Wakanda

Jane Foster moved her hands over the hologram, rotating the equipment before her and Princess Shuri. After a moment she stopped and they looked at each other with a nod.

"I think... I think that's everything," she said sounding a little dazed as she let her hands fall to her side.

Six months of constant work, sleepless nights, frustrated tears, and numerous setbacks... and they were finally ready.

"Except for one thing... the power source," reminded the Princess and Jane smiled.

"I've got something in mind."

Princess Shuri started to bounce on her toes excitedly, looking for once like the teenager she really was. "Can I do it? I just really want to say it..."

Jane smirked with a nod and Shuri grinned, making a small fist pump before pressing a button on her console.

"Avengers Assemble!"

The Himalayas, Nepal

The door slammed shut behind him, the hinges creaking even after due to the gusts of wind that beat against it. Some snow still swirled around the little room, melting as the flakes made contact with the floor. He dropped one of his bundles on the carpet, the metal containers clanging together as they shifted within. The other, heavier one he carried to the stove, removing each piece of wood from it before using the final two to start the fire anew.

He pushed the metal door to the small furnace closed once all the kindling had caught and started to unwrap the clothes from around his face, pausing only to click on the radio transceiver. The weather had cooperated until the past couple of hours but night was falling. He hoped the expeditions had reached their camp and wouldn't get into any trouble that required his help tonight. His suspicions were confirmed by the idle chatter over the wavelength and he bent to remove his boot when his hand froze at the lace, his ears picking up on a familiar sound in the distance.

Steve let out a gusty sigh and straightened, waiting as the sound got louder, and louder before finally cutting off just on the other side of the door.

"Telegram for one Steven Grant Rogers."

Steve opened the door and the Iron Man held out his palm. "That'll be an nickle."

Steve ignored it, instead stepping back to let him. Once fully inside the structure the metal armor opened, allowing Tony to step out, his black leather Tod's and modern suit looking quite out of place in the rustic hut.

"Coffee?" asked Steve, moving to place the metal carafe on the stove.

Tony shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "I've never been one to turn down a stimulant."

Steve started to prepare the coffee while Tony made a show of walking around the structure that was barely more than the square footage of one of his sport cars.

"I never took you for someone interested in glamping, Cap. I mean, a stove, a radio, and-" he toed the pallet on the floor, "whatever atrocity that is." He looked up. "You call this 'roughing it'?" he asked but there was a softness in his tone that Steve had just started to be able to pick up on. Tony was disturbed by what he saw. When Steve just poured the water instead of responding, Tony moved to be in his eye line to make himself even harder to ignore.

"You really enjoying playing 'Yeti' up here?"

"It's quiet," replied Steve pointedly but without any venom as he handed Tony a mug. He took it and sipped with a grimace.

"That is awful. Is coffee supposed to be chewy? I think it might be stuck in my teeth-"

"Tony," sighed Steve, "It's good to see you, it really is, but why are you here?"

Tony set down his mug, all pretense falling from his face. "Assemble order. Went out yesterday."

Steve's eyes narrowed. "From whom?

He watched with mounting trepidation as Tony seemed to shuffle on his feet... something Tony Stark did not do.

"Tony..."

"Dr. Foster called it."

Steve felt like the wind was knocked out of him. "Foster," he repeated tonelessly. "Why?"

"She has been in Wakanda since the... incident... using the data from her experiments and vibranium technology to try to find Darcy. She thinks she can create a door to the fifth dimension and if she is there, Darcy can find her way out. But it will require a lot of energy and tearing holes into dimensions may lead to some unforeseen complications so they thought it best that we were there."

He set down his mug, not realizing the force he was using and it shattered on the edge of the stove. "Six months? How could she still be alive?"

"If Darcy is there, then she is outside of space and time. She will not have aged, she will not have needed sustenance. She wouldn't even have a form. If she comes back, she should be the same as when she left. Literally, the exact same, physically, at least."

"Why wasn't I told?"

"Foster wasn't sure she could do it or how long it would take. I just found out when the order went out. "

Hope, that dangerous, unreliable thing started to swell within him and he tried to push it down, the frustration and anger of the last half year raging a war with it. He stepped away from Tony to hide the emotions he knew would be rippling across his face.

"What are the odds it will work?" he asked finally when he found he could speak again.

"Don't know. It's the first device of its kind, the amount of energy required to power it will likely damage it, making time between usages long due to need for repair. But, and it pains me to admit this and I'll deny it if anyone ever asks, this technology was developed by the only two people I've met that are smarter than I am, so I'm willing to put my faith in it that it will work and we'll get Lewis back." He stepped into his suit, the metal plates sliding over his body to reform the Iron Man. "So, are you coming? They want to do this as soon as possible."

In response, Steve reached behind the burlap bags that held his supplies and removed his shield, the firelight reflecting off the surface, and slid it over his forearm.

"So, am I just supposed to hold on to your foot the whole way?" he asked, gesturing to the suit.

"As much as that would amuse me, we have alternative travel arrangements," replied Tony. "Friday, let Dr. Strange know we are ready to be beamed up."

A sparkling golden circle expanded in the room and Tony flew through.

Steve hesitated. He was never one for superstitions but this felt like a good omen, seeing the same magic that had first delivered Darcy to him in Wakanda...

Maybe... this time... it would bring him to her.

Jane ran her diagnostics check once again as she worried her thumbnail.

"It'll be okay, Jane," reassured Banner as he tapped her tablet screen with his finger. "The math all works out. "

"I know, I just..."

"We will retrieve Lady Darcy today," said Thor as he clapped his hand over her wrist and gave her a reassuring squeeze. Wanda and Vision smiled at her as they moved back to join Clint and Natasha at the periphery.

"We are ready," said Shuri as she looked up from the medical cart and stretcher she had brought along. They all turned as voices approached the makeshift outdoor lab to see Dr. Strange leading Stark, Sam, Bucky, and ... Jane's stomach lurched, sending her nerves spiraling anew... Steve.

She hated not telling him but of everyone's disappointment, his was the one she did not think she could face. In the final weeks before Thanos, she and Darcy had not had a chance to really talk and though she was uncertain of exactly what Darcy and Steve had meant to one another, her loss seemed to have cleaved the man's already wounded spirit.

"I'm sorry!" she blurted, running up to him. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything."

He smiled a little sadly as way of forgiveness before gesturing to the monstrous collection of wires and metal behind her. "Do you think it will work?"

Jane nodded. "I think we can open a path to the fifth dimension, but the rest will be up to her."

"Can't one of us go in and get her?"

Jane shook her head. "No... I know its difficult to understand exactly what she is and where she is. We don't even have the correct language to explain it, not really. She is not in a formed state right now and nothing that is can enter that dimension. She's... something else entirely right now. I speculated before that she had the ability to move between our dimension and the fifth dimension at will but she's always relied on physical gestures to direct her abilities though there's no reason they would be required." Jane inhaled deeply. "So I think without her body, she's stuck, unable to get past the barrier of losing her physical form."

"And by giving her a door..."

"She can reenter our dimension where she can."

"Okay," he replied, looking uncertain. "Are we ready then?"

Jane nodded. "Yes."

He looked around. "Why are we outside?"

"Oh, that, well, this machine is going to need a massive amount of energy delivered rapidly so I thought Thor would be helpful, but he has a tendency to blast most structures to bits so we've moved out here to minimize the damage overall. We'll be behind one of Shuri's shields at the time but they'll come down as soon as Thor delivers the payload. We don't know what physical state Darcy may return in... she may even be injured from the War so we're set up to transport her immediately for care." Jane gestured to the equipment behind her.

Steve bit his lower lip and looked up at the starry sky. "She would have appreciated a night like this."

"Yeah, she would have."

"Even if this doesn't happen... Thank you, Jane. For not giving up on her."

Jane found she could only nod, her eyes watering and together they moved back to the lab as Thor took his position.

With a last diagnostic check, Jane gave him a thumbs up and Shuri activated the shields.

Steve watched as Thor raised his arm in the air and black clouds instantly formed above them, churning angrily. Sparking ribbons of blue traveled over his body, his eyes giving off an otherworldly glow as thunder rumbled overhead. The hair on his arms raised as Thor swung his extremity down, a great bolt of lightening erupting from the sky and Steve reflexively brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the blinding light.

"It's working!" shouted Jane as she eyed the specs the computer seemed to be spitting out at her in rapid fire and the machine started to whirl, an ominous low groaning sound. His breath caught as he saw it over the extended arm of the machine, the same shimmering undulation, the tell-tale mark of a portal... but this one seemed much more violent, the distortion blurring and smearing the structures behind it like paint being spread over a canvas.

"Jane?" he started to ask but it died on his lips, his jaw falling open as something... something... started to form underneath.

"It's not going to hold much longer!" he faintly heard Shuri shout over the groaning of the machine but his attention was elsewhere, watching as little by little, what had first appeared like dancing wisps of smoke solidified. Steve stepped forward, shrugging off the warning hand of Bucky.

"It's her," said Banner in disbelief as he pushed his glasses further up his nose.

She looked exactly as he remembered her that day, right down to the cut on her cheek that Hela had given her. The one that now dripped fresh blood. Her eyes opened and she took in a gasping breath and Steve knew something was wrong,

He let the shield in his hand drop to the ground as he ran, his arms sliding just under her arms just as she collapsed.

"Darcy?" he asked, one hand moving to position her chin to let her look at him. Her eyes, though open, were glassy and unfocused, and a sheen of sweat was starting to bead on her skin. He glanced down to see her normally crimson lips looking ashen and grey.

"Put her on the stretcher," barked Shuri as she appeared at his side and Steve did as she bid, Dr. Strange already reaching out to check her pulse.

"Weak and thready... and oddly bradycardic," he said meaningfully to Shuri who was typing rapidly on a side panel and he unzipped the sleeve on Darcy's arm, wrapping a tourniquet to insert an IV.

"Hypotensive and hypothermic as well," said the Princess as Darcy's vital signs were projected above them. "She's in shock but it appears to be from her autonomic system not being able to regulate itself."

"Agree," said Strange, "considering what she's been through, that seems far more likely than a spinal cord injury."

Shuri swiped through the display, nodding. "No disruptions in the spine are detected." She swiped again. "No internal injuries. No bleeding. Her heart's systolic and diastolic function are both within normal limits. " Her head turned to Strange. "Fluids, and a chronotrope with primary alpha agonist activity with DBS in the lab?"

"I concur, but atropine for now," he replied sliding the catheter into Darcy's arm. "That should temporize her until we can get her to your facility."

Shuri pulled a vial out the stretcher and passed it to Strange. "Atropine, half a milligram."

Steve just stood at Darcy's head, his fingers brushing against her cheek as her eyes continued to roll.

"Darcy, sweetheart, can you hear me?" He could feel his vision burning with unshed tears as she continued to be unresponsive. "Strange, what's happening?"

"Her autonomic nervous system, the one that controls our unconscious functions like breathing, heart rate, temperature control, is not working properly. We will need to stabilize her." The Doctor looked up at the vitals on display, appearing pleased as the heart rate picked up and Steve focused back to Darcy, releasing a relieved breath to see her actually looking at him.

"I know you," she whispered, her eyes flicking over his face, slightly wide with either wonder or disbelief, he wasn't sure.

It felt like the understatement of the year and Steve let out a choked laugh, letting his forehead fall forward to touch hers.

"Captain Rogers," said Shuri, gently but with urgency. "We have to move. She's going to be alright but she needs further attention that we cannot give out here."

Loathed to do so, he pulled back, letting his lips brush her brow.

"I'll be waiting," he said and stepped back, allowing Strange and Shuri to load her into the waiting transport.

"Come on," he heard Natasha say at his elbow and she jerked her head towards another vehicle not far away. "Our ride's over here."

Jane was already in the back, anxiously twisting her hands in one another. Steve reached out and clasped one, it squeezing gently. Jane let out a shuddered breath and twisted her wrist to hold his hand back. They remained like that for the rest of the ride to the compound and it occurred to Steve that this was the closest he had come to prayer in a great while.

They were the only two allowed back when they reached the medical ward.

"She is stable," said Strange," But it required sedation. We plan to wean the dose over the next few hours and if she tolerates it, we will continue until she wakes."

The Doctor then departed and Steve lifted a chair to one side of the bed for Jane before positioning himself in the other.

"She looks better, I think? Like she's getting some color. That's got to be a good sign, right?" asked Jane, peering at Darcy's immobile face.

"Yeah, I think so."

Jane sat back heavily in her chair. "If someone would have told me three years ago, this is where'd I'd be..." she murmured then scoffed a soft laugh. "If someone would have just told me she'd still be working with me, I'd never believed it." She glanced back up at Steve, smiling. "Did she tell you about the chicken incident?"

Steve blinked, a little startled by the change in conversation topic. "No, not that I recall."

"She had been my intern for about a week and we were out in some desert looking for anomalies," she said with a dismissive wave, "when Darcy comes up with this yellow chick that she just found, in the middle of the desert, no idea where it came from. Well, she won't let us leave it for obvious reasons. She says 'people keep birds as pets all the time. It'll be fine.' Of course, it craps all over the back of the van in five minutes flat and I drop her and the chicken off at her apartment. I go to pick her up for another assignment three days later and she's got this whole set up in her place now: a plastic container with wire over the top, a heat lamp, and now, not one but TWO chicks. 'Darcy,' I ask, "what the hell are you doing?' and she replies 'Did you know chickens need it to be like 90 degrees to survive? Yeah, I didn't either, hence the heat lamp. And apparently they get lonely, so I got it a friend to help it socialize.' She picks up the yellow chick. 'Jane, you already know this guy, whom I have dubbed 'Lucky Fucker' and this is Houdini.' But then she can't find the second chicken and we spend half the morning looking for it until we find it curled up along the back of her refrigerator. " She smiled to herself with the memory. "So needless to say, Lucky Fucker and Houdini were given away to good homes soon after. All I could think was that she was the most ridiculous person I had ever met and there was no way she would last with me. I was such an elitist asshole."

Steve met her self deprecating smile with one of his own. "She does have a way of sneaking up on a person. At first, she seems ordinary except you can't understand half of what she says then all of a sudden, its like a switch has been flipped and-"

"You're trying to figure out how you ever got along without her?" finished Jane knowingly.

"Yeah, pretty much."

They sat in companionable silence, waiting for any sign Darcy would wake until Jane started to nod off, catching herself before she pitched out of her chair.

"You okay there?" asked Steve.

"Yeah," she replied blinking at him through bleary eyes before straightening. "Lots of practice pulling all nighters. I'll be fine."

"You can get some sleep, I'll stay with her."

But Jane waved him off. "No, I can't leave. Not until I know she'll be alright."

Steve was struck by how much Jane and Darcy's friendship reminded him of himself and Bucky... the devotion of these seemingly opposite people. And that devotion had saved the Universe and brought her back.

"I'll go get us some coffee, okay?" he offered.

Jane nodded gratefully as he stood to leave.

Steve balanced the coffees in one hand as he opened Darcy's door... a stopped cold.

She was awake, curled on her side and speaking with Jane.

"So it took your science, Shuri's vibrainium technology, and Thor's lightening to bring me back?"

"And the equivalent of the GDP of a small country, but yeah."

"That's pretty dope."

"And worth every penny," spoke up Steve and both women looked up, Darcy's eyes brightening as they fell on him, at once both the same and different. The blue-green was familiar but now there was a weariness behind them, the mark of a soul far older than its vessel. He recognized it because he saw it every time he looked in the mirror.

Jane stood and snatched her coffee from his hands. "I'm going to go see what I can salvage of my equipment but I'll be back in the morning, okay Darce?"

Darcy smiled. "Yeah, Janey, see you then."

Jane squeezed Steve's forearm as she left and he felt frozen as he stared at Darcy, his mind not really believing what he was seeing. Emotional self preservation made him hesitant to embrace a personal victory, instead expecting it to be snatched away at any moment.

Losing Peggy just to get her back far too late to do anything but say goodbye.

Losing Bucky just to get him back damaged and broken.

Finding meaning with the Avengers only to have it all fall apart.

His inner turmoil must have shown on his face because she extended her hand to him. "Come here. There's something I need to tell you," she said shifting back on the bed.

He set the coffee down and took her hand, allowing her to pull him to sit beside her, the warmth of her seeping through the blankets to his skin.

Her eyes fell to their joined hands, to where he absently rubbed his thumb over the back of hers and her brow furrowed as she began to speak.

"Where I was... it's hard to explain... but I could see everything, every possible future that could happen after the moment I left and all at once. I saw some where I never returned, some where they weren't able to save me and I died-" he reflexively gripped her hand tighter and she smiled. "But in the ones where I lived, you were in almost everyone. I saw all of our possible lives."

Steve swallowed thickly and brought their combined hands up to kiss the back of hers. "Yeah? How do we do?"

"In a few, you leave, in others I do, but in most..." she sniffled and smiled at him, "we do pretty well."

"I'll take those odds," he replied, using his thumb to swipe away the tear that had fallen down her cheek and she let out a shuddered breath, looking at him with that same wonder he'd seen on her face before.

"I'm going to be so in love with you one day. Like ridiculously, stupidly in love."

He leaned over, pressing a soft kiss to her lips, certain that she already had catching up to do in that department.

"That sounds amazing."

Fin.

This has been so much fun and I am overwhelmed by how it has been received. I will likely do an epilogue but it won't be for a while and I won't guarantee it so we'll just say the story is complete for now. My goal was to get this done before IW release and I've made it just under the wire. Please share with others you think would enjoy it. I will be taking a break from Avengers fanfic for a bit but plan to finish my "Last Jedi" and start one for Voltron soon. As always, reviews are the fuel for authors and I've appreciated the time each of you have put into every one