His old clothes, the majority of which (as suspected) no longer fit at all, were donated to a second-hand store, and a new wardrobe for Bucky had been quickly acquired. Evangeline hadn't offered to pay for everything, though she could have. The fact was that so could Bucky, and he had just enough pride in himself as a man, and as a person who took care of others (rather than the other way around) that he wouldn't touch Evangeline's money for this. He bought his own clothes. Evangeline did buy him a couple of things, granted. She thought he'd looked good in a hat he'd tried on before he'd noticed the price, so she bought it for him. She thought a set of cuff-links would set off his eyes, but knew he couldn't afford more than one (completely plain) pair, so she bought them for him. She thought a pair of shoes he liked, but which were just beyond his budget, absolutely belonged in his wardrobe... and so on.

Evangeline also kept his uniform; both the dress uniform with all the medals and ribbons and braid, and the uniform he'd worn in the field with the other Howling Commandos. She knew he never wanted to wear a uniform again, so she washed, pressed, carefully folded, and put them away in a camphor-wood box (engraved all over with preservation charms) at the back of the linen closet in her tent.

Outfitted in civvies once more, and feeling really damn good about it, Bucky took Evangeline on a tour around his favourite sites of Brooklyn (including the dance halls, of course), then greater New York, before they ventured into Manhattan. They went to Staten Island, Liberty Island, and Coney Island. They took in Broadway and visited the Rockerfeller building. They spent a week just exploring every little bit of Central Park. They visited the museums, went to the top of the Empire State Building, and the top of the Chrysler Building, and even stopped in at Tiffany's for a look around, though they had neither one bought anything there.

Bucky had rented his old apartment again for while they stayed in Brooklyn. Evangeline had set up her tent in the living room, to his amusement, but he could understand the logic of it. There was more space inside that tent than there was in the whole apartment. The tent had Evangeline's bed as well, which was important. As much as some people had frantically climbed into bed with their sweethearts for fear of dying the next day, and others had married in the middle of everything after one date and a month of correspondence... well, they hadn't. They hadn't even shared their first kiss yet. Bucky was determined to do completely right by Evangeline, and he wanted their first kiss to be completely memorable and magical.

Yes, he'd pressed a single, lingering kiss to her neck once, just after fastening that string of pearls around her neck. But that was the only time he had faltered in his restraint and resolve.

He had it on good authority that it wouldn't just be their first kiss, but also Evangeline's first kiss, which, to him, made it twice as important that it be special. Bucky had learned, over many conversations with Evangeline back before he'd gone through the Super Soldier process and his arm had been restored, that the society she'd come from treated even first kisses as almost as sacrosanct as the wedding night. Well, for people of her status (that is to say, nobility. She was heiress to the Ancient House of Potter, and to the Ancient and Noble House of Black). If she'd kissed a boy, that would have been tantamount to declaring betrothal.

The Weasleys were all so, so damn lucky they hadn't had to worry about that sort of thing. Not that there was anybody that Evangeline had wanted to kiss anyway, but the principle of the thing remained.

So, Bucky was being good. For now. He was also bearing in mind the threats made against him by the ghosts of the men who had loved her as a child. He could still vividly recall dire consequences promised if he mistreated her in any way. Not that he ever would. At least, not on purpose. He was too far gone in love with her for that.

They had come close to kissing a couple of times: as they stood at the top of Lady Liberty, when they'd kind-of crashed into each other while skating at the Rockerfeller Ice Rink in the early hours before most of the folks had even woken up to start their days... when she'd been waiting for them at the rendezvous point, the only person there to greet them... when he'd taken her dancing that Christmas just after he'd gone through the Super Soldier process.

There were more 'almost kisses', and that moment of weakness, that little compromise that he'd allowed himself where he got a tantalising, and all-too-brief taste of her skin, but still. Tempting though it so often was to just close the distance between them and learn once and for all if her lips tasted as sweet as he imagined, Bucky held himself in check.

But he wanted to. So badly. As they sat in her lounge room – hers, not his, because her tent took up just about all of his, and hers was nicer anyway – and she traced nonsense patterns into the knee of his slacks while he twirled one of her loose curls around a finger, just snuggled up to one another as a record that hadn't been made yet played softly (the musical it was the soundtrack for wasn't even due to be produced for another five years), and Evangeline hummed quietly along. With little bits of both the male and female parts.

Two tracks in, Bucky had asked if they couldn't come back to hit up Broadway when it hit the stage, and Evangeline had happily agreed, though she'd also informed him that the movie produced of it with Frank Sinatra was musically superior, even if some of the songs were changed.

Having listened to more than a few of Evangeline's Frank Sinatra LPs, Bucky declared he was looking forward to it.

"Alright already, so call a policeman! Alright already, it's true. So new? So sue me..."

A couple of songs later, she only snickered as two female voices sang about marrying a man post-haste and then grooming him to be a suitable husband, rather than waiting for him to shape up first and then having the wedding.

"Something funny?" Bucky asked, an eyebrow raised and a sardonic half-smirk on his face. He was well aware of a great many couples who seemed to work like that. For a given extent of 'work', anyway.

"It's just so ridiculous," Evangeline explained. "Marrying a man because you want to change him."

"And you don't see the irony?" Bucky quipped lightly as he moved a hand to tickle her side. The hand that he hadn't had when they first met, just to make sure she got the point he was aiming at.

Evangeline giggled under the attack.

"I wanted to back out, if you recall," she reminded him as she squirmed, "and – and the serum only – only enhances. Doesn't change."

"Changed Steve," Bucky countered, withdrawing his attack.

"Enhanced," Evangeline reiterated as she took deep breaths to calm herself down. "Inner, spiritual qualities were maximised and manifested in the physical body. And you wanted it, for the chance to get your own arm back rather than having a prosthetic. I'd have never done it if you didn't want it."

"I know," Bucky agreed, and with a smile on his face, he rubbed his nose along her hair-line. Not quite a kiss. "I know. I love you, Doll."

Evangeline's breath hitched. For a moment she was frozen, then her face swung abruptly up to face his.

"Really?" she asked softly.

"Yes, Evangeline Potter," Bucky confirmed solemnly as he realised, actually, this was the first time either of them had said those three little words. Well, apart from when they were humming along to a song. "I love you."

"I love you too," Evangeline confessed as happy tears gathered in the corners of her eyes.

Mentally, Bucky decided to never mind the perfect place, or weather, or date, because this was the perfect moment. He withdrew a small, velvet-covered box from his pocket. He'd been keeping it there since Trudy had given it to him as he was walking out her front door that day when he and Evangeline had showed up on Trudy's doorstep after the war. It was his mother's ring.

"Think you could stand to marry me?" he asked hopefully, voice soft as he flipped the lid up and held the ring between them, in offering to her.

Bucky's eyes widened in surprise as a pair of soft lips slammed into his.

Not that he let the surprise catch him flat-footed for long. Bucky already had one hand in her hair and the other at her waist. He used both to pull her even closer, used the hand in her hair to tilt her head just a little in one direction as he slanted his own the other way, and took advantage of the angle to make the kiss deeper.

He felt her hands flutter up his back, around his shoulders, into his hair. He felt when his lungs started to burn and her chest started heaving against his, both needing to breathe, and backed up just a tiny bit. They both barely gasped in a fresh lungful before they surged back together again.

"I think I could be convinced," Evangeline agreed when they parted again, her voice breathy.

Bucky didn't look away from her beautiful, bright green eyes as he pulled the ring from the box and slid it onto the appropriate finger. He couldn't stop smiling either.