When Evaline awoke the next morning, after getting only about a total of one hour of decent sleep, she felt the pressure of her headache and the stress she knew the day would inevitably bring pressing against her forehead. She tried to take a shower in the bathroom adjoined to her bedroom, but when that didn't work, she swallowed some ibuprofen before getting dressed, towel-drying her hair, and escaping to the larger complex.

Walking out of the hallway where her particular suite was housed, she exited into the hexagonal common area that sported a large kitchen, a small gym, three different den areas, a study area complete with two rows of the best computer systems, and a nook. Four of the six sides of the hexagonal room led to hallways that held more suites much like the one Evaline was currently staying in. Her hallway, emblazoned with a large number 2 on the door, was directly parallel to where she knew Steve's was, a hallway labeled with the number 5.

She moved straight through the large common area, entering the hallway with the number 1 plastered on the front of it, which acted as a connection between the dormitory area to the rest of the complex: the classrooms, the observatories, the command deck, the training areas, and so on. Despite the fact that she had slept so little the night before, Evaline was actually a mess of nerves and energy that she desperately needed to work off, preferably without Steve shouting in her ear.

Although she hadn't even considered that Steve himself might be in the gym, she realized her late concerns were for nothing. In the Avengers-only gym, complete with training simulations and obstacle courses designed for their respective powers, the only other person in there was Natasha, who was pummeling a dummy with her batons. Her screams of effort echoed throughout the nearly empty gym, her attention completely focused on the enemy in front of her as Evaline watched her fluid and lethal movements with admiration.

In the middle of a move, Natasha finally whipped around, startling Evaline before she smirked at her. "Come to just watch?"

"No," Evaline admitted, realizing that it was perfect Natasha was standing before her. Natasha tilted her head curiously, and Evaline stepped closer to her, saying, "I agree with what you said yesterday. I think you're a more suitable choice for my training than Steve, both because you're the one that originally taught me everything I know, and because Steve is too hesitant when it comes to being rough with me. If I'm ever going to return to my job as a field agent, I need someone to toughen me up a little bit."

Although she seemed surprised at Evaline's monologue, Natasha's face burst into a grin as she said, "There's the Eva we all know and love – standing up for yourself and for what's right. Don't worry, I'll whip you into shape in no time."

As Natasha turned away to grab two pairs of boxing gloves that were lying on the floor, Evaline said cautiously, "You know Steve will probably flip out when he finds out I'm using you as my trainer now."

"I can handle Steve Rogers," Natasha said breezily, tossing Evaline one of the pairs of gloves as she slid them on. "Anyway, that's a problem for later. He's currently in the fields, training with Wanda. Unless they decide to finish up ridiculously early, we should be able to do your training today in relative peace, at least."

Settling into the first defensive position Steve taught her, Evaline raised her fists to her chin as she smirked at Natasha. "Then let's do this."

Natasha returned the expression in kind before launching an attack on Evaline, critiquing and correcting her as she did so. They trained for hours, running through some rudimentary skills and drills that even Steve had put her through. The biggest difference between Natasha and Steve's styles of training, however, was that Natasha recognized that she might have to break Evaline a little bit to build her back up, and she wasn't afraid of doing so. When it came to sparring, Natasha didn't hold back on her hits, and Evaline felt bruises beginning to sprout along her skin.

Weirdly enough, the feeling was exhilarating as she felt another piece of her personality and her life click into place.

As they finally took a break, the door to the gym opened and Evaline paused, preparing herself to see Steve and deal with his opinions on Natasha training her. Turning, she saw two different figures walking in through the door to join them, and she relaxed as she realized neither of them was Steve.

Sam grinned at her, throwing out his arms to either side as he said, "You all have been training in here and keeping the amusement of that to yourselves? Selfish."

"The amusement?" Evaline asked, still breathing heavily from the last set of kickboxing exercises Natasha had just put her through. "Exactly what part of this is amusing?"

"You two are pretty evenly matched, so it can get kind of into dirty fighting territory between you," Scott piped up from beside Sam. "Before… everything, the two of you fighting was like watching Muhammad Ali versus Joe Frazier."

"Woah, woah, woah, let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Sam said, waving his hands in the air as he did so. "These two are way scarier than those men."

Evaline laughed easily, grabbing one of the towels off of the fresh set someone had left on the bench, wiping away the sweat dripping off her chin. "I'll take the compliment, and hopefully get back up to that level soon."

Sam lost his smile, but Scott's simply softened as he said optimistically, "Yeah, I'm sure it'll happen soon."

Just as a blanket of awkwardness was about to settle across the room, Tony's unmistakable voice called out over the PA system, "Avengers! Time to get off your asses and do the work you're getting paid to do. Meet up in ten minutes in Banner's basement."

"He always says 'the work we're getting paid for' like we're getting millions of dollars," Scott said as he grabbed Natasha and Evaline's water bottles, tossing them at the two spies before he began headed toward the exit doors. "I don't think he realizes he's literally the only one of us getting millions of dollars."

Sam threw Scott a self-deprecating smile, saying, "We didn't join this field for the pay, though, did we?"

"Guess not," Scott admitted, sighing dramatically, earning a grin from Evaline and a roll of the eyes from Natasha. "Oh, the dreams I had when I thought I'd become a high-paid engineer…"

"Yeah, and then you decided to act like Robin Hood and get caught," Natasha said roughly, making it to the exit first as she ripped open the door. "I imagine this gig is a little bit better than life in super max."

The entire way to the basement was spent with Scott and Natasha bickering and teasing each other incessantly, Sam butting in every once a while either to add a quip or act as a referee. Evaline watched the entire interaction with a simple smile on her face, content with the fact that she was growing more comfortable with at least the three people with her, the three who didn't treat her as over cautiously as everyone else did.

When they arrived at the basement that housed Banner's laboratory of sorts, Evaline noticed that the four of them were not the only ones who had been beckoned. Bruce and Strange stood at the centermost table, both of them leaning into microscopes, scribbling on notebooks, and muttering under their breath to one another. Tony stood closely behind, monitoring their work and providing the occasional dry dig at them. Shortly after Evaline, Natasha, Sam, and Scott had entered the room, Wanda and Steve came in through the hallway that led from the training fields, both of them in workout clothes that had Evaline diverting her eyes, especially from Steve's shirt that clung tightly to every slight curve of his muscles.

After casting a cursory look around the room, his gaze heavy on Evaline with Scott, Sam, and Natasha for a second, Steve turned to Tony and asked, "What's this about?"

"It's about what Bravo team was up to yesterday," a voice came from the shadows, as Fury stepped out of seemingly nowhere to join them. Evaline herself startled, but noticed nobody else in the room did; perhaps they were just chronically used to the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D appearing out of thin air.

Wanda was the one to ask, "Are we finally going to learn what was in the mysterious package they brought back? Vision's been refusing to tell me."

"Well, we're going to try," Strange said flatly, his voice coming out slightly muffled due to the fact that his face was still against the microscope. "Natasha, you want to explain?"

"We were already on assignment in Cape Town when we got the notification that Evaline had woken up, sans her memories," Natasha said, reaching out to a glass container on the counter between Bruce and Strange. Her nails tapped gently against it as Evaline eyed the kelly green plant within that closely resembled a succulent. "We reached out some feelers and Wakanda said they might have something that could help her, in favor for… another job she had completed for them."

Evaline quirked an eyebrow and said, "That doesn't sound ominous at all. What was the job?"

"Hopefully I won't need to tell you after you take this… drug, or whatever it is," Natasha said, sliding the container across the table so it was within Bruce's reach again. The doctor barely noticed, as he still had his eye practically glued to the lens of the microscope, fiddling incessantly with the knobs on either side of the machine as he tried to get a better view.

Steve's lips were a thin line as he said, "Is it a drug?"

"Not exactly," Vision piped up as he floated through the wall to join the conversation.

Tony, who had been leaning casually against the wall just inches from where Vision had entered, had visibly startled as he shouted at the humanoid, "Doors, Vision! What did we say about using doors?!"

"I apologize," Vision said in such a flat tone of voice that Evaline disbelieved he was actually sorry. Turning from Tony, he said to the rest of those assembled, "It's a naturally occurring complex that the Wakandans insist should be consumed in its raw form. It helps the subject access their Memory Plain and also helps them identify the fractures within so they can be properly adjusted."

Wanda piped up, "So, it should help Evaline recover her memories?"

"Theoretically, yes," Vision said in that typically vague way of his.

"Then why are we running tests on it?" Steve asked, crossing his arms over his chest as his mouth tightened, his agitation practically tangible. "I thought we all agreed that we'd do whatever it took to give her back her memories."

Strange finally lifted his face from the microscope beneath him, shooting Steve an annoyed look as he said, "Because we still don't know exactly what the drug is, how it works, how it will truly affect Evaline, and if it is or is not dangerous."

Rubbing her hands over her own arms to calm herself, Evaline asked a little warily, "Do we think the Wakandans would have lied to us about what that is?"

"No, not exactly," Bruce said, lifting his head from his own microscope, "but we have to take into consideration that you were injected with something five months ago, and we still don't know what. It could still be in your system, and this… flower, or whatever, could react negatively with it. We're going to run some tests on some of your blood to make sure it doesn't react, but we want to give it some time to make sure it doesn't have any long-lasting effects either."

The plan was safe, and made sense to Evaline, but she was still disappointed that the return of her memories would be delayed a little bit longer. She nodded her understanding at Bruce, who looked slightly apologetic, as Steve asked, "How long do we think that's going to take?"

"However long it needs to take," Strange said pointedly, giving Steve another annoyed look that the super soldier glared at. When Wanda cleared her throat and gave Strange a look that told him to stand down, he sighed and said, "Banner and I are working as fast as we can, but we don't know what this substance is. It could take us a few minutes, it could take us weeks. There is honestly no telling, and even the Wakandans aren't sure considering the addition of whatever complex is in Evaline's system already."

Steve gave Evaline a worried look before turning back to Strange. "So it could still be a long while before we even try to see if it works?"

"Yeah," Bruce answered, still wearing that apologetic look on his face. "I'm sorry, Eva…"

"No, it's okay," she said, giving him a weak smile in response. "I appreciate you guys doing all you can to help me recover my memories, and I understand the… complexity of this situation. But I'd definitely like my memories back sooner rather than later, so I guess we'll leave you to it."

Evaline felt a tightness in her chest as she turned away from Banner and Strange's experiments and began to exit out of the basement. As she left, however, she felt someone reach out and gently grab her arm, a voice calling out gently, "Eva."

She turned and blinked up in curiosity at Steve, noticing that Sam and Natasha were watching them carefully from still inside the laboratory as Steve nearly whispered, "Can I talk to you? Privately?"

Despite the fact that Evaline wanted a bit of space considering their argument of sorts from the day before, and the news that there might be a plant available to salvage her memories, Steve's wide open crystal blue eyes and the gentle way his hand held her wrist made her say, "Yes."

He looked relieved as he gently guided her away from where the rest of their teammates were exiting the basement behind them. Wanda shot her a look of concern, but she shook her head at her to call her off; she nodded respectfully and followed the rest of the team back toward the main parts of the complex while Steve led her further down the maze of hallways in the basement.

Finally, he stopped in front of a nondescript door, opening it to reveal a home theater that was empty, lowly lit, and quiet. As soon as they entered, Evaline shut the door behind them and asked, "What did you want to talk about?"

"You were right. The way I'm acting is not only irritating you, but is also putting this team's unity in danger, and that's not alright," Steve said, sighing as he took a heavy seat on one of the chairs. Evaline simply watched him in silence, sensing that he had many things he wanted to say, but needed the space and time to come up with the appropriate words.

Finally, the golden-haired soldier lifted his head as he said, "When you were fighting in Chicago, our team – me, Stark, Wanda, Clint, Bruce, and Vision at the time – was deep in an operation in Chechnya trying to crack down on warlords who had gotten hold of some Chitauri weapons. We didn't actually hear about your accident until almost eight hours after it happened, which, adding that to the ten hours it took for us to fly back, felt like a lifetime to me. To all of us, actually."

Evaline took a seat on one of the other chairs nearest Steve, sensing they would be there for a while. He barely registered the movement; his eyes were nearly glazed as he stared off into the distance, as if he was staring directly at the past.

He continued the story, saying, "We were getting updates, of course, and Banner and Stark were constantly on the phone with Strange and others, trying to get technology together and sent to the Avengers complex, to here, where they had airlifted you. I don't know if anyone ever told you, but you were just unconscious at the time – not technically in a coma yet. We just couldn't get anything to wake you up.

"They thought," he said, his voice growing heavier and thicker with emotion, "that I might be able to wake you up, that my voice…"

His voice broke, and he trailed off, clearing his throat as Evaline watched him with slightly widened eyes. She reached forward and gently put a hand on his knee, a touch that he startled at before relaxing. Evaline offered, "I wasn't Sleeping Beauty, and you weren't the prince, Steve. Something else was seriously wrong with me that simply your voice couldn't fix."

"No, I know that now, but…" He shook his head again, using one of his hands to wipe away some stubborn tears that had formed right at the edge of his eyelid. "I blamed myself, for not being there to protect you. I know it's stupid and unreasonable considering the field of work that we were both in, but it was still hard not to think what would've happened had I been there for you.

"When I finally showed up, you were actually in surgery. We all ran to the OR where Strange was performing some sort of experimental surgery on you, and Banner and Wanda got to go in, but Strange didn't want me to. Sam, Nat, and Scott were all waiting right outside the OR, and my anger was so misplaced, I…"

He trailed off again, this time to allow a flush to rise up in his cheeks as he said, "I broke Sam's nose, and Scott's collarbone, trying to fight past them to get in. Finally, Tony, who had gone somewhere else in the complex originally to try and find a piece of technology he had shipped, came flying in his suit and had to subdue me. I think I resembled something closer to a feral animal than a trained soldier."

Evaline hadn't even realized she was moving closer to Steve almost involuntarily, until her hand had already reached out to wipe away some of the tears that had streaked down his cheeks, matching her own. At her touch, Steve startled just a little bit before saying, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."

"No, I…" Evaline stammered, removing her hand from his face to wipe away her own tears as she blinked furiously, wondering what had made her reach out toward him so instinctively. "I'm sorry I made you relive through all that, and that… that happened to you. I can't imagine how hard it must have been for you."

Steve swallowed, hard. "It was one of the hardest things that's ever happened to me, if not the hardest. Just not knowing, and still not knowing, what was going to happen… I'm sorry I've been acting so over protective of you, but I just can't live through that moment again, not knowing if you were going to live or survive or remember who I was."

"I know, and I understand. I'm sorry for not understanding earlier, but I just needed some room to breathe, and to regain some sense of normalcy," Evaline said, earning a nod from Steve. She took in a deep breath and added pointedly, "Also, I'm really not the one you should be apologizing to first."

"I know. I'm trying…" He trailed off, pulling a hand over his blonde hair and causing the back half of it to stick up. "I'm trying to come up with the words to say that'll make things right with them, especially Nat and Sam. I was too harsh with all of them, but especially the two of them because…"

"Because they were your best friends," Evaline finished for him, earning a surprised look from Steve that she simply responded to with a wry smile. "Like I said, some of the things in this world transferred over to the one I was in. Although it wasn't explicitly stated in the movie, it was implied that you were closer to the two of them, and I can tell from watching the three of you interact that there's a lot more hurt than anger there. To me, that means it was more of a betrayal than anything else – and that means there was some sort of tight relationship to break beforehand."

Steve looked at her with slightly widened eyes before stammering eloquently, "Well… yeah."

The simple response from him earned a small laugh from Evaline, which also seemed to surprise him. "There's a lot I can learn beyond reading from the Internet or old S.H.I.E.L.D files. I assume my ability to read people and situations like this is one of the reasons I was probably recruited."

Shooting her a small smile, Steve agreed, "Probably. That, and the fact that you were a black belt in basically every form of karate or whatever known to man."

"Mm, that also seems like a plausible explanation," she responded, grinning back at him.

He continued to smile, although she saw a little bit of sadness pulling down at the corners of his mouth. Just as she was about to ask him what he was thinking about, he said, "I know Nat and Wanda have been trying to warn me off from coming on too strong, but… I've just really missed your smile, Ev."

"I know," she said gently, her eyes lowering for a moment before lifting back to his. "I know, because I've missed yours, too."

"Well, then," he said amicably, grinning wider now, "let's agree to do a lot more of it."

"I feel like if you fix things with your teammates, there will be a lot more of it," Evaline said, getting up from the recliner as Steve followed her motions.

"You're right," Steve said, nodding his head with renewed purpose as he began to lead the way back out, headed toward the elevator bay just around the corner. "I think I'm going to go talk to Sam first."

"I think that's a good idea. Scott will probably be easy, but Nat will probably be the hardest to forgive and forget. Starting out somewhere in the middle and getting Sam on your side will probably help things," Evaline said as they arrived at the elevators.

Steve shot her a surprised look for a few moments before chuckling, saying, "It's when you say things like that, that I forget you're not the old Evaline. Like you said, you're just… naturally very good at looking things strategically and analyzing the situation at hand."

"Again, I imagine that's why I was recruited," Evaline cracked, getting into the open elevator car and turning back around to face Steve, who still stood outside in the hallway. She tipped her head in curiosity, feeling her hair slip over her shoulder as she asked, "You coming?"

"I think I'm going to stay down here for a while, and get my thoughts and act together before going to find Sam," Steve admitted, a small blush in his cheeks that made Evaline smile again. "I'll update you later on how it all goes."

"Okay," she said as the elevator doors began closing between them. "Good luck, Stevie."

She saw his face light up at the nickname that had slipped through her lips, again almost involuntarily. Just as calling Natasha 'Nat' had come so easily, so had 'Stevie', a sign she took to mean that she was finally closing the gap between her two different lives.

When she arrived back upstairs, she spent the rest of the night holed up in her room, delving deeper and deeper into the journal she had begun to keep on the connections between her old and current worlds, which was already halfway full with notes on various matters. As usual, she found herself sucked into the black hole that was the chasm between the worlds, and before she knew it, darkness had settled outside and across the complex as she finally forced herself to go to bed, despite the number of unanswered questions that continued to bounce around her brain.

Despite the fact that she had resolved a lot of the tension that had been bothering her the night before and keeping her from the sleep she so desperately needed, Evaline still had an immensely difficult time going to sleep that night. She wasn't sure if it was the fact that she still wasn't comfortable in the bed that was supposed to be her own, or because of her unfinished journal on the desk, but she kept visualizing the one spot where she had successfully gotten it to all calm down at least once before: the lake in the forest.

She made the trek out to the lake, about three miles away from the complex, taking a seat on the same boulder overlooking the body of water that seemed to be the only thing capable of effectively calming her down. Watching the ebb and flow of the water moving to and away from the shoreline, she found herself finally inching closer to sleep as her thoughts emptied and she allowed the cool breeze of the water to embrace her.

She heard a rustle coming from the bushes behind her, and without turning, she asked, "Creeping again, Sam?"

When there wasn't an answer of any kind to her statement, she turned curiously and saw that nothing was standing at the forest's edge. Just as she turned back to the lake, however, she heard another source of movement in the forest.

Shivering, she wrapped her blanket tighter around her body and started to make her way back through the forest, headed back to the complex at a much quicker pace than she had used to come out before. She kept hearing the leaves and branches of the trees move, and she knew she probably looked paranoid as she kept throwing furtive glances around the forest, unable to see anything other than the row of trees closest to her.

She knew she was only about a tenth of a mile away from clearing the forest when she heard something mechanical click to the right of her, just beyond the first line of trees. As she turned toward the source, she felt something pinch her skin, and looked down to see a piece of metal on her stomach, just above her right hip, glinting in the moonlight before she felt waves of electricity rock her body and bring her down to the floor. It wasn't enough to render her unconscious, so she saw the familiar male figure with the same baseball cap leaning over her even in the darkness of the forest, and this time, she saw his bright, sinister smile piercing through that darkness.

Her body didn't respond to the commands her brain was so desperately sending, and she felt hysteria beginning to build up in her as her mind flashed between this moment and the last one she had remembered before entering her coma. She couldn't help but wonder, and panic, at the thought of slipping into another coma, especially as the man grabbed her around the neck and teased out a vein on the opposite side than before.

"Now that we're alone," he said in his same ashy voice, "perhaps we can finish what we started."

As the needle slipped into her neck, Evaline was unsure if it was the panic or the concoction he pushed into her system that made her return to the blackness of unconsciousness once more.