Kate tears her eyes away from the scan as the name hits her — a name said a number of times in this lab as a wonderful hypothetical, a theory developed as they worked on other things. "I thought Ultron was a fantasy."

"Yesterday it was," Tony replies. "But if we can harness this power, apply it to my Iron Legion protocol...?"

Bruce shakes his head. "That's a mad-sized if."

"Our job is 'if.' What if you were sipping margaritas on a sun-drenched beach turning brown instead of green? Not looking over your shoulder for VERONICA?"

"Don't hate, I helped design VERONICA."

"As a worst case measure, right? How about a best case? What if the world was safe? What if next time aliens roll up to the club — and they will — they couldn't get past the bouncer?"

The idea seems so big, but the more she thinks, the more it gets smaller — more possible. "The only people threatening the planet would be... people. Like it used to be, before all this alien crap."

"I want to apply this to the Ultron program. But JARVIS can't download a data schematic this dense. We can only do it while we have the scepter here. That's three days — give me three days."

"So... you're going for artificial intelligence and you don't want to tell the team," Bruce says, grinding Kate's thoughts to a halt. What would everybody else say? Steve especially?

"Right," Tony replies. "That's right. You know why? Because we don't have time for a city hall debate. I don't want to hear the 'man was not meant to meddle' medley."

Kate sighs. "I mean, I could give you the medley right now. We weren't meant to meddle." She wonders what her dad would say, if he knew. Maybe it's meddling, but if it could save lives...

"Then we're not meddling. We're protecting," Tony corrects. "I see a suit of armor around the world."

"It sounds like a cold world, Tony," Bruce replies. Kate shakes her head; she'd still be a threat. So, not very cold.

"I've seen colder. This one, this very vulnerable blue one? It needs Ultron. Peace in our time. Imagine that." He turns to Kate. "Come on. Don't you wanna help save the world, before it's even in danger? Banner?"

If she can help save lives, somehow make Ultron a reality — if she can do some good...

Isn't any risk worth it?

~_~_~_~_~

They work tirelessly for three days. Numbers and words start blurring together as Kate taps on screens, refers to JARVIS's notes, and gets little sleep while drinking a lot of coffee. The night before the party, though, Tony forces both her and Bruce to get some decent rest. They come back to the lab, refreshed as they try once more to fix things and work out the kinks. But something just isn't working.

A knock sounds on the glass door, but Nat enters without waiting for a, 'Come in.' "I'm sure whatever you're doing is incredibly interesting, Kate, but you're going to this party, and you're not wearing a lab coat."

Kate groans. "Do I have to?"

"All yours friends will be here."

"Must be a small party."

Nat rolls her eyes. "Come on. I'll help you get ready."

"Yeah, fine. Just give me five more minutes."

"If you're not upstairs in five minutes, I'm coming back down and dragging you," Nat replies, only then leaving.

Tony sighs, looking at the clock. "Well... it is revel time. Go get dressed. We should take our mind off this stuff for a while."

"You mean forever?" Bruce replies. Kate just shakes her head. Of course it would fail, when she was hoping so badly for it to work. For this one good thing to be in her column.

She knows Nat wasn't kidding, so she walks out of the lab to subject herself to picking out a dress from the few she owns or — more likely — wearing one of Nat's. What she doesn't bargain for is Nat insisting to french braid her hair, and Kate eventually gives in, just grateful it isn't something much more elaborate and therefore worse. Then, with Nat's jewelry on, she turns to helping out her friend.

~_~_~_~_~

The music is entirely too loud, there's far too many people here, and the braid resting on Kate's shoulder is starting to get on her nerves. Nat disappeared a while ago after Kate insisted she go have fun, assuring her she was fine. Tony was nearby, so she's now with him, Thor, Hill, and Tony's friend Rhodey, way too close to the bar for comfort.

Rhodey pours himself a drink mid-story. "Well, you know, the suit can take the weight, right? So I take the tank, fly it right up to the General's palace, drop it at his feet. I'm like, 'Boom! You looking for this?'" He stops, while Kate and the others wait for more. "'Boom! Are you looking-' Why do I even talk to you guys? Everywhere else, that story kills."

"That's the whole story?" Thor asks.

"Yeah, it's a War Machine story."

Thor laughs. "Well, it's very good then. It's impressive."

"Quality save." Rhodey turns to Tony. "So, no Pepper? She's not coming?"

Tony shakes his head. "No."

"Hey, what about Jane?" Kate asks. They haven't talked in ages.

"Where are the ladies, gentlemen?" Hill agrees.

Tony shrugs. "Well, Miss Potts has a company to run."

"Yes, I'm not even sure what country Jane's in," Thor adds. "Her work on the convergence has made her the world's foremost astronomer."

"And the company that Pepper runs is the largest tech conglomerate on earth. It's pretty exciting."

"There's even talk of Jane getting a, um... Nobel prize."

"Yeah, they must be busy because they'd hate missing you guys get together." Hill fake coughs, saying, "Testosterone! Oh, excuse me."

"Want a lozenge?" Rhodey asks.

"Mhmm."

"Let's go."

They walk off, and Thor turns to Tony. "But Jane's better."

Kate rolls her eyes before Tony can respond. "Don't pit the women against each other. They're both great." She walks off quickly to avoid further argument, then scans the crowd for someone she knows well enough to be around. Steve and Sam are walking through the alcove behind the bar, so she heads over, catching them mid-conversation.

"Sounds like heck of a fight; sorry I missed it," Sam says as they walk up the stairs to the hall overlooking the main floor.

Steve nods. "If I had known it was going to be a firefight I absolutely would have called you."

"No, I'm not actually sorry. I'm just trying to sound tough. I'm very happy chasing cold leads on our missing persons case."

"You haven't given me many updates," Kate jumps in, finally catching up. She sighs. "I hate being busy."

Sam smiles. "Hey, Flame. It's been a while."

"Sure has," she replies pointedly.

He chuckles. "I'm a bit stuck right now, but I'm getting there. By myself, it's not so easy, but avenging is your world, anyway. And your world is crazy."

Steve gestures around the tower of luxury. "Be it ever so humble."

"You find a place in Brooklyn yet?"

"I don't think I can afford a place in Brooklyn."

"Well, home is home, you know?" Sam turns to Kate. "You aren't looking, are you?"

She shakes her head. "I've got a lab here — and like you said, home is home. Tony's got the room, I'm good to stay where I'm at."

"It's a nice place."

"And I don't even pay the bills. Not that avenging really gives you a regular paycheck or anything. I might start teaching classes again — online or something. That's probably an option."

"Captain Rogers!" Thor shouts from below, waving him over.

Steve chuckles, then leans towards Kate. "You're good, right?"

She furrows her brows, confused as to why he would ask. "Yeah, I'm fine." But as soon as she's alone with Sam, she's realizes why he was asking.

[Warning: Kate experiences intense anxiety in this section.]

There's this silence that grows uncomfortably, and Kate's not sure how to break it. Instead, Sam does. "So... beyond all the avenging, what's life been like?"

"Oh, you know... working in the lab."

"On what?" he turns to her, leaning forward a bit. He's making conversation, but there's this... air about him. It forms a knot in Kate's chest.

She swallows, trying to banter. "Top secret."

"Ah, okay," he laughs, leaning back and nodding. "I see how it is." She chuckles along, but does he? He can't see. It's not like anybody else would've told him. He's no Sherlock Holmes, either, even if he is skilled. The laughter subsides, and the knot gets tighter, especially when he takes a breath. "Listen, uh... can I get you a drink?" He nods down to the bar, a certain look in his eye.

Kate can't meet it. "I don't drink. Me and alcohol-" she gestures a bit with her hands "-we don't... mix."

"Ah, right... Water, then?"

She manages to look up at him, and there's a hope mixed in with the flirting, a bit of anxiety tucked behind his casual lean against the railing. Not the anxiety she's experiencing, not that tightness. A quiet worry, but not one that stops him from trying. She almost wishes it would have.

But this is Sam. Maybe she hasn't known him as long as everybody else, but she knows him enough. Just not well enough to not step into this territory. And if it wasn't so strange, if it didn't hurt so much, how quick would she be to say yes? Nat and Steve weren't exactly wrong in some of the things they said — not even Hill was entirely off the mark. He's attractive, he's nice, he's good at talking to her. He likes her. In a perfect world, she could see this working out.

What if this is good for her and she misses it?

"Kate?" Sam asks, his worry increasing.

"Um- yes, okay, sure," she stumbles out. "Water, that... that works."

He eyes her carefully until she manages a smile. "Okay. Water. Why don't you, uh, find us a place to sit, and I'll go get the drinks?"

She nods. "Yeah, sure."

"You don't mind if I drink, do you?"

"I-I mean, it's... flammable, so if something happens-"

"Right, got it." He walks off, leaving Kate to catch her breath. She wipes her palms on her dress, taking a moment, her mind drifting. She hasn't been on a first date in seven years.

~_~_~_~_~

It was almost strange how different normal clothes made him look, but, then again, Kate had only seen him in his gear until that night. In any case, he had only seen her in her lab get up, and the feeling must've been mutual; when he saw her approaching the table, he looked pleasantly surprised. "Hi," he said.

"Hi," Kate replied, sitting down across from him.

He seemed to be at a loss for words. "You... You look... stunning."

She'd braided her hair, which rested on her shoulder over her dark blue dress. Her shoes, while they were rather short heels, matched it all well. She'd put on some makeup, too, though she normally didn't wear it, her job being what it was. Goggles tend to ruin foundation.

She blushed at his compliment and replied, "Thank you. You clean up nice yourself."

The suit he had on was just right for the occasion — and the restaurant — and his dark brown hair, which was usually under a helmet, was pushed back expertly. His eyes shone in the dimness of the room, especially with all the mirth in them. "Thank you; that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

They both laughed, and then Kate looked down at her menu. She barely had time to figure out what she wanted to drink before the waiter came by. He offered them a taste of the white wine from the bottle in his hands, and Ryan declined for himself, then looked at Kate. She shook her head. "None for me, thank you." Instead, they both ordered nonalcoholic drinks, and the waiter left to get them.

"I hate white wine," Ryan said as he perused his menu. "Red wine is so much better."

Kate grimaced. "I hate all wine."

He looked up at her and laughed. "Really? I'm glad I didn't ask for red, then."

"They're both absolutely horrible."

"You just haven't tried the right ones."

"And I never will," she declared. "No amount of juice or whatever else you add to it will make any wine taste better."

He went to respond, but the waiter was back by then, and they ordered without quite knowing what they were getting as they hadn't been reading much of the menu. When the waiter left, Ryan continued. "Anyway, it's probably for the best — that you don't drink wine, I mean. I can almost picture you trying to while working in your lab, and that would be an absolute disaster."

"Even if I did like wine, I wouldn't be drinking it in the lab; that's kinda one of the biggest lab safety rules there is. If anything, now I think you being in a lab might be a disaster. Maybe you need to take my Chem 101 class."

He chuckled, covered for himself. "That was a test, actually, but I see you can't be tripped up."

"Not on lab safety; I told you I knew it by heart." She sighed, and the flame lighting the candle between them wavered. "Fire, it seems, is my only problem. And, anyway, there's not a lot of rules and regulations when you're heading into largely uncharted waters."

His brows rose slightly as he picked up his glass. "Uncharted waters?"

"I mean to discover something," Kate said, sitting up unconsciously as she talked. Her eyes lit up in ideas. "I want to invent something entirely new — something that could help people somehow. I want to make a difference, you know? A big one. I want to discover something, do something that changes the whole world. And, you know, winning a Nobel prize in the process would be nice, too."

Ryan laughed, then said, "I think you'll do all of that."

Kate managed to smile wider at his sincerity. There were too many people in her life that told her she couldn't do things. Her dad taught her from a young age to ignore them. Her teacher told her she wouldn't be able to find Amelia Earhart. Another person said she'd never find Bucky Barnes. She hadn't done either of those things yet, but she wasn't dead. She still had time.

A kid on the playground in fourth grade said she couldn't get across the monkey bars in under a minute. Her high school counselor said she wouldn't be able to keep up with all her AP and college classes, and her first college advisor said she wouldn't be able to get her PhD in the timeframe she'd planned on. So, she got a new advisor. And she did it.

But Ryan already believed she could. "You'll do all that even before you're thirty probably — if you don't burn your lab down in the process. If that happens, then I call thirty five, tops."

Kate waved him off, unable to stop smiling. "Oh, I think the lab will be okay. But I'll put you on speed dial, just in case."

"I'm surprised I'm not already there."

"Usually you have to work for things like that."

"I should've known," he said. "Maybe I'll bring flowers on the second date..."

Kate raised a brow. "What told you there would be a second date?"

"The smile on your face right now," he replied simply.

Kate blushed and mumbled, "Touché," causing him to laugh again, and she started to think that it was one of the best sounds she'd ever heard.

"So what else don't you like?" he asked. "You know, for future reference."

Kate thought a moment. "Blueberries."

He laughed again. "I'll make a note of it."