In the end, Steve retires.

Half of them do, in fact. By the time it's all said and done, the only ones left at the Avengers' Compound are Natasha, Rhodey, Tony, and Vision. Some of that wasn't because of the Sokovian Accords—Thor had left after Ultron and hadn't come back (they tried to not read into that too much) and Bruce was still MIA—but there was no denying what had happened with the government, and the subsequent litigation, had caused a breakup that was looking permanent.

Clint had been done even before the fateful document arrived on their desks, but now his family had a new addition. Wanda liked the wide open spaces and—funny enough—the cow on the Barton farm. And through much legal finagling, she was able to enjoy it while not being under the watch of the United States government. The only special people that would have the UN breathing down their necks were the ones who chose to fight for them. And as mentioned before, that list was looking mighty thin.

Most people blamed who they believed to be the leader of the Avengers for fracturing the team, but the one that had caught the attention of the world the most—the one many people pointed to when they were asked where it all started—wasn't the first to defect. It wasn't public knowledge and no one could've guessed because the announcement of their departure was at the same time, but at the very first discussion the team had over the Accords, Sam had dropped the proposal down on the table with a scoff and walked out on both the meeting and the Avengers all together. And Steve did what he did, just slower.

Originally, the pair had no plans of doing anything other than leaving the Avengers and, by extension, the world to sort out their own problems. It was clear that they were no longer compatible with what the team had become, what the world required them to be. But then Bucky popped up again. And they had to fight harder than ever before to protect Steve's oldest friend from the windowless cell Ross undoubtedly wanted to throw him in (at least, until he was useful). Thankfully, they'd managed to keep Bucky out of the clutches of any government that attempted to lay claim to him and may have raised some concerns about the legality of the Sokovian Accords in the process. It only took one judge striking down one portion for it all to fall apart. And maybe—maybe that should've meant that they returned to the Avengers, but by then the damage was done. The cracks in the foundation had been exposed and there was no going back to the way it had been. Besides… Everything that had come out during Bucky's trial and the way Tony reacted, well… anyone who'd sided against the Accords and with Bucky got the feeling they weren't wanted back.

So they find a place in Brooklyn. It's doable when the rent is split three ways. Although to be perfectly honest, they could've covered that apartment for the rest of their lives without seriously dipping into the bank account of one James Barnes; the government had given more than a little payout when all was said and done. But instead they played housemates: Sam returned to working with Vets (that always made Steve's heart swell with pride), Bucky worked on healing and became quite the cook in the process (which Steve was just as proud of), and at some point those two fell into each other. Maybe Steve should've seen it coming, maybe there had been hints in the sarcastic banter between them, but he couldn't deny that there had been a jolt of surprise when the couple had approached him with the good news. But he also couldn't deny that they fit together like puzzle pieces, even if they drove him (and each other) up a wall.

It was nice to have romance in the apartment, though. It filled it with good vibes, ones that were a long time coming. Sam had fought for justice his whole life and Bucky… Well, happiness was something hard won for both men. Steve was happy they found it in each other.

Except…

It was selfish. He knew it was. But it was the truth and he couldn't ignore it. He felt alone again. He knew he had no reason to—he was in the company of his closest friends every day—and yet… When those two people were finding such pure joy in one another, it was a little hard to not feel like a third wheel.

He couldn't blame it all on Sam and Bucky, he wouldn't want to. No, it was far bigger than just his best friends' relationship. It was something that had crept up on him for as long as he'd existed in the 21st century. The hollowness he couldn't quite put words too. Only now he didn't have the distraction that the Avengers and SHIELD had brought him. It seemed that the world had settled down, at least for a little while, and that made the ache he felt inside echo with nothing to dampen it. The empty feeling persisted no matter what he did, and made him wonder if maybe Ultron's theory—that he was a man who couldn't live without war—was true.

He didn't wallow in it, though. It might have been an effort to heal, or to not bring his friends down from their honeymoon phase, or maybe it was just his way of trying to ignore the cavity in his chest, but he filled his days with anything at all. In the morning, the three men would go for a run and, when Sam would curse at the two super soldiers for lapping him, Steve would feel a little bit lighter. During the day, Steve would introduce Bucky to everything that he had missed, and couldn't help but laugh blithely when he misunderstood something in the exact same way Steve had when he first woke up in the future. And in the evening, when Bucky would make dinner and mutter in Russian at his roommates for (purposefully) getting in the way, Steve would exchange an amused look with Sam and his chest would fill up a little bit more.

But, it never lasted for long. Because eventually Sam would go to work and Bucky would retreat to his room and Steve would be left alone with the same crushing emptiness as before. He tried to fill the silence with music or TV, but nothing he did would disrupt it. Not even the old hobby he'd picked back up could do anything against it. He'd tried to break the heaviness with the sounds of pencil lead scratching against paper, but in the end, all that came of it were scribbles and his heart feeling as heavy as ever.

.

Sam and Bucky had a date.

A legitimate date too, not just ordering Chinese food and watching Netflix. An actual bona fide date. Both men had put on pants other than sweats and had headed out to a movie followed by dinner, and even though that left the apartment to Steve, he headed out right after they did. It had been too quiet. Besides, he really didn't want to be there when the couple came back; he was already uncomfortably aware of what it sounded like when his best pals went to bed on a normal night, and he really didn't need to experience that when they were both high on romantics.

So Steve took a train.

He didn't have any destination in mind, he just hopped on the first train he could get and headed out. Then once he was tired of that, he moved on to wandering New York aimlessly. At one point, he stopped for a sandwich and had to shove a ten dollar bill into the tip cup to keep the wide-eyed cashier from announcing his identity for everybody to hear. He ate his food (he hadn't been particularly hungry, but he hadn't eaten all day and felt like he ought to) and then he was back to meandering down the street without any real purpose.

He didn't pay much attention to the world around him except for his spatial relationship to others. His head was ducked down the entire time he walked—which he justified as a tactic to keep his face hidden beneath his baseball cap—and because of that, he didn't realize he had wandered into Bryant Park until he was in the middle of it. With a sigh, he sat down on a bench and shoved his hands into his jacket pockets; feeling the leather binding of his sketchbook brush his fingertips. But he didn't pull it out; leaning back against the bench instead, and lifting his head up for the first time since he came into the park.

There was a young man across from him.

Despite the fact that a few people would walk through the space between them, Steve's eyes focused right onto him as if there were no interruptions to his view. He was also sitting on a bench—well, he was more lounging than sitting. He was leaning against one side of the bench with his legs kicked up; the notebook that was resting against his knees holding his attention 100%. And for some reason, this guy was holding Steve's attention far more than anything he'd seen in a while.

Steve couldn't recall when it had turned from normal lighting to golden hours, but there was no denying the yellow afternoon sun. That light made the man's deep umber skin tone glow and created a soft halo around his dreadlocks. The soft sunlight even glinted off of his thick rimmed glasses as he pushed them up his nose before returning to the page in front of him. After a few moments of scribbling on the page, he lifted the pencil up and pressed it against his thick lips as his brow furrowed in contemplation.

Steve's finger twitched and he felt the sketchbook against the pads of his fingers again.

He really shouldn't.

It was weird, wasn't it? People don't appreciate it when some random man in a park draws them. It would probably upset this guy, maybe even make him feel unsafe. Steve had been getting into those documentaries on Netflix about Ted Bundy and stuff and honestly a random guy drawing someone in a park seemed like something that would pop up in Mindhunter. He shouldn't do it, he really shouldn't.

Steve felt his hand curl around his sketchbook and withdraw it from his pocket despite his inner monologue. Even though all of those reasons were incredibly valid, Steve flipped to a blank page and began to sketch the basics of the figure in front of him.

It was easy to create the outline of the young man reclining on the bench, as if Steve hadn't been struggling with art ever since he'd left the Avengers. It flowed from his brain to the pencil and onto the page quickly, and it wasn't long until he was able to move onto the actual features of his unaware model. Steve started by adding some detail to his dreads, but it honestly wasn't his best work and ended with him resolving himself to practice it and maybe even look up some tutorials on how to draw the hairstyle. Steve then worked on the rumples in his washed-out jeans and the fur of his Sherpa style corduroy jacket. It was only when he started in on the minutia of the design on his sneakers that Steve realized that he was purposefully avoiding the most important part of the portrait; the face.

Although he couldn't quite grasp his own unconscious reasoning for that, he decided to push past it and work on what he'd been unintentionally evading. He started with the simple structure—marveling at the young man's cheekbones and jawline—before he began to fill in the details. The thick glasses and large eyes peeking out behind them with thick lashes to match were easy to replicate—although his pencil would never be able to capture the deep brown hue. Then he moved onto his plump lips (sometimes a little difficult; the kid had a tendency to chew on the lower one), his prominent nose, and the light stubble on his jaw.

Steve paused with the pencil ready to return at any moment to the paper, and he looked up to compare his rendering to the actual man. But instead of continuing to add detail to his concentrated expression or even just adding some sort of background, Steve found that he couldn't. He couldn't take his eyes off of the guy. What he had objectively acknowledged was now in the forefront of his mind;

This man was beautiful.

All at once, the emptiness inside of him was drowned out by a heat that he hadn't felt in a very long time. He'd almost forgotten what it was like—that sudden rush of attraction. With everything that had happened in the past… Well, he just hadn't had the time to consider things like this in a very long time. It was like his mind and body were so fully committed to being Captain America and fighting with the Avengers, that it had forgotten how to function as a normal human.

But now it was remembering.

The young man lifted his own pencil to chew on the end and Steve dropped his eyes back down to his notebook as he felt heat on his neck and chest. He hadn't felt like this for a long, long time and he wasn't entirely certain what to do anymore. Oh, who was he kidding? He hadn't known what to do back when attractive people were near the top of his list of priorities. But even then, there had been certain things that took precedent over romance and sexuality, like making rent or his frail body. That last one had been a big part of the problem though; dames hadn't cared for his… everything, and while fellas had been much more comfortable with his stature, Steve hadn't liked the way he treated him. His physique had meant being treated like a dolly or (if they managed to notice his temperament) like one of those tiny dogs who loved to bark, but wasn't taken seriously. Remembering how patronizing nearly everyone around him had been made Steve angry to this day, even though that had been quite a while ago.

But now he didn't have to worry about that. He had other problems to consider. If he were to approach this guy, there was no way he wouldn't recognize him. Then what? Starry-eyes and stuttered words asking for a picture probably, and that was just not a good position to be in when—God he didn't even know what he was trying to do right now. Ask him out? Get his number? Just find out the name of the guy who had reignited something inside of him that he'd long forgotten? He just didn't know how to do that; he didn't even have a good reason to go talk to him.

Steve sighed and rubbed his eyes. The shadows were slowly but surely getting longer, which meant soon enough, the man sitting across from him would pack up and leave and Steve would be alone with emptiness and regret. It wouldn't be all that different from how he felt usually, but there was something undeniably pathetic about it right now. Steve resigned himself to his fate and, although he had already committed his image to paper, he began to try to burn it into his own mind. If only to have a memory that proved that he was just as human as the rest of the world; that he could find pleasure in so much more than just war.

The man that was in no way aware of Steve's internal battle was back to scribbling on his notebook. Steve watched as he'd write for a moment, pause, and then go back to it. Pencil on paper, a brief break as his brown eyes flashed over in Steve's direction, back to the paper. Quick strokes that were clearly not writing any language, look at Steve, and then—wait.

Steve's brow furrowed and his eyes dropped to his lap as the absurd truth dawned on him. This was impossible, wasn't it? A true one-in-a-million moment.

A quick glance confirmed Steve's suspicions, but instead of laughing in either disbelief or just at the sheer hilarity of the situation, he rose up from his seat and began to cross the distance between the two of them without thinking. By the time his brain kicked in, he was already halfway there and so instead of scurrying back with his tail between his legs, Steve desperately wracked his brain for a smooth opener. Should he say something about how he just couldn't resist drawing someone so handsome, or was that too forward? He could make some snappy comment about the chances of them drawing each other, but that could make him seem like an asshole.

Any attempt to come up with a line that would get this guy's attention went out the window when he raised his eyes from his notebook and looked at Steve straight-on; his stomach clenching in an unfamiliar, but welcome way. But, before he could fully appreciate the sensation, Steve noticed how something flitted across his expression. It wasn't the shocked excitement that he'd grown accustomed to, or even the confusion that would've made sense. It was panic.

Steve fumbled with his notebook slightly before practically shoving it into the guy's face; that unexpected reaction had made him forget everything other than making him not afraid of him. Thankfully, the tactic of putting his illustration right in front of his eyes seemed to work, because the distress that had tightened his expression disappeared and was slowly replaced with surprise. But it wasn't the bad kind, as the ends of his lips quirked upwards and Steve was able to catch how his sparkling brown eyes glanced up at him before returning to his own notebook.

Steve sucked in a surprised breath as he held up his sketchbook to reveal what he'd already known to be on the page; a drawing of him, sitting on the bench and leaning his cheek on his fist as he looked down at his own notebook.

"What're the chances?"

His breath got caught in his windpipe and Steve almost choked as he finally heard the deep, but gentle timbre of the man he'd focused on so intently for an extended amount of time. But he managed to work past it with a small cough and a weak smile.

"Yours is—uh." Steve dropped his eyes to the ground before raising them back up with a more genuine smile on his face "Yours is better than mine."

He didn't say that just to flatter this mystery artist (who ducked his head out of bashfulness), although he knew that it might endear him a little more to him. No, what Steve said was the honest-to-god truth; the drawing he had done of Steve was far superior to what Steve had done of him. There was something much easier about his sketch than Steve's, he clearly wasn't as worried about being as realistic or as detailed as possible. He had created a stylized interpretation of the man who sat on a bench across from him. There was a confidence in his art that Steve used to have, but had long since lost as his focus had shifted from his creative passions to the weight of the world on his shoulders. But despite the marked difference in quality, the man's lips pulled into a bright smile before he spoke.

"I like it."

His smile slipped away, but only slightly as he concentrated in on the picture, and it slowly morphed into something softer and appreciative.

"Nobody's drawn me since school," he said with a tinge of nostalgia in his tone before he turned his eyes up to Steve's with a conspiratorial glint in his eyes "Art students who needed a subject for their midterms really had me thinking I could be a supermodel if I wanted."

"Well, I think you could be," Steve offered before he could really think about it. Thankfully, those words didn't seem to make him uncomfortable, although he did look away for a second with a shy expression on his face.

"You're sweet," he murmured before looking up at him with a gaze that acted like gasoline to the fire in Steve's chest.

"I'm Steve," he said, holding his hand out. He hesitated for a moment—Steve knew that people didn't shake hands as much anymore, but it wasn't that weird—before grasping it and giving a gentle shake.

"Alexander," he replied, Steve trying to ignore how his voice was almost breathless now, or how his hand had felt so soft and small in his own.

"You're a great artist, Alexander," Steve said genuinely, getting another one of those sweet reactions out of him. But that was unfortunately offset by his hand slowly pulling out of the clasp.

"You're pretty great yourself," he replied, Steve feeling that bashfulness himself now, even though he doubted his reaction was as a cute a look on him as it was on Alexander.

"Now you're just being nice."

"I'm not," Alexander protested with a small smile "Believe me, I spent too much time at art school to be able to lie about how good someone is anymore. You've got talent, Steve. And you're also a damn good model."

"Thank you," Steve said, dropping his eyes slightly as pleasure coursed through him at the sound of his name in that voice "And I see what you mean; I've only been used as a model once now and I feel like I should be in a magazine."

"Nobody's ever drawn you before?" Alexander asked, his voice full of disbelief. Steve shook his head, even though he knew some people would disagree with him. The way he looked on that page in Alexander's notebook was a far cry from any rendering of himself he'd seen before; all of that fanart on the internet and even the few pieces that had been sent to his P.O. Box had been of Captain America, not Steve.

"Well, that's a crime," Alexander replied, his eyes dropping from Steve's and down to the notebook that rested on his lap. He pressed it flat against his thighs before carefully tearing the page out as close to the binding as he possibly could "Everyone should have at least one drawing of themselves."

Steve couldn't help but let his astonishment take over his expression as Alexander held out his sketch to him. After a moment of hesitation, he took it with a small smile pulling at his lips.

"Are you sure?" He asked, looking at him through his eyelashes as one of his brows rose slightly.

"Of course," Alexander replied, standing up as he did "I just hope you like it."

"I love it," Steve answered honestly, Alexander's shy smile sending tingles down his spine "Although, I think I'd like it better if it was signed."

"To remember me?" Alexander teased, taking the sketch back momentarily to scrawl his signature at the bottom.

"So I can show it off when you're a world-renowned artist," Steve replied, his words surprising a light laugh out of Alexander.

"I'll look for you when my exhibit opens next to yours in MOMA."

Both men chuckled and Steve accepted his sketch much more readily than before; a rush of pleasure as he took in the quick cursive that spelled out Alexander Lucas tucked under the bench.

"Even though I would love to spend more time dreaming up our sky-rocketing careers, I gotta go to work," Alexander said, his regretful tone letting Steve know he really had to leave and wasn't just trying to escape. But even so, Steve felt a stab of anxiety as he realized that, despite the fact that he managed to get up and talk to him, he was still slipping away.

"Oh yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to…" he petered off awkwardly as his brain went into double-time trying to figure out what he could do before he disappeared back into the crowd.

"No, don't worry about it," Alexander replied, before smiling a sweetly genuine smile that made all of Steve's nerves disappear—if only for a moment "This was nice. I haven't talked with anyone about art in a long time. So thanks. Um… See you around."

Alexander started to make his way down the sidewalk and Steve felt his stomach clench as he watched him go. He looked down at the drawings in his hand and tried to take comfort in the fact that he'd always have two mementos of this day; one that would help him remember what the sweet 21st century artist had looked like and one that would remind him of how kind he'd been. It was almost unfair, now that he thought about it. Although he didn't know how he'd truly felt about their time spent together, Alexander was still just walking away with nothing while Steve—.

Before he could fully consider the thought that had popped into his head, his body was responding to it. Steve quickly (but carefully) tore his sketch of Alexander out of his notebook and turned it over to hastily scribble on the back. Then he jogged a few steps and called out to him before he could fully disappear.

"Alexander!"

He stopped and turned back with an inquisitive—but not annoyed as Steve had feared—look in his eyes. It only took a second or two for Steve to catch up to him and he offered him a small smile when he did.

"I was just thinking, it doesn't seem right that I get two pictures and you get none," he said before holding out his sketch to Alexander "I know it's not as good as yours but—."

"No, Steve, thank you," Alexander said with a smile so sunny that Steve forgot how to think for a moment "I love it. Did you sign it?"

"On the back," Steve replied with his own smile that was only slightly tinged with anxiety as he thought of what else was on the back "I'll stop keeping you from work now. It was nice to meet you, Alexander."

The young man's smile somehow brightened even further and so, when he replied, Steve didn't doubt his honesty for a second.

"It was nice to meet you too, Steve."

.

The sun had set when both Steve and his roommates retired to their apartment for the night. Any semblance of formality had been stripped away (in quite a different manner for Steve than it had been for Sam and Bucky) and all three were now comfortably clothed in sweatpants with the TV lowly playing a rerun of Catfish.

"What'd you do today, Steve?" Sam asked, looking over at the man at the other end of the couch "You weren't here when we got back."

"Nothing," Steve replied, maybe a little too casually "Just wanted to stay out of the apartment until I was sure it was safe for me."

"It's always safe for you here," Bucky replied, maybe not fully picking up on the meaning behind Steve's words, maybe just ignoring it to assert the impregnable nature of their little apartment. Either way, it didn't matter, because Steve didn't get a chance to reply.

"So long as you're okay with hearing Bucky make whale sounds," Sam interjected with a deadpan voice, earning himself an elbow in the shoulder and a glare as cold as the Russian tundra. But it didn't affect him in the least, and honestly wasn't as intimidating as it could've been due to the fact that Bucky was leaning into Sam as the pair cuddled under a shared blanket. Steve just smiled slightly and turned his eyes back to the TV; one of them making a sideways comment and the other sending a dirty look in response was a pretty normal occurrence in the Wilson-Barnes-Rogers household.

"Seriously, Steve," Sam said as if he hadn't been on the receiving end of an ex-assassin's wrathful glare "What'd you get up to?"

"Nothing, just wandered around—had lunch, went to a park," Steve replied before frowning and looking over at his best friend "Why?"

Sam and Bucky exchanged a quick look that gave Steve the distinct impression of something conspiratorial and, when Sam spoke again, his tone was just a tiny bit too indifferent.

"No reason really. You just seemed in a good mood. Figured you must've had a good day."

"I did," Steve replied as he stood up "I didn't have to spend it with you two. I'm getting a drink, want anything?"

As Bucky muttered his request for the salt and vinegar chips and Sam grimaced and demanded barbeque instead, Steve smiled slightly and headed into the kitchen. He knew why his two best pals had been talking about him behind his back, he didn't even mind—it made sense. After seeing Steve be so muted for so long, a sudden burst of noticeable happiness had probably tipped them off to the fact something was up. He knew he could tell them what had happened in the park, but for right now he just kind of wanted to keep it to himself. At least until he knew if anything was going to come of it. If he'd thought about it, he might've thought to tone down his obvious delight with the way his afternoon had gone, but he probably wouldn't have been able to even if he tried.

As Steve placed one of Sam's beers on the counter ("Neither of you can even get drunk!") and turned to grab both bags of chips out of the cupboard, he felt a sudden vibration in his pocket. He stilled for a moment as he tried to reason with himself; there were a million different possibilities for his phone's notifications going off. It could be an email, or one of Natasha's tentative attempts to reestablish trust between the former and current Avengers, hell, it could be Sam sending him some stupid meme he saw on Twitter. There were a million things that it could be. A million different things.

Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket and he knew that he wouldn't be able to hide this joy from Sam and Bucky.

Hey, it's Alexander. From the park.