41.

London, United Kingdom

April 17th, 1944

Late one morning, Isabel goes downstairs to report for her day's duties. She walks into Howard's lab and finds the young inventor sitting stock-still at his desk, leaning over a piece of drawing paper. She quietly peeks over his shoulder, just managing to glimpse what he's doing. The page is empty, a blank sheet of paper. Howard's holding a pencil in his hand, his grip tight enough to turn his knuckles white, but he doesn't write anything down. Instead, he dots the page with wet tears, dripping silently down his face.

"Howard?" Isabel whispers from right behind him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.

The scientist jumps at the noise, looking up at her with wet eyes. He quickly wipes away the tears, sniffing loudly and blinking rapidly. "Isabel, I didn't hear you come in."

"Sorry," she apologises, looking down at Howard with worried eyes. Howard avoids her eyes, looking back down at the blank page. "What are you doing?"

"I was… I was trying to invent something," Howard says vaguely.

"What?"

"I dunno, just anything to help."

"Well, what kind of help? Maybe I can be of assistance?" Isabel offers, taking a seat in the chair beside him.

Howard sighs. "I just want to fix what happened. To make up for what I did."

"You didn't do–"

"Please, stop saying that," Howard pleads, raising a hand to stop Isabel's argument. "You've told me many times, and no matter how many times people say it, I'll never believe it. I may not have released the gas but I feel responsible. I want to do something to make up for that, but nothing is coming to mind. The only things I can invent are things that kill," he mumbles, running a hand through his hair.

"Howard, the things you invent don't just kill. They save people. They're a lifeline. They save the good guys. Bucky, Steve, the Commandos – they'd all be dead out in the battlefield by now had you not invented those weapons and shields for them. They'd never be able to invade the Hydra factories without Steve's shield or their advanced guns and grenades. You've saved them all more times than you know."

"At the expense of all those other men they kill."

"They kill the enemy, Howard. They kill men who are pure evil. They're ridding the world of a force that would leave it in ruins." Isabel grows serious, narrowing her eyes a little at Howard. "It's a war, Howie. People die in the name of a greater theory – for freedom and their country, or for money, or for a blue-eyed utopia. Those men out there know what they're getting into, and whether they chose to be here or not, they've accepted their possible fate. People die in a war just like they die at home. It's a normal part of life, only war means some people meet their ends just a little bit earlier." Isabel takes his hand in hers and jiggles it lightly to get his attention, looking at him with her blue doe-eyes. "You may give them the guns, but you aren't the one pulling the trigger. You can give a man a weapon, but it doesn't mean he has to use it. Nothing that happened was your fault. You can't let that lie on your shoulders."

Howard nods eventually, seemingly accepting what Isabel is saying. "I shouldn't have made the gas. None of this would have happened."

"Maybe not," Isabel agrees with a shrug. "But you also didn't intend the gas to do what it did. You had no idea that would be the end result, and that faint idea you had from the experiment you did on yourself saw you abandon it entirely. You didn't force that undercover agent to see them and report back to Hydra. You weren't part of the Hydra agents who attempted to steal it. And the actions of General McGinnis aren't your own. You don't answer for that man, nor do you answer for the entire Army."

Howard sighs, eventually managing to smile at his friend. "You're right."

"Course I am, it's happening much more regularly. Must be what happens when you surround yourself with people of higher intellect," Isabel jokes. She smiles at Howard for a moment, albeit a little sad, before pulling him toward her. "Come here, gimme a hug." Howard hugs Isabel tightly, letting her rub his back comfortingly. She pulls away after a moment, not saying anything about the wet spot on her shoulder. "You're a good man, Howard. You care and you grieve and it makes you human. I know it was terrible, but life's really too short to dwell and wallow."

"You're right, life is short, Isabel. Life is precious, Isabel. It can be taken away with a snap of a finger, with a drop of a bomb. It only takes a second and it's gone."

"I know, Howard."

"You and I, everyone else in this goddamn war, we've seen it first-hand. We've seen with our own eyes how fast a life can be ended. Some of us have even done it ourselves."

Isabel thinks back to the first and only man she's killed, the soldier who'd advanced on her when she was treating Morita. The shot to his throat, the blood that spewed out of him. She flinches, screwing her eyes shut to keep the memories away.

"My point is, none of us know how much longer we've got left. Whether we're in a war or we're home, just like you said. Seeing what happened, it really opened my eyes; made me realise the things I appreciate in my life, the things I should acknowledge. If you like to do something, do it. I like to invent, and so that's what I'm going to do. Most importantly, if you love someone, you should tell them."

Isabel looks at Howard for a moment, wondering if his comment has something to do with the fact her and Steve actually haven't said the "L" word to each other yet, and he knows it. Howard looks at her a little pointedly, confirming her assumptions.

"Tell him, Isabel. Tell him how you feel, and don't hold back."

"What if he doesn't feel the same?" Isabel asks quietly.

"What if he doesn't love you back? Geez, Is, have you opened your eyes?"

"Oh, hush," Isabel berates him, hitting his shoulder. "You just… you don't understand," she finally says, looking away. The things she wants to say to Steve, he would laugh at her for saying them. Anyone would. They're embarrassing and intense and she thinks she may even be going crazy, she loves that blonde so much.

"I'm not the one who has to understand," Howard points out.

"How did this conversation go from being about you to being about me? I came in here to give you the lecture," Isabel laughs.

"Well you did, and it worked. Now it's my turn to help you," Howard insists. "Go talk to Steve and I'm going to get back to what I do best – inventing. Might make a new type of explosive device for Dernier, maybe one he can shoot out of a firearm like Peggy's favourite gun…"

With that, Howard turns away from Isabel, starting to draw a design for that exact idea on the blank page. He gets himself into a work-rut, concentrating solely on that, and Isabel knows their conversations are most likely finished until he himself has completed the design. She sighs, resigning herself to making her own way around the laboratory and working on the serum decoding. She spends the entire day at the desk Howard cleared for her months ago, writing and reading and attempting to think about what she's doing, but finding her mind always wandering off to her conversation with Howard.

She really doesn't know if she's ready to confess anything to Steve, yet. It feels like an awfully big step. All their little metaphors about dancing and the right partner have hinted at how they've felt about each other, but they've never said it aloud. It doesn't sound like much to others – Isabel generally has no trouble telling people she loves them, telling people how she feels. She's even told Steve before that she loved him, but it had never meant the same thing, then. She's just so worried still, deep down, that Steve will reject her. Even though she's known him for so long, knows he'd never upset her like that, she can't help it. And she couldn't stand it if Steve left her now.

There's also the issue of Danny, someone she hasn't consciously thought about in months, though he's always been there in some way. There's what he'd said to her the night of the dance before they'd broken up when he'd asked her to marry him, and then the opposing story she'd told Steve and Bucky the next day. It's been playing at her a long while now, almost years, the guilt that she'd lied to spare everyone's feelings and possibly to shield herself.

Perhaps Howard's right. Maybe it's time she gets it all out there, time she tells Steve the truth. She should tell him how she feels, and what really happened with Danny, and be honest with him…

She can't set her mind to it, can't commit, so decides instead to talk first to the person who knows both her and Steve better than anyone. Perhaps if she can get some reassurance, if he can tell her that she isn't silly, she'll feel more confident talking to Steve.

Isabel looks at the clock on the wall, seeing that it's just passed seven in the evening and Isabel's managed to waste almost an entire day staring at the wall. Even if Steve is in the room for the night, maybe she can think of a way to get Bucky alone, go for a walk of something. Isabel nods to herself and walks to the elevator, pressing the button for the fifth floor.

Bucky sits in his room, the mattress soft underneath him, staring at the wall in front of him. He doesn't know how long he's been staring, as still as a statue, hardly moving except for the faint movement of his chest as he takes steady breathes. If anyone saw him, they'd probably think he was insane, but it seems to be something he does after his time as a human experiment. It's also good practice for being a sniper, where he has to stay incredibly still for hours at a time, staring through the lens of his rifle.

He jumps when there's a knock at the door. He's not expecting visitors at this later hour but assumes it may be Steve returning early from a day of planning and meetings with Army officials.

Bucky throws the door open. "I was beginning to think they kidnapped you– Oh, Isabel?" Bucky cuts off, finding Isabel standing on the other side of the door, rather than Steve.

"Don't look too disappointed," she says. He steps to the side and she walks past, taking a seat on the edge of his bed. "Have you got time to talk?"

"I've always got time for my favourite girl," he tells her sincerely, sitting next to her.

"Second favourite, now," she laughs. "Don't want to make Peggy jealous."

"She ain't the jealous type," Bucky tells her. He takes a second to look at her, noting her expression is dismal, confused doubtful, and a whole lot of emotions Bucky rarely sees from his sister. "Are you okay, doll?" He asks, kneeling down in front of her to try to look into her eyes.

Isabel sighs, eventually lifting her winsome eyes to Bucky's with a sort of look that would turn off any bad temper, even when they had all the right in the world to indulge in it. "Steve's definitely not here, is he?" She asks quietly, her voice barely above a whisper.

"No, he's got a meeting until eight," Bucky replies. They look at the clock on the nightstand, the hands indicating there's forty minutes before Steve's schedule is cleared.

Isabel nods. "Will you keep a secret for me?" She pursues, grabbing Bucky's hand tightly.

"Depends, is it worth keeping?" Bucky asks, a hint of humour in his tone.

"Yes," Isabel says, slightly sulky that Bucky isn't taking her predicament seriously. "I'm worried and confused and I have to tell someone. I've been keeping this a secret for months."

"Okay," Bucky says, a little more worried now. "Is it to do with Steve?" He guesses, a bit of worry filling his tone as his mind wanders off to all the possibilities, mainly of them not wanting to be together anymore; a ridiculous thought, considering Bucky sees them together every day and neither have ever been happier or looked more dopily lovesick.

"Yes and no," Isabel replies. "It's kind of also to do with Danny."

"That guy you dated after mom set you up last year? The one who broke Steve's nose?" Bucky asks, disbelievingly. He can't believe Isabel is giving him the time of day now that she's with Steve.

"I told you both that we broke up because he couldn't promise to be loyal to me while he was gone, but… That was a lie. I know it isn't really relevant now, that I shouldn't be thinking about it, but I have to get it off my chest."

"Well, what really happened then?" Bucky asks, his curiosity peaked.

"He said that before he left, he wanted to make sure he was mine and I was his. That night at the dance, he asked me to marry him; before he went to war so that he had an incentive to come home again. H-he had a ring, and everything picked out, wanted to do it that weekend. He also wanted to make sure I'd be tied to him because he knew that I was sweet on Steve, even if I didn't acknowledge it myself. I think he was worried that as soon as he was out of the picture I'd move on."

Bucky's jaw drops in shock. That was certainly not the answer he was expecting.

"And I gave him an answer. Obviously, I said no. It was true what I said, about how I couldn't trust him while he was overseas to be faithful. But I also told him I didn't want that, that it wasn't the life I imagined for myself. It took that moment for me to realise that I didn't want to be rich and some socialite, married to him. I couldn't promise myself to him because it – he wasn't what I even wanted… He wasn't who I wanted."

Bucky suppresses the urge to roll his eyes, as this is something he could have told her long before that night.

"But I want you to tell me whether you think I was wrong, tell me which it should have been," she tells Bucky, her words flying out of her mouth like she's ripping off a band aid. Her eyes are pleading for her brother to offer his advice.

"Isabel," Bucky begins, sitting back on his heels of his feet. "Of course, it was the right thing. You and Steve are practically made for each other." He thinks again of Steve and thanks the Lord he isn't here. It would break Steve's heart to know that Isabel was asked to marry by someone else.

"That's what I thought," Isabel says, more to herself than to Bucky.

"So, you aren't having doubts?" Bucky presses, feeling relieved.

"No, definitely not. Steve makes me incredible happy. I feel like I won the lottery and I would've felt exactly the same had we ended up together before the war. It just took the war for us to see it clearly. I think I'm just coming to terms with everything. War does that to you, I guess. Seeing all this death, it makes you want to count your virtues."

"Why did you say no to Danny?" Bucky asks curiously.

"It's complicated, I guess," Isabel says with a loud sigh. "I didn't love him. Especially now that I'm with Steve, I know that I just never got that feeling. You know, the one in your gut that makes you feel so excited and happy but also a little sick at the same time. The butterflies and all that..." She hesitates, biting her bottom lip in thought. "But I feel like I should have had that with Danny."

Bucky frowns. "Why should you have?"

"Well, it would have made mother and father happy for me to marry him. It was what they wanted, especially Mama," Isabel mumbles.

"Don't think of our parents. Don't think of anyone but yourself. Why should you have married him?"

"Well, if we aren't thinking about the social or economic value… then, I shouldn't have." She pauses, thinking. " I see it now, so clearly – Danny and I were as different as frost from fire. He loved me, he told me, but Danny and I wanted very different lives, and we already lived very different lives. He spent time with his friends, I worked to make a living. He was rich, I was pretty poor. He didn't agree with the life I lived, looked down on me for it, which is never a good foundation for a relationship. But he also promised he would get me out. He told me I could have had any life I wanted with him. I tried to fool myself into thinking I wanted that, but you can't change yourself like that. The relationship was all about what everyone else wanted, and about what each of us could get out of it. It felt like a business deal rather than a relationship," Isabel answers, her voice shaking slightly as though she might cry.

"Would you have loved him for what he could have given you?" Bucky asks quietly.

"I think your average woman could have learned to love someone for that, but not me. The idea of a future with him wasn't just scary and unrealistic, but I couldn't even picture it. I didn't want the money or the status, I wanted emotional wealth. And that's exactly the thing I told Mama, and she told me it was a fairy tale. Well, it isn't. I can tell you that now. If you find the right person, you get all the emotional wealth you could dream of."

"Why not you? What was the obstacle?"

Isabel looks at him as if the answer should be obvious, and it is. "Here, and here," Isabel tells him anyway, pointing one hand to her forehead, and another on her chest over her heart. "Where my soul is. In my heart and soul, I knew I was right to say no."

The obstacle was Steve. She couldn't marry Danny or promise herself to him because she loved Steve. Even before she was consciously aware of it, it was buried deep within her. Despite his empty bank account and rather sickly appearance, she loved him for him. She could see him. And now, even when he's Captain America, she doesn't love him for his appearance or for his work, she loves him for what's on the inside.

"While Danny and I were going together, I had these really strange dreams. Sometimes that happens, and the dreams, I can't get them out of my head. It feels like they change the colours of my mind," she tells him, her eyes widening as though she's experiencing something life changing.

"That's poetic," Bucky mumbles, actually impressed by his sister's eloquent speech. He knows that Isabel is superstitious. She believes in psychics and that dreams have underlying meanings. But the gloom in her aspect makes Bucky himself superstitious, dreading that her dream may have shaped a prophecy or a foreseeable catastrophe or something.

"This dream was not long before Danny asked me to marry him. I dreamt that we were older, and he came back from the war and we'd gotten hitched. If you love someone, that should be like Heaven. But being with Danny was not my Heaven. I wasn't happy. I didn't belong there. I broke my heart crying because I hated it so much, and Danny was so angry at me that he flung me out of Heaven straight into our apartment in Brooklyn. When I woke up, I was sobbing with joy because that was where Steve was." Isabel pauses again. "That was what my subconscious was telling me, I guess. But I thought Steve would never marry me; I thought that wasn't what he wanted, since he always spoke about finding the right person. I never imagined he was actually hinting that he meant me. I also thought that it wasn't what my parents would want, or what I should want… If life hadn't brought Steve so low, if he hadn't been so downtrodden and poorly, I probably never would have thought of it." Bucky opens his mouth to dispute that, but Isabel raises a hand and cuts him off. "I know that makes me a horrible person, you don't need to tell me otherwise."

"You listen to what everyone else wants too much, doll. You always have, always making sure everyone else is happy before yourself."

"Like you're much better," Isabel laughs. But it quickly falls away, replaced again with a sour frown. "I never told Steve how I love him, not even back then. And I still haven't because a part of me is still scared he'll reject me, realise what I did to him in neglecting him all those years and let me go… But Danny was right, I did have my heart set on someone else, even if I didn't know it. I think it's always been that way. I love and always have loved Steve because… because Steve's more myself than I am. We're made of the same stuff." Isabel shrugs, looking away from her brother to her clasped hands in her lap.

Bucky stares at Isabel, open mouthed, unable to comprehend where all of this is coming from. He'd had an inkling that his sister had always been sweet on Steve, maybe even that she loved him, but he had no idea for how long she'd loved him or to what extent.

"You think you and Steve are soulmates?" Bucky says slowly, looking speculatively at his sister as her countenance grows sadder and graver and her hands begin to tremble. Isabel nods, her eyes averting from Bucky's and her cheeks reddening in embarrassment. "Don't be embarrassed, Isabel."

"Well, I think I'm being silly," she argues. "These aren't the type of things you say about someone you've only officially been going steady with for only a few months."

"But you loved him before that, even if you didn't acknowledge it. It was so obvious; I saw it, Ma saw it… Even Dad saw it, and you know how he barely registers anything that goes on in the house," Bucky laughs. "You aren't being silly. You love him."

"Well yes, I think Steve and I are soulmates. I think we were meant to be. I think God or whatever is out there made you find Steve in that alleyway when you were ten and then put us on the Earth at the same time within the same two block radius so that we'd end up together." Isabel pauses for a moment and stares at Bucky, but Bucky feels like she's going to say more so he doesn't interrupt. "It must be weird for you to hear me say this."

"No, actually, it isn't," Bucky reassures, and it's true, he's just got this warm fuzzy feeling inside him. "It's comforting to know that you and Steve are crazy about each other and that it's going to be a fulfilling relationship. I only want the best for both of you, and as far as I'm concerned, you two are the best for each other. Besides, you know that you can tell me anything. Lord knows I've told you my fair share of weird things," Bucky laughs.

"Good," Isabel mutters. The two are silent for a moment, before Isabel shifts on the bed. "I can't even express it, Bucky. I can't even find the words. But I can't think of any other way to describe it. There has to be an existence beyond ourselves; a soulmate, if you like. What would the use of love be if there weren't someone out there for you?"

"I agree," Bucky says with raised eyebrows. "I think you're finding the words, sis."

"Isn't it just funny that I have this revelation here, fighting in a war? Couldn't I have figured out I love him back in Brooklyn, before all of this? We could have been happy so much longer. Instead, he's got to act as my light in the darkness…" Isabel trails off then, her eyes widening as she seems to remember that quote from somewhere.

"That's what that soothsayer said to you," Bucky remembers, snapping his fingers in thought. "She said that you'd find love in the darkness even though they already trailed you around, and for you to hang onto them. She was talking about Steve."

"Well she was right, just like almost everything else she said," Isabel laughs.

Bucky and Isabel are silent for a while, and Isabel's mention of the war clings to Bucky's mind. Every day is unpredictable. Their work is dangerous. They get injured, they get shaken up, they could die. If Isabel feels so deeply for Steve… well, it could end badly. Steve is a literal target, probably the most wanted man to the Axis and Hydra powers. Bucky gets a sick feeling to his stomach when he thinks of Steve never coming home to her.

"Could you live without Steve?" Bucky asks suddenly, his voice quiet.

Isabel thinks about it a long while, her face falling slowly. "I don't really want to think about that," she admits, a knowing expression on her face.

"Please, Belle. Answer the question."

Isabel sighs deeply. "If everything else was gone, and only Steve remained, I would still be okay. But if he was gone, the world would be so foreign and unnerving. It would be like I was trecking through the abandoned woods alone for the rest of my life and I never found a way out."

Something lights a fire inside Bucky, and the flame of his protective nature that never extinguishes burns brighter and hotter than ever. He knows the risks and he is well aware the possibilities, but right then and there, Bucky makes a silent promise to himself and to Isabel that he'll always make sure that Steve gets home. He could never lose his sister like that. As long as it is in his power, he'll do everything he can.

"You're in love," Bucky tells her with a soppy smile. "The best kind of love, the type people write novels and plays and songs about."

"I am, aren't I?" Isabel laughs, hiding her glowing cheeks behind her hands, and she looks almost giddy. Bucky doesn't think he's ever seen her do that.

"Have you told Steve any of this?"

"No!" She cries, losing that giddiness immediately. "Please, keep the secret. I don't want him to know that I'm whacky. What if he doesn't feel the same?"

"Isabel…" Bucky sighs, his lips curling up into a smile. "I don't think you have a worry in the world. That boy is so in love with you, I think his heart's going to burst every time he looks at you. The end of the world couldn't drive him away from you. Even in death, I think he'd find some way to haunt you. You need to tell him."

"I'll wait for the right time," Isabel decides, running a hand through her hair.

"Don't wait too long, doll," Bucky warns her. "And maybe don't tell him that Danny asked you to marry him. It would break Steve's heart to know he nearly missed out."

"Sorry for being so dramatic," Isabel says, wrapping her arms around to hug Bucky, pulling him close. "But thank you for listening."

"Your dramatic, Steve's dramatic. Makes sense that you'd fuel each other. It's like a damn Shakespeare play in this joint," Bucky laughs. "Sometimes I think I'm the only one with my head screwed on properly."