Evelyn was released from the hospital two days later. The doctors gave no answers to the many many questions that both she and Steve asked them. Evelyn was practically on her knees begging them to help her, she stopped asking when she realized her case was beyond their comprehension.

And she still hadn't seen Tony. Pepper came and went a dozen times in two days, so did Happy Hogan and yet her brother never made an appearance. Pepper tried to lie and tell her he was doing a press conference, but she was never that great of a liar. A simple google search told Evelyn there was nothing in the public by Stark Industries in the last three months.

"Is this really necessary?" Evelyn groaned as Steve wheeled her out of the lobby in a wheelchair.

"Hospital protocol." Steve responded, a certain humor to his voice.

"Since when do you follow the rules, Rogers?" She asked, wincing as the bright sun hit her eyes for the first time in over a week.

"You've got a lot going on, the least I can do is save you the walk." Steve chuckled. Evelyn reached her arm around to elbow Steve in the side.

"At this rate I could probably levitate myself home without even knowing it." Evelyn grumbled.

"That would save money on transportation." Steve chortled. Evelyn rolled his eyes at Steve's humor. Leave it to Steve to always look on the bright side.

Happy was standing by one of the Stark Industries black sedans in front of the hospital. Several other security officers were mulling around trying to make themselves look busy, while they waited for the youngest Stark to appear from the lobby.

"Feeling any better Eva?" Happy asked, opening the backdoor to allow Evelyn and Steve to climb inside. Steve handed off the now empty wheelchair to an accompanying nurse before climbing into the car behind Evelyn.

"I'll be better when I can kick Tony's ass for not coming to see me." Evelyn said, checking her phone to see he hadn't bothered to text her either. There were two missed calls from Phil, five texts from Clint and Natasha, a digital greeting card from Sam, there was even a missed call and a voicemail from Peggy. But no Tony.

"In your brothers defense, he did come to the hospital when you were admitted." Happy said, pulling the three of them out of the hospital. The other security men trailing along in an SUV.

"That was two weeks ago. Does he even know I'm getting out?"

Happy glanced at the girl from the rear view mirror before answering. "Pepper told him."

"You know how rough the two of us had it the last couple of years, Hap." Evelyn said. "I thought we were done suffering alone after all of that."

"Hey, you aren't alone." Steve said, finally speaking up for the first time. He reached over and patted her thigh. She looked over and smiled gently at him before reaching down and holding his hand.

"I'll be forever grateful for you Steve Rogers." she whispered. She missed Happy grinning at the pair from the front seat.

It wasn't but twenty minutes later and they were pulling up in front of Stark Tower. "Home sweet home." Evelyn mumbled before shoving her way out of the car.

"You can head home if you want, Steve. I don't know when the last time you actually went there is." Evelyn said. "Your fern is probably dead."

Steve chuckled. "That fern has been dead long before you went into the hospital."

"Duly noted. Don't buy Steve live plants." Evelyn said, smiling up at the man.

~

Tony was in his lab, exactly where she knew she would find him. He was hunched over a work table, his eyes running quickly over some paperwork. His dark hair was disheveled, he had dark circles under his eyes, and Evelyn could tell he hadn't slept that night.

"So what's a girl gotta do to get a get well balloon?" Evelyn asked, walking across the messy lab to greet the tired eyes of her brother. Tony looked up and gave her a look over before looking back down at his papers.

"Seriously Tony, what is the matter with you?" Evelyn cried out, grabbing the file out of his hands. Steve was still standing awkwardly behind the duo. Evelyn almost wished he had went home or was waiting for her down on her floor, her and Tony could get pretty vulgar when they started arguing.

She glanced down to see the file was a report on gamma radiation by Dr. Bruce Banner.

"I'm not going to turn into the Hulk, Tony." Evelyn said, rolling her eyes before handing him back the file.

"You don't know that Eva. You don't know how much gamma radiation was exposed to you when the tesseract blew up right in your face!" Tony yelled, causing Steve to take a step closer to Evelyn. This action was not unnoticed by either Stark.

"You're besties with a capcicle now?" Tony snarked, glaring at Steve. Steve was quick to return it.

"His name is Steve, and he's one of my best friends. You would know that if you bothered to step foot in my hospital room these past two weeks. Steve has been there this whole time."

"I was doing research. I need to know what were up against." Tony responded, running his hand through his hair.

"We? Believe me I'm fully aware what were up against." Evelyn told him before she held a hand out creating the portal of her apartment that she created accidentally in the hospital. Tony looked at her hands, his eyes so wide she thought they would pop from his head. His own hands reached out several times as if to touch her, but he only let them hover a few inches above.

"That's --" Tony stared, before cutting himself off. "I have more work to do."

Evelyn scoffed and shook her head. "You honestly think I haven't thought of every scenario here? Whatever is happening with me is beyond us! Beyond earth!"

"There's tests we can run, we can check for gamma levels, we can --"

Evelyn cut her brother off by angrily with a blast through the roof, both Tony and Steve ducked out of the way of falling debris. Steve had tried pulling Evelyn with him out of the way, but she side stepped out of his reach.

~

"You can't fix this, Tony." Evelyn whispered, tears spilling over and down her cheeks. "You don't know what I've seen. I'm not only terrified of what's coming, I'm afraid of myself and what I can do. I don't want to be a weapon."

Evelyn sobbed before sinking down to her knees, staring at her still glowing blue palms.

"Eva, that's not going to happen." Tony said, taking a step towards his little sister. He knew Evelyn like nobody else did, he knew exactly what she went through when she was held captive, and he definitely knew her anxiety was rearing it's ugly head right there in front of him.

"No tests. No press. I mean it, Tony. I will not be used as a weapon again. Not in someone else's war!" Evelyn cried out before running her hands through her hair. Her breathing was rapid, and she tried her hardest to slow down her heart rate.

"I would never call the media for something like this, Evelyn. But we need to figure out what is happening with you, whatever is running through you could be killing you and we wouldn't even know it." Tony said, trying to reason with her. Tony was acting calm on the outside, but on the inside he just wanted to scream at his sister for being so careless and looking at the tesseract in the first place.  Besides Pepper, Evelyn was all he had. And he'd be damned if he lost her.

"You know better than to think I'd treat you like a lab rat, Eva. This never needs to leave the tower if you don't want it to. But we need to find out the extent of whatever is going on with you. " Tony was trying anything to get Evelyn to at least make sure the tesseract wasn't slowly poisoning her as she sat on the floor.

Evelyn eventually sniffled and nodded her head.