He got to the bridge with a ring in his pocket.

By all official records, he had been dead a few months. He had been rehearsing lines in his head all day, interrupted by moments of 1940's awe, but now that he was on the bridge, minutes away from seeing her, all of the carefully planned words in his brain had slipped away like the water beneath his feet.

He had been on missions that were life and death, but none had ever made his heart pound like this.

He was going to see her, talk to her-

The last time she had seen him, she had kissed him.

He would have a lot to explain.

They had plenty of time.

He took another deep breath, trying to steady himself, and studied the skyline again. The rush hour bustle was comforting, exhilarating, reminding him that he was home and that New York was safe. Red, white, and blue banners were draped from nearly every signpost and in every window, and posters everywhere celebrated the victory and the return of the boys in blue, and the crowds did not have the exhausted drag he remembered from his publicity trips to New York- what felt like years and years ago.

No Thanos, no Ronan, no Nazis.

No phones, no internet, no space or time travel.

Home.

The boisterous stream of New Yorkers laughing, shouting, running, holding hands, hurrying, told him that life was resuming its course. Families were being reunited, brothers and sons and fathers and husbands were coming home, freed from the burden of war-

His best girl appeared in the crowd a few minutes early, looking braced for war. She was a queen, resolute, ready to take on anything that fate would swing at her. The thrill of victory that hung in the air didn't touch her.

Drinking in the sight of her, he studied her soft curls, the red of her lipstick, the sharp line of her jaw. He knew how time would soften it; he knew where the wrinkles would grow across her forehead and chin. But in the same look he could imagine her glowing and pregnant, smiling, rather than looking like she was going into battle.

She casually leaned across the opposite railing of the bridge, unaware of his watch, scanning the crowd for the nameless agent to contact her. After a moment, she turned to gaze at the East River, her back to him.

His feet moved of their own accord. He came up a few feet to her left, and the way her shoulders tightened told him that she knew someone was standing behind her, but his mouth had suddenly gone dry.

He wiped his hands on his pants and took a shaking breath, the ring in his pocket weighing more than the universe.

"I'm sorry I'm late." He said, his voice stronger than he expected. "I couldn't call my ride."

A moment that lasted longer than all his years in the ice dragged between them.

She went rigid, and Steve saw her left hand on the railing turn white from the force of her grip.

He had waited years for her.

She was still grieving his death, just a few months before.

A rush of courage ran through his system like lightning, and the memory of Mjolnir in his hand reminded him that she was his future.

He took a few steps forward, closing the distance between them, and gently put his hand on her trembling one.

She didn't turn, her eyes fixed on an undetermined spot on the horizon. Steve marveled at the smoothness of her skin beneath his rough fingertips, breathless at her beauty in the golden hour.

"I couldn't leave my best girl." He murmured to her, bursting with gratefulness that he was speaking to a woman with all the strength of her youth and many years ahead of her. "Not when I still owe her a dance."

She turned to him slowly, as if she was afraid she would end a dream if she moved too quickly. A tear ran down her cheek, and Steve's sight of her blurred with tears of his own.

He reached towards her, so gently, to cup her chin in one hand and brush a tear away with his thumb.

He couldn't speak.

His movement had given her permission in some way he didn't understand, because she reached forward so they were echoing each other. Her feather-light touch brushed through his hair, blonder and longer than she had last seen it; he trembled as she traced the wrinkles around his eyes, more than he had when he had gone into the ice just a few months before.

Keeping one hand on his face, she put the other on his shoulder, as if she didn't believe he was real and needed more proof, taking a step forward so that they were mere inches apart.

Something more than tears was growing in her eyes, and the hardened expression of war melted off of her face, replaced by relief, by hope, by something stronger than the wall her expression had originally had.

"I'm sorry I didn't come back to you sooner." His voice had dropped to a whisper, the words fighting past the lump in his throat. "I came as soon as I could."

He could see the questions growing, the cogs in her mind whizzing as she stared up at him, the evening sunlight dancing golden specks across her brown eyes.

She held his face in both of her strong, delicate hands, a smile breaking across her face and soothing the drumbeat in his heart.

"And how long have you been trying to get back to me?" She smiled, half laughing and half crying.

"Too long." It was her turn to brush away his happy tears, but she was bold, suddenly wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling herself flush against him, kissing his tears away until he moved his face to meet her lips with his.

Eleven years of waiting.

Eleven years of dreaming of her, of going on dates that never compared, of seeing friends get married and have their own families and thinking he wouldn't have one.

He had buried her, and now she was his again.

He held her as tightly as he dared, both of them laughing as they caught a breath between kisses. He didn't care that he would have lipstick on his face, or even that he didn't know where he was staying the night, or when they were getting married, or what he would do back in 1945.

Someone on the bridge whistled, but they didn't hear.

In Cap's mind, they had years of kisses to make up for.