Tomorrow was Valentine's Day. Eva was vaguely aware, due to the promptings of one Mr Sam Wilson, that this was quite important, but unfortunately it had been overshadowed by something much more critical. Something imperative and necessary to the wellbeing of womanhood everywhere.

"Galentine's Day!" she said ecstatically, and Alvie clapped her hands in delight. They were sat having a pizza picnic in Central Park, with the unseasonal sunlight beating down on them and filtering through their intangible bubble of friendship and happiness. Eva liked having a female friend she could actually do this with.

"Galentine's Day present!" Alvie yelled, handing an oddly-shaped box to Eva. They traded, the gardener handing the other woman a bag. "Ooh."

Eva opened the box. Inside it was a ukulele, which Alvie appeared to have decorated in her own… eclectic manner with several dozen dried flower petals and some varnish. "How did you know I can play ukulele?" she asked, giving it an experimental strum.

"I know everything," Alvie said. "Although I did think it was a bit too close to hipster for you to do."

"Everyone has their dirty little secrets," Eva shrugged, "did you know you can play Tchaikovsky on uke? It sounds a bit weird, but what doesn't? Thanks, you wonderful human being. Open yours."

"Okay, but I'm not really that bothered about gifts, ya know, I kinda have everything already so don't worry if – OHMYGAHDYOUGOTMEAFREAKINLIGHTSABER!"

"Cost me a week's overtime, that did," Eva said proudly. "You like all that scifi stuff, right?"

"Right!" said Alvie, leaning over her pizza box and planting a kiss on Eva's forehead. "We should do this every day."

"Don't really have the budget for that, honey," said Eva, dabbing away the lipstick mark Alvie had left, "but I appreciate the thought. So how're things?"

"Oh," said Alvie, "ya know. Keepin' busy." As she spoke, she slowly dissected the last slice of her pizza – eating the different toppings, one by one, then peeling off the cheese, eating that, tearing away the crust and eating that last, after what was left of the rest of the pizza. Eva didn't even bat an eyelid at Alvie's weird habits anymore. Her own pizza-eating technique was to roll it up into tubes and see how much she could inhume in one mouthful. "My boyfriend called last night."

"Ah," said Eva, "the mysterious boyfriend whose name I still don't know."

"It's a secret," said Alvie, with the grin she always wore when she talked about him. "What about you?"

"Sam's busy," Eva shrugged, "there's lots of stuff happening right now, I think. Stuff with the government, and all that. It's complicated, you know? I just stick to mowing their lawn."

"And boring," Alvie said, "don't forget boring. Lotsa boring superhero stuff."

Eva laughed. "I think we're the only two people in the world who think superhero stuff is boring."

"Probably. And the trees? How are the trees?"

"What," said Eva, "in general?"

Alvie shrugged.

"I mean, the rainforests are having kind of a hard time right now," she laughed.

"Really? Why?" Alvie asked, popping an olive in her mouth and readjusting her hat, which had almost as many flowers on it as Eva's new ukulele.

Eva cocked her head to one side. "You really don't watch the news much," she said, "do you?"

"It's a bit doom and gloom," Alvie said offhandedly.

"Well, that's putting it lightly." Eva popped open a can of Coke and clinked it against Alvie's weird green smoothie. "Happy Galentine's Day, Al."

"You too, Evaline."

"Don't call me that!"

A/N Galentine's Day: the world's most important national holiday that isn't actually a national holiday. Now, you may be thinking one of two things: "hey! This isn't Friday, and yet we get an update!" and/or "but Galentine's Day was weeks ago!" (Unless you're reading this in the future, in which case skip this A/N. It will mean nothing to you.) So the reason for this is - I had significantly more prewritten than I thought, Civil War comes out earlier than I had guessed, so we're going back to twice-weekly updates! Yay! I'm shunting the Coffee Run timeline back a couple of months to allow me time to update the pre-Civil War chapters and actually, y'know, figure out what I'm gonna do about Civil War. Apart from cry. So there'll be a couple of dates mentioned in future chapters to help plot where we are in chronology, and while that happens you get twice as much as you normally do. I think, because of life, updates after Civil War will most likely be a fair bit less regular, so make the most of this while it lasts, kids.