Disclaimer: I obviously own nothing of the MCU's. Kitty is mine, the plot is mine, anything you recognize belongs to Marvel.
"I put myself back in the narrative. I stop wasting time on tears, I live another fifty years, it's not enough."
Early January of 1947 Katherine Harris makes her way into a charming restaurant situated on the Upper East Side, removing her winter coat, before turning to search for her companion. Peggy Carter waves at her from a booth toward the back wall of the restaurant and Kitty smiles, joining her friend at their seats.
That evening is as pleasant as it has been every month since they'd began meeting two years prior. The two women become grateful for each other. It's nice having someone who understands her loss, how profound the ache is, how no one seems to understand. Agent Carter is a strong, beautiful woman, with a heart of gold. It's no surprise why Steve loved her so, and Kitty too had come to care for the lovely British agent.
Their dinner consists of exchanged stories, some new— what isn't classified of her work at the SSR— and some old. Kitty's favorite are stories of the Howling Commandos— what she'd missed of Steve and Bucky's lives during the war— and Peggy's are of the times Katherine had spent with Barnes and Rogers before the war— the time before she'd known them.
Katherine tells her friend of a date she'd been put up to, by Bucky's sister Rebecca, no less. It'd been a disaster. Everyone in Red Hook knew of her ties to Captain America and Sergeant Barnes of the Howling Commandos, so the man had made a big show of being a hard-boiled army man and ended up making a fool of himself. Peggy croons with laughter at Kitty's account of the man trying to make Captain America references and comparing himself to him on their terrible date. Needless to say, she'd thanked him kindly for the drink, hailed herself a cab, and the next day asked Rebecca to never make a date for her again.
She and Peggy end their monthly dinner together on a doleful note, the Agent will be heading to Los Angeles in the morning, she isn't sure for how long. Kitty is a little bitter at that, not at Carter of course, but more at the Agency. Since loosing Bucky and Steve, she's become more protective of the people she cherishes, always afraid of sending them off and never seeing them again. It's become a part of her that Katherine is sure will never go away.
The two women part ways outside the restaurant, both a tad dispirited, but Peggy assures her she'll contact her as soon as she returns. Kitty makes her way across a major intersection, minding the traffic as she heads toward the nearest train platform on her way back toward Red Hook. Both the after-work and dinner-rush crowds fill the streets and sidewalks of Manhattan, and in her hurry to make the train before the doors close she stumbles into a the back of a man standing near the entrance of the railway car.
The man in question turns around, confusion and possibly annoyance written in the furrow of his brow, until they make eye contact. She takes in his fine suit and his dark hair, slicked back away from his face. A pair of stunning blue eyes meet her own hazel, recognition blazing in them. Not Bucky's though, a voice whispers in the back of her mind. Katherine knows this person, she realizes. "Corporal Davis?"
After their sudden, almost fateful meeting on the train, Katherine allows the Corporal to take her out and eventually begins going steady with him. In the beginning she'd felt bad about seeing Davis. He'd been Bucky's friend at one time, but the more she got to know him, the happier she became. In his letters Bucky had mentioned Davis to be a smart soldier, a trustworthy person, but most importantly a good man. Despite her guilt at the start of their relationship she begins to think of it differently. Like Bucky has given her this opportunity. They become engaged a little more than a year later, in early fall of 1948 and a few short months after that they wed.
She and Matthew Henry Davis have a charming wedding ceremony in Manhattan at St. Bartholomew's Church and a lavish reception across the street at the Waldorf Astoria after a little less than a year of stepping out together. As it turns out, Corporal Matthew Davis hails from a well to-do New York family with a substantial amount of money to their name. Not that Katherine cares, but she'd never imagined living in a such a fine condominium like the one her new husband owns in Park Slope. It's still Brooklyn, but it's a step up from the warehouses and apartments of Red Hook. His parents live on a extravagant estate in Long Island. She isn't sure how much they really like her, she's not from money after all, but they treat her awful nice.
Being married to Matthew is the best thing that could ever have come to Katherine, after losing her both her best friend and the love of her life. But, it feels right. Not as right as life bid with Bucky Barnes, but better than she'd ever felt in the three years since his death. A part of her likes to consider Matthew Davis a gift that Bucky had sent to her. They'd probably never have met if not for Bucky enlisting Matthew's help. So when she marries him she prays that Bucky is happy for her, wherever he is. She sends her thoughts and her love, but knows that Matthew is a man he would approve of.
Katherine Lucia Harris-Davis goes on to live a full, happy life with her husband and has two children, who she names after her best friends. She stays in New York. She has grandchildren and they have children. She grows old with her husband, who goes a few years before her and then she passes away at a eighty-nine years old in 2008. She's survived by her son and daughter, their children, and their children's children.
Four years later the wreckage of a German war plane is found in the Arctic along with a not-so-dead Captain America. And, two years after that he fights a soldier in black tactical gear who turns out to be more than just a ghost. "Who the hell is Bucky?"