Ayy thanks for checking in. I'm too tired to write on this part so T. Rycbar is an idiot or something. I dunno. I need more serotonin though so please leave comments. Happy 2021 bitches.

IDontOwnMarvel

"Happy! Hey, Happy!" I called after him, skidding and almost falling on the floors of the Malibu house while he walked faster. "Come back! You can't avoid me forever."

He sighed deeply and stopped to look at me. "What?"

"Hi." I smiled innocently, tucking my hands into my sweatshirt pockets and swaying childishly.

"You already said that." He deadpanned, looking more than put out by my existence. "What do you want?"

I rolled my eyes at him. "Jeez, I wanted to leave the house for a bit, but now you're giving me that look you do when you want to put me up for adoption."

"I'm not doing a look."

"Sure you are." I frowned and pulled the 'Head of Security' hat off his head to put it on before mocking his features with my own. "Like this."

He scowled at me and snatched the hat off my head. "I'm never wearing this around you again."

"You might think I'm not around, Happy, but I always am." I smirked at the twitch of unease that ran over his face. "I'm a tiny god. Maybe Tony should hire me as Head of Security."

"I don't work for Tony." He shot back, turning to leave me behind. "I work for Stark Industries. So good luck convincing Pepper."

I watched him leave and put the hat back on his head before shrugging to myself and walking in the opposite direction. "Rude."

Malibu seemed nicer than I remembered. The walls were clean and light came in from all directions, giving the whole estate a really optimistic energy. Honestly though, it was probably just the fact that I spent thirteen days with Hydra in some musty-ass base. My real house wasn't even close to as nice as Tony's mansion either. I was definitely going to miss the fancy bedroom and shower when I was inevitably sent back to my own universe.

I had spent a good week and a half on the SHIELD helicarrier while I recovered from the damage that Hydra had done to me. Thor stopped by at one point, but I only had the one conversation with him before he left abruptly again. After I threatened to tell everyone that their boss drinks tea, Fury finally cleared me to go live nearby in DC with Clint. Tony and Banner had already taken off three days prior to my dismissal, so I was missing my fellow computer nerds until I was able to catch a plane out to them without SHIELD being worried that I'd blow up a plane on accident.

Yeah, I am never going to get used to the dormant lightning powers.

When I was finally back in Malibu, I got to pick up work on a little project I had started recreating before I was kidnapped. It had taken me several weeks to create the code back when I was back home, but now I had the right time and resources to work on the 'The Accountability Booster' (Also known as- TAB) without being distracted. If I was lucky, I could finish the virus here and then take it home in a flash drive to dig up dirt on all my classmates and peers. Because creating Hybrid Malware devices isn't illegal at all.

One week back at Malibu, I was getting a little antsy with the 'going home' part of staying with them. They said they were getting closer, so I trusted them on that. After all, there was no way my last resort plan would end well for anyone. That, and I was sure she'd just kill me.

"You have anything?"

Tony dropped his head to the desk in annoyed defeat. "Nothing."

"Well, we can't just keep lying to her about it." Banner frowned at him suddenly and rolled over to look at what Tony had been reading.

"What?" Tony asked, sitting up again.

Bruce shook his head at a thought. "Nothing. It's just - I finished that book two days ago. I'm going back over the research papers."

Tony scowled back. "And you didn't think to tell me?"

"I didn't know you were actually reading anything."

"Of course I'm read-" Tony cut himself off when he caught sight of the teen trotting down the stairs.

She waved at them before tucking her hand back in her pocket. "Happy left, so now I have nothing to do. I came to offer my assistance."

"Any lighting?" Banner asked from across the garage.

"No." She shook her head, wandering over to a desk to sit down with her laptop. "It's a shame really, I always wanted to be like Thor."

Banner furrowed his brow at the action. "What are you doing now?"

"Programming." Lincoln replied simply, starting to pull up a page on her laptop and plugging in headphones.

"Programming what?"

She tilted her screen away with a frown of disapproval when Banner had tried to see what she was doing. Tony had to smile a little at the gesture. It was almost disappointing how hard they were working to get rid of her, even if they didn't have any progress. They just needed their breakthrough and then...well, then they would have made some of the finest technological advancements in history. That was the main thing keeping him going since the actual creation of what they were trying to make would ultimately result in the absence of the kid. Then again, at the pace they were going, she'd be here forever.

Lincoln sat up straighter in her seat, obviously very proud of what she was making. "It's a program called TAB. I'm a little bored here so this is my way of being helpful."

Banner nodded and turned back to his own work. Tony, however, was still at least a little interested in whatever she was constructing. "What's it do?"

"Well, when it's done, it should steal information from a targeted server." She explained, lifting the screen back up to continue scrolling. "Kind of like how you found out about SHIELD using the Tesseract for weapons."

How would she… He shook his head at the thought, turning back to his own work. "You better not be using that on my shit."

"Why? Afraid of what I might find?" She joked, giving him a devious smile and getting a warning glare in return. She schooled her joking tone. "I'm kidding. Obviously I would never do that here. That's a huge invasion of privacy. Besides, I was thinking that Natasha or Clint could use it the next time a Hydra base pops up. Then I'll have everything that they know about me."

Tony nodded in slight agreement, turning back to his work. "So...personal gain then?"

Lincoln gave him a deadpan look that he pretended not to notice. "It's not personal gain if the fate of your universe is at my fingertips and a bunch of lunatics want it."

Tony glared back quickly. "You freak me out when you say that and you know it."

There was yet another reason why he needed to figure this thing out, and soon. Now that Lincoln was around, he went back to working on one of his suits, Mark-38 to be exact. He didn't want to get caught still reading up theories on the screen with her in the room. Fortunately, she didn't stick around long, having lost interest in working in the same room as them. It only took her an hour before she started pulling her stuff together and headed for the stairs.

The walk stopped suddenly and she paused, turning back around to point at them. "Oh, before I forget - did you find anything?"

"Yeah," Tony covered hastily, ignoring the twinge of guilt. "We're just working out a few small things."

Her smile just made him feel worse. "Cool. You'll let me know if I can help at all, right?"

"Uh huh, yeah." He waved her off. "Go find something else to do."

And the lies continue…

He could already feel the look Bruce was giving him when Lincoln disappeared upstairs. "Don't even start, Frankenstein."

"We've gotta stop lying to her about this." Banner spoke up, having halted his work to look at Tony. "It's not going to get any better the longer we wait."

"Well, your argument is airtight, but I feel like you're missing the part where she hates us afterwards." Tony spun to face him in his chair. "Then she'll run off again and I'm not thinking that the pirate is going to like that."

Bruce sighed and shook his head in disapproval. "It's really just going to get worse."

Tony gave him a dead stare before finally giving up and turning back to his own work with a bitter attitude. "Okay, well, give me a day. Then you can throw what little innocence she has left out the window when you tell her that she'll never see her family again."

"Wait, why do I have to tell her?" Bruce shot back, unnerved.

"Because you brought it up."

"...working out a few small things…"

I'd heard less positive things in my life. Of course, I had no clue what it meant technically, but I figured it was safe to assume I would be able to get home in time for the anniversary. That, and the fact that my parents would either be pissed at me for skipping the universe or totally freaked out by the fact that they lost both their daughters in the course of a year. If they were mad, I could always just show them the two scars that I had now so that they'd feel bad and give me sympathy points. I did, after all, survive being tortured by a seventy year old criminal organization.

There were some less important problems with my plan to return though. For starters - where am I going to say I was all this time?

Lying was always an option. I could just pretend to have absolutely no clue what had happened to me. It wasn't like telling the truth was going to get me anywhere. That would no doubt send me right to a mental hospital or, with luck, about a bajillion therapists who would then deem me delusional. Then again, a therapist might not be so bad of an idea after the whole Hydra debacle.

Ugh, Hydra. I shuddered as the boxes in my head started to make noise and attempt a move to the forefront of my thoughts. After giving them a good shove back by thinking about lunch, I made a move towards a kitchen. One problem at a time, Linx...

I ate a late lunch and ended up back in my room watching this universe's version of Supernatural where Castiel was played by Mark Pellingrino and the show ended after season seven. It wasn't the worst, but I missed Misha who, apparently, didn't exist here.

I let my mind wander back to my other options while the relatively good show played out. I had originally considered going to the Ancient One about my problem because I was sure she had to know what was up in some sense. However, there was the chance that she might just see me as a threat or danger to their universe and just kill me off without a second thought. I didn't know a whole lot about her character since there was only one movie with her in it. If I was being totally honest, I wasn't super sure why she hadn't shown up to drag me away yet. If she was supposed to know about all the interdimensional travellers here, why didn't she come and pick me up the moment I showed?

Then, there was also the danger of Kaecilius since he most definitely was out there right now. If the timeline from my universe was correct, that is. He hadn't turned yet, but he was still dangerous and probably unstable. All his followers were there too, so that really just added to whatever weird vibes they had going on there. In conclusion, the Sanctum was going to have to be a last ditch plan.

"You've had your 24 hours." Bruce pointed out, giving Tony a look from across the garage.

"Impossible, impossible, impossible." Tony flipped through the pages before finally tossing the book aside. "I created a goddamn element with anti-matter. They said that was impossible too. Why doesn't this have anything useful?"

Bruce just watched him quietly when Tony started pacing across the garage-lab.

"I just need one motherfucking hint." He stressed, stopping at another desk and leaning on it to look at Bruce. "You don't understand. This is ridiculous. I should be able to find something - anything on this, but there's absolutely nothing that proves the possibility of her survival, let alone existence here. Why?"

"I don't think that's for us to ask." Bruce sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look, I know you're ego's probably a little hurt right now, but we have to tell her. She's a smart kid. What happens when she finds out on her own and gets a little too angry at us?"

"Well then why not just agree to option two if you're so worried about the wellbeing of the country?" Tony shot back, regretting it the moment he even suggested such a thing. Instead of giving Bruce the chance to respond, he continued. "How do you even want to tell her? 'Hey, sorry, but we're actually not smart enough for this. Guess you're stuck here. Oh, and watch out for Fury while you're at it."

Bruce just tossed up a hand in defeat, glancing back at his desk. "The 'how' doesn't really matter as much right now. It's just something we have to do. She didn't keep the thing about your parents a secret for longer than 36 hours."

"Just to be clear, I definitely yelled at her and then took off to kill the guy in that situation." Tony deadpanned. "Don't take that as an example for the 'how'."

"She's not you."

"Well she sure acts like it." He muttered, shaking his head to himself. He knew this was something that had been coming for a while now, but now that he was at that point, it was starting to look even more dangerous and unappealing by the second.

"Yo, guys." Lincoln strolled down the stairs with a laptop under her arm, wearing a ridiculous smile and effectively shutting down their conversation in an instant. "I just learned how to get on the dark web here. You people have a lot of alien parts deals going on that I sent to SHIELD. I just figured if anyone could deal with it, they could. I may have bought a leg, though, so just ignore any suspicious packages that show up in the next two weeks."

"You have a very bad habit of coming down here at the worst times." Tony said, turning back to his workstation to pull up suit designs.

She stopped short with a frown, looking between them. "Is it a bad time?"

Banner shook his head and went back to work too. "No. Tony's exaggerating."

"Okay," She shrugged it off, setting herself up at the far desk that she had recently commandeered for her work. "I just came to see what suit number Tony was on for reference. Also, this house is big, but very very boring."

Tony watched her with a narrowed look while she settled in. "Why do you need reference?"

"Spoilers," She waved him off, bothering him slightly. "Can I get a number though?"

"Mark-38."

Lincoln just nodded, not sparing him a glance before putting in her earbuds. He did not like that she was asking for numbers. It was ominous and, quite frankly, a little scary.

Was something supposed to happen after a certain suit design? He couldn't even ask either which was incredibly annoying since all her answers were always 'spoilers' or 'wouldn't you like to know weather boy'. This bothered him even more despite the fact that knowing one's potential future spouted all sorts of problems. Her claims on what the problems were were always very different than Banner's though.

She had made a claim at one point that sharing any information with him would be illegal under the law of the 'Time Guardians', but she did say it in a comically deep voice so he was about 97% sure they weren't real.

"Hey, Link," Bruce called over, feigning a calm attitude towards the subject. "Can we talk to you about something?"

"Uh huh," She murmured, only passing them a glance over her shoulder. "Can it wait until dinner though, or is it important?"

"It can wait." Tony interrupted, cutting off Bruce and giving him a quick look. "Happy's bringing subs."

"Awesome." Lincoln didn't take her eyes off of whatever she was coding on the computer, leaving Tony nothing else to do other than work on Mark-38. It had gotten pretty hard to focus though with the minutes ticking by at an excruciatingly fast pace.

He could have sworn that he just blinked before they were sitting at the table with her with the conversation looming seconds away. On the contrary though, he remembered every minute that he had to sit through. When she switched seats to watch his work 'inconspicuously', when he added new panels to the back of the suit, and finally when he had to stop himself from grabbing a trigger watch that would beckon his suit if needed before he went upstairs with them for dinner. Of course he trusted the kid to some degree, but she really didn't have that much of a hold on that sparkly trick of hers.

"So what was it you wanted to tell me?" Lincoln asked, sitting across from them expectantly. "You guys are kinda freaking me out. Spill."

Banner started as gently as possible. "You know how we've been working on getting you home, right?"

She shifted and looked between them suspiciously. "Yeah, why? Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, the problem being that we don't know how to get you home." Tony almost cursed himself for being so blunt without thinking. He didn't like suspense though, so he almost justified it. Well, he thought it was somewhat justified until he winced, seeing the kid's face fall.

Bruce shot him a look and elbowed him roughly before facing the clearly unsettled girl. "What Tony's trying to say is that this kind of technology that we're talking about is advanced...even for us."

"So you lied to me?" Lincoln sat back in her seat, keeping a surprisingly calm tone to her voice despite the accusatory question. They stayed silent, Tony not wanting to make it worse and Bruce just being prepared to remove himself from the room while she sat in contemplative silence for a moment, speaking after a minute of thought. "You don't have anything do you?"

Banner shook his head but Tony sat still, watching her. She didn't sound mad. Why isn't she mad?

She shifted her jaw and tapped a finger on the table like she was thinking. "Nothing at all?"

Tony finally decided to speak again, this time in a 'softer' tone. "The only evidence that other universes even exist is you. There's not much we can go off of that."

She sat quietly for a moment more, then standing up suddenly and making a brisk walk towards her room. "Well. Sorry to have wasted your time, then."

"That went well." Tony smiled slightly to himself.

Bruce gave him a look of exasperation. "Are you serious?"

I tossed the backpack over my shoulder with my stress ball in hand, making sure to get the cellphone out of the drawer too before I left the room. It took me the better part of four minutes to get packed and ready, but by the time I was done, I was walking past the kitchen. Two of this world's greatest minds were sitting in said kitchen too, and as it turns out, weren't super thrilled by my obvious intent to leave.

"Um, where do you think you're going?" Tony asked, standing up out of his seat with Dr. Banner.

"To find the person who can get me home."

"You can't just leave." Banner stated, matter-of-factly.

"Can't I?" I stopped in my place and looked back at them. "You said you can't help. I'm going to find someone who might."

Tony furrowed his brow in confusion. "Wait, then why didn't you just go to them before? Coulda saved me a lot of time."

"Well, there's the chance she might kill me too, so I was kind of trying to exhaust my other options." I gestured vaguely at them before continuing on to the door. "Now I've run out, so I'm just hoping she's in a good mood."

"You're being dramatic." Tony caught my wrist, effectively stopping me and sending panicked signals into my brain for an indiscernible reason. "You're going to get taken again...or killed."

I only felt a sliver of dread for a moment before I blinked and got a hold of myself, pulling my arm out of his grasp quickly and trying to calm my racing heart.

"He's right, Lincoln." Bruce chimed in. "It's irresponsible even if you are mad at us."

"Dramatic? Irresponsible?" I repeated, facing them with a different kind of anger burning in my gut. "This is desperate. Desperate to get home. Desperate to be back with people who actually care about me. Desperate to not be somewhere where I have to fear for my life when I go clothes shopping." I stepped closer, glaring them down. "Does that really sound so dramatic to you two?"

He kept his eyes on mine but held his tongue, refusing to speak back. Bruce did the same.

"That's what I thought."

I turned on my heel and started walking. They didn't make another move to stop me.

You know when you're mad and you make dumb decisions? Yeah, so basically that's what I realized I had done when I got twenty minutes into my walk. It was still another 15 before I even made it into town and after that I was going to have to walk for another hour to get to the airport. I did have somewhat of a plan though. If you can count attempting to trick our favorite one-eyed spy into flying me out to New York as a plan, that is.

So far it was going pretty well. I did call him up at a nearby diner and informed him that I could demonstrate the cool lightning trick if he flew me across the country to New York. He was being led to believe that an agent would collect me at the airport when I landed, but I was making the huge assumption that I would be able to bypass the agent and hop on a bus to Manhattan without anyone knowing. Again, that was a huge assumption, but it was one of my better choices at the moment.

I did try to summon some form of lightning on the way in case my genius plan didn't pan out how I wanted and Fury actually was expecting something from me. Much like before, however, the strange power was useless and unusable in a showcase situation.

Fury had sent the ticket to my phone, so all I had to do was pull it up for the lady at the desk to scan. What ended up happening was that I had to actually run to make sure I wasn't late for boarding the plane (which I was) but it turned out okay in the end. I made it in time to board with my section.

Thirty minutes later, I was in the air with a middle seat in between a mother and her infant and some guy who fell asleep the second we took off.

The baby turned out to be pretty docile for most of the trip - only fussing once or twice. I was roped into holding her for a minute while the mother dug something out of the bag. I don't like small children, so it wasn't that pleasant of an experience for me. That is what I get for buying a last minute plane ticket to New York that leaves at six pm. Six in the afternoon also meant that I was going to be landing around at around one in the morning due to the time change. That wasn't something I was excited for, so instead of lying awake thinking about it, I took a nap like the other guy.

When I made it, I was a little annoyed at having to wake up at such an ungodly hour, but I remembered my mission to the dot. Keeping my head down, I made note of the two agents who were very obviously there to pick me up pretty quickly. I walked on the opposite side of a family with lots of kids, flipping up my hood while I moved with confidence. I only stopped for a moment at a small stand when one of the agents looked in my direction and put my back to them, purchasing a gatorade. That's when I spotted a very familiar face in the same little corner store as me, looking at a newspaper on sale.

Before I could turn away, he looked up and made direct eye contact with me. Then, I didn't think. Of course I didn't think. I fucking ran.

I heard Steve curse under his breath when I abandoned the gatorade at the counter and sprinted to the stairs, climbing down them faster than I thought I could. Did I really think I could outrun Captain America? Probably not, but that wasn't going to stop me from trying. I almost fell over when I ran around a corner and started weaving through groups of people to get to the subway. One of the trains had already opened its doors, so without thinking about where it was going, I hopped on, sighing to myself in relief.

A hint of a giddy feeling hit me when I smiled and the doors shut. "Holy shit. I just outran Captain America."

"Not quite."

I jumped out of my skin at the voice, accidentally bumping into another person when I whipped around. "Ah! How did you do that?"

"Where do you think you're going?" He asked, wearing a small amused smile. "You know we have a ride for you, right?"

"Oh, I had no clue." I shot back sarcastically, grabbing onto a handrail when the train started moving. "That's why I'm so excited to see you."

"You don't look excited."

"Don't I?" I rolled my eyes and caught my breath for a minute now that we were trapped in a subway car for the moment. "Let me guess - you're gonna drag me back at the next stop, right?"

"Depends." He shrugged, tucking one of his hands into his pocket with the other holding onto a handrail.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "On what?"

"Where are you trying to go?"

"Noho." I readjusted the backpack on my shoulder. "Bleecker Street Station."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "What's there?"

For a moment, I debated just telling this man who couldn't give a damn about me to shove it. It did sound really tempting after the time he spent ignoring me or calling me out for no reason other than the fact that he had misplaced anger. Then I realized by looking at the map on the wall and the small lit up sign that I was going to be in this car for at least twenty minutes if he didn't drag me away before my stop.

"That's not important to you." I shook my head at him in mild annoyance, tightening my grip on the bar as we went around a corner. "Look, I'm just trying to get home in time for something and the two Malibu nerds don't have anything useful. I know you don't like me, so it's probably in your best interest to just let me leave, even if Fury has you trying to recruit me for some child soldier program."

He frowned. "I never said I didn't like you."

Really? That's what he got out of my spiel? I scoffed to myself when the train chugged to a stop. "You heavily implied it."

Steve, much to my surprise, didn't disembark or drag me out. Instead, he stood his ground as casually as one might expect and just waited until the doors closed again. That got a funny look from me.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm coming with you." He stated, not even acknowledging how weird that was for him to say.

"You don't even know where I'm going." I pointed out, staring him down while he looked out a window.

"No," He muttered happily, flashing me what appeared to be an earnest smile. "But I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually."

It was unsettling so I just ignored him and tried to brush it off. The sentiment was nice if he actually cared, but I was almost positive it was because he just wanted to keep tabs on my location. After all, he hadn't been very nice before, so he didn't really have any reason to these days. I was on a pretty dangerous mission too, so if he wanted to tag along to make sure I didn't get killed, kidnapped, or attacked, I wasn't going to fight him on it. All that was important was if I could actually get to where I needed to go.

While we rode in silence on the train, my mind drifted back to where Tony and Bruce had been left behind in the driveway. I would be lying if I said I didn't feel at least a little bad about it. Sure, they had lied to me for weeks, but I had also just disappeared for a second time without giving them any indication as to where I was going or what I planned on doing. They had also spent a lot of time trying to fix the mess I was in, even though they couldn't come up with any results. They tried, and that probably warranted some sort of word about whether I was alive or not.

After a minute, I pulled out my phone and texted Bruce. He could hear from me since I wasn't as annoyed with him. He was definitely the voice of reason in the two scientist's friendship.

'In NYC. Cap won't leave me alone.'

I just sort of hoped that calmed his nerves a little. As much as I was trying not to get attached to people here, it was starting to get really hard. I already watched the movies more than once, so not only was I emotionally attached to their characters, but now I was surrounded by the constant sass and occasional niceness of their true selves. Heading home would actually make me miss them a little. This really was turning into one hell of an experience.

What was important to remember about these guys though, was that they weren't my parents or family. Those were the people I was trying to get back to.

After a painfully short subway ride, I got out at Bleecker Street Station with Steve following close behind, not unlike a lost dog. Emerging from underground, I had to stop and look at the different road signs before picking a side of the road and starting down Bleecker street. I didn't have a very clear idea where it was, but I was very aware of what their window looked like, so I wasn't super worried as I walked with little direction down a strange road at two in the morning.

Steve broke what was a comfortable silence with another question though after a while. "What kind of schedule are you keeping?"

I didn't spare him a look and kept stepping back on occasion to see up buildings that I was walking by.. "I have to be back by September 8th."

"What's on September 8th?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking up once - probably to see what I was looking for.

I stopped in my place and turned my gaze to him suspiciously. "Do you really want to know or are you just doing this so that you can feel better about treating me like shit for the first month I was here?"

He shrugged, seemingly unfazed by my language for the first time. "I would like to know."

I opened and shut my mouth in exasperation before turning to keep walking. "One year since I lost my sister."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"Yeah everyone keeps saying that." I scoffed, shoving away the pang of grief that shot at my gut.

He paused in contemplation before having the nerve to speak again. "Everyone's probably too uncomfortable with the idea that you lost someone who obviously meant a lot to you. So they apologize, I think, for not being able to do more."

I gave him a disturbed look before turning my attention back to the buildings. "Yeah, well, you got your Bucky back when someone came and did something more. Mine jumped off a bridge so you don't really come back from that."

I ignored his sympathetic silence and saw the building a distance away. It was on the other side of the road though so I stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to be green. I didn't grow up in New York so I actually had no idea how seriously I was supposed to take the little red hand telling me not to go anywhere. Being the (mostly) law abiding citizen that I was, I listened to it and waited.

"Like I said, I am sorry for your loss."

"Thanks." I muttered, slowly coming to the realization that he might actually care. The guy was excessively structured around 'good morals'. You know, whatever those are. "Don't tell Tony about the bridge thing though because then he'll feel bad about calling me Swan Dive that one time."

The light changed to the little blue walking man and we crossed with the road still being empty.

"That's...dark."

"Yah, I know right?" I smiled slightly to myself in amusement. I didn't mind this Steve all that much. He seemed nice. He also wasn't ignoring me or giving me dirty looks when I swore, so I supposed that was progress.

"So where are we going?" He asked, finally having the grounds to get a real answer. I really hoped he hadn't manipulated our conversation like that, but the subject change sounded nicer than continuing with 'dead sister' stuff.

"I am going to meet the Ancient One." I enunciated, slowing down just a little as we walked. "You would probably do better to wait outside."

Steve hummed in disapproval. "Absolutely not. Last time we left you somewhere you got kidnapped."

"Well, you can't come in." I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to the New York Sanctum and faced him. "There's a chance you'll disrespect her work and get me stranded here and you...dead probably. Actually scratch that - she might just kill us both."

"I'm not disrespectful." He looked almost offended by the statement. "I'm a soldier."

Damn, okay. I sighed, cursing him under my breath for being right. "Alright, just no silent judging either. She's really good at reading people."

Steve nodded once. "Deal."

I looked back at the door, and took a deep breath before walking up the steps and knocking. The moments in waiting were excruciatingly long and definitely made me lose whatever faith I had in the idea. However, I was stuck in my place while I stood waiting due to my unwavering will to not be in the same universe as Hydra, Thanos, and about eighty literal comic villains. I knocked again when no response came after a minute.

Maybe it's because it's two in the morning on a Tuesday? I wondered for a moment, looking over my shoulder before shaking my head at the thought. No, they don't sleep like we do. There's no way the Master of the Sanctum wouldn't know I was here.

"Maybe she's not home." Steve offered, tilting his head at the door.

"That's not how this works, Steve. She's most likely in Napal. I'm looking for - " The door swung open when I was halfway through my sentence. "The Guardian of the New York Sanctum."

"Who are you?" The man demanded, pulling out his quarterstaff and holding it at his side.

"I was hoping to speak to the Ancient One." I started innocently. "She might be able to help me with something."

He started to shut the door again. "No. This isn't a charity. Go away."

"Woah, wait-" The door slammed shut, cutting me off. I sighed in discontent and shoved my hands into my pockets. "That could have gone better."

"So what now?" Steve looked around and then back at me when I sat down on the steps.

"Now, I wait." I remembered the time that Dr. Strange spent sitting outside the Sanctum in Kamar-Taj. If I was lucky, I could just try knocking again in a few hours in order to catch him in a better mood. Seeing Steve still idling by, I gave him a hesitant look. "You don't have to stay."

He eyed me confusedly. "You just...wait?"

"I dunno." I shifted in my seat, a little disinterested by the conversation. "It's not like I've got much else to do. She's kind of my last hope."

"You can't just wait here. I mean," He gestured vaguely with a hand at the area around us. "It's late and all sorts of weird people wander around the city at night."

"Yeah, like eighty year old super soldiers and teenage delinquents." I muttered absently, running my fingers through my hair. "I did say you could leave."

"You can't be serious."

"Dead." I clicked my tongue and looked past him. "I really have to talk with her."

"Fine," He looked over his shoulder as if he expected someone might be there listening in. "But you can't stay here overnight on the side of the road. It's not safe."

"Where else am I gonna go?" I chuckled a little. "Think about it, man. If I go with Fury, he'll just make me demonstrate the lightning thing that I definitely don't know how to do."

Then, he made a suggestion that might come off as creepy from anyone other than an Avenger or literal comic book character.

"Come back to my place. It's in Brooklyn."

I eyed him carefully. This was a very different person than the one I met on my first day here. "You sure about that?"

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and nodded simply. "Yeah, we can come back in the morning. Come on."

Steve turned and started down the sidewalk back towards the subway station and I followed him in despite the tugging worry that the wizards might not let me in if I left now. Then again, it would probably be better to approach the Sanctum guy after he got some coffee or tea and some rest. The adjusted plan wasn't horrible. It could still end with me being killed on the spot, but I didn't have a lot to lose here at this point. My options included getting her to help me, dying in the process of such, or just being trapped on this planet forever.

Is it just me, or does this universe have a tendency to let things go wrong on purpose?