Disclaimer: Nope. Not mine. Not a bit. Though more of the plot is starting to be me-generated at this point than it has been at others. Don't sue me? I still don't own it or anything.

As far as teleportation experiences go, whatever it is Doctor Strange and his friends have going on isn't half bad. There's no howl of wind, no rush of air or swirl of dazzling lights. In fact, the transportation process doesn't even seem to take any time. Overall, it's less like any form of travel Cassie's ever experienced, and much more like she and Luke simply take a step out of Hong Kong and in to Wakanda.

Well, okay. It might be more accurate to say that they trip that direction. Shoving Luke was very cathartic but maybe ultimately not the best thought out form of petty vengeance. Luke assumes, quite accurately, that since Cassie is the one who knows where they're going, she needs to be going through the portal with him. As a result, he instinctively grabs her by the hand as he drops through the swirl of energy.

Unfortunately for the both of them, their sorcerer-provided portal turns out to open up about eight inches above Cassie and Steve's living room floor. This may or not be Cassie's fault since she's distracted when she enters the, for lack of a better term, magic zone. She gives it the general thought of "home" and given that it's probably lucky that the two of them aren't simply deposited on top of Steve. Magic likes to interpret things on more metaphorical levels than is typically helpful.

It shouldn't be a big deal. The distance is no further than what you fall when you miss a typical step on a staircase. Normally on the stairs though, you're not going through a portal which no matter how swift and smooth a ride happens to utterly screw with your inner ears. Cassie is very painfully aware of this fluid rotation thanks to her powers and the depths of the dizzy feeling permeating her brain is even less pleasant when you're hyper conscious of all of your internal equilibrium settings.

Long process story short, Luke and Cassie arrive in Wakanda very quickly and with very little grace. Luke does fall out of the portal and on to the floor first because Cassie did trip him through it after all, and this ends up being fortunate for her. What's less fortunate for her is that the grip Luke very intelligently clamps on to her wrist to further his chances of survival in chaotic and unknown magical circumstances drags her down on top of him.

It all works out in a series of retributive actions eventually. Cassie trips Luke, Luke falls and Drags Cassie down with him, Cassie drives an elbow in to his stomach in the landing, Luke wrenches her arm painfully in the tangle of limbs they sprawl in too in an attempt to protect his vital organs. In the end, they're both groaning and in annoying amounts of pain while they lie on the ground swearing at each other in Ancient Greek.

This is how Steve finds them when he comes through the door at Code-Red urgency speeds. It's really pretty remarkable that the door stays on its hinges. All credit to Wakandan engineering and Tony's paranoia. Cassie's semi-certain that those hinges have been reinforced with Vibranium just because the country has it to spare so why the hell not anyway?

Cassie is still in the process of detangling her arms and legs from Luke's, hopefully without further injuring either of them, when Steve makes it across to them and neatly solves the problem by gripping her below the shoulders and bodily lifting her away from the tangle. The change in position and elevation does little for her disrupted equilibrium and the familiar shapes of her living room swim before her eyes. This problem is neatly remedied by shutting her eyes and letting herself be securely tucked in to Steve's chest.

Her husband is very solid. Very warm. Good for him. And well done her too. She isn't sure why exactly, but the thought is nice and has the internal ring of accuracy.

Cassie's mental tangent grinds to a halt when she realizes that her very warm and solid husband is asking her something in a very urgent-seeming voice. She should probably be paying attention to whatever it is he's saying. It takes a little focus, but with something else to pay attention to she can be distracted from the vertigo messages thronging behind her eyeballs.

"...talk to me," he's saying, in a voice that's starting to edge on frantic. Cassie guiltily wonders how many times he's had to make that request without getting a response. "You have to tell me if you're okay. Cassie talk to me. Please."

Cassie raises a hand and rubs in what she hopes is a soothing manner over the back of his neck. "M'okay," she tells him. She has to fight a little to be heard due to the fact that her current position has her face more or less mashed in to Steve's sternum. She tries again with somewhat more success after turning her head so she's not inhaling his tee shirt. "Really. I'm fine."

At those words, Steve actually draws back to give her a properly doubtful expression. "Really?" he asks, raising one eyebrow. "So if I stood back you'd..."

He leaves the ending of that sentence open as an inquiry and Cassie is forced to concede his point. "Very possibly fall on you," she admits. "Or on the floor. But that'll go away pretty quickly I think. The portal we took was quick but very, very, spin-y. My magic is going a little haywire so I'm much more dialed in on how I'm feeling physically than normal. I'm literally feeling my inner-ear fluid rotating in the canals."

Steve winces in sympathy. Cassie knows enough about his pre-serum medical history to know that he'd suffered from inner-ear equilibrium problems in childhood. Steve had probably spent more time dizzy than he cared to admit. He leans forward and presses a long kiss to her forehead. Cassie lets her eyes shut and enjoys the crystalline moment of calm, feeling safe and settled for the first time in at least forty-eight hours.

One of Steve's hands runs up and down the length of her spine and then along her sides, counting ribs. Cassie recognizes the gestures as being a sort of field medical check up as much as they are meant to soothe and re-connect. Steve is checking for damage and reassuring himself that she really is here in his arms, here and whole and planning to stay that way.

Reluctantly, Cassie breaks the moment. "You can probably put me down now," she tells him, patting at the nape of his neck. "I should introduce you to Luke before he runs out of bad words to call us in Latin. He's already exhausted his Greek vocabulary. And come up with a few new ones if some of the muttering I've heard is anything to go by."

The arms around her tighten incrementally, and Cassie feels Steve nuzzle his nose lightly in to the hollow of her jaw before pulling away and loosening his grip. Cassie slides to the ground and rocks lightly on her toes to absorb the impact. It's a decidedly more dignified landing than the first of this... night? Evening? Afternoon? Cassie really isn't sure what time it is anymore. Human beings, demigods included, were not made to instantaneously jump time zones.

Luke has stopped swearing and is eyeing the both of them with a blankly cynical look. "Captain America is a hugger," he drawls. "Who knew? You two done with the lovey dovey now?"

"Not by a long shot," Cassie snipes back at him. "But I am all for waiting to continue until we have you locked in somewhere where I don't have to deal with you for the next fourteen hours."

"Fourteen seems a little long for you."

"It's enough time for me to sleep, shower, eat, down three cups of coffee, and in some way vent my rage so that we can pretend to be civil when I have to explain you to the rest of the team," Cassie informs him. "I assure you, I've budgeted appropriately. Now go take a seat and try to pretend that the two of us were not literally raised by half a horse and the original wine-o while we get through this conversation."

Luke takes the seat indicated and very pointedly kicks his feet up on to the coffee table. The look he gives Steve dares him to comment and Steve, very maturely in her opinion, utterly declines to speak. "I don't think our esteemed Camp Director and Activities Director would like those descriptions."

Cassie rolls her eyes. Luke literally went to war against both named parties, he's hardly concerned about whether they like their irreverent bios. "They can dislike it all they want," she says. I've seen Chiron eat carrots whole and Mr. D hasn't been sober in the last three millennia. These are the facts as we all know them to be true."

Steve gives her a bit of a look at the odd mannerisms she's apparently adopted for this portion of the conversation, but Cassie isn't worried about that right now. She's feeling more than a little stressed and exhausted by the events of the last approximately seventy-two hours. It's possible that means her ability to speak normally is taking a bit of a hit.

She gestures him to the couch opposite Luke and takes her own seat next to him. "Alright, let's get this over with. Luke, this is Steve. Steve is my husband and a very good person whom I love and adore. Steve, this is Luke. Luke used to be like a brother to me until he let a titan get in his head about his jealousy and daddy issues and he decided that rather then be a good person, he'd rather betray us all and try to start World War III, thereby plunging the planet in to a new dark age. I very highly doubt that the two of you will ever get along."

"We don't have to though, right?" Steve checks.

"You do not," Cassie confirms. "I am willing to settle for mutual salutary neglect." She gestures to Luke. "He's stuck being here and we're stuck having him. Tomorrow I'll figure out how to extend the tether preventing him from running off. For tonight," she sighs. "I don't know. He can crash in the guest room. Have a sandwich or something."

Luke scoffs. "Generous."

"Or you can sleep on the living room floor and go to bed hungry," Cassie replies evenly. "Your choice."

"Which way to the sandwiches?"

Steve frowns. "We keep knives in our kitchen."

"A fair point," Cassie acknowledges. "Also a blender, boiling water, a cheese grater, and quite a few heavy pots and pans. Someone else should make sandwiches."

"We might also be out of bread."

Cassie blinks, brain apparently blank at this revelation. "It doesn't have to be sandwiches."

Luke raises one hand to shoulder level like he's a teenager in class. It's the hand with the bracelet tying him to Cassie on it and the metal gleams under the living room lights. "Is it possible that the sandwiches are immaterial?"

"Very," Cassie confirms. "Seeing as they don't exist yet and we don't have one of the major ingredients. Which, come to think of it, is weird. I could have sworn I picked some up the last time I went grocery shopping."

She looks to Steve for an answer and her husband shrugs. "Everyone was a little tense today. Pepper asked Meg and Pietro to take Katy to feed the ducks at the park to keep her occupied and out of the house while Tony went mad scientist."

Apparently, the mad scientist will appear when named because in the next moment there's a knock on the door.

Cassie groans dropping her head in to her hands and giving up on any pretense of dignity or having this situation under control. "If that's Tony then I'm going to need to re-assess my ability to predict the future," she mumbles to her knees.

She feels Steve rub a comforting hand up and down the length of her spine. "I'll go get the door," he says. "Deep breaths."

"Don't tell me how to be," Cassie mutters, but the impact of her tone is probably undermined by the way she catches at his hand and gives it a small squeeze before he goes.

Even with her head buried in her knees she can hear Luke shifting in the chair across from her, probably sitting up. The air stirs again, a lean forward. "How is the future seeing going? Still get nightmares?"

Cassie presses down on the urge to tell him to fuck off. Instead she lifts her head and scrubs the hair out of her eyes to look at him properly. Luke had been good with her more prophetic nightmares when she was a child. She'd never been much for seeing the future, but there had been a time shortly after her mother had died when her abilities that direction had hit a bit of a peak. Chiron had thought it was due to the extreme emotional upset and constant fight to survive. They'd tapered back off after she'd settled at Camp and only ever ticked back in to play during the war and preceding major events.

"Sometimes," she admits. "Major events only. Lee was always the one who was good at reading the future." She tips her head at him. "Remember Lee? My brother? You killed him when your army attacked our home."

She keeps her voice even but her heart is suddenly racing in her chest. "Did you know I have more siblings now since you died?" She asks. "A new little sister and two little brothers. Jerry, Yan, and Gracie their names are. They've already been in a war, because of my father mostly." She leans forwards and forces Luke to meet her eyes. "You will be allowed to stay here because there is nowhere else for you to go," she says, and her own voice is so cold she can barely recognize it. "But these people are my family. And if anything you do means any member of my family is hurt or lost ever again, I will personally feed you right back in to Tartarus myself."

Luke is saved from answering by Tony barreling through the door with so much velocity he actually manages to nearly knock Steve off his feet.

To Cassie's no small surprise, approximately point two seconds pass between Steve coming through the door and Cassie being pulled off the couch and in to Tony's arms for a hug. "Hello to you too Tony," she squeaks out around her rib constriction. "Guess you missed me?"

"Oh like you wouldn't believe," Tony replies before swinging her around in a half circle. "You doing okay, Breslin?" The movement leaves Cassie looking over his shoulder at Steve, who looks some 'be-' adjective between 'bemused' and 'befuddled'. Cassie raises an eyebrow at him and he inclines his head a fraction back over Cassie's head. It's not within her abilities to turn at that point, but Cassie still catches the drift. Tony has put himself in between her and Luke and is using the position to appraise the newcomer for himself.

Cassie feels a sudden swell of warmth in her chest and gives Tony's shoulder an affectionate pat. "Doing fine Tony. Just a little tired is all."

"Uh huh," Tony says. "Sure. Like your husband back there was only a little bit Captain Worried for the last fifty-two hours. That kind of a little bit tired?"

Cassie buries her smile behind a hand even though Steve is the only one who might be able to see it at her current angle. "About exactly that kind. Are you planning on letting me down any time soon? I'm just asking so I can make plans."

Tony gives an exaggerated shrug and lugs Cassie up a foot so most of her upper body is hanging over his shoulder. "Sure thing. Over you go."

He starts to tip her towards the floor as he finishes talking and Cassie takes the hint to throw herself forwards in to a dive roll. Her momentum has her coming to a stop just before the wall and she pulls herself up to her feet. The maneuver starts to seem like a worse idea when she's back on her feet with her stomach rolling. Grimacing, she makes her way back over to the couch, waving off Steve's concerned look as she goes.

"I'll go find you some food," he tells her. "Anything sound particularly appealing?"

"Something mostly bland with some protein if such a thing exists," she tells him. "I'll go for extra calories later." Steve nods and heads for the kitchen.

Tony is studying Luke with shrewd eyes, like he's assessing a piece of possibly defective machinery to determine whether it's worth keeping, or would be better thrown out. "I heard you tried to break the world before you died. Daddy Issues."

Luke blinks at him. "You'd know about those."

"What do you know about it?" Tony replies, feigned calm evaporating like fog in sunshine.

Luke shrugs. "Even titans get the newspaper."

Tony exhales sharply through his nose. "Yeah, well, kidnapping in to the desert and a near death experience or three will really realign your priorities. A nice little session of talk therapy and we've got those issues in retreat. I hear you took the murder route instead."

"Let me just ask this," Luke says, leaning forwards and looking Tony straight in the face. "You never wanted to burn something down so you could make something new? You never made a bad call- did a big thing badly?" he sits back and spreads his hands. "I did a big thing badly. I was a teenager, I was angry, and I let a whisper in to my head that I couldn't get out. And then I died to fix it. What'd you do to fix it when you broke the world?"

"Fixed it," says Tony sharply. "I told the people who needed to know, got my shit together, and fixed it. 823 people died, and I know all their names."

"seventy-seven," Luke replies in his terms. "On the other side. Thousands on mine including me, not that many of them would be missed, minus a few notable exceptions. I've met their ghosts, been tormented by their spirits. I chose rebirth so that I could have a clean slate and do better in a new life. I woke up on Olympus instead. Still me with all my memories attached."

"And how exactly did that happen?" Steve asks, re-entering the room and handing Cassie a plate of rice cakes smothered in peanut butter. Cassie thanks him with a smile and a kiss on the cheek before digging in. Her stomach eases when the food hits it and her stability seems to be returning by the third bite.

Luke shrugs in answer and Tony and Steve both turn to her with the same hilariously similar expressions of inquiry. Cassie brushes a piece of popped rice away from her upper lip and shrugs herself. "Don't know. It's the forty million drachma question. One of the only ever hard and fast rules of Greco-Roman mythology is that people just don't come back from the dead. Heroes sometimes went and came back, but they never managed to retrieve any of the people they went there to get. Persephone, Demeter, and Hades himself have always been free to come and go, and Nico can pop back and forth on pretty easy terms, but none of them brought back mortal souls. We had an issue when I was seventeen where death stopped working for a bit, but we fixed that when we put Gaea back to sleep and that was nearly a decade ago now."

Tony started pacing while she talked and only pauses to ask her a question. "Could you do it?" he asks. "Reverse death?"

Cassie is shaking her head before he's done asking the question. "No. That's an absolute limit on my abilities. I can resuscitate someone recently flatlined and I can reverse what should be fatal damage, but that's it. That thing I did with Pietro after Ultron? That's the closest I get to bringing someone back from the dead."

"What about Jason?" Steve asks, handing her a glass of water. "I heard you say he came back from the dead."

She shakes her head as she takes a drink. "Not the same. He was dead for less than a week and it was before the doors of Thanatos had been shut all the way. The entire judgement panel of the afterlife and Hades himself judged that it was before his chosen time. Even the three fates weighed in to say that his thread had been cut too short and that is a HUGE thing. It's the literal omniscient forces of destiny proclaiming that the universe blew the call. We didn't even have a shroud made yet when Jason walked back in to camp. He remembers the whole thing and Hades has it all entered in to record with the Olympian Council. Luke just... kind of... showed up."

Luke grins a crooked grin. "I kind of like that both my death and resurrection seem to have nothing to do with our parents."

"I don't," Cassie grimaces. "Our godly family members might fuck things up sometimes, but I know how they work. I've spent twenty years learning how they tick and what they might be capable of. That makes them predictable which means they're a safe and known quantity. If we don't know what brought you back, we don't know what we're dealing with."

Now it's Tony's turn to grimace. "I don't like not knowing. What do we do to change that?"

"What do you do?" Cassie parrots. "Not much of anything unless you want to do an internet deep dive on mythological resurrection. "What Team Demigod does is talk to everyone we can get an ear from from any culture where we have an in. It'll take time and we still might not get anywhere. Most cultures are pretty sure that dead is dead and dead indeed."

"I know that one," Steve says mildly. "Old nursery rhyme. Very twisted."

Tony's expression hasn't changed. "I don't like waiting any more than I like not knowing. Any way I can speed things up for you?"

Cassie sets her empty plate aside and mulls the question over in her mind. "Research coordination," she says finally. "We'll be coming at the problem as at least ten independent sources. If you can make it more targeted that'd help. It'll need to be insulated to be demigod use-safe. Ask Reyna for Leo and Annabeth's phone numbers. They'll have designs for a communications device that'll do the trick and the contact information for our other sources."

Tony nods and turns on his heel to head for the door. He points two fingers at Luke before leaving. "You, you I'm watching. And you," he points at Cassie. "Glad you're back. Brace yourself for a breakfast debrief from Pepper. She told me to tell you there'd be cinnamon roles and plenty of coffee, but she didn't want to crowd you as soon as you were back."

Cassie nods. "Thank her for me. Tell her I'll be there sometime between breakfast and brunch time. I'm gonna need to sleep off the travel."

Tony waives a hand and nods to indicate that he heard her and inclines his head to Steve. "Rogers. Check in with me tomorrow and I'll pull in the key team members for a threat assessment. Night all."

"Tomorrow," Steve confirms. "Night Stark."

"Night Tony," Cassie calls after him. "Thanks for the hug!"

Tony shuts the door behind him and Steve gets up after him to make sure that the lock has engaged. It's not necessary, the security system in the compound is automatic and several steps far and above state of the art since it's run by FRIDAY. The check is a security tick so Steve can feel proactive, and Cassie isn't about to bring it up.

She'll hold on to her necklace/weapon when she feels threatened, Steve will double and triple check the locks. Luke reaches for the nearest sword and drums his fingers on the pommel. Absent the sword, he appears to be settling for the arm of the chair. Marginally less deadly.

Marginally.

Cassie looks up at Steve as he returns from the door. "Are we expecting any other drop-ins this evening?"

"Are we ever?" he asks.

"Fair point. I'm actually kind of surprised Bucky and Reyna haven't come by yet."

Steve nods. "I got a text from Bucky when I was getting the food. He and Reyna have been brainstorming the other end of the problem. Or at least, Reyna is, and Bucky is asking prompt questions and writing things on a big legal pad. I let them know you'd gotten back okay but you might want to text Reyna before you pass out."

Cassie pulls out her phone and does just that. "There," she says when she's hit sent. "Taken care of." Reyna responds moments later with Good. Glad you're not dead. China seemed weird. D-Brief in AM with a thumbs up emoji. Cassie looks at Steve. "Do I need to be texting Nat too?"

He shakes his head. "I covered her, Clint, and Sam when I told Tony and Bucky. Tony told Colonel Rhodes, so that really just leaves the Maximoffs, Vision, and Meg. I got King T'Challa read in after you called me this morning and Tony said he'd take care of Parker if it turned out the kid made the list of the people who need to know."

It makes sense. Peter might be living under the Avengers secrecy umbrella these days, but all non-demigod team members minus Natasha had had some misgivings about involving a fifteen-year-old in the full scope of their operational missions. Cassie can't say she really faults the logic, she of all people knows that super powers or not, a teenager is still a teenager.

She'd just saying, "I wonder how long it'll take for the others to show up," when the door is blown open by a silver blue streak that momentarily resolves itself in to Pietro. "Well that saves me that question," she mumbles.

"What was that?" Pietro asks.

Cassie shakes her head. "Nothing," she opens her arms for a hug. "It's good of you to check on things. Bring it in."

Pietro does so, planting a lightning-quick kiss on each of her cheeks and then her forehead the way he sometimes does Wanda. "My sister and the Vision are restraining Meg in our apartment," he informs her. "I promised that I would check you were in one piece and then report back downstairs. Part one is done. Now for part two."

He vanishes again and Cassie's hair ruffles in the slip-stream.

"Impressive," Luke comments. "How long will it take before-" Pietro blows back in to the living room. "-he's back," Luke finishes. "Alright. Guess that answers that question.

Pietro ignores him and presents Steve with three large tupperware containers stacked on top of each other. "The lovely Meg offers this in return for stealing all of your bread earlier in the day. She and Wanda cooked together. They thought people here might be hungry tonight."

"We are," Steve confirms, setting the containers on the coffee table for the time being. "Thanks for brining it up. And tell Meg and Wanda thank you for cooking."

Pietro nods and turns his gaze to Luke. In the blink of an eye he's within two inches of him and very blatantly sizes him up. "Interesting," he says. "You don't look like you could end the world. Then again, neither does my sister. She can end life with a thought, but I am still her brother and I will hurt whoever makes my little sister cry." he tips his head at Luke. "You were a big brother. You should have treated your little sister better. Lucky for her, she has more big brothers than just you. Two of them are very good shots."

With that, he speeds back over to Cassie and drops a final kiss in to the crown of her hair before giving it an affectionate ruffle. Cassie bats him away half-heartedly and very predictably misses. "The girls will see you tomorrow at breakfast," he affirms. "Meg has said to tell you that she is preparing a frittata. Good night all."

He's gone before Cassie can finish drawing another breath.

She blinks a few times, feeling oddly dazed, and turns her head to find Steve. "I'm getting hugged a whole lot," she observes. "It's nice. I'm feeling the love."

Steve stares at her like her words are somehow failing to communicate their meaning to his brain. Then closes his eyes and brings two fingers up to the bridge of his nose and pinches like her words have suddenly given him a blinding headache.

"What?" Cassie asks. "What is it? What's wrong?" After the day she's had, she's willing to hear anything. Robot army coming to kill them? Got it handled, someone find the acid. Primal deity rising from the earth? No problem, the last one that did that gave her an adorable undead cat for a wedding present. Someone previously believed to be dead turns out not to be? Happens at least once a year at this point. Two in a month would be a bit of a hitter, but life has been weirder. She's ready for anything

"Nothing." Steve breathes deeply and deliberately out through his nose.

Now that she hadn't been ready for. "Oh," she says, feeling perplexed. "Do you have a migraine then? Because I haven't seen you have one of those since that time Bucky was still a murderous rage machine with no memory who broke your skull. So if you have a migraine now that might mean-"

She's cut off by being pulled in to what must be at least her fourth hug of the night and the second one from Steve. Cassie's pressed tightly in to his chest, but his hold is somehow still tender. Two of Steve's fingers find her chin and he tips her head up for a kiss that's brief, but makes an electric shudder rattle down her spine and her toes curl. He breaks the kiss a moment later and presses his forehead in to hers.

"You are loved," he says, low and fierce. "By me, and by Tony, and Wanda, and Pietro, and Reyna, and Bucky, and Pepper. By our entire family here. We were all worried about you, we all love you, and you should absolutely feel it. Everyday. It shouldn't-" he cuts himself off and swallows harshly, dropping a second, just as fervent kiss to her lips. "I don't want that to be something that blindsides you anymore," he finishes, correcting from how he had been going to end his sentence the first time.

Oh.

Oh.

See, Cassie knows that Steve loves her. Over the last three years or so, it's become an indisputable fact of her life. She knows that Reyna is like sister and that Bucky had adopted her sometime around when Steve had told him he planned on proposing. She knows to that in the last several years their little team has grown in to something of a sprawling mess of a reasonably functioning family unit and loving each other and expressing that love comes with the territory.

It still smacks her in the head sometimes that so many people she hasn't known for twenty years love her who don't have to. A psychologist would probably say it's because one of the only people in the world who was supposed to love her unconditionally only very rarely ever managed to show it. Damn. She still needs to find them all another psychologist. Maybe three of them.

Steve could probably use one. He worries about everyone so very much, and her more than others. Cassie had known that.

She hadn't known he was worrying about this. Maybe she should have

Cassie tilts up on to her toes to kiss his cheek and Steve bends down to let her. It's a comfortable movement between the two of them now, practiced and smooth with familiarity. "I do," she tells him honestly. "I do feel it. All the time. I just don't normally get so much of it from so many sources in the same evening. This is the fourth hug in like an hour. It's a different level. But I do feel it, okay? Promise."

Steve searches her face for a moment and then nods. He cups her face in his hands and brushes a kiss along the crease between her eyes. "Good."

"Yeah," Luke says, still in his chair and sounding bored. Cassie won't lie, over the last few minutes she had kind of forgotten he was there. Given history, a very dangerous thing to do. "Real nice. Personally though, I'm feeling tired, bored, nauseous, and like I should probably be feeling more threatened than I actually am."

"No one cares." "Good." Cassie and Steve say at the same time.

"HUG NUMBER FIVE!," Meg announces, appearing whole out of the pot of basil Steve has been cultivating on their kitchen counter. She lobs a tray of brownies whole sale in to Luke's arms, fully ignoring the fact that in the two seconds since she appeared Luke had managed to find an admittedly decent weapon in the form of one of Cassie's old medical text books. It's a hardcover and several hundred pages long. One of those things could probably kill an adult rhino if correctly applied.

A moment later Cassie jolts with the impact as Meg launches herself on to her back to hug her from a piggy-back position. Cassie rocks forwards in to Steve who doesn't move so much as an inch at the added force. "Hey Meg," Cassie mutters, the words coming out garbled because her face is now mashed in to Steve's tee shirt. "Good hug. Thanks for coming by. Brownies smell great."

"Thank you," Meg says, punctuating the sentiment with what feels like a whole-body squeeze. Cassie is very grateful she still has Steve to post up against. Meg is a few inches taller than she is and weighs at least as much as her. "Speedy said you seemed okay and that I shouldn't come until tomorrow, but I figured you wouldn't be too tired for food."

"Never," Cassie confirms, freeing one arm to pat the other girl's knee. It's the only part of her she can reach. "Especially not brownies. Now, I do promise I'm okay, but Pietro was right about me being tired. Finish catching up with you at brunch tomorrow?"

Meg hops backwards off of her and Cassie channels a sigh of relief in to Steve's chest and turns around, rolling her shoulders. "Absolutely," she confirms. "I added chili and cinnamon to the brownies. I've been messing with spices and quantities because I know you and Reyna like a little kick with your chocolate. You'll have to give me a review tomorrow morning."

Cassie gives her a smile which she hopes correctly radiates her fondness and appreciation of the personal gesture. "Of course. I'll make sure I get a few reserved for Reyna before they vanish."

"I resent that insinuation," Steve comments, but there's no real heat in his voice. The three of them are all only too aware of how many calories it takes to keep Steve running on a daily basis and the way he tends to consume them by simply eating whatever is closest when he's hungry. Equalizing rationing with keeping up with that appetite had pretty well eliminated any sense of true picky eating.

Cassie nudges an elbow in to his abdomen which accomplishes nothing at all. "Fact," she tells him. "Not insinuation. I love you Honey, but you make keeping food in this place a statistical improbability. Especially when that food is homemade baked goods. Extra especially when Meg is the one who did the baking."

Meg grins at the compliment. "See you in the morning," she says. Then she spins and glares at Luke, jabbing a finger at him where he still stands with her anatomy textbook at the ready. "You tried to end the world and died for it in front of the people who loved you granting them substantial emotional trauma instead of actually apologizing. You don't get brownies. And don't try to sneak one," she waves at the plants on the counter. "I will know."

With a last threatening glare at Luke and a wave for Cassie and Steve, she vanishes as the modest kitchen plant seems to expand towards Meg, engulfing her whole until she vanishes from sight. She's gone as quickly as she arrived and the abruptness of the visit leaves a ringing kind of silence in its wake.

Luke is the one to break it. "That," he says consideringly. "Was way more valid a threat. They all should have just started with that. I can duck a sniper. Plants are literally everywhere."

"I'll take it under advisement," Steve says. "Now, I'm instituting the chain of command and ordering everyone to go to bed."

"Technically," Cassie points out as Steve starts towing her towards their room. "As the official team medic, I can overrule you in that chain."

"Well yeah," Steve agrees. "But you're not going to, you know why?"

Cassie smiles up at him. "Because I am actually exhausted and you have the physical strength of ten men and are therefore fully capable of lifting me up and depositing me with my head on a pillow?"

"I was going to say it was because of my charming smile," he replies. "But I like your answer better. Feels like it makes the point."

"And which door has the guest room behind it?" Luke calls after their retreating forms.

Cassie sighs. A part of her wants to tell him that he's an adult who can figure it out for himself, but the other part of her really doesn't want Luke wandering unsupervised through their home just yet. "Off the kitchen and on the left," she directs. "There's an en suite and towels in the closet. And remember," she meaningfully taps the bracelet tethering them together. "Don't wander off."

She and Steve pass in to their room before Luke can say another word Cassie physically feels some of the tension leave her when their bedroom door shuts. Cassie lets herself fall in to the steady familiarity of her normal bedtime routine, humming quietly as she goest through the process of brushing her hair out.

"What's that one?" Steve asks, coming to stand in the bathroom door. "I don't think I've heard it before."

Cassie smiles at him in the mirror and replaces the brush on the counter. "It's called 'Something Good' from the musical The Sound of Music. I was pretty sure you hadn't seen it but I didn't know if it had ever made one of your lists."

"It was on an early version," he says holding out a hand which Cassie takes. "But things just kept getting added. Eventually I hit a point where I stopped keeping them all in the book. I had enough of a background that just experiencing things as they came was more interesting."

"Hmm..." Cassie acknowledges, letting Steve pull her back towards him and the bed and switching off the bathroom light as she goes. "It's a good one. Very nice family friendly film in all it's mid 1960s gold tinted Hollywood glory. There was a comment earlier and then it got stuck in my head."

Her head hits the pillow and she feels the mattress shift as Steve climbs under the covers and stretches out beside her. "So?" he prods. "What's it about?"

Cassie frowns as she tries to figure out the most concise explanation. She rolls over to face Steve and cuddles in closer to him and Steve shifts obligingly to facilitate. "It's a bit of an interesting two-parter," she tells him. "The first half is this really touching but somewhat cliched family story set in the 1920s in Austria about a young postulant in Salzburg who is assigned by the Reverend Mother of her Abbey to go look after the children of a widower sea captain. She teaches the kids how to sing, brings music and joy back in to the house, and brings the family back together. She and the Captain fall in love and get married and then..." she dangles the pause and then grins up at Steve innocently. "Intermission!"

He chuckles and rubs his hand in a warm circle on her upper back. "And in Act Two?"

Cassie grins wider. "In Act Two the Captain decides to very directly tell the Nazi party to screw themselves and elects to defect to Italy with the entire family instead of leading their navy. I think you'd like it."

"Sounds like it," Steve agrees. "Let's have a movie night soon. We can watch it. Does the song you were humming come before or after the Nazis?"

"Before," she says. "It's when Maria, the governess, and the Captain admit they love each other. The scene goes straight from that to the wedding and then you get the act break."

Steve hums, sounding very nearly asleep. "Sing it for me?" he mumbles. "Just a bit of it?"

Cassie yawns and shifts a little closer, humming at a few different tones to warm up her throat before beginning.

"Perhaps I had a wicked childhood...

"Perhaps I had a miserable youth

But somewhere in my wicked, miserable, past,

there must have been a moment of truth.

For there you are, standing there, loving me...

Whether, or not, you should...

So somewhere in my youth, or childhood

There must have been a moment of truth...

Nothing comes from nothing,

Nothing ever could...

So somewhere in my youth, or childhood

I must have done, something good..."

She lets the notes trail off there and stops fighting the way her eyes are drifting shut. "There's more in it," she says. "The song is supposed-" she yawns. "-Supposed to be a duet. Sounds better when Julie Andrews and the guy who sang in place of Christopher Plummer do it. Though, Plummer really isn't a bad singer. Not sure why they dubbed him..."

"Tomorrow," Steve mumbles, rolling forwards to wrap an arm more securely around her. "We'll figure it out tomorrow. Someone in this building probably knows..."

That's the last thing Cassie hears before drifting in to unconsciousness...

...

...

The large spaceship/time machine/airplane/dear merciful gods what is that?! crashing out of the sky and in to the back yard of the Wakanda complex does a good job of lurching her out of the arms of both Steve and Morpheus.

Who exactly does Cassie have to pay for this night to just be over already? Actually, scratch that. Cassie knows exactly who she would have to pay, and frankly she doesn't think she has that kind of time or disposable income.

The position she landed in after launching out from under the covers has her crouched on the floor, weapon in hand, facing out the window with a good view of the whatever-it-is that's ruined King T'Challa's landscaping. She presses her vision and makes a few quick assessments. It doesn't help with figuring out what kind of vehicle she's looking at, but it does let her know from the position of the barely emerged sun that she's had about three hours of sleep.

One REM cycle. Not ideal. Doable though.

Steve, gods bless him, is already up and moving, tugging on a tee shirt after having gone to bed shirtless and jamming his feet in to his shoes. He tosses Cassie a sweatshirt and holds her bag out to her and Cassie follows his example in tanking on a pair of sneakers. It's not the first time that she's had to combine pajamas with battle gear and probably won't be the last.

The look is most definitely still not a very good fashion statement.

Cassie doubts it ever will be in the future either.

"Hey Steve?" Cassie says lightly, still sitting as he makes for the door. He's casting about to decide if he needs more gear than just his shield but he pauses to look at her. She shrugs. "If this is a time travel thing, I think I'm gonna just need to go back to bed for a while. Like, I'll definitely deal with it, but I'm gonna have to take a pause first."

Steve crosses quickly to her and pulls her to her feet with one hand. "Very reasonable," he agrees. "Now let's get down there quickly so Tony isn't the one in charge of the welcoming committee." Cassie can't lie and claim she doesn't see the logic in that so the two of them hasten out of the room.

Luke is waiting for them, fully dressed and armed with the sharpest kitchen knife they own. "In the yard," he says. "Friends or foes?"

"Don't know yet," Cassie admits. "Wanna come out and meet them with us?" Shaky as their foundation of trust is, Cassie doesn't hate the idea of having an additional skilled and battle-experienced fighter on their side, however temporary an assignment that might be. Plus, battling things out together is a time honored method of building and reaffirming trust amongst demigod combatants. If Luke took the opportunity to try to kill them all, then at least they would know where they stood.

He cocks his head. "Do I have a choice?"

"Always," Steve says, voice icy.

Luke cocks an eyebrow and slightly raises the hand with the knife. "Do I get to keep the knife? Maybe even get a better weapon later?"

"You know how to use it?"

Luke rolls his eyes and gestures to Cassie to answer the question. "He was the one who taught me and Annabeth how," Cassie confirms. "He's better with a sword though."

Steve comes to a decision and nods, making for the door. "Don't screw with us tonight and back our plays," he orders. "You do that, and we'll talk about getting you something better than the thing we use to take the bones out of the Christmas Turkey."

"Deal."

They get out to the lawn at about the same time that the rest of the team does. Everyone is in an odd blend of pajamas and tactical gear with the exception of Tony, who is fully armored, and Pietro, who has a head start on that kind of thing. Reyna is standing beside Bucky who cut a direct line through the group the moment Steve had arrived.

"Hey," she greats with enviable calm. "I'm glad Castellan didn't kill you. Was giving him a knife a great idea?"

"Hi," she replies. "I'm glad too, and the knife things was a judgement call. Do we have any idea what that thing is, where it came from, or who might be inside it?"

"No, no, and no."

"Awesome."

A/N: So what did you guys think? I know it's been forever and I'm so so sorry. It turns out law school is hard guys. Who knew right? Anyway poor Cassie, I really wanted to get in to the idea that her life really is just all the damn things overlapping at once. Any guesses as to who crashed in the back yard? Hint, I may have grabbed a few characters from Agents of Shield. They swore they didn't mind coming out to play! Anyway, I hope you guys will like what I'm cooking up. I'm more or less completely ditching a lot of Endgame because of all of the character additions and twists I want to attempt. The next chapter, whenever I actually get that written will get some new characters introduced, set up some dynamics, and start pointing towards where I'm going. Anyway, review for me! xxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoooxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxo