Chapter Text
Stephanie woke up.
For a few seconds, she felt disoriented and convinced she was back home in her small, drafty apartment in Brooklyn. A burst of panic shot through her at the fear she'd overslept and would be late for work, only to realize Bucky would have shown up already to check on her.
Bucky.
Memory crashed back in and, with a gasp, she lunged from the bed and stood up. This proved to be a mistake as black spots appeared before her eyes, multiplying rapidly, and a wave of dizziness had her staggering back to sit heavily on the bed again.
She propped her elbows on her knees and put her head in her hands, waiting for her body to catch up with the fact that she was no longer flat on her back. An odd sensation registered and she pulled away to frown at her left hand.
She could feel it. She stretched the arm out, studying the metal. Carefully she used her right hand to press lightly on it, rotating and twisting it as she did.
She could feel all of it. The doctor, the one who'd put the arm on her, had said something about pressure plates and her nerves being wired in but he'd said it would take time for them to grow down and give her full sensation. She ran her right hand slowly along the bicep of the arm, up to her shoulder, and felt her eyes widen at the sight of the smooth, unbroken skin surrounding the metal. There was some mild soreness but, strangely, it was at the joint where the arm attached to the metal plate set into her body and not where the metal attached to her flesh.
Now that she thought about it Stephanie realized that, aside from that soreness, she felt no pain at all. No aching in her legs and arms, no burning pain in her side. Nothing.
Cold raced through her. Just how long had she been asleep? She knew the serum would have sped up her recovery but her entire body had been falling apart in one way or another. It would have taken time to heal, serum or no serum.
She took a breath and assessed her surroundings. She was sitting on a standard military style cot, weak metal frame and a thin mattress. There was no pillow or blanket and she felt her stomach clench, removing them could be a sign the people who'd put her there were worried she'd use one or the other as a weapon.
The fact that they thought she might go for a weapon was a bad sign.
With a deep sense of foreboding, she examined the room. It was small, and empty aside from the cot, small sink and a strange metal contraption she assumed was supposed to be a toilet. It, and the bed and sink upon inspection, were all bolted to the floor and the bad feeling increased. There was a metal door set into the wall on the other side of the room, not nearly thick enough to hold her from the look of it but a good effort.
She swallowed past a rock in her throat and felt fear settle in her gut.
She was in a cell, again.
It couldn't be Hydra, she told herself. Schmidt was gone, his plane destroyed and the SSR had been swarming the final base the last time she'd seen them.
She swallowed past the giant rock suddenly lodged in her throat. It wasn't Hydra, she'd destroyed them, but that didn't mean it couldn't be someone just as bad, or worse.
"If one head is cut off, two more shall take its place. Hail Hydra."
Schmidt's words ran through her head, the memory faded but there, and she tensed, crossing her arms and shaking her head to try and dispel the image. She could remember everything, but really wished she couldn't.
She tried standing up again, slower this time, and was able to hold her ground. She was barefoot, the concrete floor cold under her feet. Another method to help control a potentially unruly prisoner and still another bad sign about the intentions of whoever had her. She was no longer wearing the mock Lady Liberty field costume, she noted, but was instead dressed in brown trousers and a black t-shirt with straps instead of sleeves that revealed her shoulders and had a scooped neck. It resembled the top of a tank suit that one might use for swimming but the fabric was different. The thought of someone having undressed her and put her in new clothing brought a flash of embarrassment and irritation.
She was getting tired of other people seeing her in her undergarments.
Having taken inventory of her body and the room she turned her attention back to that door. The last time she'd broken out of a cell it hadn't gone well for her.
Last time she hadn't had Bucky with her though.
A thought started to surface and she squashed it before it could fully form. Bucky was fine. They'd separated him from her but he was fine and she was going to find him and he'd be fine and he'd know who she was because this wasn't damn Hydra and all she had to do was find him and everything would be okay.
She took a deep breath and faced the door.
She had her mission.
Find James Barnes, and then get the hell out of here, wherever here was.
Since the door wasn't as good as the one in the Hydra base there was no reason for subterfuge to get it opened. She simply grabbed the doorknob with her left hand and snapped it off. She slid her fingers into the hole left by the missing knob, got a good grip, and ripped the entire thing right off its hinges.
It broke off the frame with a large crack that she imagined probably drew attention so she held onto the door as she stepped out. She found herself in a narrow hallway. It wasn't as dark or forbidding as the one in the Hydra facility but it brought back bad memories just the same and she struggled to stay in control as new memories flooded her mind, reminding her of just what had happened to her and what she'd done while in Hydra's control.
There were several other cells in the hall so she set the door against the wall and went to check them. All proved to be empty, no sign of Bucky. Images of where he might be, or what could be happening to him, ran through her mind and she clenched her teeth in anger. Like hell she was letting anyone hurt him.
As she checked the final one she heard footsteps and figures dressed in black came around the corridor. The black clothing, so similar to what Hydra wore, had her gut clenching as did the sight of the guns several of them were holding. Stephanie ripped the door of the cell she'd been checking off and threw it at them.
The door spun through the air and slammed into the first few of them with a heavy thud, knocking them flat. She jumped over them and barreled straight into the men coming along behind them, bursting past and running. That had been her mistake the last time, she thought. She'd tried to fight her way out when she should have just run like hell.
She bolted down another hallway, and another after that. She stopped just long enough to steal shoes off a soldier that looked like they'd at least stay on her feet but didn't stop to get weapons or ammunition. She also didn't pause when she encountered people, just sped through the middle of them before they had a chance to react and kept going. She could hear shouting and footsteps behind her and from side corridors, but they had no chance of catching up. The corridor in front of her quickly became empty as people got the message of move, or be moved. A few times more men dressed in black appeared, springing from side halls and offices but, with her enhanced hearing, she heard them long before she saw them and easily evaded them.
She saw no sign of other areas that looked like they might contain cells and saw nothing resembling a medical ward. She rounded a corner, spotting a wall made entirely of glass and made a quick decision. She had no idea where Bucky was but she did know the place she was in was huge, and she had no chance of searching it all before they'd figure out a way to recapture her.
She couldn't help Bucky if she were a prisoner alongside him. She needed help, and weapons. Her best course of action would be to escape and call the SSR for help, hopefully the Howling Commandos if they were willing to trust her again. Then she'd find a weapon and come back and engage them, ensuring they didn't try to move Bucky before help could arrive.
The thought that Bucky might not be there in the first place crossed her mind and she shook her head, refusing to so much as acknowledge the way her vision briefly blurred.
Bucky was there. He was there and he was fine and she was getting him back because that was the only option she would accept.
Running footsteps were coming up the corridor behind her so she sprinted toward the glass, crossing her arms in front of face and launching herself forward. It was only as she hit the glass, feeling it shatter around her, that she might have wanted to check how high up she was before jumping.
She mentally added it to the list of things to never tell Bucky, along with the dummy grenade she hadn't known for sure was a dummy and pretty much all the specifics about his rescue from that Hydra base.
Luckily, it turned out she was only about two stories up. She hit the ground in a crouch, glass falling about her in a pile. She pushed up and saw she was standing in the middle of a wide street. Cars with designs she'd never seen were coming right at her, horns blaring, and she twisted and started running again. Out of her peripheral vision she could see the sidewalks packed with people and made the decision to stay in the street. She could dodge around, or over, cars far faster and easier than she could shove through dense crowds of people and the risk of injuring innocents would also be far less.
She felt a sense of relief as she ran. She'd feared she would find herself in the middle of nowhere and have to travel before she could find help.
She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw people pouring out of the building she'd jumped from. She cursed and ran faster, dodging a car with its horn blaring and running straight up the hood of another. She pushed off the hood, flipped midair and landed again on the street. The weather was reasonably warm, and the air pleasant so at least she wouldn't have to worry about freezing to death.
The men following her couldn't keep up and she left them behind. She spun around a corner, and sprinted across a large, open square. Feeling she'd put enough space between her and her pursuers she started to take stock of her surroundings, and felt her footsteps slowing until, finally, she came to a dead stop altogether.
It looked...it almost looked like she was in Times Square but it wasn't like any Times Square she had ever seen. There were moving pictures everywhere, dominating the sides of buildings and blinking from signs and storefronts. Words scrolled across some of them, faster than she could read, and all of it looked real enough to reach out and touch. The movies she remembered had been in black and white, featuring voiceovers and movements that were a little too fast, a little too fake to be really believed. These were nothing like that. Many of the pictures appeared to be advertising things, some using women wearing clothing that made her Lady Liberty stage costume looked like the height of modesty.
The sound of cars drew her attention and she turned her attention to watch, truly paying attention for the first time instead of simply looking to avoid being hit. None of the models were ones she recognized, sleek and curved instead of boxy and coming in colors she'd never seen on a car before.
There were people walking around her, most too caught up in their own lives to pay her any attention. There were men and women in the crowds, both wearing pants, some of the women wearing outfits that her mother would have grounded her for even looking at, let alone wearing.
She crossed her arms nervously at she studied her surroundings. Where the hell was she? She saw a man walk by with a small device stuck to his ear, talking into it, and frowned in confusion.
What was going on? She'd never expected to wake up at all, and now not only had she but she seemed to have left her own world and come to one where her home, the place she thought she'd given her life to save, was completely alien to her.
"I like your arm," a small voice piped up and she jumped in surprise before looking down to see a small boy standing next to her. "I've never seen a metal one before."
"Thanks," she said.
The boy nodded. He looked to be about eight or nine with short dark hair and carrying a bookbag of some kind over his shoulder. He didn't really look like Bucky but her guy would be just the sort to walk up to a strange woman to compliment her on her metal arm and Stephanie felt a wave of affection and pain at not having him there.
She missed him.
Having said what he'd come to say, the little boy waved and ran off to wherever his home was and Stephanie tried to pretend she wasn't jealous of the fact he had somewhere to go. She tightened her grip on her arms and started walking, knowing she needed to get out of the open.
She turned onto a narrow street between several buildings, only to freeze partway down as several large black cars pulled up at the other end, blocking her path. Cursing the fact that she'd let the strange sights in the square distract her for what had clearly been too long, she turned, only to see more cars blocking the way she'd come. Around her the handful of people on the street began to disappear, sensing something was about to happen, rushing down alleys and into buildings.
Armed men started to pour out of the cars and Stephanie turned, planning to head down an alley on the other side of the street.
A blur caught her attention from the corner of her eye and she twisted to meet it, barely getting her arms up in time as a slender, red headed woman launched a flying kick right at her face. She managed to block it, grabbing the woman's ankle as she did and sending her flying back. The woman hit the ground in a low crouch in the middle of the street and came back to her feet as if she hadn't just been flung through the air like a rag doll.
She was dressed entirely in black, her outfit so skintight Stephanie wondered why she bothered wearing it at all.
She had little time to think about it as the woman was coming at her again. Stephanie was stronger but the other woman clearly knew it and fought accordingly, darting in to land a blow and then jumping back out of reach before Stephanie could grab her.
She could see the soldiers coming, from both ends of the street, weapons raised and moved to put a building at her back, refusing to let them surround her. They were soon spread out in a loose half circle in the street, blocking her against the building.
She wondered why they didn't just shoot her, and almost immediately fought back a stab of fear as she remembered Hydra hadn't shot her either, and why.
The thought threw her off for a second, not long enough for anyone but the most elite to even notice let alone taken advantage of.
It was a short list, and apparently included the redhead.
Stephanie was slammed back into the brick wall of the building behind her, the redhead giving her an almost feral grin. "You fight like Hydra."
Stephanie bristled at the insult. Her ire rose and suddenly she was done with this whole charade. She wanted her husband back, and she wanted him now.
"Yeah?" she challenged. "Well you fight like an asshole." She hooked her leg around the redhead's calf, grabbed the other woman's shoulders, and twisted. The move wrenched the other woman's leg out from under her, knocking her off balance. She immediately threw her arms around Stephanie's waist to try and control the fall but Stephanie had anticipated it and was already moving, pushing off the redhead's back and somersaulting into the air to land behind her.
Stephanie had her back against the wall again just as the other woman came got to her knees next to her, only to freeze as she found herself looking down the barrel of her own gun.
The weapon wasn't a familiar model to her but the basic principle was the same. Stephanie pulled the hammer back and rested a finger on the side of the trigger. She heard a dozen or more guns being cocked and tensed. "I assure you," she said loudly, "I can shoot her long before you can shoot me." It would also take a hell of a lot more bullets to put her down. Unless of course they just shot her in the head but she was fairly certain they'd have done it already if that was their plan.
Nothing happened and some of the tension eased. Stephanie focused on the redheaded woman. "Now," she said coldly, "why don't you start by telling me where the hell he is?"
The woman raised an eyebrow innocently, no sign of fear on her face. "Where the hell is who?"
"Don't give me that," Stephanie said shortly. "The man who was with me." Her voice trembled with emotion at still not knowing where he was or how he was doing. "If you've hurt him," she said, "I will kill every last one of you."
The woman looked startled and then confused. "Wait, if we hurt him? I thought you were the one who wanted to hurt him."
Stephanie gave her an incredulous look. "Are you insane? Why would I hurt him? I married him!"
The woman raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Really? That's what you're going with? You realize no one believes that story, right?"
"Why wouldn't they?" Stephanie asked in annoyance. "It's the truth."
"According to some," the woman said cryptically.
Stephanie didn't have time to focus on it as the men with guns shifted, heralding the arrival of a man wearing a long trench coat and eyepatch striding into view around one of the cars. He had the air of someone used to being listened to and Stephanie focused on him but kept the gun trained on the woman.
"Where is my husband?" she demanded as soon as he got close. "And where the hell am I?"
"You are seventy years in the future," the man said bluntly. "As for Captain Barnes, his current location is classified."
Seventy years in the what now? Stephanie shook her head and filed it away under "To Deal With Later" in favor of focusing on the second part of his statement where he had the audacity to deny her access to her own husband. She and Bucky had been together nearly their entire lives, had been to hell and back together, how dare this stranger, who didn't know either of them think he could tell her when she could or could not see her husband? Pure, liquid rage, stronger than anything she'd ever felt before flowed through her and, when she spoke, her voice could have cut sheetrock. "You have no right to keep him from me. I don't give a damn who you are or what your operation is. I will rip it apart. I will kill every last one of you and burn everything you've ever loved to the ground if you try to keep him from me."
There was silence. Several of the men training guns on her looked nervous and shifted uncomfortably in place.
The redheaded woman looked impressed.
The guy with the eyepatch studied her, his expression unreadable. "I just told you that you're seventy years in the future," he said finally, "and the only thing you're concerned about is Barnes?" He studied her. "Either you're telling the truth or you are one hell of a poker player."
"Give him back," Stephanie demanded, her voice shaking with emotion. "Now. I'm not asking again."
"Can't," he said simply, seeming unconcerned. "He's not awake, unless you'd like me to drag him out here into the bloody street still unconscious."
Stephanie let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding and her shoulders sagged. "He's alive?" she asked.
"He is," came the response, the man watching her response. "Just healing a bit slower than you."
"He got the knockoff version of the serum," Stephanie muttered. It had to have been the serum that saved them. How it had kept them alive for seventy years she had no idea but it was the only thing that made sense.
The man shrugged. "Can't let you see him until he wakes up. You say you're his wife, but history tells it a bit different. Won't know which way to go until he wakes up and confirms it. You understand."
Stephanie felt a heavy feeling in her gut. History. History was written by the winners, or by those left to tell it. When she'd gone into the water she'd left the smear campaign Schmidt had waged on her behind, as well as people like Brandt and others who had a variety of reasons to uphold the smear, and very few reasons to deny it. Some, like Peggy and her men might have tried to tell the truth but in the light of the propaganda Schmidt had released, and the reach of men like Brandt, how many would have listened?
Apparently not many judging by the reaction she was getting.
Thoughts of Peggy and her men and her other friends brought a wave of grief as she realized it was very likely most, if not all of them, were dead. Even if they weren't they'd lived entire lives she had no knowledge of, and hadn't been a part of.
Bucky's parents were probably gone as well, she realized with a start. He'd be waking up an orphan, a fate she wouldn't wish on anyone and certainly not on him.
Eyepatch guy took a step closer and she jerked back.
"Come back with us," he said. "We'll put you in a room, not a cell," he said as she tensed. "You'll need to be monitored, and you can't see Barnes just yet, but you'll be safe. Once he wakes up and verifies your story, it's all good."
"I'm not going back with you," Stephanie said. The second she stepped foot back inside that place she'd be at his mercy. She had no idea if he was telling the truth about Bucky, or about not locking her back up. For God's sake, he thought she was Hydra at best and a traitor at worst. He owed her no allegiance as far as he was concerned.
"Seems like we're at an impasse then," the guy said. "What do you propose we do about it?"
Stephanie calculated in her head. Bucky hadn't let her see how badly injured he was on the plane but, as far as she knew, he hadn't been injured as badly as she had been. He had the knockoff serum but it wasn't that much worse than hers, according to what Howard had said, so he should still be healing fast. Assuming Eye Patch guy was telling the truth.
"I'll give you four days," she said finally. She slid along the wall, keeping the gun on the redheaded woman, edging toward a nearby alley. "It should be plenty of time for him to wake up. I see him by then, or I will come back and find him myself."
She stared at the man, her gaze unwavering. "If I find out you lied to me, you're going to wish you'd killed me when you had the chance."
With that she turned and ran.
No one tried to stop her.
***
Three days later, Stephanie found herself sitting in a passenger car on the Wonder Wheel on Coney Island. She'd chosen one of the cars fixed to the outer rim, not the ones that slid on a track as the wheel turned. Bucky had never liked the inner cars, preferring the view afforded by the fixed ones.
The view now was far different from the one she'd seen the last time she'd gone on the ride.
Seventy years.
Everything had changed. The war had been won, and people and technology had moved on while she had slept under ice. Her apartment was gone, the entire block leveled and turned into a parking garage, while Bucky's had been so thoroughly renovated it was unrecognizable. All her belongings and his were long, long gone. The only thing she owned anymore were the clothes on her back which, technically, weren't hers to begin with.
The car rose to the top of the Wheel and she looked out over the water and the landscape, taking comfort in the knowledge that at least some things were still the same. She'd almost burst into tears at the sight of the Wheel, older than she remembered but still familiar, a lasting landmark reaching to a home she could now only visit in the pages of a history book.
"We're not going to sit here for the entire day are we?" an aggrieved voice asked.
Stephanie shrugged, not looking at the redheaded woman, Natasha, who'd been following her since the moment she'd left. Stephanie had put up with it for a few hours before acknowledging she was wildly out of her element and had gone to introduce herself. It had never occurred to her to try and lose her tail; a woman wandering about with a metal arm probably wasn't something that could ever blend in.
"You realize all this costs money, right?" the woman went on. "In fact everything still costs money. These last few days have all been on my dime."
"I didn't exactly have any money on me when Hydra sent me to kill everyone," Stephanie said shortly. "Bill it to the idiot with the eyepatch. You check in with him often enough."
She hadn't known what the small device was that Natasha kept talking into and hadn't believed the other woman at first when she'd been informed it was a phone.
"I'm mostly checking up on Barnes for you," Natasha muttered. "Faster the guy wakes up the faster I can stop babysitting you." She rolled her head to look at her. "Don't get me wrong, I like you, but following you around like a lost puppy isn't exactly what I consider fun."
"Not been much fun for me either," Stephanie muttered. She sighed and dropped her head back against the headrest of the car. The first night, after Natasha had booked a small hotel room in a rundown section of town, at the end of a suspiciously empty row of rooms, Stephanie had told her the story of joining the SSR and everything that had come after.
In return, Natasha had told her the story history told, and it was every bit as ugly as Stephanie had feared.
History, it would seem, did not look kindly upon Stephanie Rogers. There were many theories, concerning her, Bucky, and the nature of their relationship. Schmidt had done an excellent job on spreading the story of her being a traitor, either a plant from the beginning or willingly turned after being disillusioned from her life on stage. Brandt, from what Natasha told her, apparently ran with this theory, using it to prove that women were unfit for the battlefield. There were entire books written about her, speculation most of them, concerning her possible motivations, the depths to which she may have helped or hurt Hydra in the pursuit of maintaining her cover, when exactly she might have turned, and what, exactly, had been the true nature of her relationship with Bucky.
He, at least, had fared better. History remembered him as the real Captain America, the man who'd faked his death either to take on Hydra with greater freedom or, according to some, because he'd discovered her treachery and had sought to expose it. Some historians argued he'd been genuinely in love with her, others that one or both of them had simply been using the other and still others argued there had been no relationship at all.
There were detractors of course. Peggy, her men and Phillips had defended her as best they could, considering almost everything about her and her missions, had been classified and could not be discussed in public. They'd talked about her character and how she and Bucky had been deeply in love but they couldn't go into specifics. No one from her home, or from Bucky's family, had apparently ever spoken up which led Stephanie to believe they'd probably been forbidden from speaking. When Natasha said everything about her and Bucky had been classified, she meant everything. There were apparently just as many books speculating about their backgrounds and personal histories as there were about her motivations for joining Hydra or Bucky's for volunteering to become a symbol.
"You don't seem all that upset," Natasha had said finally, after she'd finished speaking. She'd been sitting cross legged on her bed while Stephanie had sat on her own bed quietly listening.
She'd shrugged in response. "I never joined to be famous, or even well liked. I just wanted to make a difference, and I wanted to stay with James. I did both, whether history agrees with me or not."
"At least you'll answer one big mystery," Natasha had said with a grin. "It's always been a question as to why Captain Barnes appeared to have a wedding ring on in some of his photos. No one could remember him ever mentioning a wife and one never came forward after."
Stephanie rolled her eyes. She had a strong feeling Brandt had been behind the decision to classify everything. It meant the only narrative out was the one Schmidt had forwarded, and Brandt had supported for his own agenda. Without her or Bucky there to defend it, and with their families and friends forbidden from speaking up, it was little wonder she'd been vilified by history.
Natasha had been quite startled to learn Stephanie's version, especially the part where the original Captain had been a normal guy named Tony. Natasha had done a search on a box using something called the internet and found there had, indeed, been a Tony Grant who'd been a recruiter as Stephanie had claimed. He'd retired after the war, married a young woman named Polly and had several children with her, his life happy and peaceful.
Stephanie had been happy to hear about him even as she'd grieved the knowledge that Tony, and most everyone she'd ever known, was long since dead and gone. It made her even more desperate to see Bucky again, now her one and only link to her past.
After that night, Natasha had grown much nicer to her and had readily followed her about as Stephanie had tried to make heads or tails of the new world she found herself in.
At least until she'd dragged the other woman onto the Wonder Wheel for four hours, which was apparently the final straw.
The car they were in reached the bottom of the Wheel and Natasha sighed and stood up. "Come on," she ordered. "We've been wandering where you want long enough. My turn."
Stephanie shrugged and stood up. "Fair enough."
***
Stephanie stepped out of the dressing room and turned in a slow circle. "What do you think?"
Sitting on a chair at the entrance of the room, Natasha looked up from where she'd been examining her phone screen, and gave a thumbs up. "Very nice."
Stephanie grinned. Natasha had dragged her to a department store with the insistence that Stephanie had been wearing the same clothes long enough. Stephanie, in turn, had been only to happy to get to pick her own clothes and leave behind the ones someone else had dressed her in.
Natasha had helped her pick out waist overalls, which were apparently now called jeans and worn far more widely than they had been when she'd last been around, and light brown knee boots with a short heel. After that, Stephanie had chosen a form fitting, sky blue sweater with three quarter sleeves and pretty, mirror like jewels along the collar. "Do you think Bucky will like it?"
"If he doesn't he's an idiot," the other woman said. "Come on." She got up and waved a hand at Stephanie. "Let's charge it and get out of here. I've got something I want to show you."
Stephanie nodded. "All right."
***
As it turned out, the Smithsonian had an entire wing dedicated to Captain America and Lady Liberty. Every single theory about both of them was discussed with videos and supposed evidence backing up each. There were arguments for her being a plant from the start, a traitor turned after being disillusioned on the stage, even a few suggesting she'd really providing cover for Captain America after he faked his death. One or two argued for her having been the real force behind the destruction of all the Hydra bases but, with everything classified, it was impossible to prove.
The wing was empty when she walked in, suggesting either no one cared or, more likely, it had been cleared out before she'd arrived. She wasn't sure what that signified but went in anyway. She was tired of waiting. If something was going to happen might as well have it happen sooner rather than later.
She spotted an old interview done with Peggy Carter and went toward it slowly. Peggy was insisting Stephanie had been a true patriot and hero and that she and Bucky had been joined at the hip and never would have harmed one another.
Near it were pictures of the Howling Commandos and she stopped to read the signs under them, detailing her men's lives after her and the various things they'd experienced. She hadn't yet had the heart to ask about their fates, or Peggy's, or Howard's or any of the many others she'd known and most likely lost. She would ask eventually, but not just yet.
She caught sight of a glass case with what appeared to be her Lady Liberty costume, the stage one as the field one was, of course, lost. Next to it was a large display filled with examples of her photos from her many shoots. She caught sight of one off to the side and stepped forward, sucking in a sharp breath when she recognized it. It was the picture Schmidt had forced her to do, standing next to him and some of his other officers with the hanger full of Hydra soldiers and the plane laid out behind her. The photo was poor quality and grainy, making it impossible to see her expression, or the fact that she'd been almost dead on her feet from her various injuries. Next to it were various reports, from SSR agents reporting what they had seen and experienced in their various interactions with her. Many of them were damning, without even meaning to be. They simply reported what they had experienced, and without knowing she'd been forced...it was little wonder she was not seen in a positive light.
She pulled her eyes away, not wanting to dwell on it any longer, and paused as she saw a large, blown up picture of her team. Her entire team, Bucky included.
She approached it and lightly put a hand on where Bucky stood, frozen in time, his typical, cocky grin on his face as he listened to something Dum Dum was telling him. She traced her fingers over his face, her heart aching with misery.
Let history remember her however it damn well wanted.
All she wanted was Bucky.
"You know," a voice drawled from behind her, "I hear the real deal is ten times better."
Stephanie sucked in a harsh breath and whirled around.
Bucky stood on the other side of the room, just inside the doorway, watching her. She heard a noise behind her and turned her head just in time to see Natasha slipping out another door, leaving her and Bucky alone.
Stephanie started to take a step toward him, only to freeze mid-step.
He raised an eyebrow in query, and then she saw understanding dawn.
"Alright," he said, "how about I start?" He went to shove his hands in his pocket only to frown as he realized he had no pockets. He was dressed in simple brown pants and a t-shirt with SSR emblazoned across the front.
"After I got drafted," Bucky said, "I tossed a ring at you at your kitchen table and told you I wanted you to marry me before I left."
"I said 'romantic proposal by the way'," Stephanie broke in, "'I can see why you had so much success with the ladies'."
He grinned. "Thought you didn't do romance."
Stephanie took another step closer to him. "On the plane," she said quietly, "as we were falling. I told you I never thought the end of the line would come so soon."
He nodded, taking a step forward himself. "And I said I thought it'd already come on the side of a mountain and I could live with it, or not as the case may be." His grin widened. "Turns out it was the former."
Stephanie gave a strangled laugh and started to move toward him only to have him hold a hand up, stalling her. With a truly wicked smirk he said, "Last one. You have an almost irrational obsession for seeing me in my dress uniform." Here he cocked his head slightly, looking down at her with a smirk and an expression she'd only ever seen on Bucky Barnes. "While my favorite for you was a toss up between my shirt and that silver outfit that you--"
"Bucky!" Stephanie shrieked, her face going red hot. She had no doubt they were currently surrounded with every word they said recorded.
Bucky shut up but kept smirking. Stephanie laughed and broke into a run, throwing herself into his arms. She jumped up to wrap her legs around his hips, grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him with an almost frantic energy.
He wrapped both arms around her and returned the kiss with just as much enthusiasm. After a few minutes, Stephanie pulled back to simply look at him, her vision blurring as she took in the first sight of him in what felt like forever.
"Have I told you lately how much I love you?" she asked.
"Apparently not for at least seventy years from what I'm told," he responded with a grin. "On that note, you know what else that means we haven't done in--" He shut up as she kissed him again, and then again, and again after that.
He put up with it for a few minutes but then moved his hands to her hips. She obediently unwound her legs from his hips and put her feet on the floor again. He pulled her in closer and kissed her again and she slid her hands into his hair.
They finally broke apart, his hands moving to her waist while she linked her arms around his neck.
"I love you James Buchanan Barnes," she whispered, only to frown as he grimaced.
"The last two times you've said that," he said dryly, "one or both of us has nearly died."
Stephanie gave him a guilty look. "Sorry. How about I love you, Bucky Barnes?"
"Better," he agreed. "Only you could give me a complex over my own name, Stephanie Rogers."
She tightened her arms around him and kissed him. "Stephanie Rogers?"
He gave a slow, lazy smile. "My apologies, I meant Stephanie Barnes."
She grinned back and then kissed him lightly on his forehead, then the tip of his nose and then on the lips.
"Did you meet the eyepatch guy?" Stephanie asked and Bucky grimaced.
"We had words, and there may have been a gun or two involved," he said shortly. "Once I woke up in a fake recovery room with a baseball game I took you to playing on the radio. You know I hate being lied to, almost as much as I dislike hearing my wife was apparently placed in a cell and forced to flee when she should have been celebrated."
"I don't care." She really didn't. Being locked up, having history look poorly upon her, none of it mattered as long as the end result was her getting him. She turned around, resting against his chest and pulling his arms to wrap around her. "Look, we have an entire wing of the Smithsonian now."
"So I see," Bucky said, sounding annoyed. "Along with a number of inaccuracies I plan to get straightened out."
Stephanie shrugged relaxing against him. Her eyes found the picture of her men, standing locked in time, and she felt a flash of sadness. It felt like she'd just seen them; she had just seen them and it was difficult to truly get it into her head that they were all now gone. "All our friends are dead," she said softly. "And I never even got to say I was sorry."
She felt him squeeze her in a hug and then he buried his face against her neck. "The ones who mattered never blamed you."
"What are we going to do now?" she asked. "The war is over, and I have no idea what the hell anything is anymore."
Someone cleared their throat and they both turned to see eyepatch guy walking in.
"Fury," Bucky growled.
"Fury?" Stephanie said. "Your name is actually Fury?"
"That it is," he replied, "and I would like to apologize, to both of you, for the way things went down. We didn't know which theory was correct, so we had to go with the worst case scenario."
"Which involved putting my wife in a cell," Bucky said, anger clear in his voice, "when she'd already been through hell."
He still had his arms around her waist and Stephanie turned to tuck herself against him, wrapping her arms around him and curling against his chest. "It's okay," she said softly. "They were just trying to protect you."
"Yeah?" Bucky muttered, "and who protects you?"
"You do," she said instantly, turning her head to look at him.
He kissed her and then pulled back, his expression only slightly cooled down. They still had a lot to talk about, much of which she had no desire to relive, but, for the moment, she simply settled against his chest again. She felt him put a hand against the back of her head, pressing her head against his heart, and spoke over her head.
"What do you want?" he demanded, addressing Fury.
"The war is over," Fury said, "but the world still has its fair share of threats. Some of them are pretty damn big, size of something we might need a super human or two to handle. I'm trying to put together a team to address them."
"And you want Bucky to be a part of it?" Stephanie asked. She twisted around and put her back against his chest, making it clear anyone would have to go through her to get anywhere near him.
"On the contrary," Fury said. "I'd like you to both be a part of it." He reached inside his jacket and pulled a large file folder out from somewhere, holding it out to them."
Bucky reached past her to take it and frowned at the label. "The Avengers Initiative?"
"That's right," Fury said. "If you're willing, I'd like the chance to sit down and explain it to you."
Bucky glanced at her and she shrugged. "It's not like we have anything better to do. We may as well hear him out."
He grinned and kissed her on the side of the head, keeping one hand firmly around her waist as he handed the folder back.
"We'll listen," he said, "but not right now. She needs to rest, and so do I."
"Of course," Fury said. "You've been through a lot. We'll get you set up and give you some time to acclimate. Then, when you're ready, we'll talk again."
"Like I said," Bucky replied. "We'll listen, but it better be good."
Fury grinned. "Oh, I assure you," he said calmly. "It is. I think you're going to like it here."
Stephanie shrugged and tightened her arms around her husband, snuggling into him as if she thought she could crawl inside and share the same space with him if she just tried hard enough.
She already liked it there.
Anywhere Bucky was, that's where she wanted to be.
Everything else was just a bonus.