Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sarah can’t explain it all, but there are two things that she does know.

1. Her lungs have never quite worked right.
2. Also her neighbor across the hall actually cosplays as Captain America, and he kind of pulls it off.

Sitting on the landing beneath her window, Sarah looks outside and sees the rusty metal of the fire escape just beyond the glass. She had climbed on it once, feeling more than a little ambitious, before a heavy groan from the metal had her scrambling back into her room.

Sarah hopes there is never a fire. Mr. Johnson on the floor above is as tall as a tree and about as heavy as one. He would bring the whole scrap of metal crashing down to the ground and leave everyone else doomed.

She has lived in this apartment building, well, her whole life she assumes. Her mom tells her of when they first moved out of the Brooklyn outskirts where suburban housewives ruled in minivans as they shuttled kids to soccer matches. Sarah thinks the place was probably something akin to putting lipstick on a pig -- really, she hates sports -- so she is glad that she’s here in this cozy apartment with her mom where the convenience store across the street sells her half-priced grape slushes.

What she doesn’t like is that they only moved here because it was closer to the hospital. That is was easier to afford with her mounting medical bills.

Her mom had told her once not to worry about it; Sarah doesn’t see how she can’t.

There is a soft whirring noise coming from her room, lulling up and down in the still air of the apartment, but it’s white noise to Sarah at this point. She’s had an oxygen tank practically attached at her hip since she was a little girl, and even today when she breathes in the rich air, she occasionally still pretends that she is Darth Vader and wheezes with all her might.

That usually sends her lungs into a tizzy, the dysfunctional things. It also makes her mom fuss with pinched eyebrows and wagging fingers that make Sarah feel like dog whose made it in life and actually ate someone’s homework.

Her mom is almost stereotypically overbearing in that manner. Sarah sees it for what it’s worth and tries to be sympathetic. The so-called (in Sarah’s mind) Cut-The-Cord Syndrome has manifested itself in various ways throughout her life.

Backpack leashes. Temporary tattoos with her address plastered on her hand. Rousing discussions about the inherent promise of stranger danger. And, most recently, a cell phone with all of her doctors’ numbers on speed dial.

Sarah would like to feel offended at her mom’s insistence. She’s seventeen years old, and even though her lungs shirk on their one job, Sarah likes to think she can take care of herself. But then she remembers when she was eight, laying cold and tired in a hospital bed as her mom cried over her. It had been a night that everyone had said their goodbyes just in case, but Sarah had somehow rallied through every breath.

Her mom called it a miracle. Sarah called it what it was: dumb luck.

It’s been eight years since that night, and life has rolled on as it seems to do. Her touch of cancer went into remission years ago, but there is always the prickle at the back of her spine when she thinks about it returning like the lazarus of old. She’s studying to get her GED -- because, wow, public schooling really isn't conducive to half-pint girls with portable oxygen tanks -- and she has a best friend named Steve.

Sometimes, she looks back on her life, wondering what dress she would have worn to prom or wonders why her first kiss had been lost to Aaron Novak right before she'd gone in for her very first surgery.

He died a week later, leaving her without an answer.

It is one of the reasons why Sarah doesn't to think about her future. It feels like she is tempting fate.

Moving away from the window, Sarah spins on her heel with her hand reaching for her tank out of habit. The wheels track against the hardwood floor, clicking rhythmically even as they glide over the tile of the kitchen, and Sarah decides that her sad excuse of an appetite is at the point of letting her eat a sandwich.

Plucking what she needs out of the fridge, she makes her food with a low hum in her voice of a song she had heard online the other day. It is catchy, and she rocks her hips from side to side as she carefully cuts the crust of her sandwich with a dulled knife.

She’s about to take her first bite when a thud from the hallway outside catches her ear. Sarah has always been too nosey when it comes to this building. Really, the secrets (and blackmail) that she has on some of her neighbors is enough to either send them to jail or eternal shame. It’s a dirty business, but the sad truth is that there is not much else for her to do at home besides spy and send quality snapchats to her friends.

Tiptoeing to the door, Sarah peeks through the peephole to see a blurred figure standing across the hall, and she recognizes him as her neighbor whose Captain America costume is so authentic that all she sees is dollar signs.

He’s built like a brick wall up top with his broad shoulders, and Sarah wonders if he can even walk through doors straight on without getting stuck. His chest tapers into a narrowed waist, and while he’s cute in a sort of naughty boy scout way which is totally not her type, Sarah’s hormones rev a little when he raises a hand above his head in a stretch. The patch of tanned, supple skin that peeks out from the top of his jeans makes her flush, and really, that shirt is almost obscenely tight against his back as he walks down the hallway to leave.

She has only seen him once or twice in his costume, and man, she remembers clearly that is does his body more justice than any courtroom could ever dish out. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of such a man is how Sarah would like to live her life, and she never fails to laugh at that thought.

A guy like that? He must be fighting off woman as much as he fights off evil masterminds. You know, if he was actually a superhero.

Sarah backs away from the door, satisfied with her covert affair and readjusts the cannula in her nose when she pulls too hard on its cord. A puff of oxygen filters through her nostrils, and she shifts on the balls of her feet.

Her stomach pulls in hunger, and with small steps, Sarah heads back to the kitchen where she left her sandwich on the counter.

She only eats half before calling it a night.

_______

Cloud watching is the best.

No, it is.

A few days later, Sarah finds herself on the roof of the building when the sky is overcast and grey. It’s the only time she can go out without sacrificing her pasty skin to all of unforgiving UV rays, and even then, she slathers herself in sunscreen.

Peeling is gross. Sunburns hurt. And, honestly, Sarah doesn’t have the time for either.

She is sitting on the hot gravel, leaning back with only her stringy arms propping her up, and wipes at her upper lip to wick some sweat away. Sarah has been coming to the roof for years now whenever the weather permits, and despite the rocks poking into her legs and palms, she closes her eyes and yawns contentedly.

The door opens a moment later, and Sarah’s eyes snap open. Head turning to look over her shoulder, she freezes once she sees a man standing in the doorway. He is dressed in dark jeans and a henley despite the summer season, but at least his hair is pulled up in a tie to keep his neck cool. His dark stares sits upon her for a few agonizing seconds that make Sarah’s finger twitch.

She looks back, unable to force her eyes away from his blank face.

This guy, she knows, lives with wannabe Captain across the hall. He showed up months ago, and while she has only seen glimpses of his shadow from inside her neighbor’s apartment when their door is left open, she recognizes the rounded shoulders and scowl implicitly.

Sarah leans up from her hands, and the guys moves. Or twitches. Glitches maybe? He just kind of shifts backwards into the stairwell, and Sarah sees a glint of metal from underneath his left sleeve. And she does her very best not to blurt out the mother of all insensitive questions.

She also does her best not to refer to this guy as Luke Skywalker in her head, but the temptation is just too much for her to resist.

After having spent a lifetime walking through hospital halls, seeing kids hobbling around her with their own prosthetics that made their eyes watery and lips quiver, Sarah knows better than to say anything. She does, but her eyes move on their own accord towards the sliver of exposed metal, and his eyes catch her out.

The guy shoves his hands into his pockets and heads back down the stairwell. Sarah doesn’t say anything though the words “I’m sorry,” and “I’m an idiot,” fight over which would have come out first if her mouth had been working.

Sarah heads back to her place about an hour later, kissing her mom on the cheek as she picks at her dinner because boiled carrots have never set right with her. The sun has just about set when she rinses her plate -- and, yes, shreds her carrots to a violent end in the garbage disposal -- before heading back to the roof with her tank and a bag slung over one shoulder.

He’s not on the roof when she arrives, and a pang of disappoint taps against her chest. However, as she turns to leave, a few smoking cigarette butts catch her attention from across the roof. Something in her loosens at the sight, even if she hates smoking because cancer is really, really not fun thing to deal with, because her gut tells her he will be back later that night.

She walks over to the spent cigarettes and grounds them into the gravel with her slippers. Reaching into her bag, Sarah pulls out a tupperware container that she plucked from kitchen that holds inside a BLT with cut crust and extra mayo. There is a note stuck to the front for the guy, telling him that she’s sorry for staring and that he looks like he could stand to eat some more. She was also nice enough to leave him a little schedule of when she’s usually up there so that what happened this afternoon doesn’t have to happen again.

When she wakes up in the morning, it is because her mother is knocking on her door. She kisses Sarah on the forehead, brushing a few wisps of hair to the side, and tells Sarah she loves her. Before she is out the door, her mom asks if Sarah knew why their tupperware had been sitting outside in front of their door.

Sarah just shakes her head and rolls over, careful not to cut off the flow of her cannula, with a smile.

_______

When Sarah was ten, glowing in remission but sicker than ever with her shot immune system, she had met Steve Lorne in the playroom of the pediatric's ward.

His face had been completely wrapped in damp gauze -- leaving only a small slit for his bright blue eyes to peek out under -- and when she approached him, he had asked her if she would like to play Sonic the Hedgehog.

She did, and he even asked her for a rematch afterwards when she managed to collect more rings than him.

Steve is twenty now, an engineering major at NYU, and is Sarah’s best friend because he understands her in ways that she wishes he didn’t.

The reason he had been hospitalized all those years ago was because of an accident that left Steve’s house burnt to char when he had been only a year old. Even worse, his crib had gone up in flames with him still inside. His whole body was badly burned, but nowhere was worse than his face. He had been at the hospital with Sarah then because he was recovering from a new skin graft that would stretch with him as he grew.

He’s had surgeries since, and every time, Sarah has always waited for him in post-op until his parents would come and take her to him. His face is still scarred with motley patches of uneven skin that tug at his nose and make his lips droop. But his eyes are still as bright as they were the day she first met, and sometimes, Sarah doesn't believe such a beautiful person can even really exist.

The middle of June is just now rolling around, and Sarah finds herself waiting in her living room one day. Steve is supposed to come over this afternoon with his old N64 to spend the afternoon button mashing and eating junk food. She knows that Mario Kart will turn into an all-out war, so she keeps her fingers rested.

She’s got a winning streak against him that makes her want to weep tears of joy. Sarah doesn't want to chance her luck.

Glancing at her watch, Sarah frowns and taps her feet impatiently against the floor. Steve is late by nearly half an hour, and while she doubts it, she can’t help but further the worry in her gut that some brats have decided to poke around at Steve’s expense.

It’s a thing that happens from time to time. Brainless bullies with gap-teeth and rowdy jeers have been known to corner Steve, armed with insults and teases and even unforgiving shoves that makes Steve’s stare stuck to the ground. More than once, Sarah has had to jump in between the Steve and these brats, or any other stranger who tries to make a snarky comment as they walk by on the street when they think no can can’t hear their hushed tones.

They are crippled, not deaf. Of course they can hear. It’s one of Sarah’s favorite things to remind people.

A knock sounds against the front door, and Sarah lets out a sigh of relief before climbing to her feet. She makes her way to the door and opens it to find Steve staring widely at her, hands cluttered with wires and controllers and a six-pack of root beer.

She is about to ask what’s wrong when she sees the larger body standing close behind him, and she has to look up to see her neighbor’s face staring between her and Steve with a stern look. His tight -- seriously, why is it so tight? -- undershirt is soaked with sweat, and his skin glistens with sweat that looks much better than it smells.

He has an hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Sorry to bother you, but this man said he knows you. I saw him trying to get in the building on my way in from a run. He told me that your buzzer has been broken, so I figured I would walk him up her to make sure he wasn’t lying.”

Steve’s weirdly starstruck face still hasn’t moved, and Sarah's smile grows wider until it tips into laughter. She hiccups, hands pressed to her sunken stomach, and ignores the ribs she can feel pressing against her fingers.

“He’s fine. And our buzzer has been broken for ages! I just forgot to check my phone to let him in, but thank you for keeping an eye out. Seems like our neighborhood watch is as vigilant as ever,” Sarah trickles out between laughs. Her neighbor is smiling uncertainly, but he takes his solid grip off Steve’s shoulder.

“Anytime,” he calls before turning around, and with a few steps and a click of his lock, he slips into his apartment across the hall.

Steve has not moved an inch, and Sarah feels her eyebrows track up her forehead. She grabs onto his soft cotton shirt and tugs him into her living room, shutting the door behind her with a well-placed nudge of her foot.

Sarah stares at Steve. Steve stares at Sarah. It’s like she’s looking into a mirror.

And then he is talking faster than she’s ever heard him.

“...tell me you live across the hall from Captain America? Oh my god, Sarah, why are you holding out on me? Are you serious? Have I done something to piss you off since I moved to Manhattan? Is that it?”

Sarah blinks, and then as if a light has been switched on in her attic of her mind, everything starts to make sense.

The quiet footsteps and odd hours. All of the sudden building evacuations that left her shivering in the cold and curious as to where exactly her hard-to-miss neighbor was hiding in the crowd of tenants. Her neighbor’s abnormally toned physique. And then there was the red-headed woman who had once almost pounced on Sarah as they both entered the hallway late one night a few weeks back.

She gulps, thinking back to that run-in and of the woman’s toned legs before shivering. Those legs probably could kill a man -- literally.

Steve is just looking at Sarah, waiting for her to say something to explain her inexcusable actions. Captain America has always been a point of obsession for Steve since she knew him, whether it was in comic books or action figures or cardboard shields he had made with watercolor markers. The fact that his shoulder has now been touched by the Captain himself is probably enough to make Steve cry, and in the back of her mind, Sarah waits to see if any real tears will come.

They never do. She hadn't really expected them to.

Sarah lets out a choked breath. “You going to set-up our stuff up or not?”

Steve laughs, and with a goal in mind, heads further into the living room to hook up his console to the TV and wall before turning it on. The TV lights up with animated go-karts and tinny stereo sound, but Sarah is too busy reveling in knowing that she was almost right about her neighbor’s weird superhero fetish.

Even she has to admit that meeting the Captain -- well, Steve Rogers actually -- is a bit dizzying to the senses.

She gets why her friend is so enamored with the living legend that is Captain America, and it’s not because they share the same name. No, it is because there is something about watching a sickly guy with a golden heart being given a body that matches every inch of his inside that inspires other kids like Steve and Sarah. Even if it does make jealousy weed inside her veins.

She spends too much of her time thinking these thoughts as she races against Steve, and with a loud whoop, Sarah comes back to reality to find that Steve is in first while she’s idling in seventh. Her mind had been buzzing with so much information that it had thrown her off her game, and she grips her controller tightly when Steve laps her on the second round.

He is nothing but gloating. “On your right.”

She punches his arm, ignoring the drawn out whine that slips past his teeth at her bony swing, and starts making up for lost time.

_______

July is bearing down on her like the sun resting in the sky, and Sarah thinks the same thing about both truths.

Ugh.

The sun is on a near roasting high everyday, and after having spent a day or two away from her spot on the roof, Sarah finds herself caving on the third and climbs up to the roof with tired steps.

Her clothes cling uncomfortably to her skin with sweat, and Sarah pulls her shoulder-length hair into a tied bun on the top of her head. Her hair is too stringy for it to really work well, but she knows it is better than nothing once she can feel a soft breeze caress the tender skin of her neck.

It’s a nice treat to feel such a breeze under the stifling air, but Sarah knows she will have to head back to her place soon. Already, her lungs are straining under the dry air and the soft wheezes that wiggle within her chest makes her shoulders tremble.

She is climbing to her knees when the access door swings open behind her, but Sarah doesn’t even turn around.

There is only one other person who bothers to spend their time up here besides her.

The mystery of this guy now irks at her more than she cares to admit. He comes out of nowhere and pops up at times that leaves Sarah’s heart sputtering in protest. Really, no guy should be that light on their feet.

Maybe he’s a bodyguard for Captain America. His sleek muscles might be hidden beneath worn sleeves, but they announce themselves whenever he shifts his body or angles himself away from her gaze.

Sarah fights a smile.

She kind of likes to think he is Steve's chef. It makes him seem more approachable.

Sarah is still struggling to her feet when his gruff voice calls out to her, and she almost falls flat on her face in surprise. His voice sounds hoarse, and her stomach rolls. More than once over the past few months, Sarah has been jolted from her sleep at the sound of screaming from across the hall. It never lasts long, but it is enough to send her pulse raising and for her to up the air flow of her oxygen to combat her erratic breathing.

Either this guy hasn’t talked much lately, and his voice is just as surprised to be used as Sarah is to hear it. Or his throat is raw from the jerky screams she has heard less and less of in the past couple weeks.

She really, really hopes it’s the first option.

“What do you do up here?”

Sarah extends her legs and firmly plants her feet on the ground. She bends to dust some embedded rocks from her scraped knees, thinking about her answer as she goes.

The real reason is that she’s a stubborn brat with a ginormous chip settled on her shoulder. She can’t make it up the stairs everyday. Sometimes, she’s too sick in bed or bone-tired to even think about plodding up the steep staircase that leads to the roof. It all started years ago -- after the hospital and chemotherapy -- when she discovered the steps in the first place.

With lips bit raw from exertion, Sarah made it halfway up the stairs before having to sit and slide back down. She never made it that afternoon.

But she had made it all the way up the the next day.

Everyday she struggles for breath up those stairs, mumbling words to keep one foot in front of the next, Sarah is reminded that she is doing better. That hospital chaplains aren’t reading her stories about heaven with pitied eyes or that her hair doesn’t fall out by the handful anymore when she showers.

She is still sick, and Sarah knows she always will be. But she’s better than she was before. That is something at least.

Sarah doesn’t explain this to him though. As she takes a step forward, afraid that he will turn tail like a skittish cat, she shrugs. “I just like to see the view,” she answers, and he doesn't respond. The sky is melting into colors of dusk almost as if orange sherbert ice cream was melting down the cool blue sky. Sarah’s mom will be home soon, and as a chill shivers through her spine, Sarah takes a few steps towards the door.

The other guy walks ahead as well and passes Sarah with his shoulders hunched. She is at the door when she stops, and her tank squeals softly when she jerks it to a stop.

Sarah clears her throat. “What’s your name?”

He replies exactly twenty-eight seconds later. "James.”

_______

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Sarah sits up from the couch, ignoring how the room spins at the movement, and aims a kick at her stupid tank that won’t stop beeping at her because it’s stupid and life is stupid and she just wants to sleep. If she could manage it at the moment, she would march right on up to the roof and roll the thing off the side, but she can’t even get enough air right now to even stand let alone climb those steps.

Beep.

She lets her leg fly and regrets it immediately when her toes throb at the brutal treatment. And the tank? It just rolls backwards as if nothing was wrong.

Sarah sits up and reaches for it. Checking the monitor, she sees that the oxygen canister inside is empty now, and she brings her fingers to pinch at her nose. It seems like it is just going to be one of those kind of days.

Steadying herself, Sarah drags her tank behind her as she opens the living room closet to grab a new canister. They usually have a tiny arsenal of oxygen readied in the closet, but there is just the one waiting for her for now. She takes a deep breath that doesn’t quite fill her lungs. Sarah’s fingers fumble to unlock the nozzle, and her neck feels hot with frustration when she realizes that the thing is stuck.

The nozzle is stuck. Sarah is still in her flannel pajamas with frizzy hair and a zit like Mt. Rushmore reaching critical mass on her chin. And there is only one guy she can think of who could get this thing open.

Smoothing her hair down against her head, hoping she doesn’t look as terrible as she thinks she does, Sarah drags her feet across the hall and knocks on her neighbor’s door. She hears footsteps coming closer, and then the door is swinging open. Sarah comes eye-to-chest with a large body and looks up to see Steve staring at her wide eyes.

Nope, she definitely must look as terrible as she thought.

Shifting on her heel, Sarah twirls the clear hose of her cannula between her fingers at her side. “Is James here?”

Steve jerks at the name, and Sarah wonders if James is even really that guy’s real name or if he pulled a James Bond’s name swap on her. But then Steve answers her question.

“Sorry, but he’s out right now with someone. Uh, maybe I could help instead?” Steve looks nervous, and Sarah can’t quite figure out why.

She doesn’t really get to think about it long because her chest starts to burn, and the tank next to her gives a loud squeal that makes her ears want to bleed. Steve’s gaze flickers towards the noise by her leg, but she distracts him from her tank when she shoves the stuck canister at him. His arms are bigger than her whole head, so yeah, Sarah thinks that Steve can probably do this just about as well as James could.

“Can’t get it open. Need it to open to make this thing shut up,” Sarah manages between pants, and Steve’s face melts from curious to concerned. His eyes travel across her body, and Sarah is too tired to feel embarrassed at the attention that Captain American is giving her. He puts a hand on her shoulder before it trails behind to the expanse of her back. Steve guides her forward slowly until he’s pushing her into a chair in his living room, and her breathing becomes a little easier.

The conversation that Sarah once had with her mom about stranger danger floats through her thoughts, but she waves it away. I mean, it’s Captain America.

Steve unlocks the canister after a quick tug, and she hears the hiss the tab gives when the oxygen is primed for use. She waves towards her tank on the ground, still beeping like it thinks it is R2-D2, and tries to take a breath to give him directions. But then is crouching down to the ground and tinkering the tank.

She worries with her cannula as he replaces the canisters with only a few moments of hesitation, and Sarah isn’t sure if Steve is just really that smart or if he had noticed the directions printed on the side of the tank.

The thing quits beeping after she reaches down to restart it, and when the fresh flow of oxygen trickles into her lungs, Sarah feels the fire in her chest ebb away. She closes her eyes, enjoying the quiet, but she can still feel Steve’s stare focused on her frail chest as it rises and falls.

She’s almost got enough energy now to feel indignant about it.

“You’re Sarah, right?” Started at his deep voice, Sarah nods and racks her brain for where he might have gotten her name. But then she remembers, duh, he is Captain freaking America. He probably has a file on everybody in the building down to their social security number and their favorite kind of candy. “Are you feeling alright?”

Sarah opens her eyes and meets his blue stare, and for a second, it is like she is looking at her own Steve.

“I’m fine. My lungs just suck. It’s a thing,” she answers after a moment with her voice growing stronger with each word. Steve stares at her with obvious concern, and it takes her a moment to think of why.

Before he’d been made into a superhero, Steve had known a thing or two about crappy lungs according to what history recorded. Except Steve had never had a fancy cannula or portable oxygen tank to appease his asthmatic lungs, and Sarah wants to smile but doesn’t.

At least he understands.

Steve is still crouched low when Sarah leans forward. “Thanks for your help, but I think I’m okay now. Taking a nap might be for the best right now,” she tells him, and then he is on his feet to help her stand.

“You sure?”

Sarah trails ahead of him with steady steps. “Positive.”

She is at the door when Sarah realizes that Steve is no longer padding behind her, but then he is turning a corner with a paper in hand. He hands it to her, and by the weight alone, Sarah realizes that he’s handed her a folded piece of nice sketching paper.

“There’s my number, alright? Call me if you need anything.”

Sarah tucks the paper into the loose pockets of her sleep pants and thinks she just might.

_______

Sarah finds that it becomes a routine. A routine that she never knew she’d looked forward to until it was so firmly rooted in her day-to-day life that living without it seemed strange.

She would run into James on the rooftop every other afternoon, sitting quietly as they watched busy streets and errant birds fly above their heads. Sarah would talk sometimes, chattering on about her life like James was suddenly a therapist and held the answer to life itself.

He clearly didn’t. Looking at his stubbled cheeks and hard eyes, if anything, James needed to be the one unloading on her. But he just listens -- or, at least, Sarah thinks he does -- and keeps his eye on the city skyline as the sky twists around it.

Steve starts checking on her once a day, which should annoy Sarah as she most definitely doesn’t need a super-babysitter, but she lets it go. He brings her food whenever he visits, and though she’s never really hungry, Sarah likes to nibble on the Turkish candies and bakery breads he leaves with her.

It’s July 4th, and when there is a knock at her door, Sarah answers it with a gift hidden behind her back because she has gone so far as to look up and remember Steve’s birthday.

Except it is not Steve at the door but rather James.

His lip twitches when she groans. “What? Expecting someone else?”

Sarah has the decency to feel a little sheepish. “No! I just had this,” she tells him as she brings the present out in front of her, “to give Steve for his birthday.”

James stills, and Sarah wonders if he forgot his friend’s birthday, but then a smile flits across his lips. Secretly, Sarah thinks it makes him looks younger than his eyes would have her believe.

“Sorry, kid. He’s out for the week, but I will let him know it's from you,” he tells her as he takes the present from her hands. She shrinks into her shoulders and picks at the split ends of her thin blonde hair. James stares at her for a moment, and suddenly, the look in his eyes softens along with his smile.

Sarah tilts her head. “You okay?”

“Sorry,” James says after a moment. “You just reminded me of someone. Her name was Sarah too. She had hair like yours and was kind of small thing herself,” he continues, and Sarah pulls her hand away from her hair.

Nostalgic he may be, but no one got away with calling Sarah small and didn’t pay for it.

She turns her face to hide her flushed cheeks.

“Jerk.”

James loses it, and it takes Sarah a moment to realize that the strained choking echoing against James’s chest is laughter. His mouth is stretched wide, and he doesn’t even say goodbye as he backs into the hallway. She can even still hear his convulsive laughter through the walls after he’s back into his shared apartment.

Sarah is left standing in her doorway empty handed and more than a little amused.

Apparently, there’s something to calling him that name.

_______

It’s the middle of July, and Sarah hasn’t seen either James of Steve in over two weeks.

She’s even checked their front door and found dust gathering on their doorknob. Sarah believes that speaks for both her boredom and concern.

Sarah tries to reason herself through it as she sits on the roof one afternoon, sunglasses perched against her nose and tank positioned just so for it to cast a shadow over her face. She really shouldn’t be too worried. If Steve had died or something, it would be on the TV or something.

And James? Well, she tries not to think too much about those possibilities.

Her tank rattles next to her like it is protesting the very heat bearing down on it, but Sarah ignores it. Her mom is working rounds tonight to make some extra money for the month, so she doesn’t feel bad staying up on the roof until the day has turned to night. The stars are dimmed by the city lights illuminated around her, but they are still visible against the velvet sky.

It’s dumb, but she hopes to see a shooting star. Sarah thinks she is due for a few wishes.

In her eyes, she’s due a lot of them. Like a lot, a lot. More wishes that she could even think to of to make up for all the things she has overcome. Sarah tries not to be bitter about her lot in life, but if she had the choice, she selfishly thinks that she might wish to not have wasted all those weeks in a hospital bed.

Even if it means not having things from the life she lives now.

Sarah’s eyes water at the thought because, no, she couldn’t make that wish. It might have been easier for her. It might have made life simpler for her mom. It might have meant she got to wear a turquoise dress to prom and had her first kiss under a set of dingy bleachers rather than an oncology ward.

Not having cancer might have done a lot of things, but it also gave her people like Steve who she holds close to her heart.

She thinks about other wishes as she watches stars fade in and out behind their orbit. She might wish for money to help make rent less of a hassle. Maybe she would wish for a suddenly perfect set of lungs that don’t need saturated oxygen to work right. With a snort, she thinks she might even wish for a boyfriend with hair like James and shoulders like Steve.

But what she really would wish for is more nights like this one to sit under the stars.

Sarah had never put much thought about growing up. Call her fatalistic, but Sarah was amazed that she had made it to eleven let alone seventeen.

She thinks maybe it’s about time that she starts planning for the future. Lying on her back with the night sky above, Sarah takes out her cannula for a second to breath in the dusty air of Brooklyn and feels it settle into her bones.

Despite everything, Sarah knows as she sticks the plastic tubing back into her nose, it is still a good life.

She might as well enjoy it.

_______

Sarah is having lunch in her room when a resounding bang crashes from across the hall. She sets her food down and is already heading towards the front door before she even realizes she’s moving.

That noise had come from Steve’s place.

Peeking her head outside into the hallway, Sarah frowns when she sees that his front door is cracked open and that whispered voices are coming from inside. She comes closer to the door with a tight grip on her tank, wondering if she could use the thing for self-defense if it came to it, and lightly presses on the door with her free hand.

“Hello?”

No one answers.

Sarah’s hair stands on end, but she moves into the hallway a foot or so. Everything in her body is screaming at her how stupid this is because she is acting just like the girl who gets killed off first in a slasher flick, and wow, she might die from her stupid, stupid curiosity. She is about to back out of the apartment and call the police like any sane person would have done in the first place.

She takes a step backwards, and a floorboard underneath her feet creaks.

Sarah bites her lip and prays that no one noticed the noise, but then there is a shadow falling across her feet, and she looks up to find a man dressed in fully body armor staring at her through a pair of goggles. She takes a quick step back and gets tangled in her cannula cord which makes her fall back hard on her butt. Sarah doesn’t even care that her cannula was ripped away from her as she scuttles backwards, desperate to put some distance between herself and the imposing figure at the end of the hall.

There are footsteps thudding through the apartment now, and then Steve and James are there alongside the red-headed woman who nearly took Sarah out weeks ago. The man who nearly scared her to death has his hands raised in the air with his goggles now around his neck.

“I swear, I didn’t do anything. She was just there and then she was falling,” he says quickly, looking between Steve and Sarah with wide eyes. Steve just cuffs the other man on the back of the head -- and Sam, Sarah hears him called as such -- just swears under his breath.

James comes closer to her, and she scoots back. He stops. Sarah wonders just how scared she looks, and if it is even close to how scared she feels, then she guesses she looks pretty damn terrified at this point. Because James is also wearing full body armor with kevlar padding and a vest that have bloodied buckles and clasps adorning his chest. There are knives poking out from the holster strapped to his thigh, and at his waist, Sarah can see at least three different guns and ammunition rounds tucked into his belt.

“...blood, you know? Like actual blood on your shoes right now. Just thought I would mention that because, yeah, blood,” Sarah sputters, and James moves slowly towards her. It’s funny, she thinks distantly, because he is approaching her now like she used to approach him about a month ago. When he gets closer, she realizes that he’s holding her cannula out towards her, and she takes it from his hand with shaking fingers.

She takes a few deep breathes, feeling her chest and head clear with the oxygen, and takes a look around her. Steve is still standing by Sam, talking in low voices which indicates that what they are saying is not for her to hear. The red-headed woman is standing off to the side, watching Sarah closely, and it takes a moment for Sarah to figure out who she is staring at.

Really, Sarah thinks, how is she this dumb? If Steve is Captain America, then it would make sense for him to work with a team. And seeing as she had watched the Manhattan fiasco unfold on her TV a couple years back, Sarah recognizes the sleek, fitted outfit that the red-headed woman is wearing.

The Black Widow is standing in the same room as her, and wow, Sarah thinks she might just pass out right about now.

Sam isn't as recognizable, but she remembers seeing that face on her TV several months ago when the news stations were reporting that Captain America had become an enemy of the state. Some agents had caught up to them on a motorway in D.C. and taken them into custody -- or tried to at least as it was later revealed once Hydra was all over the news -- but Sam had been on the TV then.

Seriously, Sarah thinks that she couldn’t be more surprised, but it is like her brain is running on all cylinders. Because, as she stares at James, she is putting together that James is James Barnes, Steve’s childhood best friend and fellow Commando who supposedly died decades ago.

Dead. As in no longer living. No longer breathing. No longer anything but a jumble of bones frozen at the bottom of an icy ravine.

He’s not aged a day from the photos she has seen. The only thing different now is the metal arm he has, scratched and plated, but all together menacing because it could probably snap her in half.

Sarah’s pupil are blown in shock, and Sam must see that from across the hall.

“Hey, guys, she going to be alright? I didn’t mean to scare her that bad.”

She sends him a pointed look. “I’ll be fine. Don’t flatter yourself, alright? Also, while I’m thinking about it, maybe just shut up all together for right now.”

Natasha snorts, and it is the first time she’s made a noise throughout this whole thing. Steve looks surprised, but James just smiles.

“Need to watch that mouth of yours,” he tells her, and she just shrugs. He helps her to her shaky knees, and Sarah has to take a deep breath was she’s upright again.

She doesn’t even have to look at everyone’s stare to know that they are about to have a long talk. Funny, Sarah finds that she doesn’t really mind.

_______

On the day that Sarah is supposed to visit Steve at his apartment near NYU, she instead finds herself hooked to an IV at the hospital with a frown etched into her face.

You’ve been pushing yourself too hard. You need to remember your limits, Sarah. What were you thinking?

It’s all things she has heard before.

When she gets back home, she is so angry that she has to wear a mask rather than just her cannula because her breath is shaking with unshed tears that are liable to spring up at any moment. Her mom took off while Sarah had been admitted, but now that she's home, her mom heads back to work the next morning with stern directions and a warning that someone will be by to watch her soon.

The door knocks an hour later.

“Go away.”

The door knocks again with a little more force.

Pulling herself out of bed, Sarah walks to the door and swings it open to find Steve and James standing next to one another. It is almost enough to make Sarah smile despite herself.

“You just going to stare at us, kid?” Sarah looks at James with narrowed eyes before moving to the side. Steve walks through first, but when James comes in, she checks his hip with her own to throw him off-balance.

He doesn’t even move.

Sarah sighs. “Don’t call me kid,” she mutters and heads back to bed.

This is the first time she has seen either of them since she was released, and while she thinks they could cheer her up, Sarah really just wants to be alone right now. And, no, it has nothing to do with the fact that they hadn’t visited her while she was in the hospital. She’s not that petty.

She spends the day in her room on her computer, only getting up to leave the room when she needs the bathroom. Steve comes by once and asks if she’s hungry, and she tells him that she isn't. Judging by the savory smells wafting through the apartment, Sarah assumes that he is making them all food anyways.

It takes longer than she expected, but eventually her door is pushed open carefully by James before he steps inside. He looks around her room slowly, taking in the band posters and art projects that she’s put together.

Sarah tracks his gaze as he lands on a portrait she painted of her mom. “You like it?”

James nods. “Yeah, it’s...great. I had no idea you were talented.”

“Sorry to burst your worldview.”

He laughs. “No, it’s a good thing. You know, Steve used to draw like this too. He was an artist,” James trails, and there is something in his voice that makes Sarah know that James misses that about his friend.

She sits up in her bed and places her computer on the floor. “I’m sure he still is somewhere. He just needs to find that part of him again.” James stills in front of another one of her pictures and smiles at her words.

It is quiet between the two of them for awhile, and it almost feels like they could be up on the roof. It’s a familiar environment, and before she knows it, Sarah finds herself talking to James about something the two of them have in common.

“...best friend. Steve's an idiot, really, but I think I love that best about him. He always can make me feel better when I am feeling kind of low. I promised to knock off a few bullies if he could make me laugh in return. We’ve never gone back on that, not once,” she tells him after awhile, and for once, Sarah knows that James is really listening to her.

She isn’t even quite sure why she is telling him about this. Really, she isn’t sure why she tells him anything. There is something about him that makes it easy for her to do, and she doesn’t question it. It’s been a long time -- since she met Steve all those years ago -- that she’s found someone who makes her feel this way.

Maybe she tells him because James can understand what it’s like to watch over somebody named Steve who deserves far more than the world has given him. Sarah and James both get what it feels like to have a best friend who’s broken and seven shades of screwed up, and they still look up to them like they hung the moon and stars.

“We watch after our own, right? It’s an important job we have.”

Sarah nods at his question, and she can see how the hard look in James’ eyes relays just how true that is for him and Steve Rogers. “That we do.”

James nods, and within a few minutes, he is gone with a promise to return with food she is going to eat whether she wants to or not. Leaning back against her headboard, Sarah tilts her head and stretches her neck from side to side.

So her lungs don’t like being lungs. Her brittle bones fall from underneath her every now and again, and she doesn’t really think her body will ever recover from all the chemotherapy it underwent when she was a little girl.

It doesn’t mean she can't do her job and take it seriously. She always has.

Sarah is glad that James does too.

_______

As August roles around, Sarah buries herself in studying. Her GED test looms over her like her own proverbial Death Star, and while she hopes for the best, she really doesn’t know how this whole thing is going to blow over.

She studies hard. She gorges on protein bars and green tea. She wakes up early. She goes to bed late.

It seems that the shadows under her eyes grow as her memory swells.

So it’s a relief then, once she's taken the test, to find a letter waiting for her that lets her know she passed.

The first person she tells is Steve who hoots and hollers over the phone like she just won the lottery -- and honestly -- she thinks she kind of feels that way. She tells her mom later that night over dinner, and Sarah indulges to the point of making herself sick when her mom decides to make chocolate cheesecake for her daughter’s big news.

And after her mom is in bed and the clock flashes midnight, she creeps out of her apartment and goes across the hall. Bending over, she slides the letter underneath Steve’s door before she can regret it.

It’s returned the next day on her windowsill with a crudely drawn smiley face littered across the paper. Sarah just laughs.

_______

It’s a sudden thing when Steve and James decide to move.

She is on the rooftop, legs crossed with tank propped up behind her, when she looks up to see Steve in front of her. Sarah jerks; She hadn’t even heard the door open or his feet crunch against the gravel.

Damn super soldiers with their light feet. They're going to give her a heart attack one day.

He doesn’t say much about why they are moving, and Sarah understands even if every word drops straight into the pit in her gut that threatens to swallow her whole. She really shouldn’t be the upset or surprised, but hearing the words aloud make everything seem too real.

Sarah has never had many friends beside her mom and Steve, but she hasn’t minded the expansion of that list as of late.

“We’ll keep in touch. It’s been a pleasure getting to know you, Sarah,” Steve says, and for a second, Sarah wonders if he is even just a little sad at this goodbye.

But she can’t blame either of them. Of everyone she knows, Steve and Bucky are the ones who deserve a little happiness in their lives. Whatever relief that comes their way should be grabbed at by greedy hands. Sarah doesn’t know the whole story of what’s happened between them, but she knows enough to see how those two look at each other like one of them might disappear at the slightest touch.

They are mirages in the urban heat of Brooklyn to one another. Maybe in Manhattan -- because Sarah isn’t stupid and knows this timing coincides perfectly with the Avengers Tower having been completed last week -- will prove more grounding to these two boys.

Sarah thinks it will be.

Steve leaves shortly after, and Sarah stays on the rooftop longer than usual. She thinks she falls asleep sometime soon after the sun sets, but when she wakes up, she is on her bed and tucked in beneath her covers. Her mom hadn’t been at home last night, so she sits up gingerly and wonders what the heck happened.

It’s then that she notices the leather jacket draped across her shoulders and swallowing her tiny frame.

Sarah roll her eyes because she knows this jacket. It’s James’ jacket that she’s seen him wear when he smokes down on the street, and she fists the extra material into her hands. She gets up from bed, still wearing the jacket, and goes to return it to James and maybe say a quick goodbye before he can leave.

When she opens her front door, she realizes it is already too late for that.

The door across the hallway is swung wide open to expose the bare innards of wooden floors and plastered walls. There is nothing left that would signal anybody having ever lived there, and Sarah feels like the floor slips underneath her feet.

With pressed lips, she turns back into her apartment and shuts the door.

She hangs his jacket in her closet and pushes it to the back. It will just remind her of things she’d rather not think about.

_______

Three Months Later

_______

Manhattan is a monster.

It swallows Sarah whole from the moment she steps off the subway and looks into the heart of the city. With every stranger that passes her by on the congested streets, Sarah knows that this is the place were she wants to go to college in.

After her last failed attempt, Sarah is finally able to meet-up with Steve, and as she spends the week exploring NYU -- even sitting on a few of Steve's classes -- and discovering shops and cafes. Sarah finds that she loves the city more with each passing day.

Even if the polluted air prickles her lungs. It is something she can get used to.

Sarah is considering just staying with Steve for the rest of the semester, crashing on his couch and telling her mom that she got a job as a store clerk or something. But she knows that won't fly. She’s only got a couple days left until she’s meant to return home, so Steve takes her to Central Park after he’s finished with classes at noon.

They take in the shady groves and sit on benches to watch the world spin around them. Steve tells her about his new girlfriend, and Sarah asks if the school’s art department is worth trying out for. It is a rhythm they have between them no matter how long they spend apart from one another, and it grounds Sarah.

It’s nice to be back in a familiar routine.

They are just at the edge of the park when Steve gets a text from his girlfriend, and he asks Sarah if she’s alright waiting for him to get her. The three of them were going to go see a movie later, so Sarah just nods and takes a seat on the bench while Steve rushes off.

She breathes in and out. In and out.

Then thirty minutes go by. And, as an hour officially ticks past, Sarah is just about steaming when her phone pings.

Steve: Sorry, but the line just went down! I’m with Katie. This will take awhile. Can you get back to my place on your own?

Sarah lets out a breath and tells him that she’s perfectly capable of making her own way back. He sends her another text apologizing profusely -- and, oddly enough, in more than one language -- so Sarah just gets off her bench and follows the park until it turns into the sidewalks of Manhattan.

She is breathing evenly, too stubborn to stop for a break, when she spots the Avengers Tower coming closer in the distance as she walks and crosses streets and does her best not to knock anyone with her tank. The glittering metal and polished glass of the extravagant building makes her eyes burn, so she keeps walking and thinks about Steve and James and of the little world they had carved out for themselves back in Brooklyn.

It is a nice secret, Sarah thinks, and it is one she will keep with her for the rest of her life.

Once the familiar burn of her lungs makes Sarah’s face twist into a scowl, she ducks into a coffee shop across the street from the tower and mulls over the menu. She really just wants to take a seat and catch her breath, but Sarah has found that caffeine in small doses does wonders for her energy and mood. Opting for a special, she heads to the counter and orders.

The barista writes that down. “That’ll be $3.75.”

Sarah blinks at the price before she is rifling through her bag for her wallet. She feels her stomach pinch when she can’t find it, but before she can panic about being pick-pocketed or whatnot, she remembers exactly where her wallet is.

It is in Steve’s back pocket. He took her wallet when she took his apartment key.

Sarah looks at the barista -- who is somewhere between annoyed and bored -- with an apologetic look and is about to tell her she’s sorry, but then a card is being slid towards the cashier. She jumps at the movement and looks over her shoulder and freezes.

James is standing behind her, and really, those sunglasses his is wearing just makes him the epitome of tall, dark, and mysterious. The barista seems to agree because she takes the card eagerly and even gives James a larger drink than he’d apparently ordered.

They are quiet because Sarah really doesn’t know what to say. James just leads her to a booth in the back.

James drinks

Sarah struggles for words.

She decides that maybe silence is best for now, so she works on her own drink slowly and enjoys the warmth that pools in the stomach with each sips as it travels down her body. James is nearly finished with his drink at this point, and Sarah snorts softly once she notices that the barista scrawled her number on the side of his cup.

Sarah is barely a third into her drink when James sets down his empty cup.

“We take care of our own, huh?”

Startled, Sarah sets her drink down and looks at James before nodding. It has been a long time since she thought of that night.

James looks at her. “Well, then, what do you want to do?”

Sarah furrows her brow and rubs the cannula tube between her fingers in an old habit.

“Wha-”

She stops. She thinks. She realizes.

James must see that she finally has just figured out what he meant -- that Sarah, the slip of a thing she was with her bad lungs and all, is now one of James' own -- and smiles.

Sarah wonders how awkward it would be if she cried right now in the middle of this cafe, but she manages to repress the urge. Instead, she leans forward with her elbows on the table. “Do you have something in mind?”

He laughs wholeheartedly with his teeth out and lips curled in a way that makes Sarah wonder if maybe this is what having an older brother might feel like. The thought doesn’t linger long as James gets to his feet and gestures towards the tower about a block away. He bends down to grab her tank and carry it, which really, Sarah just blinks at because how did he know her arm was getting tired of lugging that weight behind her?

Sarah stands as well, drink cold and forgotten on the table.

“Guess we’ll figure something out,” James tells her over his shoulder, and the two are then walking out of the cafe with matching steps. Looking out of the corner of her eye, Sarah watches the way James' gait bobs as he walks and tries to put words to what she’s feeling right now.

However, Sarah finds, some things just can’t be explained.