The next morning, Steve opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. Despite spending an enjoyable evening with Clint, she felt empty and hollow. Not tired anymore, not physically. But her mind was exhausted. She wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, only she knew she'd never be able to. She was too wide awake.

After her episode in the stairwell yesterday, she'd been drained the rest of the day. Clint hadn't brought up her moment of weakness, but he clearly hadn't wanted to leave her alone, either. He'd brought her home and then hung around. Showed her how to use Netflix, and they'd watched a couple of Bogart movies that had come out after Steve had gone into the ice. Clint had been texting someone on his phone on and off, and had even left once to talk to someone, but, otherwise, he'd just been there. A comforting presence offering a semblance of normalcy.

She hadn't had anything like that in years. Not since before the war.

But now, it was back to normal. Well. The new normal. She was in the future, and she was alone. She had to get used to that.

Maybe it would help if she stopped thinking of it as the future and started thinking about it as the present. Her present. She was presently in 2012 and it wasn't the future any more. It was now. She wasn't going to wake up and find this was some horrible dream. This was reality.

Steve let out a long sigh. Okay. This was okay. She was going to be okay. Because that alternative was she'd stay in bed forever, never leaving the room, never going outside again, and that obviously wasn't going to happen.

And things weren't so bad in the fu… present. She survived her first alien invasion. The city was still standing. She'd made a friend… maybe. She had access to an unfathomable amount of movies and now knew how to actually access them. And she was going to get to talk to Peggy.

Peggy.

She climbed out of bed and went into the living room. Her laptop was on the coffee table. She booted it up and then went online, searching for Peggy Carter. After a few minutes of browsing, she found what she was looking for. Pictures.

She couldn't find anything past 1989. But there was a picture of her at sixty-eight years old, still working with SHIELD. Steve's heart clenched at the sight of her, old, but still so beautiful.

God, she was ninety-one now. Somehow, in everything, that thought had never occurred to Steve. She'd known that Peggy was older, but it hadn't really sunk in what that meant. But now it was, and it tore Steve apart. It made her want to crawl back into bed and pull the covers over her head.

And it wasn't like she'd ever thought she'd have a future with Peggy. Oh, maybe for one brief moment. When Peggy had kissed her, something inside Steve had burst into life. Hope and joy. All her life, she'd thought that she'd never have someone. Bucky would eventually get married and leave her, and she'd, well. Who'd want someone like her? Someone who didn't even know what to call herself. Someone who was one thing on the outside and another on the inside. Who'd ever love her?

But Peggy had. She'd known what Steve was and had accepted it. There was hope.

Then Steve had crash landed in the Artic, and that dream was killed. Just because she survived didn't make the dream any less dead.

She sighed and closed the browser window. She didn't want to look at pictures of Peggy any more. Didn't want to think about it anymore. It was too hard.

Speaking of hard...

Out of curiosity, she opened the search engine again and typed in "transgender". It was still the wrong identity, and she refused to use it, but it was a starting place. Maybe it would lead her to these other identities that Clint had mentioned.

The first result is a Wikipedia article. She'd gotten used to Wikipedia in the past month, so she clicked and started reading.

And then stopped short when she came to the line that read, "it may include people who are not exclusively masculine or feminine (people who are genderqueer/non-binary, e.g. bigender, pangender, genderfluid, or agender)."

She clicked the link for genderqueer and kept reading.

There was a lot in there that didn't sit with her. The stuff about pronouns didn't fit, because she had no desire to be called they or zie or anything else. She was fine with he and him from other people. If pressed, she usually thought of herself as, well, she, but wanted other people to call her he. It was weird and didn't make sense, and there were some people, like Bucky, she was okay with thinking of her as she. So she wasn't strict about it.

But….

But…

"Not exclusively masculine or feminine…"

"Having an overlap of, or indefinite lines between gender identity…"

"Not conforming to binary genders…"

Okay, maybe she did the last. She conformed to a male gender. But she didn't always feel like a man (whatever that meant). Sometimes, she felt like a woman (whatever that meant). But her presentation didn't change.

And, unlike transgender, genderqueer just sort of felt right. She'd never thought of herself as queer, not in her sexual preference, she definitely felt queer when it came to gender.

She didn't think Fury was going to be happy. He wanted something simple from her. Well. She had never been simple. She didn't have a simple answer to give. But this… this she could live with. This fit her.

Steve smiled. "I'm genderqueer," she said out loud, trying it out.

No lightning flashed. No earthquake struck. The world didn't end.

It was the right word. At least, it was the right word for now. And if it changed, then it changed, and Fury and the doctors would just have to deal.

Feeling a little better, she closed the laptop and went into the kitchen to start breakfast. She wondered, now that she had a label that fit, if she'd start telling people. She tried to imagine that. Tried to imagine telling Stark.

Her brain ground to a halt.

Okay, so no. Not Stark. Maybe Romanoff?

No. No, it still felt weird. Wrong.

Maybe it was just that she was so used to hiding it. So used to being afraid of being discovered. That sort of thing didn't go away just because, suddenly, there were no consequences. Well, there would be consequences. Reactions. But she wasn't at risk of going to an asylum or prison any more. That was gone, at least.

But it still felt wrong to tell. It was just a private thing, something that was just between her and Bucky. At least, that was how it was supposed to be. Now, though, Bucky was dead and a bunch of people at SHIELD knew. She was going to have to get used to that, to feeling exposed.

So, for now she would just keep it to herself. If Fury got after her again, she'd let him know what she'd decided on, even though she knew he wasn't going to like it. Maybe she'd tell Clint, too. But, other than that, she felt no driving need to share her gender identity with anyone. It wasn't their business.

But, maybe, having a gender identity would help with some of the stress. She wasn't hiding anything anymore.

It felt good to have a handle on what she was. For the first time, she didn't feel quite as alone.


She spent the day at home, alternating between watching the twenty-four hour news channel and Netflix. The news was all about the attack on New York. They showed footage of the fight, captured mostly by civilian cell phones and cameras. There was some professional footage, too, by news reporters who'd rushed to the scene after the fighting had begun. She hadn't noticed any of them during the battle, but there the battle was. Her and Thor, fighting side by side. She winced as she was blasted in the side and fell. That must have been how she'd broken her ribs; in the heat of it all, she hadn't been sure how it'd happened.

The news vacillated between shots of the battle and shots of people talking about the battle. Whose fault was it? Where were the Avengers now? Who was going to clean it up? Who was responsible for the mess?

Good questions, but she had no answers. Loki wasn't going to face a court of law, not on Earth. And he shouldn't. There was no way they'd be able to contain a being like that. Thor had mentioned that he had special chains and a muzzle for Loki. The chains would prevent him from using his magic, and the muzzle would stop him from spreading more lies.

Steve couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't used them on the Helicarrier, but figured that Thor had thought Loki was contained enough. And he had been, mostly. If Loki's men hadn't attacked, Loki probably wouldn't have gotten out.

Probably.

But, what was done was done. Loki was in custody now and, soon, would be off planet facing Asgardian justice. New York would rebuild. It'd be fine.

Late in the afternoon, she pulled out her sketchbook. Images swirled in her head, and she pressed the point of her pencil against the paper. Minutes passed. Her heart started pounding. She could feel the pressure of a thousand things pressing against her brain, and she couldn't quite focus herself enough to do anything about it.

For a moment, her vision tunneled in on her. She felt like she had on the stairwell with Clint. There was too much of the world and not enough her, and it was all too big. Too much.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Held it for ten beats, and then let it out slowly.

When she opened her eyes, she felt calmer. Steadier. She was okay. She could do this. She'd survived worse.

Swallowing hard, she drew her pencil across the page. Drew a line. And then another. Started to join them, sketching, drawing.

Abruptly, she stopped. Lifted the pencil from the paper and threw it across the room.

She sat there, breathing. Short, ragged breaths. Like she'd been running. Like she'd had an asthma attack.

What the hell was wrong with her?

Then, over the roaring in her ears, she heard something. A beep.

Startled, she blinked and looked around.

Her phone was on the coffee table. The screen was lit up with a message.

Nat, Thor, and I are on our way over. We've got pizza. ETA 15 minutes.

She blinked at the phone. It took a moment for the meaning of the words to sink in. When they did, she sighed. Company meant she had to get dressed. She was wearing a pair of sweat pants and a tank top. Not company clothes. And she didn't have her binder on. Despite knowing she didn't have to put it on if she didn't want to, she wasn't quite ready to face near strangers with her breasts out. Precisely one person had seen her in her natural state, and he, really, was the only person she felt comfortable with. Even Clint, who knew, hadn't earned the right.

So, she hauled herself up from the couch. Went to her room. Put her binder on and changed clothes. She hesitated before dressing. SHIELD had provided all her clothes, and she knew that whoever had gotten the clothes had bought what they figured someone from the forties would wear. And she'd mostly been wearing slacks and button up shirts because that's what she was most comfortable with.

But people in the fu… present didn't dress like that. Not when they were hanging out with their friends or in their own homes. They wore jeans and tee shirts. She had a few of each. Maybe she should wear that.

After a few minutes of deliberating, she finally decided on a blue shirt and jeans. The shirt was a little snug across her chest, but it was okay; she was flattened down and just looked muscular. The jeans were a little stiff, being new and unwashed, but they weren't form fitting like she'd seen on some men.

She was just running her fingers through her hair, which she hadn't done anything with that day, when there was a knock at the door.

Clint, Natasha, and Thor stood on the other side. Clint had four boxes of pizza. Thor, dressed in jeans, tee shirt, and a hoodie, had a six pack of beer.

"Hey, Cap," Natasha said. "Hope you don't mind us dropping in like this."

"No, not at all. And it's Steve." She stepped back and gestured for them to come in.

"Now, I've seen you eat," Clint said, following Natasha inside. "And I've seen Thor eat, and I already know this isn't going to be enough pizza. Do you have a pizza place nearby?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. Probably. There used to be a place a few blocks from here. I think it's still there."

"This isn't where you lived in the forties, is it?" Natasha asked.

"No. I mean, I lived in Brooklyn, but not this apartment. Bucky and I lived in a much more run-down neighborhood. It was all we could afford."

Clint put the pizza down on the kitchen table. "Do you have paper plates?"

She raised her eyebrows. She hadn't realized paper plates were something people had in their houses. "Uh, no. I got regular plates."

"Yeah, but you gotta wash regular plates."

She pointed at the dishwasher.

"You know how to use it?"

"And the microwave, too. I'm not… I mean, I pick things up pretty easy. It's just a few buttons. Hey, I was even able to navigate Netflix earlier, just like you showed me."

"What did you watch?"

"His Girl Friday. I've seen it before, but I needed something, you know. Familiar."

"Comfort food." Clint flipped the box open and gestured to the pizza. "Same reason I brought pizza. Nothing better than recovering from an alien invasion than comfort food."

Thor placed the beer on the table next to the pizza. "I only understood about half of the words you just said. But, I understand the concept of comfort food. Beer is in that category, is it not?"

Steve grinned and shrugged. "I'll drink it, but it doesn't do anything for me. I can't get drunk. Can't even get tipsy anymore." She went to the drawers and started looking for a can opener. "Before the serum, a sip was enough to start getting me slightly drunk. A whole bottle almost wiped me out. Now? Nothing."

"That is a tragedy," Thor proclaimed. "Is it true for all alcoholic beverages?"

"Yup. My metabolism works too fast. Just burns through the alcohol. Last time I tried to get drunk, I had a whole bottle of whiskey. Nothing." She found the bottle opener and grabbed a bottle.

"I've noticed the same effect on me," Thor said. "When I was last here, Selvig and I went to a bar. I imbibed quite a lot, but felt no effects." He took the offered beer from Steve. "Next time I come, I'll bring something from Asgard. That should work even on you."

She smiled and took a swig of beer. The taste was different than what she was used to, but she was getting used to that. Everything tasted different in the fu… present.

"These drawings are really good," Natasha said from the living room. She was studying the sketches that were framed on the walls. "Who did them?"

"Uh, me. SHIELD took some of my drawings and brought them here. Apparently, a lot of my stuff is actually in a museum archive, but they were able to get these." She licked her lips, her throat tight. "When Bucky left, I didn't write him a lot of letters. I drew him pictures. Of home, of the tour. These are the ones I sent to him."

Natasha turned from the drawing to study her. She didn't say anything for a long moment, long enough for Steve to get uncomfortable, but finally she said, "They're good. Did you have training?"

Clint laughed and came into the living room, carrying a plate of pizza and bottle of beer. "Don't you know anything about Captain America? He went to art school and everything. Even worked as an artist before joining the war, right, Cap?"

She blushed. "Yeah. I mean, it was just advertisements and stuff. I did draw a few political cartoons that got published, but it wasn't… I mean, I never had a gallery or anything."

"Still, you worked in what you loved to do," Natasha said. "Not many people get to do that. Do you have anything else? Anything recent?"

Her failure to be able to draw anything burned hot in her stomach. "No. I…" She shook her head. "No."

Natasha and Clint exchanged looks.

"Have you been to any museums since you came back?" Natasha started to the kitchen. "Art's come a long way since the 1940s."

She shook her head. "I should go, huh? Haven't thought… I mean, it's just been…"

"Yeah, overwhelming, I get it. But it's something to think about." She got herself a piece of pizza and beer.

She nodded and took another sip of her beer. "So, uh, how's everything at headquarters?"

"Mostly boring. We didn't do much today, just sat around and tried to recover," Clint said. Then he wrinkled his nose. "I spent a lot of time with the shrink today, going over what happened with Loki. Man, that guy cannot leave soon enough. No offense, Thor."

"No, I agree. The sooner he is on Asgard, the better for all of us. Even with his magic cut off and his tongue bound, there is still mischief he can get up to."

"Was always like… like he is now?" Steve asked, taking a seat on the arms of one of the chairs. She'd wanted to ask if Loki'd always been a crazy, power hungry, would-be dictator, but it seemed impolitic.

Thor shook his head. "He was always crafty. Untrustworthy. But he wasn't… cruel. We didn't always get along, but he was my brother and my friend. We fought and squabbled as brothers do, but I could depend on him. Even when he ruined my coronation, it wasn't…. it wasn't like this. There was a method to his madness. This was… just madness."

"How did he ruin your coronation?" Natasha sat on the sofa and pulled her feet under her.

Thor took one of the other chairs. "I was to be crowned king of Asgard, taking over from my father. But, during the ceremony, Frost Giants, beings from the realm of Jotunheim, came to Asgard and attacked. They were trying to steal the Cask of Ancient Winters, a relic that Asgard won from their realm many years ago. It turned out that Loki had allowed them onto the planet, knowing that it would enrage me. He encouraged me to lead an attack party on Jotunheim, against my father's orders." He shrugged. "The result was my banishment to Earth. My father stripped me of my powers and took my hammer."

"Why did Loki do all that?" Clint asked.

"To prove I was not yet ready to rule." Thor shrugged, smiling self-deprecatingly. "He was right. I am not ready to rule. Nor do I wish to, not anymore."

"So, when did he change?" Clint pressed. "How did he become what he is now?"

Thor sighed and took a long drink of beer. "I believe his mind fractured when he found out his true heritage. He is not Asgardian. He is a Jotun."

"Is that a bad thing?" Steve asked.

"Jotun are longtime enemies of Asgard. They are a race of giants who live on a planet made of ice and snow. They are large and blue and hideous to behold."

"Loki doesn't fit any of those qualities," Natasha said.

Thor shook his head. "He is a shape shifter. He can change his form at will."

"But, he had to have known. If he's a shape shifter, he had to have known he'd changed his shape," Steve said. "Right?"

Thor shook his head again. "He thought he was of Asgard and that was his true shape. It was sometime during the fight on Jotunheim that he discovered what he was. My father confirmed it after I was banished and Loki… I believe it broke his mind. He has not been the same since."

Steve sipped her beer. Despite herself, she felt a little sympathy towards Loki. Not enough to forgive him for what he'd done, but just a sort of general sympathy. It had to have been difficult discovering that not only was he not the species he thought he was, but he looked completely different than he thought he did. His own body had betrayed him.

Yeah. Steve knew a little of what that was like.

"It must have been a shock," she said. She got up to get herself pizza. "You were on Earth?"

"Yes. And my father fell into the Odinsleep after Loki found out, leaving him to deal with it alone."

"Odin… sleep?"

"It's a deep sleep from which he cannot be woken," Thor explained. "It replenishes his powers and restores his health and vitality. I was to become king so he could deliberately go into the state, but when he banished me, he then fell unexpectedly into sleep."

"Who was left in charge, then?" Natasha asked.

Thor grimaced. "Loki. He was raised royal, but it was never expected that he…"

"So, let me get this straight." Clint leaned forward, placing his pizza on the sofa next to him. "Man finds out that not only is he not Asgardian, but he's from an enemy race that looks nothing like he does, then his father goes into a coma and he becomes king?"

"Yes."

"I think I'm beginning to see how he became messed up."

"Falling from the Bifrost did not help matters, either."

"Okay, that's a word I'm not familiar with," Clint said.

"Now you know how I feel all the time," Steve couldn't help but say, earning a grin from the other man.

"Perhaps I should tell you the whole tale," Thor said. "Like Steve's story yesterday, this one isn't a simple one."

"Please, do." Steve slid off the arm of the chair and into the chair proper. "I'd like to hear the whole thing."

"Very well. As I said, it started with my coronation."

Steve listened, wide-eyed, as Thor told the story. She vaguely remembered the stuff in New Mexico had been in the debriefing package Fury had given her, but it hadn't seemed too important. Just in a, "and this is what the aliens can do," sort of way. She'd watched the footage and moved on.

"And then he let go of my hand," Thor said. "I thought him dead. I never thought he would survive a fall like that."

"The Chitauri must have rescued him," Steve said.

"Don't know about rescue." Clint looked pensive. "When he first came through the portal, he looked rough. Stayed rough for a few days after he took me. Just… pale, moving funny. Careful with everything he looked at and touched. A few times, he went into a kind of trance. The staff he had would glow, and it was like he was somewhere else. When he came back, he'd be pale and sweaty and snappish." He shrugged. "Seems like someone who'd had a rough time of it. Not necessarily torture, but I don't think it was entirely a partnership."

"You're not trying to excuse him, are you Clint?" Natasha asked.

"No. Not at all. He killed all those people without a second thought. Almost destroyed New York. Fucked with my mind. I'm not excusing him. But, it's possible that he wasn't acting totally independently, that's all."

"Which means," Steve said, picking up the thread, "this may not be over. Not entirely."

Thor frowned. "The Chitauri needed the portal to come through to Earth. They are not close, and don't seem to have the technology to get here, at least not quickly. If there are any left, they may still come, but it will be many years before they get here. Besides. They were after the Tesseract, and I will be taking that with me. They don't have the motivation to come here anymore."

"Yeah, but do they know that?"

"Asgard will always stand ready to help should they come. Or," he amended, "at least I will."

"Thanks, Thor," Steve said. "We appreciate that." Her stomach rumbled, and she got up to get more pizza.

"You know, I was there," Clint said. "When you beat up everyone to get at the hammer. Coulson had me go up to take you out."

"With your bow and arrow?" Thor asked.

He nodded. "My preferred of weapon. You were amazing. Watching you plow through SHIELD's best was awe inspiring. I was glad when Coulson told me to hold. Would have been a shame to shoot you."

"I, too, am pleased." He frowned and rolled his beer against his palm. "I am sorry that Loki killed him. He was a good man."

Clint raised his bottle. "To Coulson."

"To Coulson," they all said, then drank in silence.

"Okay," Natasha said. "This got serious. Not that it's bad, but we need to decompress after yesterday. So. Poker or movie?"

Clint said, "Why not both?"

"I'm not good at poker," Steve said. "But I'll play."

"I don't know the rules, but I am always willing to learn something new."

Natasha pulled a deck of cards out of her back pocket and began shuffling. "The rules are easy. Got anything to bet, Steve? Candy or chips or pretzels?"

She snorted. "I've got all of those. Whoever stocked this place put everything. Let's do M&Ms?" She went to the cupboard and pulled out a bag.

"I love M&Ms." Natasha grinned. "And looks like I'm going to have a pile by the time we're done."

"Shut up and deal, Romanoff," Clint said.

"Oh, The Apartment! We should totally show Steve that one."

"One thing at a time. We'll play a few rounds and then watch."

Natasha nodded. "All right, gentlemen. Prepare to lose."

And, that's just what Steve did.