Vision slowly returns to me. Slowly. Slooooooooowwwwwwwwlyyyyyyyy. Dejá vu.

I groan sleepily, rolling over and adjusting my scratchy blanket. No, it's not the blanket that's scratchy-I'm still wearing jeans and a thick t-shirt. The memories of my existence get through to me like a searchlight penetrating through deep fog. I force my eyes open, flinching a little at the glare of the white walls. Overwhelmed by the brightness, my eyes come to rest on the only thing that wasn't painful to look at: Loki, sitting in a chair in the corner with an unfathomable look in his eye.

Wait, what?

"Loki?" I murmur to myself, lifting my head in query. Raising his eyebrows slightly, he puts his finger to his lips, asking me to be silent. I don't know what he means until Tony walks in. Oh. Duh.

"You've got guts, kid," compliments Stark, an amber drink in one hand as he points at me in a mildly accusatory manner. "I'll give you that. But not much else. Guts get you killed without brains to control 'em."

"Brains? C'mon," I retort humbly, propping myself up on one elbow and rubbing the back of my head. "brains are for normal people. Which means not me."

"If brains are for normal people, then that would make me an airhead, too," replies Tony with a wry smile. He takes the chair on the other side of my bed, ignoring the chair that Loki's occupying by some weird trick of the mind. "The great Tony Stark is many things, but normal is not one of them. Normal's barely theoretical, at that."

"Right?" I agree, throwing my hand in the air in exasperation. "Normal's not just theoretical, it's a lie! The human race is so vast and multivariabled that there's no possible way to calculate an average. Unless you're talking medical averages, in which case...well, whatever. Then you have an excuse to be annoyingly precise like that. The arts are like that, too-not precise, multivariabled."

"Is 'multivariabled' even a word?" asks Tony, cocking an eyebrow at me and taking a sip of his presumably alcoholic beverage. I shrugged and rolled my eyes at the ceiling, pulling my smile into a pleasantly confused drawl. I call it my 'Who knows?' face.

"Who knows?" I dismiss. See what I mean?

Okay, pause. You know how I've been meeting celebrity after celebrity on this Helicarrier? First Nick Fury, then Tony, Loki, etc., etc.? At this rate the only Avengers I haven't met so far are Thor and Captain America. The latter of which waltzes through the door right then. Well, 'waltzes' isn't the best word. He marches. Even I, a girl who tends to lean towards 'bad boys,' have to admit that Agent Rogers is pretty amazing up close.

"So this is the 'mini-me' who put herself over the wire," he says fondly, smiling. Wow, he is not nearly as dorky as I thought he was. I curl myself into a sitting position, noting that the action took way too much out of me than it should have.

"Although she probably should've just cut the wire," mumbles Tony under his breath. I laugh a little at the inside joke, but it quickly degenerates into a coughing series that reminds me of Darth Vader. I finally straighten and take a deep breath, but I still feel winded.

"If you think that's bad, that's nothing," scoffs Tony. I think he's referring to what he's been through, but when he goes on I'm proved wrong. "Statistically, you could've been dead. You got so oxygen-deprived that your lungs almost shut down."

"That sounds fun," I say to myself, squinting my eyes shut at the image conjured up by my grotesque subconscious. "But that didn't happen, right?"

"If it did, you would be dead. Not just could," corrected Cap. Beaming at me and leaning over a little, he offers me a hand. "In case you couldn't tell from the retro outfit, I'm Steve Rogers. Alias Captain America."

"Wow," I squeak to myself, smiling giddily as I shake his hand. Loki rolls his eyes at me, but I would've retaliated somehow if it didn't mean that I would look like a loon in front of two Avengers. "It's an honor. Really, it is. I never imagined I'd be in cahoots with the likes of you...oh, and 'mini-me?'"

"The only other person I know who would've done something that stupid is this guy," drawls Tony, jabbing a thumb at Rogers. Steve gently kicks him in the shins, drawing clipped laughter from Stark. "so naturally, he's the first person I thought of when you pulled that stunt."

"That's odd," I muse to myself, gazing off into the middle distance. "I never really pictured myself as Captain America. Although I suppose I should've seen that coming-I remember one time when I took an Avengers personality quiz, I tied between you two."

That sure gets a reaction. They both laugh, which makes me laugh, too. I wonder why.

"Best of both worlds, eh?" chuckles Tony. I glare at him, scowling at the Miley Cyrus reference.

"Do not mention that song to me," I growl threateningly. Stark raises his eyebrows in mock fear, which I resent in some dark corner of my soul. "or that singer, for that matter. Or Bieber. Or 1D."

"What can we mention?" asks Tony sarcastically. I shrug again. I rather like shrugging. I also like the lost look on Steve's face while we talked about pop music.

"Most other music is acceptable," I answer, going through my mental list of do-not-want artists. "As long as it's not overplayed or vulgar. Oh yeah, and it should probably sound good, too. That's kind of the point of music, y'know."

"She's somethin', ain't she, Cap?" observed Tony, smiling distantly. I look from one to the other, suddenly terrified that I might be rejected. That's a weird feeling for me-I was never really afraid of that kind of thing. I was never an outcast, or a weirdo...at least, not in a sense that I cared for. But now I didn't know how long I would be here, or how my life would turn out from this point. I realized the gravity of Nick's statement with a grim sense of finality. I felt a pang of fear, a pang that grew into a hollow ringing in my chest that I wanted to silence. Needed.

Please?

"She is, Tony," agreed Steve, beaming warmly. "That she is."