Fem!Steve went down in history as the first woman to see combat in the American military, the first woman to fight on the front lines, the first woman to get any sort of rank in the American military, and the first woman to give her life for her country. She's also, on an unrelated note, the first woman to say "no" to Bucky Barnes—though, in all actuality, Bucky never asked her, but he did make the same face that she did when they were asked about their "romance of the ages".

Meanwhile, Bucky Barnes went down in history as the only person that Captain America laughed with on public television, and the first person to survive almost seventy years on ice. (Stevie was the second, of course.)

If it had been any time but the Depression, Bucky would have made her take defense classes. He knew, from the many and varied books in the library, that there were some kinds of drills that took more skill than strength and wouldn't tax Stevie's fragile body.

"Shove off, Buck," she'd say after yet another mishap in a dead-end alley and he cleaned up her pretty face.

"You keep thinking that you're such a punk—"

"That stings, you jerk! How the hell does that hurt worse than getting it in the first place!"

"Because you got in a scrap in some dumbass, dead-beat, dirty alley way with three grown men, punk," Bucky would snarl back (or some variation of). "So shut up and deal with it, Princess Punk."

And then she'd scoff, and gesture to herself. "Please, three year olds draw women with more curves than I do. I don't even have a cycle."

"If you'd take care of yourself better—"

"I swear to God, Bucky, finish that sentence and I'll make sure to punch you hard enough to remove the bandages that you just put on my knuckles."

And so it would continue. Honestly, Bucky Barnes felt like he was on a perpetual loop: sleep, eat, work, eat, take a girl out, and go back to sleep, and somewhere in that mess would be taking care of Stephanie Rogers. Sometimes it would be her gift for finding trouble, sometimes it was yet another illness, sometimes it was just battling the cold.

Then he got the draft. Stevie had taken one look at the list that he'd "signed up" on and gone pale.

Stephanie Rogers and Bucky Barnes most definitely didn't have a "love story for the ages", but they did love each other to pieces.

But it didn't matter for the moment, because Stevie locked herself in her room for a solid six hours.

When she came out, Bucky fell flat on his back into her room, miraculously not knocking her over. She crouched, the whites of her blue eyes shot through with red veins and skin streaked with shiny tears. "If you don't come back to me, James Barnes, I will tell everyone that we had wild and passionate sex. Enthusiastically. Out of wedlock."

And despite her obvious tells of crying, her voice was steady and laced with steel.

"But—"

"And then!" she added loudly, overriding his confused protests, "And then I will bury you with a Yankees ballcap and tell everyone that you were an avid fan."

"Hey! You—"

"And then!" she added once more, voice getting even louder. "And then, if you aren't actually dead and are just faking for kicks, I will personally be your one-woman army and I'll get you out or die trying."

Bucky couldn't breathe, his shocked blue eyes staring at her steely blue ones.

"Do you understand, soldier!" she barked.

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Good!"

Then she bent over and interspersed her dripping tears with kisses to his face, sobbing quietly.

He didn't know that she signed up for the army.

Didn't know that she'd been part of some kind of super-something-or-other until he faked being dead and she became his own personal one-woman army to get him out.

Didn't know that she'd died because he'd been in HYDRA's hands for days and heavily sedated.

Didn't know that she even existed until seventy years later, almost to the day.

Didn't know that she made good on her word until he went to the Smithsonian and read the good-natured ribbing of the Howling Commandos about how "Stevie and Bucky sure tried to live up to the name".

Didn't know that she'd even succeeded at burying his empty coffin—via his sisters—with nothing but a lonely baseball cap in it until she'd told him.

Didn't know that in a few short weeks from the present, his life would go from fairly normal to absolutely fuckin' insane.

It would make for interesting stories, at least.

I despair for my writing times. It took ten months to produce 13K words. I literally remember sitting down and hammering out 13K in eight hours once. XD

This story is FINISHED and will be updated once a week until all eight chapters are posted. :) Enjoy!

-Ruby