75.

Manhattan, New York City

May 29th, 1945

Isabel ends up staying the night at the Barnes' apartment. They wrangled her into staying for dinner, the five of them eating around the small dinner table as though it were Christmas with the banquet of food Winifred prepares. Then, they spend the night in the living room as they always did, listening to the radio and playing piano and dancing around the kitchen. It's fun and soothing and familiar, and Isabel finds herself smiling brightly, laughing and clapping along as Becca shows her the dances they've been learning at the halls on Friday nights. But even as Isabel laughs and they have a good time, they're all aware of the missing people from their group, of the empty spot on the couch. When Becca points it out, it dampens the evening immediately.

Winifred sets up a bed on the couch for Isabel and everyone retires for the night. Isabel lies in the darkness of the room, staring up at the ceiling. For a while, she hears the low mumble of her parents talking in their bedroom, which they'd moved into out of the living room once Bucky and Isabel had moved out, but then they'd turned the lights out and gone to sleep. Isabel had lied awake for a long time, unable to sleep, and hadn't felt her eyes close until the room had begun to lighten slightly with the morning sun.

Once Becca bounds into the room, an endless ball of energy, Isabel is up for the day. She stays for breakfast, her eyes heavy from lack of sleep which no one comments on. She doesn't say much, feeling too exhausted to speak. The last few days on the ship, saying goodbye to the Commandos, reuniting with her family; it's all taken a toll on her and she feels like she could sleep for a week, even though sleep had stubbornly evaded her the night before.

Once the plates are cleared, George offers to drive her over to her apartment so that she can get re-settled. She sits in the front seat as George drives, Robbie in the back ready to assist in carrying the cases. They drive the few streets and then George parks out front. Isabel fishes around for her keys and then lets them into the building, lugging one of the cases up the stairs to their floor. George and Robbie follow, carrying a case, and they put them just inside the door for Isabel once she gets it open.

"Your mother and I have ordered a headstone. It's being planted in Greenwood Cemetery tomorrow morning at ten."

"I'll be there," Isabel promises.

"Alright, well, we'll leave you be," George says, sensing her need to be alone. "If you need anything, just call," he promises, kissing her forehead.

Isabel watches them descend the stairs back out onto the street and get back into George's car, the bottom door slowly closing shut just as the car pulls away from the curb. She sighs and turns back to the door, pushing it all the way open and staring inside the familiar apartment, the apartment that her, Bucky and Steve had once all called theirs.

She walks in, heels clicking on the floorboards that creak slightly beneath her. She closes the door and locks it behind her with a snap of the lock. Isabel puts her purse down on the kitchen table and slowly walks through the apartment, looking around.

Everything is exactly how Isabel and Steve had left it nearly two years ago when they'd hurried out to get into the waiting car that would take them to the Project Rebirth experiment at the antique store, the event that changed all their lives forever. The house that once was cleaned is now covered in a large layer of dust, the floorboards grey with dirt. All their furniture and possessions look dull with their negligence, in dire need of cleaning. The entire apartment, in fact, is empty and eerily quiet. There's no music playing, or laughter, or crackling fire, or snoring in the far room. There's no signs of life, that anyone living is occupying the apartment.

All those weeks she'd spent pining for her home, wishing to return to this very apartment. Now that she's here, she can think of nothing worse. She'd always thought that returning here would be like returning home, but it will never feel like home because the people that made it a home are missing, and never will be seen again. Even on the battlefields of Europe, she'd been home. It seems so surreal that Isabel can't even really comprehend it.

She peaks into Bucky's room, and its unchanged. It's still a bit messy, but she'd made him clean it up before he'd left for the front. The bed is stripped, the sheets and blankets folded on top of the mattress. She looks into her own room, unchanged and much neater than Bucky's.

Then, she walks slowly over to the partition that separates Steve's room from the rest of the living room. The mattress on the floor has been stripped of its sheets and rugs in preparation for leaving for an extended amount of time, folded hastily in the corner. The stripped pillows still sit at the head of the mattress. Isabel isn't quite sure of what she's doing when she picks up the blanket and wraps it around herself, inhaling the scent that somehow remains on it, and smells inarguably of Steve. It's almost enough, just the smell, to bring tears to her eyes and make that hole in her chest ache unbearably.

She lowers herself down onto the mattress, not entirely from her own choice but that her legs seem unsteady beneath her, lying her head on the pillow. She pulls the rug up around her like a cocoon, intent on staying there until she can find the will to get up.

Eventually, she feels her eyes droop and her thoughts go foggy. Moments from sleep, she moves her hand under the pillows, jolting when her hand encounters a cold metal object. Sitting up on her elbow, she lifts the pillow to reveal a flat rectangular tin, around the size of a sheet of paper. She's never seen the tin before, never seen Steve even look at it. It's his though, if his name scrawled across a sticker on the top means anything. She wonders what could be inside.

She feels a pang of guilt course through her and she carefully opens the lid, pausing before she can see inside. She closes and reopens it multiple times, arguing with herself internally about whether she can invade Steve's privacy in this way and look. But, she considers, if Steve were still… if we were still around, he wouldn't mind her curiosity, wouldn't mind her looking at his things. He'd probably say that what was his was hers, just as she would for him. And, if she knows what's inside, she can respect both Steve and what's inside by giving it the treatment it deserves.

She pops the lid open for the fourth time, slowly opening it. Her breath catches at what she sees inside. Mainly, the tin contains a small pile of photographs and papers, and Isabel realises immediately it's a safekeeping box. Steve likely left it in the safety of the apartment so that it didn't get lost going to war.

On top of the photograph pile is a still of Sarah Rogers, God bless her, and Isabel's heart skips a beat. She sits up carefully, cradling the photographs in her hands. Sarah Rogers is smiling brightly in her youth with Steve sitting in her lap, the little blonde no more than three. Isabel finds her eyes getting wet at the sight of Steve as a child, so happy and innocent and just glowing. Sarah, too – she hadn't realised how much she missed her until she's seen her face again.

Isabel carefully flips to the next photo, one of Steve and Bucky from when they were about eleven or twelve, the hints of their approaching manhood on both of their features; their jaws are growing stronger, their arms and chests slightly more defined, and they're quite lanky as they grow. Even then, Isabel can see that Bucky was growing much faster than poor Steve. Both of them are wearing large foam hands over their own hands, which they hold up triumphantly with large smiles as they stand outside Ebbetts Field. It had been Steve's first baseball game ever, and George had felt compelled to document the smiles of his son and his best friend. The Dodgers had won that game, if Isabel remembers correctly.

Isabel puts the photo to the side, picking up the next paper. It's a drawing that Isabel recognises as one of Becca's. It's a small landscape drawn on a scrap piece of paper, the street on Brooklyn the Barnes' family lives on. Isabel remembers when Becca had done it, and she'd been only six or seven, and Steve had praised it so much that Becca had gifted it to him. Isabel had wrongly assumed that Steve had probably lost it somewhere along the way, but here it was in his box of collectables.

There's a couple of pamphlets advertising the war effort and the need for more soldiers, as well as Steve's first rejection notice, which Isabel can't help but roll her eyes at. What good did the Army get them?

The next image is of Isabel, one she barely remembers Steve taking. They'd been sitting on the fire escape one afternoon, and Steve had taken a sneaky photograph of her in the golden light of the setting sun. She hadn't thought much of where the photo would go.

The next photograph is one that Bucky had a random passer-by take one night whilst they were at the dance hall. It features Bucky, Steve and Isabel, all dressed to the nines and sitting around a small table, smiling up at the camera. Bucky and Steve have a whiskey in their hands, Isabel with a wine. Bucky sits in the middle of them, his arms wrapped around Steve and Isabel's shoulders, holding the three of them close. Bucky's grin is so cheesy, his eyes crinkling with happiness, whilst Steve looks a little unimpressed by the whole dancing situation. If Isabel remembers correctly, only half an hour later, Bucky had his first dance with Connie Capone, and it had begun a very long string of dates and dances and stolen kisses. But that isn't really something Isabel should be thinking about, considering Bucky… was with Peggy. And they'd been much closer, more companionable and in love than Bucky ever was with Connie.

Isabel puts the photo down, and the next makes her heart skip a beat. It's of her and Steve before the serum. They aren't doing anything special, just sitting in the park. In the photo, Steve has his sketchbook in his lap and he's clearly drawing Isabel, not that she notices as she looks out over the park with a smile on her face. But Steve's expression is one of pure admiration and devotion, his blue eyes glimmering in the light.

It's enough for Isabel to see that, that she bursts into tears, holding the photograph against her chest. She slowly topples back onto the pillow, her body wracking with sobs that she'd thought she'd run out of. She cries and cries for hours until her eyes are red and raw, and her nose has run all over the pillow, the ugly kind of crying that's true and unfiltered and unstoppable. She cries and cries until she practically passes out, the photograph still clutched in her hands.


When Isabel wakes up in Steve's bed on the floor, she is momentarily thrown for a loop at where she is. She looks at the partition, at the bed and blankets, the photograph still in her hands, and slowly it all comes back to her.

She sits up and rubs a hand over her face. It's dark outside, the apartment gloomy and dimly lit. She's managed to sleep almost the entire day away, but the looks of it. Groaning, Isabel stands, ditching Steve's blankets by the mattress. There's no food in the house, but she isn't hungry anyway.

Instead, she drags her suitcase across the apartment to her room and empties it all onto her bed. She works into the night sorting her possessions, putting clean clothes and other accessories away, putting books back onto shelves, putting dirty clothes into a basket to be washed.

Then, she opens up Steve and Bucky's suitcases. She puts away their clean clothes, washes the rest, and then sets to putting away their other possessions. Their letters go into their respective safekeeping tins, along with any photographs and other knickknacks. She isn't entirely sure what to do with it all, but she knows she wants to keep it. Anything she wants to keep out, she does. Everything else she puts at the top of her wardrobe to keep it safe, including the box with the red dress she'd gotten for her birthday.

With the suitcases cleared, she gets to work washing the clothes. It's almost methodic, washing the clothes, listening to the movement of the water, the scrubbing of the brush on the dirt and stains, the slow drip of the water on those she's wrung out and hung over the makeshift line across the ceiling. It feels so normal she can almost forget.

Once the clothes are washed and hanged on a makeshift clothesline across the living room, Isabel spends hours scrubbing the apartment from top to bottom. She wipes every surface of its dust, scrubs the floor, shampoos the sofa, working so hard she gets a sweat up and half the night passes by in a blink.

Once everything is cleaned and washed, but the clothes haven't dried yet, Isabel has nothing to do. She goes to her room, remakes her bed with sheets and a duvet, and then attempts to sleep, but once again it evades her. She tosses and turns for a while, getting frustrated. She tries her luck sleeping in Steve's bed again, but with no success.

The apartment is too quiet and empty and lifeless, and after a while, she just can't take it anymore. She sits up, throwing Steve's blankets off. The clock on the way says it's just before three o'clock in the morning. The world outside is silent, the night black, the wind warm. Isabel grabs her purse and keys, throws on a pair of shoes, and takes herself over to the family apartment where she was not twenty-four hours ago.

It's three in the morning and the weather is still warm when she gets inside the apartment building, climbs the stairs and knocks quietly on the door. Any thought of guilt at waking her family is lost in the fact of how scared and alone she feels. She couldn't possibly go back, not tonight. Her thoughts are just too wild, her emotions too unstable. She's been crying on and off all afternoon, her lips trembling, her hands shaking. She's got black bags under her eyes, wild hair and a wild expression to match.

George answers the door after a moment, looking rumpled from sleep but on guard at someone being at their door so early in the morning. He's got Robbie's baseball bat in his hands just in case. His eyes widen at the sight of his daughter crying on the other side of the door and he rests the bat up against the wall. He quickly pulls her inside.

"Are you okay? Is something wrong?" He demands immediately, looking warily down the stairs to make sure she hasn't been followed or attacked. "Isabel, what's wrong?"

Isabel continues to cry, heaving sobs that rack her entire body, and she says something that George can barely understand past alone. George sighs, coming to an understanding of her predicament. He shuts the door and locks it behind them, guiding her toward the couch and into a seat. He pulls his daughter against him, hushing her and petting her hair, letting her cry against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Isabel says eventually, pulling away and patting at the wet spot she's left on his robe. "I'm sorry I scared you. Nothing's wrong, it's just… me."

"Don't be sorry, sweetheart. I know a little of what you're going through," George reassures, petting her hair.

"Y-you do?"

George reaches into his pocket and pulls out a clean handkerchief, handing it to her. Isabel wipes at her eyes and nose. "Mmhmm. I never told any of you about it because I didn't think you'd understand. I didn't want to burden you with my stories from the war. I didn't think it'd be fair. But now, I think you've seen horrors worse than I ever could imagine."

"Are you talking about when you fought in the Great War?" Isabel asks quietly, looking up at her father with wide eyes.

"I am."

"You saw lots of people die?"

"I did," he says sadly. "Including one of my best friends. I only met him out on the front, but he quickly became my brother, just like you found with the other Commandos. He was my sanity. He kept me laughing and kept my head on straight. I basically followed him around and he made sure I got through each battle alive. I'm not entirely sure how, he just seemed to have a knack for tactics, for knowing where to be and when."

"Like Steve," Isabel whispers. "What was his name?"

"Private Robert Andrews," George says. "He always walked ahead of me, and I always had his six. He killed a lot of men, a lot of the enemy, in the name of getting the both of us through the fray so we could get back home. Neither of us particularly wanted to be there since we were drafted, but we ended up doing very well for ourselves. I was fighting to get back to your mother and to Bucky, who was only a baby. He didn't have a family, but he didn't want to die either. He always said he wanted to meet Bucky, since I talked about the little tacker so much."

Isabel watches her father carefully, the sadness in his eyes. "How did he die?"

George sighs. "We were in the trenches. Nothing was happening, we were just sitting around waiting for the hour to be up when it would be our turn to man the post. We were playing cards to pass the time. Suddenly, this barrage starts up. We're being shot at from all angles, machine gun fire, explosives from the Germans on the other side of No Man's Land. Did you, uh, go to the trenches?"

Isabel nods.

"Then you know what it's like. All of us jumped up to fire back. Robert, he took a bullet to the shoulder, and he kept fighting. He wasn't one to give up. He got it checked by a nurse, but after a few days it still hadn't gotten any better. It became infected, since the trenches were so horribly dirty. He got me to look at it for him and I just about lost my lunch. He only lasted a few more days after that. The nurse came a few minutes before he died, looked him over. She said it was septic shock. Discoloured skin, hallucinations, breathing problems, chills and fevers…"

Isabel nods. "The infection spread to the bloodstream."

"I was there when he took his final breath. He wasn't in any pain. He actually smiled in the last second. I think he was glad to be going somewhere else. The war ended only about a week later and we were all sent home again. He nearly made it."

"I'm sorry, Dad," Isabel says sincerely, but there's a sadness to her tone that indicates she knows exactly what her father went through.

"I know, love."

"You named Robbie for him, didn't you? Robert Andrew Barnes."

"I did. I didn't think I'd have way to honour him because we had you next and we hadn't planned on having any more than two children. Your mother and I couldn't think of a female version for Robert that sounded nice. So, even though Rob and Bec were unplanned for, it worked out for the best, I think."

"I think so, too," Isabel says, imagining coming home to a household without them, where she was now the only surviving Barnes child.

The two are silent for a moment, lost in their thoughts. George gets up eventually and goes to the bar cart in the corner, bringing back a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. He pours them both a glass and they toast to Private Robert Andrews, downing it in one go. Isabel feels the familiar warmth in her belly. After over a year of drinking a lot of whiskey, she's used to the burn and she welcomes it.

"What's bothering you most, Isabel?" George asks quietly as he refills their glasses carefully. "I get the feeling it isn't so much the death and the gore, because you're accustomed to that from working in the hospital."

"It's a little different to see the people get shot in front of you rather than just patching up their wounds," Isabel admits.

"It is," George agrees. "To see someone else in the act of taking another's life." He pauses, looking at her carefully. "Was it what happened to you? When you all got captured? Bucky told us about it."

"We were captured more than once," Isabel admits. "I have nightmares sometimes still. Bad ones..." She pauses, remembers how Steve had encouraged her to talk about it, promised it would make her feel better. "They experimented on Bucky before Steve got to the front. But after Steve liberated him and we formed the Howling Commandos, whenever we were captured by Hydra, they never really had the chance to do too much damage to us before Steve came and saved us. They tried to… wipe my memories once, but you need multiple rounds of the electric shocks to see any difference in memory recognition. They also attempted to turn us all into super-soldiers to fight for them, but they didn't get around to giving us the serum before we were saved."

"They were doing human experimentation?"

Isabel nods. "Hydra thought they were in a race. Their leader, the Red Skull, he was also enhanced with a super-soldier serum, but it turned him evil, eviller than he had been before the serum. Hydra was trying to use the serum in the Red Skull's blood to configure a new version that they could infuse into a whole army that would be undefeatable. With them, they could have taken down the Allies, won the war, and then gone on to achieve entire world domination. That was why Steve put the plane into the water, to stop their plane that was going to circle the world and level every major city into rubble. It was the beginnings of their world domination plans."

George rubs Isabel's shoulder when her breath hitches.

"The US Army wanted an Army of super-soldiers as well to take down Hydra before they got to that stage, but they only managed to produce one, and that was Steve. Steve was enough though, along with the Commandos. Nevertheless, Howard Stark and I worked to try to decode the formula to recreate the serum, but as of yet, Stark hasn't managed it successfully. He's only got a jumble of half-formulas and a few ingredients. When you think you've figured it out, it turns out you've got it wrong and you have to start over. A lot of it is still missing, and we think the Doctor who created the formula, Erskine, may have had some of it committed to memory. He's passed on, so there's really no way of us ever knowing what went into the serum."

"The way that Hydra created the serum… They instantly experimented on people, first. In their factories, we found dozens of people who'd died from the infusion because it hadn't worked. There were also some people who had been turned into a super-soldier, but it made them insane. Hydra couldn't work with them, couldn't make them behave, so they froze them until they could work out how to fix them. Most of their experiments though, they killed. We liberated their bodies and sent them home to be with their families, since Hydra had captured most of them against their will."

"So, that's what they did to Bucky when they had him captured? They experimented on him?" George confirms.

Bucky had always been very vague with his parents about what happened to him. It had, of course, been a secret anyway. Even after he'd admitted to Phillips and Peggy about what happened to him, it had been confidential information. But the Barnes' know that he'd been captured, since they got the MIA card in the mail. They know he was a prisoner of war for a while, and that Steve saved him.

"Yeah. They tried to give him a version of the super-soldier serum they'd created, and for some unknown reason, Bucky survived, even though everyone else who received it died. It could've been a fluke or something to do with Bucky's genetics, we'll never really know now. But they didn't give him a full dose of the serum because Steve broke him out before they could finish it. He told me what had happened to him the night we brought him home, and I monitored him ever since. He wasn't nearly as strong and immune as Steve, but he was definitely above average. He was a little faster with a bit more stamina, a higher metabolism, a slightly higher than average body temperature, a faster healing ability than average. Nothing overly noticeable or life-changing, but enough that Bucky saw the change in himself. It came in handy, of course, because he could fight for longer, process situations faster, heal quicker when he was injured… I think he was real scared for a long time, but eventually he began to see the benefits. The thing that bothered him most wasn't the serum itself, but that he'd been experimented on against his will. Violated. Vulnerable."

George looks unsettled by this information, but grateful that Bucky had embraced the changes. "Why didn't he ever tell us?"

"It was a secret. We couldn't risk anyone finding out that we had basically two super-soldiers in our midst. Besides, only Steve and I knew for a long time. Bucky didn't want anyone else experimenting on him or trying to understand what Hydra had done to him. Our commanding officer only found out when we discovered the first batch of deceased experiments in a Hydra base. They wanted to know if there were any surviving experiments, and Bucky admitted everything. He was very brave that day."

"So, that's what you dream of? About Hydra's experiments?"

"Mostly I dream that we're running around the factories or that I'm lost in the tunnels, or in the forest. Everyone always appears in my dreams and they look so vivid, when I wake up I think it actually happened. I can still hear Steve and Bucky talking, can still imagine their mannerisms, they expressions. Nothing much ever happens; maybe we take down a few Hydra guards or speak with the Red Skull."

"Is it ever situations that ever happened?"

"No, not really. Just my imagination. But other times, I dream that I'm back in Hydra, that they're experimenting on me. They did some awful things to test whether the super-soldier serum worked on their projects – burnt them, drowned them, cut them open. I dream they do all those things to me and they make everyone watch. But it isn't so much me that I worry about. It's when they make me watch as they experiment on Bucky or Steve that it gets to me. When they make me watch them be torn apart and destroyed. They're the nightmares I wake up from and can't sleep again for a few days. The images just seem to burn themselves into my eyes and I can't unsee them."

"They aren't real, honey," George tries, pushing away the single tear that trails down Isabel's cheek.

"I know, but they feel like they are. I wake up and it takes me a good minute to realise I'm not there, that it never really happened. But then I realise where I actually am. I'm on a boat searching for Steve's body, or in the base in London, or now I'm back in my apartment in Brooklyn and it's so damn lonely because they're all gone." Isabel reaches forward and grabs her glass, downing the liquid in one gulp. "I just feel… alone," she eventually says, utterly defeated. "And I know that I'm not, I have you and Mama and Becca and Robbie, Peggy and the Commandos. I know I'm not alone. I know I'm surrounded by people and a lot of them know what I'm going through–"

"They may have an idea, but they'll never truly know exactly how you feel," George says quietly. "No one will. Everyone is different, experiences things differently, and everyone had a different relationship with Steve and Bucky than you did. No one ever sees the world the way anyone else does."

"On the ship, coming home, I started to feel guilty for being so upset, because I'm not the only person who lost them. I felt bad because there are people out there who've experienced worse in the war, who've been captured and shot and lost their whole units and starved on the front. I didn't experience any of that. Most of the time we were safe in the London base planning our missions."

"But you still saw some terrible things and lost a lot. It's okay to mourn that. It's okay to be sad. Just because someone may have experienced something worse, doesn't make your own experiences and feelings void."

"And if it makes me selfish?" Isabel asks hesitantly.

"It's healthy to be a little selfish sometimes," George reassures.

Isabel pauses, wondering whether to tell her father possibly the most selfish thought of her life. She takes a deep, shaky breath. "I told Stark that I would have swapped Bucky, Steve and I out for anyone else. That I would have let anyone take our place. I said I didn't care if that made me a bad person. I stand by what I said, I'd do anything to have them both back. But now… I'm beginning to think it isn't fair that I was the one who came home."

Survivor's guilt, George recognises. "Why?" He asks anyway.

"What makes me any more special or worthy of living than Bucky or Steve? They kept promising me all the time that no matter what happened to them, they'd made sure I would get home and I never understood why I warranted that and not them. I didn't do anything better than them, and they did nothing worse than me. Bucky, God, all he ever wanted to do was protect everyone, and he stayed there because Steve and I were staying. He could've gone home after Steve saved him, could've been safe. He didn't even want to be there in the first place, he got drafted. Steve and I chose to go, we chose to stay and fight. If any of us shouldn't have come home, it was us two. Bucky should've been allowed to come home. I-I don't understand," Isabel cries, her voice cracking.

"They were too good for the world, honey. The world did unspeakable things to them and they had to be taken out of here to go somewhere better, somewhere they deserved," George reassures.

"I-I dunno what to do, Dad. I don't know how to…"

"Deal with it?"

Isabel nods and swallows thickly. "I felt better when I was in London, felt like I was coping. Then as soon as I got here, went back to the apartment, I just crumpled. I thought coming back to Brooklyn would be like coming home and I've waited so long for this, but my home's gone forever. I thought home was where you made it, but I think the people who make up your home count more than I thought."

George sighs quietly and pulls Isabel against him, tucking her under his arm. "Here's what you gotta do," he says eventually after a long moment of thought, his voice stern but gentle. "First, you've got to worry about yourself, fix yourself. You were doing well until you came home, so you've just taken a few steps backward. You've got to keep trying. There's a lot of things that you've seen and done that you have to come to terms with to be able to live again. You gotta eat and sleep and find your life routine again. You have to make yourself stronger, physically and mentally, to carry that extra burden with you, because unfortunately, it will be there forever, darlin'. Go back to work, see your friends, keep close with the new family you made overseas – those boys and Peggy, it sounds like they'd do anything for you, and I think you all supporting each other is at the top of the list. You work on yourself first, with help if you need it, and then you work on getting ready for when Steve comes home."

Isabel pauses, her face pulling into a frown. "Dad, I don't think he's coming home."

"Yes, he will be," George insists, his face set stubbornly. "I dunno when or how, but he will be coming home in one form or another. They'll find the plane one day, honey, because there's only so many miles on the Earth to search. I think Stark would scour the whole Earth searching for the three of you. They'll find Steve, and if he's alive, you've got to be prepared for any scenario. Maybe he'll be unharmed, maybe he'll be permanently disfigured, maybe he hit his head on the way down and he won't remember you. You got to get yourself ready for any possible scenario if you're going to get through this."

"And what if he doesn't come home alive?" Isabel asks quietly, struggling to comprehend the words.

"You gotta be ready for that too, because we all know the possibility is high. If not, if he is alive, you gotta accept that he'll have changed, he'll be different."

"How?" Isabel asks.

"How do you accept it? Well, if you love him, you'll accept him any way he i–"

"No, I mean. How will he be different?" Isabel reiterates.

"Even without the plane crash, he will be different. You probably saw it yourself anyway." George hesitates. "Things like war and nearly dying, they change a person. When Becca said you looked different, this is what she meant. You are a different person now."

"I am?"

"Yes. More confident, more assertive, kinder, more compassionate. But you're also a little more haunted, more solemn, quieter. It's not always a bad thing," George reassures. "I have no problem in admitting that I have never been the same person I was before the war. When I came home, it was more noticeable. I wasn't the same person I was when I left. I'd seen some messed up things, watched friends die, got wounded, killed people myself, all things that weighed so heavily on my conscience I felt like I couldn't breathe. Even now, over twenty years later, some of it is hard to accept. But your mother, she wasn't quite the same either. She'd spent over six months while I was gone worrying endlessly about me, not knowing if I'd come home in one piece or if she'd ever see me again. She was also caring for little Bucky, but he was only James then. He was a fussy baby, always crying and needing to be held and fed. That constant pressure, it took a hold on her, too. When I got home, we were two different people and we had a new dynamic that we needed to figure out. We didn't work together the same way we had before I left, but we sorted it all out and we created a new relationship that was stronger than what we had before."

"That's what you think will happen with Steve if he comes home? We'll both be different."

"Yes. The place will be the same, the apartment will be the same, but you'll both be different. If you're meant to be together, which I have no doubts you are, it will work out stronger. And sweetheart, if he doesn't come home, I know how strong you are. You can get through this. I promise."

"That's what Peggy said," Isabel mutters.

"She sounds like a smart woman. It's no wonder Bucky fell head over heels for her."

"You'll like her," Isabel promises. "If you ever meet her, of course."

George pours them another whiskey, and Isabel can feel the buzz on the edges of her consciousness. It's half the reason she managed to say all she did without completely breaking down.

"Dad?" George looks up expectantly. "Please, don't tell Mama about everything I've said. She'll only worry and be upset. I- She already lost two of her children, I don't want her to feel like she's lost me as well. Promise?"

George looks unsure. "If she asks, I won't lie," is all he says before he hands her the glass.

She downs it easily without even wincing. This time, George seems to take notice of how well she takes her alcohol and raises an eyebrow. "It isn't exactly the first I've had," Isabel says with a chuckle. "I've been surrounded by men for over a year. They taught me to scull a drink."

After that, the father and daughter sit on the couch and drink, glass after glass, until Isabel falls into a drunken haze, her eyes drooping closed with exhaustion. George gently pushes on her shoulder and she flops to the side. He grabs a blanket from the cupboard and a spare pillow and tucks her into the couch. He kisses her forehead and then stares down at her, at the way her face has smoothed out into one of calmness. She looks so young when she's asleep, free from the nightmares of both sleep and consciousness. He watches her breathe for a moment, as all parents do to their children, watching how her body is full of life, even if she doesn't entirely feel it. He smiles at her, but it's one filled with pain and worry, before eventually taking himself back to bed.


In the morning, Isabel awakens to the mumbled talking of her parents in the kitchen only a few metres away. The sun coming in from the window is bright and warm, and Isabel slams her eyes closed against it, her head giving a painful twinge. Once again, she's managed to drink herself into a hangover. At least she wasn't alone this time risking alcohol poisoning or something.

"I'm so worried about her, Win," Isabel hears her father's deep voice, and he sounds so worried, more than ever. He'd held his composure so well the night before when he'd been speaking to her, Isabel can't believe how he'd done it with how much emotion is in his voice at this moment. "No one should have to see what she has, what her and…B-Bucky and Steve all would have seen and done. I don't know what to do," George admits.

Isabel creaks an eye open, blinking against the light, seeing her mother enclose her father in a hug. He looks worried, that frown in his brows, holding her head in his hands.

"What did she tell you last night?" Winifred whispers, trying to get George to look at her.

"I can't tell you," George says apologetically, his voice muffled by his hands. He eventually looks up, and his eyes are a little red. "Not only because I promised her I wouldn't, but I can't put that kind of burden on you."

Winifred frowns at that. She looks over worriedly at Isabel, who quickly snaps her eyes shut, feigning sleep. She realises too late her eyebrows are furrowed as she watches her parents, but her parents seem to buy it, probably thinking she's having a bad dream.

"Maybe she needs to talk to someone?" Winifred asks softly.

"Probably," George agrees. "But I don't… I don't want her to be labelled, Win. I don't want people to call her crazy or something."

"She won't be, love," Winifred reassures. "There are going to be a fair million people just in America that are going through the same thing as her."

A pause. Isabel slowly creaks one eye open, and her parents are looking away from her, at each other, with such devastated expressions.

"I never dreamt that I would outlive one of my babies. I wish children could understand that it's a parent's greatest fear to lose a child," Winifred says, her voice barely above a whisper. "Even in the Depression when we couldn't afford to feed all of them and we went hungry instead, I still worried. We knew they were fed and safe, but I still was petrified that one of them would get sick or something and we'd be left without them. And now, look at us. Today we're putting down the headstone and burying two of our children and we don't even have the damn bodies to show for it and say goodbye. We don't even know what happened to them or where they are. Bucky… B-Bucky could be lying at the bottom of the ravine under all that snow–"

"Winifred…" George says quickly, cutting off her ramblings. "Steve searched for Bucky after. If he were alive, Steve would've found him."

"I know. But I wanted him home."

"We all did. There's a whole lot of families who are in the exact same boat as us. He may not be here physically, but we all know he's here in spirit."

"He is," Winifred agrees. "If I think about him hard enough, it's like he's here."

"Hold onto that, darling," George tells her, taking her hand in his. "It'll make all the difference in the world."

George and Winifred leave not long after their talk in the kitchen to go to the funeral parlour. They'll be doing one final inspection of the headstone and its engravings before they'll follow the funeral directors to the cemetery, where they'll be putting it into the ground at ten.

As soon as the door closes behind them, Isabel jumps up from the couch. She puts away the blanket and pillow in the linen press, cleaning up their glasses of whiskey still on the coffee table. She goes to the sink and runs the water.

Becca and Robbie emerge from their rooms, dressed in their best clothes for the day's solemn event. They look grave but okay. Their tears have dried up for now.

Becca jumps when Isabel's standing in the kitchen, washing the glasses in the sink. "Issy? Did you stay the night?" She asks curiously.

Isabel starts at the sudden noise, looking over her shoulder. "Uh, yeah, I did," Isabel says, turning back around and opting to not reveal everything about her breakdown last night.

"Are you coming today? To the… funeral?" Robbie asks quietly, picking up a towel and drying the glasses for her.

"I am. I need to go home and change," Isabel explains, looking down at her old dress, one she's been wearing since yesterday morning. She's slept all day and night in it and it feels gross and dirty against her skin.

"We're going to meet Ma and Dad at the cemetery. We can stop by your apartment," Robbie offers.

Isabel agrees. She throws on her shoes and then the three of them exit the apartment, heading over to Isabel's. It's a warm day outside, the sun rising into the sky, people rushing every which way to get to work on time as it's just past nine o'clock.

Isabel lets them all up and leaves Robbie and Becca in the living room, sitting on the dusty couch. She explains that she hasn't had time to clean up much, the clothes still hanging from the clothes string across the living room, but Robbie cuts her off, telling her it's okay.

Isabel disappears into her room, closing the door behind her and blocking out whatever Becca is saying to Robbie. She jumps into the shower, washing away the dirt and the smell of whiskey, and then stands in front of her wardrobe, looking at her options. There's the usual black dress, plain and modest, and it would probably be most appropriate. A few of the others in her wardrobe draw her attention, but they're too colourful. Instead, she ops for one of her nicer frocks, a deep navy blue that looks almost black, one she usually wore to church on Sundays.

Isabel opens the door to her room again once she's dressed while she puts on her makeup. She smiles at the sight of Becca and Robbie out in the kitchen folding all of the clothing into piles for her, hesitating slightly every time they pick up an item of their brother's clothing. Isabel smiles at them, taking a moment to watch, before snapping back into gear. Isabel hurriedly puts on some makeup and attempts to wrangle her hair into something nice. She wants to look presentable for Bucky and Steve, for saying a proper goodbye to them.

She opens one of the drawers to her vanity and sorts through her few lipsticks, trying to find where she put the red colour Steve always loved, when a small white envelope at the bottom catches her attention. It's a little stained and dirty from being in the drawer so long. She pulls it out, Bucky's distinct handwriting scrawled across the front, reading, To my family. Isabel gulps. It's the letter Bucky had given her the day he'd left for the front when they'd been standing at the docks seeing him off. "If something does happen to me, if I don't come back… This is for everyone to read," he'd said, his voice low enough for only her to hear. "Please. Look after it."

Isabel doesn't open it, of course, because it's for the whole family. Instead, she puts it into the pocket of her dress for later. She lines her lips with red lipstick, the balm almost run out with how often she wore it around Steve, and then deems herself ready.

Isabel, Becca and Robbie walk slowly toward the cemetery through the streets of Brooklyn. It's a nice day outside, the birds chirping happily in the trees, cars whizzing back and forth, some young children playing together in the park, too young to be in school.

They get to the cemetery, to the large iron gates of the fencing that surrounds it, and start inside, heading toward the plot number that George had given Robbie. They pass a familiar part, and Isabel recognises the area as where Sarah Rogers is buried, up on the hill beside Joseph. She makes a note to go there, maybe even today, and explain to her what happened. She deserves to know, to hear it from Isabel, even if she can see what happened, even if Steve is up there with her himself to explain it to her.

They eventually get to the plot. Winifred and George are standing side by side, looking down at the newly placed headstone in front of them. The ground before it isn't even unsettled because there were no bodies to put there. The men who put the headstone down are gone, finished the job. The headstone is new and smooth, the marble bright.

Isabel comes to a stop beside her mother and rests her head on Winifred's shoulder, holding her arm. The five Barnes' stare silently at the headstone, a single headstone over an empty grave to honour both of the boys. After all, Steve was practically family, and he had no one else left. He isn't too far from his own mother and father, Isabel reasons. Hopefully it's close enough for him, wherever he is.

Sergeant James B Barnes, March 1917 – February 1945

Captain Steven G Rogers, July 1918 – February 1945

Devoted friends 'til the end of the line

They hadn't been able to afford much and their memorial is nothing fancy, especially compared to the impressive tribute to Captain America set up in Prospect Park. But this memorial is for Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, the two boys from Brooklyn, and the two of them never needed anything fancy or much to be honoured and to be happy.

"I thought more people might come," Becca notes sadly.

"We didn't tell anyone," George explains. "We thought they would have wanted just us for now. The announcement is going in the paper tomorrow morning. More people will come then."

Becca nods solemnly. "Good. They need to be remembered."

"I have something," Isabel says eventually into the fallen silence. "A letter from Bucky. I-I don't have one from Steve, he never wrote one. But Bucky wrote this before he left for the war and he told me to look after it, to only let you all read it if he was gone."

Everyone stares at the envelope that Isabel pulls from her pocket and holds in her hands.

"C-can I read it?" Becca asks quietly.

Isabel hands it over quietly. She isn't quite sure she could handle reading it anyway. Becca carefully unseals the envelope, careful not to rip it so that they can keep the letter in the envelope for safekeeping. She carefully takes the paper out and unfolds it as though it were made of thin glass and could break at the touch of a finger, revealing it full of Bucky's handwriting. He's written it extra carefully, in his neatest scrawl.

Becca takes a deep breath before beginning.

"To my family," she reads confidently.

"I had always hoped I would never have to write this, but with where I'm going, I see fit that I should have it written just in case. I hope you never read this letter because if you are, it means that I never came home from the war and that I am dead. It also means that I never had the time to show you properly just how much I love and appreciate all of you as my family.

I don't want you to worry or to be upset. I don't think that death is anything to fear. I have faith that what is waiting for me will be safe and content, a place for me to wait out the rest of eternity and await your arrival in many, many years. Emphasis here on the many. I don't want to see any of your faces for a long while, as much as I'll miss you. I'm content to watch and live my life through all of you, to see you all grow old in happy and successful lives. I've had my fling with life and now it's time for me to pass on. Don't worry about me, I will be alright.

I've won the soldier's name, it seems only fit that I should meet the soldier's fate. But I want you to know that I didn't go down without a fight. I'd never allow that. I don't really like to fight, not so uch that I hate fighting but I hate that I don't hate it; but that doesn't mean I'd ever willingly lose a fight I found myself in, especially not when I have so many reasons to fight. I may not agree with the war, may not want to go, but I won't let it best me. I probably took a few down with me as well, if that's any compensation.

Just because I have passed away does not mean I am not with you. I'll always be there looking over you, keeping you safe. Whenever you feel lonely, just close your eyes and I'll be right there by your side.

To Becca and Robbie, I will be there on your graduation day. I will be there to see you take your first steps toward adulthood. I'll be there to see you married and have children, and I'll pray that neither of you ever see the atrocities I have. To Isabel, I'll be there with you to support you with every patient you heal. I'll be there to watch you on your wedding day, and I wish I could be standing beside the groom, but if not, I'll be there in spirit. Just know that I am so very proud of each of you, of everything you've ever done and everything you will do. It's been an honour to watch you all grow to be who you are today. I really do love all of you with all I have. You are everything to me.

To Mama and Dad, thank you for everything you have done for me – for your endless support, for always ensuring we were safe from harm and fed, for holding the family together in a way so many can't. Thank you for all of the opportunities, for always putting our welfare first at often great sacrifice to yourselves. I will be forever grateful. I hope you both remember me, but don't think about what happened. And if you are remembering me, try to forget my faults and remember me only as your very loving son.

Don't grieve me but remember me how I was. That's the way I will remain. I'll see you all on the other side.

Much love,

Bucky."

Everyone is quiet once Becca stops reading. She seems to stay strong to read Bucky's words and deliver his message, and then the walls tear down and the dam floods. She breaks down into quiet sobs, clutching the letter to her chest. Robbie puts an arm on her shoulders. Winifred wipes away at sobbing tears and even George's eyes are glassy. Isabel stares straight ahead at the gravestone.

Thank you, Bucky, she thinks, for putting their minds at rest and giving them the closure they needed.

"He really was something, wasn't he?" Robbie says eventually, his voice solemn.

"He was. They both were. And they'll be greatly missed," George says, putting an arm around Winifred's waist.

They spend a while longer before the graves, sharing funny anecdotes and speaking about the two men. The tension almost seems to lift slightly with the knowledge that Bucky, at least, was not scared. Even if Isabel knows differently, she won't take that away from her family.

Then, the rest of the Barnes' leave before Isabel does, promising the two boys that they'll be back to see them soon. Robbie leads Becca off as the girl cries, Bucky's letter still clutched tightly in her hands.

Isabel watches them go before turning back to the gravestone. "I hope you're both okay," she whispers. It feels slightly strange to speak to them without also aiming her words at the others, but she forces the words out, the things she wishes she could actually tell them, and eventually it feels more natural. "I'm okay. I don't want you to worry about me. I miss you and I don't think that will get any easier, but I'm okay. Look after each other."

She looks at Bucky's name on the headstone, as though she were looking right at him. "Bye Buck. Thanks for being the best big brother anyone could've asked for. I wouldn't be here without you."

Her eyes flick to Steve's name then, and it's like she can see him if she thinks hard enough. It's like she can see both of them, standing in front of her side by side, looking worried for her but grateful to see her safe. Even after everything, Steve's still got that line between his furrowed brows, and Bucky's still got his pouty bottom lip. But they look so young and innocent, free from all of the horrors that plagued them. Isabel hopes that's true, that they're happy and safe and most importantly, together.

"Bye Stevie," Isabel whispers. "Thank you for showing me what real love is like. Thank you for making me warm and safe and for loving me for who I am. I love you with my everything. Look after my heart, okay? I hope you've still got it with you."

She presses a kiss to her fingers and then to the cool headstone before turning and following her family.

The headstone may not be much. The cemetery may not be impressive, but it is calming and beautiful, and the headstone was ordered and inscribed with love. It may not be much, but the family can rest easy knowing that the two friends, who were brothers, can be remembered together somewhere for the rest of eternity.