Live like this: there is an end to you...
Have your time and then let it go.

– Gabriel Gadfly, "Life and Death and Knowledge"

The first time Steve finds her, Peggy's eyes light up like a string of Christmas lights. Seventy years, and she knows exactly who he is.

There's a phonograph collecting dust in the corner of her room – hers, from a long time ago – and he puts on a crooning Ella Fitzgerald song and helps her out of bed for that long-overdue dance. In the center of the room, they sway slowly, like wheat moving with the breeze, because there's no need to rush. Because they're here now, after being apart for so long. They have all the time in the world. After nothing but pain, he felt like he was in heaven.

Then Steve visits her the next day, Peggy remembers none of it.

"Where have you been?" she asks, trembling a little.

"I...at home, Peg." She continues to look on, starry-eyed, and he says, uncertain, "I'm...glad you missed me, at least."

"'Missed you?'" She laughs. "Steve Rogers, it's been nearly seventy years. I think a girl's allowed to miss you just a little."

"What are you talking about?" Steve asks, scared now. "I was here yesterday, Peggy."

"It's been so long," she replies in a choked, heartfelt voice, and he has no choice.

The doctors tell him afterward: Alzheimer's. Nearly eight years running and developing at an unsettling pace. "Be patient with her," the main ward supervisor suggests, as if Steve would be anything other than gentle.

So he is. The joy never dies; Peggy is never any less excited to see him, and he never gets tired of telling her the same stories – getting thawed out of the ice, the Avengers, and eventually, Bucky – as he clasps her hand. He learns a hundred different ways to tell them all and some days, she remembers him and he can tell her about the cabbie who nearly ran him over outside, or the Smithsonian exhibit, or something Stark said that makes her laugh until she's hacking a cough. They dance together so many times, too, and even though she doesn't remember, he still changes the song.

Every time, though, he feels her tears blotting on his shirt or his neck, and the vein reopens.

On the flight to Boston – where they'll be burying Peggy, beside her husband and parents – Steve's filled with a bitter, resentful thought: that he handled Bucky so well because he was used to memory loss at that point.

Immediately he pushes it away, but it doesn't matter. It's a hot iron that burns him, leaves its mark even in the brief second of contact. Bucky's asleep next to him, his head on Steve's shoulder, and Steve looks out the window of the plane, over the ocean of clouds pinking with the sunset.

In that moment, he hates himself more than he ever has.

The funeral is held at a church in the North End.

It's a closed casket, draped in red velvet – her favorite color – and the stained glass window that rises up behind it creates a jagged Holy Mary. Her glass face is complacent, her cloaked arms spread wide.

Peggy was an atheist.

Her three children and sister all give speeches; the pews are full seven rows back, mostly SHIELD members and old friends. Fury's shrouded in the back and even Coulson's there, front row – among friends and safe.

Natasha touches Steve's arm when the priest asks if anyone else would like to speak. He does not go up.

Coulson hails them afterward, while they wait for the limos.

"Little dangerous, isn't it?" Clint asks, spotting him. "Walking around in broad daylight?"

He smiles. "That's kind of you, to assume I'm so important someone would actually want me dead." Clint smiles, too, and Coulson looks to Bucky. "So you're Sergeant Barnes."

"I was, yeah." They shake hands.

"Phil Coulson. Sorry we had to meet on today of all days."

"Steve's told me about you," Bucky says. "Big fan, huh?"

Coulson laughs. "You could say that."

Steve just stares at the curb.

After they bury her next to her husband, Bucky catches Steve's sleeve and quietly asks if he wants to talk.

"I didn't wanna talk at the service," Steve says, cold and numb under Bucky's hand. "What makes you think I wanna start now?"

"It's to me."

"And you're different than a room full of strangers?"

Bucky jerks back from the assault. "Just because you're hurting doesn't mean you need to be an asshole."

"I don't want to talk," Steve snaps. "I just need to be alone. How's that?"

Bucky just scoffs to himself, shaking his head. "I should have known you weren't gonna change."

Steve pauses. The clouds overhead are threatening rain, but stay silent; they make Bucky's eyes striking and unforgiving, like the blade of a knife.

"That's not fair, Buck."

"Don't talk to me about what's fair."

Steve laughs. "Now? Really, Bucky, we're really gonna do this now?"

"Fuck you," Bucky barks, slamming a hand against Steve's chest that has him staggering back. Nearby, a SHIELD member – an ex-SHIELD member, rather – looks their way nervously.

Steve holds Bucky's blazing, infuriated eyes. "I know you wish you could." It drives the knife deep, and Steve can tell, no matter how hard Bucky grits his jaw.

"I'd rather die than touch you right now, Rogers."

"Good. Then leave me the hell alone."

Bucky storms off, his face beet red. Steve feels like jumping off a cliff.

Steve doesn't go back to the hotel that night. Most criminals like to return to the scene of the crime, but he can't face what he's done.

At a bar down the block, the patrons are drunk and ignorant of his presence as he plunks down at the bar. When he tells the young bartender, "Just an ice water," the kid's face lights up.

"You're Captain America."

"I've been called that, yeah."

He signs a napkin for the kid, tempted to tell him please don't look up to me, but he's been cruel enough for one day.

The Coke wall clock mounted above the bar ticks away three hours – ten, then eleven, then midnight. He manages to get one glass down; the coaster he's using has a thin ring of water sitting on it that breaks and spills onto the bar when he nudges it with his pinkie.

"Thought I might find you here."

Steve sighs, clenching his tankard tighter. Natasha slides onto the stool beside him and signals the bartender for the top-shelf Smirnoff.

Steve takes a long swallow of the ice water as the bartender comes over with the tall, elegant bottle and a tumbler. Natasha flashes an ID, which surprises him – he completely forgot that she might actually need one.

"Thank you, sweetheart," she oozes and the bartender, who can't be more than twenty-two or twenty-three, flushes. Steve stares hard into his drink, listening to the clink of the bottle's mouth on her glass, and the fluid swish of vodka. Waiting for her to say –

"Peggy would want you to be happy."

"I don't want to talk, Natasha."

"I don't really care." She throws back the shot. "Frankly? You need to."

"I was happy," he mumbles. "Now everything's fucked."

"Bull," Natasha replies. "You've been through worse."

"I barely survived after Bucky fell. What am I even supposed to do now?"

She refills her glass, and vodka breaches the rim in a thin, translucent vein. Steve's eyes scratch the alcohol with stifling hunger. How he wishes he could get drunk again.

"You be happy. You take Bucky back to New York and you live life to the fullest."

He balks at her bold indifference. "Natasha, Peggy just –"

"I know," she snaps, then softens. "I know, Steve. I'm not saying right away. Not even in a month from now. You take the time you need. But you don't slam the doors on the people who care about you. You let them in."

He sighs long and hard, until his breath collects on the glass. "I know."

"Good. Then please do that this time."

"I love Bucky, y'know. I do." He stares the side of her face until she looks over at him. "If you're implying I don't, or if I –"

"Then let him in." Her tone is solid, with no room for argument.

"I'm trying. It's just...too…"

"New."

"Yeah."

"Steve," she sighs, "stop holding yourself back. Be bold. Be risky. Take it from me – live recklessly."

"I'm not brave like you, Natasha."

"You threw your body on what you thought was a live grenade, and you jump out of airplanes without parachutes regularly. You let the Winter Soldier, the world's deadliest assassin, accost you with his bare hands, unresisting, because you thought there was a chance you could undo fifty years of brainwashing. You're brave, Steve."

Steve isn't sure how he's going to respond, either because then Natasha adds, "And don't tell me for a second that Peggy didn't think so, too."

And isn't that the truth.

It takes a few days. Then, at the hotel room, around midnight, Bucky's in the bathroom when Steve unexpectedly bursts into tears – loud, wailing sobs that have him wetly gasping for breath.

After Bucky fell off the train, Steve was numb for the rest of the day, but he had cried right then, seconds after watching Bucky's body plummet toward the treacherous snow floor. As the train had vanished into a tunnel, he had nearly been sobbing, his head buried in his arm.

Hearing the voicemail – David's choked, broken voice – Steve hadn't even responded, and he knows this is it: these tears are old and have been pressing to come out, aching for it. They make his body buckle and his actually chest hurt.

Heartache.

"Hey, hey." Steve can't see Bucky's hands through the tears but he feels them, warm and rough on his face. "Shhh, Steve –"

"I can't do it," he wheezes. The words suddenly rush forward, water freed of its dam. "Bucky – I can't – Ilovedher I loved her, how do you just – walk away? How?"

Bucky strokes the side of his head. "I know you did, Steve."

Steve chokes a little, shaking hard, and Bucky's weight moves over him. Onto him. "Shh," Bucky repeats, closer, "it's okay." His lips nudge Steve's. "It's okay."

Steve obliges him. Bucky's tongue is gentle as it slides into Steve's grief-slick mouth, but the intimacy is too stark. Too raw, and Steve lays a hand on Bucky's chest.

Bucky, not understanding, leans in further.

"Buck," Steve murmurs between their lips.

"You don't have to be alone," Bucky whispers. Steve looks up, at last able to see Bucky in his lap. "Okay?"

Bucky's eyes are wet. Like his.

"I don't know," Steve breathes. "I'm not –" Not right now, is what he means. But Bucky's desperate above him; his desire is like heat. It's on his skin. Steve can feel it.

Natasha says, "Then let him in."

"I loved her," he says instead, feebly.

"She loved you, too – and she was proud of you, Steve," Bucky says gently. "She had every reason to be."

Steve, too tired for it all, sinks against Bucky's bare chest. The tags gently press against his cheek, and Bucky kisses the crown of his head.

"She believed in me," Steve whispers. "After Erskine died, she...she was there for me." Bucky idly runs his hands down Steve's back, letting him talk. "Sometimes – sometimes, I think the two of you were my only friends."

"You know that's not true, Steve."

It's not, but sadness changes the chemistry of his tongue. Grief scribbles over his thoughts.

"I'm sorry."

"You have no reason to be."

"I'm so glad – I found the two of you again," Steve says, voice breaking up suddenly. Like his body can't bear the weight. "I just wish…" Miserably, he laughs. "Well."

Bucky kisses his forehead. "I know."

Steve falters for a moment, lulled by the rhythm of Bucky's heart. All those nights, lying awake with his head where it is now – Bucky's life in his ear. Like a hand on a drum.

"What's wrong with you?" he murmurs.

"Hmm?"

"After everything, you still –"

"Don't start."

Steve just scoffs. "You're crazy."

"Probably."

"We can't just sit here," he says – mostly because it's something to say. Bucky just laughs softly, into Steve's hair, where he's laying his cheek.

They don't talk much after that; the only sound the whir of the prosthesis' gears as Bucky strokes Steve's face, his shoulders, his back. Then, Bucky tips his chin up and kisses him right beneath his eyes, on the drying patches of tears.

They could sit here forever.

When they were younger, Bucky kept a picture of his birth parents tucked in the pocket of his jacket: his mother was beautiful, almost unnaturally so. Like royalty.

"Look, Buck," Steve says, eight years old and lying in the grass at Central Park. A bike bell trills as a paperboy passes. "You have his nose."

"What?" Bucky screws up his face – already pretty at nine. "No, I don't. His nose is fat."

"Yeah-huh!" Steve pinches Bucky's nose. "There's no difference."

"Quit it," Bucky whines, pawing the picture out of Steve's hands. "'Sides, you're gonna rip it."

Steve laughs, until he notices how tentatively Bucky handles the photo. Like it's a precious jewel.

"You look like your mom," he tells him.

"Really?" Sunlight winks in and out of the waves of Bucky's eyes.

"Yeah. She's really pretty."

"Ew, don't say that."

Steve rolls his eyes, smiling.

"She was a movie star for a little while, I think," Bucky continues. He gazes at the picture for a long while, then decides, "I'm not as pretty as her."

But he is. Prettier, even. His mother is fine-boned and petite with a thick crop of dark hair, and even in the black-and-white still, she has a glow. She isn't smiling, but Steve imagines it's beautiful. He imagines it beams like a spotlight. Like Bucky's.

He got his eyes from his father. His mother's are small, black pinholes.

Growing up, even after he managed to hold down steady jobs, Bucky was always dirty: he cared little for cleaning his clothes and sometimes wore the same dirty button-up beneath his suspenders for four or five days. He wore hand-me-down pants that was often too short, hovering around his scratched calves and mailpost ankles and soiled socks. Like Steve, he was always bruised or tired or split-lipped or greasy, but the similarities ended there, because it was a look Bucky wore well. Steve had spent their childhood in envy, and much of their adolescence in paralyzing fear, of his best friend's good lucks – how it was impossible to compete. Bucky's beauty was effortless and breathless and endless; Steve was a glass of room temperature water next to an inferno.

When Bucky lost his virginity at sixteen, and Steve's sexual experiences ended at holding hands with Darcy Wilkins for a class field trip in the fifth grade, he didn't expect much. He grew content – comfortable, almost – with the idea of being alone. Bucky would grow up and find a wife and Steve would visit on Wednesday afternoons and weekends for dinner and casual conversation. There would be three children: two girls and a boy. Bucky would name one of the girls Norma, the name he'd always imagined was his real mother's, and joke about how his son looked just like Steve. Steve would shove him and tell him to fuck off through a grin. It was a nice life. Then Erskine asked him if he wanted to kill Nazis.

After he became Captain America, Steve was convinced he could handle the strength. What he didn't expect was how women were suddenly noticing him – talking to him even, on their own free will. He'd be standing beside Bucky at base, hovering over a map of the front or joking over beers, and women's eyes secured onto him and only him, and Steve realized that Bucky calling him "handsome" hadn't been a joke at all. That his body had been his betrayer, not his face. He'd spend many nights gazing into scratched pocket mirrors and pools of water, rubbing his jaw and searching his own face for clues. How nice his eyes were, and his lips. His nose.

"I told you," Bucky would say with an emphatic grin, and Steve grew so comfortable with his own mouth, his own expression. He would mirror that smile as much as he could. He would look people in the eyes more and stay there.

One night, not long before the train, Peggy had made an offhand comment about Steve's eyes. "Isn't it interesting? How some blue eyes are so pleasant to look at, and others are creepy?"

Of course, she'd had a few.

"Like yours, Steve," she'd hiccupped, smiling at him, and with her flushed cheeks and deep, twinkling eyes, she was the prettiest thing Steve had ever seen. "Like yours. Yours are gorgeous."

"Oh." Still new to it all, he could only warm a little. "Thank you, Peggy."

"Always told that kid he was handsome," Bucky offered, sucking down a shot of Bourbon. It was one of the few times Steve witnessed Peggy smile at him. "He just never listened."

"Steve," she called, "you're a very handsome man."

"Very," Bucky said, and Steve must have been red because the two of them laughed. It was the best night of Steve's life. They lifted him up, believed in him, when no one else would.

They were the loves of Steve's life, too, and now, any and every memory of them makes him want to tear out his own throat.

In the morning, Steve asks Bucky about that night.

"I...some of it," Bucky offers. "I remember how pink you got when we called you handsome."

Steve's smile barely brushes his eyes. "I figured that would stick."

"Shit," Bucky mutters suddenly, in understanding, as his gaze travels Steve's face. "Shit. I'm so sorry, Steve."

Steve had cried in his sleep last night.

"It's okay," he says gently, rising from the bed. "But I need you to remember that." There's a pen and pad of paper on the desk; he takes them both. "It's important."

Bucky tenderly looks up into his eyes. "Okay. I promise, Steve."

"Thank you."

As Bucky's writing, the words spill out again: "She used to talk about how you were the most beautiful man she'd ever seen."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah." The pen continues to scratch, but Bucky's mouth punches in at the corner with a smirk. "Admittedly? Was kinda jealous for a while."

"Why?" Steve scoffs. "Because someone else was getting all the attention for a change?"

"No. Because I hadn't thought of telling you that first."

Steve opens his mouth, but then Bucky shoots him a dazzling smile and Steve can only laugh, long and hard and a little hurt, savoring every moment he has with his best friend. Vowing to never forget how precious they are.

He'd made that mistake once.

The week they spend in Boston is a quiet one. Their last night is the only one they actually go out; Steve sleeps quite a bit, but his eyes remain mostly dry. He talks to Bucky. They order room service and stay up until two in the morning watching shitty movies on cable. To Steve, it's heaven.

The last day is a Friday, and the entire city bustles with traffic, both foot and vehicular. One family hails them on their way back from dinner – they have a little girl who glows when she spots Steve.

"Mommy, it's Captain America!"

Bucky smirks at Steve. "Wow. You're practically famous."

Steve just rolls his eyes, posing for a few pictures. The girl's timid at first, until he hoists her up against his hip and she squeals. Her parents laugh out loud as they capture the moment.

"Can you sign my teddy?" she asks as he sets her down.

He smiles. "Sure."

"Don't tell anyone," Bucky whispers to her while Steve scribbles his signature on the bear's white velvet fur, "but I have a huge crush on Captain America."

"Really?" the girl chirps, her eyes bright. "Me, too!"

They both giggle like they're sharing a secret, and Steve has never been happier in his life.

"Cute kid," Bucky remarks as she runs back to her parents. They smile amicably their way. "I've always wanted a daughter."

"Me, too." They round the corner, headed for the bar on the hotel's block. "Two daughters and a son, right?"

Bucky blinks in surprise. "Holy shit," he laughs. "How did you remember that? I only mentioned that like...once."

Steve shrugs, reaching to open the door. "Good memory, I guess."

"Pretty damn good for a ninety-six year old, I'd say."

They sneer playfully at each other. Bucky bumps his shoulder against Steve's as he goes into the bar.

"Captain!" the bartender crows – an older man, graying at his temples, with both arms fully-sleeved in ink. "The usual?"

Steve laughs. "If ice water could be considered a 'usual.'"

They get onto the barstools. "Grey Goose for me, if you don't mind," Bucky says.

"You got it, champ." Fishing the bottle from the shelf, the man looks over his shoulder at Bucky. "I trust you're over twenty-one?"

"I'm actually ninety-seven," Bucky replies. "Don't get wise with me, young man."

The bartender lifts his brows, then laughs, deep and hearty.

"Ah," Bucky intones as the glass is set before him. "You look so good, sweetheart."

Steve feels his hand curl tighter around his mug as Bucky lines up a shot. There are very few things Bucky doesn't look good doing – this is probably the worst.

"I'd offer you some," he jokes, ignorant of how tense Steve is, "but I know you can't –"

"I hate it when you drink," Steve blurts. Bucky opens his mouth, but Steve cuts him off, because if he stops now, he'll never be able to start again. "I hate it when you get like this – when you force me to make choices. I hate that you know what you want when I don't. I wish I could be like you Buck but...Christ, I need time. I hate that you corner me. I hate that I don't know how to talk to you sometimes, because sometimes I think you're a totally different person, but I hate it even more that that's just not true. I hate that this was a long time coming and neither of us knew what to say. I hate that I have to make things so damn complicated. I hate that I've hurt you."

Bucky stares at Steve – left winded by his confession – with the vodka poised in front of his lips. It's unspoken, but clear: if he drinks it, there's nothing left to say between them. If he sets it down, they can breathe again.

The tension is a tight wire that threatens to slice Steve open. All around them, the bar filters softly with EDM and light conversation.

"You know what?" Bucky asks after a long while. Steve holds his breath, until Bucky smiles at him. "I just realized I do kinda hate this shit."

Steve, unsure of what he can even say at this point, just laughs. And God – it's enough.

When they go back to New York, Natasha hugs him goodbye for the first time ever at the airport terminal.

He's a little shocked by it – more than a little shocked; he's only ever seen her hug Clint – and she must sense it, because she laughs somewhere near his armpit as he sloppily rushes to return her embrace. She feels so tiny in his arms, standing a full nine inches shorter than him, and he realizes why she's reluctant to hug people. It's hard to be scared of someone whose head you can rest your chin on.

"Proud of you," she murmurs.

"Thank you, Natasha."

She moves to hug Bucky, too, and he exaggerates a broad grin as he accepts her into his arms. "I understand this is like a privilege," he remarks, and Steve hears her muffled laugh as Bucky gives her a squeeze.

Coulson poses as her driver out at the loading zone, standing dutifully beside a Lincoln Town Car with her suitcase; he has a driver's cap pulled low over his eyes and a huge pair of shades on. He nods to Steve and Bucky as they climb into the back, only breaking character when Bucky folds a ten into his palm.

"My good man," he says in a deep, solemn voice. Coulson cracks a smile.

"Don't get used to it."

Bucky shuts the door. "Man," he says to Steve, "I like that guy."

Up front, Natasha grins into the rearview. "Who doesn't?"

The first thing they do is go to a meeting. They don't even unpack their suitcases; they sleep in their clothes and shoes on top of the comforter that night, and are up at nine-thirty to head to the church.

Steve volunteers to speak first, and he has never felt more powerful as chairs squeak to turn to him.

"One of my closest friends died last week."

There's a ripple of sympathy in their faces, even for a crowd that's used to death. He appreciates that.

"One of the founding members of SHIELD – Peggy Carter. She was old, but...it still…"

"Oh Steve," Dee says. "We're so sorry."

"Thank you," he says quietly.

After, Sam pulls him aside. "I'm proud of you for talking about it."

"God," Steve says, laughing. "I'm that bad, huh?"

Sam grins. "You can be."

Steve looks toward Bucky, who throws back his head and laughs at something Josiah says, and Sam catches him looking.

"She also knew you were a stubborn son of a bitch."

"Shut up, Sam."

"Look me in the eye and tell me she didn't get on your case about Bucky, too."

Steve just keeps staring; sunlight spills down Bucky's front like a cascade of water. Like gold.

"That's what I thought."

"Shut up."

"Oh dude," Sam laughs, "you're so gone."

Bucky turns then and, meeting Steve's eye, smiles warmly.

"Yeah," he manages. Sam just cracks up harder.

After lunch, he grabs Bucky's hand as they walk home. Bucky flushes a pleasant shade of pink, and Steve loudly announces that this is the first time that he's seen Bucky Barnes actually blush, someone mark the date and time. Bucky tells him to shut up, but his smile could not get bigger.

At home, while Bucky showers, Steve finds a thick manila envelope he did not take with him to Boston, slipped beneath his clothes. STEVE is printed in block letters.

Natasha, he immediately thinks. And he's not wrong: she's left him a letter inside on the hotel stationary, on top of a moleskine.

David asked me to give this to you. He wasn't sure how to do it himself...if he means you're intimidating or difficult to approach. I'll assume the latter.

He smiles gently.

I haven't opened it, but he told me it was Peggy's. She kept a journal after he and his older brother went to war. Apparently your name came up a few times. He said she'd want you to have it.

Her journal. This is Peggy's journal.

Steve sucks in a breath, shakily thumbing open the musty cover. The pages and yellowed and frail beneath his fingers; he feels like he's handling a butterfly's wing as he reads.

Only half of the notebook is filled, each entry dated, from '69 to '75, but her handwriting is small and compact, history in tight cursive. Some of the entries are mundane – Lucas called. Things are good – and others are haunting – At night, sometimes my chest gets so tight, I truly believe I can't breathe. I don't tell Alistair. I don't tell anyone. There's a hole that's been ripped from me and it's halfway across the world – and others aren't even about her sons, or Alistair, or even her. They're tangents, railroad tracks, that veer off course. Things about Peggy he never knew.

June 17, 1971: The war makes me think of Steve, which upsets me to no end. The thing that instantly makes me think of him is bloodshed and violence. I hate it.

January 22, 1972: I miss Steve so much. He would know what to do.

August 8, 1972: They want to open a memorial for Steve after the war is over. It's costing so much money to fight, it could take decades, they said. I don't care; I told them SHIELD could fund it, if that's what it takes.

A tear breaks off from the tip of Steve's nose, but he moves the notebook aside so the delicate paper can't catch it. He wipes his eyes, the tears smearing wetly on his fingers.

But it feels good to cry. Freeing. These are things he needed to know.

The shower squeaks off. "Steve?"

"Y-yeah?" he answers, grateful that the distant disguises his broken voice.

"I'm gonna shave."

"Okay."

The door clicks shut, and the sink starts running a moment later. Steve goes back to reading.

The last entry is the shortest one. It's sloppy, as if written in a hurry, and the ink was smeared before it dried: The war is over. We lost.

Peggy's oldest son, Lucas, died in the war. Steve can feel her pain radiating off the page, a ghost living in paper for forty years. Six words that rest like a heavy weight on his chest.

Steve moves to close the notebook, breath shuddering sorrowfully, when he notices something. The next page over, slightly exposed by the arch of the paper under his thumb. Something's written there.

2008: They said my handwriting won't exist in about three years.

David, when you find this book, give it to him, and tell him to learn from it.

You'll like him. He's a good man.

Then, below it, another. This entry is dated 2011. The handwriting is almost illegible.

They found Steve.

He stares at it. The corner of the period – too big to fit the sloppy letters, as if she dug the pen into the paper – bleeds slightly and ripples, as if it had been wet. From a tear.

From her.

It doesn't take long for him to start sobbing.

"Steve?"

Bucky's voice.

Steve cranes his head up from the edge of the bed, where he's still hunched over. Bucky stands in the doorway of the room, a towel around his waist and his face freshly shaved. Water still drips from his hair.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He dabs his nose on the back of his arm. "Sorry."

Bucky glances at the notebook, but doesn't ask.

"I just...I was thinking. And…"

"Yeah?"

"Well. I think I know what I want now," he says.

Bucky smiles lovingly. "'Bout time."

end

A/N: First of all, there'll be an epilogue (and no, nothing horrible and gut-wrenching will happen, I PROMISE THE HAPPINESS IS PERMANENT). And, second all, thank you guys so much for sticking around for this wild ride. I'm honestly really curious about Peggy's mortality in MCU; she's not exactly young anymore; I know Steve's not exactly weighed down or trapped by his past, but Peggy and Bucky are basically the only living physical remnants of his pre-thawed life, with only Peggy's body remaining loyal to her age, and it'll be interesting if they choose to address her age in Cap 3, or at all in the films. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed. :) This has definitely been a roller coaster both to write and to experience. Thank you all so, so much.