Where's Clint?" Pepper asked, putting down her wine glass and wiping her eyes, "He seems like a sensible guy, didn't he at least try to talk you out of it?"

There was a brief, awkward pause before Natasha spoke up.

"He's taking a vacation."

"Oh," Pepper said, glancing around the table and seeming to find meaning in the innocuous non-expressions, "Well that's good. Klara, how are you liking Midgard? Is it very different from Asgard? I'd like to hear a woman's perspective."

As always, Alice was astounded at the woman's ability to get straight to the root of a problem and still manage to tackle it with poise and grace. Klara looked up from her plate and blinked.

"Oh," she said, in that way she had when she was buying time, "I...like it very well, thank you. Your traditions and customs are quite different, of course, but I fear I had very little experience in the cultural norms of Asgard either. I was only ever a servant in the royal household."

Her eyes dropped back to her plate, pushing a green bean absently with her fork.

"Klara was quite well respected in my mother's service," Thor said pointedly as if trying to get Klara to see it as much as anyone, "But our social hierarchy is quite different from your own. We have seen only a small part of the larger Asgardian culture. We were both, as they say, living with blinders on. It has been an eye-opening experience to come to Midgard, where such things are not quite as universally agreed upon."

Klara nodded, though she did not look up from her plate.

"We went shopping!" Alice blurted out, and Pepper raised an eyebrow.

"You? Went shopping?"

Alice shrugged, but she couldn't quite contain her grin. "Klara needed new shoes."

"Klara, I'd like to take this opportunity to convey to you what a rare experience that was," Pepper said in a deadpan voice, "I've only ever been able to convince Alice to shop once, and that was because literally, every pair of jeans she owned were falling apart."

"They were comfortable!" Alice protested, "I'd just gotten the kinks worked out!"

"Along with the seams, and the knees, and the pocket of one ass-cheek, if I'm not mistaken," Pepper said smugly, lifting her glass for a sip.

"Like I said, comfortable."

"I do not like denim," Klara confessed, giving Thor a glance out of the corner of her eye as she said it. The prince was well known to enjoy his jeans while he was slumming it on Midgard. "I don't find it very practical."

"It has to be the right pair," Pepper agreed, lifting her glass in salute of Klara's opinion, which made the girl's lips turn up a little, "But I prefer a good pantsuit myself."

"You're both crazy," Nat said, taking a swig from her own glass, "Jeans are God's way of telling us he loves us and wants us to be happy."

"Here, here!" Alice agreed, lifting her glass.

"Khakis," Bruce said, his eyes twinkling as Alice turned to stare at him, "If I have a choice."

"Traitor," Alice grumbled, but then his lips demanded to be kissed and she couldn't say no.

It was a good night. Everyone ate until they were stuffed, even Thor and Steve (which was always a feat). They laughed, and joked, and...it hit Alice sometime after her third glass of wine. Thor was telling a particularly rousing tale involving a bilgesnipe and a barrel of ale. Everyone was laughing. Everyone was happy. It was Thanksgiving, and it felt like...they were a family.

Her stomach twisted and she lurched to her feet, off-balance from the food and the wine. She put a hand on Bruce's shoulder, keeping herself upright and him in his seat.

"Alice?"

"I'm alright," she announced to the table in general, shaking her head and forcing a smile for them. They looked so worried. Like they cared. Her stomach rebelled again and she stumbled away from the table, waving a hand behind her. "I'm alright, just... I'll be back."

She got into the elevator and scrambled for the button, pressing a few different ones as she tried to find the right floor. Her vision blurred and her throat closed up. She was gonna be sick. She was gonna pass out. There were the echoes of screams and she slid down the elevator wall, curled up in the corner, covered her ears and shut her eyes. But that only made it worse because the screams were coming from the dark inside her head. She could see the blood in the moonlight.

"Jacob?" Her child's voice trembled in the dark. "Dad? Momma?"

Only it wasn't Jacob. It was her. Her blood. And it wasn't her voice. It was Tony. Tony the child, Tony the tinkerer, Tony the ass...

...that's what friends DO, Alice!

It was Klara. Klara who was vulnerable, Klara who knew loss, Klara who didn't believe...

...the only Midgardian in this Tower who does more than tolerate me, is you...

It was Bruce...

"Alice?"

She sucked in a breath and looked up. The elevator doors were open and Bruce was crouched at the threshold, his eyes flicking rapidly over her, checking for injuries, checking for...who knew. The floor behind him was dark and Alice could see abandoned desks in the shadows.

"How did you find me?" she asked, her voice hoarse as if she'd been screaming. Had she been screaming? She couldn't remember.

"JARVIS called," he said, his voice gentle and smooth, "When you didn't get off the elevator."

Her chin started to tremble and she buried her face in her knees again. Even the damn AI cared too much.

"No one else is coming, are they?" she asked, her voice muffled. She couldn't handle trying to explain-

"I told them I would take care of it," he answered and Alice shuddered in relief, "No one followed me."

She was crying. That's why her throat felt sore. She was sobbing silently, rocking her feet, heel-toe, heel-toe, her shoulders heaving.

"I don't wanna hurt anyone," she said, loudly, defiantly, "I don't wanna hurt anyone, not like this. I can't. I can't."

Tony. Klara. Pepper. Clint. There were so many of them. And they didn't know, didn't understand...

The elevator shifted beneath her and then she was in his lap, cradled against his chest on the floor, his arms around her, his fingers in her hair.

"I know," Bruce murmured as she cried, "I know."


Klara tried not to worry. Really, she did. But no one had seen Alice Ripley since she had fled the dinner table last night except Dr. Banner, and all he would say after JARVIS had summoned him was that she had been 'overwhelmed'. Which seemed to Klara like some kind of code that she hadn't been given the means to decipher. She had considered visiting the girl this morning, as Alice had done for her once, but she had hesitated. It felt...like an imposition. Her concern only intensified when Dr. Banner appeared at Mr. Stark's 'emergency movie night' without Alice in tow.

"Where is she?" Stark asked, sounding annoyed, "How are we supposed to have movie night without our mistress of ceremonies?"

"She's not feeling well," Dr. Banner said, giving the other man a pointed look, "She said to carry on without her."

Mr. Stark looked as if he would have liked to argue, but then ultimately decided against it, throwing up his hands in a frustrated gesture.

"Fine! Executive decision: we're watching Miracle on 34th Street. Because it's the next best thing to a Thanksgiving movie, and because I say so."

"Which one?" Mr. Hogan asked from where he stood (at his own insistence) in the back of the room.

Stark gave him a blank stare.

"How dare you even ask that question, Hogan. I expect better from you. JARVIS!"

"Ready, sir."

"Hit the lights!"

As the movie began, Klara was surprised to see that it was devoid of color, shaded instead in tones of brown and gray.

"Holy shit, is that Maureen O'Hara?" Captain Rogers asked, suddenly upright, "What year-?"

"1947," Mr. Hogan said, sounding pleased with himself, "And yes, that is Maureen O'Hara, alongside a young Natalie Wood in her first major role."

"Oh."

The captain sat back again, but his eyes remained fixed on the screen with a strange mixture of furrowed brow and tense lips. Klara could sometimes see in the dim light that his expression was distant. Miss Romanov (who had taken to draping herself over him, in place of the missing Clint Barton) would hand him refreshments that he took, but would then hand back untouched. When the film ended, Klara realized that her divided attention had caused her to miss a great portion of it.

The party quickly scattered after the movie, and Klara followed Thor from the room, eager to change into her training clothes and make her way to the gymnasium. But as she watched Doctor Banner enter the second elevator, alone and in silence, she felt a resurgence of anxiety for her...was she a friend? Maybe not, but Klara had meant it when she said that Alice was perhaps the only Midgardian in the Tower who did more than simply tolerate her, which made her something special. Did the concern she felt for Captain Rogers mean that she had elevated him to that level as well? She didn't know. He did seem to tolerate her better than some. Was she now so desperate for any semblance of approval that she was willing to accept it even in the most basic of respects? There had been a time when she had needed acceptance from no one. When had she become this, a pathetic husk of her former self?

No longer mourn for me when I am dead...

"You keep dropping your guard," Captain Rogers said, piercing her thoughts with the first touch of irritation he had ever directed at her, "Elbows down, fists up, never drop your guard!"

Klara swallowed and resisted the urge to go stiff at the criticism. Instead, she tightened her jaw and settled into the familiar starting pose again, slightly crouched, facing the bag, her fists at angles and her elbows dropped. But Captain Rogers had turned away, rubbing a hand over his face, shoulders heaving as he took in a breath. Klara paused, uncertain. Was this a test? Was she meant to remain as she was, would he turn back and attack her if she lowered her guard at his seeming vulnerability? She had heard of similar tactics, meant to frighten students into compliance. But the captain did not seem like the kind of man to resort to such methods. And she had never seen him in a vulnerable moment before. Ever. She lowered her fists.

"Captain Rogers?"

His shoulders heaved again, and he ran a hand through his short blond locks before he flashed her one of his brilliant smiles, dimmed slightly by an apologetic tone.

"I'm sorry, Klara," he said, rubbing the back of his neck as if he had a cramp, "I shouldn't have snapped at you."

"I was dropping my guard," she replied, clasping her wrapped hands behind her, "You were doing your duty."

He huffed and shook his head, still smiling.

"No, I wasn't," he said, "I snapped because of me, not because of you, and that's not fair. If I'm gonna be angry, I don't need to take it out on you."

"Are you?" The question slipped from her lips before she could retract it. His glance was confused, and she reluctantly qualified the question. "Angry? You do not seem so."

"I don't?" he asked, sounding skeptical.

"You seem upset," she said, "Not angry. There is a difference."

He stared at her for a moment. Then he sighed and ruffled up his hair again.

"Yeah," he said, "Upset. You're right, that is a better word."

"You didn't care for the film?"

"What? No," he assured her, waving a hand as if to dispel the notion, "No, it wasn't that. The movie was good, cute. I..." He paused, then shrugged. "I wish I could have seen it when it came out."

Klara's brow furrowed as she tried to understand.

"It was...after your time? In the past, I mean?"

"Two years," he said, throwing a couple of half-hearted punches at the bag to set it swinging, "I missed it by two years. You wouldn't think it'd be that big a deal, but..." He shrugged again and stopped the bag in its motion.

"Homesick," Klara said, and again he stared at her as if she'd said something profound. She dropped her eyes. "That is what Darcy Lewis called it. She used to tell me that it didn't necessarily mean you longed for a specific place. It could be...a feeling, a time, a...person."

Her eyes flicked up and away again before she could read his reaction. Had he heard the way her tongue had stumbled? Had he correctly interpreted her hesitation? Had she just lost one of the few allies she might have had?

"Do you miss it?"

He did not speak the question in anger. It was quiet and soft, coaxing. Klara risked a longer glance up, but he wasn't looking at her. He was studying the bag, holding it at arm's length, flexing his fingers against the vinyl.

"Asgard," he clarified, still without looking at her, "Do you miss it?"

"No." The answer came readily to her lips, no hesitation. "I don't. What I miss is...the familiarity. The unquestionable certainty that I was exactly where I ought to be, doing precisely what I was meant to do."

Once you learn the truth, you can never unlearn it...

She shook her head to clear away the ghost of his voice.

"I will never have that again," she said, "And I miss it. But I do not miss Asgard."

"If you could go back," he asked, finally capturing her gaze, "To that feeling, to what was familiar, would you?"

This was a more difficult question, and she did not have a ready answer for it. She had thought she would. She had thought the answer would be easy. But to go back to that feeling, to that unquestioning familiarity...she would have to forget everything that had happened to her. Everything he had taught her.

Not talking about it doesn't make it any less true...

She shut her eyes as the words washed over her, echoes of her naive past, when the world had been so clearly divided into good and evil, black and white.

"No," she breathed, and she could feel a piece of her soul break away with the word, a piece of who she had once been, "I wouldn't. I couldn't."

She opened her eyes. Captain Rogers dropped his.

"Yeah," he said, "Me neither. I think that makes it worse, actually. Knowing that even if I could go back..."

He flexed his hand and then released, unraveling the wrappings on his hands.

"I think we're done for tonight," he said, walking by without looking at her, "Get some sleep, Klara."

And then he was gone, leaving her alone in the dim light of the training area. The silver chain around her neck burned and she slowly grasped the pendant beneath her tunic, shutting her eyes and trying not to let the surge of memory consume her where she stood.


Alice was already in bed when Bruce came in. He watched her for a moment in the dark, the rise and fall of her shoulders as she tried to convince him that she was asleep. She wasn't doing a very good job, but he let her get away with it. He changed quietly in the dark and slipped beneath the covers, laying on his back with his hands folded over his chest, wondering if it was safe to touch her, to hold her, to whisper in her ear how much he had missed her tonight, how much everyone had missed her, how it hadn't been the same without her there. But he knew it wasn't safe. It would only make things worse if she knew how much her presence (or the lack of it) affected everyone in the Tower. If she knew how much she meant to them.

He had tried to explain it to Tony once, but the mechanic didn't get it. He was...well, he was Tony. He wanted to fix it. To tinker, to improve, to make things better. But that wasn't how it worked. Alice wasn't broken. She was scared. Some days more than others, but she lived in a constant state of fear. Not for herself, not for her own life, but for the lives of others, that they might not have to suffer what she suffered every day. She cared too much, and it was both selfless and selfish at the same time. Bruce loved her for it and in spite of it.

He rolled over and pressed a kiss to her shoulder blade. She was still awake. He knew she was, but he pretended because that was what she needed him to do.

"I love you, Alice," he whispered, mostly for himself, to feel like he had done something. To feel a little less helpless.

He lay back down, within reach but not quite touching, and shut his eyes. And just as he was on the verge of drifting off, he felt her featherlight touch on his brow and the press of a kiss on his cheek.

"I love you too."


A/N: Wow, this chapter was an emotional rollercoaster, and I'm trying to be sorry but I'm really not ;P