"I am so sorry," Tessa repeats, her fingers gripping Bucky's hand so tight that her knuckles turn white with the effort. And he lets out a short, involuntary grimace.

"Stop saying that," he murmurs absently before turning away from her and staring down Stark. He jerks his metal arm away from the man, sneering angrily when Tony simply rolls his eyes and grips his elbow once again.

Tessa peers around her husband to watch as Tony investigates the fused-together plates along his forearm, his brow tightly furrowed, lips pursed in an expression of intense focus. Her eyes then tick back over to Bucky's face – tight and pained and only just now beginning to regain its color. "I… I broke you," she sputters, tears welling in her eyes.

He lets out a long sigh and looks down at her. Unclenching his jaw and forcing his shoulders to relax, he says to her – just to her, despite the others in the room – "You didn't break me, baby. You could never hurt me." He gives her hand a quick squeeze and shimmies out of her death grip so he can reach up and smooth down her hair. "You look like an electrocuted cartoon," he teases with a grin.

"Not so far off," Bruce mutters as he continues to look through the data recorded by her heart monitor from the last five minutes. "He shocked her back into rhythm."

"And melted the Tin Man's arm," Tony snipes before dropping the metal appendage, finally fed up with Bucky's constant struggle. He steps back and raises a pointed finger at him. "You need to be more cooperative. Not a team player."

"It wasn't Thor who melted him," Tessa laments thickly, sniffling back the remnants of tears. "I was grabbing him." She shrugs. "It was me."

It took a good two to three minutes for them to calm her down after the shock she received from the God of Thunder. But once she could breathe again, and bring her focus back to the now, she realized that the person she had felt take hold of her arm – the owner of the voice she thought she had heard calling her name – must've been Bucky. Because not only was he at her side when she came to, but Thor and Bruce both were desperately pleading with her – from a relatively safe distance, of course – to let him go. She had looked down then to see that her hands were tightly gripping his metal forearm, the thin blue, easily recognizable, stems of energy winding around her fingers and swirling protectively around the molten metal of his arm.

"It was probably the electricity Thor shot through you," Bruce states with a raised brow. He clears his throat. "Unless… unless you think it could've been you."

"It wasn't," Bucky shoots out, tone dangerous.

Just then, Steve and Wanda come running into the small hospital room – both a bit out of breath. "What happened?" the Captain asks, wide eyes only growing when he sees the giant blond god looming in the corner. "Thor?"

He nods to both of them – "Hello, Captain. Witch." – and turns his pensive attention back to the woman in the bed.

"What…" he starts again, quickly losing the thread as his eyes bounce around the room.

Tony steps up, clearing his throat harshly. "Thor came back to Earth and decided to pay our favorite little doctor a visit. Then he shot her full of lightening, which, as it turns out, might've been a good thing." He shrugs and looks over at Bruce, who quickly picks up where he leaves off.

"She was tachycardic again," he says, nodding towards the heart monitor. "I was on my way in when I saw Thor… do whatever he did. But it must've shocked her back into a normal rhythm." He shrugs before folding his arms over his chest, a contemplative look taking over his face. "Her temp is back to normal too."

"It wasn't just that," Tessa mutters softly, almost to herself.

"She was clinging onto Barnes, so the bolt hit him too, and now a few of the plates in his arm are fused together," Tony finishes before glancing back at Bucky with a raised brow. "You should let me do some imaging. There might be structural damage, shorted-out wires or sensors."

"It's fine," he growls bitterly, eyes narrowing.

Steve's gaze snaps back to Tessa. "What do you mean, it wasn't just that?"

"I…" she stutters a bit, cheeks growing hot again under the sudden scrutiny of nearly everyone in the room. She looks down in her lap and sees her hands there, fingers already twisting and grabbing and pulling violently at one another in a never-ending nervous tick. "I saw…"

Bucky sits down beside her and lays his right hand over the top of her mangled fingers, slowly tugging her hands apart. "She was having a flashback," he explains softly, eyes focused only on her, his back turned to the others in the room. "She didn't even recognize me."

"I didn't," she shoots out suddenly, emphatically. "I swear I didn't. I would never… I didn't mean to hurt you."

He brings his left hand up to her face, feeling a bit of a pull and catch along his forearm as he reaches out – damnit, Stark's right – and he gently strokes his fingertips down the length of her cheek. "You didn't, baby," he tells her, willing her to believe it.

"She could have, though," Thor states from his spot in the corner. "Very easily." He unfolds his arms from around his chest and slowly pushes off the wall to stride closer to the couple in the bed. "There is something inside of you, Lady Doctor," he says, stern eyes boring into her. "Something dangerous and dark. A limitless power." He cocks his head a bit and narrows his eyes at her. "You know this."

"How do you know this?" Tony bites out, his tone accusing, stance threatening as he too steps closer to Tessa's side, butting up against Bucky's leg as it dangles off the edge of her bed. "Where the hell have you even been, man?"

Thor's gaze moves over to Tony, his face relaxing into a bit of a cheeky grin. "Oh, here and there," he replies easily. "Mostly there."

Steve catches the annoyed eyeroll that Tony emits – and the frustrated huff – and decides to intervene. "Thor, why are you here?" he asks simply, his voice carrying the kind of authority that only the Captain can muster.

"I had asked Heimdall to keep watch over Midgard in my absence," he says, turning to face Steve, but still keeping Tessa staunchly in his periphery. "He informed me that an ancient power had been awoken. A terrible and mighty force so great it could lay waste to the universe – or," he shrugs lightly, "parts of it, at least – one that had been dormant for some time had broken through into this world." His gaze flickers back over to Tessa. "And it did so through you."

"Bullshit," Bucky argues, his hand wrapping tightly around Tessa's to keep her from continuing to massacre her fingers. "I think I would know if my wife was powerful enough to destroy the universe."

"Yes, I would think that you would," Thor utters glibly before glancing up to meet Bucky's irritated stare. It's only then that he realizes, eyes blowing wide as they bounce back and forth between the two people before him, sandwiched closely together in the small hospital bed, curled tightly into one another… "Wait. You're married?" Absolute shock pulls across his features. "To the Lady Doctor?!"

"That's Lady Barnes now," Tony snipes with a scoff.

Bucky breathes out an annoyed huff and blinks his eyes shut for a long moment, silently counting to ten in an attempt to quiet his temper.

But Thor, still lost in a befuddled state, eyes rapidly flicking back and forth between the couple, practices zero patience as he begs for additional confirmation. "She married you?"

Tony snorts out a laugh. Clint and Natasha – both of whom had snuck in without anyone seeming to notice – chuckle under their breath as well. Bucky looks up, saying nothing, simply issuing out another irritated scowl.

Thor furrows his brow as he looks around the room, his eyes lighting on an utterly amused-looking Steve. "But I thought that the Captain was her beau," he states with incredulity.

The almost smug smirk that had wrapped itself around Steve's face drops on a dime, "What?" falling blankly from his lips. He glances over at Bucky, his eyes strangely apologetic, then back at Thor. "You were here while they were dating."

The blond god merely shrugs. "I assumed the two of you shared her. Is that not common practice here?"

Bucky finally speaks, voice low and stern. "Is there a way that we can send him back to wherever the hell he came from?"

"Probably," Tony mutters with a frown. "But first, I'd like to know more about this ancient power that could destroy the universe."

"Yes, of course," Thor declares before clearing his throat and setting his shoulders. "It is… what did I say earlier? Great and awful! No, no, that wasn't it…"

"Terrible and mighty," Clint supplies.

He swings his head around and beams at the man, giving a grateful nod. "Yes! It is a terrible and mighty force. Born in the void between states of being, it is neither truly living nor dead. It simply is and forever will be. A spark, a fire unlike any other. My father bedded it once," he mentions in a low, conspiratorial fashion, "when in host form – long before my mother. He told Heimdall he never felt more… alive!"

"Yeah, yeah," Tony grumbles. "We've al bedded women like that. Get to the part where you think this fiery force is inside of her," he states, aiming a pointed finger at Tessa.

"He's talking about the Phoenix," she says dully.

"Phoenix?" Thor inquires. "Is that what you call it?"

"Why? What do you call it?"

He shrugs. "I hadn't even heard of it until this very morning."

Wanda steps forward then, shouldering past Thor, ignoring his displeased harrumph at her perceived intrusion. She cocks her head at Tessa and slowly asks, "You mean Jean? The power that was in Jean?" Tessa simply nods.

"Who is Jean?" Thor asks, drawing the foreign name out along his tongue.

"Jean Grey," Tony supplies. He gives the blond a curious look. "Oh, you don't know Jean Grey? Super powerful mutant? Tried to destroy the world a few years back?"

"Doesn't ring a bell," he says with a shrug. "This world?"

Tony nods. "Odd that it didn't make the papers…"

"Not really," Natasha mutters smugly. "Someone covered it up just like they covered up this one's little trip to the desert a few years back," she states, tossing a thumb over at Thor.

He whips around to face her. "Widow!" he cries in delight as he quickly pulls her into a rough embrace.

Tessa watches – exasperated pout on her face – as Natasha awkwardly pats the giant man on the back before ducking out of his hold. "She didn't try to destroy the world," she mutters angrily, pulling everyone's attention back to her. "Things just got a little out of hand."

"A little out of hand?" Tony laughs. "I read the reports, buttercup."

"You mean the ones from SHIELD?" she asks, eyes narrowed and tone bordering on dangerous. "Yeah, in case you never noticed, those had a bit of a slant."

Bucky nudges her and leans in close. "You did have to kill her to stop her."

"Yeah," she snipes, pulling away to glare at him. "You don't have to remind me of that. I'm just saying that she didn't try to destroy the world. It's not like there was a… plan in place." Her gaze falls to her lap. "Not really, anyway. It just… happened."

Wanda leisurely drops down onto the edge of the bed opposite Bucky and reaches over to pull Tessa's hand into her own. "She couldn't control it," she says, a statement, not a question. "The… force."

Tessa shakes her head. "The Professor said that the Phoenix was… a dark and disparate energy. An absolute power. He didn't know how it got into her. It was probably drawn to her power." She shrugs and releases a long, tired-sounding sigh. "She was so… the things she could do…" Then she blows out an irritated huff and looks back up, green eyes shining with both grief and something akin to resentment. "He was afraid she couldn't handle it. And as it turned out, he was right."

"And he asked you to help," she says, nudging Tessa along to share the story she'd never actually disclosed to her in words. "To get it out of her."

She nods.

"And you keep remnants of everyone you've pulled energy from," she declares simply. "So there are remnants of the Phoenix within you as well."

"It's been there… I mean, I knew it was there." She looks up at Thor, connects her suddenly desperate gaze with his. "But it's… just a piece of it. I… I pushed the rest out. When I pulled it from Jean, I wrapped myself around it – my power – I wrapped around it to keep it from going back into her. And then… once she was gone, I let go."

Tony gives her a curious glare. "You're saying that you've had this… this thing inside of you. For years. A thing that could destroy the universe?"

She scoffs, turning an irritated scowl on the man to her right. "I can't destroy the universe," she tells him, waving a dismissive hand in Thor's direction. "He's being hyperbolic."

"I am not," the god defends with a pout. Then, a bit under his breath, "I don't know what that means, but I am certain I am not it."

She sits up straighter in the bed, setting her shoulders and once again locking onto Thor's bright blue eyes. "Look," she begins, voice firm. "Is the Phoenix Force dangerous? Yes, absolutely. Is it… a form of pure energy? Yeah, sure. Sort of."

"It is a cosmic energy," he states, repeating Heimdall's words verbatim. "Immutable and unstoppable."

"Okay, sure," she capitulates. "But I can control energy. It's kind of my thing."

"Tess," Steve interjects with a sigh, his fingers clenched into tight fists at his sides. "If you could control it, why would Thor be here right now?"

She glares openly at him. "I don't know! But…"

"Baby," Bucky starts, squeezing her hand and waiting for her to turn her frustration-lined face to him. "Before he… shocked you, your were…" His eyes tick away for a brief moment, a fearful hesitation halting his words. He looks back up at her, into the glistening green eyes he knows so well. "You were… glowing red. Your eyes…" His fingers tighten once more around hers. "That blue light? I've seen that before. I know that's you. But this was red. And it was… it was cracking your skin."

She gives him an utterly perplexed look before following his gaze as it drops down to the hands in her lap. She stares at her pale fingers for a moment, some shadow of a memory building in the back of her mind. Blood. The longer she gazes down at her hands, the easier it is to see the blood. Jean's blood, which she still hasn't managed to wipe clean, even after all these years. And the blood of others… so many others. So many nameless, faceless people just drifting in her periphery. And her own blood, slowly seeping through hairline cracks, through fissures healed into small, silvery scars.

"I was… on fire," she mutters absently, turning her hands lazily in her lap as she inspects the new paper-thin cuts peppering her flesh.

"A power that burns brighter than any other," Thor utters from her other side, the deep tenor of his voice sending a chill down her spine.

Steve shuffles uncomfortably from the end of the bed. "And you can get rid of it?" he asks, brow tightly furrowed. "You can… get it out of her?"

Thor turns to him, cocking his head in confusion for a moment before realization washes over him. "Oh, no, Captain," he declares simply. "No, you misunderstand. I'm not here to… eliminate the power. Far from it. We need this power. And someone to wield it. All of us need it… the entire universe." He looks back at Tessa, his expression stoic yet oddly serene. "I'm here to protect it. To protect you."

"Me?" Tessa asks, voice meek.

He offers a beaming smile. "You."

"Hold on," Tony snipes. "Hold up." He spins on Thor, staring him down with a rather disgruntled glare. "You said this… this thing can destroy the universe."

"Yes," he nods. "Or… save it."

Tessa's face crinkles in confusion, in absolute bewilderment. "You want me to save the universe?"

"Ideally, yes." He shrugs. "Perhaps. The runes can only show so much. But I've been told by the seers on Asgard that many dangers are afoot."

"Many dangers are afoot?" Tony repeats mockingly, ending with a thick psh.

Thor turns on him with a grave stare. "Stark, despite what you may think, you know very little of even this world… and you know nothing at all of the worlds beyond. I have lived a thousand of your lifetimes and seen more in those ages than you could ever even begin to fathom. There are always countless dangers in the universe, but a threat to the very existence of all our realms, that is far more rare. And that is what the seers have… seen."

"Rare?" Tessa mutters, her face still screwed up as she struggles to understand – to accept – all that's being said. "But not unheard of?"

"Oh, no, of course not," he says with an almost jovial lilt. "Something comes up every few hundred years or so."

"Okay," she nods. "And, just to be clear, this century it's my turn to… stave off that threat?"

"Yes," he confirms. Then, gaze ticking to the side. "Perhaps. There are many possible victors to any battle, my lady. But as long as you possess a power strong enough to defeat a potential… threat, I will make it my duty to keep you safe."

"You're a little late," Clint snipes from behind.

Steve clears his throat, his voice commanding as he asks simply, "How do you plan on protecting her?"

Thor turns to him with a look of incredulity. "Well by taking her back home to Asgard, of course."

His eyes blow wide and shoot over to Tessa just as she barks out, "You want to take me to Asgard?"

"Naturally." He smiles genially at her. "It's the safest place for something as powerful as you."

Her eyes narrow reproachfully. "Someone, I think you mean."

"Yes, of course. My apologies, my lady."

"You're not going to Asgard," Bucky says plainly, a note of disgust attached to the final word. He rises from her side, pulling himself to his full height as he glares threateningly at Thor. "You're not taking her anywhere."

Tessa bites back an amused grin, chewing on the corner of her lip before asking, "How would we get there?" Bucky's mouth falls agape as his head spins round to gawk at her. "What?" she says with a shrug. "A dashing man offers to whisk me away to an exotic locale, and you expect me to say no?"

"Dashing," Thor mutters with a grin, turning to face Steve. "She thinks I'm dashing."

Tony rolls his eyes. "We all think you're dashing. That's not the point."

"Another planet," Tessa muses, her eyes positively brimming with mirth as she watches Bucky squirm uncomfortably next to her. "Another world. Can you imagine?"

"No," he mutters, dumbfounded regard quickly fading into an annoyed scowl.

"An Einstein-Rosen Bridge… a wormhole. That's how we'd get there." She beams up at him. "How could I say no to that? I'm a scientist, James."

He narrows his eyes at her. "You're a geneticist," he grumbles. "And I can't tell if you're joking or not."

She quickly turns to Thor. "If I agree to go, can I get samples of your blood – and maybe the rest of the royal family's – for genetic testing?"

He shrugs. "I don't see why not."

Tony lets out a loud scoff followed quickly by an irritated groan. "She hasn't even been released from medical yet. We're sure as hell not going to release her from… Earth."

"Ah, yes," Thor intones, glancing back to Tessa with a concerned countenance. "I meant to inquire. My lady, you do look – well, beautiful as always – but quite… unwell. Has something happened?"

She nods. "I was held prisoner in Canada for four months."

"Ah, Canada," he drones. "Lovely land. And they have those… people. What do they call them? Ah, Mounties! Yes… hilarious!" He chuckles deeply for a long moment, all others in the room simply watching, trapped in a sort of captivated stupor.

Bucky shakes his head rapidly, almost as though the movement might wake him from this odd and awful dream. "Can we get back to how you're not going to take my wife to another planet?" he asks with a huff. "I'd like for us to settle that."

"Yeah," Tony mutters. "Now might be a good time to talk about boundaries."

"Relax," Tessa breathes out. "I'm not going anywhere." She turns to Thor, raises a rather serious and imposing brow. "I've had part of this… power inside of me for a decade. And maybe it's a little…" Her eyes tick briefly over to Bucky, taking in his worried scowl. "Maybe it's not completely under control right now. But I can… I think I can… control it."

"Of course you can," Wanda states emphatically. She pats her leg and offers a brilliant, genuine smile. "Didn't Professor Xavier tell you that you simply had to believe in yourself?"

She rolls her eyes. "You make it sound like I'm some kind of Disney character. If I just believe, maybe I can fly," she mocks thickly.

Wanda simply shakes her head placatingly. "I'll help you," she says, leaning in and issuing each word out with a promise all its own.

Tessa looks back up at Thor, head nodding slightly as she thinks through her words. "I just don't see how going somewhere else would help," she tells him. "You're right. I'm not well. But I am home. And I can't… I'm not leaving again."

He stares down at her, his expression almost apologetic. "I can accept your wishes for now, my lady. But you must understand, much is at stake." He shakes his head sadly, regretful gaze shifting over to Bucky before settling back on her. "I do not think you will be able to remain here for long."