As with the last chapter, I love this one too.

Chapter 220: Spooky Physics & Strawberry Sundaes

SHIELD Hospital, Manhattan - 17:45 PM

She didn't have time to go home and change into something more comfortable, maybe even shower, Angela walked right into the hospital in her work clothes with her badge still clipped onto her blazer's pocket and gun on her hip. It's not an odd sight at the SHIELD Hospital. She would've stuck out like a sore thumb if she wore her jeans and a sweater.

Angela walks into James' hospital room, expecting him to be awake and beaming when he sees her, but he's asleep. Instead, she walks inside and looks at his parents who are still tense but more relaxed now that the surgery is over. Her heart is still racing, though, and she doesn't know if it will return to a normal resting rate anytime soon.

"Oh, Angela, everything went great," Janet tells her, smiling. "We got all his prescriptions and James is fading in and out of sleep. Once he's awake for a while, his doctor will let him go."

Angela nods slowly. "I was just thinking. Should we go to the penthouse? Or is a house easier because I can call my parents and-"

"Angela." Janet takes Angela's hands to get her attention. She looks up at Angela and pats her bicep to calm her. "Just stay at your place. Shorter drive and I don't know if James will be in a positive mindset, especially with the meds. A lot look like depressants."

Hank sighs. "Janet, they're not."

"Mood-tampering, I'm telling you. I don't like Big Pharma."

"Janet."

Angela stands between them before they start arguing over prescriptions. "James will probably say I'm seeing him at his worse, that this is some sign from the universe."

Janet can't help but laugh a little. "You sound just like him."

Hank nods, grinning. "This isn't his worse. You dated him as a stupid teenager and that was way worse. And he was a mess in college but not as bad as in private school. Hell, this is probably the best you'll ever get him."

The three of them look at James still peacefully sleeping; the only sounds are his vitals and his soft breathing. If he wasn't wired up to machines and in a hospital, it would be like he was sleeping in early one morning. On days without classes in the Academy or work when they became agents, Angela always wakes up before him. She'd have a few workouts, eat a meal and snacks, run some errands, and have a shower by the time he woke up just in time for brunch.

They should get brunch once he's well enough.

"So peaceful," Hank says, taking a seat next to James' bed.

"Hank," Janet mockingly scolds.

-o-

James wakes from a dreamless sleep as if he rose from the dead. His head is foggy and he has no clue where he is. He's in a white room and his vision adjusts from its hazy state. He lies there for a while, too out of it to move.

Is he actually awake or is this some weird, out-of-body experience?

"Don't move. You're fine."

James can't say anything. He can barely move. Instead, his father moves into his line of vision in slow motion. His father smiles, rubs his head, and kisses the top of it. Weird.

"It went well, James," his father says. "You got out earlier today. Look, don't think about your powers right away. Stark, Stark-Banner, Banner, Banner again and again - all of us - and I were talking about how things would work with the new kneecap which is why we delayed things earlier-"

His mother becomes visible from the other side of his bed. "Jesus, Hank, you're freaking him out."

"Right. We'll talk about this later. It should be a temporary solution."

"Way later." Her frown turns into a smile when she looks at him. It's calming.

His eyes look towards the door where he sees Emily and Daniel peeking in, not entering until Janet waves them in and they walk slowly. They're tired. Everyone is. Including him.

"I watched the whole thing," Emily says. "My parents are even here. They're staying for Christmas and New Year's."

"Everything went well," Daniel adds with less enthusiasm than Stark. "You should be home by tomorrow at the latest."

"After you get a spiel from your doctor about knee stiffness," Hank says. "It's one of the most common problems that hinders productivity with normal activities."

"Hank," Janet says sternly.

James smiles, exhaling a soft laugh. His parents are being parents. Both his actual parents and his friend group's parents. It's enough to send him back to sleep.

-o-

He's more awake this time.

His parents are still here but with Angela this time. She walks past his parents and stops beside him to sit. He didn't expect to see her in her office clothes. Hell, he forgets the last time she's worn them, but it's a beautiful sight nonetheless.

"Hi…" Angela mutters as his parents give them the room.

"Hey, babe," his throat is scratchy so he coughs a bit to clear it up, "I had such a weird dream at one point."

Angela stares at him for a moment. "Weird … how are you?"

James yawns. "I'm tired. I've missed you."

Angela smiles, biting down on her lips from the inside. She runs a hand through his hair and down his arm, tracing his IV with her fingertip before gently holding his hand. She's touching him and treating him as if he's made of glass.

"You're on edge," James whispers, "I can feel it. If I connected you to the heart rate monitor, you'd break it."

Angela shakes her head. "You're here and I had to fill out all your paperwork for Xavier since he's, like, two years behind on his own files. I also packed your desk with Merida and Sigyn and Xavier and Sigyn will drop it off later. And just everything that brought us here." She takes a shaky breath and straightens her back. "I love you."

"I love you too. We're getting out of here."

"Good," Angela exhales and her shoulders slump as she leans back against her chair. "You'll get all stirred up and crazy in here. Janet made the ants do a good cleaning at our place while I was in the office and I don't want your new knee getting hospital germs."

James shudders. "You sound like my mother."

Angela frowns at him and he laughs.

-o-

James and Angela's Penthouse, Upper East Side - 23:04 PM

James didn't end up getting released until a few days later. Angela brought him home with his parents and they helped him settle for a few hours before letting them be for the night. The ants did such a good job of tidying that it was like Apollo nearly destroying the place a few days prior never happened. Angela tried focusing on that more so that Janet was, well, antsy towards her about everything. She understands the whole notion of the protective mother. Angela's eavesdropped on her own mother giving Sigyn a few words over the years and more so recently after the wedding, but Janet was acting as if she and James were dating for a week and not nearly a decade.

Angela knows when James should have his meds. She knows how to help him around the house. She knows everyone's phone numbers. She knows what to do in case of every possible scenario where something could go wrong.

She knows.

But then it was just her and James in the apartment and she knew nothing.

James was lying on his side of the bed on his phone. All his medications and instructions for them litter his bedside table with a few glasses of water. She was standing at her dresser and rummaging through the drawers.

"What are you doing?" James asks.

"I'm setting up in the guest room," Angela responds, pulling out some fresh pyjamas.

"What? Why?"

"Because you're recovering and you need the space."

James scoffs. "Don't be ridiculous. You're staying with me. What if I fall out of bed?"

"Scoot over to the middle."

"No," James whines, "I slept alone in that hospital bed for a year-"

Angela turns around to face him. "It was a few days."

"A year." He pauses to grin at her. "And I miss you."

Angela nods as she heads to the bathroom. She stands there for a moment as empty thoughts run through her mind. She fiddles with the clothes in her arms before snapping out of her odd trance and into autopilot. She throws her fresh pyjamas on the counter and takes off her work clothes. She throws them on the floor and quickly showers, hair included to take up more time. If James is asleep by the time she gets out, then she'll just sleep in the guest room or even on the couch. Besides, her hair somehow reeks of the hospital and she wants to scrub every last bit of it out.

Once she's out of the shower, she towel dries her hair and ties it up into a bun above her head. Strands fall out as she lotions herself and puts on her pyjamas, wiping the steam from the mirror. An old and oversized Academy t-shirt with loose shorts that don't match. As she brushes her teeth and washes her face, guilt pangs in her chest whenever she makes eye contact with herself in the mirror. She knows what she's doing and there are so many things she wants to do and say but can't.

She walks out of her room and James is still awake, reading over one of the instruction sheets for his prescriptions. She imagines that he got bored on his phone and decided to skim those instead. She knows that he waited for her. Why couldn't he be going in and out of sleep like in the hospital? Why is she like this? She doesn't deserve him.

James hasn't scooted to the middle of the bed but pats the spot next to him for her. Angela dumps her work clothes on the floor beside her dresser and slides into bed gently. He eyes her when he sees that she's left enough space between them for another person.

"My sleep is all weird now cause of the meds and because I've been asleep here and there for a while," James says. "One of them encourages insomnia or whatever." He looks at her again and she's playing with the ends of one of the strands that's fallen out of her bun. "Angela, what's wrong? You're acting like when we first started sleeping together and we were in a tiny dorm bed at the Academy. Hell, you were probably in that shirt."

"I've just been on edge during this whole thing," Angela mutters. "A lot happened and it's not even directly to me but it's overwhelming and I think that's because I can't do anything about it-"

"I know and I'm sorry," James says, cutting her off since she started talking faster and he knows that she's about to start crying. "Look, we'll get through this but you need to take it easy on yourself. We've only been home a few hours."

"You're the one who got his whole kneecap replaced. You were in pain about it for basically a year."

"Yeah, well, I was asleep during it. You were awake thinking about it."

Angela says nothing. He isn't wrong. He was either asleep or on some drug cocktail. His mind was elsewhere and thinking of where she was. James pulls her closer and she scoots over. He hugs her for the first time since they left the hospital and he kisses the side of her head.

"Why are you comforting me?" Angela asks, wiping her eyes in case any tears came out.

"Cause you need it," he responds.

"Yeah, well, you need sleep."

Angela goes back on her side to turn off her light but she just lies there. Her back is to him and she doesn't hear him move. She fiddles with her thumb, unable to drift to sleep. If only she could revert to autopilot and close her eyes but she can't.

"Do you want it?" James asks.

"Want what?" Angela wonders.

"The ring."

Her heart stops. Angela looks at her bare left hand. If that night went any different, she would have one on that ring finger. She can't even imagine a ring there cause she doesn't know what it looks like. But now that she knows she could've had the ring she's wanted for so long there, the spot where it would be sitting feels empty. It itches and she scratches it with her thumb. Life would've been easier if she just didn't know she would've gotten a proposal.

But now she knows it exists.

"I'm taking that as my answer," James mumbles.

"To what?" Angela turns around to face him. "I know you're not talking about giving me the ring."

"Are we engaged?"

Angela stares at him. Oh, to go back to when he came back from Florida and they joked about proposing. Just a few days ago, he called her his fiancée when he was distressed. And now there's an engagement ring somewhere in this room and she's acting like when they were first dating.

"I don't know what we are," Angela admits, turning back around. "It's confusing."

-o-

Angela dozed off at some point in the night and James tried to, but he couldn't sleep. He wasn't lying when he told her his sleep schedule was off. He slept more in the past few days than in all of the Academy. So now he's here, lying in the dark with his newly fixed knee resting on a pillow, and staring at the ceiling. Like Angela, he's confused too about what they are. Maybe it was the fainting and the medication combined with extreme excitement with planning a proposal that he thought they were already engaged when he first awoke in the hospital. Hell, if nobody told him otherwise, he would've thought they were engaged this whole time.

And her not saying yes to anything in their conversation prior isn't comforting whatsoever, but he understands. It's been a weird and stressful few days and he was lucky to have been doped up on who knows what to get through it all.

Times were so much easier when he was building that Quantum Teleport that ended up being his doctoral dissertation. Who would've thought his thesis would come together eight years later after needing to go to space and run wild in Florida?

James looks over at Angela and puts his hand on her waist. He wasn't sure if she felt it since she didn't flinch. Maybe she was in that much of a slumber, but he feels her take it and she turns around to face him. Now he isn't sure if she was asleep this whole time or just lying there with her thoughts.

"Why are you still awake?" Angela asks.

"I had to take something about 30 minutes ago and I've been thinking," James responds.

"About what? Please don't say the ring or the proposal."

"Okay, so quantum entanglement states that particles in the universe are finite," James starts. "So I was thinking about the teleport. It brings one subset of particles from one location to another. But what if something prevents them from bringing it back?"

Angela doesn't say anything. He looks at her and tries his best to see her face in the dark.

"You're asleep," he states.

"I'm thinking," Angela responds. "Didn't you say something about particles always finding their way back to each other? The point of a teleport is that it has the potential to go back to where you started, isn't it? So it works."

"Exactly, but say something happens. Like when I first used the prototype of the teleport and took us to space. I didn't think it would work."

"None of us did."

James laughs a bit. "Love you for your support, babe. Anyways, what if the teleport had a constant power source? Sort of like a battery that won't run out. Renewable energy that's self-sustaining."

"Like what?"

James lights up a fist, bright yellow sparks filling the room. He looks over at Angela and catches glimpses of her face in the light. There are streaks on her cheeks where tears fell and he kisses his other hand before wiping them away.

Angela smiles a little. "Spooky physics."

"I don't know if I should even be using my powers, but oh well." He lowers his hand and they're in the dark again. "The point is that I love you. I love you a lot, you know that, but now I think the universe is against us and you probably don't want to marry me anymore since you didn't even bring up the planned proposal and-"

"Wait." She sits up in bed. "Did you take some meds or something?"

"What? I mean, yeah."

"Do you need some more?"

James groans cause he knows where she's going with this. "Angela."

"Go back to talking about Spooky Physics because that is bull. Go to sleep, James, I'm not having this conversation with you now." She leans in closer to him and her face, from what he could see, isn't mad but sombre. "I said the same thing to your mother earlier, about the universe being against us. She said I sounded like you. I think it's a sign that we'll be alright. I tried my best to read your thesis even with Stark-Banner and Iqadi explaining it to me. Particles or whatever are being separated by forces or something but always go back to where they start. We're back where we belong, together. That's Spooky physics."

"You- you read my thesis?"

"Start to finish. I didn't get much of it, though, so no pop quizzes."

Angela kisses him on the cheek before going back to sleep. Instead of going back to her side, she lies down in the middle and faces him, wrapping an arm around him. James blinks back tears as he looks at her, mouthing marry me before closing his eyes in an attempt to go to sleep.

-o-

Angela stayed home this morning. As if she was planning to go anywhere. She showered when she woke up and walked over to the kitchen to start making some breakfast. However, a set of strawberry sundae hydrangeas sitting on the kitchen island catches her eye, especially since there's a card with her name on it. If anything, she would've thought they'd be for James. She isn't sure when it got here or who brought it in, but when she tosses a whisk at it and it doesn't explode, she assumes they're safe.

Angela opens the card and sees that James bought them for her. She smiles, looking at the ombre bouquet of pinks and whites.

She picks up the vase and walks back to her room where she sees James now awake and in the middle of taking his morning medications. He beams as he watches her put them on one of their bedside vanity sets.

"Thank you for these," Angela says.

"Look, Angela, I'm sorry," James tells her. "Again. I just, I had plans and this clusterfuck of a knee happened. And I think all my meds are depressants so I've just been stuck with my thoughts a lot."

"James. It was a lot. A very hectic basically week. For the record, it was a really good plan."

"Thank you."

"Now you just have to plan a better one."

"Woman!"

Angela laughs as she walks over and holds his face before kissing him. She parts for a second just to kiss him again, both their lips grinning against each other.

"Go back to sleep," she tells him, still holding him. "I know you didn't get much last night. I'll be making pancakes. Every kind I can. And then maybe pick up some things for the holidays while we're at it. We're gonna be fine. We'll be back where we belong. Spooky physics."

"I love you," James tells her, kissing her again.

"And for the record, if that night went according to plan, I would've said yes."

James laughs. "That's all I needed to hear."

"Besides, now you have a new knee to get down on one day."

"Hey, I tried to propose and ended up in the ER. It's your turn."

Angela nods. "I know I said I was confused last night but I will tell you this; whatever we are, we're definitely getting married one day. My love for you is our constant power source."

Don't worry, everyone. This is the last chapter for the weekly updates at the moment, but SHIELD Academy will be returning on Wednesdays!