A/N: So here is the start of Book Three! I have to admit, I was a bit hesitant about this one, because it just seems so typical, with what direction this has gone in. But a friend of mine encouraged me, and told me to think of it as a way to develop Daphne as a character. So I decided to do it. This is a mainly Daphne-centric fic, with the occasional short section with James. It'll hopefully still be interesting enough to keep your attention, though :)

Upon The Edge Of Glory

1 - Back in Time (Again)

The first thing I was aware of was the fact that my arms were tied behind my back with very coarse but oddly weak rope. Next was that the chair I was sat on was made of wood, rather than the expected plastic or metal. After that, and most irritatingly, there was a bag on my head.

Within seconds the bag was removed, and I let out a stream of low curses in Russian as yellow, artificial light hit my unprepared eyes. Slowly, I became able to examine my surroundings. I was in a completely concrete room, and there was an older man dressed in the clothing of the American army. Only problem was, it was about eighty years out of date. The clothing, that was. Not the man.

"You've got some nerve trespassing on an army base in broad daylight," the man said gruffly. His hair was greying, but his stance was strong, and I figured he was probably a higher-up in the ranks. He was standing at a bad angle for me to see what patches he was wearing.

"Where am I?" I asked in return.

"Same place you were before this whole mess started," he answered snappily.

I shook my head. "I don't know where that is."

He stared for a long time, before saying, "You're in Miami."

"And you're lying," I retorted calmly. "Believe me when I say I've been trained to detect this stuff for longer than I care to admit most of the time. You might as well just tell me the truth."

He stared at her for a long time, clearly weighing up the pros and cons. "We're in New York."

"State or city?"

"Both."

I sighed, but then nodded. "Fine. Now would you mind explaining why you've tried to tie me up?"

"Tried to? I-"

I flexed my arms, easily breaking the weak rope, and held up both hands to show him my new freedom. "Tried to," I said with a smirk.

He narrowed his eyes, hand twitching towards where I guessed he had a gun hidden. "Who are you?"

I stared at him, before letting out a long breath and saying, "It's complicated."

"What do you-?"

"Look," I said sharply, "I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to walk out of this base and, let's be honest here, you're probably never going to see me again."

He sneered. "Do you expect me to believe you? Are you aware of how many weapons you were wearing when you appeared?"

"None," I said simply, shaking my head. "They were all taken off of me."

He shook his head. "You were carrying knives. Four of them. Now, maybe I would let you go if you were not armed but-"

"My necklace!" I said, grasping at my throat, which was bare. "Where is it?"

"It was confiscated."

"I need it back."

"I really don't think-"

"You don't understand!" I cried, narrowing my eyes at him. "Keep my weapons; I don't care. But I have to get that necklace back."

"What's so special about it?"

I rolled my eyes. "Why does it matter?" I asked scathingly. "Either you're going to return it to me willingly or I'm going to take it back by force. And trust me when I say I'd prefer it to be the former. I don't want to hurt anyone. But that necklace is very important to me."

The man stared at me for a long time, before dipping a hand into his pocket and pulling out the silver chain and orange stone, which caused such relief to flood through me I almost sagged against the chair. I stood up and took the necklace with as little gusto as possible, slipping the chain around my neck and tucking the charm under my top.

"I'm not supposed to let you go, you know."

I smiled. "Regardless of whether you're supposed to or not, you couldn't stop me if you tried." I patted his shoulder, glad that he wasn't going to try to stop me from leaving, despite what he'd just said to me. "See you around, soldier. Maybe one day our paths will cross again."

"Miss?"

I paused and turned. "Yes?"

"I just thought you should know that you had a miscarriage shortly after arriving here. For what it's worth, I'm sorry for your loss."

All I could do for a few minutes was gaze blankly at him, my mind filtering the information slowly. "How far along was I?" I asked, with a surprisingly steady voice.

"Only a week or so."

A week... My eyes hardened as I realised that that week took me back to the short time James and I were captured by Hydra. What they'd done to us on those operating tables had become unimportant due to what happened next, but I hadn't known what they'd done. I supposed now I did. I spun on my heel and stormed out, slamming the door against the wall with enough force to make the wood splinter. I didn't care.

Brooklyn. I was in bloody Brooklyn. Of all the places on the planet it had to be Brooklyn. Brooklyn in 1937, if one wants to be precise. Which meant my two favourite heroes were the ripe age of twenty, and nineteen for Steve. Sighing, I meandered through the city, recognising a few of the streets from my visit here with James in the future. So little time had passed since then, yet it felt like forever.

Knowing so much about the dangers of time travel and having two versions of yourself in two places, I decided it would be necessary that I start to recreate myself a little. I bought a chocolate brown wig in a make up store ('bought' being used loosely here), and then picked up a whole new wardrobe of dresses, shoes and make up to make myself fit in with the era.

As I wandered along a fairly empty street during my fifth day back in the 30s (this going-back-in-time thing was getting old, and fast), I became startled by the familiar sound of a scuffle. I peered into the closest alleyway and saw that a group of four guys had surrounded a young girl, and their intentions were not difficult to guess.

I approached them without hesitation. "Hey!" I called, drawing their attention to me. "Get your filthy hands off of her."

The apparent 'ringleader' stepped forward, flexing his muscles in a way that was clearly supposed to be intimidating. I found it funny - like he was an aggravated chihuahua, or something. Even with his superior size, I knew he had nothing on my strength. But he had yet to learn that. And the darker part of my mind was all to happy to have the job of teaching that particular lesson to him.

"If you don't watch yer mouth," he growled, "you'll be joining 'er on the floor."

I raised an eyebrow. "Empty threats never got anybody anywhere, asshole."

He growled and clumsily swung his fist at me. I could have easily deflected it with my eyes closed. I calmly stepped out of his path, and was unable to hold back a smirk when his fist collided with the wall beside me. He howled with equal pain and fury, and then his friends decided to try their luck. Two fell to the floor, having been thrown into the wall and knocked unconscious. The other I simply elbowed in the temple. The ringleader glared at me, his hand clearly broken as he cradled it in front of his chest.

"You'll regret this," he hissed, before turning and running off.

I rolled my eyes. "Right," I muttered. Remembering that I wasn't alone, I turned to the girl. She looked to be about seventeen, and her eyes were wide with the remnants of her terror, and shock. "Are you alright?" I asked her. "Did they do anything?"

"N-No," she stammered. "They did nothing. I..." She shook her head, and I pitied her for a moment, before pushing it back. She didn't need pity. She needed help and reassurance.

"It's alright," I said soothingly, wrapping an arm around her as I started to lead her towards the main road. "No one is going to hurt you."

"Thank you for helping me," she muttered.

I smiled. "It's fine. Now, where do you live? I want to make sure you get back okay, and you never know whether guys like that are going to take another punt at it."

"I live not too far from here," she said. "Just a couple streets away."

I nodded. "Well, let's go then."

"Are you sure?" She bit her lip. "I could go alone."

I frowned. "It wouldn't sit well with me to just leave you on your own after an experience like that. And I'm not in any kind of hurry."

The girl nodded and start walking on slightly wobbly legs along the street. I moved silently alongside her. "My name is Agatha, by the way," she said hurriedly, her red lips curving into a friendly but slightly shaky smile.

I grinned in return. "Evelyn," I answered, picking the first name that came to my head. "It's nice to meet you." It was a strange sensation to be having a normal conversation with a normal person, but I had to remind myself that, here, I wasn't Daphne Sparrow and I wasn't the infamous assassin Silverthorn, I was just Evelyn... Moore, a young woman who was just like everybody else, for the most part.

"And you," Agatha said with another smile, shaking my hand. She looked hesitantly at me, before asking, "Where did you learn to fight like that?"

I chuckled without thinking. "That was nothing. I can do a lot better - or worse, depending on who you ask." I then shrugged, the story flowing easily over my tongue. "My parents both knew how to fight, and they taught me from a young age. 'No girl is ever gonna survive the world if she can't defend herself', my father used to say."

"Well, it's certainly come in handy today."

I scoffed. "It's saved my life several times, too," I muttered, hoping she wouldn't ask about it. Luckily, my prayers were answered. Agatha simply sent me an odd look, pursed her lips, and then looked resolutely forward. She had probably figured out that was a subject best left alone.

"Ags!"

Agatha spun around, her face morphing into a full-faced beam as she rushed from my side and threw herself at a guy with a flop of black hair and a charming grin on his face. He laughed and swept her around in a circle, before ducking down his head and cementing his lips against hers. After awkwardly averting my gaze, I figured she was well cared for, so decided to leave them to it. By the time Agatha finally tried to find me, I was long gone.

Paying for my little apartment wasn't easy when I had no job, but I made do by stealing just a dollar or two from people as I passed them. Eventually it all mounted up to enough money to pay for rent. Not that I needed much - $18 a month for rent was a sweet deal compared to what I was used to. I felt kind of bad for stealing money from people, but, in my defence, I was kind of doing a Robin Hood and only stealing from those who looked like they had a decent amount of money. Most of the things I needed to survive - food, clothes etc., I admittedly also stole...

Okay, yeah, I was getting into some bad habits. But can you blame me? I was a woman in the 30s with no job and no man to 'look after me'. Not to mention my sense of right and wrong had been warped for close to 60 years.

I spent a lot of my free time in a few of the many libraries dotted around, trying to find out as much as I could about the Infinity Stones (the Time Stone in particular, but there was a lot less information about that). I wanted to go home, but as of yet, I'd had no luck. Nothing I tried would get the Stone to work. So I was stuck with books and the ridiculous hope that one of them might give me some ideas.

After just over a month of searching and yielding no useful results, I was ready to blow up a building. And, unfortunately for everyone, I didn't mean in the figurative way. Maybe if I'd been dropped during the war I could have gotten away with it - joined the army and fought against some Nazis to stem my frustration - but, alas, my luck had never been that good.

After slamming the book I'd just finished reading on the table in front of me (it had nothing useful in it), I put my face in my hands and let out a dramatic groan. I knew that would cause many irritated faces to glare in my direction, but they could go to hell for all I'd care.

Yeah. It was a bad day.

"Evelyn?"

It took me a second to remember that Evelyn was my new name, and I slowly lifted my head to see a vaguely familiar face smiling down at me. Once again, I took a moment, before hesitantly asking, "Agatha, right?"

She nodded, her lips pulling up into a grin far too enthusiastic for my bad mood to cope with. "What're you up to?" she asked, sitting herself beside me. I had to push back the instinct to glare at her - this was the 30s, so everyone was nice to everyone.

"Trying to do some research, but unfortunately I've yet to find anything helpful."

Agatha picked up the book I'd finished reading and read, "Old Norse Stories." She frowned, putting the book down. "Why are you looking up that?"

I shrugged one shoulder, my mind quickly thinking up an excuse. "I'm going to try for a job that requires an abundant knowledge of Norse mythology."

Agatha stared at me, then her frown deepened. "Then why are you so aggravated? Are you looking for something in particular?"

Slowly, I nodded. "Uh, yeah, I'm looking for information about things called the Infinity Gems, or Soul Gems, or Infinity Stones. It changes from book to book."

"Any particular one?"

"Not really," I lied. "Unfortunately, this is the third library I've been to where I've almost or completely exhausted their supply of mythology books. I'm going to have to move onto the fourth soon."

"Is this job really worth all the effort?"

I nodded, my face serious. "Absolutely. It'll give me the chance I need to get back to the man I love."

Agatha's face lit up. "There's a guy?!"

I chuckled, somehow unable to keep hold of my poor mood while she was around. Her cheeriness was infectious. "There's a guy," I confirmed.

"What's he like?"

"Well, what do you want to know?"

"Is he tall?"

"Yes."

"Strong?"

"Very."

"Long or short hair?"

"Long at the moment, but he's been known to have both."

"Dark or light hair?"

"Dark."

"Name?"

"James."

Agatha suddenly got a sly gleam to her eyes that had me dreading the next question. "And what's he like in bed?"

I stared at her, mouth slightly agape. I wasn't embarrassed by the question (come on, I was friends with Natasha Romanoff - I'd heard much worse), but I was surprised she said it so openly. "Did you seriously just ask me that question?" I queried, astounded.

Agatha blushed slightly, her smile becoming sheepish. "Yes," she said. "Sorry, I know it's personal, but that's how I act around my usual friendship group. Nothing held back."

I smiled at her. "It's fine; I'm not offended. Just surprised. Most people wouldn't even ask, let alone without stuttering or hesitating beforehand."

Agatha's blush deepened. "Sorry," she muttered again.

"It's fine."

Agatha peeked up at me, that little grin appearing again. "Well?"

I shrugged. "I don't know," I answered honestly.

"You mean you've never...?"

I shook my head. "No. I get the feeling we would have done - maybe - but then things took a serious turn for the worst and... well, one thing led to another and now I'm here and he's currently beyond my reach."

"Hence all the research."

I nodded. "Yeah."

Agatha smiled kindly. "Well, I've got some free time for a while. Want me to help?"

I blinked at her in surprise, then nodded slowly. "Uh, yeah, actually. That would be a huge relief."

Agatha grinned. "Hey, if it gets you your man back, I'm hands down all for it!"

I nodded. "Thank you, Agatha. I can't tell you how much that means to me."

"Don't mention it."