Chapter 25

Tony came over and slung an arm over Bruce's shoulder and said, "if you all are done slacking and dealing a blow to Cap's hero complex, my science bro and I have some news and some information. Take it away, Bruce!"

"Thanks for the introduction," Bruce said dryly. Then he focused on me and began an explain, "Alright, Steph. I don't know whether or not you had a concussion earlier, but from your and Cap's descriptions, it certainly sounds like you did. But from what we can tell, you've completely healed from that. And your cells seem to have finished their adaptation."

"When you were out flying," Tony cut in excitedly, "I had JARVIS running a constant set of scans on you based on our previous findings. Before while the effects were great and you were clearly capable of generating a lot of energy, your body was in flux. All of your cells had adapted to some degree, but not all of you was 'on fire' so to speak."

"Why the air quotes around the words 'on fire'?" I asked cautiously.

"A normal human cell is capable of converting energy from food and such into a form of energy called ATP that the body can use to run necessary functions. For some reason, whatever you were injected with mutated your cells to the point that you no longer make ATP," Bruce was now just as incapable as Tony of downplaying the excitement in his voice. "Your cells make some completely other molecule I've never seen before which appears to power regular bodily functions as well as your abilities. This molecule stores much more energy than ATP does, and your body can actually use that energy to change the state of your cells."

"Instead of being a solid, you can convert your cells to a plasma form," Tony blurted out. "Only a small portion of your body was doing it earlier, but somehow the rest of you was protected from damage. BUT when JARVIS and I were scanning you, the percentage of your body that was plasma was steadily increasing and doing so more and more quickly. We hypothesize that you passed out for those two minutes not because of the head wound exactly, but more so the last of your cells could finish the rapid transition."

"All of the cells in your blood sample are converted now," Bruce told me. "Which is why I'm assuming you don't just feel fine in terms of no longer feeling concussed but also not as run down as you did earlier?"

Huh. I hadn't noticed until he mentioned it, but he was right. I did feel better on the whole.

I told him as much then asked, "what is plasma? I thought that was something in blood."

"Blood plasma is a yellowish liquid in your blood," Bruce said. "This is a different 'plasma'. See there are four fundamental states of matter- solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Plasma is like gas in that it doesn't have a fixed shape or volume, but unlike gas, it is electrically conductive and can create magnetic fields and electric currents, respond to electromagnetic—"

I held up a hand, "please stop. I almost flunked out of the class before physics in high school. And lets just say I tap danced my way around actually having to take chemistry in college. So I'm not sure which this is, AND DON'T!" I shouted pointing at Tony for a moment and stopping him from interrupting me, "I don't care if it is actually some other field I've never heard of. I understood about every fourth word of what you were saying at best. Speaking of, I didn't even know there WERE four states of matter or whatever you called it. I thought it was just solid, liquid, and gas. Done. What I'm saying is that your explanation is so beyond me that I regret asking. So let's just move on."

I felt a little bad because Bruce almost looked like he was pouting before Darcy jumped in with, "the sun is plasma. BOOM! I knew working with Jane all these years would one day pay off."

"It's fine," Bruce finally said. "Truthfully the scientific community itself doesn't always have consensus on the definitions of plasma states anyway, and my own understanding of it is only just beginning to adapt to this discovery of you…"

He trailed off, and a far away look came into his eyes as he clearly got lost in his own thoughts.

"Neon signs have plasma in them," Sam told me. When everyone looked at him in some level of surprise, he huffed out an offended breath and said, "I kill at pub trivia night."

"Well it's pretty awesome," Tony informed me. "And I don't just mean that as excellent or whatever. I mean that I am literally in awe of you and what you do."

"I mean, I wouldn't say that I do anything, really." I protested.

"Semantics," Tony told me, brushing past the moment despite the indignant sounds others made in my defense. "I suspect it will be a while before we fully grasp what you can do, but at the very least I have some ideas. I think it is likely that you can absorb fire, heat, etc., not just create it. When you're 'on fire' as we'll probably call it just for ease of conversation and not wanting to tip our hats to any media or people who overhear, you're so hot that I think you could melt a bullet shot at you."

"Then when you factor in the fact that plasma doesn't have a fixed volume, if she can absorb, maybe she can manipulate outside of what she creates? Kind of extend her plasma field..." Bruce started thinking aloud with that as he dragged Tony back into science land with him.

The rest of us kind of stood there in contemplative silence for a few beats before I said conversationally, "I feel like I should be overwhelmed, but I lack the understanding so I'm just not."

"I am right there with you," Clint said, holding his hand up for a high five.

"Don't," Natasha protested, but she was too late. I'd already smacked his palm with mind. "Barton pretends to understand a lot less than he does."

We heard an alert type sound pop up and all turned to look at the workstations at which Tony and Bruce were frantically discussing SCIENCE! with each other. I watched as Tony frowned in concentration and read something on what seemed to be a holographic screen in front of him. Then his face lit up with pure and utter joy as he called out, "Duck and goose!" He didn't even turn to look at any of us, just made a gesture like he was grabbing the information in front of him and threw it off to the side. I knew my eyes widened when I saw another screen in that direction light up, presumably with the same information on it.

Clint and Sam grumbled a bit at the nicknames before ambling over to the workstation together. They had a quick conversation with each other, and I thought I heard Clint say, "awww, pizza, no." Then Sam simply headed toward the elevators and Clint walked over, gave Darcy a kiss and a pat on the butt, then called out that they'd be back soon before getting into the elevator with Sam.

I turned to Steve with a raised brow, and he shrugged.

It was Natasha who broke the silence and told me, "if they needed backup, they would have asked for it. And if they were going to be gone more than a couple hours, they would have told us."

"Soooooo…" I looked around seeing nothing for the rest of us to do, but I was interrupted from saying anything more by the elevator doors opening once more and a robot labeled FOOD-E rolling in looking almost like a food cart you'd see at a restaurant but larger and more robust.

On it were boxes upon boxes of pizza, and Darcy darted over, flipped through the boxes before pulling a couple out and carrying them over to where Tony and Bruce were working. She dropped the boxes onto the table in front of them, over their protests, and demanded, "Eat!"

Then she walked over and started herding the rest of us to the elevator.

"Hey, what on Earth," I started to protest being treated like cattle, surprised that Bucky at least wasn't protesting too, since he didn't really know the woman well either.

"It's really best to just listen to what Darcy says," Steve told me, sounding like that suck-up kid in school.

"Kiss ass," I muttered, causing Bucky to snicker.

When the elevator doors opened and we stepped out I looked around curiously. We weren't on Steve's floor, and I'd really only been there, medical, the labs, and the training floor that Tony had set up with my metal box to test my powers.

It was a futuristic aesthetic, very different from the classic hominess of Steve's apartment. There were metal stairs weaving between areas on different levels. It looked to be an area meant for socializing and even had a bar, though there were also stairs going up to other floors that looked down over where we were and appeared to have offices and places for doing Avengers work.

"This is very…" I trailed off, not wanting to insult anyone by describing it as cold.

"It's very Tony," Darcy supplied when it became clear I wasn't finishing my sentence. "This is the Avengers common area and also one of Tony's favorite party locations. When it's just us around, it looks all open and glass like this, but when there's a party or people we don't want to be able to see as much, JARVIS locks things down and can make pretty much every wall opaque. So it is actually surprisingly functional despite looking very… Tony."

She started pulling pizza boxes out and scattering them around the low black table in one open seating area that was surrounded by grey couches. When Steve gestured toward a seat, I sat gingerly next to him, surprised to find it was actually comfortable.

Steve and Natasha went over to the bar, reaching under it and pulling out a bunch of beers that Natasha popped the tops on in a rapid-fire approach that would have me thinking she was a professional bartender if I didn't know differently.

They came back and passed beers to Darcy, Bucky, and I, keeping one each for themselves. I hesitated for a moment, wondering if we were getting plates, but when everyone just started grabbing slices and announcing what was in each box, I went with it. I wasn't one to stand on decorum anyway.

I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but we'd made a really good dent on the pizza when Sam and Clint came back in. They were in what I gathered might be a version of their uniforms that just didn't have the outer armor-y layers, and Clint didn't have his bow nor Sam his wings.

They helped themselves to the cooled pizza and Steve and Natasha brought them all beers as well as another round for the rest of us, and we did our best to socialize and keep the atmosphere light while they ate. When they were done, Clint reached a hand into a cargo pants pocket and said, "do you know this guy?"

He threw a picture on the table in front of me.

"No," I said after a brief glance. But then I felt a niggling in my mind and turned back to it, "wait. Hmm…"

I stared at the picture a bit more, appreciating the silence as I searched through my memory trying to figure out who he was and how I knew him.

"Anton Rudder!" I finally shouted, more than a little shocked that my brain had actually managed to come up with a name and place him. "Geeze, I only met the man once. He was nuts! We were advertising in the newspaper for another bounty hunter, and he was one of the ones we called in for an interview. Real macho-man. Was talking about getting those motherfuckers and transporting them in the trunk of his car. We told him we don't usually do that, and he said it was because… oh."

I trailed off looking at Clint then Sam with wide eyes.

"Finish it," Steve prompted.

"Because we were pussy," I finally muttered. "Must have used that word close to a half a dozen times in our very, very short interview. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. He told us we needed a real man in the office. How did you find him?"

I ended with that question knowing I sounded more than a little excited. Now that my memory had been refreshed, I knew he HAD to be the cat-collar, car-paint, stalker.

"He was in your apartment," Sam said. "In Trenton."

"WHAT?!" I shouted, jumping to my feet. "We've gotta go get him!"

"Where do you think they were?" Bucky huffed out, sounding amused.

"Oh…" I took a minute to process then asked, "is he here?"

"Nah," Clint told me. "We called in some associates to help out and see that the appropriate charges were brought up against him. Additionally, they'll be persuading him to leave you alone in the future."

I could practically feel my eyes as wide as saucers as I lamely muttered, "oh" once more. Finally I asked, "how did you know he was there."

Everyone's eyes shifted to Steve, and he shrugged then told me, "you remember how I told you that I had a guy who could do super high tech security systems that seemed to not even be there?"

"Yeah," I told him. "It was Tony, right? That's why he offered me a security system to go with my steak?"

Darcy let out a huffed laugh of amusement but didn't say anything, so Steve continued, "Yes. After you were taken, we hopped on the jet to come back here, but Tony always has an Iron Man suit on him. So he stayed, installed things as planned, then flew himself back. JARVIS has been monitoring the apartment in your absence."

"Cool," I responded. I could feel a level of surprise from the others, and I had a feeling that they had expected me to put up some sort of fight. Instead all I did was remind them, "if I can't work it, I'm going to shoot it though."