Disclaimer: I still own nothing relating to Marvel Studios or Walt Disney.

Chapter Ten

After sleeping through the rest of the afternoon and most of the morning after the battle, I don't take any time getting out of bed. I run around the loft in search of any piece of Marvel merchandise I could find; any poster, t-shirt, mug, or toy—anything with a superhero theme or a Marvel logo on it. Nothing. Stepping out onto the terrace, I can still see Stark Tower in the distance, as well as the OsCorp building. I examine my reflection in the full length mirror that my aunt keeps near the front door and see that I still have all the same wounds from yesterday.

I need to be absolutely sure, though. I slowly make my way across the hall, over to what I really hope is still Steve's place. I hesitate before knocking on the door.

Maybe he isn't home. Maybe he crashed at Stark Tower last night instead. It'd make sense for him to.

Or maybe I just don't want to believe that the reason he isn't answering is that he isn't real.

But today is my lucky day. As I'm about to retreat back into my aunt's apartment, he answers, and the relief I feel in this moment shall go unmatched for years.

When he sees it's me at the door, there's surprise, but mostly confusion in Steve's expression, "Alice? Is something wrong—where are your pants?"

"Oh," I say, glancing down. "Nothing's wrong, I just needed to make sure that I was still, well, 'here'. I didn't want any of it to not be real."

"Can't say I was hoping for the same," Steve says wistfully. I want to ask him if something's bothering him, when we're approached by none other than Natasha and Clint, who had just stepped out of the elevator.

"Oh," says Natasha. "Hello, Alice. Cap, you ready?"

I look back and forth between her, Clint, and Steve. Then I remember the departure scene in Central Park. That must be what she's talking about.

"Hey," Natasha says, nudging me with her elbow. "If you can get dressed in five minutes, you can come with us. If you got roped into this mess by pure coincidence like you say, then you deserve to see it end."

"Don't wanna miss out on your chance to see the Avengers officially assemble, do you?" says Clint. Right. I forgot I told them, well, everything. Everything I knew, at least. I may or may not have accidentally made the Avengers overly self-aware about their comic book character statuses. I really hope I haven't screwed up and created a team full of Deadpools. As entertaining as that sounds, it really would not be ideal.

And so, like any other Marvel fanatic, should they ever end up in my place, I try to suppress an idiotic grin and respond with, "Sure. Why not?"

However, the send-off is almost completely silent. Thor only exchanged nods with the rest of the Avengers and the only words said are between Clint and Natasha, words that are whispered so only Clint can hear. He smiles, holding back a chuckle, which made me very curious as to what she said.

"Smile!" I say brightly, holding up my camera. Thor obliges and I'm able to get a pretty good shot of him, and with a gloomy looking Loki handcuffed in the background. "See you around, Thor. Seriously, you have to come back, and don't bring him next time. Or do, I don't care as long as he doesn't try to kill me or enslave the earth. Just make sure you visit."

"Hopefully, one day," he responds. "I do intend to return, and I look forward to seeing you all again. Perhaps next time, it will be under less ominous circumstances."

Yeah…'hopefully'. But this is the MCU. What else can we expect from it?

oOo

AN: Finally, it's over. Not to sound arrogant, but I'm actually pretty proud of how this rewrite turned out. I am definitely liking this revised version a lot better than the original. And if you haven't read the original, then...shhh...what original?

Sequel will be called Curiouser and Curiouser. Follow me if you're interested, or just, I don't know, memorize my pen name and google it whenever you're in the mood. Again, thanks for reading and extra thanks if you reviewed and...I don't know how to end these things, so here is an unnecessary epilogue.

Epilogue

Another day, another strange chrome, honeycomb-patterned room. I'm getting uncomfortable with how many times I end up in one of these, pulling a sack off of my head, yanking the plugs out of my ears, awaiting an interrogator. For an organization with enough time and people on their hands to have half of their agents playing civilian roles, they sure like to keep people waiting. Or maybe that's just special treatment reserved for yours truly.

It's been roughly six weeks since the battle of New York and yes, I have been in trouble that many times since then. Don't ask—SHIELD is just super paranoid. Paranoid to the point where I was arrested for discussing classified information in public—I was talking about Legend of Zelda with my friend Jace, and whichever SHIELD agent was tailing me that day happen to misinterpret my use of the word "shield".

I hear the door slide open and surprise, it's Nick Fury himself. No, really, I'm actually surprised. He's like, the head honcho or whatever updated term has replaced 'head honcho'. The second time I was taken to a SHIELD office, I had asked if Fury was the one I'd be speaking to, and I was laughed at. Never did that again.

"What did I do now?" I ask impatiently, as if I have something important I need to do.

"Nothing this time," he responds. He's carrying a briefcase, but apparently it's not for me, or at least not yet, as he sets it down beside him and leans back in his seat.

"Then, why am I here?" I ask. "Is this another Tesseract situation? Oh, god, please, don't let it be another Tesseract situation. You have the official looking briefcase and everything and—sorry. You can talk."

But he doesn't. He simply clicks open the case and in it is…

A shitload of papers. Well, this is underwhelming.

"Oh. Cool. Read material," I'm unable to speak in a voice that doesn't sound completely sarcastic and monotone. "You shouldn't have. You really, really shouldn't have. Really. Why? Why do you hate me, Fury?"

I take the first stack of papers out of the briefcase and quickly scan over the first few pages.

…Uh oh.

"This is—no. This isn't what I think it is, is it? No. No, no, no. No."

"As much as I disagree with the Council's decision…" Fury sighs, "They want you to join SHIELD. And no, you don't have a choice."

oOo

I guess that wasn't entirely unnecessary. Alice being forcibly recruited on the Council's orders...kind of a significant little detail. Oh well, thanks for reading ^w^