((Can I just say, I'm so blown away by all the wonderful reviews in the last chapter or two! Thank you all so much! I hope I can continue to give you what you have come to expect and enjoy. Xx Please note: The beginning of this chapter is not aiming to offend, trigger or upset.))


Nursing homes – Good or bad, they always tended to be a sad place. Both for the families of the residents and the residents themselves. Mostly, mind you, not all the time.

Dementia.

Alzheimer's.

Incontinence, UTIs.

Various cancers, ranging in severity, diagnosed and undiagnosed.

Aftermaths of strokes and heart attacks, some imminent, some threatening.

Plain old age that dictated the mobility and overall wellbeing of a patient.

And perhaps, depending on the nature of the home in question, loneliness, and neglect. Again, not always.

Whether it had been helplessly watching his beloved Peggy get caught in a time loop over and over in one of these dreary places that spurred Captain Steve Rogers to frequent one of them in particular, or a mantle he had placed upon himself in lieu of someone else, did not really matter. If anything, it was both.

The all-encompassing smell, typical of an establishment such as this one, came somewhere between the cleanliness of a hospital (and the striving to keep it so) and the battling of near-constant "accidents" and "whoopsies" one can expect where faculties are limited. The local elementary school had sent drawings and paintings to bring a splash of life and colour while a large portion of the wall in the day room boasted an uplifting and hopeful mural; still, monotonous white dominated, lurking in the background.

He knew the room, he had been there several times before in something of a secretive capacity. The nurses and care staff either smiled distractedly as he passed, ignored him (consumed by something far direr than mere distraction in an environment such as this one) and one care assistant, crouched beside a wheelchair waved up at the passing blonde, kindly encouraging the withered old woman in the seat to do so too. Steve, ever the good-natured one, waved back with the most benevolent of beams. Poor girl's probably younger than me.

Room 17. He did not need to knock but as the embodiment of geniality (as Tony tended to tease him relentlessly), he did so anyway and entered.

The television, like every other time Steve visited, blared and masked the appearance of a visitor; Frank's hearing was not the best anymore.

"You sure you can hear the TV, Frank?!" The exaggerated call, a playful prod at his "granduncle's" hearing (or lack thereof), did the trick alright and prompted the octogenarian to swivel in his hospital-grade bed with a grin to rival Steve's.

"Cap'n America, Sir!" Enthusiastic, overjoyed and seemingly invigorated to the level of a man half his age, Frank abandoned his interest in the re-run of Perry Mason and flawlessly saluted his visitor as the door clicked shut. Returning the salute with the same precision, Steve's feet automatically took him to the chair beside the bed.

That greeting held warmth for both men; ever since Steve had managed to track Frank down and make the visits a regular occurrence. Once he had re-introduced himself, of course. Not only had he done it for connection to his former self, but he did also it in memory of someone who had been unable to. Someone he saw every time he looked into Frank's aged face and was reminded of the bittersweet reality. Even if the soul it housed did not reflect its age.

"Sergeant Barnes, Sir."

"Take care of everyone while I'm gone, squirt." The eldest Barnes brother had told the youngest with a rough, rambunctious squeeze (a mutual gesture of life-long sibling affection) on the morning he left for Europe, never to return. "I'll see if I can grab you a souvenir. Write me, okay?". Frank had not allowed the tragic fate of his oldest brother (and he knew all about it) to deter him from service.

In 1950, at twenty years of age, he volunteered to be deployed to Korea. When that "police action" drew to a relieved close in '53, he enjoyed a two-year reprieve Stateside before being redeployed to Vietnam in '55. As it happened, Frank's poor hearing had not been a gradual process of ageing, rather the result of a grenade bursting his eardrum in '57 and subsequent reoccurring infections, resulting in a medical (and honourable) discharge.

Naturally, war stories tended to be a staple of their visits. And re-runs of Perry Mason. Sometimes, Murder, She Wrote.

"How've you been, Frank?" Seated, with the customary bag of treats (magazines, newspaper, candy, and fruit) settled in his friend's lap, Steve watched coyly as the contents were rifled through.

"I'd be better if somethin' wasn't missin', Steve." Coyness uninterrupted and expecting such a gruff retort (in-keeping with a similar riling that featured heavily in his and Bucky's friendship), Captain Rogers cast a cursory glance to the door and deemed the coast to be clear.

"Y'know, if they catch me bringin' this stuff in, they're gonna start searchin' me." With no more reservations, however, Steve produced the half-pint of Scotch; much to Frank's over-hauling delight.

"Yeah, and we tell 'em that your old uncle's gotta have somethin' to live for! Besides…" Scotch tucked away carefully for later where it was unlikely to be found but close at hand, Frank cleared his throat and mimicked his visitor's glance to the door. "New nurse. Nice girl. Redhead. Scottish blood, I think-"

"I don't have the best track record with nurses but thanks, Frank." Not untrue. Sharon Carter and her nurse charade sprung to mind. Doctors, on the other hand…

"Suit yourself, Rogers." Companionable silence ebbed as Frank re-immersed himself in the last ten minutes of Perry Mason; commonplace and standard for Steve's visit. Watching TV. Meandering conversation. Reminiscing. Coffee, maybe, if the visit coincided with the trolley's rounds.

On the shelf beside the TV, sat a photo of a waterfall that, one could argue, had no business in a Brooklyn nursing home. Particularly when one of the occupants of the photo (a large, blue-clad male, his position hiding his missing arm) had not seen the home's resident in over seventy-five years, presumed him dead with everyone else he ever knew. The other occupant, a dark-haired young woman in a white dress, had never met the man at all; she, like her husband, assumed him dead. And yet, their wedding day, immortalised, sat among Frank's other priceless memories; mid-kiss, mutual guarding embrace, and a big, daft-looking mutt between them.

Steve had seen that photo a hundred times; provided it, in fact, upon returning from Wakanda, from that very special occasion. Still… With Perry Mason reeling off in the background at a damn-near offensive volume, that picture hypnotized him and held him there for how long, he could not say. Long enough, it seemed, for one program to finish and for the commercial break bleeding shows together to begin. A new yoghurt appeared to be of little interest to Frank, and so when he turned to address his guest, mouth ajar to speak, he found him engrossed in the photograph.

"You miss him bad, huh?"

Snapping to, and realizing the address had been meant for him, Steve's mind went into almost panicked overdrive. Scrambling for an answer, an explanation, what the Hell else could he say? "No, Frank, just heartsick for his Goddamn widow who hasn't got the smallest clue"?

"Yeah…" Steve managed eventually, swallowing, internally heaving at being caught off guard; by his best friend's brother, of all people. "Just uhh… hits every now and then, y'know? 'Specially that, it's uhh… it's a nice picture…"

"Least you got to see it, see them." Frank placated, wincing through a sting of his own, for an entirely different reason to the one that plagued Steve. "With everything you've told me, it sounds like he found a really special lady."

"He did..." The blonde agreed hesitantly, feeling his eyes being drawn back to the picture; shamefully focusing on one half of the happy couple in particular. "He did, she's great. I wish you could've been there. Or even seen him before-"

"And we know what would've happened." Frank retaliated instantly; gruffness returning but without the playful undertones of boyish roguishness. Stern and affected, he and Steve had had this conversation many times in resounding agreement each time; practicality reigned, but sentimentality had always made its presence known. Hence Frank's pained bluster, as typical of a man of his age and upbringing where feelings tended to be discouraged. "If he'd even gotten a sniff that I was alive, Steve, he'd have taken on the entire US army just to sit with me for ten minutes."

"I know. He would've fought Hell and high water just to see you."

"Which is why he couldn't know!" The Captain's morose calmness did nothing to quell Frank's frenzied passion; the decision to protect his brother with ignorance had been the difficult but only option. After all, how many times had Bucky protected him by any costs? It boiled down to returning the favour, painful and all as it came to be. After all, he had not been packed off to Wakanda for the fun or pleasure of it. More to the point, T'Challa had not sworn his guardianship lightly either. "The second he set foot on American soil, those bastards would've made it their business to hunt him down! Arrest him is the least of what they'd've done!"

Steve did not argue; nothing to argue with. He knew of Bucky's relentless quest, even in the squalor of his Bucharest apartment, to discover every shred he could of his former self. Had he known a direct link to his past, his kid brother, remained in a Brooklyn nursing home, nothing would have stopped him from warming the chair Steve warmed now. His little brother, his last living relative, his last connection… No, James Buchanan Barnes would have walked through fire and ice to see Frank.

Another wave of guilt rippled Steve's gut and nothing to do with Elsa. How many times had he come close to telling Bucky that Frank, at eighty-eight years of age, was still very much alive? With his full faculties, memory, and mind intact? After all they'd been through, it may well have been the end of the relationship; keeping such a sensitive thing from him when he knew all too well what it meant. Then, the inevitable of Bucky scrambling to get to Brooklyn before it was too late; consequences be damned.

One thing they may have overlooked though: "Nothing would stop him." One thing might.

Her.

"But it's too late for that." Tainted by the slightest twinge of regret, Frank's paling eyes returned to the picture of his brother and his wife; heartsick too, but not quite in the same vein as Steve. "They can't get him where he is now and that's the only comfort I take outta this whole damn mess." Here here, Steve though, reuniting his gaze with his friend's on the picture.

"So uhh…" Brushing past his passionate little episode and knowing Steve understood, Frank opted to change the subject; something lighter, more conversational. "When're you goin' back?"

He did not need to specify, the blonde knew. It was, after all, a regular topic of conversation.

"I should get there mid-afternoon on Saturday. Els got a new dog I haven't met yet."

"Huh. Bet you're itchin' to get back."

Cue another squirm of internal self-chastisement born from an innocent comment. Then again, what did he expect? With guilt so heightened (for the mere thought alone, never mind acting on it) and hypersensitive at her mention, most remarks, however throwaway, inconsequential, or empty inclined to rouse it.

Thankfully, he did not need to scrabble to his own defence and deflect (a necessity in his mind only) or simply shrug it off.

Not when the coffee trolley arrived, right on time.