Sometime later Eva was jerked awake by the now-familiar sounds of a quinjet's engine, somehow even more tired than before. They must be back, she thought groggily as she rubbed her eyes, not making much of it rather than a disturbance of her peace. And then the other half of her brain woke up.

They're back!

She leapt to her feet, actually sending Rachel Carson flying this time, and sprinted out of the rec room. By the time she got to the hallway half-walled by glass that showed the landing pad outside, the quinjet's ramp was opening and Romanoff, Rhodes and the captain were walking out of it, followed by what appeared to be a raccoon on its two hind legs, carrying a gun. Eva didn't ask questions. The last one to emerge was Dr Banner, who looked relatively unscathed, if quite anxious. She hovered in the corridor, wringing her hands, and waited for them to approach.

"Eva," said Banner. "Coffee girl. What – what are you doing here?"

"You're back!" she exclaimed, as they all ground to a halt. It was as though there was an invisible wall on either side of Eva, prohibiting their passing. "Wakanda's been all over the news and I haven't heard anything from Stark. Whatever it is that went down, it screwed over the rest of the world, too – everyone's losing their heads, Vision must've picked some of it up on his internet brain and told y'all about it. The government's done jack and the emergency lines are off the hook, too. They could use some superheroes." She peered over their shoulders. "Where's the rest?"

They all looked at each other. The air became thick with unspoken words.

"Don't do that," she chastised them. "Don't patronize. You tell me, now. If you don't then V will in a minute anyway. So where are the others?"

"Eva," said Rogers. His face was bloody and shadowed; his eyes bloodshot, as though he had been crying. "You saw what happened."

Oh, god. It didn't work. No wonder they could not bring themselves to look her, or each other, in the eye. "Vision," she said. "I need to see him, right now. He said he was happy to die to stop this happening. He doesn't think his life is worth half of one of ours, I know he doesn't. He'll hate himself forever for this. He's still in the quinjet, yeah? He must be. Don't tell me he stayed in Wakanda."

Rogers opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He seemed to wilt in front of her, all his usual strength and poise failing as his shoulders sagged. She had seen him like this only once before: outside the nursing home of Peggy Carter, when he had told her he was scared that there was nothing he could do to stop her from dying. "He didn't…"

"Don't mess with me," Eva said in a bright, brittle voice. "If he got the stone, then that means you didn't have to destroy it. You got it out of Vision's head, right? You said. You said that's what you were gonna do. You said that's not the way you do things. Not a sacrifice you were willing to make, you said. That the bad guys would get it before that happened. You – you promised."

They were all staring at her, the same guilty kind of look on their faces. Nobody was saying anything. Why was nobody saying anything?

"No," she said. "No, no, no, this – this isn't happening. You promised."

"Eva," Rogers began again. A fresh tear tracked its way down his cheek, snagging on the dried blood. "I'm so sorry."

And then Thor came out of the shadows of the quinjet, his hair shorn close to his scalp, a massive axe slung in his belt, and something large – man-sized – being carried, shrouded in cloth, in his arms. He knelt down and, very gently, laid the thing on the ground. As he did, a whisper of fabric escaped the cloth. It had changed color – she was used to seeing it gold, not this dark, dull gray – but Eva would recognize it anywhere.

No.

"YOU PROMISED!"

She lunged towards him, rage clouding her vision into a tight black tunnel, and launched herself at Rogers' handsome, poster-boy face. He did nothing to stop her, to defend himself, to even get out of her way. It wouldn't have mattered if he had. Eva was like a wildcat fighting a bull. Strength and size mean nothing to frenzied, feral rage. "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD!"

Her fingernails were within a hair's width of tearing his skin when massive arms intercepted her, picking her up and dragging her away. "YOU PROMISED! YOU GOD DAMN LIAR, YOU PROMISED! LET GO OF ME!" Over and over again, her voice hoarse and shredded, arms and legs still stretched out to the captain, trying to kick and scratch and make him hurt. "You promised me you would bring him home!"

"Eva," said a deep, rumbly voice in her ear – Thor's. It was him that had picked her up, light as a feather to him, holding her back from tearing the others' faces off. "Eva, hush. I know, I know. Eva. Come on, coffee girl. Hush."

"You said!" she sobbed, adrenaline rush fading, energy dropping out of her like life blood. Thor stayed holding her, tight in his arms like a child. "Let go of me! You promised!"

Through the swimming haze of tears she could just about make out Steve, staring at her with such an utterly hopeless look on his face, shaking his head slightly as though he knew why she had attacked him - as if he understood. Like he wanted her to do it.

"I can't live without him!" she wailed as the Asgardian cradled her, carried her away from the quinjet and the heroes and the shrouded body on the floor. "I can't do it! I can't! I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do!"

"I know," Thor said again, his hand running through her hair. "Come on, sweetheart. Hush. That's it. Breathe, Eva. Just breathe."

He had carried her through to the bedrooms and, after a couple of failed attempts, found the one with a cat imprint on the armchair, a few minimalist pieces of art, overflowing bookshelves and drawers left open and messy from where she had been rifling through the neat folded clothes earlier. Eva had never been very good at folding. She always tended to leave a mess after herself. But in here, everything was always tidied away perfectly once she left. Not now, though. Not ever again.

"I can't," she sobbed. "Let me go back, let me see him, please, you might be wrong, he might still be okay, please…"

"Later." Thor set her down on the bed, very gently, still pushing her hair away from her face. "Later. Not now. He would not want to see you like this, would he? Deep breaths, nice and steady. That's it. There you go."

She clung onto the thick red fabric of his cloak, fingers like vice grips. "What do I do now?" she whispered.

Thor took her small hands in his big, tough ones, surprisingly gentle with her. "Let us worry about that for now," he said softly. "You have been so very strong, Eva."

"You don't know that," she replied, voice shaking like fall leaves in a gale.

"I do. I know bravery when I see it. And right now, coffee girl, I think you might have been the bravest out of all of us. So now you stay here, where you are safe, and you sleep."

"Don't leave me," she said. "Please."

"Of course I won't. Who do you think I am?" Thor asked. "My ex-girlfriend?"

Eva laughed, very snottily. "Oh, god," she giggled. Then her breath caught in her throat, swelling around the laugh and turning it into another sob.

"That's me," Thor smiled. "Hush, hush. Come on. Into bed with you." As Eva crawled under the covers, he stayed sat on the floor next to her and, once she was settled, started stroking her hair again. "Would you like a tissue?"

She sniffed. "Yes, please."

"Hmm." He looked around him, failed to find one, then took a small, silvery blade quite unlike the rest of his weapons and used it to cut a scrap from his cloak. "Here. Use this, it's very absorbent."

She wiped her face clean of snot and sweat and tears. "Thanks."

"That's quite alright, Eva. Now – since you find it so funny, let me tell you all about my break-up. It was entirely mutual, you know. A fascinating tale, too. A lot of people don't believe it, but…"

His voice sounded like distant thunder. When Eva was little, she used to love falling asleep while the rare Texas storms approached, tucked safely away under layers of blankets and cuddly toys. It always led to the most peaceful slumbers, the softest dreams she had ever had, and she was out for the count without fail before the rain started. The longer Thor talked, the closer that storm came. And, like every time before it, she was asleep before it arrived.

A/N for the record, the knife Thor uses to cut his cloak was Loki's. Just in case this chapter wasn't sad enough.