Watching the light take over.

They took turns, debriefing, sleeping, cooking, getting down to help the rescue and cleaning teams, watching over the sleeping young lady, forcing Tony and Bruce away from Tony's workshop. At first they had troubles getting Natasha and Clint away from Miss Lewis. Tony and Bruce had been easier to deal with, the latter felt less like turning into Hulk if he didn't have to watch her whimpering every time she turned on her side, when the former strongly believed that sending the Tesseract back to Asgard with Thor would free Darcy from her bonds.

Steve was on his forth 'hovering shift', as Pepper had called them. Miss Lewis seemed to only come back to a relative consciousness, enough to drink, eat, be helped to the bathroom, when Clint, Natasha or Tony came into the room, always sleeping more deeply around Pepper, Betty or himself, so they started to take more shift after the first 24 hours.

He had asked Pepper for some paper and pencil, and started to draw, his team mates at first, thinking it would be inappropriate to draw a young, sleeping gal, he didn't even know. Natasha had come out first, he had had more time to observe her since his first steps on the Hellicarrier. He tried to draw Tony but came out several times with Howard instead, he knew him better, had spent more time with him. He was having a hard time drawing Thor or Hulk, feeling like he didn't do them justice. He was trying his hand on Clint's eyes when Miss Lewis started to stir, he stopped moving, not that drawing was making a lot of noise but she usually fell right back to sleep after a few seconds.

He watched as she padded her right side before grunting, turning over and repeating the same movement, founding nothing she growled into her pillow before turning on her back pushing some of the covers away from her body. Someone took times to change her clothes, she was now wearing a SHIELD shirt too big for her, Clint's his mind provided, and a blue loose short that was probably Natasha's. Her long black hair were spread all over the pillows under her head, she had lost the slightly pink color in her cheeks, and surely the fever Betty had told them about had been subdued.

"Staring isn't really polite." Steve heard a small insure voice saying, he blushed deeply realizing he had been, in fact, staring at her without realizing that she was awake. "You're not Johnny are you?"

Steve nodded still flustered and not knowing who she was talking about. He started to stand up when she stopped him.

"Please don't go." She asked.

"I was going to get Tony, Clint or Natasha." He assured her.

"I know." She whispered. "Don't!" She told him again when he was about to open the door. He looked back at her wondering if something was wrong. "I need few minutes."

Steve resting his back on the door. "JARVIS wait a little before telling them she is awake please." He had become accustomed to the AI.

Of course Captain Rogers. If I may, Miss Lewis, I am glad to see you awake.

"We already talked about this J." Miss Lewis chastised the AI.

Sorry Darcy. Everyone was worried about you.

"How long did I sleep for?" She asked.

Today is Saturday it's 3:23 pm, you slept for 40 hours and 38 min.

"Wow." Darcy simply said before acknowledging him again "So Captain Rogers?" She said but didn't leave him time to answer before she spoke again. "I don't know who you are but if I were you I wouldn't go bar or club humping in New York without major PR work, you look way too much like Johnny Storm not to win a few slapping or some kind of drinks shower from the women of the city."

How could someone talk this much after sleeping 2 days straight? And that wasn't even counting the fact that he didn't understand half of what she just said.

"Sorry! What?" He heard himself ask confused.

"You know Johnny Storm from the Fantastic Four, didn't they come and help with the all alien thing? I thought they would have that's why I thought you were Johnny but you're bigger, and blond." She explained.

"I am Steve Rogers, and I don't know who the Fantastic Four are Miss Lewis." He told her still trying to get a bearing on what was happening.

"Did you live under a rock for the past 5 years?" Once again she kept talking without waiting for an answer. "He is an asshole anyway, slept with my roommate and never called her back."

Steve started blushing again, cursing and talk about sex had always had this effect on him, it was conditioned into his 1920's little boy's brain.

"Oh, he would never do that, that's cute." She told him, making the blushing worsen. "So Captain Rogers, are you an Avenger?"

"It's Steve and yes M'dam, I am" It had been made clear from his time at the Tower that she had enough clearance to know about all of them, his identity was safe with her.

"But I am not bonded to you." She observed. "Wait! You're the one who wouldn't let me pillow Tony to death." She stated smiling. "I wasn't going to hurt him you know, it wouldn't have done me any good."

"I know that now." He told her.

"You were wearing a Captain America suit." She said nodding along to her own thoughts. "I never thought SHIELD would have gone so far as to get someone into that uniform, I guess it's good PR regarding Loki's actions, though, reassuring the little people. But explaining it is going to be a nightmare people are pretty attached to his Hero Image, it's going to be a tough star and spangled suit to wear" She informed him.

"I'll keep that in mind" he told her smirk "JARVIS, would you explain things to Miss Lewis please."

"Not Miss Lewis. Never Miss Lewis." Darcy mumbled and he nodded to signal he heard her.

Darcy, the person currently standing in your room is Captain Steven Grant Rogers, born July 4th 1918, reported MIA in 1945, he was found in Greenland 2 months ago.

Darcy listened to JARVIS eyeing Steve, before smiling at him. "I guess it's Johnny who looks like you than and not the other way around. Thor, I hope for your sake that you're not related to him."

"I'll ask about that but I don't see how it would be possible." Steve told her. "You seem to be pretty okay with all of this."

"You did meet Thor, right? Or JARVIS?" She asked looking skeptical. "They did explain to you what happened the other night? And you were here for the Aliens thing?" She sat up in the bed. "You being Captain America is like the less weird thing I heard this week."

Steve laughed and she followed through.

"Tell me Captain Rogers…" She started and he interrupted her. "Steve, please." "Okay! Tell me Steve, on a scale to 1 to 10, how mad at me are they?" she finally asked.

"I am sorry, I don't think I… What are you talking about? Who should be mad at you?" he sputtered.

Darcy started playing with the hem of the sheet not meeting his eyes anymore. "You know… Tony, Tasha, Clint…" She whispered.

"Darcy? Why would they be mad at you?" He asked approaching the bed and kneeling in front of her to be at eye level.

"Because I hurt Tony, and I couldn't save Phil this time, and I didn't even help getting Clint back." She was sobbing and Steve realized that he was the last person who should have been there when she woke up, she was buying herself time by asking him to stay, time she didn't need.

"Darcy, no one is mad at you. You didn't do anything wrong. I've only heard good thing about you for the past 2 days." Steve tried to explain but from the tears that were starting to fall freely on her cheeks he wasn't any better at talking to women now than he used to be.

"But they aren't here. They left me with Captain America as a guard." She told him "Not that I have anything against you." She assured him.

"I am not here to guard you Darcy." He took her hands away from the sheets before she started making holes in it with her nails. "We took turns looking after you, making sure you were not in pain or didn't need water or food or to go to the bathroom." Steve was hoping JARVIS had picked up on this conversation and had called the other to help. "Everyone stayed with you."

"Okay" she said sniffing, clearly only trying to make him feel better.

"JARVIS?" he asked

Yes Captain.

"Where are the others?" he inquired.

I contacted Agent Romanov and Agent Barton but they still are with Director Fury. Sir and Dr Banner are in the workshop working on the extractor with Mr. Odinson. Ms. Potts and Dr Ross are in the kitchen. Do you want me to call them?

"No!" Darcy cried out. "I … Don't disturb them." She added.

"Darcy, they would do a better job at explaining all this than what I am doing right now." Steve protested but she shook her head.

"I'll wait." She told him, he gave her hands back but she started to play with the sheets again.

"I am sorry about Phil." He told her after a few minutes of silence.

"Loki is the one who will be sorry for Phil's death if I ever find myself close to him." She mumbled.

"Yeah Thor told us about Sparky." Steve joked with her, he knew she would never meet Loki anyhow. He earned a proud smile from her, as she had every right to be.

"Steve?" She got his attention back to her when he started staring at her lips for too long, he started blushing once again. "The blushing is really cute. Who knew Captain America was such a dork." She laughed. She needed to stop if she didn't want him to combust. "I wanted to know if you had a phone on you."

Before he could answer JARVIS spoke up.

I could make any call you'd like Darcy, although I'd have to ask for you not to disclose your current whereabouts.

"Good to know, J, but I don't have any phone calls to make." She answered.

"Than what about my phone?" Steve asked curious.

"Is it on vibrator?"

"I don't have a phone on me, is there something wrong?" he inquired.

"There is something humming. It's nice but I want to know where it comes from." She explained.

"I don't hear anything." Steve stated.

I don't detect any sorts of sounds either.

"Well I am hearing it." Darcy said while getting the covers off her legs to get out of bed. Steve put a hand on the small of her back to steady her when she stood up and handed her a robe Pepper had left. "It's so soft."

"Miss Potts got it delivered for you yesterday. She said she had nothing that could fit…" He suddenly remembered Tony talking crudely about her body and getting a slap from both Pepper and Natasha and strated to blush again when he saw his own hands gesturing to point out her upper body parts "She said it should be perfect for you." He resumed.

She walked to the door, opening it absentmindedly. "Darcy, where are you going?" he asked following her.

"Told you, I want to find where that sound is coming from." She told him.

"Maybe you should wait until Dr Ross checked you out." He offered, they would kill him if something happened to her because he didn't call for Betty right away.

"I'm fine." She told him, swaying slightly when she opened the door to the stairs.

"Could we at least take the elevator?" He countered.

"No need when I have my knight in shinny armor with me." She told him putting her hands around his left arm to help steady herself while she was taking the first step. "Plus I don't know where we are going." She told him as if it was supposed to make more sense.

Steve stood before her, looking her over before turning over and gesturing for her to op on. If he couldn't keep her from looking for that humming sound at least he could prevent her from falling down the stairs.

"Yeah! Piggy back rid from Captain America!" she jumped on enthusiastically.

They went down 1 floor before she asked for him to open the door, than asked him to follow the voices they were coming from the same direction as the hum. JARVIS opened the door to the workshop before they got there and Darcy squeezed his shoulder as soon as they crossed the doorway so he would let her down.

"Don't you think you're taking you duties a little too far, Captain Spangles?" Tony joked when they got in.

"She wanted to take the stairs on her own." Steve protested.

"Darcy, what are you doing here?" Bruce asked her but she was humming a song he had never heard before totally ignoring them. She was slowly walking toward the end of the lab.

"Darcy!" Tony tried but she kept acting like they were not there.

Suddenly the entire lab was invaded by pictures of stars, reminding Steve of the one he had already seen when he was on Schmidt's plane.

"Darcy, don't touch it!" Steve cried out before anyone noticed what was happening, but she was still not listening.

"Hey you!" They heard her say and the images changed into what looked more like the one he remembered, 2 galaxies, one yellow, one looking pinkish.

Steve run toward Darcy but was stopped short behind her. Fascinated by what he had in front of him. Darcy stood in front of the Tesseract totally wrapped by a blue light that was coming from the cube. She was laughing, squirming as if the light was tickling her.

"Darcy?" Thor asked as all three other men joined him.

"I am fine." She told him smiling when she finally looked at them. The light disappeared back into the cube and Thor approached her to be stopped by a blue light wall just before he could touch her. "She's not going to hurt me." She explained.

"She?" Tony whispered but Darcy didn't explain, she went back to looking at the Tesseract.

"They are nice, don't hurt them." She told the cube firmly and the wall disappeared. "Stay where you are." She ordered Tony when he took a step forward.

All four of them looked in silence as she started to talk to the Tesseract. The images surrounding them changing from Galaxies to Galaxies, giving them beautiful picture of the Earth from space, like the one Steve had seen on the internet.

"Yep, that's where you are now." Darcy said and the Galaxy changed again. "That's your home?" Darcy asked, it was like listening on someone phone conversation, Steve felt like they only had half of exchange.

"It's Asgard." Thor said helpful and Darcy nodded at him.

"You want to go back there?" Darcy asked but the cube shut down. "Loki will be contained." She told it before turning toward Thor.

"My brother will pay for his crimes against the Earth." Thor stated. Darcy faked caught, apparently it people hadn't found a more subtle way to get someone's attention in the past 70 years. She gestured to the Tesseract. "Oh! He will also answer for his crimes against the Tesseract."

The pictures came back around them.

"Tesseract, that's a mouthful. Can I call you Tess?" Darcy was talking to that thing as if it was human, but people, including himself, were talking to JARVIS the same way so he wasn't about to comment.

"Darcy, stop talking to it as if it could understand you it's creepy." Tony told her and she glared at him.

"It not weirder than when I speak to J." She said and Steve wanted to singsong an 'I told you so'.

I'll take that as a compliment Darcy.

Tony looked a little shocked by the exchange but shut up.

Darcy reached out to the Tesseract and just before she touched it they all jumped forward "Don't" resonated from the four voices long after they stopped yelling. But Steve was starting to get that she wasn't the kind of woman who would listen to orders. He turned around not willing to watch her being pulverized. But there were no screams, the pictures didn't went away. He turn back abruptly when he heard Tony talking to Bruce.

"Come one Brucey, not in the lab, I promise I figure something out in the remodeling but we don't have Hulk space right now. Look she is adorable." He was telling gesturing toward Darcy. She was freaking petting the Tesseract. She had sat down on the work bench next to it and was tracing random patterns on the surface of the cube.

"Darcy?" Thor asked his nervousness transpiring in his voice.

"What? Tess is scared." She told them.

Steve heard a commotion behind him and realized he wasn't actually surprised to see that Natasha and Clint had come up, JARVIS had probably called them.

"Where is Fury?" Tony asked.

"Pepper." Natasha told him as a sole answer. Pepper was a miracle worker Steve had learned, watching her taking care of the team and keeping Stark Industry from losing points, whatever that meant it had seemed important, at the same time she was making arrangement for the workers in the tower as well as on the streets of Manhattan to have everything they needed brought to them by any means necessary.

"What the Hell is she doing?" Clint asked getting in between Steve and Darcy, Steve had just the time to stop him before he got too close to her. When he glared at him, Steve released him gesturing from him to continue, the blue light hadn't seemed to hurt Thor.

Darcy only turned to look at Clint when he cried out in surprised at being stopped by a wall of energy before he could get to Darcy.

"Hi Clint!" She said waving at him.

"Are we invisible?" Tony complained. Darcy hadn't really acknowledged him yet.

"I thought that thing was dangerous?" Natasha asked.

"Well apparently Tess was scared so Darcy decided to sooth her." Bruce explained and Natasha glared at him. "No need to look at me like that, it's what Darcy told us."

"Darce, why don't you get back here with us?" Clint asked her.

Darcy looked between Clint and 'Tess' like she couldn't decide.

"I have…" Steve started but interrupted himself he wasn't sure it was his place to say anything.

"Come on Steve what do you know?" Natasha asked him.

"Darcy do you want to tell them what you told me?" he asked her but she shook her head. "Can I?" she shrugged.

"Cap?" Clint turned to look at him.

"She think you're all mad at her." He stated.

"What? Why?" Natasha was startled, he had never seen her anything but confident even in the middle of the battle.

"She seems to believe she should have been able to find Clint, save Phil, and that she hurt Tony the other night." He exposed.

"Darce!" Clint whined. "Let me come closer, please!" He pleaded and took a step closer, when no more wall appeared he went to sit next to Darcy. "Darce, look at me." He asked her while tugging her closer to him so she would fit on his body side while he had his arm around her.

Darcy looked up and smiled shyly. "No one is mad at you for anything." Clint told her and she listened to him while chewing her bottom lip lightly. "You couldn't do anything about Phil, none of us had been able to, Tasha kicked my ass right back to you, just as we agreed, and you didn't hurt Tony, not even one bit." She was shying away from him so he took her chin in his hand and tugged at her bottom lip with his thumb to get her to release it putting a kiss on her forehead. "We were all worried about you. You okay?" Darcy nodded.

Steve wanted to face away, it looked like an intense private moment more than a reassuring talk in front of friends. He looked around him, everyone seemed to be on the verge of blushing, and even Tony was visibly restraining himself from interrupting them.

"Tess is scared." Darcy told Clint taking the Tesseract in hand and getting it closer to Clint.

"Don't touch it." Thor informed him and Clint nodded without looking at them.

"Loki is in lock up. She is safe here." Natasha suggested.

"Not Loki, someone else." Darcy informed them.

"Can we help her?" Clint asked her.

"She wants to go home." Darcy smiled at him.

"We can't send her back to Tromso Darce it's not safe there." He stated but Darcy shook her head.

"Not Tromso, Asgard." She said looking at Thor. "She says your father can protect her, she wants to go back in the safe."

"Well, anyway, we were working on something to send our Gods back to Asgard using Tess' energy so… I am going to go back to that." He told that clapping. "Bruce?" he asked and the scientist was about to follow when Darcy called them back.

"I know" Darcy said all chipper suddenly crossing the room toward them. "She wants to help."

"But she only talks to you" Bruce pointed out. "I can't believe I just said that." He mumbled.

"Darce you just woke up you need to eat, drink…" Clint told her.

Darcy looked at Clint with the same big eyes, long lashes that won her to get down the stairs on Steve's back.

"Can I have a burger, and some fries?" she asked bright smile. Natasha sighed on Steve side as they watch Clint trying to resist telling her yes before giving up.

"JARVIS can take the orders." Tony pipped up once Clint had nodded his ascent.

They all stayed to eat together, watching amused as Darcy corrected some of Bruce's and Tony's equations telling them why it was wrong all the while looking like she had no idea about what she was talking about. After a while Darcy started to dose off she had put the Tesseract back into its protective glass and was sitting on a work bench close enough to see what Tony and Bruce were doing but not enough to be in the way, resting her head on Clint's shoulder.

Steve was staring at Clint's hand playing with the curls of Darcy's hair so he didn't noticed Natasha staring at him in return. They were both sitting on a table at the far end of the shop sipping their milkshakes. Natasha lightly kicked his shin balancing her legs playfully.

"You want to spare?" She asked him smiling. "Tony has a great gym a few floors down." Steve looked at the scene before them one last time before nodding pushing himself off the table.

"Sure." He simply told her. "Tony, mind if we use your gym?" Tony had told them to make themselves at home but it was always polite to ask.

"Sure, go, it's on the 55th floor just ask JARVIS if you need anything." Tony dismissed them.

Natasha stayed silent until they arrived at the gym. She was right, it was pretty nice, and everything seemed brand new, which was certainly the case the tower only opened recently. Natasha gestured silently toward the ring and jumped on it herself clipping her hair up.

"You want to talk about it?" She asked him when she went for the first blow.

"Talk about what?" he asked her confused countering her attack.

"They aren't together you know? They are just really close." She continued. "I know the PDA could be weird for someone from your time." She added but he could see that it was more for his benefit than something she actually believed in. "They just fall into it, never seem to take the time to question what they are doing."

"PDA?" he asked. Everyone was using acronyms he wasn't understanding them half the time.

"Public Display of Affection." She told him bluntly. "The cuddling, hugging, kissing and stuff, they do all the time."

"I don't care about that." Steve told her confused, he found it cute even though she was right he thought they were a couple up until now.

"I know." Natasha stated smirking.

"Nat!" He said but didn't really know where he was going with it.

She let it go and they spared for a while before Thor joined them on the ring and Natasha decided that it was too much testosterone for her, her wording not his, letting them blowing off some pent up energy. Steve didn't have to stay aware of his own body all the time with Thor he could put all his force into the sparing. Thor was laughing as they went, they were both having fun.

"The device will be ready in the morning." Thor informed Steve when they got off the ring to get water bottles from the mini fridge at the back of the gym.

"Did Darcy go back to sleep?" Steve asked.

"She did, she said Tess had told them everything she knew." Thor informed him.

"Please tell me she didn't took that thing to her room." Steve sighed.

"Tony assured her that JARVIS could put something called a video feed up for her to watch over Tess from her bed." Steve liked that Thor didn't understand all those stuff everyone found normal either even though it was because the God was coming from another planet where things had another name not because he was misplaced in time.

In truth Steve was jealous of the God, with the others' help he would be back to his home by tomorrow, Steve was stuck in the future forever. Thor would be reunited with his friends and family, where Steve had lost all of them. He needs to take time to grief, to find his new place in the future, maybe make new friends. His team mates would be great friends but he couldn't force himself into their lives.

"Captain." Thor said, voice elevated, as if he had been trying to get Steve's attention for a while now.

"Sorry. That's good. Did she have time to talk to Tony about the other day?" He asked.

"Not yet." Thor confirmed.

"So… Do you need to prepare anything for your trip?" Steve changed the subject, realizing he only talked about Darcy, but the girl had been the center of their collective attention for the past 48h it was natural by now.

"The Tesseract will get us there in seconds, nothing is required." Thor assured him. "Tony and Pepper are preparing a feast for us to celebrate our victory tonight."

Right on time Steve's stomach growled. "Sounds like a great idea." Steve laughed.

Sirs, Miss Potts wants me to inform you diner will be ready in an hour. You can find showers on the penthouse level and clothes have been provided for you. They are available in the room next to Darcy's.

"Thank you JARVIS." Steve answered the AI.