That night I didn't have the best sleep. I was haunted by nightmares again, more than one this time though. I could only remember flashes of them, there was some of the Avengers, my dagger, screams of anger and pain and blood, lots of blood. When I woke up, they faded into the back of my mind again, ready to announce their presence for the next time I didn't really want to see them.

Covered in sweat and sleep-deprived, I stumbled out of bed and ran myself a cold shower before turning it to warm after I had been thoroughly woken up. Remembering that I had training that morning, I put on my HYDRA outfit for training, since my old one wouldn't have fit me with my current underfed shape. I had put on a little bit more weight in the weeks in the hospital, but I still wasn't eating as much as I should have been. I was trying at least.

I tied my utility belt around my waist and quickly braided my hair, only realizing once I was done that it was exactly how I did it during HYDRA. I stared at myself in the mirror of the bathroom and a chill ran down my spine as I realized how much I looked like the murder that HYDRA had created and used for so many months.

Pushing the thoughts out of my head, I stepped away from the mirror and took a deep breath, closing my eyes as I tried to focus on being in the present rather than the past. I unlocked my door after a couple of moments and stepped out. As I was walking down the stairs, the smell of French toast and cinnamon scrolls floated up to me, making my mouth water. I reached the kitchen and slumped down into my usual chair between Loki and Pepper, who immediately put two slices of French toast and three cinnamon rolls onto my plate and I thanked her with a smile before pouring myself a cup of orange juice. I knew that I probably would only be able to drink one glass of orange juice and maybe half a slice of French toast, but I appreciated Pepper trying to encourage me to eat more.

"You look horrible Emily." Observed Clint as covered my French toast in maple syrup and cinnamon sugar. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Thanks Clint." I gave him a look, cutting the French toast in half. "And no, not really."

"Nightmares?" Asked Wanda from next to Clint and I looked up at her, nodding. She smiled sympathetically and I gave her a small smile back before swallowing my first mouthful of the French toast, which was basically drowning in maple syrup.

Barely a second later, a green haze covered my eyes for the briefest second before fading away, leaving me a whole lot more refreshed. I blinked a couple of times and looked at Loki.

"Thanks." I smiled softly.

"You want to talk about it?" He offered and I shook my head, turning my gaze back down to the food, knowing that he was trying to do the whole therapist thing of 'talking about my nightmares', which Steve had already tried multiple times.

I continued to eat my breakfast in silence, listening to all of the conversations that were going around the table. I couldn't help but think about what Tony had said last night, about them all wanting me to stay and about me being like his daughter and I suddenly realized that the Avengers were like my family. A somewhat dysfunctional family.

I surprised myself by managing to eat a whole thing of French toast and half a cinnamon scroll, but knowing that I didn't want to be sick before training, I put the rest on the plates that were all of the middle of the table. Thor didn't hesitate in snatching them up and I chuckled softly.

I washed up my plate and followed Steve and Bucky, both of them having already finished. Loki wasn't far behind, follow by Nat, and then Tony who said he just wanted to watch. Steve was adamant that I only worked on stretches, which I was more than happy to do, because it meant I could sit on the floor the whole time and watch everyone else train. The most interesting one to watch was Steve and Bucky, the two super soldiers against each other. I had seen them both move in training before, and I had seen Bucky fight during our time at HYDRA, but seeing them up against each other was very entertaining to watch. Bucky seemed to be craving movement and they trained against each other multiple time, the winner varying each time, which meant Nat, Tony and I had a lot of fun in betting who would win.

As the weeks progressed, I had check ups every Friday with Bruce, which Loki always attended to help with any extra healing that needed to be done. Bruce told him that I knew what had happened and he gave me a look as if to say something along the lines of 'why?" I just grinned and he rolled his eyes, but smiled slightly.

Buy the sixth week after my injury, Bruce deemed my body to be healed enough that I could start increasing the movement I did in training. At first, it was just simple, very slow hand-to-hand combat with Steve, who seemed to be very protective of me during training and wouldn't let me move around too much. It would have been nice if he was like that when I first got here.

Two months after the incident, I was allowed to train with Bucky, which was announced at the breakfast table in the morning and created a crowd of all of the Avengers to come watch us, clearly keen to see HYDRA's enhanced assassins fight. It did nothing to help my nerves when I saw Tony collecting money for bets. I wasn't even allowed to have my dagger back, which meant that I had to use of Bucky's that was extremely unfamiliar and awkward in my grip. I knew this wasn't going to go well.

Bucky seemed slightly hesitant at first, pulling his punches and seeming to be on the defensive the whole time, but slowly, as our bodies warmed up, we got back into our old ways of fighting at HYDRA. There was no defensive moves, or at least not as many as there was aggressive ones. I drew blood on him first, nicking his flesh hand slightly when he tripped over a piece of carpet that was coming up off the floor. That was pretty much the only injury I managed to cause him, I felt like I was becoming his personal punching bag and pin cushion. The wounds that he caused me from his dagger were only very swallow, the blood not at all visible through the black fabric of my HYDRA uniform, and we were moving too quickly for any of the Avengers to see that he had hurt me. Considering how protective they were of me, they would have pulled me out instantly.

But that's not how I fought, I wasn't going to back down because I got a couple of little nicks to my skin. I slowly lost sense of my surroundings and the way we were fighting felt like we were back in HYDRA. I managed to get a punch into his jaw and I saw a darkness flicker in his eyes that instantly reminded me of the Winter Solider. I stumbled slightly, my eyes widening, and he took my moment of weakness to his advantage and stabbed his dagger straight through my side, just below my ribs. That stopped me from moving, which finally allowed the Avengers to see one of the wounds and they all immediately jumped up. I didn't give them a chance to try and reach me before I continued to fight against Bucky. He hadn't pinned me down yet. This fight wasn't over.

I wrenched the dagger out of my side, blood spurting everywhere, and threw it back at him with lightening fast reflexes, lodging it in his flesh shoulder. As he took a step back, I attempted to leap towards him, aiming to kick him in the chest and knock him down to the ground where I could then pin him and win. But it didn't even get one foot off the ground before a pair of hands grabbed me and pinned my arms to the side as I immediately recognised Loki's cool skin. I squirmed slightly in his grip, wanting to get free and finish this fight, only to see that Bucky was being pulled away from me as well, Steve struggling to hold him back.

"Emily, stop it." Loki's voice was right next to my ear, his breath tickling my neck and I immediately flinched as memories of what the male HYDRA agents did to me flooded my mind. "Hey calm down, its me, Loki."

"I know." I panted, my eyes locked onto Bucky as Steve continued to try and calm him down. "The fights not finished. Neither of us won."

"You're hurt." Loki's voice was full of shock. "It isn't about winning."

"Yes it is." I hated the fact that I couldn't get out of his grip, I probably looked so weak now. You didn't pull out of a fight just because you were injured, that was cowardly.

"Emily, stop." I could tell that Loki was using some of his magic to restrain me. "This isn't HYDRA anymore. You don't have to fight to win."

I still struggled in his grip, but slowly relaxed as I saw Bucky backing down. Loki kept his arms wrapped around me, my arms still pinned at my sides as I leaned heavily against him, my back pressed against his chest. I was panting for breath, and even though the heavily bleeding wound in my side was stinging a little, the adrenaline pumping through my veins made me feel so alive.

Very slowly, he released me and gripped my shoulders slightly as I sat down on the ground, the right side of my shirt soaked with blood.

"Let me see it." He said and I didn't hesitate, pulling up my shirt just enough to expose my wound as Tony walked over too. Only then did I realise that I had forgotten about the other little scratches I had gotten from Bucky.

"Okay, that's it." Tony shook his head. "You're banned from training with Barnes."

"What?" I looked up at him. "Why?"

"Have a look at you." Tony gave me a sharp look and even though I knew he was just being protective of me, I still shrunk inwards slightly. "You're covered in wounds."

"They're just little scratches." I replied. "I'm fine. Seriously. I want to fight Bucky. I'm use to it."

"That's a little more than a couple of scratches." Banner walked over, looking at the nicks littering my stomach. "How can you say that?"

"It doesn't even hurt." I sighed, a little annoyed at their overprotectiveness of me.

"Like she said, we're use to it." Bucky interrupted and I looked up to see him approaching, Loki's hands tensing slightly as he healed the biggest wound. "It would be much worse than this at HYDRA." He looked down at me, smiling slightly. "Do you remember that time when I slipped and my dagger literally cut you straight down the middle of your body, from your neck to your stomach."

"Yes." I laughed, wincing slightly at the memory. "I was bleeding everywhere, I'm pretty sure its stained on the floor. But do you remember the time that I accidentally dug my dagger into your metal shoulder and it snapped off and hit me straight back in the face, just under my eye? They had to use tweezers to try and remove it, and then turns out it was embedded in the bottom of my eyeball."

"Okay, can we stop sharing war stories?" Tony interrupted and we both look up at him. "You both are disgusting." I smiled softly and Loki offered me a hand as he pulled me up off the floor, my wounds all healed. "And don't think I didn't notice you had another dagger on you Emily. Hand it over."

"Its not even mine though." I sighed. "It's Bucky's. I took it from him ages ago."

"I thought it looked familiar." Bucky murmured, giving me a look as he handed the dagger to me, which was covered in my blood. I handed it to Tony and he grimaced, holding it like it was infected.

"Emily, training for you is over for the day." He looked at me. "You can go back to the compound and get changed for dinner. Tomorrow, you'll be doing individual training."

I sighed and pulled a face, causing Loki's lips to twitch a little, but I didn't question Tony's order, walking out of the training block back to the compound, half of the Avengers trailing behind me.