Click.

I took my glasses off and rubbed my eyes for a minute. Sitting at the computer screen for over an hour was killing my eyesight. I hadn't been on a computer in months, so my eyes became sensitive to it. I sighed tiredly. I couldn't find anything on what I was looking for. No news on what was happening at the White House. No news on Loki. Just random threats around the country. Riots, murders, gang wars. The usual. It was hard to think that such terrible things could even be the usual. My heart ached at the thought of it. And to make it worse, there were even more horrible things out there. Human trafficking. Bombings. War. I hated it. Hated it all. All these news articles just made me dread going back to the normal life; the life where I looked for jobs to do and help people in need. So much to do. So little time. I couldn't save everyone.

I put my black framed glasses back on and resumed my pursuit. I cleared the search bar and typed in Recent crimes in New York. Numerous files came up. The same news headers about the Avengers being terrorists, vigilantes with a good cause, psychopaths who think they can fix the world, and more flashed on the screen. I rolled my eyes. This had nothing to do with New York. I guess since our headquarters is in New York, they decided to post the headlines. I scrolled down further and found interesting stuff. The Black Mask Bombs Russian Buildings, and a later article with the headline Daredevil Collars Fisk. I raised an eyebrow. Hell's Kitchen...huh. I thought.

"What are you looking at?"

I jumped at the sound of Steve's voice behind me. I turned around and pushed his chest playfully, but he didn't move an inch. "You scared me! Are you trying to give me a heart attack? I mean, out of the two of us, I thought you would be the first to have one."

"That wasn't my intention," he chuckled and sat down on the bed. "Way to go for adding that age joke in there, except it really wasn't funny."

I shrugged and closed the tabs on the computer before signing off. "I always have to try." My feet tapped on the ground and twirled the chair around to face him. We've only been here for a few days and now he's hanging out in my room? Something must have been bothering him. "What's up?"

"Our wanted level. That's what's up." Steve ran his hand through his hair repeatedly. His eyes ran around the walls and the floor before locking onto me. His lip twitched to say something, but he stopped and knit his eyebrows together.

"Steve?" Worry began to flow through my system. Does he know something I don't? I shifted in my seat and tilted my head a bit. "What's on your mind?"

He rubbed his chin slowly in thought. "I've been trying to think about a plan to keep everyone safe. Where do we go after this? What do we do? Can the American government get us from here? Will the Canadians turn us in? Do we even have a place to go? We have some of Stark's money from his vault, but how far can we really get before getting caught? How..."

I stopped him and put one hand on his knee. "Steve. One thing at a time. Don't overload yourself with so many questions. The government shouldn't be able to get us from here, but the Canadians can surely turn us in if they wanted to. The plan is to have each others' backs. And for the next place we go..." I trailed off.

"We have nothing." He scoffed and looked at the ground. "No where to go. No where to turn. All of our homes have been made public, or at least known to the government. If we go there, they'll catch us again. I asked the rest of the group. No one else has an unknown safe house."

A light bulb lit up inside of my head and I quickly added, "My professor has a safe house up here in Canada. We could go there if we need to."

Steve scrunched his eyebrows together in concern. He slightly cocked his head to the left and questioned, "Isn't that putting them in danger?"

"When aren't they in danger?" I scoffed.

He tried to move around on the bed and winced from the pain that shot up his side. I got up to help him and put my hands out, but he waved me off and shook his head. "No, I'm fine," he grunted while adjusting himself. He noticed me back off as he leaned against the headboard of the bed. His blue eyes locked onto my hazel ones and he apologized, "I'm sorry. I'm just...not used to the help."

I put my hands in the air in defense. "It's fine. I understand." I sat down close to him and kept an eye on him to make sure he wouldn't open his wounds. He probably wasn't used to the help because his parents weren't there a lot for him. His dad died in the first world war and his mother was a nurse. He must've done a lot of things on his own while Bucky wasn't around.

Steve saw the worry in my eyes and I quickly glanced away. He noticed I became a little too quiet and saw me picking at the skin on my fingers, a tell sign that I was nervous. "What's wrong?"

I looked away from him and down at my hands. I scrunched my eyebrows together for a second and sighed. "Since the..." I couldn't even muster up the courage to say it. Bomb. Explosion. Fight. "...what happened, I've been thinking. We let all of those people down. We retreated. That's not what superheroes do, but it was the only thing we could do. That fact has been haunting me for a while now. I feel powerless. I can't help everyone. Not even you, and you're one of the people I want to assist the most."

We knew who we were dealing with, so we were the best hope and fighters for this battle. Steve knew that all too well. He hung his head and ashamedly stated, "I know."

"It's the sad truth. We can't save everyone." A lump got caught in my throat and I nearly choked on the next few words. "But what if I can't save you guys? What if one day I screw up so bad and it gets one or more of you killed? What i-"

Steve set his hand on mine and stopped me before I could say anything else, "Don't even think about that. It's nothing to fret over right now."

"Steve," I began and exhaled, "sooner or later, I'm going to have to face it. That incident made me realize you guys are mortal. I'm not. I'm going to outlive you. Then what? Be stuck with Logan and Wade Wilson for all eternity? Talk about a death sentence." I almost laughed at that. Almost. "They have their moments, but...Logan and I can barely stand Wade sometimes. But, we love him, so we have to. We can only kill Wade so many times before he starts getting pissed off and makes it boring..." I trailed off and ran my finger over the top of his hand in swirls. It hurt me to think of such a sad thing. "I don't want to be subjected to that. I'm afraid of losing everything."

Steve squeezed my hand and his eyes flickered back to me. His chest heaved for a second to get air and withstand the slight pain from his wounds. "Don't think about that now. Okay? We just escaped prison. We're all alive and well for now. We're together..."

I looked into Steve's eyes and nodded. "Yeah. I gotta put my head back in the present...I get too carried away at times when it comes to the future."

"I don't blame you. I used to think of 'what ifs' for the past. Been there. Done that." He glanced down at our hands and lifted one corner of his mouth. He rested his free hand on his stomach, covering the wounds that were healing faster each day. The super soldier serum helped in regeneration of the cells and made them faster than the average human's. In situations like this, it was a blessing.

He changed the conversation to get my mind off of the future. He turned his attention toward the window and spoke softly, "For the longest time, I've been part of this team as a soldier. A leader. We took care of bad guys and cleared missions Fury gave us before he stepped down. I tried finding a place where I belonged. Didn't work out. So, I stayed with the team. And out of all the things I knew I'd get out of by staying..." His eyes flickered back to me and a small smirk played on his lips. "I didn't expect you."

I wanted to say that was sweet or something along those lines, but I couldn't get the words passed my throat. Instead, I said something completely different subconsciously, "Well. Things do change. People come and go."

Steve furrowed his eyebrows and his face paled a tad bit. His jaw muscle flexed as he clenched his teeth together. His blue eyes searched mine, looking for something, anything to make sense of what was said. "You want to go?"

"No...that's not what I meant. I don't want to go." I paused and contemplated on what I had said thirty seconds ago. People come and go? What is that supposed to mean? Get it together, girl. "I mean...God." I shook my head slowly and exhaled. The feeling of loss swept over me. If I were to leave, I'd be leaving a huge chunk of my life behind. "Where would I go? Back to the school? Back to winging it on my own? No. I can't. It's just..." Searching for the words took a few more seconds, but I wanted to be sure I was putting this in the right way. "It's just not that simple. I can't give up what makes me happy."

"The team?" He questioned and relaxed his face.

I nodded and added, "And being around for my cousin. Also, I never thought in a million years that we'd get along so well." A small smile formed on my lips. It felt weird and foreign to be smiling. Sure, I smiled the other day after we got settled in at Tony's house, but still. It felt...off somehow. Like our pain and suffering wasn't over just yet.

Steve cringed at the thought of how he used to shoot rude remarks at me earlier in the year. "Yeah. It's still like that sometimes."

"Well, what do you expect? We love bickering and testing each other." I pointed out.

Saying that put a grin on Steve's face. His blue eyes sparkled for a split second like a flash of lightning, quick and beautiful in its own way. I missed the light in his eyes. I missed the hope in the group's eyes. If I could turn back time and rewrite history, I would. Save those lives and everything would be okay. Right now, everything was not okay. "Yeah. Keeps me on my toes," he added and trailed off.

I rested my head on his broad shoulder. He tensed up for a second and then relaxed. Steve's eyes focused on me, waiting for me to say something. I spoke what was on my mind at the moment in almost a whisper, "Do you think everything will go back to normal?"

Steve thought it over and tore his attention off of me. His eyes caught sight of the painting of the forest and fireworks above it. The trees lit up against the darkness, showing the bristles and leaves. The rest of the forest was dark and cold. Dashes of colors mixed at the top of the painting, depicting beautiful fireworks below the stars. "If we're lucky, we'll get close to normal. I don't think everything will return the way it was. Ever."

My fingers linked together and twisted. Flashes of past thoughts ran through my mind and I cringed. "I'm just...nervous. I can feel something bad is about to happen."

"How do you know?"

"Gut instinct," I replied softly. Gut instincts usually came true. That's what I was worried about. If anything was going to happen, I'd want to know about it. I hate random surprises.

"Don't be nervous. Whatever happens, I'm with you til the end of the line." Steve took one of my hands and kissed the top of it. That was cute. Definitely not something you see everyday. Steve Rogers was...something else. I wanted to say something back in response to that, but anything I said would have sounded corny.

Something popped into my mind and I called out, "Jarvis?"

"Yes, Ms. Parker?" Jarvis' voice crackled over the room's speaker system.

I bit my lip as my brain ran through all of the articles I read earlier. "Can you please check the news to see if any weird phenomena has been going on or if any villains are running amok? I didn't find any in my search, but you are probably more thorough."

"Since you asked nicely, I will right away," he responded and left on his search.

"What is this about?" Steve questioned and raised an eyebrow.

I remembered back to when we broke out of jail. "There weren't a lot of agents at the facility. The government should've known we'd try to escape and go searching for Loki or someone else. Something must've happened that may have caused the government to pull some agents and order them to protect the President or the Pentagon. They're more important than us in bad situations." I paused and looked for the right words to say. "They did a terrible job watching us anyway."

Steve nodded in agreement. The idea seemed pretty practical in a situation like this. "Do you think Loki's alive? He was in the center of the blast."

"Well, if Thor survived, Loki must've been pulled out with him." I tapped my foot against the floor for a second in thought and tried to make sense of it. Thor uses Mjonir to fly, so they could have gotten out of the blast in seconds. He's as fast as lightning. Right? It's the only thing that made sense to me. "And with Loki still out there..."

Steve cut me off, "He could come back and finish what he started."

That was the worst part. Loki could come back anywhere, anytime, with a new set of big baddies to back him up. He could have total control of the government or have his scepter back. Loki might as well call us out on our failures now before they even begin. He was lining something good up. Something mischievous. I could feel it.

Jarvis' voice flowed from the speakers, "Nothing has shown up yet, but I'll keep running the scan."

"Thank you, Jarvis," I waved to the camera and smiled softly. I knew Jarvis was watching, and it always made him feel more human if he encountered actual interactions. Over the years, he's developed some of Tony's sass. Pair that up with Jarvis' intelligence, and you have a tiny replica of Tony Stark in control of everything we owned. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I loved being in Jarvis' company.

"It's not a problem, Ms. Parker."

AN: I hope everyone is enjoying their week. Question: Who's your favorite superhero? I think it'd be interesting to hear from my readers :D Thanks for reading and voting!