Once again, Evaline had a difficult time sleeping that night, but now it was due to the nerves she felt in relation to her and Steve's impending date, as well as the terror at some of the things that Natasha had suggested Evaline do to impress Steve despite Wanda's insistence that none of that was actually required.
When she woke in the morning, the first thing she did was to take a shower to clear her mind of all the dreams she had the night before in regards to Steve and the possibilities of their date. Her hair still damp and the scent of her soap still strong, she dressed in some light workout clothes before heading to the kitchen to start her day.
She almost turned back around when she realized that Steve was in the kitchen, and nobody else was there to act as a barrier between them. Evaline couldn't help but watch, mesmerized, as the muscles in his back moved just to make a simple bowl of oatmeal.
Feeling her eyes on him, Steve turned to see who had joined him, a smile lighting up his face. "Morning, Eva."
"Morning," she said, trying to sound as bright as him as she joined him in the kitchen, reaching up to grab her own cereal as he poured her coffee into her Harvard mug. She took it from him with a smile, noting that the scent of caramel was already wafting from it, a sign that he had somewhat prepared for her arrival. Grinning knowingly, but deciding to keep this knowledge to herself, she took a sip of the coffee before asking, "Where is everyone?"
"Training exercises, the lab, work, you name it," Steve said, using one hand to carry his bowl of oatmeal to the table and using the other to wave it around aimlessly in the air. He threw Evaline a smile over his shoulder as he said, "Unless someone comes back, we're alone."
She tried to ignore the tightening of her stomach at his comment as she brought over her cereal and mug of coffee to join him at the table, taking a seat across the nook from him as she dug in. The news blared on the wall, some politics channel that Evaline distantly remembered Sam complaining about playing every morning, especially when Saturday morning cartoons were on.
As it switched from one program to another, the newscaster called out from behind their desk, "Good morning, America. The date is March 30th, and today we have a story about…"
The rest of the host's opening monologue faded into the background as Evaline stared at the screen, a spoonful of Cheerios and bananas still halfway to her mouth. It took her only a few seconds for her to place why March 30th would stick out in her mind, but she finally did as she swallowed, hard.
Her strange behavior didn't go unmissed by Steve, who was watching her carefully as he asked gently, "What is it?"
"Oh, nothing," Evaline tried to say dismissively as she went back to her cereal. Steve's curious gaze morphed into a disbelieving one, and the intensity of it assured Evaline he wasn't going to give up his line of questioning until he had an answer. She sighed, saying, "It's just… today would have been my parents' wedding anniversary on my Earth."
Steve looked speechless and distinctly uncomfortable for a second, and Evaline muttered, "He's still missing, isn't he?"
"Yes," Steve said on an exhale, relief but also an apology crossing over his face. "I'm not sure how similar the story is to what you know or remember, but your father was a Special Ops soldier all throughout Desert Storm. He worked as a military contractor but then went back into Special Ops during the war in Iraq. I think it was in 2004 that they lost contact with him and his team, and they could never regain contact."
Evaline stayed quiet for a few moments, reaching down to rub out a cramp in her calf as she felt Steve carefully watching her. Quietly, she said, "I've had a long time to deal with him being presumed dead. But is… is the rest of my family okay? I'm assuming someone would have told me if not, but…"
She trailed off, unsure of what exactly what she was trying to say. Steve smiled at her calmly and said, "The rest of them are okay. Your younger brother, Gabriel, is in the Marine Corps, and he's currently stationed over in South Korea. Your older brother, Jeremy, lives in Rhode Island with his wife and two kids, about an hour away from your mom."
"My mom," Evaline said quietly, thinking about the powerfully strong, amazingly wise, and lovingly strict woman who had raised her. She was surprised how much longing was in her heart as she tried to idealize her mother, wondering the differences between the one in this reality and the last. She repeated, "They live in Rhode Island?"
"Yeah." Steve placed a scoop of his oatmeal into his mouth and swallowed before he casually suggested, "We could go see them. Today, if you wanted."
Evaline stopped with her cereal spoon halfway to her mouth again, this time not even noticing when the milk, bananas, and soggy Cheerios dripped to the table. "What?"
"It's only about a four drive. We can take a car, or a Quinjet if you want to get there faster," Steve said, as if that was the question Evaline had been asking. She blinked heavily at him, and he watched her expression carefully for any sign of how she was going to respond to his suggestion.
After a few tense moments of her quietly trying to analyze his words, she finally spoke up, saying, "I have a lot of questions… first and foremost being, how would I be able to function around them? In case you forgot, my memory is functioning at only about 30%, and I think that's a gracious estimate."
"I'll go with you and help you out with whatever you can't remember," Steve replied calmly, nodding his head as if to reassure himself it was a good idea. "You've told me about your family, and I… I've met them before. Many times, actually."
Evaline stared at him for another few, silent moments before asking in disbelief, "I introduced you to my family? Isn't it public knowledge that you're Captain America?"
"Yes," he said slowly, lowering his gaze to his oatmeal to hide the blush creeping up his cheeks, "which was a little bit… messy when you brought me home the first time. But it's been a while, and I think they've gotten used to that. Or, at least they have the decency to pretend it doesn't matter."
"I'm assuming they don't know I'm an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D," Evaline said slowly, earning a confirming shake of the head from Steve. "Okay, so what does my family think I do?"
"They think you're a psychologist doing research on child soldiers and guerrilla warfare in Subsaharan Africa," Steve answered so thoroughly, that Evaline's eyebrows rose in surprise. He shrugged, and said, "It took us a while to develop your backstory, let's just put it that way."
Evaline tried to focus on her next question considering the fifty that were rattling around in her brain, before she finally settled on, "So how the heck did I meet and start dating Captain America?"
"The cover story is that we met at one of the PTSD support groups Sam hosted at the VA back in D.C. a few years ago. I had met Sam beforehand, and you did some volunteer work there as a co-host of the support groups. Sam introduced us, and the rest is history," Steve said, getting up from the table as he went to go clean out his bowl of oatmeal in the sink.
Rising from the table, Evaline trailed after him into the kitchen, asking, "Okay, all of that craziness aside… I've been in a coma for five months. What the hell do they think I've been doing?"
"Doing your research in Africa, where you were unreachable except occasionally by e-mail. To my understanding, pictures were Photoshopped and sent to them, and also somehow we were able to use video editing to fake a few video messages to them as well," Steve said, shrugging again when Evaline threw him another surprised and confused look. "I left all of that stuff up to Tony and Natasha and them."
Evaline had to take several deep breaths at the discussion of faked messages, photos, and videos, and the idea of the lengths that S.H.I.E.L.D had gone to in order to basically cover up her accident from her family. She didn't even want to ask what their contingency plan was for if Evaline had actually died as a result of the incident.
"I can't just show up on their front doorstep," Evaline insisted, beginning to have more and more anxiety building up.
"I'll call Jeremy, said we wanted to surprise them," Steve said as if it was no big deal, essentially ignoring Evaline's tense feelings about the situation. He only seemed to register them as he looked up at her face and saw that her eyes were as wide as saucers, causing him to ask innocently, "What?"
"Steve," she said sharply, trying to meet his eyes and convey all the emotions she had warring on in her body. "What am I supposed to do if they're strangers to me? How do I fake that?"
He looked like he didn't have an answer for her, his lips pressed together tightly and his eyebrows furrowed together in concentration. Instead, he stepped closer to her, putting his hands over hers and squeezing them as he asked gently, "Don't you want to at least try?"
She wasn't sure how he knew that deep down, at the base of her being, she did want to try - despite the issues that could arise, or the heartbreak that could follow. So, she simply nodded, and he smiled at her, soothing her nerves at least a little bit as he said, "I'll go call Jeremy. You go pack your bags."
Evaline returned to her room and packed excessively, she knew, but she wasn't quite sure what kind of adventure she was preparing for. The only instruction she had received from Steve, after he came to tell her that Jeremy had nearly lost it with excitement at the news she was back, was to pack a bathing suit, and that was it as far as specifics.
Just as she was finishing up packing her bag and zipping it up, Steve came to her doorway and said, "Ride's here."
Nodding once, Evaline slung her duffle bag over her shoulder and dodged Steve as he tried to be a gentleman and take it from her. She clicked her tongue at him and said, "Not today, Cap. I need something to keep my mind off of what's happening right now."
They entered the elevator, riding up the two additional floors to the rooftop as Steve asked, "Aren't you even a little bit excited?"
"Excited, yes," Evaline admitted, nodding her head. "But I'm also nervous as all get out, and terrified that I'm going to make a mistake, and…"
"I promise, I've got your back, okay? " Steve said, interrupting her as the elevator doors opened and she she saw the helicopter waiting for them on the launch pad. He gave her a reassuring smile and said, "You ready?"
Evaline simply nodded, unsure if she spoke that Steve would even be able to hear her over the whirring helicopter blades, and unsure that if she spoke that she would be able to keep her hasty breakfast down. She clambered into the helicopter, tossing her duffle bag into the back storage area, as Steve exchanged some words with the pilot that were out of her earshot before joining her and helping her buckle into the complex helicopter straps and headphones.
The flight itself was only 30 minutes long, and Steve had told her that it would only be a 10 minute car ride from where they were landing to where her mother's house was. For the first 15 minutes or so, they flew over New York, and Evaline's face was practically plastered to the window of the helicopter as she watched the world fly by underneath her. For some, being that high would cause them more anxiety; for Evaline, it helped decrease it significantly.
As she finally relaxed back into her seat, Steve pulled something out of his pocket and said, "I figured I should give you an introductory course to your family, while we have the time."
She eyed the photo that was in his hand, which was a little worn and had the date 'July 2017' on the back of it. Quickly doing the math, she figured it was only a few months before her accident and her coma, and she felt her stomach tightening again as she tried to ease out of it by cracking at Steve, "You just carry around a picture of my family with you at all times? Creep."
"I stole this picture from your room for a reference," Steve said apologetically, giving her a small smile. Evaline tried to smile back, then focused in on the picture, which featured both her and Steve, as well as four other adults and two small children.
Wasting no time, Steve pointed to a dark-haired brunette man who looked the youngest out of all of the adults. He had a massive, indistinguishable tattoo on his left bicep, and his right arm was hidden as he wrapped it playfully around Steve's neck. His smile was the widest out of anybody in the picture's, and his hair the darkest.
"That's your younger brother, Gabriel. He goes by Gabe. To my knowledge, he's still over in South Korea at his posting, so he shouldn't be at the house when we get there," Steve said, a grin on his face as he seemed to remember something. "Maybe it's because he's the youngest, or the least tied down, but he's always the life of the party - much to your mother and Joanna's chagrin. He half-cusses around the kids and they adore him, so they pick up everything he says. I think he does it on purpose to make Joanna mad, and it works."
Evaline grinned, too; the Gabe in this reality sounded so much like the one she had known and loved in her last one. Thankfully, that seemed to be the case for all of the members of her family. Throughout the flight, Steve went through describing the attributes and stories of each person in the picture: sandy-haired and lean Jeremy, a Navy contract and Reservist, who had his arm tightly around the waist of his toe-headed professor wife, Joanna; Henry, their son, who was obsessed with any occupation that wore a uniform and had a deep obsession with Iron Man that obviously needled Steve; Daria, their daughter, who was in her peak princess stage spare her love for the Hulk; and Genevieve, the matron of the Kaeser family, who stood in the middle of all of them in the picture and beamed beatifically.
He finished up the report on her family but saying quietly, but reverently, "They're all great, and they all love you a lot."
She didn't miss the wistful tone in his voice, and she realized belatedly that Steve himself had been without a proper family for nearly eighty years now. As she noted the bittersweet smile that crossed his face, she reached out and took her hand in his, surprising him, especially as she laced their fingers and gave him a gently squeeze and a soft smile. "I can tell you care for them a lot, too."
Steve's face and posture softened as he admitted, "I do. Over the last few years, we've all spent a lot of time together. If you feel like, at any point of the night, you're getting in over your head, or whatever, know you can tag me. I know a lot about them if you forget something, and I'm also really good at getting us out of tough spots if you want to leave, or…"
Squeezing his hand again, she smiled gratefully at him as she said, "Thanks for having my back, but hopefully, I won't need it."
He smiled back at her, just as the agent in the front of the helicopter announced they had arrived at their location. Grabbing their respective duffle bags, they clambered out of the helicopter and onto the launch pad, taking the elevator down to the base level where a car was waiting for them. Evaline had almost gotten used to basically having a chauffeur everywhere she went, so she was surprised when Steve got into the driver's seat instead.
He peeked out the passenger side window at her, rolling it down as he asked with a small smile, "You coming?"
She got in at his request, buckling up as Steve began driving to her mother's house - without even using a GPS, Evaline noted belatedly. Distantly, she wondered just how many times they had made this drive together, and under what circumstances.
They passed a rather patriotic-themed sign that said 'Entering Newport, Rhode Island', words that seemed to strike Evaline in the chest like a physical blow. Bits and pieces of whatever her life had been before came back to her: fishing at Gurney's, Fourth of July barbecues, wearing summer dresses and flirting with Navy men, building a small snowman in the front yard one year they had a particularly brisk winter.
Most importantly, she remembered who she had shared those memories with: her two brothers, her mother, and, for most of her childhood but very few years of her teenage era, her father. She was surprised to feel the pain of his loss all over again, although he had gone missing on a Special Ops mission in her last reality as well. She was grateful Steve was driving and that his eyes were focused on the road, because it gave her an opportunity to stare out the window and get a hold of herself, all while studying her hometown before they arrived at her mother's place.
When they did arrive at the house, Evaline couldn't help but gawk a little bit at the gorgeous white and blue bungalow that stretched out in front of them. The sight of the expansive bright green yard and well-kept garden in the front strewn with a few toys, as well as the blue, pristine water ebbing and flowing from the shore Evaline could see behind the house, struck her heart the first moment her eyes saw it.
They both got out of the car, Steve scowling as Evaline exited quicker than he could move around the car to open the door for her, and began walking up the front sidewalk together. Evaline reached down and tentatively wrapped her hand around Steve's, earning a slightly surprised look from him as she said with a nervous smile, "You're still my boyfriend for all they know. Got to play the part, right?"
A flash of disappointment crossed over Steve's face, but he tried to cover it up with an encouraging smile as he squeezed Evaline's hand. "Right. We've got this, Ev."
The front door the house opened, at first revealing no one until two little human bullets shot out of the front door and down the drive.
"Auntie Eva! Uncle Steve!" the kids shouted as they sprinted down the sidewalk toward them. It took Evaline a moment to adjust, but she followed suit as Steve leant down to scoop up Henry, while she squat down on the sidewalk and prepared for impact as Daria barreled into her arms.
As she stood with the four year old safely in her embrace, and Daria's chubby little arms in a death lock around her neck, she spotted two adults standing at the door: Jeremy and Joanna. They grinned widely, their teeth matching the white shutter boards on the house even from this distance, and waved wildly at Steve and Evaline, who started making their way to the front door. Steve had flipped Henry over his shoulder, and the kid was howling with laughter as Steve continued to carry him in the fireman position; Daria, meanwhile, was squeezing her little hands on Evaline's face as she babbled about how her auntie looked different, as a streak of worry shot through Evaline's heart.
"Hey, sis," Jeremy said as they reached the front door, reaching out to wrap up her and his daughter in an embrace as Daria squealed with laughter when squeezed between the two adults. Jeremy kissed the top of both of their heads, then gently tugged on the end of Evaline's hair as he said, "I'm liking the short 'do. I imagine the long locks were a lot to keep up with in the Africa heat."
"Like you wouldn't believe," Evaline cracked as Joanna gave her a kiss on the cheek, and Jeremy and Steve shook hands and patted each others backs, a motion that made Joanna roll her eyes at Evaline knowingly.
Suddenly, a voice called from deeper inside the house, "Jer? Whose car is out front?"
Jeremy grinned wildly at Evaline before calling behind him, "Why don't you come see, Ma?"
A woman who Evaline knew had to be in at least her sixties but looked fairly young came around the corner, drying her hands on a dish towel as her graying eyebrows furrowed in confusion on her relatively unwrinkled face. Quickly, Evaline searched her for any of the differences she had found between the two realities' dopplegangers - and gratefully, she found none.
Her mother dropped the dish towel and covered her mouth in surprise, tears brimming at the edge of her eyes as Evaline smiled and said weakly, "Hi, Mom."
Mrs. Kaeser screamed and rushed forward, wrapping her arms tightly around her daughter, with a promise to never again let go. Evaline hadn't realized how tense she was until her mom wrapped her arms around her, and she felt a wave of familiarity rush over her that calmed each of her wound-up nerves, to the point where Evaline felt such a pressure relieve that tears filled her eyes.
As she pulled away from Evaline, her mother startled, saying. "Eva! You never cry! What's wrong?"
Steve, who had begun to follow Jeremy into the house with a friendly hand on his shoulder, quickly whipped around, giving her a worried look that she shook her head at to call him off. Instead, Evaline turned her attention to her mom, who she noticed had no discrepancies from the one she had called her mother in her old reality, a fact she was very soothed by.
"Sorry," Evaline said, giving her mom a watery smile as Steve and Jeremy both watched with lightly veiled concern. "I just missed you all, a lot."
Mrs. Kaeser's eyes also started to fill with tears and her voice warbled as she brought in her only daughter for another tight hug and said, "Oh, honey. We missed you, too."
"Oh, come on! It's too early for the tears!" Jeremy said brightly from beside Steve, pulling away to put one arm each around his sister and mother, giving them both a squeeze around their shoulders. "This is supposed to be a happy occasion! A reunion, a celebration! We can't start the crying now - it's way too early."
Both Evaline and Mrs. Kaeser laughed, the latter dabbing at her eyes with the loose-flowing shirt she was wearing as she said, "He's right, of course. We should be smiling and laughing, not crying. This is a happy day!"
And it was. They spent the entire day eating the banquet of food that Joanna and Mrs. Kaeser had prepared for Evaline's arrival home, and playing with Daria and Henry getting perhaps too much attention. They rotated from playing tag and softball in the front yard to playing some water-based games in the backyard, enjoying the cool breeze of the ocean and the strength of the sun. As the day went on, it wasn't even Steve's bare torso or muscles that Evaline was focused on as they all changed into swimsuits; it was the way he swung Henry up onto his shoulders when the waves got a little too rough, or helped Daria fix the unicorn floatie around her waist, or turned pink with both the heat of the grill and the embarrassment of having nearly burned a whole serving of hamburgers when he and Jeremy got too busy play-arguing about the Yankees and the Red Sox.
What she was focused on was the way he seamlessly wove into her family, and became a part of it - something that she had, in both realities, always wished of her partner. And the sight of Steve doing it so naturally admittedly made Evaline's heart swell.
Their day consisted of Henry and Daria basically monopolizing Evaline's time, telling her all about their favorite school stories and TV shows and friends, and Steve watched from a healthy distance as he seemed almost to be distracting the adults from asking Evaline too many questions. Between barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers, playing Chitauri invasion with the kids where Steve was the aliens he had slaughtered, and watching some basketball games on TV that Joanna and Steve argued about incessantly, it was a gorgeously normal day and proceeded so smoothly that Evaline forgot she had ever been nervous about it in the first place.
At Daria and Henry's request, and Mrs. Kaeser's insistence, they all changed into their pajamas at the end of the day before heading out to the backyard to make s'mores and watch the stars. Steve and Evaline took a seat on one of the porch swings out back, cozying up together underneath a blanket Evaline knew was from her childhood although she couldn't place the source of it. When they weren't sitting together, Evaline was helping Henry attempt the most perfect marshmallow burn of all time, and Jeremy was hammering Steve about questions related to the boat bobbing in the bay behind them, which apparently was having some sort of engine issue.
As the men moved toward the dock to take a look at the boat, Steve passed by Evaline and bent over her, his hands on his shoulders as he whispered in her ear, "Are you okay?"
She placed her hand over his, grinning up at him especially as Daria and Henry screamed about 'cooties'. Despite their insistence that Steve and Evaline move away from each other, she squeezed his hand tighter and promised him, "I'm great."
He grinned back at her before following Jeremy out to the dock, jumping onto the boat with him as the two disappeared from view. Despite their insistence that they weren't tired, Daria began to fall asleep in Joanna's arms, so she made them say goodnight to everyone before taking them into the house to clean the marshmallows and chocolate off their hands and send them to bed.
A peaceful quiet fell across Mrs. Kaeser and Evaline, uninterrupted from whatever work the men were doing on the boat. Still, Evaline kept her eye on them, watching as her brother and Steve laughed at something and Jeremy pretended to knock the superhero into the water.
Sighing contently, Mrs. Kaeser commented, "So, how's it going with you two?"
Evaline was startled by the line of questioning as she gaped at her mother and stammered, "What?"
"Don't 'what' me, missy," Mrs. Kaeser said playfully, rolling her eyes and giving her daughter an exasperated smile. "It's been almost five years since you two started dating, and you're no closer to the next stage than you were when you first brought him home."
Evaline felt her stomach doing somersaults in her abdomen as she gasped, "Mom!"
"I could tell from the first time you brought him home that you loved him, and that hasn't changed a bit," Mrs. Kaeser said warmly, smiling at her daughter, especially as Evaline flushed red from her neck to the tips of her ears. "I know that his job, if you want to call it that, makes this hard… but remind me again - why can't you move forward with him?"
Evaline was surprised at the teenage instinct she had to groan at her mother's question. "'Complicated' doesn't even begin to cover this territory, Mom."
"It doesn't need to be," Mrs. Kaeser said sagely, her smile soft and a little sad. "You love him. He obviously loves you. Sometimes, that's all you need."
Picking at the blanket on her lap, and sensing that Mrs. Kaeser's mind was somewhere else besides her daughter's love life, Evaline felt young again as she asked quietly, "Can you tell me about Dad?"
Mrs. Kaeser seemed taken aback by the question and the change in subject, eyeing her daughter again as she asked gently, "What do you want to know that you don't already?"
"Tell me the story of how you two met again," Evaline insisted earnestly, earning another curious look from her mother. Internally, Evaline's motive for having her mother tell this story was that she wished to know if it matched up with the story she knew from her last reality.
With no idea of her daughter's true intentions, Mrs. Kaeser simply smiled gently before acquiescing to her daughter's request.
"He was in the military, and some girlfriends and I would regularly haunt the bar near base to pick up military guys," Mrs. Kaeser dished, her eyes flashing playfully in the light of the fire in front of them. "I saw your dad from far away, and we kept making eye contact through the bar… but we could never truly find each other. As I laid in bed that night, I couldn't get your dad out of my mind, and I prayed to God - literally - that he would bring the mysterious man back into my life."
Mrs. Kaeser's voice was somewhere far away now, as was her gaze, as she no doubt reminisced on the good times with her husband. Evaline watched as sorrow crossed over her face, but also joy, at the thought of him; she also watched as Jeremy and Steve stood quietly in the shadows behind her, respecting her space as she told the story.
Turning to her daughter, Mrs. Kaeser gave her an entranced smile as she said, "That Sunday, at a church I went to almost every weekend, I still had your father on my brain as I said my prayers before the service started. As I was on the kneeler, I felt a tug on my dress, and looked down to see the kneeler next to mine had landed on top of my dress. I looked up, and sitting at the opposite end of that kneeler, smiling at me with pleasured surprise, was your father."
Evaline whispered, the story coming back to her, "You got married in the same church nine months later."
"And popped out your brother nine months after that," Mrs. Kaeser said, her smile back to joyful again. "I'm not sure when he learned from your father to be such a little sneak, though."
Jeremy and Steve stepped forward from the shadows, Evaline's brother putting both of his hands on his mother's shoulders as he said, "Not sneaky enough, apparently. Now that I've gotten Steve to fix my boat for me, I think it's time I headed inside and joined my wife in sleep. Any other takers?"
Mrs. Kaeser stood, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders like a shawl. "It's getting far too cold and late out here for a woman of my age and arthritic status to stand it anymore, anyway. I'll come inside, too."
Nodding in agreement, Steve looked like he was going to join them, but Evaline quickly stood up and placed her hand around his upper arm. She surprised him, garnering his attention as she asked him quietly, "Can we just… stay out here for a little longer?"
He looked taken aback by the statement, but simply nodded. Jeremy smirked at them from them porch doorway, saying, "Just remember, there's still kids inside the house, and we've all got pretty good hearing."
Mrs. Kaeser playfully swatted at her eldest's chest as he laughed and disappeared into the house, waving behind him at his sister and her supposed boyfriend. His mother grinned beatifically at Evaline and Steve as she walked inside the house, saying, "You two don't stay up too late, okay? Goodnight, my loves."
She disappeared back into the house, shutting the sliding glass door behind her as Steve joined Evaline back on the porch swing they had been sharing. Instead of leaning against Steve's side again with his arm behind her like they had been, the two of them sat separate from each other, still sharing the same blanket, since there was no one left to put on a show for.
"Thank you, for forcing me to go and coming with me," Evaline said gently, breaking the silence as she played with the frayed edges of the blanket.
"Of course," Steve said, nodding his head as he placed his arm on the back of the swing, his hand grazing gently against her shoulder. Carefully, he asked, "Were you… are you remembering some things?"
Slowly, Evaline nodded, admitting, "Some things. Very small tidbits here and there. Like, I can remember that bit about my parent's story, or that Joanna's favorite flowers are tulips, or that Jeremy wanted to be an astronaut growing up… or that your favorite ice cream is Rocky Road. But I feel like I can't remember a lot of the more important things, and that kills me."
His hand pressed against the skin between her shoulder blades as he said to her soothingly, "It'll come, or we'll figure it out, I promise you."
Her eyes lifted as she turned her body toward his, her hand absent-mindedly against his thigh as she told him, "Steve, I wanted to say - you've been so great through all of this. Thank you for being so kind, and so patient with me, and for… for not giving up on me. I'm sorry that I'm not healing as quickly as I'm sure you hoped I would be, but…"
"No," he said sharply, although his expression looked more stricken than anything else. The abrupt interruption startled Evaline, and he sighed, saying, "All that matters to me is that you're here."
Using the arm he had around her shoulders, he pulled her in closer so he could kiss the crown of her head. Evaline felt heat rush from the point of contact all the way to her toes, making each individual one curl and making each muscle in her body contract, before they all relaxed fully for what felt like the first time.
She squeezed her eyes shut and let herself be enveloped by Steve, wrapping her arms around his waist in turn and hid her face in his shoulder. The two of them spent several minutes in the embrace, Evaline finding herself immensely calmed down by the steady sound of Steve's breathing and the crashing of the waves against the shore.
He was the one to pull away first, saying quietly, "We really should head back inside and get some rest for the drive back tomorrow."
Evaline knew he was right, but she was surprised by how badly she wanted to stay in his arms under the stars. Still, she fought against making the suggestion to do so, worried that one thing would quickly lead to another and land her in situation that she wouldn't be able to handle.
Still, when they stood up from the porch swing to return inside, Evaline slipped her hand into Steve's so effortlessly that she wondered if he even noticed she had done it. Despite the fact that her heart was hammering away in her chest, the position felt so insanely natural to Evaline that she wondered why she hadn't attempted to do so earlier.
They crept back through the dark, quiet house, headed to the bedroom Evaline's mom had reserved them. As they made it to the door, Steve turned to her, staring at her for a few moments before lifting his hand to her mouth. He kissed the knuckle underneath her thumb and met her eyes as he did so, then murmured against her skin, "Goodnight, Eva."
He gently lowered her hand, then disentangled his from hers, turning to go down the hallway as Evaline watched him in curiosity for a few moments. When she realized he was seriously about to walk away, she called out quietly after him, "Where are you going?"
Turning back to her, Steve gave her a confused look, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to the living room as he said simply, "I'm going to go sleep on the couch."
"That's stupid, Steve. It's a king-sized bed," Evaline said, rolling her eyes and adopting a playfully patronizing smile. As Steve opened his mouth, no doubt to argue, she insisted, "I promise I'll try not to get cooties on you."
"I'm not worried about cooties," he replied slowly, his eyes heavy on hers even with the distance separating them in the hallway. Evaline tipped her head to the side in an unasked question, but just as Steve opened his mouth to answer her, the silence and tense air between them was interrupted by his cell phone ringing.
His hand went to his pocket instinctively, but he hesitated when it came to pulling it out. Evaline felt herself caught somewhere between relief and disappointment as whatever spell had come over the both of them shattered with the noise, and she told him, "Answer it."
Throwing her an apologetic look, he slipped the phone out of his pocket and answered, "Rogers."
Evaline watched him carefully, watching his face as it became more and more concerned, anger leeching onto his features. Whoever was on the other end of the phone talked for a while, before Steve said in a business-like tone she had yet to see him use, "I understand. We'll leave immediately. I'll call you when we're on the jet."
Her stomach sinking, Evaline kept her eyes on Steve's as he hung up the phone, his apologetic look returned. Carefully, she asked, "What? What happened?"
Steve sighed, pulling a hand roughly through his blonde hair as he said, "We found Nitro. He's holding hostages in Boston, and will only speak to you. We have to leave, now."
And the sweet normalcy of the night came to a halting crash.