Steve was alive, he was safe at the moment, and I was grateful for it. And I was going to kill him.

"Get your ass back to bed!" I yelled at him, catching myself on the doorframe. I was still feeling wobbly from what I did, whatever it was. I wasn't anywhere near as bad off as Steve still was though. Those flames had healed him to a degree, but seven months in a coma had taken a toll that the fire hadn't completely erased. He was shaky on his feet, had a little bit more color but was still pale, and he was moving stiffly. But that wasn't stopping the stubborn ass from deciding he needed to go back to Lowtown to help after I caught him up to speed.

It might have been a mistake to tell him that Sam, Bucky, and Loki were down there dealing with God only knew how many super soldiers, but the man had asked.

"Damn it, Steve, you just woke up out of a coma! You can barely stand! You're in no shape to go fighting ants, let alone super soldiers!"

Steve was grasping the back of the sofa. He had ignored the soup and crackers I had ordered from room service for him, grabbed one of Bucky's shirts and a pair of pants, and made it out the door of the bedroom since I was still weak as a kitten and hadn't been able to grab him in time. For a man who had been in a coma for months, he was fast. "You're one to talk," he shot at me.

"That's why I'm being a good girl and staying put like I was told to!" My fingers scored the wood of the doorframe, crushing it, an unsatisfying exercise since what I really wanted to do was wring Steve's neck.

"I'll be sure to put in a good word for you with Loki. But you can't expect me to stay here when there are super soldiers loose, not to mention Zemo...and I still can't believe Bucky broke him out of prison..."

It sounded like Bucky was going to be lucky if Steve didn't rip his vibranium arm off and beat him with it for doing something as stupid as setting Zemo free. I was also glad his ire was directed at Bucky and not at me. Fuck, oh fuck, I had lost Zemo. I had been so focused on Steve, on getting him out of there, that I had lost track of Zemo and hadn't bothered to search for him when he had slipped away. There was no telling where he was now. "I damn well can, and you're going to stay put, because you're still in bad shape, and if you go out there now, you'll be a liability and not an asset, you pig-headed, mule-brained Neanderthal! We just found you, after searching for you for seven months! Goddamn it, we can't lose you again!"

My voice rose with the last few words, and that made Steve take a good look at me. I must have looked bad, because he started towards me with his arms outstretched but stopped when I flinched. No. Between Zemo's unintentional pawing and the three panic attacks I'd had to stave off in such a short amount of time, I had reached my limit. I wasn't going to be able to handle being touched by anyone who wasn't Loki for a while. I was fairly certain I wouldn't have been able to tolerate even Bucky at that point.

This was why I didn't go on missions.

"Alright," Steve finally agreed. "Alright."

That was a relief.

"That is good, since if you made it past her, you would have had to deal with me. And I would not be as easy on you," the Dora Milaje who had been lurking in the corner by the Ficus piped up.

Neither Steve nor I had the energy to react, although I knew she was there. I had caught her scent an hour ago. "Ayo," Steve nodded, after his heart rate had slowed. I merely leaned against the inside of the doorframe and closed my eyes wearily.

"Since you have succeeded in finding Steve Rogers," Ayo directed her words towards me "We have taken the liberty of taking Zemo back into custody. We retrieved him from the subterranean lab under the mansion in Lowtown. He had killed the laboratory technicians and was going about destroying all the vials of the super soldier serum he could before John Walker slipped in and knocked him unconscious with the shield."

"Who's John? And what shi—my shield?!"

I winced. "I hadn't gotten around to telling him about that yet," I said to Ayo. I had been waiting until my head stopped pounding. "What was Walker doing there, anyway?"

"The EMP that Zemo unleashed attracted attention. Shortly after you left, he and several agents arrived and raided the mansion after the super soldiers guarding it attacked them. John found the entrance to the laboratory."

"How many vials of the serum did Zemo destroy before this Walker knocked him out?" Steve asked.

"All of them," Ayo answered.

Thank God. Neither Steve nor I asked how the Dora got Zemo away from Walker. It was easy enough to guess. "Who does that mansion belong to?"

"The name on the deed is Jillian Mills."

Steve snorted. "That's an alias."

"We believe so as well."

"So, they were holding me in order to extract the serum from my blood?" Steve asked as he sank onto the sofa, finally getting off his damn feet.

"You and one other individual who received the serum in the nineteen fifties and had samples obtained from him over a period of thirty years, until he escaped from prison."

Steve frowned. "Who?"

"The White Wolf knows," Ayo said.

I winced again, this time from the flash of anger I felt off Steve. The White Wolf was going to get his ass handed to him. That would be fun to watch. I might sell tickets. "Speaking of which..."

"He and Wilson are on their way back. They are uninjured save for some bruises and scrapes."

I blew out a relieved sigh. "Well, since I no longer have to sit on top of Steve in order to keep him from leaving, I really need a shower."

Ayo grinned. "I was not going to say anything, but..."

"No offense taken." Steve had very diplomatically not commented on the stench. He was too polite for his own good sometimes. I knew if I woke up from a coma greeted by the smell that was clinging to me, I would want to fall back asleep.

I headed to my room, but paused when Ayo called, "Tracy?"

I looked at her.

"I meant what I told you earlier. You have a standing invitation to Wakanda to spend time with the Dora Milaje. Come and see us soon."

I nodded and shut my door softly. The clothes were a lost cause, so I burned them and flushed the ashes down the toilet. Then I jumped into the shower, turned the water to scalding, shampooed my hair three times, and scrubbed the rest of my body to the point where the water running into the drain was red.

"What in the name of the Nine Realms are you doing, woman?"

I froze. I knew that tone of voice. When Loki was really, seriously angry, he didn't yell. His voice grew quieter, colder.

I'd been so absorbed in washing away all the ickiness, both physical and emotional, of the past few days, that I hadn't noticed when he entered the bathroom or the shower curtain was pulled aside. "Um...showering?"

"Mmmm...Rogers is doing the same thing at this very moment, although I am quite certain he isn't doing his best to turn his skin into raw hamburger."

No raise in pitch or volume, no change in tone. "Guess I've been in here long enough," I swallowed, and turned the water off. Loki silently handed me a towel.

By the time I dressed in clean clothes (more leather pants, since that was the only option aside from the Borat bikini dress) and emerged from our room, Bucky and Sam had returned and were both enveloping Steve in hugs and back claps. I winced when Bucky got close. Without a word, Loki took my arm and brought me over to an armchair that he sat in, pulling me into his lap and hugging me to his chest. We remained like that while the other three men had celebratory beers and other drinks from the suite's bar.

Bucky, Sam, and I packed our belongings after a couple of hours. Loki made me take the leather pants Zemo had bought me. He then teleported all of us home, where there was more hugging, more back clapping, more booze. Tony even flew in to join the celebration. I ordered pizza and wings. Even Carol was so happy that she didn't yell at me about the donut truck incident.

Nothing brought out Loki's creativity quite like pissing him off. I discovered the fastest way I could accomplish that was by hurting myself.

Loki didn't do canings, kneeling on rice, or any other impact or pain punishments. He knew that shit would be triggering as hell for me, and besides those weren't anywhere near diabolical enough for his tastes. Instead, he sentenced me to a week of not being allowed to bathe on my own. I could only shower with him watching. No touching, no sexy times, just him standing there with his arms crossed while I scrubbed up and rinsed off.

If he was away for some reason, well that was too damn bad. I would have to wait to shower until he returned. And if I tried to shower on my own...

The smell wasn't detectable immediately. Loki knew if it were, I wouldn't have stepped foot outside our home. As I drove to the coffee shop to pick up the morning beverages for everyone, I started detecting the odor. It smelled like a really bad fart.

By the time I parked at the curb, I had to roll the windows down because it smelled like a dozen rotten eggs that had been cracked open. The coffee shop was crowded, but the people parted like the Red Sea when I entered. I had never had an ordered filled so fast by the baristas. I left them a very big tip.

I arrived at the Mansion, and used my cellphone to call inside. Bruce came out to get the coffees from me, and he was more than happy to allow me to take a sick day. Except for the once after approaching me, he didn't breathe through his nose when interacting with me. I drove back to the apartment building, gave the valet and the doorman an apologetic look, almost sent the people in the lobby diving out the windows, and was as red as a tomato and reeked like a sewage plant in Death Valley by the time I finally returned to my and Loki's penthouse. He didn't even look up from his coffee and book when I came in, sheepish and penitent.

"Just remember, Pet," he stated as he finally looked at me. "You belong to me, and no one hurts what is mine. Especially you." His gaze burned into me, sending shivers down my spine.

Lesson learned.

It was two weeks after we returned from Madripoor when Nat dumped a vacuum-sealed bag full of dirty clothes on my desk.

I was working, or trying to, since Volstagg insisted on lounging on my desk right next to my keyboard. Thor had named the twelve-week-old orange tabby kitten after a friend of his who had passed before the destruction of Asgard, because he was fat, loved his food, and was full of bounce. I could not understand why Volstagg insisted on bothering me when his favorite person, the Thunderer himself, was sitting right there on the other side of my desk playing cards with Loki. Fucking cats.

I froze and blinked at the package. "Thanks Nat, but brown really isn't my color."

"It's from the Power Broker's house," she responded, perching on the edge of my desk. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Steve, Bucky, and Sam come into the foyer towards us. As always, my workspace was the social hub of Avengers HQ. Come on in, people, I don't mind, I only have a shit-ton of work I was still catching up on after being away, no biggie.

"Sure it belongs to the Power Broker? Not an underling, and the mansion wasn't a front?" Steve asked while eyeing the bundle.

Nat scratched Volstagg under his chin, and his purring made my desk vibrate. "Reasonably sure."

I didn't ask what I was supposed to do with these clothes. I sighed. So much for no missions.

My face must have reflected how I felt, because Steve said "Tracy...you don't have to."

I looked at Steve. He was better than he was, but what the Power Broker and her—and it looked to be a her, judging from the clothing—minions had done...

Some of the damage was permanent. He was gaining some strength back, but his heart had taken some bad hits. His bones had also suffered, and Bruce had reluctantly diagnosed him with osteoporosis. There was also nerve and spinal damage that Stephen hadn't been optimistic about. Combined with the cardiac damage, it spelled the end of Steve's career as Captain America.

He already looked about twenty years older. God, if only we had found him sooner.

Steve was thinking of remaining on the Avengers in an advisory capacity since everyone else was insisting that he retire for real. He didn't want John Walker to take his place though. He wanted either Bucky or Sam to.

Bucky had already said no. Sam was still waffling with indecision. Not that there was any hurry. Walker wasn't going to part with the shield without a fight, and he had Congress to back him up.

I felt guilty, even though everyone told me I shouldn't. I should have found him sooner. Steve was alive, but he would never be the same.

I had to do this. I was the only one who could. I used a letter opener to slit the bag open, placed it under my nose, and inhaled.

The clothes were all from the same woman, who smelled like oak leaves and champagne, overlaid with a light perfume of rose petals and vanilla. I committed the scent to memory.

The super soldiers, including the redhead, had been spotted a few times in various locations throughout the Eastern seaboard. Everyone was on the lookout for them, so we were busy with that at the moment. The spider kid had caught three of them the other night, and Thor had kicked the crap out a couple of them yesterday. The one I had knocked down the corridor had attempted to get his revenge on me when I came out of the coffee place the other morning. I had thrown him through a plate glass window and knocked him unconscious. The Avengers were paying for the damages.

The nation of Madripoor was on high alert, so we weren't going to be returning there anytime soon. In fact, I didn't know how Nat had gotten these clothes. I wasn't going to ask. But we did have a way to slip in, and as soon as we finished cleaning up the super soldiers...

I inhaled again.

Gotcha, bitch.