An uneventful week passed at the Avengers Compound. Well, not entirely uneventful. The super heroes were called out on several missions to save this that or the other thing. Jane went back to her research in Norway, leaving Thor sad and slouchy. The kitchen caught fire when Vision attempted to cook dinner for everyone and accidentally used flour instead of baking soda to put out a small grease fire. Sam Wilson crashed through a window. Natasha Romanoff had to fight off several Hydra goons who cornered her while jogging.

But all of that was fairly normal for the Compound. Jak was used to the normal chaos of living with and cleaning up after superheroes. The week felt uneventful because Loki was nowhere to be found.

Jak had thought that his worry over her safety might mean that he would keep an eye on her, but she only saw him once during that whole week. And that had only been in passing in the hall. He hadn't even said hello then and Jak wondered if he had decided she wasn't worth teaching after all.

Not that he could teach her much magic when Jimmy Woo was still working on getting the power dampening cuff removed. Logically, Jak knew that such a legal process would probably take longer than a month to go through. Jimmy and a handful of others would have to review her behavior and probably interview her a few times before they could even start the paperwork. But now that she knew she wanted to learn to control her magic, she wanted the cuff off immediately.

But the government rarely did anything immediately, so she would have to keep working, keep waiting, and keep trying to tell herself that she wasn't actually missing Loki's attention.

She told herself this as she stood precariously on top of a ladder and tried to change one of the super fancy, high tech light bulbs in the conference room.

"How many janitors does it take to change a lightbulb," she muttered as she poked her head into the lighting fixture and tried to get a better look. "Friday, why is this socket so weird?"

"It is state of the art, environmentally friendly, and uses arc reactor tech-"

"Forget I asked," Jak groaned, "Are there any tutorials on how to change a bulb like this on YouTube?"

"No. These lightbulbs are specific to Stark Industry buildings. They have not been released to the general public yet."

"Of course not. Can you tell me how to get this damn thing hooked up?"

"Language," Steve Rogers' voice said.

Jak jolted in surprise, hitting her head on the lighting fixture as she tried to look at him.

"Ow…" she grumbled, taking a step down the ladder and frowning at Captain America.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," he scratched the back of his head, "Are you okay?"

"Yep. Peachy keen. Don't walk under the ladder, bad luck and all," she lightly poked at the place she'd hit her head, but it was fine. "What can I help you with, Captain?"

"I was just checking in with you," he nodded at her open toolbox on the conference room table, "But I can come back at another time. It looks like you're busy."

"Just trying to figure out Mr. Stark's world-saving, headache-giving lights," she climbed down the ladder and put the bulb on the table and then hooked her thumbs through the belt loops on her coveralls.

"He certainly does like to modernize things," Steve laughed, picking up the bulb and examining it, "Just like his father."

"Howard Stark, right?" She'd known the name back in the day. Everyone had. Her mother had even tried to find a way to set her up with him so that she could get involved in the SSR and then SHIELD. Jak was glad that never panned out.

"A genius. And a good friend," Steve set the lightbulb down and smiled at her, "Any word from Agent Woo about the dampening cuff?"

"No," she sighed, "It'll be a while."

"We could always get Tony to turn it off," Steve suggested quietly, "Tell the government it just stopped working."

"Steven Liberty Rogers," Jak faked a horrified gasp, "Are you telling me you want to lie to the government?"

"Liberty?"

"No? Steven Freedom Rogers? Steven Spangles? Steven Nationalism-"

"Grant, actually," he laughed. "And I'm not a nationalist."

"No?"

"There's a difference between nationalism and patriotism," he pointed out and then got a sad look in his eyes, "And patriotism today is different than it was back then."

"Is it?" She challenged, "Seems like this country is still doing a lot of the same stuff it did in the forties. They just got sneakier about it."

He looked thoughtful for a moment, but Jak didn't really want to talk politics right then. She'd been feeling a bit lonely that past week and wanted to keep Steve around for conversation.

"Any more information about the guy who was watching me?" She asked.

"No," his thoughtful look turned uncomfortable. "We- Sam and I- were thinking he might have been connected with those Hydra guys that jumped Natasha."

"Maybe," she agreed, "Maybe he saw my pink hair in the dark and thought it was red. But why didn't he just attack me right then and there if those guys were going to attack Romanoff anyway?"

"That's what I was thinking too," Steve crossed his arms, "You're sure you can't think of any of your parent's old enemies or allies that might send someone to find you?"

"No one comes to mind, but they kept me in the dark about business. Especially in the thirties and forties. It's hard to have your daughter appear to be the perfect nineteen forties young lady if she accidentally mentions that her father is working with Nazis. They didn't trust me enough to tell me details."

"And you're certain Leroy is dead?"

Leroy. Her father. Or, at least, the name her father used from 1920 onward. She recalled what Loki had said. That maybe her father had not been as human as she thought. It would have made sense. How else would he have known the magic to keep Jak and her mom alive as long as they were? Well, if it was magic. If she wasn't just born to live forever.

But her mom had been adamant that she was human. She often told Jak about how amazing Leroy was because he'd taken pity on a mere human woman and then fallen in love with her. It had been a popular bedtime story when Jak was young.

Of course, she'd learned later that Leroy had not actually been in love. He'd only wanted a child. And someone to take care of that child. After Jak was born, he always seemed to forget about her mother beyond ordering her around on those rare occasions the whole family was together.

"Jak?" Steve asked.

"Hmm? Oh. Yes. He's dead," she replied, looking down at her toolbox and fiddling with some pliers. "You killed him, remember?"

"I don't remember," he replied with a flash of a smile, followed by a stoic expression, "That's the problem. That's why your mother hated me so much."

"Well, I remember," she huffed, "I wish I didn't. But I'm sure he's dead."

"We'll figure it out," the captain told her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, "And you'll get that cuff off."

"Right," she scowled at the device on her wrist, poking it with the pliers, but not daring to try and pry it off. That would only make her look guilty and then the government would decide she wasn't ready to have it off. Or worse, they'd decide she needed to be in prison, instead of on probation.

"In the meantime, why don't you come train with me?" Steve offered, "If you can't learn magic from Loki, you can at least learn how to defend yourself without it."

"That… I would like that," she replied, smiling, "Thank you."

"Before you train, Ms. Baker, I am obligated to remind you of your to-do list," Friday piped up, "There are still seventeen other lightbulbs to change and one of the toilets on the third floor is backed up."

"Let me guess," she scowled, "Colonel Rhodes had Taco Bell again."

"That is confidential information."

"Well, I'm never going to get to the toilet if I can't figure out how to change these cursed lightbulbs. What's the secret, Friday? What am I doing wrong?" She hated to admit to the snarky AI that she needed help, but she didn't want to be changing bulbs for hours.

"You were turning it the wrong direction."

Jak scoffed, thinking the AI must surely be joking, but Friday did not give any more information. The janitor grabbed the lightbulb, climbed back up the ladder and tried turning the bulb to the left instead of the right. It went in immediately.

"Why the hell doesn't Mr. Stark use righty-tighty lefty-loosey?!" She roared, stomping down the ladder.

"My question is, how can you not have changed one of these lights before in all the time you've worked here?" Steve laughed.

"Something about arc reactor power, I don't know. They last a super long time and now there are seventeen of them all out at once," Jak harrumphed as she packed up her toolbox and the box of replacement bulbs. "Doesn't matter. What matters is that Mr. Stark is a psychopath! Everyone uses righty-tighty lefty-loosey! He's a monster!"

"I'll get started on changing the rest of the bulbs," Steve offered, still laughing at her indignation, "You work on the toilet and then when we're done we'll go train in sparring room three, alright?"

Jak felt a small flutter in her heart. He was offering to help her. Not much, but it would certainly make her day easier.

She normally would have done this sort of maintenance at night, but the highly sophisticated bulbs had little speakers built in that put out an annoying recording of Mr. Stark saying "change, chaaaange your ways, or at least change this lightbulb" over and over again. And the Avengers had not been able to handle that, calling in Jak to take care of the problem.

Now, it would not take her nearly as long to fix the problem and she'd even get to learn a bit of self-defense from Captain America himself. She smiled softly at that as she gathered her plumbing equipment and headed for the third floor. Her smile quickly vanished when she saw the state of the toilet.

A note from the author: Remember how I mentioned this might turn into a love triangle? Well... it might actually be a bit more complicated than that. But for now, let's see how this training with Steve goes, shall we? ;)

Thanks for reading!

See you in the next chapter!