Hello everyone! I hope you're all having a fabulous weekend. However, I'm not sure if I will post tomorrow with it being Memorial Day and all and my parents like to make smores and stuff. So anyway...

garnet86: Thank you! I know, even I get irritated with Agent Maxwell haha.

LittleMissMia123: Hahaha I see you are having feelings now, are you not? Thanks you by the way.

amrawo: Thank you!

Itsgoose2u: Thank you! And yeah, poor Gwen. I even feel bad for writing that. It just sort of happened.

DarkRulerKida: Haha that's a great term "epic sauce." Thanks!

MysticRyder: Thanks for pointing that stuff out for me :)

Fanno . Anderson-Smythe: Thank you very much! And I'm sorry for lack of Steve. Trust me, he'll be appearing much more throughout the rest of the story.

Chapter Fourteen

Once the aircraft landed back in the helicarrier, Steve insisted that Gwen immediately be taken to the Medical Ward. Bruce had reassured the flustered soldier that she would be taken care of, but Steve continued to pester him.

After Gwen was out of Steve's sight, he wasn't quite sure what to do. He wasn't allowed to be there when they were putting her through tests and fixing her up. Steve had no idea what they had to do, but he just wanted them to do it all. He wanted Gwen to get better. He wasn't going to be happy until she was awake and not trying to kill him.

And then a day went by.

Bruce insisted that Steve go to sleep, but sleep did not come. He was far too worried and besides, it was sometimes hard to sleep when he had done so for seventy years.

So when Steve couldn't take it any longer, he headed to the Medical Ward where Gwen was the only one laying on a bed, still asleep, with monitors hooked up to her to tell how her health was and if her heart was beating. Which it was, thankfully.

"How's she doing?" asked Steve as he approached the Bruce as he stood next to Gwen's bed looking at what appeared to be x-rays.

"She's stable," answered Bruce.

"What d'you mean...stable?"

Bruce sighed. "There's a lot she will have to explain to you when she wakes up. Let's just say she isn't exactly normal. She's always refused to go through tests, but since we've done it without her knowing, I now understand her headaches and why she lost control of herself several months ago."

Steve was silent as he took this in.

"Then did you figure anything out?" he asked at last.

Bruce smiled. "Yes, I did. And although I don't quite understand it, whatever this is, it's fascinating."

"Okay...d'you mind explaining it to me?"

Bruce nodded and stood next to Steve, holding out the x-rays. It looked as though they were pictures of Gwen's brain.

"Look at this line here," ordered Bruce as his finger followed a line that went around the outside of her brain. It wasn't touching it at all, but was almost hovering around it. "That's not something that's supposed to be here. At first I thought maybe it was just a mistake in the x-ray, but it's not. It's almost like some sort of membrane."

"A what?"

"It's the outside part of a cell that can let things through and keep things out. Anyway, after some close study of this, I've come to a conclusion. It's an energy shield."

Steve squinted his eyes and looked at Gwen and then back at the x-ray. "What?"

"I have no idea how it got there but she's had it all her life. It's why she has all of those headaches. This shield is constantly working, keeping things that aren't supposed to be there out."

"So then why was Loki able to get inside her head?"

Bruce walked over to a counter that was next to Gwen's bed and picked up the syringe. It no longer had the blue substance inside of it as Bruce had been testing it.

"Because of this," he answered. "Loki knew that Gwendolyn's biggest fear is needles. It made her vulnerable."

"But if this shield works on its own, then how was she vulnerable?" asked Steve.

"It seems it works unless she's got all of her focus on something else. When she saw the syringe, she must have panicked or something. I believe the shield must've made an opening or dissolved or something like that which allowed the tesseract's energy to go through her blood stream and into her brain."

"Wait a minute," said Steve slowly. "The tesseract?"

"It seems Loki found a way to insert some of the cube's energy into the syringe. I have no way of knowing if he knew about this shield around her brain, but if he did, he planned it all perfectly."

"But she was able to fight against it. She had said she was saving up her energy or something."

"That's probably true. Maybe she realized she needed to use the energy that she can control in order to fight against the tesseract's own energy."

"Control energy?"

"Well, like I said, that's for her to explain."

It was silent execpt for the beeping of the monitors.

"She would've had extensive brain damage," said Bruce softly. "If it weren't for that energy shield, she could be brain dead."

Steve's heart dropped as he realized how lucky Gwen was.

"And there's no way to get rid of the tesseract's energy," added the doctor.

Steve turned to Bruce in alarm. "So when she wakes up, she'll still be under Loki's control?"

"Nope. That shield is taking care of it."

"How?"

"At first I thought it was disposing of the energy, but it's not. It's taking it in."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning she's getting stronger. Not only will she have this energy power within her, but also part of the tesseract. It'll become a part of her."

"So what do we do now?"

Bruce sighed. "We wait. She needs to rest and restore the energy she used to fight against Loki's control. It won't be more than a few days. Last time she was out for two weeks and she used a lot more energy then."

Steve took a deep breath. Gwen would be fine. She'd wake up and he could talk to her again. He didn't really care about finding out what this "accident" was. It was the past and it didn't matter now. But obviously Gwen wasn't comfortable about it if Bruce refused to tell.

The soldier took a chair that was sitting nearby and dragged it next to Gwen's bed. It screeched as the legs of the chair rubbed against the hard floor. Without caring, Steve took hold of her hand. It felt warm and it made Steve feel better knowing that.

Bruce, feeling slightly uncomfortable, turned to leave. "If you need anything, just call for me."

Steve nodded. "Thanks, Doctor Banner."

And so Bruce left the medical ward, leaving Steve and Gwen alone inside.

"And she hid all this from us, why?"

Bruce suddenly wasn't quite sure if telling Fury about Gwen's condition was such a good idea. He was sitting in the conference room with Fury, Tony, Natasha, Thor and Clint. Steve refused to leave the medical ward just in case Gwen woke up.

"Well, she didn't really know," defended Bruce.

"But obviously she knew something was up in that head of hers," answered Fury.

"Fury," chipped in Tony whose feet were up on the conference table and his hands behind his head, "do you not realize that Gwenie's just been used by Loki to try to kill us?"

"I know that, Stark, but she was hiding information from SHIELD. And I'd like to know who else was."

Tony raised his hand and Natasha, who was sitting next to him, rolled her eyes.

Fury turned back to Bruce who nodded. "We were only respecting her wishes."

"It doesn't matter what her wishes are," said Fury. "She is considered dangerous and needs to be questioned."

"Hey, you could question her now if you'd like, but she probably won't give you any answers seeing as she's, y'know, unconscious after being under Loki's control," retorted Tony.

Fury ran a hand over his face. "If you don't want her to be under arrest, then you need to come up with a compromise."

"I've already got an idea," said Bruce. "I was hoping that I could monitor her for at least an hour a day. I don't know anyone with powers like hers, so I suppose I could help her try to control them. That way she won't have an accident."

Bruce had almost added "again" at the end, but was able to stop himself. Fury didn't need to know about that. It had been covered up so well.

"Alright," said Fury after a moment of silence. "But if she loses control, I will have to take action. You're all dismissed."

Fury left, his trench coat flying behind him. Thor left after Clint and Natasha, leaving Tony still sitting in his spot. Bruce began getting up.

"You're not just going to help her control her powers so she doesn't unintentionally hurt someone, are you?" asked Tony with that rare seriousness in his voice.

"No," answered Bruce who had stopped in the doorway. "Loki's probably beyond furious. He'll be planning something big."

"And you think she'll be able to stop him?"

Bruce nodded. "The only thing is, I don't know how drained she'll be at the end."

"That's what I'm worried about."

Bruce looked at the ground and then back up again. "I'm just hoping that if she can practice, she'll be able to overcome anything."

"You can't expand someone's energy supply, Banner."

"I know. But we have to try."

And so Bruce left the conference room where Tony sat in thought for a few minutes before leaving.

Steve didn't know how long he was in the medical ward. He didn't want to leave until she woke up. He wanted to apologize for getting separated from her when Loki attacked New York City.

He hadn't felt this way about someone since Peggy Carter. Of course, he wasn't sure if this was a good or bad thing. At first when Steve learned that the last time he was awake was seventy years ago, he refused to let go of the idea that the Peggy he knew was out there waiting for him to come dance with her. But after months went by, he finally accepted that this was a different time. Peggy could even be dead. Steve didn't wish to know, so he didn't ask for anyone at SHIELD to look her up for him.

But now there was Gwen. She was different than Peggy, but also quite similar at the same time. Gwen was a bit quieter as she was always thinking. Even though he didn't know her for a long time, Steve could already tell when she was deep in thought by the expression on her face. Though, he would never admit to staring at her. Even though he knew it was true.

Gwen was like Peggy because she was brave. Peggy was most certainly brave as he had met some women who would never want to fight in a war. But Gwen was a different kind of brave. She didn't want to fight to prove a point a woman could fight or because it was for a good cause. She wanted to fight for the sake of others. That's what Steve realized. And it made sense. Gwen didn't want to go out with the rest of the team because she wanted revenge on Loki for pretending to be Agent Maxwell. She wanted to go out there to protect the citizens from the lunatic.

And that was something Steve truly admired about Gwen. Especially after learning what she went through in her life. And Steve was determined to make her happy. He wasn't quite sure what drove this determination, but his mind was set.

He would always be there for Gwen.

If there was any point in which Gwen had come out of unconsciousness, it was only once. It wasn't for a long time and by the time she finally stirred awake, she wouldn't remember waking up. Her eyes didn't open as she was still half asleep, but there was something that comforted her. Something that told her it was alright.

She couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but it was warm. It was comforting. It was all she needed to fall back into full slumber.

Little did Gwen know, Steve had fallen asleep in his chair next to her, still holding her hand in his.