Johnny paced the hall outside the room where Liv was temporarily staying at Maple Grove Manor, until she was well enough to return home. It was the first day with the healers, and though he had no reason to think anything would go wrong, he was nervous. How could he not be nervous when Liv's life hung in the balance" Even though everyone had assured him she was stable enough to be moved, he couldn't help but worry. He'd relax when she finally opened her eyes and smiled at him for the first time.

Arranging the transfer had been surprisingly easy, though with so many people involved on both sides of the portal, it was hard to see how it could have been allowed to become complicated. The children were back in school, reassured that they would be able to talk to their mother normally when they came home that evening, and Bess was in the care of Piper and Des Granger for the time being. The animals were Matt Foster's responsibility, since Fliss was back at work. Vicki and Jon had been checking on Johnny periodically since the healers had taken Liv's care over, but there was little anyone could do but wait. Then, finally, the door opened, and Rebecca came out, Shipwright close behind her.

"The worst of the damage is healed," she told Johnny confidently. "I'll be back in a couple of days for another session, but for now, she needs to stay in that bed, no matter what she says. There's still a lot of muscle and soft tissue damage that needs to be healed when she has the strength for it." She smiled at him. "But she's awake, and she's asking for you."

"She's awake?" Johnny echoed, eyes wide at the news, as he turned on a heel to face the healer. "Oh, thank the Gods - every single one of them! And thank you, too!" he said, reaching for the healer's hand and shaking it vigorously. "Can I see her now?"

Rebecca laughed, letting him shake her hand as much as he wanted to. "Yes," she assured him. "Just be gentle with her, okay' She may look all better, but there's still a lot to do."

"I will! I promise!" Johnny told her, moving past her toward the door. He didn't bother to pause, to take a breath, to prepare himself in anyway for what he might find behind the door. He was too eager to see her and to make sure she really was awake and well on her way toward getting better. "Livvie?" he inquired as he stepped into the room.

"Johnny?"

Quiet and weak, but that was her voice, spoken aloud, heard through his ears and not just in his mind. Liv smiled weakly at him from where she was propped up against the pillows, pale again, still bandaged at the hips and legs and head, but definitely awake.

"Hey, you."

"Oh, Livvie ....I was so worried!" Johnny said, rushing to her side and gently taking her hand. There were tears of relief in his eyes at the sight of her awake and aware, but still looking too pale and too weak. "I'm so sorry, baby," he said, kissing her hands, letting the tears fall. He'd said all this already when he'd been hooked to the machine, but now that she was awake, it needed repeating.

"It wasn't your fault," she promised him softly. "It wasn't anyone's fault. And I'm fine, or I will be soon." Her fingers curled through his, her other hand rising to stroke his hair affectionately. "You weren't the only one who was worried for a while there."

"We were all worried," Johnny corrected himself, not realizing she might have meant herself. Thankfully, there was plenty of room on the bed, and he settled himself down beside her, smiling at her through the tears. "I'm so glad you're better," he said. Better was a relative term, but compared to a few days ago, she was making a miraculously quick recovery.

Her hand slipped from his hair, fingers gently wiping his cheeks as she smiled at him. "I told you I was coming back," she reminded him. "I'm too stubborn to let a little thing like this get in the way."

"I know, but ..." Johnny broke off, unsure what to say now that he was able to talk to her face to face. Did she know how close they had come to losing her" How they probably would have lost her, if it hadn't been for Tony and A.E.G.I.S. and the technology they were able to bring to bear to save her" "I promised you I'd take care of you, protect you, and I failed, but I don't intend to fail again."

"Do you remember what I told you when you promised me that?" she asked him, her voice a little gravelly but all hers again. Her hand curled to his cheek tenderly. "I told you that I knew what I was getting into. You couldn't have stopped that truck, Johnny. It's not your fault. And it's not Sue's fault, either. She saved my life, whether she admits it or not."

"I shouldn't have let you go," Johnny argued, though he knew he couldn't keep her a prisoner here in Rhy'Din, even if he only wanted to keep her safe. "I should have gone with you," he added, with a shake of his head, though maybe it had been better she'd been with Sue. Sue had helped shield her from the truck's full impact; Johnny wouldn't have been able to do that.

"Johnny, if you think for one moment that you're going to keep me locked up inside for the rest of my life and only let me out if you're with me, we are going to have a very loud argument," she warned him fondly. "Going to Earth will mean a little extra security, that's all. We are not going to raise paranoid children."

"I know," he replied, pausing to take a slow breath. "I know. I know I can't keep you locked up like a bird in a cage. But Liv ....It was Hydra," he told her, unsure how much she knew, how much she might have heard. "We're gonna get them, but until then, I want you to promise me that you'll stay here, on Rhy'Din," he pleaded. She wasn't going anywhere anytime soon anyway, not until she was well again.

"So I should cancel that tap-dancing lesson in Central Park, shall I?" she asked with warm sarcasm. "Johnny, I know it was Hydra. I could hear everything, I just couldn't respond. And I know you're going to be a part of the retaliation. Just be careful, and come back. All right' Please come back."

"It's not just gonna be me, Liv. A.E.G.I.S. is calling in the big guns for this one. We've even got a Hulk!" he said with a smirk, before sobering. "Of course, I'm coming back! I can't leave you to raise that brood of ours alone, can I?" he said, giving her hand a soft squeeze.

"You had better not," Liv answered, warm despite her quiet. "I seem to remember you talking about wanting another one at some point." She grinned back at him. "By the way ....my lips are not going to fall off if you kiss me, you know."

"Another one" Did I" I don't remember that," he said, with a smirk. They were still one behind Steve and Lucy, and they'd started first. It wasn't out of the question that they had a little catching up to do. "Would you mind very much if I joined you?" he asked, kicking his shoes off onto the floor. He wasn't going to push his luck, but before he kissed her, he wanted to get closer.

Liv laughed softly as she heard his shoes thump onto the floor. "Of course I don't mind," she assured him. "I'm a little achy, that's all." And still on high dosages of painkillers, too.

"I'll talk to her," Liv promised him gently. "It's probably the shock that I managed to get myself hurt. I'm the only so-called normal person in this family; I'm supposed to be the safe, boring one."

"If it's any consolation, you weren't the real target," Johnny said, unsure if she knew that already. It was doubtful the knowledge that Hydra's target had really been Lucy would make her feel any better though.

"I'm glad they got it wrong." She raised her hand to prevent him from arguing. "No, listen. If they'd hurt Lucy, Steve would have fallen apart. Either he'd go completely dark side on us, or he'd stop functioning. Either way, he would be useless. You coped with me getting hurt. You were with me when you needed to be, and with the kids when they needed you to be. You didn't stop functioning and leave everything to everyone else, and you didn't go insane and start attacking anything that even hinted at being Hydra. I'm proud of you for that."

Johnny opened his mouth to protest, before she silenced him. Though he didn't wish this on Lucy or anyone really, it really pissed him off that Liv had been hurt, whether she'd been the intended target or not. He arched a brow as he listened to what she was saying. Steve go dark side" Was that even possible" He supposed anything was possible. If Liv and his kids hadn't needed him, he might have done the same thing. "You are what keeps me sane, Liv," Johnny admitted, taking no credit for himself.

"You didn't know I was coming back," she reminded him quietly. "And you still kept it together. That's not nothing, sweetheart."

"Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to nuke their asses?" Johnny asked, referring to his ability to let loose a burst of energy that was the equivalent of a nuclear warhead. "But I didn't. I couldn't." It wasn't just the fact that he didn't know where to release a nova burst, but that he didn't know how many innocents might be killed in the blast.

She kissed him tenderly. "You still want to," she pointed out. "And I do understand why. But they made a mistake, and it's going to end badly for them. I heard something about Banner and Thor?"

"Uh, yeah ..." Johnny replied, a little hesitantly. Both Thor and Banner made him a little nervous, but for entirely different reasons. "It's too bad Ben went off the rails. The Fantastic Three just doesn't sound right, and we could use some clobbering right now."

"Somehow I don't think Sue would agree to including Franklin in the team just yet," Liv pointed out wryly. "So you're just going to have to be the Fantastic Three a while longer."

"No, I'm pretty sure he should at least be out of diapers first," Johnny replied with a chuckle. Ben's disappearance had worried him for a while, but he trusted the man to know what he was doing. "I know a few people on Rhy'Din, but ..." He trailed off. There were a lot more reasons not to get them involved than the opposite.

"It's a good team," Liv reminded him. "And you're not going to be alone. A.E.G.I.S. has your backs - that means Croft, and Doyle, and Miller, and all of them."

"I know," he agreed. "It's a team effort, but it's not gonna happen until Cap says so, so there's not much use worrying about it now." Or Tony. Or Croft. Or whoever was in charge these days.

"So I want you to promise me something," Liv said quietly. "I want you to promise me that you won't hover over me this evening - I'm awake, I'm doing fine. You need to be Dad again, remind them that you're still here so they won't panic when you leave."

"You want me to leave?" he asked, frowning and looking a little dejected, despite understanding that she didn't want him to ignore the kids.

"I assume you're all staying here at the manor until I'm in charge of the house again," she pointed out with a smile. "So, no, I don't want you to leave. I want you to stop feeling guilty about not constantly holding my hand."

"Do-do you want to see them?" he asked, unsure if she was strong enough to handle the three smallest Storm children just yet. "I think talking to you helped," he added. "You know, I was thinking maybe that technology could be put to good use. Turn something that was made for evil into something used for good."

"Yes, I want to see them," she assured him. "And I can hide the aches from the little ones more easily than I can from you or Fliss." As he went on about the technology that had allowed her to speak to her children even while comatose, she frowned curiously. "Made for evil?"

"It was a Hydra invention ....for mind control, I think. I don't know. Hydra wanted to weaponize it. I had to convince Aleks - Miss Solova - to let the kids use it to talk to you," he explained. To be fair, it hadn't taken much convincing.

"It's a wonderful invention, Johnny, but Earth is not known for ignoring the military potential of any invention," Liv pointed out reluctantly. "As much as it helped us, it could so easily be used against us."

"Liv, any piece of tech can be weaponized. It just depends on who's in control of it. Just hear me out ..." he argued, lifting a finger to stop her from arguing with him until he was finished. "For one thing, A.E.G.I.S. isn't S.H.I.E.L.D. Secondly, if Miss Solova is in charge, I doubt she'd let anyone use it for anything but good. Or maybe it could be kept under wraps somewhere safe until the world is ready for it. I don't know," he reasoned with a faint shrug of his shoulders. "How well do you trust Tony?"

She listened as he elucidated on the subject, allowing him to change her mind, if only a little. "I know he's a bit of an arsehole, but I do trust Tony," she told her husband. "He's not as irresponsible as he seems to want everyone to think."

"I think the key is keeping it somewhere safe," Johnny reasoned further. "At least, until we can understand it better and figure out how to put it to good use without the risk of it getting into the wrong hands."

"In the vault with the scepter, then?"Technically Liv wasn't supposed to know about A.E.G.I.S.'s vault, but she was married to one team member, the sister of one, and the sister-in-law of another. She was also very good at just listening.

Johnny didn't blink an eye at Liv's knowledge of the scepter or the vault, not because he kept no secrets from her, but because there was no one he trusted more than her. "Aleks wants it destroyed," he said, pronouncing the engineer's name slightly different than he did their son's.

"Aleks ....this would be the woman who made it?" she asked curiously. "You can see why she'd want it destroyed - look who designed it."

"I know, but we've just proven that it can be used for good. Think of the possibilities, Liv. You heard Maria's voice. What about other people who can't communicate at all? Hell, even-even radiation therapy has its roots in weaponisation," Johnny pointed out. Maybe it was too soon, but he was hopeful that someday Overmind could be used to help people, as it was originally designed.

"No, I agree, love," she assured him. "It was a wonderful experience, and it did help. There are so many ways it could be used to help. But ....until we know it isn't going to be recreated by Hydra and used for grim purposes, I think keeping it under wraps is the better idea."