This is how it happened, allegedly: Captain America had no choice. The plane had to go down or else millions of people would die, and he had to go down with it. This was his only option.
Becca Barnes knows it's a lie. When the story hits the papers, she knows it’s a lie.
When the world erupts in celebration, she sits at her kitchen table with a glass of whiskey in her hands. Whittling away, with every laugh that pierces her carefully crafted silence. Fireworks pop outside her window. Someone’s wheeled their grand piano to the street. But Becca hasn't won—not a damn thing. She's lost. And lost. And lost.
She pours two more glasses for the unopened condolence letters sitting in front of her. If she closes her eyes, she can picture it: Bucky, three drinks in and his dimples on full display; Steve, still nursing his first glass, trying his hardest not to smile.
Steve-and-Bucky.
She downs the rest of her whiskey and leaves the other two. The world may have forgotten about Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, but she has not.
***
November 9th, 1943
Becca,
I’m real sorry I haven’t written in a while. It’s a hell of a long story but I’m alright now. And you ain’t gonna believe me when I tell you this—I hardly believe it myself and he’s standing right in front of me, all of 6 feet and 240 pounds—but Steve’s here. He’s goddamn huge, Becs. I left him alone for five minutes and the idiot signed up to let the government goddamn experiment on him. I’ve got my work cut out for me with this one, same as always. But we’re going to be fine.
I love you, kid. Give Ma and the rest a hug for us. I gotta go teach the dumb mook how to fire a gun properly.
All my love,
Bucky
***
“You two take care of each other,” Winnie Barnes says to her son. “Alright?”
She’s the last one to go—the rest of her family has already said their goodbyes. Becca’s busy trying to pretend that she won’t miss her brother like hell. Paulie and Kat are getting into some sort of fight again. Winnie’s more concerned with trying to stop herself from dragging her son back with her. Willing him to be small again.
“Yeah, Ma,” Bucky says. He puts down the last box he’s been carrying. “Of course we will.”
“I know, love. I just—” Bucky pulls her into a bone-crushing hug, knocking the air right out of her. “Oof,” she exhales into his shoulder.
“Love you, Ma,” he whispers into her hair. And Christ, when did he get that tall? That big? She feels tiny next to him.
Her son.
“I’m so proud of you, sweet boy,” she tells him thickly. She swore she wouldn’t cry, not until that apartment door shut behind her. She holds on to that promise like a lifeline when she feels Bucky draw a deep breath and pull back. A curl comes loose from the Brylcreem he’s been running through his hair, and a lump rises in her throat. She’s still his mother. She can fix his hair for him. She can still do that.
She reaches up and—
“Shit,” Steve squeaks from the corner, dropping a box with a dull thud. Then he turns bright red. “Sorry, Winnie—” he scrambles, looking caught out. Winnie feels herself smiling, turning her hand toward him instead.
“You too, Steven.” She opens her arms and he shuffles over, all of ten years old again. He’s stiff as a board when she hugs him. He ducks his chin guiltily, even after she’s let him go.
His mother used to do the same thing, she remembers. Steve is so clearly Sarah Rogers's son it nearly knocks Winnie off her feet, and she misses two people at once—someone who's still here and someone who isn't.
It's a complicated thing, saying goodbye. But Winnie knows it well enough. It's time to go.
“Ah, Stevie,” Bucky chuckles softly when he thinks she can’t hear.
“Shut up,” Steve snaps back, just as quiet.
The last thing Winnie sees through the cracked door is Steve smoothing Bucky's hair back and a stupid, mindless grin on her son’s face.
Something bittersweet works its way to her lips as she joins the rest of her children outside.
“So they’re okay?” Becca asks tentatively when Paulie and Kat have run ahead. Winnie puts an arm around her daughter and pulls her close.
“They’re our boys. They’ll be just fine.”
***
I hate you, Steve writes from the corner of their shoebox apartment by the window.
I hate you more, you goddamned punk, Bucky writes back a couple of miles from enemy lines—somewhere in southern Europe.
***
A feature on Peggy Carter comes out in the New York Times, two years after the war ends. Nearly to the day. And Peggy has done what Peggy does best: stun.
‘Steve was a hero, yes. But he was more than that. When I first met him, he was skinny and defiant and had absolutely no business volunteering for the army. But he did. That was the sort of man he was—kind, selfless, and absurdly stubborn. He was a pain in my ass. My commanding officer, Colonel Chester Phillips, will surely corroborate that claim with passion should you ask him. But I didn’t doubt his decision to crash that plane. I fought him on it, but I didn’t doubt it.’
Thomas Proctor reads the interview once, twice, and hands it over to his fiancée at the other end of the table. “Honey.”
“Mhm.”
“It’s Peggy Carter.”
Becca looks up at that. “Peggy—Steve’s Peggy?” Her mouth twists—even that feels wrong out loud. Thomas nods. “In The Times?”
“See for yourself.”
Becca does. She sees and she sees and when the tears well, she doesn’t try to stop them from falling.
“Becca?” Thomas jumps up from the table and takes her hands. “Oh, Jesus, I thought—God, I didn’t mean for this to make you cry.”
Becca wipes her eyes and tries her hardest to pull herself together. She thought the wound was closing. She thought— “No, no, I’m alright. I just—I didn’t think—” she takes a deep, steadying breath. “Someone remembers him,” she exhales. “Someone knew him. ”
When Thomas wraps his arms around her, she lets herself break. She's been stringing herself together for so long. Refusing to let go. She pictures her brother, the way he could draw a smile out of anyone. What would he say to her now? How would he do it this time?
She wonders how many people that remember him are left. How much of Bucky is left?
She hopes to God her children smile like him.
“I smudged the article,” Becca chokes.
“We can get another.”
***
“Steve?” Becca asks when she opens the door. He’s shifting from foot to foot, a book in his arms. It’s one of Bucky’s stupid pulp novels. His smile is shaky, creased with tension.
“Hey, Becs.”
“Bucky’s not here,” she tells him. When it registers, he ducks and pinches the bridge of his nose, something she’s seen Bucky do hundreds of times.
“He’s at practice,” Steve exhales. His shoulders slump with the realization. She's never thought of Steve as small before—sure, he was skin and bones, through and through, but...
He looks small for the first time. Like he's walking away from the fight. “Aren’t you supposed to be with him?”
Steve takes a deep breath. He shifts again, foot to foot, back and forth. “I don’t play anymore.”
“Oh.” Becca waits. He looks at everything but her. “You can come in and wait if you want. We can finish our match.”
“You always beat me though,” he groans, stepping through the doorway anyway. He settles himself on the floor while Becca pulls her chess set off the counter. Bucky got it second-hand for her birthday last year. In a month, she was beating him easily and Steve isn’t much better, no matter how many times the three of them play.
Becca grins. “I know.”
When Bucky comes home, he doesn’t see Steve at first—they’re sprawled on the carpet, Becca winning four matches to his one. And they both know she let him have the win.
“Hey, kid,” Bucky says, his voice low with exhaustion, and Becca knows worn when it walks in the door. She sees it everywhere. It hangs over Brooklyn like a fog. It lives on Steve's face—a permanent fixture. And it sure as hell doesn’t come from baseball practice running late.
But what else is new?
“Your sister’s nuts, Buck,” Steve announces, still chewing his bottom lip in concentration. Becca watches Bucky’s head snap toward Steve's voice, and the smile that forms is blinding. Whatever tired look she thought she saw is gone. In an instant. It's replaced with something else, something brilliant, something—
“Heya, punk.”
***
It’s like a pulse, an echo, a shiver—Steve-and-Bucky.
Steve-and-Bucky.
***
April 19th, 1941
Hey asshole,
Charming way to start a letter, isn’t it? But someone has to knock some sense into your damn head ‘cause clearly the army ain’t doing it. Write your family back, you jerk. Your parents are worried sick and Becca says it doesn’t bother her, but it does. They’re doing their damn best to keep it from Paulie and Kat. And I don’t know if it’s worse to keep telling them I haven’t been getting letters from you either or just come clean. They need to know you’re okay from you, Buck, not from me. And we both know I’m a shit liar.
Anyway, for when you stop being such an idiot: I got that drawing you wanted. Sorry it took me so long—I tried to get the skyline exactly right. It seemed important too, if all the guys were asking for it. I hope they like it. It’s a damn shame none of them have been to the real Coney Island.
When you get your week’s furlough soon, you better prepare yourself for the Barnes ambush of the century. You asked for it, really, you jackass.
Write some goddamn letters, Buck. And take care of yourself.
Yours,
Steve
***
Fifteen years after the end of the war, Becca gets a letter. It’s from an eager student who got carried away writing her college thesis with some damn dramatic title. Becca ignores the second letter, and the third.
And then they come knocking at her door.
“Hi! Rebecca Barnes, right? We're huge fans of your brother.” The girl leading the group declares when Becca answers. Becca's got flour on her hands, dough in her hair, and absolutely no idea what to say. But the girl barrels ahead, giving no time for a response. “I’m Cheryl, and this is Janet, Charlie, Richard, and Lisa.” She gestures back at the group, one by one.
“Uh—good to meet you,” Becca says warily, a little winded.
“We wanted to ask you some questions, if you don’t mind.” Oh. Oh.
“You’re the one sending me letters.”
“So you got them!” The girl—Cheryl—says with a practiced smile. “I wasn’t sure, since you didn’t reply.” The group nods along with her, and Becca likes nothing about this.
“Whatever you’re here for, I’m not interested,” she tells them. She’s got dinner on the stove and three kids to keep from killing each other. She hasn’t had the time for things like this since 19-goddamn-45; Lord knows other people have tried.
“Please, just five minutes for my thesis. It's called The War Fought In The Dark. I told you about it in my letters. Neat title, right?” she says, leaving Becca reeling. “We were researching your brother, and we thought, why not just go to the source? So, here we are. The source.” Becca bristles at that, and Cheryl obviously doesn’t care. “We want to know about Sergeant Barnes, and not just Captain America’s right-hand man from the comics. We want the real guy.”
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Becca bites back the urge to slam the door in their faces—it’s irrational, really, how badly she wants to. And tempting all the same. “Honey, that war is barely even history yet. Give it a couple more years, when people aren’t still living it,” she says, as politely as she can manage. She doesn’t have the patience for this. “If you want something to romanticize, you’re looking in the wrong place.”
The group exchanges A Look and Becca gets a very, very bad feeling. “See, I don’t think we are,” Cheryl replies. Janet-or-Lisa hands Cheryl a couple of neatly folded papers—letters, Becca realizes.
She feels sick as Cheryl holds them out to her by her fingertips.
After a few stunned moments, Becca asks, “Where did you get these?” She can't keep the tremor out of her voice.
Cheryl simply shrugs. “Wasn’t hard. No one claimed them after the deaths, so they were turned over to the state. We just—”
“Stop,” Becca snaps, like she can prevent what has already happened. Her voice pitches high as she cradles the letters to her chest. “You shouldn’t have these. They don’t belong to you.”
“They’re history, ” Cheryl says, like Becca needs it spelled out for her. Like she’s simple. “They belong to everyone.”
“They belong to Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes,” she says slowly. “And no one else.”
“With all due respect—”
“No,” Becca grits out. “No. You should have thought about respect when you took these,” she says, turning the letters over in her hands. “You should have thought about respect when you read them, when you came to my home with your ridiculous sense of decency—not after," Becca almost spits, losing herself completely. A decades-old feeling flickers to life again and she almost chokes on it: she’s defending something that's long gone.
Cheryl looks a little stunned, but hardly deterred.
Becca could kill her.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. But we’ve come all this way, ma’am, and I just—we just have to know,” Cheryl begs. She pulls out a notebook and the rest of the group follows suit. Then she asks the question Becca’s protected her whole life: “How close were Captain America and Sergeant Barnes really? ” she drawls, and everything in Becca goes cold—fear, from head to toe. “How much of it was truly...by the books, so to speak?”
Becca’s frozen.
That dull ache that sits in her bones day in and day out doubles. Triples. Like heat through a magnifying glass. She can hardly breathe, relieving a panic she thought had died with them. She tries to collect herself while the group waits, pencils poised, for her answer.
“Steve and Bucky are gone,” she hisses. She feels a lump rising in her throat, her heart jumping in her chest. “Let them rest. Please, let them rest,” she begs. “Don’t they at least deserve that?”
“Of course, but—”
“No. They gave up everything. They’re heroes,” Becca snaps. “My brothers are heroes, both of them. Their lives aren’t for show.”
“Ms. Barnes—”
“Mrs. Proctor,” Becca corrects.
“Mrs. Proctor. We’re not saying they aren’t heroes. Everyone knows they are,” Cheryl says. “We just want to know who they were before all that. Behind it.”
Becca barks a laugh, startling the group on her front porch. Startling herself, too. “Well,” she retorts, not even bothering to hide the bite in her voice. “You’re about fifteen years too late for that one, love.”
And then she shuts the door in their faces.
***
In her will, Becca accounts for all their things. They are to stay in a storage unit in Shelbyville. They are not to be touched; their letters are to remain opened only by the boys who wrote them. If they cannot grow old, then their words will.
***
July 4th, 1931
Steve,
Happy birthday! Becca says it’s proper to write a card, so here I am.
I hope you like your gift. I know you don’t like it when I get things for you, but it’s your big thirteenth (Ma says it’s when you become a man) so you gotta suck it up.
Yours,
Bucky
PS: Hi Steve. My brother is awful at writing cards, apparently. Thank God for you or else he’d be about as polite as a sack of potatoes. I helped with your gift, by the way. Bucky really is about as dumb as they get.
– Becca (Happy birthday)
***
They write books, publish articles, make films, even.
Comic books are studied. Narratives are built. Theories are cemented in time. People spend lifetimes in dedication. Historians speculate until they’ve dissected every piece of media they can get their hands on. There are entire college courses written for Captain America and his Howling Commandos.
And yet, no one gets it right.
***
Years before the war, Sarah Rogers comes home to find a grinning, dark-haired boy sitting at her kitchen table, feet swinging and not quite reaching the ground.
“Hi!” he near-shouts when he sees her.
She laughs. "Well, hi."
“I’m James,” he declares, sticking out his little hand. “But everyone calls me Bucky. I’m nine years old and I live by the old park. My Ma goes to your church—Winnie Barnes.”
“You’re Winnie’s boy! Well, you should have started with that, then,” Sarah winks. “I’m assuming you’re here with my Steve?”
“Yes ma’am! He’s going to teach me to draw,” Bucky says determinedly. “I think it’s real swell that he can.”
And Sarah loves him immediately.
***
Steve’s got two more letters on his cot when he gets back—one from Becca and one from Ma Barnes, tied together.
He saves them for after his show, when a crowd of people cheers as he knocks out Adolf Hitler for the 103rd time. One mother shoves her baby into his arms, a kid wants an autograph, and a guy he’s sure would have bullied him before begs for a photo.
When the stars and stripes come off, he walks down the streets of Chicago. He listens to all the little ways its city sounds are nothing like his back home.
And no one recognizes him.
Dear Steve,
I hope whatever you’re doing all over the country is going well, but we miss you like crazy back here…
***
Seven years after her son dies, Winnie Barnes’s health is going. This comes to no one's surprise: she lived through more heartache than any one person should.
But there was good, too.
She watched her daughters get married. She was there when her grandchildren were born. She had four beautiful children herself. She had, by anyone’s standards, a good life. Heartache can only come to be if the heart has something to love. Her time with it, after 63 years, is simply coming to a close. She's hardly old enough for it, but war ages a mother. And when her husband died, she bore it alone.
She bore it alone, and she'd do it again.
Her oldest daughter, Becca, is sitting at her bedside, reading aloud. Winnie’s more focused on the fluid way her daughter moves, the life that flickers across her face, the eyes that crinkle at their corners.
“Becca.” She reaches out to cover her daughter's hand with her own. “I’m so tired, love.”
Becca presses her lips together in a quiet smile. “Alright, Mama.” She closes the book and Winnie's eyes flutter shut. She’s got her own stories—a lifetime of them. She doesn’t need anyone else’s.
“Do you remember the books that your brother would bring home?” Winnie says, shocking the silence. She opens her eyes to a wry smile on her daughter’s face.
“The godawful ones?”
“He’d spend half his paycheck on them, wouldn’t he?” Winnie smiles. “He’d have poor Steve lugging them around for him.”
Becca laughs, patting her mother’s hand. Clear skin against mottled veins. “Those two, huh?” Becca asks, warmth filling her voice. She meets her mother’s gaze. Something unspoken sits between them—has sat, for a long, long time. Steve-and-Bucky.
Neither of them dares to touch it.
After a moment, Winnie agrees. “Those two.” Becca’s eyes flash in a way Winnie hasn’t seen in years, and for a split second, it’s Bucky she’s looking at, clear as day.
Becca kisses Winnie’s cheek and lets her sleep.
***
Bucky stumbles through the door, looking ready to burst at the seams with pride. He's dragging a scrawny boy with him by the wrist.
“This is Steve, Ma.”
***
November 11th, 1943
Dear Becca,
I’m sorry for not telling you about the experiment. They made me sign a whole bunch of things that said I couldn’t. But I’m here with Bucky now, and I don’t know what he’s been writing but I’m not gonna lie to you: he’s pretty scratched up.
He’d kill me if he knew I told you that. I think he’s about ready to kill me anyway. But I’m gonna take care of him, Becs, I promise. Half the reason I said yes was to get out here with the 107th. They’re trying to say I did it out of pure, all-American bravery—I’m Captain America now, didn’t you hear?—but that ain’t all true. So I’ll keep him safe for the both of us, alright? Figured after all these years, it’s about time I return the favor.
Love,
Steve
***
Brooklyn's streets whisper, a decade before the war creeps onto its periphery. In the dark, Becca pretends to sleep when she hears her brother sneak out the front door. She knows the sound well by now—it’s the second night this week, most recent in a line of many.
When she’s sure he’s out, she follows.
Her brother navigates the city by dimly lit streetlamps, and Becca trails him. When he finds the fire escape he’s looking for, she watches him assess the metal and climb up without a sound. He inches the window up and Becca's breath catches in her throat.
“Bucky?” someone calls out from inside. The voice is scratched and gravelly.
She starts her climb, trying to mimic his steps exactly. The fire escape groans under her weight, and she curses herself silently.
She waits.
They don’t notice.
“Hey, Stevie,” she hears him reply softly.
Oh.
Of course he wasn’t sneaking out for a girl. Of course. Steve’s sick.
Becca flushes red with guilt. But she'll risk them hearing her if she leaves now, so she steps silently onto the landing and peers in. Steve is glaring at her brother with a severity she’s envied since they met, curled up in a nest of blankets and coats. “Did I wake you?” Bucky asks. “How’re you feeling?”
“You didn’t. And I’m fine. Go home, Buck,” he rasps. It really does not help his case. Bucky tests his forehead and hisses at the burn of Steve’s skin.
“Jesus, pal. You’re hot. ”
“Take a guy out to dinner first, why don'tcha," Steve retorts, flicking Bucky’s hand off. Becca suppresses a laugh. “I’m fine.”
“Don’t be a smartass,” Bucky scoffs. He squints at Steve, sizing him up before peeling back the covers and shoving him over.
“Wha—hey!” Steve gasps. “Not so hard, Christ, Buck.”
“Uh-huh. And I thought you were fine,” Bucky says, and then he climbs in next to him, surprising both Steve and Becca. But Bucky is unfazed. “You’re cold, right? Like the fever a couple months ago?” Steve doesn’t answer, just counters with another unwavering glare—leveling Bucky with one look the way he always does. Bucky rolls his eyes and pulls Steve to his chest.
“Buck, no,” Steve struggles. “You’ll get sick.”
“No, I won’t.” Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s skinny frame.
“Yes, you will,” Steve groans, and Becca knows they've had this conversation before. He tries to push Bucky off, and in a tangle of limbs, ends up with his forehead mashed against Bucky's chest, stifling a cough.
“Sorry,” he whispers, and Becca has to read it off his lips. She doesn’t bother hiding anymore—they won’t see her; they won’t even bother to look. Not a chance in hell.
“Not your fault, pal,” Bucky tells him quietly.
“Don’t wanna get you sick.”
“I don’t care.”
Steve pulls back to peer at Bucky, assessing and furrowed in a way only Steve Rogers could be. Finally, he sighs and drops back into Bucky’s arms. “Fine. It’s your funeral.”
“You’re a punk.”
“Jerk.”
Becca ducks from the window and leans back against the tenement’s brick wall. She’s never felt more guilty in her life. Or more terrified. For her brother, sneaking out. Holding another boy.
She sits there for a long, long time.
***
Don’t enlist, Bucky writes from the front. His hand shakes something awful, and the pencil nearly warps off the paper. Promise me, Steve. Please.
It is almost illegible.
Almost.
***
Someone dies. Someone always dies. It is the most permanent thing in the world. In the war. A son, a brother, a father. In the end, they all bleed the same.
Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing just depends on where you’re standing.
When Sarah Rogers is dying, it doesn't matter where you're standing. It's bad, through and through. She’s been going for some time now—not by war, she’ll miss it by years—but going all the same. She’s barely conscious for her last rites, for the priest that prays over her body, or for the boy that closes the door behind him. Her son, the one that stumbled into their lives by some miracle she'll never understand. The one who made laughter out of thin air and read poetry when she couldn’t see straight anymore. When she looks at him through the hospital door window, he's looking back.
“Sarah,” he says soundlessly.
She smiles as best she can and prays he doesn’t open the door. But he’s good; he’s always been so good. He stays right where he is. He's not the one she has to worry about. It’s gonna be okay, he’d said one night while Steve was asleep, when they realized just how sick she really was. I’ll take care of everything.
They both knew what he meant. And she never doubted that he would. They’re alike, her and him, in more ways than one. They are magicians, storytellers; they'd find the ends of the earth if Steve asked them to.
The day she realized it, she swore it was a secret she would take with her to the grave.
And she does.
***
June 7th, 1934
Bucky,
I know it’s only been a couple of weeks, and you've got two more left, but I miss you.
Shut up. Don’t give me hell for that.
Ma says she’s proud of you for putting your brain to good use, and that you’ve got yourself a nice home-cooked meal when you get back if you want it.
I’m real proud of you too, Buck. Don’t know who’s gonna make sure you didn’t wind up with all the stupid out there in the countryside, but I really am proud of you. You better come back in one piece the way you left, got it? And when you do come home, you know where to find me. I ain’t going anywhere.
Yours,
Steve
***
Eventually, people start to give up, as they always do.
Some secrets are meant to be found out. Others stay trapped under years of ice and scattered in frozen ravines.
***
On the last anniversary of Captain America’s death that Becca will be alive for, she is sitting at her daughter’s bedroom window in Brooklyn. She’s watching the city she grew up in mourn and bleed for a boy it never really knew.
They sing songs about heroism, a good American patriot, a true soldier. There’s even a rainbow flag or two mixed in with the stars and stripes. It’s 2009 , she remembers. Things are different now.
And yet…
It’s not as if Brooklyn wasn’t always like this. It just had to be silent. She may be old, but she has not forgotten.
Someone plays the bugle call and Becca chuckles under her breath.
“What’s up, Mom?" her daughter, Beverly, asks. With some effort, Becca turns to face her instead of the window. She squints at the darkness of the room.
Bev’s sewing something or other—a mess of pink for her own grandchildren. Becca’s great grandchildren.
Becca folds her hands on her lap and shakes her head at the window. “They have no idea how much he’d hate this.” And then she really, really laughs, a memory springing to life. “Steve voted for Norman Thomas before the war, if you can believe it.” She can hardly contain herself, because damn her body to hell, she’s going to laugh if she damn well pleases. “Can you imagine that? Their Captain America—a socialist.”
Beverly tries to get her to calm down—her lungs, her chest, her bones—but Becca isn’t listening anymore.
“Both of them were, and they were damn proud of it, too. Couple of broke Irish kids, running around like they had a damn clue.” Together, Becca thinks. Always together. “If he were here, Steve would march right up there and demand they wave flags around for Bucky instead.”
Steve Rogers, born with a vendetta against anything that moved. Her larger than life brother, making sure he didn't get himself killed in the process. They made one hell of a picture.
Steve-and-Bucky.
Beverly sighs when Becca starts coughing, and Becca ignores the I told you so written all over her face. God knows how many years she's got left, and she's not going to waste them surrendering herself to whatever death she has in her future. She’s Winnie Barnes’s daughter, for Christ’s sake. She’s got no time for bullshit.
When she looks back out the window, she catches sight of the edges of a mural: a great display of red, white, and blue. None of his body is the same—sixty-five years later, and she’s still not used to it—but those are his eyes. She knows that, at least. She's got two decades of memories in her back pocket.
Three years before Steve Rogers wakes up, Becca dies in her sleep, tucked away in an old Brooklyn brownstone. Five years before Steve finds her brother again, they lower Becca's body into a grave next to her husband's.
What she doesn’t know is this: she was right.
She was right the whole time.
I’m with you to the end of the line, she found scrawled on a scrap of paper one harrowing October in 1936. And Becca believed it then. She knew it was a promise that wouldn't be broken. In 2014, decades later, Bucky Barnes sees the blood smeared on his knuckles and remembers. He prays, with everything left in him, that it's not too late. And Steve Rogers looks at him with abandon—with absolution—and keeps that promise. It’ll never be too late.
But then again, they’ve always looked at each other like that.
***
October 21st, 1936
Steve,
I’m sorry. I'm so, so sorry. And I wouldn’t want to see anyone either, but I need you to know this: I’ve got you, pal. You ain’t alone right now, I promise you. We can get our own place the way we talked about when we were kids. Or you can stay in my room—we'll figure it out. Just let me help you, okay?
I’m with you, Steve. To the end of the line.
Yours,
Bucky
***
“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, thick with fear. With hope.
Bucky looks up at him, and for the first time in seventy years, they are simply, wholly, themselves. Steve-and-Bucky.
They are not the same.
They are alive.
“Heya, sweetheart.”