Favors

Rays of sunlight peek over New York's horizon. Most New Yorkers pay it no mind, as they go about their business. A lot of the population is up before the sun rises, starting another day of work. In Avengers Tower, all but one of the Avengers are still sleeping soundly. The one already up and about is Steve Rogers. He naturally is an early riser. He decides to kill some of the morning hours away by continuing to read Catching Fire, the middle book of a trilogy that is popular in this age. Even though the dystopian future is the setting in a great number of these novels, Steve enjoys reading all the different variations of stories. Page by page. Word by word. Steve reads away the early morning hours, until he pries his eyes from the book to glance at his wristwatch. The digital numbers displayed are 12:17p.m.

Wow. I really got absorbed in this book.

Marking his stopping point with his bookmark, Steve gently places the book on the coffee table in front of him before getting up from the recliner. I wonder if everyone is on the main level.

"Jarvis?"

"Yes, Captain Rogers?"

"Is everyone on the main level?"

"All but one, sir."

"Let me guess. Angela is the one not there." Steve leaves his main room on his level and starts heading towards the elevator.

"Correct, sir. Are you heading up to level she is on?"

"Yes. I am." He reaches the elevator. The doors open and he walks in and presses the button for level ninety-two. The elevator closes its doors and travels upwards towards its destination. "I haven't seen her for days. She's starting to worry me. Have you noticed anything unusual about her, Jarvis?"

"Yes, sir. Although, I've mainly been monitoring her because Banner wanted someone to watch over her without someone actually physically being beside her at all times."

"So, what you're saying is that you should not tell me about Angela's physical condition because of confidentiality reasons?"

"Yes, sir."

He is fine with this answer as he replies, "That's fine. I'll know how Angela is doing here in a few minutes."


The elevator stops on level ninety-two and Steve steps out and glances around the room for Angela. He doesn't see her. He walks down the open strip of the room looking left and right, noticing that items are strewn haphazardly everywhere he glances. Normally, he wouldn't be worried if the hangers were a mess, if Tony was working. Angela is not the type of person to create messes without cleaning them up immediately after. He remains calm but vigilant as he continues to look for Angela.

"Angela, where are you?" He doesn't receive a response. However, his eyes spot Angela's Starfighter on his left and he walks over to it. He minds where he steps as he maneuvers his way over scattered tools and pieces of metal that had no significant value to him. He finally reaches the Starfighter and sees that Angela is sitting inside the cockpit with her fighter pilot helmet on her head.

"Hey Ang, are you awake in there?," he jokily taps on her helmet, waiting for her to come back with some witty remark, but he once again gets no response. His concern keeps growing as he gently takes hold of Angela's helmet and slowly slides it off of her head. He places it at the foot of the Starfighter and crouches down so that he can see Angela's face. He soon finds out that she is sleeping soundly.

"Hey. Angela," he whispers gently to gently wake her up. His words go unheard by her. He puts his hand on her should and gently shakes her. The only response he receives is Angela mumbling something he couldn't make out. Steve has one more trick he can try.

"I hate to tell you this Angela, but Tony got his hand on one of your lightsabers."

Angela jolts awake. "Stark! You better not have-" She sees Steve on her left, trying hard not to smile at her reaction. "He doesn't have one of my lightsabers, does he?"

"No. Even though he is curious about your weapons, he is not stupid enough to cross someone such as yourself." Steve stands up and gives Angela his hand. She takes hold of his hand and he helps her out of her Starfighter. "May I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Is there a reason for having everything scattered all over the place?"

Angela looks around her, seeing scattered tools and machinery all over the room. "When did this happen?" She kicks some tools from her path as she makes her way over to the nearest table to start cleaning up the mess. "Oh well. What's done is done. I better clean up this mess before I continue working on the Starfighter."

"All right, then. I'll start from the back of the room and work my way forward," Steve starts heading back to the farthest wall when Angela calls him out.

"Hold up. I said that I will clean up. You don't have to help. It's my mess," Angela piles up the tools on the table and decides to sort them out later.

"I'm not helping you because I have to. I'm doing it because I want to. Besides, it will give me a chance to talk to you, since you have been avoiding everyone for the past couple of weeks." Steve walks over to the table and places more tools onto the random pile cluttering the table top.

"Yeah. I have been avoiding everyone, but not on purpose," she gives Steve a legit reason as to why she has been keeping herself so distant, even though it was not her true reason for avoiding everyone. "Lately, I've been thinking about my home back at the Jedi Academy. The last time I was there, the Academy was under attack from a rogue Imperial faction. While most of the Jedi Council was on defending the Academy from being taken by Imperial forces, Luke and I were in our spacecrafts trying to take out as many enemies as we could before they could even enter the planet's atmosphere. However, one missile caused me to accidentally enter lightspeed and crash here on Earth."

Angela walks back over to her Starfighter, gazing upon all the work she had left on the spacecraft. Steve walks over to stand beside her, knowing that she had more to say.

"I'm always thinking about every single scenario that could have happened to not only Luke but everyone at the Jedi Academy. The fact that I don't know what exactly happened after I left makes me feel guilty, even though I had no control over the situation. That's why I've been up here recently, working on my Starfighter. I have to get back. I have to know if we lost...anyone."

"Like Luke?"

Angela shakes her head. "No, he's alive. I can sense his presence in the Force. Even though we are very far apart, his presence in the Force is the strongest one I feel. However, I don't think he can sense me."

Why do you think that?"

Angela looks from her Starfighter and into Steve's calming blue eyes. "He's depressed. I can feel it. Ever since I was freed from being influenced by that book's power, Luke has been feeling miserable and I think it's because he can't sense me through the Force anymore. My life signature in the Force could have been altered, a side effect from the book's magic on me. If he can't feel me through the Force, he might think that I am...dead."

"But you are far from it," Steve does his best to positively reassure Angela and to get her to open up to, at least, him. "And you will repair your Starfighter, but won't it be a tight fit for you and Trent if you both get in the Starfighter and travel back?"

Angela can't help but giggle at the image that had been planted into her mind. Unknown to her, Steve asks the question on purpose. He wants her to cheer up, even it is a little bit.

"Yes. Yes it would be a tight fit. That's why Trent and I have agreed that once the Starfighter is fixed, I will go back Yavin and get a bigger transport and return to pick him up." Her cheerfulness is short lived as she remembers one crucial factor in returning back to her galaxy. "The only problem I have is that I don't have a coordinates for lightspeed. It was pure luck that I did not travel into a star, let alone make it to a planet with life on it."

"I thought Jedi didn't believe in luck," Steve tries to keep the conversation going, not wanting her to close herself off again.

"Most Jedi don't," Angela moves away from her Starfighter and heads over to a part of the room that has more scattered equipment on the floor. She scoops up the random tools into her hands. "I however have been through situations that I should not have survived, even with the Force. I have no other way to describe those situations as nothing but luck."

The banter between the Captain and the Jedi continues on as they both take their time in cleaning up the mess in the room. While Steve knows the only logical explanation for it is Angela creating it, he considers it unimportant. It isn't life threatening or dangerous in any manner. It's just not in Angela's character to create messes without immediately cleaning them up, but after Steve saw how confused Angela was when she woke up and saw the clutter, he decides not to ask further about it and helps in picking up the mess.

Angela works on a section of the room, while pondering on how the mess came to be in the first place.

I remember wanting to work on the Starfighter's controls, so I sat in the cockpit and put on my pilot helmet just because I wanted to wear it. Next thing I know, I hear Steve telling me that Stark had his hands on one of my lightsabers. Thank goodness Steve was just saying that to wake me up or else Tony would have had hell to pay.

After picking up another bundle of tools and placing them with the rest of the gathered ones, Angela walks over to the next section of the room to clean it up. When I tried using the Force again, after from being let go from the book's control, it didn't respond to my commands like it normally does. Yet, when I barely thought about the tool I wanted, the Force hurled it quickly in my direction. I didn't have control over it.

"Hey."

I'm going to have to not use the Force at all, neither physically or mentally.

"Ang."

At least until I'm confident that I can control it and not let it control me.

"Ang."

Angela suddenly snaps from her thoughts to see Steve standing in front of her with a gentle smile on his face. "The mess is finally gone."

Angela glances around the room. "Yeah. It looks much better now."

"And now that's done, I have a small favor to ask of you."

"Sure. Why not," She smirks. "I guess I should thank you in some way. What's the favor?"

"The favor is not on this floor." Steve gives Angela is empty hand. "If I may, I will take you to it this very moment."

"Alright," she places her hand in his. "I'll play along. Lead the way, Captain."

"Before I take a single step, close your eyes."

"Huh?" She is about to ask why but suddenly gets it. "Oh, you want to surprise me. Very well." She closes her eyes.

"No peeking."

"Steve, I'm not five. I promise I won't peek."

"Okay then. Off to the place where my favor awaits." Steve leads Angela by her hand towards the elevator.

Angela chuckles, "Did you rhyme that last sentence on purpose?"

"Nope. Total accident." Steve states with a smile.

Angela doesn't quite by it. "Sure it was."

"I'm serious."

"Uh huh."

"No really. It was."


After a quick trip down in the elevator, Steve leads Angela out of the elevator.

"Can I open my eyes now?"

"Not yet." Rogers continues to hold her hand as he walks closer to his favor.

"How about now?"

He chuckles out, "Nope. Not yet." Steve keeps leading Angela closer and closer to the destination.

"...now?"

"You know, along with luck, I thought most Jedi were suppose to have a great deal of patience."

"And I'm going to say this again. I'm not like most Jedi." Angela corrects Steve gently, even though her curiosity about where Steve is taking her keeps rising. "Therefore, my patience is almost gone and I'm about to peek at where you are taking me."

"Hang on." He chuckles at her. "Just a few more steps." Sure enough, they both take six more steps before he opens a door in front of them. "Alright. You can open your eyes now."

Eyes open, Angela looks to see that she is standing outside the doorway to...her bedroom. She doesn't understand how her bedroom is related to Steve's favor. "You brought me to my bedroom?" Eyebrow raised, she looks to Steve for an explanation.

"Yeah. This is the favor I want."

Angela's cheeks become flush as several images appear in her mind about what Steve's favor could be. "Uh...you mean. I-I'm...uh. Hehehe. I don't know if I'm ready yet, Steve."

Now Steve is confused by Angela's reaction. She acted as though she thought his favor is to have- "Oh no. No no no. That's not what the favor is!"

"Oh!" She breathes her tenseness out. "I assumed way too fast. Sorry."

"It's alright." He assures her that he is not offended in the least. "I might have overlooked how that sentence sounded."

"Well with that sorted out, what exactly is the favor you want from me, Steve?"

"My favor is that I want you to crawl into your bed and sleep soundly, at least until six tomorrow morning."

"You do realize that it is only two in the afternoon right?" Angela can't help but chuckles at Steve's favor. "That's like sixteen hours you want me to sleep."

"Okay, I may have exaggerated on how much I want you to sleep, but my point is still the same. You need to rest." Angela keeps silent but looks down at the floor so that she does not have to keep eye contact with Steve as she knows he has more to say.

"Everyone knows that you work on your Starfighter late at night and you don't go back to sleep until after midnight. That's roughly four hours of sleep a day, not enough rest for anyone." Steve waits for Angela to look up at him, but she keeps staring at the floor.

"Hey. Look at me," he softly asks for her attention and she willingly gives it. "I can tell when something is bothering someone. Call it a perk from my awesome injection of super soldier serum I got." This manages to get Angela to laugh, something she hasn't done for some time. This in turn makes Steve grin at her slight momentary happiness. "If you don't want to tell me what's bothering you, that's fine. But, I will be ready anytime you want to talk about it."

"Okay. I'll keep it in mind. As for getting more sleep than I have been, I'm not sure that I'll be able to fully keep the favor you are asking of me, but I will try as best as I can."

"That's all I'm asking of you."

"Well then, I better get started." Angela starts to walk into her room but feels something holding her back. She glances down to see that she is holding Steve's hand and he is doing the same.

"Oh sorry." He loosens his grip, letting her hand slide out of his.

"Well, goodnight, or rather, good afternoon since it's still daytime."

"Good afternoon, Angela. I'll see you later." Steve leaves with a grin, walking down the hall to get to the elevator.

The Jedi shuts her bedroom door and then looks over at her bed differently now than she had been for the last couple of weeks. She had been dreading falling asleep ever since she had been seeing that nightmare in her sleep. That nightmare that had New York in ruins and dead everywhere. However, just her holding hands with Steve made her feel bolder.

"A favor is a favor. I'm not going to let that nightmare stop me from trying to get some rest." She starts getting herself ready for a long, deep sleep. "I just hope that nightmare is a not a vision of the future; and I hope this nightmare does not happen again."

Within ten minutes, Angela is crawling under the covers and shutting her eyes. Before she knows it, she is asleep and gaining some much needed rest. Her body and her mind are resting from all of the stress that had accumulated upon them from lack of sleep.

Angela would soon lose what little rest she is gaining back.


BOOYAH! Another chapter done. So, this chapter deviated from my notes. There's some Steve/Angela shipping and I love it. I think it works. Let me know in a review if it works for all of you as well.

Next chapter is Bruce's time to shine. GOOD! He needs some focus that has been lacking in my other two stories!

Also, I have decided to included Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver in this story as well as changing the major villain from Thanos to Ultron because I know more about him than Thanos. Yes, the twins will have a similar intro like that in Age of Ultron :)

Be sure to leave that review and such!

~TheJediAvenger~