A/N: sofiarose613- well, here is more! Sorry it is so much later!


May 3, 2012

Steve and I sat on a small plane with Agent Coulson and I was nervously fidgeting in my seat with a million thoughts running through my head until Steve took hold of my hand, sensing my nerves. I held his back tightly and looked up at him as he smiled slightly, I gave him a smile back as he genuinely made me feel a little bit more at ease.

"So this Dr. Banner was trying to replicate the serum they used on me?" Steve asked as he watched a video of the Hulk that Coulson gave him in updating him on the new heroes of the world.

"A lot of people were. You were the world's first superhero," Coulson replied as he walked toward us.

"It didn't really go his way did it?" Steve said with a frown.

"Not so much," Coulson said.

"It never did, Erskine was a genius in Biochemistry like no other," I added as I thought back to my own failed attempts at recreating the serum. I cringed at how stupid I was for trying and how much worse it was that I would test things on myself. However, as I watched the footage of the Hulk, I figured I could consider myself lucky that I didn't accidentally turn myself into a green giant.

"When he's not that thing though, the guy's like a Steven Hawking," Coulson added. We both saw Steve's look of confusion at the name and before I could update him on one of the smartest men of our time, Coulson briefly explained "he's like a really smart person." Steve nodded slightly. "I gotta say, it's an honor to meet you officially." Steve smiled politely at him and he continued. " I sort of met you, I mean I watched you while you were sleeping," I tried to contain a chuckle as he continued to correct himself. "I mean I was present while you were unconscious, from the ice."

I gave him a daring look and asked "What was it like, Coulson? I wasn't invited." I saw Steve then try to contain his own smile at my remark as he stood up and looked out the front window of the plane.

Phil Coulson tried to regain his composure. He seemed like a nice man who was really just starstruck around Steve, but he was also a SHIELD agent who might have known my identity before and was actively keeping secrets from both Steve and me. I knew that Nick Fury has said only him and Natasha knew who I really was, but I didn't believe him one bit, especially as I saw Coulson's reactions towards me. "You know, it's really just a huge honor to have you on board. Both of you!"

"Well I hope I'm the man for the job." Steve responded.

"Oh you are, really! We made some modifications to the uniform," Coulson replied.

"The uniform? Aren't the stars and stripes a little old fashioned?" Steve questioned.

"The things that are happening, everything that is about to come to light, I think people just might need a little old fashioned."

"Agent Coulson, can you please explain that a bit more? The files given to us on Loki and the Tesseract were all very vague. I think it is important for us to have a better understanding of what is about to happen," I asked him as I stood up.

"Well I think the files gave you about as much as we could. Loki isn't from our world, there is only so much we know about him and his motives for taking the Tesseract. I'm sure Fury can get you two better up to speed when we arrive." His lack of new information did not go unnoticed by Steve or myself. We shared a glance at each other and I could tell that he also knew SHIELD was hiding things from us. Despite being a part of building the organization, I had a lot of anger and distrust towards it as more and more secrets they've kept from me arised. I was sure the more I knew the truth behind the Tesseract, the more angry I would probably be. I didn't say anything for the rest of the flight, but my mind was racing over everything that I was getting myself into.

As we exited the plane, we were immediately met by Agent Natasha Romanoff and I was quickly beginning to realize this trip was going to be a who's who of people I already disliked. "Agent Romanoff, this is Captain Rogers and you already know-"

"Jennifer." Agent Romanoff interrupted as she gave us both a small knowing smile. "Good seeing you again." Coulson quickly left after introducing us as he was called inside.

"There's no need for that, Maddi is just fine considering everyone here already knows about it. The list seems to be getting longer, I might as well just announce it on top of The Empire State Building." I gave her a smile with narrowed eyes.

"Maybe that's not all a bad idea." she responded with equal challenge in her voice. "Captain, it was quite the buzz around here finding you in the ice." She smoothly took the conversation to Steve. "I thought Coulson was gonna swoon. Did he ask you to sign his Captain America trading cards yet?"

"Trading cards?" Steve asked with a hint of nervousness in his voice. Steve always handled the publicity of being Captain America very well, but there was no hiding the fact that he was overall an introverted man.

"They're vintage, he's very proud," she responded with a smirk.

Quickly changing the subject, Steve called out "Dr. Banner." I looked in the direction he was facing and saw a nervous man walking towards us after Steve's call.

Steve held out his hand to shake and Dr. Banner said "Oh yes hi, they said you'd be here."

"Word is you can find the cube," Steve stated.

"Is that the only word on me?"

"The only word I care about," Steve was trying to make the man in front of us more comfortable.

"This all must be strange for you," Bruce Banner said and it caused Steve and I to look around.

"Actually this feels kinda familiar," Steve replied. I could immediately see what he meant as this place reminded me also of the time I spent with him on military bases. "Oh Dr. Banner, I'd like you to also meet, uhh..." Steve tried to introduce me to the man he also just met but stumbled for a moment. I knew right away that he didn't know how to introduce me. I had told Natasha that Maddi was fine, but she had already known that was my real name. Also nobody here knew Steve and I were actually back together, but that didn't even really matter because we didn't know how to label ourselves as a couple either. Girlfriend and boyfriend didn't seem like the right words for two people who were married but then both died but then didn't and then were friends but then also admitted their still present love for each other.

I was going to step in and help but then Dr. Banner spoke before either of us could say a name. "Miss O'Neill, I recognized you from when you ran Stark Industries a few years back." I forced a smile and shook his hand.

"Um yes, it's good to meet you Dr. Banner."

"You three might want to step inside in a minute," Natasha spoke up just in time for any more conversation between me and the doctor. "It's going to get a little hard to breathe."

"Is this a submarine?" Steve asked with awe and curiosity as the floating aircraft carrier began to move and people hurried inside.

"Really, they want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" Bruce joked as we walked towards the edge of the aircraft carrier. Soon we realized the carrier was actually being lifted in the air instead of preparing to go underground. "Oh no, this is much worse," Bruce loudly stated over the sound of the engines.

"Alright, time to go inside," I agreed and took Steve's hand as we headed into the main deck of the now flying carrier. Once making it inside, Steve let go of my hand as he walked around and took in the vast technology in front of him. While I had certainly been getting him more and more used to our current society over the last several months, there was never a time I showed him anything of this scale before. I could see the look of shock, awe, and disbelief as he reached into his wallet and handed Nick Fury a ten dollar bill. I caught back up to him and I put my hand lightly on his arm and he looked at me with wide eyes. "Hey, you doing alright?" I asked him softly.

"Yeah yeah," he said quickly as he nodded his head. "It's just a lot."

"I know," I told him. "If anything gets to be too much, you just tell me. Just because you're already here doesn't mean you can't still leave if you want."

Steve chuckled and responded "we're in the air, Mads"

"I know that, but I can be very persuasive and if need be, I would do anything to get us off and back in New York watching another movie at my apartment by dinner."

"I promise I'll let you know if that's what I need, but for now I'm alright."

"Okay," I say with a small smile.

"Miss O'Neill!" I heard Nick Fury say from behind me and I spun around as my smile turned forced.

"Director Fury," I replied.

"I must say I am surprised to see you here, it was under my impression that you didn't want anything to do with SHIELD." I could tell he really wasn't surprised, he probably had counted on me coming with Steve.

"Well don't get too excited, I probably won't be much of a help as you were hoping."

"I'd argue differently. Why don't you go with Banner to the lab, I'm sure you could help there for now."

"We both know I'm a little rusty when it comes to gamma rays."

"I'm sure a small refresher will be enough to get you up to speed." He challenged and I narrowed my eyes slightly at him. "You know, I was also surprised to hear that you weren't with Stark when Coulson went to find him at his new tower."

"Tony's here? Wait, Tony was in New York?" I asked confused. I had thought that Tony would have told me that he was in New York finishing up the tower. I knew it was almost done, but I didn't think he was there so recently. I would have met up with him if I had known we were in the same city.

"He's not here yet, but we're hoping for him to decide to come soon." Fury responded.

I took a deep breath and gave a short nod. "Alright, please tell me when he gets here. I guess I'll go to the lab for now," I said as I turned back to Steve. "You'll be good while I'm gone?" I asked.

"Will you?" he countered as he could sense my unease with the organization I clearly disliked and the recent news on Tony. "It's my job to worry about you too, you know?"

I smiled at him, grateful that he was also concerned about how I was feeling with all of these changes for me. "Yeah, if anything, Dr. Banner is probably a good place to start when it comes to trusting others. I have a really good feeling about his character. Let me know if anything changes, I don't want to find out after the fact that you've left this ship to go fight off aliens on your own." I was soon led to the laboratory that Bruce was previously led to by Natasha.

Fury wasn't entirely wrong, while I hadn't been actively studying any sort of physics since the late 50s, I still kept up with some light reading on Physics Today when I wasn't trying to increase my knowledge on economics. While my career had made an entirely different shift once officially working for Stark Industries, I still enjoyed topics on physics and biochemistry and let that be part of my leisure time. I remembered enough to keep up in conversation with Dr. Banner, and I served as more of an assistant to him at the moment than an actual partner, but I was still somewhat useful.

"So, Miss O'Neill," Bruce asked as we were currently working in silence. "If you don't mind me asking, how do you know so much about gamma radiation? I didn't even think you worked in the science division of Stark Industries."

I contemplated telling him an easy lie, that knowledge of science was in my blood and I had taken time in college to get well acquainted with physics and engineering. However, something in me was telling me not to. Maybe it was how tired I was lying to everybody about who I truly was, maybe it was the fact that more people on the Helicarrier than I already planned on knew about my secret, or maybe it was the fact that now being happy with Steve gave me the courage to take more risks and let people into my life again. The reason I always ran and hid was because I didn't want to be used by any organization or by the public for my abilities. I didn't want to spend my life being stuck in a lab getting tested on, but I honestly already had much experience from that in trying to reverse it from Howard and Tony. I also didn't want to be used like Steve to fight and risk my life, but I guess risking my life was out of the question when I literally couldn't die. I also never wanted to be some public symbol that was either idolized or constantly criticized. I had seen enough of that between Steve, Tony, and the news I had heard of Bruce Banner when he became the Hulk. Except even when I think about those fears, they felt silly because I had already gone under plenty of public scrutiny as Tony's "niece" and knew that being with Steve wasn't going to help anything once people outside of SHIELD knew about how he was back from the dead.

All of my reasons felt ridiculous after putting perspective on them. I thought about how once Steve's identity went public, which I had no doubt it would soon with everything going on, then my own identity would be impossible to hide. Tony was brilliant in eliminating every visual representation of me online and there were barely any in print to begin with. There was no way people could know for sure that I was the same person who was married to Steve before, but I'm sure it would be really strange that he was with someone so soon after waking up from the ice. At that point, my choices would be to hide our relationship or finally come clean, so it was pointless to be lying to Bruce or anyone else I met through SHIELD if I were to make the decision to tell the world who I was shortly after. Maybe this was a good trial run in telling the world the truth. I hadn't decided then and there that I would tell everyone who I really was, I honestly too frightened still at the thought and I wanted to have a talk about it with Steve first, but I did decide that telling Bruce was okay. It was a good first step in what I was probably going to do sometime in the future.

"Actually, I have a doctorate in Physics, but it's been way too long that I am not nearly as knowledgeable as I used to be." He looked up from his work and gave me a confused look. Clearly he was thinking about how I was much too young to already be forgetting a subject I had a PhD in. In fact, I knew I looked young enough to have just finished a PhD at the most. So I quickly went into clarifying, but I honestly had no idea where to start. "My name isn't actually Jennifer O'Neill, it's Madeline. I was born in 1918 as Madeline Bennett, married Steve in 1944 and became Madeline Rogers, became Doctor Madeline Rogers in 1956, and I "died' in 1958." I said it all in one breath and I had a feeling it truly didn't make sense to Bruce.

He paused for a moment and I could see he was trying to process the words from a practical stranger. "Why are you telling me this, exactly?" he hesitated in asking.

"I don't know, it's definitely not something I use as a conversation starter with someone I just met. I guess I have just been thinking for a while now about no longer hiding who I really am, I mean so many people I didn't plan on finding out did find out so it's really a matter of time before the entire world knows. I think I like the idea of people hearing it from me first though instead of it getting out into the world and I become some terrible person in everyone's eyes for all the secrets I kept."

"Okay," he said. "M-Madeline? Right, it's Madeline?"

"Yes, but Maddi is okay."

"Alright, Maddi, umm I guess I'm honored you decided to tell me this. I do have to say, I'm still pretty confused, did you actually die and come back? Or is this like a Captain America situation or-"

"No no," I jumped in. "I've been alive this whole time. Howard Stark faked my death back then, I'm sure you have no idea who I really am, I wasn't that important."

"No actually, I do remember reading about you." he said and it made me a bit curious.

"Really? What do you already know?" I asked.

"Well I've read about you as Steve Roger's wife, but also from your work with Howard Stark. I remember thinking it was a tragedy you died so young when you clearly had a brilliant mind."

"Wow, okay. That's actually kind of amazing. Well this is why I can help here in your lab but to an extent. Developments in science have gone far beyond what I learned, and the jobs I've had since then have nothing to do with it."

"That's a shame, you seem to really enjoy it."

"I do, but I really do love my job right now in Stark Industries as well. I've been able to run their charity division and that work has brought me a lot of joy too." We then went on to discuss more of my life and how I had the ability to never age. He was fascinated by it all and I told him what I could, which honestly wasn't much. He was empathetic in how it all made me feel.

"I know what it feels like to have no idea what went wrong," he told me as he thought back to his own failed attempts at recreating the serum. "I also know why you faked your own death. Being on the run, being hated for what I am now, it would be nice to be able to live a life without worrying about all of that." At his words, I could truly see that he wanted to be here helping SHIELD less than I did. However, we were both here, we both chose to come out of hiding and help. I knew I had found a friend in Bruce. I also knew that the fear the public had in me couldn't ever possibly be as bad as it was with him. I was lucky to still have control over myself at all times. His perspective was another motivator in telling more people the truth.

After much more discussion and working together, we both saw a group of SHIELD members escorting Loki past the lab. He was staring at Bruce through the glass, smiling the entire way. "They caught him?" I asked with surprise in my voice.

"I guess so, let's go see what's going on." I nodded at him in agreement.

We walked into the main deck and I saw Steve in full Captain America uniform. "Did you go out? You found Loki and decided to go after him without even telling me you were leaving; you could have gotten hurt and I wouldn't have even known until after! I told you to come find me if anything changed!" I told him as I started to feel panicked.

"I know I know, I'm so sorry. I thought someone else had gone to get you, we were limited on time and I had to suit up. I promise that won't happen again, I should have made sure myself that you knew what was going on." He grabbed both my hands as I stood in front of him.

"Oh you definitely will make sure it will never happen again. You're alright though, yes?"

"I am, Mads. I promise." I nodded my head and turned towards the others in the room. I noticed a new man standing with long blond hair and a very strange outfit. "Oh, this is Thor," Steve told me with hesitation. "Of Asgard?" he tried to guess and the man nodded. "It's not from Earth, it's where Loki is from actually."

"I'm his brother, I've come to help." he said with a smile.

"Oh," was all I could make out. I was certainly not expecting someone from another planet to be joining us. "Well, hello Thor." I held out my hand for him to shake and he took it. "I'm Maddi, it's nice to meet you." I saw Steve's slight confusion on me giving my actual name as an introduction. "Bruce knows, let's start fresh, it doesn't matter, can we talk later about this actually?" I rambled through as I didn't really know how to describe it. If we had a mythological man on our team, who truly cared at this point about my own immortality.

Before anyone else could talk, live video of Loki in his cell with Fury was being played at the table in front of us. Natasha was already sitting and watching, Steve and I sat next to each other to join her.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce asked with a small chuckle and a shake of his head as the video feed cut out with Loki staring at the camera.

"Loki is going to drag this one out," Steve said. "Thor, what's his play?"

"He has an army called the Chitauri. They're not of Asgard or any world known. He means to lead them against your people, and they will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.

"An army?" Steve asked with raised eyebrows.

"From outer space," I added as I couldn't help but smile at the pure wonder of it all. Of course this all sounded very bad for us, but I was just learning about aliens from Asgard and now entire armies of aliens on top of that.

They continued to discuss Loki's behavior and plan as I continued to think about the world we were now living in when I suddenly realized that if I was having a hard time processing it all, I could only imagine Steve's thoughts. I spared him a glance and he locked eyes with me. I took his hand and gave it a quick squeeze to make sure he was doing alright and he squeezed mine in return. I gave him a nod, let go and turned my head back to the conversation as I heard a familiar voice make its way into the room.

"It's a stabilizing agent. It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD," Tony said as he made his way towards the table. He spotted Thor first and said "no hard feelings, Point Break, you got a mean swing. Also it means the portal can stay open as wide and as long as Loki wants." He started messing with the screens Fury uses while giving orders to the people on the ship who clearly didn't have any plans to listen to him anytime soon.

"Come on Tony, you can't say hello before you start taking charge of the entire operation?" I asked with a teasing smile. He quickly turned around at the sound of my voice and scanned the table, realizing I was there.

"You're here? Why didn't you tell me you were going to be here?" Tony questioned as he locked eyes with me. "Why did no one else tell me?" he asked the rest of the room.

"Why didn't you tell me you were in New York finishing up the tower?" I answered with eyes narrowed.

"You know what, doesn't matter. In fact, it's great you're here! I'll have Jarvis get your suit to the Helicarrier within an hour." He said casually as he walked around continuing to look at the screens of information in front of us.

"You built me a suit?! Tony!" I was lying to myself if I truly said I was surprised. It was something he had joked about in the past, but it was clear he actually built something for me to wear and fight in.

"You'll love it," he responded quickly. "Honestly, the best and most up to date model I have. Has every important feature mine do, but with less of the needed protection I have. You can wear your most comfortable clothes and just slip it on like a pair of shoes and gloves."

"Tony you're not making this sound any better," I said as I shook my head trying to picture just exactly what he was describing. Despite it being true that I didn't need all the protection of one of his entire suits, I didn't like the sound of what he had apparently made.

"Trust me, you'll love it when you see it. Jen we really must catch up, but first let's get back to the matter at hand."

"Jen?" Thor questioned as he looked between us.

"I'm sorry," I said with a hand up at Thor. "Tony, it's fine. Maddi is fine, everyone here, just call me Maddi."

"Wow, we really do have a lot to catch up on," Tony said as he looked at me with surprise.

"Mmhmm," I responded with a short nod trying to end the conversation.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve asked, thankfully trying to get us back on track.

"He'd have to heat the cube to 120 million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce said.

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect." Tony said with confidence as he made his way over to Dr. Banner.

"Well if he could do that, he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet," Bruce responded.

"Finally!" Tony said with joy. "Someone who speaks English."

"Is that what just happened?" Steve questioned with pure confusion on his face. I gave him a sympathetic smile as Tony shook hands with Bruce and gave him admiration for his work and his ability to turn into the Hulk.

"Dr. Banner is here to only track the cube, I was hoping you would join him." Fury said as he walked into the room.

"I'd start with that stick of his, it may be magical but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon," Steve told all of us.

"I don't know about that, but I do know that it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how it turned two of my sharpest men into two of his own personal flying monkeys," Fury stated back.

"Monkeys? I do not understand," Thor asked us.

"I do!" Steve interjected. "I-I understood that reference," he clarified with a slight blush and I couldn't help but give him a wide smile at his rather adorable statement.

As I turned towards Tony and Burce, I could see Tony rolling his eyes at Steve and my smile was quickly replaced by one a bit more forced. "Shall we play, Doctor?" Tony asked Bruce.

"This way sir," he replied.

"Oh wonderful, I'll come with you!" I declared as I jumped from my seat. "It's great, we'll all get to work together, have some of that catching up you asked for," I said as they turned back to face me. "Can we talk later?" I asked Steve as I turned back towards him. He nodded. "And you'll actually tell me personally yourself if anything changes this time?" I asked him again with a stern look and he nodded very quickly that time. "Thank you."

As the three of us got resituated in the lab with the extra technology Tony brought us, we began our work again. "Alright Lucille Ball," Tony said as he addressed me and I rolled my eyes. "We certainly have a lot to talk about, it's been about six months since I last saw you?"

"Oh yeah, why don't we start with why didn't you tell me you were in New York? We could have cut down that six months for sure, I mean were you there every month? You told me Stark Tower was on hold."

"Yeah about that," he started with a slight grimace. "I think my experience with your Captain Romance back in Germany was enough for me to know I was right in wanting to delay that interaction as much as possible."

I sighed and said "Tony, that's not at all how I wanted you two to meet."

"Oh yes a nice cup of coffee and a trip through Central Park would have made me instantly want to be his best friend."

"Tony please, can just give it a chance, give him a chance. We are all under a lot of stress right now."

"Also, what's all of this about you going by Maddi now? Was this Steve's idea? I don't think he understands the the environment of a public image in this century so-"

"No Tony, really?" I stopped him with an edge in my tone. "It was not his idea, it's not really something I've entirely discussed my own thoughts with him yet anyway. It's my own choice that I told Bruce who I actually am and Thor isn't even from this planet! I wanted to be friendly with them in a truthful way if we were to be working together. On top of that, maybe it's for the best that I just tell the whole world the truth. I mean we're fighting aliens right now for heaven's sake! Wouldn't you rather have it be so that I don't have to go into hiding, with another fake death I might add, within the next several years?!"

"Of course I want that Maddi, I just don't want you to do anything you don't really want to do."

"I know, and I'm giving this a lot of thought, Tony. I promise, I have been for some time now."

He nodded his head and looked from me to Bruce, who was quietly working and trying to stay out of our conversation. "So you two are friends now, it's great really, maybe you can help me get her back into her love for all things science."

That got a laugh out of me and a small chuckle from Bruce as well. "That's a conversation for another time. For now, let's just focus on the scepter and the Tesseract. I can feel this is going to be a long sleepless night for all of us," I told them both and guided us to getting back to work. Time was clearly crucial in stopping Loki from attacking our planet with this army from outer space, so rest was not an option at this point.


A/N: Wow, so I am very sorry to have waited so long to upstate. It took time for me to find my motivation for this part of the story, but I will say that I am excited about it all coming together. I do enjoy writing nonsense science, but I will try to keep it to a minimum and focus on Maddi and her story within it all. Please let me know what you thought of this chapter! Your opinions/predictions/wishes all play into my writing as I want to make this the best it can be! Thank you so much to people who still read and enjoy this story, and thank you to new people reading and following as well! Don't give up on me, I may be slow in updates sometimes, but I promise that I haven't given up on this story!

Also! I added selected lyrics of the Taylor Swift songs that go with each part of Maddi's story to the appropriate chapters. I have also compiled all of them in my profile and I plan to add more as her story progresses! I really really like how some of these songs fit into what I'm writing, so please listen or at least read the chorus or verse I chose from each song if you don't know them. Thank you!