2.
December 10th, 2012
It takes Steve a few days to regather himself after his visit with Becca. The encounter rattles him to his core. The photos that Becca shows him, ranging from the black and white he's always known to newer and vivid colour, incite in him a longing and sadness that he doesn't quite know how to deal with. He feels a little like a hole has been ripped out of his chest and it's a bit hard to breathe. And Becca's words, what she told him... God, he isn't even sure he heard her right. She hadn't mentioned much about Isabel, as per his request, but hearing about the lives of Robbie, Winifred and George is enough to make his heart ache and his gut wrench.
Steve shakes away the thoughts.
He stands from where he's perched on the edge of his bed. Checking his appearance in the mirror, he quickly resweeps his blonde hair into the familiar hairstyle he always wore in the forties. His hands move on their own accord, the act so familiar it runs muscle deep. He wears a checkered button-up, slacks and a leather jacket, the most familiar outfit the Shield operatives that bought his clothes for him managed. Deeming himself looking good and familiar, Steve pockets his wallet and phone, which he still hasn't quite worked out, and heads out the door.
He walks to Isabel's residence through the familiar-but-not-familiar streets until he finds himself in the neighbourhood that he recognises, even though it has changed considerably since his time. Fort Green Park, where Isabel and Bucky had begun renting their first apartment, and where Steve had moved in the same night, despite telling himself he wouldn't impose on them, didn't need to live with them to get by. Maybe he wouldn't have needed to financially, though it would have taken him a long time to get to a stage where he was financially stable. It would have been the loneliness that would have killed him, and his apparent inability to look after and maintain his own illnesses.
Of course, none of that would have mattered, since within a year he took the super-soldier serum and became Captain America, and never returned to the apartment or Brooklyn again. Until now, that is.
Steve walks up the familiar street and stops before the building. The store is still the bookshop it had been back in their time. It's been restored since then, obviously, boasting a new sign and larger windows. The inside looks much more modern, playing on the industrial, rustic theme that has taken over Brooklyn. He peers in the window and thinks he may even see a coffee shop at the very back. So very… what was the word Tony used when Steve had mentioned moving back to Brooklyn? Hipster. Whatever that meant.
Steve moves away from the shop to the small door leading up to the two apartments over the shop. Steve tries the door, but it doesn't budge open. It's then that he notices the intercom on the wall beside him. He presses the button next to the small sign that says 'apartment 2A'. They had never known the neighbours that had lived above them in apartment '3A', and Mrs Turner and her husband had always lived in the apartment on the first floor, since they owned the bookshop below.
The button buzzes, and seconds later, a male voice comes over the intercom. Steve feels his heart drop. "Hello?"
"Hi. Uh, my name is Steve. I'm a friend of Isabel Barnes?" Steve says slowly, stumbling over his words.
Over the intercom, the man sighs. "Fine. Come up, let me have a look at you."
Steve isn't entirely sure what that comment means.
The door buzzes and Steve opens it, climbing the stairs to the second floor. The stairs had been a real challenge for him before the serum, and a few times he hadn't thought he'd make it all the way, thought Bucky would find him collapsed in the middle of the staircase. Now he walks up them easily, emerging into the hallway that looks exactly the same besides a few coats of paint.
Steve stops in front of the familiar front door, the wood the same as he remembers it. Slowly, he lifts his fist and hovers it over the wood. He takes a deep breath and then forces himself to knock, knuckles rapping louder than he maybe meant to. He waits patiently as the footsteps approach the door. It opens, and the first thing sees is inside the apartment – the kitchen he stood in and had his nose broken in, the loungeroom, now fully furnished and incredibly homely, and the two bedrooms toward the back of the apartment.
His eyes flick, however, to the man standing in the doorway, looking at Steve expectantly. The man is in his mid- to late-sixties, his face creased into an impressively critical frown. The man looks Steve up and down, eyes his face, and then turns away, sighing in frustration.
"We aren't interested," the man says gruffly.
"Who is it?" A female voice asks, and it's so familiar that Steve's heart stops thudding in his chest and his brain seems to turn to sludge.
"It's another damn impersonator," the man replies, glaring at Steve through the partly-closed door. "We've had a lot of you come to our door claiming to be him and we ain't interested, so leave us be."
Steve stares back with a slack jaw and dumbfounded expression. The man huffs again when Steve doesn't reply and closes the door.
Steve stands there quietly for a while, just staring at the closed door. The man had looked so familiar, so much like… him. It was so strange.
"He's gone," he hears the man say inside the apartment.
Steve knocks again. He hears pounding footsteps and "Why do they always gotta be so stubborn," and then the door swings open again. "I told you that we aren't interested. Please leave."
And with that, the man begins to close the door on Steve, blocking out the view of the familiar apartment.
"No, wait!" Steve manages to cry out, jamming his foot between the door and the frame, pushing on the door to keep it open. "It's me. I'm not an impersonator. My name is Steve Rogers. Please, Belle, it's me!"
Inside, Steve hears a deep intake of breath.
Steve pushes on the door a little harder, and the man allows him to enter, his own expression one of confusion, shock and disbelief. He looks at Steve with wide eyes, watching as Steve walks with tunnel vision through the familiar kitchen toward a head of dark hair sitting in the arm chair in front of him, facing away from the door toward the raging fire.
As Steve gets closer, he realises that the dark brown hair is streaked with grey, but not entirely. A significantly larger grey patch frames her face at the front. Her hair is still long, as it always had been, hanging past her shoulders in soft curls.
A naive part of Steve, since he woke up and found out Isabel was alive, imagined coming to her home and finding her looking the same as she did the day he left, just like he looks like he hasn't aged a day since nineteen-forty-five. Of course, he knows how impossible that is, but he still dreams it every night, relentless images of he and Isabel reuniting.
There remains, even as he walks toward her, that one hopeful part of him that still wishes, prays, his dreams will be reality.
Those dreams are, obviously, squashed immediately. The grey in the hair is the first giveaway. Steve carefully rounds the armchair to stand in front of Isabel. She looks up from the hands in her lap, those same blue-grey eyes wide with anticipation, dark eyebrows drawn together in confusion, lips apart in shock (Steve can't help but notice that even though they're thinner with age, she still coats them in the same red lipstick she always wore). Isabel's eyes land on Steve and they widen even further, staring straight through into Steve's soul. Steve can only stare back at the woman he once knew and will always love, old and frail and in her nineties.
Isabel. Steve says it aloud without meaning to.
"Am I dreaming?" Isabel eventually asks, rubbing at her eyes with her weathered, spotted hands before looking back at Steve, blinking at him.
"You aren't dreaming," Steve whispers back, though he isn't sure if his voice comes out loud enough for anyone to even hear.
Suddenly, Isabel turns around to the man who still stands by the door, staring between them like he's watching a tennis match. "What damn medications have you put me on to make me hallucinate this, Jamie?" Isabel asks the elderly man, rubbing her forehead as though she has a headache.
"None, mama," the man says sincerely, staring between Steve and his apparent mother with a troubled expression. "Is it him? Or is it an impersonator? Do I need to call the police?"
Isabel looks back at Steve, unable to answer the questions "Jamie" has asked her. She pushes herself out of the armchair, a little wobbly on her legs, and hobbles slowly toward Steve, stiff from sitting. Still, she's incredibly agile for her age, walking without even a frame or walking stick, standing with a straight back. She stops only a few inches from Steve, frowning up at him as her eyes flick over every part of his face. Her eyes slowly widen, this time not in confusion and shock, but in recognition.
"No, James. I-it's him," Isabel eventually says, shaking her head as if she can't believe he's here. Slowly she loses her shocked expression, sliding toward happiness, and then sadness again. She slowly reaches out an arm to Steve and touches his arm, flinching as though she'd expected him to be a hallucination, hadn't expected to be able to touch warmth and flesh. She touches his arm again, slowly making her way up to cup his cheek. "S-Stevie?"
"Yeah, Belle. It's me," Steve whispers, putting his own hand over hers on his cheek.
Isabel nods in confirmation, looking him up and down with wide eyes. "I knew it. I'd never mistake that face. Not even after nearly seventy years."
Steve, surprisingly, begins to cry before Isabel does. The tears roll silently at first and Steve tries to stop them. It makes his chest rattle and his bottom lip quiver, but he attempts to hold it in for Isabel's sake. She, of course, notices, because even after sixty-seven years, she still knows him better than anyone else ever would or ever will.
"You can cry, Steve. It's okay," she allows him, smiling sadly at him.
Steve nods, and then it's like the dam breaks and the water floods him, and he feels like he's drowning. Sobs begin to wrack his body and he can't hold them back anymore. Steve buries his face in his hands, hunching in on himself as he used to when he was smaller, the sobs echoing loudly through the small apartment.
Then, gentle and familiar hands are resting on his arm, tugging gently to remove Steve's hands from his face. Steve reluctantly looks up and meets Isabel familiar eyes. They're much darker than they used to be, more grey than blue, set into darker aged circles around her eyes. But they're so familiar, the expression so Isabel - pure comfort and love and a bit of longing too - that it makes Steve cry some more.
He cries and cries, his eyes stinging and his throat scratching.
Then, those hands are circling around Steve's neck, pulling him down toward her in a tight hug with a strength that surprises Steve. He clings to Isabel's tiny frame tightly, burying his face into her hair to catch his tears.
He realises then that she smells the same, wears the same perfume she always did and the same lipstick. She's so similar but so different, an older version of herself, and Steve will never know what came between then and now, how Isabel got to where she is. She can tell him, but he'll never truly know.
Steve cries for all he's lost, for all he hasn't seen, for all he's missed. For the fact that Isabel was forced to live a full life without him, and that she's lived it with people who weren't him. For all the things he will never see and never see again, and all the time he never had and will never get back.
For all the moments, all the memories, all the laughs and sadness and experiences that are Isabel's and not his own, when they should have been shared between them.
Steve eventually pulls away, wiping at his puffy, blood shot eyes. A tissue box has been placed on the coffee table beside the chair Isabel sat in, but the other occupant of the room has vanished, presumably to give them some privacy. Isabel plucks a handful of tissues from the box and hands them to Steve with shaking fingers, keeping a few for herself. She's crying too, silent tears that roll down her cheeks. Steve instinctively wipes them away with his thumb as he had so many times before.
"I missed you, Steve," Isabel says once she finds her voice again, smiling up at him sadly. "You've no idea how much."
"And I missed you," Steve promises. "Even if, for me, it's only been a few months. They've been the longest few months of my life."
Isabel moves away from Steve, sitting back down in her chair, looking a little breathless and extremely pale. Steve sits carefully in the chair beside her. She rubs a hand over her forehead again, squeezing her eyes closed before looking at Steve again, still not entirely convinced he's not a figment of her imagination.
"I looked up at the stars nearly every night searching for you," Isabel confides. "I found the brightest star in the sky, but it was never bright enough to be you. It all makes sense now, of course. You weren't even there yet. I was looking for something that wasn't even there."
"You remember that?"
"Of course," Isabel replies with conviction. "I remember all of it, Steve. Every second."
Steve remembers every second too, because for him it was only a few short months ago. Even if it hadn't been, he knows it's burned permanently into his mind, engraved. He knows that not even a thousand years from now, he'd still remember it like it was yesterday.
"I feel like I lived my entire life without my heart," Isabel eventually says, clutching her chest tightly. "I gave it to you, you know. Long before I ever told you I loved you, I gave you my heart for safekeeping. I always knew you'd look after it. You looked after it so well, you took it with you into the ocean and you never gave it back."
"I'm so sorry," Steve manages to grit out, his voice hoarse. "God, Belle, I'm so damn sorry."
Isabel nods, looking down at her old hands. "I'm sorry, too," she says.
"Whatever for?" Steve says with a small laugh.
"Well, mainly for getting older. This was not how I was expecting this day to happen."
"How were you expecting it?"
"At least sixty years younger with good bones, brown hair rather than grey, smooth hands, less wrinkles," Isabel laughs. "I always thought Howard would stumble across the Valkyrie and pull you out. That we'd reunite like some fairy tale and all would be well."
"That does sound nice, doesn't it?" Steve agrees.
"Mama always called me a dreamer," Isabel laughs, her smile small and reminiscent.
"It was one of your best features. Is one of your best features," Steve corrects.
Isabel looks thoughtful for a while. "Steve, for a really long time I felt guilty for everything that happened," she confides quietly. "I felt terrible that I was the one who came home. For letting Bucky go to war. For not stopping you from doing Project Rebirth. For not trying harder to talk you into not crashing the Valkyrie. For not being able to find said plane and save you–"
"Woah, Belle, no!" Steve interrupts, taking her hand. "None of that is on you. Those were my decisions."
"I know that now, Stevie," she promises quickly. "But for a long time, I didn't, and for a long time I lived with that guilt weighing heavily over me. Take it from me when I say that you can't live the rest of your life regretting your actions. You can't live the rest of your life regretting that you crashed the Valkyrie, because by doing so, you sacrificed your life and future for the rest of the world. If you hadn't done that, there might not have been a world to live in anymore, anyway. You were a hero that day, Stevie, more than ever before, and I loved you impossibly more for that. What's done is done, those were the cards we were dealt. Take it from me and my years of experience - don't live your life through your regret."
Steve hesitates, looking away from her with shameful eyes. "I may be able to come to terms with giving up my own life, but I can never forgive myself for leaving you."
Isabel doesn't seem to know what to say to that as she looks away, staring into the fire. "If it makes you feel any better, and I'm sure it will because I'm sure I know what you're thinking – I'm not mad at you, and I never was. I understand fully why you had to do it, and I have always fully supported you. Of course, I would have preferred you to be there with me, but I made a life for myself with what I could. I had a happy life, Steve. I am happy."
Steve nods, wiping away a tear. "That does make me feel a little better," he admits.
"And, even though we only had a few proper years together, to me, it felt like a lifetime. You gave me a lifetime's worth of happiness. You were everything, Steve. Everything I ever could have wanted or needed."
"You too, Belle."
Isabel stares at Steve a long time, eyes wide, scanning every inch of his face, but Steve doesn't feel at all uncomfortable because he's staring back, mapping out every part of this new face of the woman he loves, because he does; he still loves Isabel with every fibre in his being. Seventy years and a few wrinkles aren't going to change that, nothing would. Steve will love Isabel until the end of time, until there are no stars left in the sky. He knows a lot of it is loving the image of her still in his mind, but she's still the same person on the inside.
Isabel laughs then, wiping away a stray tear. "I'm sorry, I keep staring at you. Seeing you like this, it's just so strange. My brain is just trying to imagine you like me, old and wrinkly and hunched over. But you look exactly the same."
"So do you," Steve says with upmost sincerity.
"Steve, please," Isabel says, looking frustrated. "I look just like Grandma Barnes. Don't do that. Don't pretend that I'm not–"
"It's true, Belle," Steve reiterates. "I can still see the woman that I love within you. You may look a little different on the outside, but what could I expect? You've lived a full life, and you bear the signs of that experience. It's beautiful. You're breathtaking."
"That's a new take, I'll give you that," Isabel laughs, looking at Steve with a wistful smile. "You always had a way of doing that; spinning things around to make them sound nice, even if they weren't. You and Bucky were a good pair. Between the two of you paying me compliments, I always felt like a movie star."
"So you should have. We wouldn't have wanted anything less for our best gal."
Isabel smiles at that. "Its been a while since I've been called that."
Eventually, Steve goes to the kitchen and makes Isabel and himself a cup of coffee. Everything is in the same place it always had been even when Steve lived there, and he makes his way around the kitchen as though it was his own, even bringing back the biscuit barrel from on top of the cupboard.
"Everything is exactly the same," Steve says, looking around in slight awe. "In the same place…"
The corner that used to be his temporary room has been replaced, he assumes long ago, by a small wooden piano that has worn keys. Isabel always used to play, and Steve imagines her playing there at night on her own into the silence of the apartment, filling it with a beautiful melody. The furniture has all been replaced with more modern counterparts, but their positioning is relatively the same. The dining table that came with the apartment when they'd begun renting it is long gone, replaced with a four-person table with intricately carved legs. The wallpaper has been removed, the walls painted. The cabinets and cupboards have been renovated, the kitchen bearing a white tiled splashback. Steve peeks into what was always Isabel's bedroom and finds that its fully furnished, but many of her pieces of jewellery still sit on the dresser and the layout is still the same. The room that was Bucky's has been replaced with another double bed, set up as a spare room for guests.
"Yes. I've lived here ever since I came back to Brooklyn and I've kept it relatively the same ever since. I mean, a few things changed. Peggy lived here for a while before she moved to Washington to run SHIELD. And she kept everything in Bucky's room practically as it was, aside from moving in her own things. But other than that, I only replaced or renovated something when I absolutely needed to."
"Why?" Steve asks curiously, thinking it would have something to do with nostalgia, with the memories relating to those objects.
"Because I knew that if you ever came home, it would help you for it to look the same. Any sort of… combat fatigue or shell shock you may have could be helped by familiarity. Comforting, maybe. And that it might help you settle back into your life."
"Belle…"
"After a good few years, though, when I realised you maybe we're coming home, even when I wanted to change something, I just couldn't bring myself to. I couldn't stand to change things because the way the apartment was, was the way that it was when you and Bucky were here, and I didn't want to lose those memories. Any changes were out of necessity, not choice. The furniture, obviously because furniture wears and breaks. The kitchen because it was very outdated, and all of the appliances stopped working. And the wallpaper because Jamie drew on the wall by the door with black paint when he was three and I couldn't get any of it off or find anything to cover it all up so we had to do some renovations. Paint was much easier than wallpaper," Isabel says with laughter, reminiscing on this memory of hers.
"Jamie?" Steve asks. "I-is that what you called the man by the door? The one who let me in?"
Isabel hesitates, looking a little unsure. "Yes. His name is James, but I've always called him Jamie, ever since he was a little sprout."
"After Bucky?" Steve guesses.
"Of course," Isabel chuckles. "When I get up to the pearly gates, Bucky will kill me again either way; either for naming my child after him or for not naming my child after him. I wasn't sure if he'd want that or not. I figured I'd be safer if I did. Buck would eventually come around to the idea."
"So, uh, Jamie is your son, then?" Steve asks, trying to pave the way to talking about Isabel's life in the least painful way.
Isabel pauses, seemingly framing her answer very carefully. She frowns down at her hands for a while, fiddling with the ring that she wears on her finger. Steve watches her twist it around, and it takes him a second to place it. It's the ring he gave to her the night before he crashed the Valkyrie, the night they'd spent together. The ring he'd given her as a promise that one day they'd settle down that she now wears, and Steve presumes always has worn, on her ring finger like an engagement ring. A sick feeling settles in Steve's stomach.
"Jamie is... our son," Isabel eventually says, her eyes glassy. She looks up slowly from her hands, shyly, looking at Steve through her eyelashes.
Steve's face pales and his eyes widen. "He-he's mine?"
"Yes," Isabel whispers, seemingly losing her voice. "He was born on November fifth, nineteen-forty-five. You do the math, honey."
Steve pauses, his mind whirring with thoughts and math and dates. "The night before I..."
"Yes, that night." Isabel shifts, putting her face in her hands for a moment. When she removes them, her bottom lip is quivering slightly. "He was born exactly nine months to the day that I lost you."
"Oh, Belle…" Steve says, unable to find any words.
It's silent for a while as the two of them sit in their own thoughts, their coffee warm in their hands. Isabel holds her gently, slowly lifting the cup to his lips and taking a small sip, her hands shaking slightly.
"How did you find out?" Steve asks quietly.
"Same way everyone else does, I guess," Isabel huffs out a laugh. "As soon as I had the symptoms, I knew what it was. I just… I think I was in denial. I ignored it for a while. I couldn't face it. I just couldn't believe it. Then eventually, it got a little hard to ignore."
Steve can barely imagine it, Isabel pregnant...
It was something he wanted. They'd talked about it, that night in the cabin of the campsite they liberated. He'd wanted her, and a family, and a normal life. But he can't really picture it.
"Dugan came into town one night with his wife. Peggy was in Washington, spending more time there every month building SHIELD. We had dinner, we laughed, I avoided the wine, and then he caught me throwing up all my dinner in the toilet thirty minutes later. He put it together surprisingly quickly."
"Dugan, putting two and two together?" Steve jokes.
"I know, right?" Isabel laughs. "I remember it so distinctly. He didn't look overly happy or sad either way. He just looked… I don't know, accepting? He put his hand on my stomach, which was only small at that point but it was there, and he told me that there was someone special in there, he could feel it. Half me, and half you." Isabel looks at Steve, then, her eyes longing. Steve's are even more so, his heart breaking in his chest.
"I wish you hadn't had to go it alone," is all he can say. It really doesn't cover everything he wants to say.
"It was... bittersweet," Isabel says with a nod and a small smile. "He looked just like you when he was born. Baby blue eyes, wide. He never cried when he was born. He was always quiet, just laid there, content with the world."
"A good baby," Steve says with a small smile.
"I knew the moment I lost Bucky that I would name a child for him. Not Buchanan, I wouldn't inflict that on another child," she says with a small laugh. "But I also wanted to name him for you."
Steve still looks dumbfounded, because who wouldn't. "I… we had a child. And I…" I wasn't there. It goes unspoken.
Isabel looks sad. When Steve falls silent again, she continues slowly. "Originally, I'd chosen Steven James. That was the name in my head the whole way through. Then, I had to toss up the last name. I wanted him to have your name; I wanted to have your name. But I knew how it would look. And I couldn't very well pull the name from nowhere. After all, we weren't married."
She fiddles with the ring on her finger absentmindedly.
"48 hours after he was born, the nurses came in, said I had to give them a final name for the birth certificate. He couldn't be "Baby Something" any longer. I tried to name him Steve, but then I just couldn't. I didn't want him to grow up feeling like he was always in the shadow of his famous father. I didn't want him to think he had to be you. And I didn't want to… replace you. So, what came out was James Steven Barnes."
"I suppose that was a good choice," Steve reasons. "Not completely named after his famous uncle, either."
"That was what I figured," Isabel smirks.
"And I suppose it would've seemed a bit better for a… prospective husband in the future." Isabel looks confused. Steve elaborates. "Having your child named after your brother instead of your presumed dead boyfriend." Steve smiles, but he hears the morbidity of it once he says it.
"Well, I suppose you're right," Isabel agrees. "Who wants to help raise the child of a man that your wife would always love more than they would ever love you?"
Steve is quiet for a moment, and then forces himself to ask: "And… Did you ever marry?" Steve asks, and he truly hopes she did. Even if she wouldn't have been as happy with someone else than she would have been with him, Steve sincerely hopes she found someone and that she wasn't alone. He couldn't imagine raising Jamie on a single income for so long, though he supposes his own mother managed.
Isabel, instead, shakes her head. "No. Never. I knew there'd never be another you, so I didn't really ever try."
"You've been alone for sixty-seven years?" Steve asks quietly.
"Well, not alone. Peggy and the Commandos set me up on a date here and then, but they gave up after a while. I think they thought it was strange as well. You gave me the best gift of all anyway. Even though you left, you gave me something that would ensure I would never be alone. I had Jamie and he was more than enough."
"So, that's what Becca meant," Steve mutters.
"What do you mean?" Isabel asks, though she seems not the least bit surprised that Steve went to see Becca first. Steve opens his mouth to quickly explain himself, but Isabel waves him away. "I know it would have been much easier to see Becca first. It's okay, Stevie," she promises.
Steve nods, feeling instantly relieved. "Becca said that I may have had to go, but that I left you something that could replace me, at least until you could come back to you."
"That's what I always said," Isabel says. "I always said that you'd left me with Jamie to keep me company while you found a way back to me. I believed that for a long time, too. There was always a part of me that believed you'd be found and that I wouldn't be too old for you anymore, that we could still have time. That you'd come home, and Jamie would still be young enough to not remember you were ever gone, and you could just slip back into life and be my husband and Jamie's father and we could be a happy family."
"I wish I could have," Steve admits.
"I know," Isabel reassures. "As the years went on, Jamie got older and started asking about you, so I told him everything. He grew up on stories about you, from the Commandos and Peggy as well, so in a way, he does know you. I got older, too, unfortunately, and I realised how unlikely my little fantasy was. When I got the first grey hair, I cried in the bathroom for an hour because I knew I was running out of time. You wouldn't have wanted to come home to an old chook like that."
Steve tries to argue, but Isabel gives him a look to save it.
"I also knew that even if there was a chance that you were alive, you probably wouldn't have aged. I always thought that the serum would make you age slowly, so we would've been separated eventually. I would've aged, and you would've stayed much the same."
Steve nods. "Doctor Banner analysed my physiology. He said that he thinks I'll age at about a fifth of a normal person, maybe even slower. He believes even my cells would likely have slowed down in their regenerating process eventually. Banner said that if I'd lived from the forties without interruption, I'd only be about forty years old right now, maybe younger. And I'm going to live for nearly three-hundred years, if his prediction is right."
Isabel pauses. "That's a long time," she notes. "I guess I was right, though, and I wasn't even the scientist. Howard told me he didn't think I was right. If only I could tell him and prove him wrong," Isabel says with a hearty laugh.
Steve squeezes Isabel's hand. "Even then, if I'd aged slower, I never would've abandoned you," he promises. "If we'd been married, I would've stuck to my vows. 'Til death do us part. 'Til the end of the line. And I would've meant it."
"I never would've expected you to do that," Isabel whispers.
"But I would have."
Isabel looks serious, then. "That day, when I was going grey, was when I realised that Jamie wasn't actually to help me until you came back, because you weren't going to be coming back in time. He was there to help fill in that hole that got left behind when you had to go. You did that for me, Steve, even if you hadn't meant to," she promises, turning slightly to face him properly. "You made sure that I would always be okay. You made sure I'd always have someone to love me and help me and eventually provide for me. You gave me a purpose to keep living, because I'll admit, for a while there I was walking on unsteady ground. Even though we never said vows or anything, I think you still may have followed through. So, thank you."
"You're welcome, I guess," Steve laughs, and instantly the mood lifts with the joke. "Is this another one of your ideas about it being destiny?"
"Actually, yes."
"I like it," Steve appraises. He looks around at the closed door that Jamie disappeared through. "So, Jamie. Who is he more like; you or me?"
"I think he looks more like you, and so does Peggy. Though Becca and Mama always said he looked like me. I think it's because he got the Barnes hair and the Barnes smirk." Isabel pauses, looking carefully at Steve. "I'm surprised it didn't click when he answered the door to be honest."
"Well, I wasn't exactly expecting it," Steve laughs. "I only woke up a few months ago and… well, anyway, I thought we were more... careful."
"Steve, my memory may be failing me at times, but I'm sure there was nothing careful about that," Isabel says with a raised eyebrow, making Steve blush profoundly.
"And personality?" Steve asks, changing the topic.
"He's more like me, which I guess makes sense because I raised him," Isabel replies, smirking at Steve's topic dodge. "And a hell of a lot like Bucky, somehow. Don't ask me how, they've obviously never met. Perhaps it's a Barnes thing, or perhaps because he's named for Bucky, I'm not sure. You never know, Bucky may be up there in his ear," Isabel laughs. "He is extremely protective. When he was younger, before Ava pulled him into line – Ava is his wife, by the way – he was a terrible flirt. It was like watching Bucky reincarnated. Perhaps that's what it is," she reasons, eyebrows raising. "But there are some noticeable Steve traits in there. He's determined and just, like you. Honest. Polite. You'll like him, Steve, I promise."
"Of course, I will, he's my son," Steve notes, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. And somehow, it does feel it.
Though he's barely spoken to Jamie, barely knows him, barely even got a look at him, Steve can feel something – a connection between them. He knows it will be hard and awkward for a while, but they can get somewhere. They can form some kind of bond. He can give Jamie something he's always missed out on. He may not be a fatherly-figure, if that's not what Jamie wants, but he can be a friend.
"It must be so strange for you. For me to be ninety-one, telling you that you have a sixty-seven-year-old son, but you still look and feel twenty-five."
"A little," Steve admits. "I was expecting things to be a little strange though. I was expecting people to be older and different, if they were even around at all."
"There aren't a lot of us left, are there?"
"Not really," Steve replies. "How'd you do it, raise him alone?"
"I wasn't alone, never. Becca, of course, was sixteen when I came home, and she was so excited to be an aunty that she basically took over every event or errand I ran. She was really a darling, she took away a lot of the stress. She kept me motivated, kept me moving forward, for Jamie and for her. I lost my way for a long time, but she helped me pick myself back up again. My parents, too, I wouldn't have made it without them. They were so supportive up until the day they died. They never passed any judgement, not at all, and Dad stood up for me many times when others made comments. Not just because I was their daughter, but because you were their son. They only really wanted the best for both of us, and they were devastated when you didn't get your happy ending. I just wish they could have seen you."
"I wish I could have seen them once more, too," Steve admits. "On the USO Tour when we stopped in New York before we flew to the front? I wish I'd pushed for time off so that we could have seen them one last time. I wish I could have hugged them again and thanked them for everything they did for me."
"They knew, Stevie. Don't worry. They knew you loved them and they loved you, too."
Steve smiles at that. "Good. What about Peggy? What happened to her? Especially after she lost Bucky."
"Peggy went on to do amazing things, Stevie. She's one of the most wonderful, successful, bright, beautiful people I've ever known. I feel truly blessed that I know her and that I can call her a sister. She moved to Brooklyn to work for the SSR in New York in nineteen-forty-five. I met her at the docks in Manhattan after she came through Ellis Island. We were barely apart for more than a year ever since. She worked for the SSR while she was here and she went on a few missions, a couple that even I got wrapped up in. I was careful though, of course. I had a baby to come home to. And once I had Jamie, she took on the role as his mother just as much as I did. Even when she moved away to Washington, she'd send presents and cards and came back to see us regularly. I think she saw Bucky in him too, and it made them very close."
"Did she get married?" Steve inquires.
"Eventually," Isabel says with a smile. "I was her Maid of Honour. She married a man named Daniel Sousa who worked at the SSR with her. He was a great man, you would have liked him. He respected Peggy for who she was, didn't look down on her for being a woman. When they were married, Peggy kept her last name, which was just unheard of. But she'd done too much as Peggy Carter to ever be known as anyone else, it just could have ruined what made her, her."
"Because Peggy founded SHIELD," Steve says, his eyebrows rising.
"Yes, she helped, along with Howard and Phillips and a few other people," Isabel says with a fond smile. "She wanted to create an organisation that could help to protect the world from forces we didn't quite understand and help those who were enhanced, like you would have been classified as. Once it was up and running, she ran the joint, and she ran it well. I stopped nursing and helped her for a long while, since it gave me something to do and it gave me a very decent income. Eventually, Peggy gave me a position running the medical wing and infirmary, but she always came to me for advice, even if I didn't really have clearance to know the information."
"Ha, that sounds like Peggy," Steve laughs. "She always told you everything. I think she trusted you with her life."
"I don't know about that, but I definitely trusted her with mine. I'll never forget the day she opened SHIELD. I was invited to the opening ceremony, with little Jamie – I think he was three or four by then. All the Commandos came, too, since they worked for SHIELD. It started as this small organisation formed from the SSR in one of the old barracks at Camp Lehigh, of all places. A couple of offices, only a few dozen workers and a few dozen agents. It was nothing like it is now. It grew pretty quickly once it started."
"It's big now," Steve notes. "Thousands of people work there."
"Yeah, Peggy did well. But I'll never forget the opening day, the atmosphere, you could just feel everyone was buzzing and ready to keep fighting as we had been for years. But the thing that really starting everything off was when Peggy dropped the sheet and revealed the honour wall for the fallen agents of SHIELD. The first picture was Bucky's and then yours, a way of making sure everyone remembered you and what you'd died for. That was enough to fuel the fire. In the late seventies, they opened the Triskelion in Washington because the organisation had grown so immense. That was when I gave it up and went back to nursing here in Brooklyn. But they moved the wall as well to Washington. You might have to go there and make sure they remove your picture, since you aren't actually dead," Isabel says with a laugh.
"I'll look into it," Steve promises humorously.
"Peggy only resigned a few years ago from SHIELD," Peggy informs him. "She wasn't director anymore, Fury took over the role years ago, but everyone still referred back to her as Director Carter and for advice, and Peggy loved it. She only stopped because her memory was slipping. Now she barely remembers me…" Isabel trails off, looking into the fire again.
"God, I'm sorry, Belle."
"Me too," Isabel mumbles. "She's been my best friend and my rock nearly my whole life now. I don't know how I would have gotten through without her. And the Commandos, oh, they were a godsend. Jamie was lucky. He grew up with enough doting uncles and aunts that you being absent wasn't exactly a problem; not that you were replaced, but they all had enough stories and compliments about you that most of the time it felt like you really were there with us, in spirit or something," she reassures. Steve smiles knowingly. He'd always known those men would keep the spirit of the Commandos alive. "They had your six, Steve. They made sure that we were never hungry or without shelter, that we were never in danger. They ensured we were always happy and secure, always coming by to check on us and make us laugh. I owe them our lives, I really do."
"They were something, weren't they," Steve says with a smile. "I don't think you and I could ever have been landed with such amazing people to call brothers."
"I don't think so, either. Morita and Jones are still alive. I think you should probably pay them a visit or call them. I haven't seen them in a few years, unfortunately. Life just gets in the way, sometimes. I haven't really been well enough to travel for a long while now, and neither have they. That's why Peggy is in Washington – she stayed too long, and then all of a sudden, she was too sick to be moved. But they've all been waiting just as impatiently as me for you to come back. Jones has been going on all this time, something about you owing him a drink…?"
"I do not!" Steve argues with a laugh. "He owes me the drink. He bet me that I couldn't cut right through the wing of the plane that was flying over us with only my shield but I did it. He never bought me the drink."
"All that for a drink," Isabel laughs, shaking her head. "Well you better clear that up with him. I'm sure he'll insist he needs the drink."
"I'll be sure to do that," Steve promises. "And they all had families?"
"All of them. Holiday get-togethers were a very big affair. It took a lot of organisation to get everyone to one place at the same time, and it took an awful lot of food. We only did it every two years so we could have a break, because naturally the wives were left to plan everything."
"Naturally," Steve laughs. "And Jamie, does he have any children? You said he has a wife?"
"Yes," Isabel says, getting this dopey smile on her face. "He married Ava in nineteen-seventy-two and they have two wonderful children that I love with all my heart - Katherine and Elisabeth. Kat is thirty-seven and married to the wonderful Michael. She's a real firecracker, I'm not quite sure how Mickey keeps up. Beth is thirty-three and married to Darren. Kat has a daughter and a son, Emily and Kyle, both ten. Twins, of course; I think that may be a Barnes thing as well. And Elisabeth is currently pregnant with her first child, which she won't tell us the gender of yet. I think it's a boy."
"They sound lovely," Steve agrees. "And that makes you a great-grandmother," Steve notes, his tone bewildered as though he can't believe it.
"And you're a great-grandfather," Isabel laughs, and Steve pulls a face of disbelief, shaking his head. "I know, it seems strange, even to me. In my mind I'm still forty, and when you're here in front of me like this, I could almost think I'm 24 again, but my body says otherwise. The idea of being a great-grandmother seems absurd. God, they won't believe this when I tell them. If Jamie hadn't been here to witness it, I think they'd say I'd finally gone insane. They won't be able to wait to meet you. They've grown up on stories from the Commandos about all of us, they feel like they already know you."
"I can't wait to meet them," Steve says sincerely.
"Is it weird that you have grandchildren that are older than you? And great-grandchildren?"
"No offense," Steve begins carefully, "but I can't really visualise them as my grandchildren. I feel like they'll just be family. Do we have to… put a name on it?"
"Of course not," Isabel reassures quickly, no hurt on her face whatsoever. "You don't have to put any name on it at all. God, I'm pressuring you into this. Steve, you don't have to feel any obligation to any of us. If you don't want to be Jamie's dad, you don't have to. You don't have to play grandfather. You don't even have to meet them if you don't want to. You're still young and you're going to have a whole life to live. None of this is your responsibility."
"It would be rather lonely if I didn't have anyone to share that life with, and I think a family sounds like a perfect way," Steve promises with conviction, his voice shaking slightly with all the emotions he feels building up inside of him.
"If this is the only time that you come to see me, that's okay, too," Isabel reassures, squeezing his hand again. There's a few tears in her eyes, as though it pains her to say it, but her voice doesn't waver. "If it was just for closure, that's fine. I get it. But if it is the only time, just tell me so I don't expect you to return. I understand if you don't, that I'm an old lady now. I've lived my life without you and you have a very long life ahead of you–"
"Which means that I have plenty of time to devote to my favourite and only girl before I even think about getting started on that new life," Steve cuts in, raising his eyebrows to emphasise his point. "Belle, don't try to push me away," he pleads.
"I'm not, Steve," Isabel reassures. "Never. I just… don't want to hold you back."
"You said it yourself, I have a long life ahead of me. I have plenty of time, and plenty of will, to be with you and the family that I unknowingly helped you create. I may have missed all of their lives so far, and they may not think of me as dad or grandpa, but I can be their family. This is what I always wanted. I always wanted you and a family. I may have missed a large chunk of it and I may not have been there to help you start it, but I won't miss anymore and I'll sure as hell make sure it continues and everyone stays safe. I'll take any second I can get."
Isabel smiles and nods in acknowledgement, pride and gratefulness on her features. But there's a sadness to her eyes. "I'm glad you say that. One day there's going to come a time when I won't be around anymore," Isabel says solemnly. "It's sad but it's true, and it's not like we don't know it. It's reassuring to know that they'll all at least have you when something happens to me. They've always thought of you as a part of me, so I guess I'll never truly leave them. They'll have someone to look after them and love them. I know you'll love them, and they'll love you. Hell, they already do love you and they always have, even if they haven't met you."
"It's strange to explain, but I do love them, somehow," Steve finds himself saying. "And I love you, Belle. I really do. I think I love you more today than I ever did before."
Isabel pauses, frowning. "No, Steve, you love the old me. You love the me that you remember. How can you say that, Steve? When I'm… this?" She asks, indicating with her hands to her face.
"I already told you that you were beautiful, Belle. You always were and you always will be. I love you with my whole heart and I probably always will, but I'm ready to set aside a bit of my heart for Jamie and Ava and Kat and Elisabeth. For the great-grandkids. For all these beautiful people you've given me to help me figure out this new century."
Isabel chuckles then, her eyes welling with tears again. She wipes them away, laughing at her crying. "I don't think I have to tell you that I love you, Steve," Isabel says sincerely, looking at Steve with that same lovesick smile she always had, her grey eyes soft. "I always have."
Steve, then, leans forward, kissing Isabel's cheek. Her skin tingles where he'd touched her, and she looks to him with soft, solemn eyes. "I've waited a ridiculously long time for that."
Steve looks at her a moment longer before leaning in again, this time aiming for Isabel's red lips. Isabel frowns at him a second before quickly turning her head to the side, Steve's lips just missing her own. Her brows furrow in sorrow, her bottom lip quivering.
"You don't gotta do that, Steve," Isabel says, pointedly keeping her eyes away from his own as Steve tries to catch her attention. "You don't have to kiss me. I know that I'm old and I'm not the same person I was. Last time you kissed me was only a few months ago for you, but I look so different now. You don't have to feel any obligation. You probably think it's… gross," she says with a laugh, running a hand over her dark hair.
"I will never think that," Steve promises, taking her hand in his. He jiggles it lightly to get her attention. "You're beautiful, and I still love you with all my heart. I want to," Steve promises, moving in closer.
Isabel hesitates, and her breath hitches when Steve's lips just brush hers, just as it used to when she was younger. Isabel slams her eyes closed, both to stop the tears and to let herself be in the moment. Steve collects Isabel's lips with his own. They move with the same synchronization they always did, two souls united again after so long apart. Isabel's hand comes up to cup the side of Steve's face, caressing his cheek, her palms soft again his skin.
Steve, with his eyes shut, can see Isabel in his mind as she was to him only a few short months ago. She feels exactly the same, her lips against his, hand on his cheek. Nothing could ever change that, not time or age or any other difference. They'll always just be two people in love with hearts that destined them to be together but a world that argued differently, and unfortunately, the world won.
Isabel may look different, may be older and wiser, but to Steve, she'll always be his Belle.
When Steve pulls away, Isabel has a small smile on her face, her eyes closed, eyebrows slightly furrowed in concentration. There's a single tear in the side of her eye.
"You feel exactly the same. And I would almost feel the same if my bones didn't ache so much," she says quietly. Her eyes flutter open, eyelashes still dark and long and thick, grey eyes staring at him. Steve swears they're a little bluer than they had been when he'd first come in. "Even when I'm looking at you, I don't feel like I'm any different to what I was last time I saw you. I feel like I'm still twenty-four and we're still in the Stork Club in one of the booths… I suppose you don't think that, though."
"No, I do," Steve insists. "I still just see you. You're still my Belle, and you always will be."
"Aren't you just a sweetie," Isabel laughs, kissing his cheek again, leaving a small red kiss mark. She takes both of his cheeks in her hands and pinches slightly, looking into his baby blues. "You're going to make someone else a very happy woman one day."
Steve takes Isabel's hands off his face and brings them down, holding them in his own, his hands enveloping hers entirely. "Let's not talk about that, okay? It will never happen."
Isabel isn't an idiot. She knows that in 300 years, Steve will find someone else. "Steve–"
"Let's just pretend it's you and me and the family, and no one else. Us against world, as it's always been," Steve emphasises, eyebrows raised, smile on his lips.
"Always," Isabel agrees.
"What do you say. You want to dance?" Steve asks.
Isabel smirks at Steve. "You know I'd love to. Though, I'm probably the clumsy one now. I'll step on your feet."
"I don't mind, promise," Steve says.
"You may have to hold me up a little more than you used to."
Steve stands and takes her hand, helping her carefully to her feet and leading her slowly into the middle of the living room. Isabel was always a beautiful and graceful dancer, but her dancing days are long behind her. Instead, Steve clasps her hand in his own, his arm wrapped around her frail waist, and the two just sway to the silence of the room, looking up at each other as though they were the only two people in the world.
After a while, Isabel rests her head on Steve's shoulder like she used to, tucking her head underneath his chin. In Steve's arms, Isabel feels exactly as she used to. If she closes her eyes she can see it – the wooden floors of the Stork Club, the stain glass windows, the Commandos drinking in the corner, Bucky on the piano filling the bar with beautiful melodies that make the entire pub want to dance with the ones they hold dear.
When Steve looks down at Isabel's face resting against his shoulder, he realises she looks at least forty years younger. She looks peaceful and content, her eyes closed, a soft smile on her red lips. He sees the brown curls, the red lips, the dainty nose, the grey eyes, the bright smile and the even brighter personality. He sees love and care and trust, all the things that make her his Isabel. He hadn't been lying when he'd said she looked the same to him. She did.
In that moment, it is enough for the two lovers to simply hold one another and enjoy each other's company, company that had been sorely missed for the majority of a lifetime for one, and only a matter of weeks for the other.
Steve leans down and presses a kiss to the top of Isabel's head. It makes her look up at him, some of her youth disappearing as a frown of thought floods over her face.
"Can you promise me something?" She asks contemplatively.
"Anything," Steve breathes.
"Don't fixate on me, Steve. You're a young man and I'm an old woman. I've lived a life of love and happiness. Yes, I missed you terribly, like an entire half of me had ceased to exist, but I lived. Now it's your turn. Go out and see the world. Live, laugh, love, have a good life. Give another part of your heart to someone else. Do it for me if you won't do it for yourself. I only wish I could live long enough to see you be as happy as you made me." She pauses, watches as Steve's eyebrows furrow at her words. "Promise me?"
Steve is a little stumped, but he knows he will always fulfil Isabel's promises. For now, though, he's only got time for one woman, and that's her. As he said, he's got a long life ahead of him, and he's got the time to spend with his best girl. He'll make her last however-long days or months or years on Earth a pleasure, and he'll try to somewhat make up for the time that he missed. He'll make her happy, as he promised Bucky that night on the fire escape before Bucky ever went to war. Then, when she's gone, he'll make sure that their family is always safe and happy and provided for. He'll be a friend to laugh with, a shoulder to cry on, a friendly face, a person to love them and be loved in return. He'll do it for his Belle, and he'll do it for his Jamie, and he'll do it for everyone that Jamie and Belle hold dear. He'll hold them dear, too, close to his heart, in that hope that it will keep him close to Isabel even when she's gone.
"I promise, Belle. I promise. Til the end of the line, remember?" Steve eventually replies, smiling down at her.
"I'm afraid my stop is coming up a little faster than anticipated," Isabel reminds him solemnly. "It'll be the end of my line one day, maybe one day soon."
Steve tries not to let the pain show on his face. "Then let's just enjoy the ride, honey," he says instead, holding her a little tighter.
Isabel nods at that, looking up at him with doe-eyes and a content smile. "Til the end of the line, then."