Author's note: This is my first fanfic so I'm going to apologise for any grammar or spelling mistakes now. If you do see any, please point them out to me as I am always looking for ways to improve my writing and this story. If this story is well recieved I aim to make it a short six chapter work.

Chapter One - First Meetings

Steve knew Brooklyn Like the back of his hand.

Wondering down the backstreets of Brooklyn at unnatural hours had become a regular occurrence for the small gangly young man. Most likely a result of being ditched by Bucky once he found a few pretty dames. Steve liked his friend, heck; Bucky was his best friend some might say. But when at parties or in the company of a dame, Bucky tended to forget that, leaving Steve to wander off through Brooklyn back to his apartment alone. It was peaceful in a way Steve thought. As much as he resented Bucky for leaving him to walk home alone he enjoyed these quiet moments. Moments where the streets were silent were becoming increasingly hard to find these days. Times were changing; the things that had shaped his childhood were becoming old, out dated. Even the morals of many young men like him were changing he mused, recalling the two teenagers he'd seen picking on the elderly man in the apartment below him. Really, people should be showing more respect.

So lost into his thoughts was Steve that he failed to notice the hurried footsteps clicking loudly down the alley behind him. It was only when the young woman collided with him that he was jolted back to the present. By which time the redhead had picked herself up off the pavement and begun to gather up the various food items that had fallen out of the bags she carried at her collision with Steve.

She was dressed so strangely in her funny looking pants and slightly tattered oversized coat. Red hair spilling down in loose spirals over her back and shoulders, held out of her face by a black clip. Steve didn't notice he was staring until the woman's voice cut through his train of thought. "What! Think my clothes are funny looking too?"

Steve's stuttered response was cut off by her angry retort; "I swear if one more little man tells me my clothing isn't 'proper' I will dump him in the nearest lake!" emphasizing the word 'proper' by making sarcastic quotation marks with her hands.

"I – I'm sorry ma'am I didn't mean to- I just- here, let me help you with those bags." Steve held out his hands palms up in a gesture of surrender. Bending down to pick up the rest of the scattered food items while silently thanking whoever had left the dim yellow light on in the room above the alley, otherwise he would have been unable to see anything, let alone all these boxes of fish fingers and… custard? Steve stopped. It was rude to assume things about people he barely knew. But he couldn't help thinking something was off about the young lady. Once he'd put all the items in the bag Steve looked up, the young woman was looking almost desperate as she paced the alley, her face taunt and eyes a little too wide, turning to face one way and then just as quickly changing direction. Steve sighed half-heartedly, he may as well. Standing he approached her once again. Holding out the bags to the woman who smiled as she took them, just as she turned to leave he spoke; "Ma'am I couldn't help noticing…you look a little lost; now I might not be the smartest fella around but I do know these backstreets pretty well. Do you need a guide?"

Turning back to him the woman smiled "That would be great." The woman paused, "I think." Smile dropping into a frown the woman Steve a stern look as she continued, "But don't even think of trying anything funny."

Steve looked indignant at that. Blushing he looked the woman dead in the eye "I would never!"

"Good. Just because I'm new and lost doesn't mean I need a man. One is more than enough boyo."

Steve chose to move the conversation onto hopefully safer grounds. The woman had mentioned she was new. "Oh, just moved then?"

She smiled a bittersweet thing. And Steve wondered what had made her come to this city; she was so out of place. So out of time a little voice in Steve's head piped up. The woman's smile faded as she answered. "Yeah, I guess I did."

At first the conversation was stilted, the woman was polite after his offer to help her find the way back to her home, and Steve's firm assurance that he didn't find her clothes funny looking at all. Just different, he mused, everything about this strange young lady was different. After an awkward comment on Steve's behalf about the woman's heritage "Yes I'm Scottish, got a problem with that?"

Steve and the dame – Amy, Amy Williams – she called herself found they got on rather well. Steve told her about Bucky's (and sometimes his) misadventures on nights such as this and Amy would then in turn tell him stories of the man her and her husband Rory had travelled with. He must have been wonderful, this 'raggedy man' of Amy's, for her face always lit up with a bittersweet smile as she talked of him. Though surely some of these stories were made up, after all, there's no such thing as shape shifting prisoners. But stories are stories, and Steve enjoyed hearing them all the same. Even if they were a little mad.

"So what about you?"

"Me?"

"Yes you boyo! What are you doing out so late?" Amy tilted her head towards him, questioning.

"Oh, I was just walking home myself."

"All alone on a Saturday night. What, no friends to go see?" Amy looked at him slyly, "No girl to go visit?" Steve blushed at the comment, shaking his head in a silent chuckle.

"I was with Bucky-"

"The one from your little tales right?"

"Yes, well he found himself…some company and I decided to return home, then I ran into you ma'a-"

"Amy, call me Amy. You remind me of him you know, the raggedy man, he was always helping people," Amy put a light punch on Steve's arm, "just like you. I used to travel with him, Rory too. We'd go everywhere the three of us. Off to see the stars we said."

"What happened?"

"He- We, we left. It was just," Amy sighed, her breath puffing out in little white clouds into the air. "We just got lost I guess, and he's not coming back- he can't come back- so we'll just start anew here! Me and Rory, have our own adventure…"

The conversation moved on to trivial things. Amy didn't want to talk about her friend after that and Steve was happy to not pry into the matter. After all, such things would be terribly rude to ask of someone you had just met.

Amy Williams's house was small and pokey, and like most of the houses around the area it was squashed in between two more. But it was bright, on every windowsill that Steve could see flowers of all shapes and sizes grew in pots, buckets and even the occasional boot. In the yellow light of the streetlamps it looked wonderful.

"Wow…"

"Knew you'd like it, we thought…well, if our friend ever comes back, he'll know where to find us."

A man, Steve assumed it was Amy's husband, Rory was his name right? Choose that moment to burst out of the house. "Amy! You had me worried where were you?"

"Calm down silly I wasn't gone too long."

"Five hours for a few bags of groceries!"

"Don't worry, I got lost that's all." Amy jerked a thumb at Steve "boyo over there helped me find my way back." She turned back to Steve "thanks by the way."

"Yeah, uh, thanks." Rory said somewhat peevishly

Steve ducked his head "always a pleasure ma'am."

"I told you, call me Amy."

Rory slid a hand around his wife's hips and pulled her in close at his side, muttering into her ear, something about there being no doctors to save her? Steve brushed the thought aside, he had probably misheard. Walking up to Rory he nodded at the scruffy looking man and shook hands, barely hearing the thankyou murmured at him. Flashing one last smile at the peculiar couple Steve turned to leave. When he was halfway down the street he heard a shout.

Turning he saw Amy in the centre of the pathway illuminated by the yellow lamplight, "Oi! I never got your name!"

Steve turned, his voice echoing down the empty street "Its Steve, Steve Rogers."