Disclaimer: I own no part of the Marvel movie universe.


Chapter 3

"Can I have that dance?" Peggy asked Steve once they were alone in the new silence.

The old silence, the way it would have been back when they were both young and not just him and not her.

He slipped an arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders. "So I don't step on your feet," he joked feebly.

She grabbed his shirt in her hands as he lifted her. "It's not every day a girl gets swept off her feet by a bona fide hero," she joked back.

But then, she grew serious. "Steve, when I'm gone... don't shut yourself off from finding someone else you could be happy with. I never married, but... I tried to find someone, but after you I knew someone who could meet my standards of how to treat a girl and no one else I fancied ever got close even when you'd been more than I was looking for. It's fine with me if it turns out there's no one else for you, but I don't want to be a reason for you not to try."

He nodded.

"Swear it."

"I swear that after my initial mourning is over, I won't use you as a reason not to find another girl."

She smiled weakly. "Close enough for me."

He started swaying on his feet gently. He started singing "Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree" softly.

She sighed and snuggled against his chest as he went on.

Steve knew what the change in her breathing meant when it happened not long after he'd started to repeat the song. He'd witnessed enough deaths in his youth, back when nearly everyone not killed by an accident, dangerous surgery, or particularly nasty contagious illness still died at home, that there was never going to be any forgetting what that shift into the final moments of life sounded like.

He switched songs to "I'll Be Seeing You". Rather appropriate choice, for a soldier and his girl when they knew just how long they might be apart.

Which now means until I follow her. And no one knows how long that might be.

Not even Erskine could have known that.

Her eyes met his before he'd finished the second line. She gave him an odd little contented smile, as if she'd caught the reference as well.

He continued in a voice that was already beginning to crack with grief.

He wasn't even through the second verse when he realized her eyes had closed and were never going to open again.

He just kept singing, even as the hurting made it harder and harder to draw in each new breath.

He just kept singing, just in case she could still hear him somehow, that same song over and over again.

You didn't let me feel like I was alone. I'm not going to let you feel alone.

There was movement out in the hallway, surely summoned by the modern medical equipment she was still wired to, but Steve paid it all no mind.

He paid nothing any mind.

He didn't stop singing until Tony had an arm around him as Sharon and Fury tried to pry his arms away from her.

She was already growing cold.

That was when it hit him.

I'm the only one left.


The fact Steve hadn't had a chance to get properly dressed before their flight turned into what Tony considered one of the few small blessings of that night: he was already in a perfect state for guiding into Sharon's guest room and under the sheets without requiring him to do any thinking during the entire process.

"I'll stay with him," Tony told Fury after they'd gotten Steve settled, stretched out on the bed with a supply of handkerchiefs close enough to hand that he might be able to find a dry replacement once the one in his hand was completely soaked through. "And I knew her too, so..."

Fury nodded.

"I'll treat him like I would a new widower," Tony mouthed.

"Good. I'll be helping Sharon make arrangements."

"We'll need suits. All three of us need suits. And Steve needs clothing for tomorrow - we didn't even give him a chance to find shoes..."

He knew his mind was going into a protective planning state, to keep him from dwelling on what had just happened. He had gotten his immediate need for tears out of the way before she'd died. He'd deal with what he was feeling now later, hopefully after Steve stopped needing him to do the non-emotional thinking for the two of them.

He fumbled in his back pocket. "Here. My emergency charge card. I told him I'd handle anything we two needed here. Might as well include you, too. And if Sharon needs anything, there should be quite a ways until the limit."

"Stark..."

"Make his a nice suit."

"He's not going to want to wear it again."

"And what else do people only wear once?" Tony asked with just enough of an edge of sweetness that Fury had better catch his meaning.

"A nice suit," Fury repeated back as he took the card from Tony. "Good thing SHIELD has your clothing sizes on file."

Tony raised an eyebrow.

"In case we ever need to clothe any of you during a rescue operation." Fury started to turn to leave, but then looked back. "Do you need anything besides clothing?"

"He can't get drunk, so it's not fair to him if I'm not sober. We'll need food - Sharon shouldn't have to manage that, not right now."

"Stark, I can handle worrying about things like feeding us." Fury gave him his best one-eyed 'do you think I'm that stupid' glare.

"I go into some kind of mental logistical planning mode under emotional stress. Keeps me from thinking about it until it's safe for me to be non-functional for a while and Steve can't afford me doing that at the moment. Went into it when my parents were killed and didn't come back out until four months and a complete corporate restructuring later. Board thought I did it out of duty to the company, but it was all about losing them." He took a deep breath and focused on not dropping the first words of sentences. "I guess SHIELD probably thought that, too."

There was an almost-surprised look in his eye now.

Tony shrugged. "I thought you would have realized I had a helping-people thing on top of everything else that was in my file. The weapons, the clean-energy, everything."

Fury nodded. "You keep an eye on Steve and take care of both of you. SHIELD will take care of the rest. It's the least we owe her."

It was Tony's turn to feel surprise.

Fury answered the unspoken question when he was halfway through the door. "She was one of our founders, back after World War II. Back when we didn't have Captain Rogers anymore, when HYDRA had made us realize how dangerous extra-national groups could be to national and international security.

"And so was your father."