98.

Brooklyn, New York

November 24th, 2011

It takes Steve a long time to get up the courage to go and visit Becca Barnes.

It isn't that she'll reject him, or that she won't remember him and be glad to see him. He's just scared. Seeing her, old and frail and aged, will cement this as real for him. She's the last person from his old life that's known him almost his entire life, knew him before he was Captain America. To see her old, near the end of her life, will make it all too real.

Still, he makes himself go, psyches himself up. He walks to her address with a small bunch of flowers from the corner florist. He knocks, rather hesitantly, on the door of the brownstone building. Rap, rap, rap. He pauses, listening to hear footsteps, and hears the creak of a couch as someone gets off it, the cushion compressing with air again.

Steve turns and looks around at the street behind him as he waits. The Brooklyn street is bustling, the modern colourful cars zooming back and forth. A mother walks her child down the footpath, dressed in a tight pair of black jeans that Steve can't help but boggle at. A duo of teenage girls walk right past him then, one of them wearing a pair of denim shorts that leave nothing to the imagination. Steve hurriedly averts his eyes back to the door. He's never seen women wear such tight clothing before. Never seen them wear such outlandish makeup or wear their hair so straight and flat. And that music that people blare from their apartments and cars – what is with that?

But it's a new time, he reminds himself. A new time, with new clothing, hairstyles, technology, music, films, television. It's a free country, and people are allowed to express themselves, and that's what they're doing through all their choices. This is what he fought for. This is the freedom he fought for. It's all different but it's all so good and right, and by God, does he need to learn to adjust.

The footsteps, slow and precise, near closer to the door on the floorboards inside. Steve looks up when the door clicks open, swinging open to reveal a small, frail woman. Her hair has turned almost entirely grey, streaked with darker silver and lighter white patches like salt and pepper. Her face is so familiar, albeit much older and wrinkled. Her blue eyes, though, still hold that childlike spark they'd always had.

Steve finds himself a little speechless, not entirely knowing what to say. He'd had it all planned out, knew exactly what he was going to say to her, but it all goes out the window once he sees her.

Becca frowns as she looks at Steve, her eyes flicking over him in his entirety. Steve can see the cogs turning in her mind as she tries to piece together the information like a puzzle. She looks at him, confusion and surprise and some form of recognition washing over her face.

"B-Becca?" Steve tries.

At the sound of his voice, Becca's eyes snap wide open, and her jaw goes slack, her eyebrows rising on her forehead. "Steve?"

"It's me, it's Steve," Steve promises, putting a hand on his chest in sincerity and nodding his head to her.

Something about his face and the sincerity of his tone clicks something within Becca, the recognition that this really is Steve standing in front of her on her doorstep. The brother she'd been gifted since her birth, considering Bucky and Steve had been friends long before that time. The boy who'd helped her grow up, as well as be there for her older brother and sister for all those years. The man who, when she last saw him, was preparing to volunteer himself for a secret government experiment, taking Isabel with him. The man she'd watched fight the war as Captain America through comics, film reels, newspaper sections, until that fateful day they'd read that he'd crashed the Valkyrie into the ocean. She'd lost another brother that day, and the pain of that still stabs at her heart, even to this day.

Becca's eyes well with tears and she pulls him in for a hug, tight around his shoulders. Steve holds her tight, revelling in the feel of family being in his arms once again.

"You look exactly the same," she whispers.

"Like I haven't aged a day," Steve agrees. "For me, it's only been a few months."

"And for me, sixty-seven."

Becca pulls away, wiping at her eyes quickly to hide the tears. "Come in, please," she says, ushering Steve inside out of the cold winter air. She closes the door behind him and leads him toward the kitchen.

The house is decorated as though they've stepped back in time, what Steve recognises from the books Fury gave him as nineteen-sixties décor, and it reminds Steve of a dollhouse. The walls are a faint crème with white cabinets decorated with small flowers. The window is covered with a frilly lace curtain that she's slid open to let in the faint light of the day. The floor is made of a hard laminate, faking tiles, that squishes a little under Steve's feet as he walks over it. It's actually a welcome relief compared to the modern world outside, though it may be a bit over the top. Steve lets out a sigh of relief, taking a seat at the barstool on the other edge of the kitchen island.

Becca reaches up with a shaking hand, which Steve isn't sure is because of her age or because of his sudden appearance in her life, and opens a cabinet, pulling out two tiny porcelain cups and saucers with intricate gold flowers on them. She turns on the kettle, flicking the switch rather than boiling the water over the stove.

She drops heaped spoons of coffee and sugar into the mugs, just the way Steve used to take it, the sugar going onto the counter. Steve rises quickly to move toward the sink and clean it up for her, but she raises a hand to stop him, smiling cheekily at him.

"When you get to my age, Steve, you don't worry so much about spilled sugar," Becca laughs. She pours in the milk, managing to miss the mug with that, too. "Or spilled milk."

She stirs the cup and then hands Steve's mug to him. Steve reaches over and takes hers as well, waiting for Becca as she passes him and shuffles back into the daintily decorated living room. She sits carefully in the flower-patterned cushion of the chair in front of the radiator. She pats the seat beside her and Steve takes the invitation, sitting gently beside her and handing her one of the cups once she's ready.

"Thank you, love," Becca says, before her cheeks redden. "Sorry," she laughs. "It's an old person thing, calling people love. In my mind you're older than me, but your appearance says otherwise. Still, it's weird calling you love. Is this strange for you? Because it's quite odd for me," Becca asks quickly, without taking a breath, pointing a finger between them.

Steve laughs, scratching the back of his neck. "A little," he admits. "I-… Last time I saw you, you were thirteen. A few years ago, for me, you were thirteen. By my mind, you should be sixteen or seventeen…"

"I wouldn't mind being seventeen again," Becca tells him, looking solemn. "But that was a long time ago."

"I know. I'm so sorry."

"You don't have to apologise for me aging and living my life," Becca promises, putting a wrinkled hand over Steve's. "You really don't." Becca pauses, looking thoughtful. "I saw it on the news, that you'd come back, and you fought for New York. But I didn't believe it. No one did. Everyone thought it was someone dressed up as you to raise morale. It isn't the first time it's been done over the years."

"That was me," Steve promises. "I'm here, it's me."

"I know that now. You also made a speech, after the battle," Becca says. "When I saw you without the cowl in your Army uniform rather than that new monstrosity they made for you, and when you spoke; I knew it was you. I just hoped you'd come and find me, because I knew it would be hard to get in contact with you. I didn't think it would be easy to get a letter to you in the protection of shield and Stark Tower."

"I would have seen it, I would have answered," Steve promises quickly. "I would have come a lot sooner but life sort of… got in the way."

"I understand. You had a lot to learn and adjust to. Coming and seeing me and everyone else, it would have been very overwhelming. There's still a lot that you missed out on."

"Tell me everything," Steve eventually says into the silence, his tone pleading. There's so much he's missed out on, so much he has to learn. He thinks the best place to start, other than pop culture,

Becca sighs, shifting in her chair to get more comfortable. "Where do I even start…?" She wonders aloud, looking around the room as though it would give her the answer. "I suppose at the beginning, with what you know. All of us, we were at home waiting for the war to end. We were seeing all of your films, Robbie was reading your comics, and you and my siblings were all sending letters home, saying you were doing well. Mama, Dad, Robbie and I, we were under every impression that all of you would be returning home once you'd finished Hydra, that you'd all come home okay. You had all the other times, so we had no reason to think otherwise. Then, of course, we got the news that Bucky had been killed in action and that was very… hard to take."

Steve swallows thickly, his eyes getting a little glassy. "I bet it was," he manages.

"That must be still very fresh for you."

Steve nods. "About three months."

"It wasn't your fault," Becca tells him, eyebrow raised as though she were giving her child a stern talking to. "Bucky chose to be there, and he wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else."

Steve nods again. "People keep telling me that," he says quietly, looking away from Becca's critical eye.

"Perhaps you should believe them."

Steve doesn't respond to that. "What happened after that?"

"Well, a few weeks later we saw on every flyer, newspaper, comic, and magazine that you'd crashed the Valkyrie into the ice somewhere, and that the Army was looking for you. Mama was distraught; she'd lost two of her sons within a few weeks of one another. Isabel stayed with Howard Stark for a few months searching for you, but she came home a few months later alone and they still hadn't found you. Isabel… she was never the same after that. The first few weeks at home were disastrous, she was barely functioning. It took her years to get over it, though I doubt she ever really would have. She–"

Steve makes a pained noise, interrupting Becca. "Bec," Steve interrupts, looking away, his hand clamped over his mouth. The tears have pooled in his eyes, a few spilling out down his cheeks. He takes a deep breath and clamps his eyes shut, trying to dry them up. He's cried enough tears.

"Oh, Steve, I'm sorry," Becca says quickly, putting a comforting arm on Steve's shoulder. "Let's not talk about that just yet," she allows.

Steve nods quickly. He takes a few deep breaths, nods to himself, and blinks away the tears that still threaten to spill over. "Let's talk about you," Steve says, his voice shaking. "You changed your name?"

"Because I got married," Becca says with a laugh, pouncing on the change of topic.

"Tell me about it. Who was the lucky man?"

"His name was William Proctor," Becca says, a gleam to her eyes that hadn't been there before. "I met William about a year after Isabel came home, when I was nearly eighteen. He was just lovely, the most perfect gentleman, and he was our entire marriage. He really did treat me like a princess."

"I wouldn't expect any different for you," Steve says sincerely.

"We got married in nineteen-fifty-two," Becca says. "I was only twenty-one, but oh, I was in love. We married in the same church that Mama and Dad married in, right opposite Prospect Park. Two years later we had our first child; a little girl that we named Clara. She was just so beautiful, Steve, and she still is. You'll love her. She looks a lot like me, only with William's lighter hair."

Becca gets up and goes to a small photo album on the bookshelf, bringing it back over to Steve. She flicks through the pages and Steve spots multiple photographs of a younger Becca, a dirty-blonde haired man that he assumes is William, and even a picture of Isabel and Becca together, smiling brightly at the camera; it must have been taken not long after Isabel came home, since Becca looks about seventeen. Becca stops on a page, showing Steve a photograph of herself and a toddler with light curls.

"That's my Clara," Becca says, smiling wistfully at the photograph. "And this was her when she was twenty-one at her graduation from college," she says, flicking to a photo of Clara grown up in a university gown and hat. "She studied mechanical engineering. We were very proud. She's a smart cookie, just like her daddy was."

"She's beautiful," Steve says. "You did good."

Becca nods, a small smile on her features. "Having my second child was rather bittersweet. A few months before I fell pregnant, Robbie went off to war. Mama tried to stop him, but he was conscripted, so he didn't have much of a choice. The war started in nineteen-fifty-five, but Robbie didn't go until 'fifty-seven."

"What war?" Steve asks, unsettled.

"The Vietnam War – they may not have told you about it yet. It was the longest US Combat force participation, it lasted near eighteen years. It wasn't pretty."

"I thought the war I fought in would have been the last with how much damage it did, how inhumane it was."

"Unfortunately, there have been many since," Becca says. "The world is a very unsettled place."

Steve swallows the lump in his throat. "I'll deal with that later. So, Robbie, what happened?"

"God, it was just like Bucky all over again. Mama and Dad got a letter in the mail about a year after he left informing them Robbie had been killed in action. He got shot and bled out in the jungle all alone. I had my second child not even a week later, and naturally, I named him Robert. As I said, it was bittersweet; I brought a life into the world, but I also lost my twin, and everyone knows that twins have a connection that no other can rival. We eventually got his body back so that we could bury him, which is more than we got with Bucky. Mama, she was a cot case after that; she was never the same, not until the day she died. She lost three of her five children to war if we include you, which I know she did. All of her boys. She made me promise that my boy, and any other in the family, would never go to war. I've kept that promise; no other descendant of the Barnes family has ever seen any form of combat."

"I'm glad. That just wouldn't be fair," Steve says with utter sincerity. "Where is William, if you don't mind me asking?"

"He passed about five years ago. Heart attack."

"I'm so sorry, Bec," Steve begins, reaching out to take her hand.

"It's a while ago now. We saw it coming; poor Will had a heart murmur and it wasn't his first heart attack," Becca reassures. "You expect these things with age."

"And you're here all alone?" Steve asks worriedly.

"I live here by myself, but I'm certainly not alone. I have my children and grandchildren around me. They come over every day and everyone helps me out. And now I have you, one more remainder of my past family that I always thought I'd lost." Becca smiles fondly, her eyes soft and sparkling with happiness. "It's good to have you back, Stevie."

"I'd like to say it's good to be here, too, but…"

"But you aren't entirely sure you want to be here yet. Understandable. Trust me, I think everyone can safely say that we would have preferred you to come home much earlier." Becca pauses. She's gotten much better at spacing out a change in conversation as she's matured. "Out of curiosity, how did you find me? I thought the change of last name might have thrown you a loop," Becca asks quietly.

"Shield," Steve tells her. "When I woke up, they sent me to a retreat so that I could start to catch up on everything I'd missed. They gave me some files where they'd included the contact information for the people I used to know who were still… contactable. One of the files was for you. I was confused at first, since you'd changed your name, but I'd never forget your face."

"Who else's file was there?"

"Peggy's, the Commandos'," Steve says. He then hesitates, swallowing thickly. "Belle's was in there but..."

"You read her file?"

"No, I couldn't. But Fury told me," Steve admits.

"So you know, then?"

Steve nods, a small movement of his head. "Yeah, I know."

"She missed you terribly," Becca admits quietly.

Steve pauses. "Was she angry at me?" He asks carefully.

"She may have thought she was for a while, but she never was, not truly. She understood. She knows that you did what you had to do to save the world, Steve."

"But I didn't save my world, did I?" Steve asks solemnly. Isabel had always been his world, his everything. The one thing he had always wanted to protect, and he'd let her go to save everyone else.

Becca sighs again and collects up Steve's hand, rubbing it gently. "I think a part of her always believed that Stark would find the plane and you would come home. She thought that you two could go back to some sort of normality. And if you couldn't, she was glad that you went somewhere safe, that you went to Heaven and were reunited with your Ma. All the wanted was for you to be safe and free from pain, even if it meant you weren't physically with her. She held onto that. I think it's what got her through. If she hadn't been taken… it would have been hard, but I think, maybe, she might have turned out alright. I think she was working it out."

"You think so? That's what I would have wanted," Steve tells Becca. "I didn't want her to fixate on what we had. She had her whole life ahead of her."

"Yeah, she did," Becca agrees. "Which is what makes what happened so much worse."

Steve stays a few more hours and helps Becca make something for the two of them to eat for dinner. They sit at Becca's wobbly dining table with a glass of wine each to go with their chicken, rice and vegetables, and they eat in a companionable silence.

Steve finds he keeps staring at Becca, remembering every angle of her face. When he looks up, he finds Becca staring a lot as well. Steve gets it, he really does. Not only is he still as young as he was seventy years ago, Becca's also never seen Steve like this in person. She's never seen him tall and strong and healthy except in the black and white footage of the Commandos fighting in the war or of Steve in the USO Tour.

When their dinner is finished and Steve's washed the dishes for Becca, they sit back at the table and Becca brings out a large box. Steve doesn't recognise it at all, but when Becca starts pulling out its contents, Steve's heart skips a beat.

It's all the stuff the Smithsonian exhibit on Captain America desperately wanted but was never going to get. It's all of their possessions from before the war and all the things they'd taken with them to war that Isabel must have brought back to Brooklyn with her.

Becca pauses at the sight of Steve's expression. "You recognise it, right?" She asks quietly.

Steve looks up, meets her eyes. He can only nod.

"After Isabel disappeared, we went to the apartment to clear up some of the more valuable things. We would have hated for the apartment to have been robbed and lost everything. All of your and Bucky's things had been packed up into this box by Isabel when Peggy moved in with her to make some room. I found it at the top of her wardrobe. I've kept it ever since."

Becca pulls out all of Steve's old sketchbooks, his pencils, Bucky's books, a few items of clothing, their letters from when they were fighting in the war, Isabel's diary that she sometimes wrote in, some of Isabel's lipsticks, their records from their collection that she'd taken from the apartment. It's all of the things Isabel thought was important and packed away, and also all the things Becca deemed important after Isabel was gone.

Steve picks up everything and holds it, remembering what it was and when he'd last seen it. Becca hands over a handful of film cannisters, and Steve opens them, finding undeveloped film reels from both his own camera and from the one Isabel had used during the war, given to them by the photographer on their first mission. He can see on the tiny frames what the picture was taken of, and a lot of them are of the Commandos in London. He really must take them and get them developed properly so they don't get damaged.

Becca watches as Steve holds and touches and reminisces. She doesn't say anything, only offering a smile of encouragement when Steve feels like he's boring her.

"There's something else," Becca says, hesitating.

"What is it?"

Becca sighs. "Follow me."

Becca walks slowly and kind of hunched over, so it isn't much effort for Steve to follow her down the hallway to the spare bedroom and continue to look at the film reel in his hands at the same time. Becca goes into the room and opens the wardrobe, grabs a hanger from the rack, and pulls off a garment of bright red material that makes Steve's breath hitch and his heart thud hard in his chest.

"The dress," he breaths, running a hand over the silky material.

"I think she only wore it the once," Becca says solemnly. "She didn't really get the chance."

Steve takes it in his hands and just stares at it. He remembers when he and Bucky bought it for her for her birthday and for Christmas along with a pair of shoes from some designer in Paris. They'd sat around for nights and debated what to get her, though to be fair, Steve was much more worried about what to buy her than Bucky was, and Steve put in a lot more effort.

"Just take her out for dinner or somethin', Stevie. She won't be expecting much," Bucky had reassured after Steve had made a list as long as his arm of possibly presents.

"No, it needs to be special. It needs to be something she'll love," Steve had insisted, glaring at Bucky across the mess hall table. "I gotta make it up to her for being so horrible about her being a Commando."

"Make her feel special then. Make her feel beautiful. Buy her a pretty dress or earrings."

Steve had thought hard about that. "Maybe," he'd trailed off. "If we split it, we can get her somethin' real nice. Somethin' she'd never buy herself."

They'd gone shopping the next day in their few hours off, and it had been quite comedic as the two of them walked down the shopping precinct on Oxford Street in their army dress uniforms, walking into the women's boutiques. Steve had scoured every rack and looked at every dress to find the right one while Bucky sat in the corner of the shop on the small sofas and shuffled his feet, giving some vague input. It wasn't that he didn't care, only that he thought the present should probably have been only from Steve and not from him. Still, he split the money with Steve when he finally found the right one, and even went on to suggest Steve get her shoes as well.

"It's for her birthday and Christmas. Really, there should be two separate gifts. You know how she hates when her birthday gets ignored in favour of Christmas."

Steve finds himself smiling, and he can so clearly remember how beautiful she'd been when she'd walked into the hall for the Christmas dance with her red lip and brown curls, the crimson dress swirling around her like smoke as she walked and danced.

"I thought you'd like to see it," Becca says with a smile, cutting into Steve's memories. "Take it home with you, put it at the top of the wardrobe again. Take it out and look at it when you want to remember that night."

"She told you about it?"

"Of course. I'm her sister. She told me all of the gossip. It was very romantic," Becca congratulates. She eyes Steve with a raised eyebrow. "You know, for how terrible you were at talking to women, you still had a way with them," she allows.

"With one of them," Steve corrects. "I think Isabel just didn't mind all the stuttering and floundering and blushing and complete stupidness that came along with me."

"To tell you the truth, I think she loved that about you."

Steve smiles at that.

"There's another thing, if it isn't all too much for you," Becca says. She reaches around her neck and pulls a necklace from beneath her shirt where it dangled against her breastbone. She holds it in her hand for just a moment before unclipping it with shaking, clumsy hands. She unthreads a ring from the chain and then holds it out to Steve with sad eyes.

Steve takes it and looks at it, and he has no idea how Becca got it. It's the Claddagh ring he gave to Isabel the night before he crashed the Valkyrie, the night when he promised that after the war, he would marry her and give her a home. He hadn't fulfilled his promise, and that makes his heart clench painfully and his eyes water. He clutches the ring tightly in his fist and holds it close to his heart before lifting it up and kissing it gently, right on the heart in the middle of the hands, the tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Oh, Steve," Becca says gently, reaching up a weathered hand to wipe away the tears.

"Thank you," Steve whispers, opening watery red eyes to meet Becca's empathetic orbs.

"I know what it meant to you both," Becca explains. "Isabel told me when she came home, because naturally, I asked."

"How did you get it?" Steve asks.

"When I came into the apartment, it was sitting on the kitchen countertop beside the sink. I think the day she disappeared, she'd been doing the dishes and forgot to put it back in before leaving the house. Highly unlike her because she never left home without it on. Perhaps it was fate, or else it would have been lost forever with her. She always took it off when she did the dishes so that she didn't ruin the ring, that was the only time. I–" Becca breaks off and takes a deep breath. "It was a part of the crime scene for a long time and no one could touch it. But once we could, I snatched it up along with all the other stuff I collected, and I kept it as close to me as I could. I've worn it my whole life, and I hope you don't mind, but it helped me stay close to you and remember you both."

"Of course, I don't mind, Becca. I don't mind at all," Steve reassures, pulling her in for a hug. "I'm just so glad you found it. It was my mother's; my father gave it to her before they were married. I would have been devastated if it had been lost."

"I'm glad I could give it back to you," Becca insists. She looks Steve up and down for a second. "You know, I think I have an idea that might cheer you up."

She walks out of the room then to the next room over, and Steve follows with the ring still clenched in his hand. Steve hesitates in the doorway when he realises she's gone into her own bedroom, the bed neatly made with a white lace blanket over the end. There are pictures of her family on the bedside table and along the thick window sill on the other side of the room. Becca goes to the wardrobe and opens it, shuffling the coat hangars of jackets and dresses to one side, and pulls out a brown leather jacket. She looks at it a moment before smiling brightly.

"Try this on," she tells Steve, handing him the jacket.

Steve takes it hesitantly. It's wonderfully made, strong and sturdy, the leather a deep brown like chocolate without a single scratch or stain. Steve carefully takes it off the hangar and slips his arms into it, pulling it on. It fits him almost perfectly like it were made just for him. It feels so familiar, looks exactly like something out of one of the shops on fifth in the forties.

"Perfect," Becca says, brushing down the front of the jacket for him where a smudge of dust sits. "Keep it, it'll look better on you than in the cupboard."

"Whose was it?" Steve asks curiously, looking at himself in it in the full-length mirror by the door.

"It was William's," Becca says with a smile.

"Oh, Bec, I can't take it then," Steve says, starting to take it off. "You have to keep it, it's a memory of him–"

"Nonsense, it's yours," Becca insists. She tugs on the lapels, pulling it into place. "Take it, please. It suits you."

Steve sighs and relents. "Thank you, Becca. Really. It's old, right?"

"Very. I bought it for William for his twenty-fifth birthday in nineteen fifty-one. We'd been married a few years. He only wore it on special occasions because he didn't want to ruin it, that's why it's in such good condition."

"Was he on steroids?" Steve asks, only partly joking. Not a lot of people have a frame like his.

"No," Becca laughs. "He was just very tall and stocky. Lucky or else it never would have fit your broad shoulders. As he got older, his stomach wasn't quite as flat and it didn't fit so well. He put it in the wardrobe and never wore it again. Such a waste." Steve looks at himself again, and Becca appears at his side, a hand on his upper arm as she smiles at him. "You look like you stepped out of a Hollywood talkie," she tells him, a glint to her eyes.

"Feel like it, too," Steve admits. "One of those sci-fi ones were the character gets transported to the future."

That night Steve has a dream about Isabel.

He dreams of her and Bucky and everyone back home nearly every night, but this one is different. Everything that happened is still so fresh for him, having only been a few months ago, and so normally he dreams things that he did and that happened to him in vivid detail, like he's really there reliving it again. But this one is something that never happened, something that he never got to experience and his brain is just imagining to torture him that little bit more.

He walks in through the front door of their beat-up little apartment, and it looks exactly the same as it did the day he left it. By the light coming in through the window it's late afternoon, the yellow beams spilling out onto the kitchen cupboards.

Isabel is standing in the kitchen making herself a cup of coffee. The radio is on the bench next to her, blaring out Benny Goodman, and she's tapping her feet to the music, swaying to the melody, humming along quietly under her breath.

Steve hangs his coat up on the hook and puts his art folder by the door, and Isabel still hasn't heard him. He sneaks up behind her and grabs her waist, making her jump, the spoon flying from her hands into the sink.

"Steve! You scared me!" She laughs, turning in his arms and punching him playfully in the chest. "Don't do that!" Her voice is so real and angelic Steve fits in his sleep.

"My bad," Steve smirks, leaning in for a kiss. Isabel responds in kind, collecting his lips with her red ones.

Benny Goodman fades out, replaced by the crooning voice of Frank Sinatra.

"You love this song," Steve notes, reaching over to turn up the dial, still holding her against his chest.

"Are you suggesting a dance, soldier?" Isabel asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Of course. There ain't anyone else I'd rather dance with than you, ma'am," Steve responds, his Brooklyn accent thick on his tongue.

"Well, I'm honoured."

Isabel lets Steve spin her and then they waltz around the room, giggling together. Steve dips Isabel and she laughs aloud with a squeal, her dark, long hair flicking back toward the floor. Steve presses a kiss to her lips while she's dipped.

"I love you, Steve," Isabel whispers, looking up at him with love hearts in her eyes.

"I love you, Bell–"

Steve bolts upright in his bed. His eyes are wide as he looks around, the apartment from his dream fading away as his eyes readjust to his surroundings. His arms are still raised in front of him to hold an Isabel who isn't there.

He realises where he is, that it hadn't been real; but it's what he could have had, it's what he gave up. The thought makes a sob escape him, shuddering and painful. His arms drop and he crumples in on himself, and he stays that way until morning.