Hold me close and hold me fast
This magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose

La Vie en Rose by Daniela Andrade (Cover of Louis Armstrong)

Following the wedding, Emily, Steve, and their guests went to a pub near the bunker. The OWI had rented out a room in the back to host a small reception. It was ideally located, as it allowed for their guests to dash down the street and check in before joining the festivities, and those who had been unable to attend the ceremony were able to poke their head in.

Though it was only noon, the beer flowed freely and the newlyweds found themselves toasted numerous times. Emily was never more thankful for Steve's inability to get drunk than when drink after drink was pressed into her hand, and she was able to discreetly hand them to him when she'd begun to feel pleasantly tipsy and teetering towards drunk.

Some of the tables had been pushed against the walls to create a small dance floor and, after their first dance, Em found herself partnered with the Commandos and Howard in turn. A few men that she'd seen around the bunker had also claimed her hand, but every woman who had tried to pull Steve out had been met with a smile and a firm shake of his head. Steve didn't dance, and was only reluctantly joined her during slow, swaying tunes.

After her second dance with Gabe, Emily confronted the cameraman and asked why it seemed like he was trying to avoid taking pictures of her with him. Rather than deny it, he had shrugged and said it was the same reason they wouldn't publish pictures of her dancing with Morita - people didn't want to see a white woman in the arms of a black or Asian man.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Emily shrieked, causing the man to raise his eyebrows and those around them to turn and see what the commotion was. "That's bullshit! That's - that's - "

She hadn't been able to continue her tirade when Steve appeared at her elbow with Bucky; the former gently pulled her away with the latter stayed to smooth over the situation. Once they'd stepped outside, he turned to her.

"What was that about?"

"It's bullshit! He won't take a picture of me with Gabe or Morita 'cause of racist bullshit!" Steve sighed as Emily continued. "Just wait - just you fuckin' wait! They're all gonna be real surprised when Japan's one of our most important allies. And when Reagan apologizes for the internment camps - ooh, and just wait for the '60s. They're gonna be real pissed 'bout the Civil Rights movement. Just wait - Life's gonna be real mad that they missed the opportunity to get a picture of the Senator at our wedding - "

"Senator?" Steve asked, surprise coloring his voice. "One of them becomes a senator?"

Emily opened her mouth but didn't say anything for a moment. "Merde. I… 'prolly shouldn't have said any of that. 'Cept the racist part. I stand by it being bullshit." Steve gave her an exasperated and reached up to move a strand of hair that had fallen in her face.

"Probably not. It sounds like - "

The door swung open and Gabe stepped out, his head swiving before seeing them. "Barnes told me that there was a firecracker out here." Em blushed and pulled back from Steve, nervously reaching up to adjust the glasses she belatedly realized she wasn't wearing. He grinned as he walked towards them, and then pulled her into a tight hug. "Shoulda known you were a Double V supporter too."

Em furrowed her eyebrows, trying to figure out what he was talking about. "Right," she said, "of course."

"Course, you'd have to be - married to this guy," he added, pulling away and jerking his thumb at Steve, who slipped his hands into his pockets and shrugged. Gabe chuckled, "Trying to integrate the military and Life magazine… between the two of you, you'll get me killed when I get back home."

"What?" Em said, the blood draining from her face as her eyes darted between the two men.

Gabe shook his head and gave her a tight smile. "Things may have gotten a better in Georgia, but not by that much. I appreciate you wanting me to be in the magazine with you, but my family's gonna be the ones that have to deal with it until I get home, and I've got two sisters and a little brother."

"I… I didn't think of that. I'm sorry - I didn't mean to - "

"Austria's out!" a soldier that looked no older than seventeen yelled as he sprinted up the street, hand clapped to his head to keep his hat from flying out. "The Canadians routed 'em!" He stopped a few feet away from them, grinning as she tried to catch his breath. "Berlin's next!" As he yanked the door to the pub open, he looked over at them again. "Oh - congratulations!"

The three exchanged a look before Gabe huffed a laugh and looked at Steve, "One more down. You think we're gonna be called in?"

"Probably not," he shrugged, "Phillips didn't say anything about it when I asked for leave. We're here for at least the next week and a half unless something big happens." His glanced over at Emily who shook her head minutely - nothing major would be happening in the European theater, at least.

"Well, I'm going to go back in - you two shouldn't keep your guests waiting."

"Gabe," Emily said when he turned to leave. "I still want a picture - even if it's only for us."

He smiled and nodded, "Anything for you, Mrs. Rogers."

OOO

For their honeymoon, Steve had been granted four days of leave under the condition that he stay close to London just in case he needed to be recalled. After talking with a few of the women in the bunker, they had decided on a little village about an hour and a half away from the city where they rented a room.

While they spent most of the next morning in bed, they ventured out in late afternoon for food and spent time walking around the town before retreating back to their hotel. He asked her a million questions about their lives together - how they'd met, where they lived, what they did together - and about her family, and their plans. Emily told him as much as she could and, when he pressed, told him that an accident brought them together.

On the second day, Steve drove them out into the country and tried to teach Emily how to drive the car. After stalling it for the fifth time, she threw up her hands and declared that it was impossible to drive a stick shift while he roared with laughter. When she told him that she drove an automatic at home, he seemed a bit surprised that that fluid drive had migrated from military tanks to civilian cars. (She tried not to think about a similar conversation they'd had on a drive in Oregon.)

He'd eventually taken over and driven them to an empty field where they had a picnic lunch, after which Steve laid his head in Em's lap and took out his sketchbook while she read a mystery ASE he'd managed to pick up. After a while, though, they both set aside their books and closed their eyes as Em ran her fingers through his hair and hummed a tune under her breath.

"What song is that? I don't recognize it," Steve said.

"It's my favorite - La Vie en Rose by Edith Piaf. It hasn't been released yet, I think."

"Yeah? How's it go?" he asked, tipping his head towards her and opening one eye.

"You sure you want to hear it? I make you listen to it all the time at home - you may get sick of it faster."

"That bad?"

"No! It's a beautiful song about finding love even in difficult times - it's said that she wrote it about a soldier she saw on a train in 1943." Emily ran her hand along his jaw and gave him a wistful smile. "I asked you once if it was about you."

Steve chuckled and pushed up onto his elbow, and Em did the same as he reached out to push a strand of hair behind her ear. "You gonna sing it for me?"

Em flushed and shook her head. "I don't sing outside of the shower and car." When Steve raised an eyebrow at her before turning to look at the car, she laughed. "With the radio in the car."

"Come on, it's not like there's anyone here but us. And I don't know how it sounds!"

With a sigh, she hummed it before softly singing her favorite part. "C'est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie - il me l'a dit, l'a jure pour la vie. Et des que je l'apercois, alors je sens en moi mon coeur qui bat."

Steve smiled and leaned forward to kiss her, his hand cupping her cheek. "It's you and me forever."

Emily smiled and reached up to cover his hand. "Des nuits d'amour a plus finir, un grand bonheur qui prend sa place. Des ennuis, des chagrins s'effacent. Heureux, heureux a en mourir."

His eyes darkened before he shook his head, his hand falling away as he dropped his chin. "Kinda a fitting song for us, huh? Nights of love, trouble and sorrow fades away - then 'happy, happy and to die."

Em's eyebrows shot up and she got to her knees, cupping his face to force him to look at her. "Non, mon coeur - you're translating it wrong. It's not 'et en mourir' it's 'a en mourir' — 'to die for' not 'and to die'." She gave him a wry smile, "The subtle differences will get you."

When he didn't say anything, she shook her head and let out a huff before raising an eyebrow. "Steven Grant, I shudder to think what you've been saying to Jacques - you could be insulting him this entire time! Or even worse - giving him bad instructions. You know that 'too early' and 'immediately' are homophones, right? Thank god for Gabe, though he's probably laughing at you as well - oooh!" She shrieked when Steve pulled her into his lap and gripped his shirt tightly; he grinned and gently squeezed her waist with the arm behind her back.

"My French isn't that bad."

"How would you know?" she grinned. "I've seen those two laughing at you before - maybe they were mocking you. And I've only ever heard you speak it once because you decided not to tell me that you spoke the language which, to be honest? Not cool. What I said during our arguments you weren't supposed to - "

Steve cut her off with a kiss, slowly lowering her to the ground and settling in the cradle between her thighs.

"Maybe I should sing you the English version," she said softly when he moved kiss the hinge of her jaw.

"How's it go?" he whispered before gently biting her earlobe.

"Hold me close and hold me fast," she sang, carding her hand through his hair as he started to unbutton her shirtwaist dress. He shifted down her body and began to kiss the skin he exposed. "This magic spell you cast, I see la vie en rose. When you kiss me, heaven sighs and though I close my eyes, I see la vie en rose."

His free hand traveled down her side and slid under her skirt before making the journey back upwards.

"Are we this happy in the future?" he muttered into her stomach.

"Hmm?" she asked, tightening her grip on his hair as his fingers slid across the tops of her stockings, teasing the soft skin of her inner thigh. He lifted his head to look at her, his blue eyes boring into hers as he undid the straps of her garter belt.

"Are we...is it like this? Are we happy?"

"Yes, mon coeur," she said quickly. "We're busy, and we don't see each other as much as I'd like, but yes - we're happy."

"You said that we live together."

"We do. But you work with SHIELD - that's what the SSR becomes - which takes you away a lot, and I work at Empire State but travel to DC every other weekend to my consulting job at the Smithsonian." Em gasped as the hand under her skirt moved further north as he shifted onto his knees. "But when we're in the same place at the same time, Carter says we're 'disgustingly in love'."

"Good." Em felt a sudden surge of homesickness and something must have showed on her face because Steve frowned. "What's wrong?"

"I just…" she said, blinking back the tears that sprang to her eyes.

"Sweetheart?"

"Do you think you're alright? With me being here and not…"

"No," Steve said quickly. "No, I'd be tearing my hair out trying to find you. And I'm sure he - I," he corrected, "am. But I know where you are, and I know that you're safe. So I'm going to enjoy every stolen moment that I have with you."

Em swallowed the lump in her throat and shook her head, swiping away the rogue tear rolling down her cheek. Now probably wasn't the time to tell him her theory that this wasn't actually his past, but was some parallel timeline - that she didn't actually think he knew where she was.

"I love you," Steve said, "You know that, right? It doesn't matter if it's now, or in the future - as long as we get back to each other, that's all that matters."

She huffed a laugh and shook her head. "Je t'aime aussi, mon coeur."

He smiled up at her, "I understood that, at least. How is it that I haven't gotten you to marry me in that time?"

"It's not for lack of trying," Em replied as Steve hooked his fingers in the tops of her panties and drew them down.

"Well, I've got you now, Mrs. Rogers."

"That you do, Captain Rogers."

OOO

The last day of their honeymoon, Emily had woken up with a fever and a stomach bug that kept her confined to bed and made their drive back to London the next day an unpleasant one that she'd spent buried under both her and Steve's coat as he tried to keep her warm.

Rather than carrying her through the threshold of the house out of tradition, Steve did so because Em wasn't sure her legs would support her.

Bucky had arrived within an hour and commandeered their kitchen while Steve alternated between keeping her company in the bathroom when she was sick and trying to convince her to try and relax in bed. It was only after Bucky had told him to knock it off that Steve threw a blanket and pillow down on the bathroom floor for Em and joined his best friend in the kitchen.

It wasn't until hours later that she felt well enough to venture into the living room, where she curled up in the armchair with a bowl of Bucky's chicken noodle soup and listened to the two men talk while the radio played.

The next morning she woke up and found Bucky sprawled out on their couch, snoring softly.

"Howard, there's a letter from Oppenheimer here - did you look at this?" Emily asked three days later as she sorted through a pile of documents that had accumulated on her desk in her absence.

"Yeah, there's a list of clarifications I need on a list somewhere. Come over here - I need you to hold this." Emily sighed and pushed off of her stool.

"It's not going to blow up in my face, is it?"

"No… probably not. Maybe a small shock. Kidding!" he said quickly before glancing at her hand. "May want to take those rings off, though." Em rolled her eyes and retrieved a pair of gloves from another work table. Howard scoffed before positioning her the way he needed and putting two wires in her hand. Em scrunched her nose smell.

"There's a telegraph from the plant about labor shortages." Howard ignored her. "Did you have an idea on how to answer them?"

"End the war?" he shrugged.

"Soon," she replied before thinking.

"Not soon enough. Tell them to offer overtime."

"Pay's not the issue -"

Steve appeared in the lab doorway, his eyes scanning the room before landing on them. "Emily - "

"Ah!" Howard cut him off, not looking up from the soldering iron that he holding. "You get her for a lifetime, Rogers - I just need her for two minutes more. What do you mean pay's not the issue?"

Em rolled her eyes again and glanced over her shoulder at Steve, which caused Howard to hiss as she shifted one of the wires out of alignment. "Sorry, sorry," she said as he corrected it. "You're already paying over the average wage, but your workforce is primarily women who have to leave and get home to their children. If you offered childcare -

"This isn't dangerous is it?" Steve asked, frowning at the two.

"Would I do that to your wife?" Howard sighed. Em flushed slightly at that, still unused to hearing herself referred to in that term.

"Yes," Steve replied without hesitation.

"Never gonna live that one down," Howard muttered. "No, this isn't dangerous - just trying to improve the electrical relay between the energy source you retrieved and the firing mechanism I've designed to harness it." When he glanced up to see Emily's raised eyebrow, he sighed and motioned to the chalkboard where he'd been doing his most recent calculations. "I'm trying to make a reverse engineer one of Hydra's weapons."

"What did you need, Steve?" Em asked when he opened his mouth to say reply.

"I…" he frowned and tore his gaze away from the tendril of smoke rising from between her hands. "We just got orders - shipping out in a few hours."

"But we just got back!" she protested, earning another grunt from Howard as her hand shifted.

"I know," Steve sighed, crossing his arms. "But Phillips said this couldn't wait - direct order from Eisenhower."

"Did he say where you're going?" Em asked.

"Can't tell you, Sweetheart. I wish - "

"Done! You're free to go, Harthorn - I mean, Rogers," Howard corrected himself. "Feel free to take the morning." Emily quickly stripped off the gloves and took a step back from the table.

"We're going to come back to this conversation about child care - and don't think you're getting out of a discussion about that incident report that I apparently have to file," she warned him. "But thank you."

As they walked out of the lab Emily tried to run through her mental list of events she knew were going on. The one that immediately sprang to mind was General MacArthur's storming of the Philippines, fulfilling his infamous vow to return after he was forced to evacuate under presidential order.

She stopped walking and grabbed Steve's arm, pulling him to a stop when she realized what it was. "Hürtgen." Her eyes were wide as she shook her head. Steve pressed his lips into a firm line and looked around the hallway, afraid that they were going to be overheard before pulling her into the records room. Once he'd found them a secluded spot, he spun to face her.

"It started last month… that's where you're going, isn't it?" Emily demanded.

"They're going to think I'm telling you classified intelligence."

"They're hitting the Siegfried Line, and you're going…" she pushed her glasses to the top of her head and pressed her fingers to her eyes. "Steve, tell them you can't go."

Steve frowned, "What happens in Hürtgen?"

"Nothing!" She said, throwing up her hands. "That's what - no one knows why the military threw so many men into that damn forest. It didn't have any strategic value but… God, Steve - it's still the longest battle in Army history, and one of the bloodiest. You… you still have nightmares about it."

Steve flinched but shook his head. "I have to go, Sweetheart. But maybe I'll be back by Christmas."

"You won't," she groaned, tipping her head back to rest against the metal rack. "First it's Hürtgen, then the Bulge, then Stalingrad and then - " Emily's breath caught and she paled, feeling suddenly lightheaded.

"And then?" Steve prompted. When she didn't say anything, he repeated himself. "And then?"

"Then you'll come back to London for two days." Emily said softly.

"New Years?" He asked, sounding only slightly hopeful.

"February."

"And after that?"

When she didn't say anything, understanding dawned in Steve's eyes and he gulped hard. "Steve," she said, pushing off the shelving and wrapping her arms around his waist. He hesitated for a moment before pulling her tightly against him. She could hear his heart beating fast under her cheek.

They stood in silence for a long time until he cleared his throat. "D-does it hurt?"

Em bit her lip. He'd only talked to her about it once, and only after he'd woken up gasping for breath and with Peggy's name on his lips. "Y-you said it was over quick. And then you didn't remember anything until… until you heard me talking about you."

"You're there? Right from the start?" Steve demanded, pulling away to meet her gaze.

"As soon as you're in the States, and not long after you wake up," Em assured him before letting out a watery chuckle. "I nearly passed out when I first saw you."

"That bad?" He grimaced.

"Just shocking," she said, reaching up to push his fringe from his eyes. "I didn't know who you were - what you were - when Coulson brought me in to meet you - you were just some historical figure I studied as part of my dissertation. I thought you were an actor who managed to overcome a 4F while on a USO tour in Italy, then disappeared into the Army."

Steve let out a derisive snort and shook his head. "You've seen my acting ability." Em smiled and stood on her toes to kiss him, her hands wrapped tightly around the lapels of his jacket. When they finally broke apart to breathe, he rested his forehead on hers and closed his eyes tightly. "You know your song? The French one?" When Em hummed, he sighed. "Maybe it really is 'happy, happy, and then die'."

OOO

"As much as I'm enjoying the company," Bucky said, his breath misting in the frigid air as he glanced over at Emily and hiked his shoulders up. "It's pretty cold for a walk around the park."

"What? Sorry," she said. She'd been glaring at the ground as they walked, deep in thought. Sighing, he gently pulled her to a stop and stepped in front of her.

"He's going to be okay. I'll make sure of it." Em inhaled sharply, feeling her eyes start to sting.

"Bucky…"

"I've been pulling his ass out of the fire for years now, Emily. Sure as hell isn't gonna stop now that he's got you at home waiting for him."

"This isn't about Steve," she said quickly, reaching out to grip his arm. "I need you to promise me something."

"Anything."

"Don't pick up the shield. No matter what."

"Huh?"

"I know that goes against every but… please, I'm begging you, don't pick up the shield."

'What are you talking about?" Bucky asked, frowning at her.

"I just… I have this ho-horrible feeling that something is going to happen," she said, sniffling as the first hot tear trickled onto her cheek.

"Hey," he said, giving her a weak smile as he reached up to rest a hand on her shoulder, "nothin's gonna happen, Em - I promise. You and Steve are gonna be stuck with me for a long time. After all, who's gonna keep him company while you're off at school, becoming a doctor and all that?"

Em let out a watery chuckle as she stepped into his embrace, burying her face in the scratchy wool of his overcoat. "So you won't pick up the shield? No matter what?"

"Not even if the idiot's gonna trip on it," he promised.

Author's Note: I apologize for any typos and errors - I meant to edit this today but my newest niece arrived much sooner than expected! I'll probably read back over this and cringe tomorrow but... oh well.

A few notes. The Double V campaign stood for Double Victory - it stood for democracy both home and abroad for African Americans, or desegregation and freedom. As an aside, the military was not integrated until 1948.

Apologies for the delay, and thanks for hanging in there with me!