Disclaimer: Sadly, I own nothing related to Marvel, either the comics, movies, TV shows, etc. All of that belongs to the Disney Corporation (though I might try kidnapping Captain America and Hawkeye some day, just for fun).

AN: Technically, this is the last chapter of the trilogy, but I'll be posting a few one-shots regarding what happens to Cap and Adena afterwards, so keep an eye out for those. There won't be many, just three or four, but that's all. Thanks for sticking with me through this entire series of stories; I so very much appreciate it. See you at the next posting!

Chapter 17: Epilogue:

"All clear," Bruce cheerfully told me, much to my relief. "Still, I want you to take it easy for a while. Your MRI and X-Rays may have come back clean, but that doesn't mean you should be overdoing it, especially after all you've been through."

I rolled my eyes. "Thanks, Mom," I sarcastically replied. "I'll keep that in mind."

Beside me, Cap chuckled. "Don't mind her, Bruce; Adena's just upset that you've kept her here for a week. She's been bored out of her mind and wants out of here as soon as possible."

"Dang right I do," I retorted. "I want to go finish what's left of our vacation, and then go home."

Bruce laughed and offered a helping hand off of the exam table. "Well, that's fine with me, but only if you take it easy. If you feel dizzy or strange a couple weeks from now, you call me or Phil ASAP."

Before I could give another sarcastic reply, Bruce gave me a gentle shove towards the door. "Now, be good for the poor Captain. After all, he's the one who has to put up with you."

I stuck my tongue out at him. "Funny. I promise to try and not give him as much trouble as I've given you, but if he's going to hover over me all the time, then he's asking for it."

Cap shifted a little uneasily, but stayed quiet. He knew I was right about the hovering –the poor guy had been sleeping on a cot in my hospital room, and hadn't left at all for any reason. My boyfriend's meals and clean clothes were brought to him by Phil, whenever the agent came to check up on me, and Cap was given use of the room next to mine so that he could shower and clean up. Other than that, he never left my side.

"I just don't want anything else to happen to you," Cap constantly insisted whenever I told him to go get some sleep or to go eat something other than hospital food.

It was sweet of him, but after a week of being doted on by Phil, Bruce, and Cap, I was ready to go. The only people who hadn't dropped by were Tony and Pepper, and that was because Pepper didn't want to add to the group of overprotective folks I already had.

"So, Pepper and Tony are going to be here in a couple hours to pick the two of you up and take you off to a nice hotel here in San Francisco," Bruce informed me. "The four of you will hang out there until you're ready to head back to New York."

I looked at him. "What about you?"

He smiled. "I'm heading back tonight. I've got a few new experiments going on, and I don't want to leave them for very long."

I should have felt hurt, but instead, I was flattered that Bruce had left New York just to come take care of me. "Thanks, Bruce," I said, leaning to press a kiss to his cheek. "I appreciate everything you've done for me."

"For us," Cap put in as we made our way to the door.

"Remember not to overdo it!" Bruce called as Cap and I made our way to the front of the hospital.

We'd just approached a intersecting hallway when a group of doctors went by, talking quietly and ignoring us completely. I heard something about a 'coma' and someone being awake enough to answer questions, but that was enough –I knew who they were talking about. She was, after all, the only person in a coma in this super-secret SHIELD medical center.

Glancing over at Cap, I could see that he knew what I wanted to do. "No," he flatly told me.

I sighed. "Come on, Cap," I pleaded. "You know there are a lot of questions I have, and she's the one who can answer them!"

He crossed his arms. "No. After everything she's done to you, why would you want to ask her questions face-to-face? You know Phil would do that for you."

"But I want to do it," I half pleaded, half whined. "Please, Cap; let me do this."

But of course, that was when Phil came striding up from an opposite hallway, his face serious as he said, "Agent Carter would like to see you."

"I'm sorry for what happened," Agent Carter said, straight off. She was strapped to the bed as a precaution, but oddly enough, she wasn't trying to get lose and attack me.

At those words, I don't know who was more surprised: me or Cap. We hadn't even been in the room more than a minute before that sentence had been spilled out, so it was easy to imagine our shock.

"Um, okay," I awkwardly replied, looking over at Phil to see if Agent Carter really was 'all there.'

"I mean it," she impatiently declared, getting my attention again. "I know that I was a real bitch to you for all those weeks. That's not who I usually am, and I asked Agent Coulson to bring you here so that I could tell you that I'm sorry for everything I did."

The way she looked at us, calmly and fully collected, convinced me that she really was in her right mind. Cap didn't seem sure, and neither did Phil, but I believed her.

"So, what caused your sudden change in personality?" I asked, since Cap seemed determined to stand there in disapproving silence. "Psychological breakdown? Stress? Some kind of head injury?"

Agent Carter sighed and shook her head. "I honestly don't know. To tell you the truth, I don't think I've been functioning right ever since Loki set foot on Director Fury's hovercraft. Everything after that day seems like a bad dream, or a nightmare that I lived and can vividly remember."

At that point, Cap, Phil and I exchanged looks. Had Loki somehow managed to sink his claws into another human being? If so, how had he done it this time –and why?

"I don't think I could answer any questions you might have about Loki and his motives for doing all this," Agent Carter warned us. "I think that I was just the puppet, or 'means', for him to get whatever he wanted done."

Phil sighed. "If that's the case, we'll probably never know a whole lot about this situation. As things stand, Director Fury isn't taking any chances –he wants Agent Carter set up in a psych ward for a few months, just to be sure of her mental stability."

"For Christ's sake, Phil, I know I'm perfectly sane," she retorted. "I know I blew it, but that wasn't my fault."

She looked over at Cap. "Believe me, Captain Rogers; I have no intention of stealing you away from your girlfriend. Given how much my Aunt Peggy cared for you, I'm sure you're a great guy, and I respect you and everything you've done for this planet. But to be honest, you're not the type of guy I'm looking for, though you probably suit Miss Philips just fine."

I couldn't help it –I almost sagged with relief. The presence I'd felt when I'd been around her before was gone; whatever had been haunting her and using her was gone, and all that was left was the real Sharon Carter.

Cap, meanwhile, didn't seem too happy. "You can't seriously believe her," he said, scowling.

"Sorry to disagree with you, but I do," I replied. "A week or so ago, Agent Carter was willing to rip my head off in an effort to get to you. If she were still in that mentality, I'd be a bloody mess on the floor right now, because she wouldn't be making any effort to hold back."

Agent Carter actually gave me a genuine smile. "Please, call me Sharon," she pleaded. "And it's true; if I wanted to, I'd have escaped out of this bed ages ago."

Knowing she was right, I managed to return Sharon's smile. "You can let her up, Phil. I don't think she's going to be a problem for us anymore."

"I would if I could, Adena, but the Director was pretty clear with his orders," Phil said, crossing his arms as he looked at the restrained agent with a lot of doubt. "Agent Carter is to be kept strapped down until we can transfer her to a secure location. Once the psychologists are convinced she's sound of mind, we'll let her go and put her back into the field. But for now, she stays as she is."

Sharon heaved such a heavy sigh of disappointment and resignation that I couldn't help but feel bad for her. "He's right. Director Fury knows what's best for the agency, and for the greater good. I'll go along with whatever he's got planned for me, no matter what it is. He's a good man, and a better boss, so I've no trouble following orders."

At those words, Phil relaxed just the tiniest bit, surprising both me and Cap. "Well, that's the Sharon Carter I know," he said. "If you keep this progress up, you'll be back in the field in no time."

Cap still didn't look convinced. "What was it like, being under Loki's control?" he bluntly asked, getting straight to the heart of what he wanted to know.

She closed her eyes, as though trying to both remember and forget what she'd felt and experienced as Loki's puppet. "It was like all of my fantasies, both good and bad, had been smashed together," Sharon explained. "I felt like, for some reason, part of me thought that Captain Rogers was exactly what I wanted in a partner in life, even though deep inside, I knew that wasn't right. It also felt like I had a right or entitlement to his feelings, like he belonged to me because of who I was and who I was related to. It also felt like I had the right to take down anyone who got in the way of what I wanted. I can't explain it much better than that."

Opening her eyes, she continued. "Once in a while, at least at first, part of me wondered why I was doing things that went against everything my aunt had taught me. But as I spent more time close to you two, I felt as though I were getting more and more obsessed with what I thought was rightfully mine, and any bit of conscience that I had disappeared until Miss Philips told me to actually think about what I was doing, and why. It snapped me back to when I began feeling that way, and I think that's what broke Loki's hold on me."

Her blue eyes darted over to me. "I can't thank you enough for freeing me like that. I think that, if you hadn't done what you did, I'd have probably done something seriously harmful to you. And if I had, then I doubt Tony Stark would have been very merciful when he busted into the warehouse."

I had to smile a little at that. "Yeah, he probably would have blown you into putty." I looked over at my boyfriend. "And I don't think he'd have been the only one."

Cap blushed a little, but didn't correct me. "I think it's time to go," he declared. "You do want to start eating real food again, right?"

Oh, real food! "Cheeseburger," I blurted out as Cap chuckled. "Promise me we'll get burgers! And fries and shakes?"

Phil shook his head. "Go, before Tony and Pepper get here. I'll have an agent take you there and back."

Turning back to the woman in the bed, I gave her a concerned look. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" I asked. "I mean, really? You aren't just playing the tough agent, are you?"

"I'll be fine," Sharon said, lifting one hand just enough to wave her fingers at me. "Don't worry about me; I've been interrogated the world's most deadly spies and officials in some of the dankest, most depressing places in the world. A psych ward will be like a walk in the park compared to that."

"She'll be fine, Adena," Phil whispered, leaning over so that only I could hear him. "I'll keep you posted, if you want, but I don't think it would be a good idea for you to worry about it too much. She's a tough woman; she'll be okay."

Cap was pulling at my arm. "Come on; we need to go now, if we want to make it to the burger place and back before Tony gets here. You know how he hates to wait."

"Okay," I reluctantly agreed. "Thanks for talking to us, Sharon. I hope things work out okay for you."

It wasn't until Cap and I were on our way out the front door that I realized I would probably never see Sharon Carter again. And that made me sad, because I really did think that she would be a pretty good friend to have. Maybe, sometime in the future, I'll ask Phil about contacting her.

For now, though, I was happy to be free to enjoy my life again.

Watching Adena sleep contentedly in her bed, Steve smiled. It was good to see her sleep so deeply, especially after everything she'd been through. She didn't know it, but when she'd been in the hospital, she'd had several nights where she tossed and turned, her dreams troubled by nightmares and memories of her brief time in Agent Carter's hands. She never remembered them afterward, but Steve did.

Ever since she'd faced Agent Carter, however, she'd been sleeping better. It had made for a much happier Adena, and a nice finish to their vacation.

Now that they were back in New York, Steve felt that things would only be getting better, if only because they were now safely home again. Adena was happy with being back at the apartment, and was already planning ahead with his reeducation of the world.

'The routine will be good for both of us,' he thought to himself as she rolled over in the bed, a soft sigh escaping her lips.

Her sudden movement caused something inside him to shift and change. Just now, there was an unexpected longing inside him, and before Steve could stop himself, he'd softly approached the bed and stretched out next to her, wrapping an arm around Adena's waist as she faced away from him. Her body went stiff for brief second, then relaxed, her back fitting snugly against his chest.

And even though Steve should have been scandalized at his behavior, he couldn't find himself feeling that way. It felt right, lying like this –Adena safe and secure and warm in his arms, her breathing deep and content as she slept. Inside, Steve felt that everything was right in the world.

That was how he knew that, after today, he didn't want to live without the love, respect and understanding of the woman beside him. So, of course, there was only one thing to do. But that wouldn't happen anytime soon.

Well, not too soon, anyway. Right now, things were perfect as they were, and he would enjoy them.

AN: End of the story series! Keep an eye out for the one-shots, though, for more fun with Steve and Adena. Please review, and thanks so much for sticking with me throughout this whole trilogy!