In a quiet corner of a noisy pub, Evangeline sat on Bucky's lap, his arms around her waist and their fingers laced together. He was determined that he never wanted to wear his uniform again after that day, but even if he got back to Brooklyn that evening, none of his old clothes would fit, so he'd have to make do for a little while longer. Steve was next to them, quite ready to wear that uniform for the rest of his life if it was asked of him, and Peggy in her own uniform was beside him. The other couple kissed and held hands and occasionally played footsie under the table, but sitting on the other's lap wasn't something they were quite up for. Peggy had to maintain a reputation, after all. She was a strong, ambitious, intelligent woman in a male-dominated world.
Falsworth, also in uniform, was on Bucky's other side along the wrap-around bench-seat of their booth. Dugan wore a plaid suit as he sat on Peggy's other side, and Morita in a plain grey jacket – not even a suit jacket – boxed in Dernier and Jones, who both wore fine black suits, Jones even had a fedora on his head as he sat next to Falsworth.
There was a bottle of whiskey on the table, the regular sort. Colonel Philips had bought it for them from the bar, even shared a first toast to the end of the war, before he'd excused himself. The war was over, but he still had work to do. Even if it was just packing everything up. Howard had promised to join them later.
Everybody present held their glass with thoughtful absent-mindedness.
"What will you do now?" Evangeline asked them all softly.
"I'm career military," Falsworth admitted a little ruefully. "A bit of a family tradition, and I've been promoted, which is nice. There won't be as much to do now that the war is officially over, but there will be something still. It's almost like the higher-ups aren't happy unless they're pointing men and guns at somebody."
A moment of solemn silence passed as everybody present acknowledged the sad truth of that statement.
"I got a wife and a kid and a small grocery business back in Fresno," Morita declared with fond pride in an effort to break the sad mood that had descended upon them. "Be nice to get back to them."
Dernier's hometown had been bombed. He was going to have to rebuild. Literally. His sister and her family had made it out alive though, so he wasn't going back to absolutely nothing. They'd even saved the goats they kept. His family had made cheese. Dugan had been a foreman at a mine before the war, and he would be a foreman again. Maybe at a mine, maybe somewhere else. Jones wanted to work for the League of Nations as a translator.
Peggy promised he'd have an interview by the end of the week. She has aspirations of her own that involved international politics (picking up what the Strategic Scientific Reserve had become, and expanding it, included) and making sure that the world they'd all just saved stayed safe for many more years to come.
Steve, Howard, and Colonel Philips had all agreed already to help her with that. Philips had the experience to run such an operation, Howard had the money and the gadgets to make it happen, and Steve would be continuing on doing what he did best: being on the ground, running the field operations.
"What about you, Buck?" Steve asked, a hint of hope in his eyes that, once more, his best friend would be there with him.
"I don't know," Bucky admitted. He'd been promoted all the way up to Sergeant-Major back in July, so a military career... Well, between his being a Super Soldier and his track-history of keeping an eye on Steve, doing his best to keep the other man out of trouble, it was probably more than half expected of him at this point. Bucky hadn't ever wanted to be that, though. Sure, he'd done it, because it needed to be done, someone had to do it, and he was the one in a position to... But he hadn't ever wanted it. The only reason he'd learned how to fight in the first place was because he'd needed to save Steve all those times.
And he'd had enough.
Steve could look after himself now, and what Steve couldn't handle on his own, it seemed like he had Peggy and Howard and Colonel Philips to help him out with. Bucky wasn't needed, not like he had been when Steve was small and sick and stubborn as hell and Bucky was the only person in all of Brooklyn and beyond who gave a damn about him. He'd always care about his friend, and he'd be there if he was needed, no question, but...
"What do you want to do, Doll?" Bucky asked, because any decision he eventually made, Evangeline was going to be a factor.
"Before the war, I had planned to set up my own practice," Evangeline offered thoughtfully, leaving out that what she really meant was 'before I turned up in this dimension and era', "but I think I'd like to be a filthy-stinking-rich heiress for a while first. Have some fun."
"What?" came the shocked, stunned, utterly gobsmacked question from all around the table.
"What 'what'?" Evangeline parroted.
"Doll, I'm the only one here you ever told you were outright rich, rather than just comfortably well off," Bucky said with a chuckle as he squeezed her gently in his arms, "and you don't flaunt it, at all, so I forgot half the time too."
"Oh. Well, I'm rich," Evangeline confessed. "Rich of the order that I can buy Howard completely out of his own company, expo and all." She refrained from mentioning that she could do that about ten times over, but only because Bucky gave her another gentle squeeze.
"So, what exactly does beinga filthy-stinking-rich heiress for a while involve?" Peggy asked, genuinely curious.
"Travel," Evangeline announced. "Going everywhere that even might be interesting, and going in luxury and style."
"And company?" Falsworth queried with a sort of parental/big-brotherly concern. "Just because the war is over, doesn't make it safe for a lady such as yourself to travel alone."
"I'm sure Evangeline can handle herself," Peggy defended, a touch hotly. She had to face such prejudices against her sex often, and as chivalrously as Falsworth had intended it (as opposed to other men who were sexist pigs about it), such opinions still grated on the career-woman.
"None of us doubt the Doc's ability to take care of herself," Dugan placated quickly.
"I am just suggesting that she shouldn't have to," Falsworth agreed.
"I know that," Evangeline assured them all with a smile, "and I truly do appreciate the sentiment, both sentiments actually, and please don't think otherwise. I was actually hoping to have a travelling companion from the get-go," she added, and turned her head enough to catch Bucky's eye over her shoulder. "A doll-faced bloke with a heart of gold, for preference."
"Can't be a whole lot of those around," Morita joked, a smirk wide on his face.
Jones and Dugan snickered and Falsworth chortled. Dernier barked a loud 'ha!' when Jones translated the implications for him. Dernier was quite good at English now, but unsaid things were harder for him to catch. Especially when they hinged on in-jokes that Dernier had missed at the time, and hadn't been filled in on since.
"Bucky?" Evangeline called softly. She wanted to see the sights, yes, but she specifically wanted to see them with him. If he wanted to just settle down in the suburbs somewhere, in a house with a green roof and white picket fence, with two-and-a-half kids, then she'd do that too. Happily, even, but she'd like to see the sights with him first.
"Long as I'm with you," he answered, the words whispered into her skin. "But could we stop by Brooklyn first? I'd like you to meet my sister."
"We can do that. I'd like to meet her too," Evangeline said as she nodded her agreement. "Besides, I've never been to New York."
"I'll show you all the best places," Bucky promised.
"Where else were you thinking of going?" Peggy asked with a smile, not even pretending she hadn't been straining her hearing to catch every word.
"The Canadian Rockies, Cairo, Rome, Athens, the jungles of India and the Amazon, the African Savannah," Evangeline listed off happily, animated and excited and not at all planned-out yet. "I want to drift down the Nile in Egypt and then go on safari."
Hunting the animals of Africa was very, very strictly regulated in Evangeline's old time and world, so shooting herself an elephant or a lion hadn't been an option. But it was still legal to hunt the 'big game animals', here and now, she was fairly sure. Not that she was bloodthirsty, but it was an idea that tickled her a little.
Partly because she knew Hermione would have bitten her head off for it, but couldn't now because of their separation.
"Sounds like we're going to be busy for a while," Bucky commented.
"Mm," Evangeline agreed. "Definitely unavailable for callers, unless it's family or an emergency. I promise though Peggy, we meet someone who we could send your way, then we will."
~oOo~
"I thought you'd stopped growing!" were Trudy's first words to Bucky when she saw him.
"Hello to you too, Trudy," Bucky answered her with a grin as he swept her up into a hug. As the older sibling, and one who had laid claim to the nickname of 'Bucky' for three years already, his little sister had refused to be 'Becky' or 'Becca'. "And I promise, this time, I'm not going to grow any more. This is just because of the stuff that made Steve into Captain America."
Trudy nodded in acceptance. She had already known of this from his letter, but seeing it was different.
"I saw one of his shows before he went over," she said. "If it hadn't had his name on the poster, I almost wouldn't have known it was him."
"Surprised me too, the first time I saw him," Bucky confessed, and it was almost an easy confession. Almost. The memories associated with his time under Zola's 'care', prior to his being rescued by his best friend, and the ensuing march across thirty miles of Austria back into Allied territory... well, not really the best days of his life ever.
Trudy looked passed Bucky's shoulder – which was higher than she remembered it being – to see the woman who had come with him. Brought him, if the way she rested against that big black motorcycle was any indication, with one gloved hand rested casually and comfortably on the handlebars.
"That her?" Trudy asked softly.
"That's her, Doctor Evangeline Potter," Bucky confirmed, a soft smile on his face as he followed Trudy's gaze.
A smile Trudy hadn't ever seen before on her brother's face. She'd seen it on their father's face when he looked at their mother. She'd seen one similar to it on her husband's face sometimes, when he looked at her. Bucky, for all the girls he'd taken out on a date and dancing in the past, hadn't ever worn a smile like that. There had been times when Trudy had worried that he'd never get to smile that particular smile.
Some women, when their brothers showed up on the doorstep with a woman they'd never met, would have instantly disapproved. The suspicion that some foreign hussy was trying to take advantage of beloved family for whatever reason, instantly planted in their minds.
Trudy, however, had been hearing stories about Doctor Evangeline Potter. Mostly from the letters she got from Bucky and Steve – and yes, the scrawny kid who'd become Captain America had written to her, kept her up-to-date with the scrapes Bucky got caught up in, same as Bucky had told her all about the messes Steve charged righteously into. A lot of those letters were blacked out, but enough came through. There had also been a couple of small, utterly unbiased little articles in the newspapers though. Well, unbiased so far as how well suited Doctor Potter was to Trudy's brother, anyway.
There had been reports of the woman doing things that had previously been believed to be medically impossible. Men she triaged who should have died in ten minutes managed to survive the five-hour drive to the mash units, and her prep-work had made the work of the mash surgeons so much easier. Not least because she apparently always provided an itemised list of every wound, injury, and potential complication – as well as how best to avoid the last, and the order in which the former should be dealt with.
There was also the new prosthetic limb that she had famously patented. Yes, the original designs were stolen, but the original designs had also made the arm a weapon. Doctor Potter had made the prosthetic design lighter, cheaper, simpler (and not a weapon), slightly less blatantly-prosthetic (though that only went so far, however good it was), and she'd used the same stolen designs as a base to make prosthetic legs as well as arms.
Stark Industries was producing the new prosthetics already, and while the new prosthetic did have to be purchased, any repairs or maintenance would be free for the life of the user so long as they could produce a Purple Heart. An award that every man who had lost an arm or leg in the war was most certainly a recipient of.
Doctor Evangeline Potter was the sort of woman that inspired girls to be more than just pretty faces; more than secretaries, or telephone operators, or chorus girls. She inspired girls to become women who knew their minds, to become the sort of woman who worked hard to get what she wanted out of life. She was as much of an icon as Captain America, the Howling Commandos, and Agent Carter.
And this woman had brought Bucky home to Trudy. Had let Bucky drag her into Brooklyn to meet his last remaining family, more accurately, even if she had been the one in control of that motorcycle. This was the woman that her brother had brought home, to introduce to family. The woman that he'd asked her to buy pearls for. The woman that, if Trudy was any judge, he'd soon be offering their mother's ring to.
Honestly, all things considered, Trudy was a bit more worried about Bucky becoming the lady doctor's 'kept man' than any other option. A position she knew he wouldn't, couldn't, be happy with for long. Well, she'd just have to watch them together before she made up her mind.
"Both of you, come in," Trudy ordered, a secret little smile of her own on her face. "And don't worry about the motorcycle," she added. "This is a good neighbourhood. I promise, no one will touch it."
"Thank you," the red-headed woman said, "and I was already assured as to the safety of the motorcycle," she added.
Bucky chuckled, and Trudy had a feeling she might be missing a joke, but she let it go, and stepped aside to let her brother and Doctor Potter (her almost-definitely future-sister-in-law) into her home.