The sun wasn't quite all the way up and the morning air was still cool when Felicity got the park where she liked to do her morning run. The park was deserted as she stretched, enjoying the feel of her muscles pulling. Felicity spotted some birds darting from spot to spot on the grass and smiled. Today was going to be a good day.

She started off down the path at a jog, keeping her pace easy at first. After about a quarter of a mile, she picked up the pace, pushing herself harder. It was a familiar routine: the sound of her sneakers hitting the ground, the exertion in her muscles, the feel of the breeze whipping through her ponytail. The familiarity made the shock worse, when pain stabbed through her chest.

Felicity stumbled to a halt with a low cry, bending over and bracing her hands on her thighs. Just as it seemed the pain was fading, it came again, sharp and wrenching, likes someone was twisting her insides with a knife.

Help. I need help!

She forced herself to stand, to take a step back towards her car and the cell phone she'd left locked inside, but the pain came again. This time it spread, clamping down on her muscles so she couldn't move. Blue stars exploded in her vision. The background noise of the park faded away into a silence so complete that Felicity could hear the sound of her blood rushing through her. The pressure on her muscles built and stretched until she thought it was going to snap her apart.

Abruptly, it all released, and Felicity stumbled forward into a table. She clung to it to stay upright, gasping for breath.

Wait, a table? How…?

A man's voice spoke sharply, in a language that Felicity couldn't understand. Her head snapped up, and she saw that she wasn't in the park anymore. She was in what looked like some kind of lab, and there were two men. One was short and stocky, wearing glasses and staring at her incredulously. The other was tall and angry looking, dressed in some kind of uniform.

"What's happening?" she whispered.

The pain returned, and Felicity jerked back from the table with a cry. Blue rushed over her vision again as her muscles seized and twisted. She felt like she was freezing and on fire at the same time, and just as she thought she could stand no more, the pain melted away and she stumbled backwards into a cold, metal wall.

Felicity heaved, trying to fill her lungs with air, and looked around. She was on a plane now, somehow, two different men staring at her, one in a blue and red uniform with a large, white star on the chest, and the other like something out of a nightmare, his head blood red and shrunken so it looked like a moving skull. The man with the red skull held a glimmering blue cube. The same shade of blue that exploded through her vision with the pain.

"No, no, no!" The pain came again, doubling her over, and this time Felicity saw her legs shimmer blue before they shattered, and the realization that whatever was happening to her was literally tearing her apart and putting her back together was almost as horrifying as the pain.

When the pain faded this time she fell to her knees. When she looked up, Felicity saw a different man, dressed in a white lab coat and pushing himself off the ground, looking as though something had knocked him over. He saw her and froze, eyes going wide behind his goggles.

"Help me," Felicity begged. "I don't – I don't know what's happening!"

The pain came again, and Felicity arched her back, crying out. The world vanished in blue light, and she couldn't hear anything beyond the sound of the blood pounding in her ears. Make it stop, make it stop!

Her feet stumbled on rocky ground, kicking up gray dust. Felicity braced her hands on her thighs to keep from falling over. She looked around, and somehow she was in space. She could see the edge of the gray rock she was standing on, and it fell into blackness and stars. Ahead of her was a staircase, and Felicity followed it up with her gaze to a massive throne. Beside the throne was a figure with his back to her, impossibly large and dressed in armor. He shifted to look back at her, and she saw the profile of his face, with purple skin and unnatural ridges.

She couldn't process what she as seeing before the pain came again, knocking her over before the scenery faded away. Her muscles clenched so tightly she couldn't even scream, and Felicity didn't know how much more of this she could take.

When the pain stopped this time, she was lying on the ground, cold from the concrete beneath her sinking into her skin. She blinked her eyes open, and saw that this room was crowded. Everyone was armed, some pointing guns at her, some pointing guns at the man in green and black beside her. Felicity didn't care. "Please," she whispered. "Make it stop."

They didn't move, and the pain came again, lancing through her. Felicity closed her eyes against the blue light. When the pain stopped, she was somehow on her feet again. She opened her eyes and found herself in a different crowded room. The man in green and black was still there, standing in front of her this time, and his eyes narrowed and his brows drew together at the sight of her. "You?"

Felicity couldn't find the energy to try and speak. It was all she could do to stand. The pain had sunk deep into her, like it had attached itself to her very bones. Please, enough.

The pain rose again, and she wanted to wail. It dragged her away, throbbing and twisting and shredding her apart. Her shoes scrapped across gravel, and Felicity collapsed. Rock bit into her, but that pain was mundane, inconsequential compared to what she'd just been through. She lay where she had fallen, waiting for the pain to return, to drag her through that blue silence again…but as the seconds ticked by, nothing happened.

Was it finally done?

"I can close it!"

Felicity blinked her eyes open at the sound of the woman's voice and looked. She was on a roof, somewhere. About ten feet away from her was some kind of machine housing a blue glowing cube – the same cube that she had seen briefly with the man that had looked like he'd had a red skull. The machine was sending up a pillar of blue light, and the sight sent her heart racing.

But nothing happened. The light didn't come for her; the pain didn't return.

A woman stood in front of the machine: black bodysuit, red hair, some sort of weird scepter thing in hand. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but Felicity's thoughts were too sluggish to place her. She glared down at Felicity. "Don't move."

Felicity didn't argue. Everything ached and trembled, and honestly, she wasn't sure if she could stand at all.

The woman reached one hand up to her ear. "I repeat, I can close the wormhole."

The what?

Felicity shifted a little, just enough that she could follow the trail of blue light up to the sky, and gasped. The blue light had torn a hole in the sky, and figures flew out of it. Felicity stared in growing horror. What is this? What's going on?

She heard the crunch of someone walking on the gravel and turned her head to see an older man coming around the machine. He looked down at her, eyes wide. "You actually made it."

The woman spared him a glance, but kept most of her attention on the sky. She was paying them some attention though, because when Felicity started to sit up, she snapped, "Stay down."

Felicity paused. The woman was scraped and bruised, and looked like she'd probably been having an awful day. Well, so was Felicity. She sat up. The woman glared at her, but stayed where she was, one hand by her ear, the other keeping the weird, glowing scepter pointed at the weird, glowing machine.

"What's going on?" Felicity demanded.

"It's a bit complicated," the man said. "Especially for you."

"You know who she is, Doc?" the woman asked. She kept her eyes on the sky.

"Not exactly," the man said, "but I know where she's from."

"That's not answering my question," Felicity snapped. The pain was fading some, but she still ached, she didn't know where she was, and there was a giant hole in the sky.

"That's - good lord, what is he doing?" the man asked, staring beyond her.

Felicity turned, looking up. She saw what he was staring at immediately; a figure gleaming red and gold, clinging to a missile, guiding it towards the hole in the sky.

"It's a nuke," the woman said. Her voice was hard and grim. "He's sending it through the hole."

Felicity made a choked noise. This can't be happening. She stared at the sky, the red and gold figure literally rocketing towards the hole, and suddenly things clicked. This can't be happening.

Because that up there, that was Iron Man. And this moment, this whole scene, was the end of The Avengers movie.

"This isn't real," Felicity said.

"It is." She looked back at the older man, and now that she had pegged this as a scene from The Avengers, Felicity thought he looked vaguely familiar. She didn't remember who he was or what he had done in the movie. She'd only seen it once in theaters, because her sister had dragged her there, and only the occasional bits and pieces since. "This world is very real."

Felicity shook her head. It didn't make sense; none of this did. There was no such thing as super heroes. Yet while she watched, Iron Man flew the nuke meant for New York City into space.

"Come on, Tony," the woman – Black Widow? Felicity couldn't remember her real name – mumbled. The seconds dragged by and Iron Man didn't reappear. Black Widow grimaced, shifted her grip on the scepter and shoved it at the machine. There was a flare of blue light that made Felicity recoil, but it vanished as quickly as it had appeared, taking the stream of blue light that reached into the sky with it. The blue cube tumbled to the ground.

The hole started to collapse in on itself. At the last possible second, Iron Man flew out. Felicity heard Black Widow let out a sigh of relief, heard the older man murmur, "Thank goodness."

Iron Man continued to fly straight down, and Felicity realized he wasn't really flying at all; he was falling. Black Widow must have realized it too, because she suddenly sprinted past Felicity to the edge of the roof. The older man followed her, griping the edge of the wall that surrounded the roof. She saw the tension leave him. "They caught him. He'll be okay."

Felicity shifted, pushing herself up. She still felt weak and wobbly from whatever it was that had happened to her, but at least she could stand. Black Widow spun around as she stood, and Felicity froze. The two women eyed each other warily.

"Dr. Selvig," Black Widow said, "I think it's about time you explain what's going on with her. Is she a threat?"

Felicity glared. "Am I a threat? You're the one with a weapon!"

The man – Dr. Selvig – turned to face them. He met Felicity's stare for only a moment before wincing and looking away. Felicity followed his gaze down to the blue cube. "The Tesseract whispers to you, if you know how to listen. Loki did. It told him of other realities, including a reality where our world is just a story. He thought that if he summoned someone from that world, he might be able to discover secrets from them."

Dr. Selvig looked back at Felicity. "I don't think Loki quite knew what he was doing when he summoned you. When you appeared and then vanished again, we weren't sure what to think, especially since you had already appeared at the SHIELD base before we ever tried to summon you –" he stopped suddenly, and his face went a shade paler under the coat of sweat and dust.

"You – you were the ghost, weren't you?" he asked. "The one that appeared when Howard Stark first started testing the Tesseract. It bounced you everywhere before it settled you."

This is insane. Dr. Selvig was actually suggesting that Felicity had been dragged to another reality – a reality that was merely a fictional story in her universe.

"No," Felicity said. She shook her head. "I'm not – this isn't happening. It's impossible! This isn't real!"

It had felt real, though. The blue light that had torn her apart and put her back together, and the pain that had come with it, that had felt real. This moment felt real. The wind that brushed over her clammy skin, the gravel shifting beneath her sneakers, the sound of distant sirens and the smell of smoke: it all felt real. The guilt that flashed across Dr. Selvig's face and the cold consideration on Black Widow's looked real.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Selvig said. "I truly am."

He looked it too, and the sad expression on his face made panic flutter under Felicity's skin. Her nails dug into the palms of her hands as they clenched into fists, the sting grounding her. This couldn't be a dream. No one could feel pain in dreams, and if it wasn't a dream then –

This is real.

Felicity had actually been dragged to another world. A world with aliens, and superheroes, and magic. She felt lightheaded, dizzy. She had to swallow before she spoke, and even then her voice was wobbly. "Send me back."

This wasn't her world. She had no interest in being there. Felicity wanted to go home, back to her life and her family. If it took another, horrifying and painful trip to get there, she'd deal with it.

Dr. Selvig's drawn expression didn't change. "I'm sorry," he said again. "We can't. The Tesseract can draw people into this reality, but it doesn't connect well enough with other realities to send people away. Going back isn't possible."

Not possible? But if she didn't go home, she'd never see her mother or sister again. Even worse, her family would never know what had happened to her. Felicity would forever be a missing person. She'd be a mystery they would never find closure for. Their hearts would be broken, and there was nothing Felicity could do about it.

"No," she whispered. Then, more firmly, "No! There has to be a way back!"

Dr. Selvig shook his head. "If there was any way at all…"

Felicity swayed as her extremities started to feel numb. No. She heard footsteps on the gravel behind her, but couldn't summon the energy to care to look. Not as it sank in that she was really never going home again.

Her legs gave out. Black Widow and Dr. Selvig both lunged forward, but apparently whoever was behind her was closer, because Felicity felt him catch her with a muttered curse just before she blacked out.

AN: I give credit where credit is due, and this fic wouldn't have existed nearly this soon without the encouragement of Talk With Your Hands. Thank you! And I hope y'all enjoy Felicity and her story as much as I do.