Title: On Down Thru The Years...
Author: daenabenjen42
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Characters: that list STARTS with Rebecca Barnes Proctor...
Disclaimer: No... not me. I don't even know if I still have a set of Mickey Ears from the one and only time I've been to Disney Land...

A/N: This was going to be for a different fandom, but I keep seeing bits and pieces of the back story for Sometime This Century / Importance of Family, so... MCU it is for UDC 8! (How'd we get to eight? Wow...)


Week I - Prompts supplied by Mira_Jade - The Home Front


1. Valor [Emma Barnes, Rebecca Barnes Proctor... and Bucky]


It seemed ludicrous, the story about a USO Captain rescuing 400 men from a prison camp. Seemed that way, that was, until a letter arrived from Europe that Emma couldn't wait to open. It was the first news from her brother in two months!

A surprised shriek brought her sister, tired from a shift, running in from the apartment across the hall. "What? What is it?"

Emma looked up at her, then down at the letter. "You're not going to believe this."

"I'm not?" Rebecca wondered tiredly.

"Our brother was one of the 400. Says the guy who rescued them is a punk who needed to stay home!"


2. Honor [Rebecca Barnes Proctor, William Proctor]


Her heart was in her throat as she waited for the ship to dock, after not having seen him in two years. He'd missed so much... so, so much. Soon enough, the docking procedures were complete, and sailors began disembarking.

She saw him on the gangplank, and suddenly her knees locked in place. Was this really happening, after so long? After the heartbreak they'd all had? It didn't feel right, that it should be.

"Now there's a sight for sore eyes," William said as he stopped and simply looked at her. With a cry, she hurried into his arms. There would be time enough for everything else...


3. Sacrifice [Winnifred Barnes, Rebecca Barnes Proctor...]


The letters arrived after the news broke, about the plane going down with no trace. She watched her mother open each one and silently read, then set them aside, only to stare out the window for a long, long time.

Slowly, she picked up one of the letters, only for her mother to shake her head. "But..." Another shake, and her mother tapped a finger on the table while she set it back down.

A cry sounded, and Rebecca was drawn away, to see to her young ones.

Later, after her father had read them himself, she would.


4. Defeat [William Proctor, Rebecca...]


He stared down into the crib, at once humbled and awed by the sleeping babes. "Why didn't you bring them?"

Rebecca leaned into him with a smile. "Too many people, and Mother wanted to watch them." She laid a hand down on the pink blanket. "This is Lillian Emma." Then the blue. "And this is Thomas Steven."

"Becca?"

"Hmmm?"

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Not being here, like I should have been."

She sighed. "You were here when it mattered, William. And you are here now. That's the important thing."

He glanced at the window, where two gold stars were hung. She had a point.


5. Victory [Peggy Carter]


She watched in silence for long minutes as Peggy stood on the bridge and poured the vial into the water. They'd each had to say goodbye in their own ways, to the lost, and this, too, was important. The woman had shown up at her door with a story and a vial and a need not to be alone.

It didn't feel like a funeral, this moment of repose. It didn't feel like a victory, either. It did, however, feel like a goodbye. Of days gone by, of people lost.

Eventually, she approached her, took Peggy by the arm, and smiled. "Come on. Mother wanted to see you, and it's nearly dinner time."

Peggy allowed herself to be lead away.


A/N(2)...

For the sake of continuity: Emma saw Steve's new bigger self at Rebecca's actual wedding, but didn't connect him with "Captain America", and he didn't write to them between June '43 and November/December '43 when the rescue happened... and Rebecca's twins were born in early March '44 while William was at sea on a Navy ship in the Atlantic.