"Stephanie Rogers, I really think you should marry me."

The young woman at the kitchen table tilted her head at the boy who had just burst in and was now standing next to her, nearly vibrating with excitement. She put down the skirt she had been mending for Mrs. Clary in 4B: James Buchanan Barnes, called Bucky by everyone except occasionally Steph herself, definitely required her full attention when he was in this frame of mind.

"Didn't I say yes to that already?"

She had, in fact, agreed to marry Bucky a good sixteen years earlier, when they were five years old and the main attraction of wedded bliss had been that married couples apparently shared a bedtime, so Steph's frail health would no longer be an excuse for their mothers to separate them all too early every evening. Bucky had solemnly taken Steph to seek a bemused Joe Rogers' permission, and his Auntín Sarah had laughed gaily as it was hesitantly but affectionately granted. Steph's mother had kissed the children's cheeks, and then her husband's, before scraping together the ingredients for an engagement party apple pie. For weeks afterwards she made Stephanie beam and Bucky blush furiously by telling most of Brooklyn Heights that her daughter was getting married to the loveliest young man and that she hoped they'd be able to attend. Somehow she had chosen May 1942 as the approximate date, which from the vantage point of 1925 seemed as good a guess as any. Bucky's mam Winifred had sighed distantly, as she often did when people spoke of marriage as a good idea, but congratulated her son and goddaughter warmly enough.

In the very kitchen where they had celebrated their engagement, Bucky threw himself into the chair next to Stephanie's and covered her hand with his, trapping her delicate fingers where they had been tracing a familiar groove in the well-worn tabletop. She met his eyes steadily as he tried to explain his request.

"Yeah, but that was for next year. I know your mam picked May '42, a chroí, but I really think you should marry me now. So I'm asking: be my wife, Stephanie. Please. Unless you don't want to. Yet, I mean, I really hope you still want to eventually. But I can wait, if you-"

Steph cut him off with a firm, closed-mouthed kiss. She knew why he thought she might want to keep the date her mother had set: it was the only way they could include her parents in any part of the planning. Joe had died within a year of their childhood engagement, a wartime encounter with mustard gas finally proving too much for the already lamentable Rogers constitution, and Sarah, working too many shifts and resting too little in between, had been no match for the especially nasty influenza of Winter '33. Watching James Barnes wait for her reaction with hope and adoration clear in the grey eyes she had known her entire life, Steph really thought her parents would understand if she chose not to stand on ceremony on the subject of exact dates. Sarah and Joe, she reflected, had eloped in Dublin just days before getting on the boat that had brought them to New York; presumably they would be sympathetic to a little spontaneity from time to time.

"James, a chéadsearc, I'll marry you today if you can talk Father Clarence into doing the service."

"Oh! Okay. Yeah, okay. Thank you."

Bucky sound dazed even to himself. His fiancée- delicious word, when attached to a more actual reality than some imagined future- laughed fondly.

"Idiot. You don't have to thank me."

He thought maybe he did. Their long engagement had weathered more than its share of violent storms: not just their parents' deaths, but Stephanie's near-constant illness and even the Navy Yard accident that had very nearly cost Bucky his life. In the aftermath, when Steph was still pale and terrified after days of grim uncertainty and Bucky was reeling equally from pain and the idea that he'd never use his left arm again, he had asked if she wouldn't like to be released from her promises so she could find someone who would look after her properly. Someone who could carry her over the threshold when it was time, he'd thought abstractly, and dip her extravagantly when he took her dancing, but more than that someone who would never leave her looking as desperately scared as she had when he'd opened his eyes after however many days it had been. Someone who could go back to work immediately, too, and see to it she never wanted for anything.

Bucky had thought it made perfect sense; Stephanie had never, ever, been so mad at him before or since. Even as she'd yelled at him, though, throwing words of love and loyalty at him like high-grade weapons, she'd kept a gentle grip on his good hand, stroking his fingers slowly as if assuring herself he was still there to be shouted at. They had come dangerously close to ending up in the street during the months that had followed, when he couldn't work at all and she had been afraid to leave him for any length of time, but Bucky had never brought it up again. Steph, for her part, never seemed to have even considered any alternative. Bucky didn't always understand, but he thought he would be grateful all his life.

"Maybe I want to. Listen, I don't have a ring for you yet. I mean, you already have my gran's, but not one for now."

"I don't care about that. And we have the ones that count, J."

"I care, though," he insisted. His jaw was set in a way Steph knew meant he wouldn't change his mind, but Bucky smiled at her softly as her free hand closed almost reflexively around the delicate rings on the chain she never took off.

In the summer of 1936, Winifred had come home from a particularly grueling night shift to find her son talking Stephanie through another savage encounter with chronic asthma, tears streaking his face unnoticed as he held Steph close and begged her to focus on his voice. When the attack had subsided and both kids slumped back, exhausted, Winifred had sighed and kissed her boy's damp cheek before silently handing him the necklace she had worn for years. Bucky had been speechless with emotion as he pressed his grandparents' wedding rings into Steph's still-trembling hands so she could see them too. The smile the teenagers had shared was so unguarded, so positively innocent in its faithful optimism, that Winifred had winced at how young they really were to be speaking with such certainty of something like romantic love. At least, she had thought as Bucky fastened the chain almost reverently around Steph's neck, they still seemed determined to wait for May 1942 before they actually took the question to a priest.

When cancer they couldn't have known about killed his mother just months before the accident at the docks, Bucky had dropped gracelessly into a chair in the empty hospital corridor and sighed like he had no words left to say. Steph, sitting by him in quiet solidarity, had taken one of his hands in hers and closed it gently over his grandparents' rings. She didn't have to explain that the gesture was a promise, one he had made often enough himself, that they would be okay, somehow, together. Suddenly overwhelmed by the realisation that his mother, who had spent years passively but determinedly resisting that very thought, had finally offered them her not-quite-unreserved blessing less than a year before it would have been too late, Bucky had dropped his head onto Steph's shoulder and sobbed like a child. A nurse or two had cast them curious, sympathetic glances, but no one had interfered as she petted his hair and murmured consolation and affection using his mother's other legacy, the Irish Gaelic they would never completely outgrow.

"You wait, as soon as I can get it you'll have the nicest ring in Brooklyn Heights. I know you don't need fancy presents, but you should have them anyway. You deserve every good thing, a ghrá geal."

Stephanie couldn't help but smile at Bucky's iron-clad determination. It had little to do with jewellery: Bucky had always been sensitive about providing for his girl. The winter after the accident that had redefined their life together, Dr. Harrison had patted Steph's waxen cheek and told Bucky with wan sympathy that there was nothing anyone could do but keep the near-delirious patient warm and hope her fever broke. Almost the second it had, Bucky had left Stephanie drowsing under Millie Travers' watchful eye and gone back to the docks. George Henley had realised that hiring a one-armed labourer was an unconscionable risk in several ways, not least of which was letting the boy work at all so soon after his injury. Recognising the raw terror in the young man's eyes, though, Henley had guessed what was at stake given what everyone knew about Steph Rogers' health and offered the young Barnes more than he'd asked for.

Steph had said nothing about the bruise-like shadows that grew under Bucky's eyes as he worked too hard and for too long, and neither of them had acknowledged the fine tremours in his aching limbs in the weeks of her recovery, but she knew Bucky would have said it was worth it to keep them in extra firewood through to the spring. That he had been able to bring her the finest charcoal pencils she had ever used was just a bonus, but she would not forget Bucky's look of exhausted, exultant triumph when he had surprised her with them that Christmas morning. He had seemed to like his own presents well enough, especially the lingering kiss, unexpectedly deep and demanding for that stage of their relationship, which said "thank you" and "I love you" and "I'm sorry you were so worried" all at once.

Steph trailed her free hand from Bucky's temple to his jaw as he watched her not-quite-anxiously, shaking her head with a grin when he turned his head to try and nip playfully at her fingertips. She tapped his cheek smartly.

"Don't make yourself crazy over a ring, okay? I'd rather actually see you some evenings than- wait, where are you going now?"

He was already reaching for his jacket with a growing smile.

"I have to talk to Father Clarence, don't I? You coming?"

"Yeah. If I let you make this plan alone we're going to get married at five in the morning tomorrow, and then Sarah Miller will never, ever speak to us again."

Steph sounded like she didn't object to that scenario as much as she thought she should, but she still tugged her winter coat on and headed over to St Charles Borromeo with him. There were some things you just had to do, and inviting the people who loved you to the wedding they had been looking forward to for years seemed like one of them. The priest who had baptised both of them had been happy, if not exactly surprised, to see them, but it turned out that thirteen hours' notice wasn't enough for a church wedding even if they had technically told him about it more than a decade earlier. A date was set for early March.

"Thank you," Bucky said again as they fought the stiff January breeze. Steph rolled her eyes at him, grinning.

"Are you going to keep thanking me from now until we get married? "

"Maybe until our kids get married, Stephanín."

Bucky stopped walking when he realised what he'd said. Steph took in his startled, slightly bashful amazement, and her smile turned into a full-on fit of giggles. She reached for his collar with both hands and tugged him close; he came willingly, brushing her hair back with a gentle hand.

"James," she murmured almost against his lips, "Are you just now realising your wife will be the one to have your children?"

She would have bet the flush that heated his ears and neck went right down his chest, but before she could tease him he pressed closer still, keeping her in place with the hand on her neck, and kissed her in a way that said quite clearly that he had no problem at all with the idea of starting a family with his wife.

"Glory be," cried an excited voice behind them, "They finally set a real date. Jack, I told you they were never going to wait until next year! Mam's going to be so excited she'll probably give herself a conniption."

They turned to find Hannah and Jack Miller beaming at them in a way that was sly and supportive at the same time. Jack clapped Bucky on the back with brotherly approval before answering the question writ clear across Steph's face.

"We know Barnes is a complete cad, sweetheart, but there's no way our St Stephanie would permit that display without a special occasion."

Steph, at least as red-faced as Bucky had been earlier, hid her face in his jacket while he grinned at Jack in unrepentant excitement; Hannah, wretched excuse for a best friend that she was, laughed uproariously at the sight of her mortification.

Stephanie Rogers married James Barnes on a brilliantly sunny, lingeringly chilly spring morning. Irish tradition suggested that the bride wear blue, so it was just as well Steph's best dress by far was the bright cobalt swing dress her bridesmaids only ever referred to as Bucky's Dress. It was the ritziest thing the young man had ever bought, a birthday present the year after he'd very nearly lost her to pneumonia, and Bucky was duly proud of how well Steph always looked in it. On this occasion, with her hair in a loose braid woven with tiny white flowers, not to mention the pure joy that seemed to transform her every movement, the Middagh crowd agreed that Sarah and Joe's fragile little girl looked a real beauty. The groom wore Gary Richards' good suit, his own having been declared too shabby for anything more than regular Sunday use. Bucky's shoes had been carefully shined and his shirt so enthusiastically starched that it all but crackled when he moved. His hair was slicked back so severely, another effect of Sarah Miller's iron hand, that Steph laughed and attacked it almost as soon as George Henley had seen her safely down the aisle. Jack rolled his eyes at his mother as if to say "I told you so," but priest and congregation waited patiently until the bride was satisfied before the ceremony began.

Everything progressed smoothly until Father Clarence, smiling expectantly, asked whether James Buchanan Barnes took Stephanie Maire Rogers for his lawful wife, to have and to hold from that day forth, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death did them part.

"God, yes," the groom breathed, and then blanched and tried again as Gary choked, Jack sighed loudly and his sister slapped a hand to her forehead with a groan.

"I mean, I do. Sorry! Of course I do. I really, really do. Save me, Stephanie. Should you ask me again?"

There was delighted laughter from the pews as the priest shook his head reassuringly: though unorthodox, such a heart-felt declaration would certainly stand up to scrutiny. The bride, who had wrapped both hands comfortingly around Bucky's as he stammered, looked utterly charmed. She didn't let go as they moved on, and they were pronounced man and wife without further incident. Their friends cheered like they were witnessing the last home run of the World Series, and Millie Travers whooped with unrestrained glee when Steph leaned over while Bucky was still waiting patiently for "you may now kiss the bride" and took possession of her new husband's lips like she'd been waiting to do it all her life.

In the coming weeks, Brooklyn Heights remained divided on whether it was okay for a guy who couldn't feel his left hand to wear his wedding ring elsewhere. The traditionalists shook their heads, glaring faintly at the boy's right hand, but others watched the newlyweds' rings clink each time their hands touched and sighed with something suspiciously like envy. Steph and Bucky, completely unaware of the debate that raged around them, were wholly satisfied with the arrangement.

There was a photograph, just the one, a gift from the Millers. The wedding party stood outside St Charles as was conventional, but the resulting image could not have been called a formal picture. Jack and Gary leaned against each other, images slightly blurred from their laughter. Millie and Hannah, for all they were at least holding still, also had their eyes fixed on the bridal couple instead of the photographer. Father Clarence, the only one looking into the camera, wore a knowing, even indulgent, smile. At the centre of this happy, if not quite dignified, company, James and Stephanie Barnes looked like they had forgotten the rest of the world even existed. The groom had his good arm was around his new wife's waist, her hand rested on his cheek, and given the way they were leaning into each other it was entirely possible that the long-suffering photographer had taken the picture when he had largely because he feared that if he missed the moment nothing which followed would be fit for public viewing.

It wasn't very traditional, Sarah Miller sighed when she saw it, but it was very, very Steph-and-Bucky.

The image, faded with age but still vivid in its details, was still in its frame on the kitchen table some seventy years later. Tony Stark, rolling his eyes in exasperated admiration at the many and varied ways in which Howard Stark had managed to live and die ahead of everyone else's game, considered it very carefully before shrugging minutely and taking it with him. Before he put it away, his fingers traced the smiling faces of a dark-haired boy, gazing at his new wife like he was wondering how he had ever got so lucky, and the fragile girl watching him like she didn't care how as long as she got to keep her prize.

However the recovery stage of the Captain America project went- and given what his father had said about "Erskine's goddamn crapshoot of a serum" Tony thought it was hardly the foregone conclusion Nick Fury seemed to be counting on- he was willing to bet that a little touch of Brooklyn Heights would go over well.

Or prompt some kind of temporal disassociation rage-stroke.

Tony shrugged. Either way, 2012 promised to be an interesting year.