A/N: So I've done it. I finally put to page what has been flitting about my brain for months. This one is going to give us all the feels and perhaps finally give us a better ending for Steve, or at least an ending that won't leave Bucky out in the cold. I'm going to let this fix evolve as I go here as it stands I am not sure what is in store for Evie, but I'm ready to go along for the ride with all of you. Maybe she will end up with Steve, Maybe Bucky maybe both??? Who knows ( I should I guess  :P) But here she goes. Don't forget to vote and comment, let me know what you want to happen!

Chapter 1.

The portal swirled around me the sensation like nothing that I had ever experienced. It was as though the entirety of the universe was trying to press in upon me and all the while everything that was inside of me was trying to escape. I tumbled for what seemed like ages before I emerged violently tumbling to the ground. When I felt the soft earth beneath my knees and smelt the fresh spring air, I couldn't help but gulp it down greedily like a man starved. It felt glorious in my starving lungs. My world did not have such luxury, my world was far from this. My fingers pressed almost painfully into the grass and pine needles that littered the ground. The dirt embedded beneath my fingernails and I revelled in it because that too was something that I had not experienced in far longer than I can even recall. An ache formed at the back of my throat that I desperately tried to calm, because there was no time for this.

I looked back up desperately at the portal searching for him only to find that it had snapped shut behind me.

Where was he?

He was supposed to be right behind me.

I heard the shuffle of feet behind me and out of instinct I turned swiftly pulling my fists up, reaching for a weapon that was no longer there. A weapon lost before I stepped through the portal because this world was supposed to be safe, and no harm should come to me especially if he were beside me. Yet because he was not, I could not quite quell the fear that rose within me. The thought that I was alone, because if I was alone and I was not with him, them who had not yet stepped from the portal. I was very much unsafe in a world that was not my own.

My green eyes rose to find four sets of familiar eyes trained upon me. The sight of all of them only caused a painful sob to fall from my lips, eyes that I had last seen gazing upward in silent death. I panicked. I stood swiftly and turned to run but before I could even manage more than a few metres I was tackled to the ground. A pair of steel colour eyes boring into mine.

Eyes that belonged to a dead man.

And my best friend.

Tears welled in my eyes despite my best effort to swallow them down, "James?" I breathed in barely a whisper my heart pounding as I looked at the man that glared down at me with intense fury. Yet as much fury as his eyes reigned upon me a strange burning relief filled me to see him again, my James, my Bucky.

Alive.

No. Not mine I had to remind myself.

"Who are you?" He hissed his voice deadly now causing a torrent of  different memories to burn through me. Memories not forgotten, never forgotten but memories not of a pleasant time. The arm he had pressed into my throat felt cold, the metal familiar yet so foreign all the same. I had watched that very arm get torn from his body just before he too was torn to pieces by an army we should have been able to beat.

Yet they had defeated him.

Taken him from me along with so many others.

I couldn't answer him.

Where is he? The errant thought burned through me.

My eyes moved around falling finally to his. It was him.

But it wasn't.

A tremendous rush of adrenaline coursed through me.

Not mine. This one was not mine, I had to remind myself.

A strangled cry fell from my lips.

Steve Rogers, Captain America, standing on a platform that screamed of Stark Technology. His body turned towards me his head cocked in confusion, his brows pulled together and I could not look away. I never could, not with him, but then again neither could he. Yet this was so strange, so surreal it was hard not to compare the differences. His hair was short here, his beard gone, he looked so much like the boy from all those years ago. He was dressed in a strange suit but I could see there on his chest the logo of the Avengers, the logo that should have been in my world but never came to be.  Yet it was hard to see him look upon me as though I was a stranger, that everything we had been through together had never happened. Not here at least, not in this universe.

"Steve..." my voice quavered and I did not fight. I would have let James press me into the ground so as long as I could continue to look at him. At Steve. He did not have that all too familiar scar that I was so used to seeing, touching, caressing upon the side of his face. A scar caused so long ago by a blast that even the serum in his blood could not heal.

"Who. Are. You?" James pressed against my throat as his voice gritted between his teeth but I welcomed the pain. At least I knew I wasn't dreaming. This couldn't be a dream though, this seemed more like a nightmare. James' voice was dangerous and I'd never heard it turned in my direction. I knew he could hear the erratic beating of my heart with his close proximity even still I could not look away from him. He grasped me by the face and turned my head to meet his angry steel gaze, "Answer me."

I felt the others approach.

I opened my mouth to tell him that I meant no harm when the portal opened again and with a strength that surprised them all I pushed him off of me and made for the portal. I didn't make it far before his metal arm clamped around my bicep. I could not move.

There was no noise except the strange whirring of the portal as we all saw what lay on the other side.

Captain America.

Mine.

Battle hardened and scarred, his uniform black like mine made to hide in the shadows, unloved and unwanted by the country that we served, by the planet we served. A fact made all the more obvious by the destruction that lay behind him, the ruins of New York, forever burning fires and deep craters battalions of Thanos' army clear in the distance, approaching. Coming for us. To wipe us from the universe forever.

His eyes found me and he took a step forward to come to me, to pull me from my captures grasp only to be stopped by an arm that I knew could only belong to Doctor Strange. The only other to survive the fall. My Steve's eyes darted between me and James, those blue eyes gone wide as he searched wildly around finally landing on his counterpart in this world.

He opened his mouth to speak. "She will not hurt you, she is no threat to you. You have to give me your word that you will let nothing happen to her." His voice was firm but I could feel the emotion laced within his words. His eyes darted towards me and I could feel his apology. A crashing rumble somewhere on the other side of the portal shook the ground even on this side of the gate and as he opened his mouth to speak. I interrupted.

"Don't you dare do this to me Rogers!" Emotion burned through me knowing what he would say before he even spoke the words, "I know what you are trying to do! Now is not that time for sacrifice!"

"It's the only way." His eyes softened as they turned towards me filled with a deep regret that started over seventy years ago.

I shook my head trying to pull away from the metal hand that gripped me tightly. "You can't leave me here, you can't leave me!"

"I'm sorry Sunshine." He offered me a sad smile. "You know that I wouldn't do this if there was any other way."

There was another rumbling explosion something on the other side of the portal closer this time and my cries broke free as I tried once again to pull away only to find that this time there was another set of arms moving around my waist to keep me in place.  I didn't need to look to know who it was.

It was him.

I looked to the man that held my heart in his fist, those familiar blue eyes that shone with tears on the other side of the portal reluctantly slid from my face to his counterpart on this side of the portal. "You give me your word that you will keep her safe. Make my sacrifice worth it do you hear me? She doesn't deserve this, she never did. She gave me everything, she will give you the same."

I shook my head.

"You have my word." The deep tone rang from behind me. His chest pressed into my back so I felt his words rumble right through me.

"Please, Steve," I felt my voice break and the wetness that streamed down my face dampened my suit, "please, don't leave me."

A guilty look was painted upon his handsome face and as his eyes turned back to meet mine, "I'm sorry Evie, this is the only way."

My reply was only a sob.

"I love you." He said I could hear the strain in his voice to keep it together, if only for my sake.

"I love you." I replied.

"'Till the end of the line." He said I could hear his voice break then and I looked up to see the tears falling down his face. I felt my captures body stiffen at the words.

I cried.

I cried and I had a hard time getting the words out but I forced them, "I'll be waiting for you at the station. Always."

Strange stepped into view his eyes met mine they were filled with his own regret and silent goodbye and he closed the portal. As it closed there was a powerful blast that ripped through the air, bright and blinding, a burst of fire that seared my vision before the portal finally stuttered closed. I tried to keep my cries, as silent as I could. I tried as best I could to keep the hope that he was still alive, that there was any hope we would find each other again, like we always had before.

I would find him, I swore to myself. I would bring him back here and we would finally be able to have the life we deserved after nearly a century of fighting.

My legs gave out and I was held aloft by the arms around me and I couldn't look back, I couldn't see those eyes, not yet.

Maybe not ever.

It was not him that spoke, it was the former Soldier, my best friend in another life. He spoke his voice soft, the anger from before had left him. "Are you alright?"

"You really think she is alright?" it was Sam that spoke, the Falcon. Another friend whom had been lost and I drank it all in. It was like poison thick and choking, being forced down my throat, bitter and sweet all at once. I should have been happy to see them all alive but my guts burned from despair. "Of course she's not alright."

A large form stepped in front of me kneeling down, "Maybe we should get her to see a doctor, she looks a little worse for wear." It was Bruce, dear god he was alive... The last I'd seen of him the impossible had happened. I then noticed his arm as I drank him in singed and broken, twisted as though ...

"You used the gauntlet?" My tears suddenly stopped even if the aching sadness did not, "How? How did you..."

His eyes widened his voice filled with incredulity, "Who are you?"

Silence was the only sound in those trees as all of us stared at one another, even the birds were silent. The arms around me loosened and I slid to my knees in the dirt and pine needles, the fresh air now choking me. I looked down at my hands and the thin gold band on my left hand.

"I- I'm Evelyn. Evelyn Rogers."