A/N Thanks to those of you have read, I love you. Thank you to @ for making sure I didn't make too many typos 😅. That being said I know there was a lot of folks pissed Steve was being a jerk, hey man me too but he will get there. This Chapter jumps POV's a bunch of times so be aware. Also on a side note I just wanted to say I don't want to rush things along here but be patient there will be some spice. Evie needs to get adjusted also she just lost her man.🥺

Steve POV

    She looked up at me and the hurt that shone in her green eyes was a lot to stomach. Yet the all incumbent fury that rose so swiftly in them completely engulfed that hurt. I was stunned by the swift switch. I suddenly felt very sorry for her enemies because if looks could indeed kill I would have surely been put out of my ever-living misery. Perhaps I was putting myself into the category of enemy. Drawing a firm line between us in the sand. But that line of thought made a more rational part of me shout out to stop.

I knew I should have been nicer. I knew that none of what happened today was her fault. But after everything that Bucky had said to me and how close I had finally been to getting what I felt that I truly deserved, I had felt the incessant need to lash out. This was now something else that had been taken from me without my say. I certainly knew how to pack a punch. I'd been proving it my entire life, but this was the first time I had done it with words. The sheer reaction from Evelyn to solely hearing Peggy's name amplified my need to hurt her ten-fold. When I saw the jealousy exude from her in a giant wave, I couldn't help but let the hurtful grin spread on my lips, eager to hurt her more.

Did she really think she held a claim on me already?

I opened my mouth to tell her that I would never be anything to her but part of me was almost glad when she rushed from the room, because I knew that I was better than that. I tried not to think about how disappointed my mother would have been in me just then. I also couldn't help the guilt that burned heavy in my chest, and the sheer magnitude of regret that suddenly bellowed through me.

    Damn it.

    "That was uncalled for," Bruce's disapproving voice filled my ears, echoing my own thoughts. I turned to look at him and his wide brow was drawn, "Maybe what happened changed your plans, but I was there too, so was Sam, and so was Bucky. It definitely wasn't planned. She is the one who lost the most today, Steve, her husband is dead, there is no way anyone could survive a blast like that."

    I grit my teeth, "Yes Bruce, I was there too I remember what happened."

    "Then you remember that you were the one who made the choice to keep her safe," He moved closer to me towering over me like not many others could, "You can't make that anyone else's fault but your own. That is something you did. It is not her fault you weren't planning on coming back."

    I looked away from him because I couldn't stand to see the betrayal that was displayed on his face anymore.

    There was a beat of silence.

    "Why didn't you say anything?" His voice was imploring singed with hurt of his own.

    I took a deep breath trying to ease the tight ball that had been in my chest all day, all week, for the last five years if I was honest. I rubbed it with my hand, but it didn't help, nothing seemed to. "After everything that had happened, I just wanted to have something that was just mine. I didn't want to tell anyone because I knew how disappointed all of you would be. I knew that you would just try to talk me out of it."

    I stepped closer to the window and folded my arms across my chest.

    I heard him sigh behind me his voice filled with a regret of his own, "For what it's worth Steve, I think you deserve to be happy too. But if that means you acting like you did just now..." he left his sentence open ended and I looked over my shoulder to see him shake his head and walk from the room.

    I was left with a heavy silence and a heavy heart. He was right, the way I acted wasn't me. But didn't I deserve a chance to be happy too? The way things played out today it didn't seem like the others agreed.

    My thoughts moved to Peggy, and I found myself wondering if I would ever get my chance to see her again.

Evelyn POV

    "I was his Thaw."

    My own words echoed in my head, hell, they echoed on the rooftop. I hadn't spoken of that time in so long. Why would I have? Everyone in my world had known the ins and outs of it. They knew it was too painful to talk about and neither James nor I liked to relive it.

    James was silent. I could tell that his mind had pieced it together. The Winter Soldier's Thaw. Someone to ease him in and out of the ice, to brief him on the missions and to fix him up when he came back. Someone there to force him to comply when his mission slipped his mind and his will returned. An insurance policy from his life before. Someone he loved.

    "Hydra took you too." It was not a question. His voice was quiet and came out slightly strangled and I wanted to turn and meet the gaze he had fixed on me, but I couldn't. I set my eyes back to the sky that was now beginning to turn orange as the sun started to set.

    "After the war," I swallowed the familiar ache, "After Steve was..." He put a hand on my shoulder and nodded telling me I didn't need to say it. I took a moment and took a deep breath, "After Steve was gone, after James was gone, I was alone. I didn't make very smart choices. I didn't go back home with the rest of the troops, I stayed overseas and got tangled up with the wrong sort of folks."

    I closed my eyes.

    I felt James squeeze my shoulder, "We don't have to talk about it Evelyn, today has been a rough enough day without re-living the past over and over again."

    I felt relief course though me and I looked back at him, I would revisit this with him at some point but today I couldn't. I don't think he wanted it either.

"Thank you." My voice wavered. My eyes met his and a wash of understanding flooded between us.

    "I ran away earlier because you have haunted me every day of my life since that day in '33."

    My shock was like a punch in the chest. I furrowed my brows.

    "That girl, she died." He looked away from me down to his metal hand and the pain of his words was less than what I thought it was going to be. To hear James say it sounded more like a confession rather than when Steve had said the same thing earlier. He had made it sound like an accusation, "I couldn't pull her away from the truck in time. I always told myself that it's what was meant to happen. That she was supposed to show us how noble it was to sacrifice your life for someone else. Even if you didn't know them." I opened my mouth to interject but he spoke first, "But now I can see it was just because I wasn't good enough, fast enough."

    "James, that's not true." A stab of pain shot through me at the anguish in his tone.

    The steel of his eyes flashed up to mine again, hope buried in their depths, "Don't."

    Don't give me hope. Was what he was saying to me with his eyes.

    "I'm not, I'm not just-" I felt my chin wobble and I bit my lip to stop it. I took a deep shuttering breath, "I can't say for certain that everything you have gone through is the same as what my James did, but I can tell you in just these brief moments I've spoken to you, that you are a good man. A good man who has had the shitty end of the stick more often than not. Don't let that voice inside of you tell you anything otherwise."

    A crooked grin rose one side of his mouth, "You make it sound better than my shrink does. She just tells me to cut my shit out and move on."

    "Sounds like you've got a pretty shitty shrink to me." I tried to mimic his grin, but I fell short not allowing myself to acknowledge even a sliver of happiness.

    "Hey," his metal hand moved from my shoulder the brush the hair back from my face. I reached up taking that hand into my own and he looked like he wanted to pull his hand away. Like he was embarrassed by it. I grasped his hand tightly not allowing him to move it away.

    "We have all had a shitty go of things, probably you the most out of us all. We might have just met but, I hope you don't mind me calling you my friend." I wanted to share in the hope he was silently pleading with me for.

    His eyes flashed from where my hand grasped his to my eyes.

    Silence.

Painful silence.

    "Please James," I really wasn't opposed to begging anymore, I knew without Steve, my Steve, that I needed to have at least one friend. I'd lived in near solitude, and I found I didn't want to do it now, not after I lost the last good thing I had.

    He made to pull his hand away but I tugged at it to stop him, but when he pulled again I let him go. I turned from him choosing instead to watch the colours in the sky, to easy my forever broken heart. I leaned my chin onto my bent knees and brought my arms around my shins. James' silence was only doing more to break my already broken heart, when to my surprise I felt him shift closer to me. His thigh pressed against my own and he moved his arm around the back of my shoulders, I lifted my head to look at him again.

    "I could use another friend. The list is getting pretty short these days." I saw the naked vulnerability in him as he looked at me and I promised myself that I would do everything to make sure that he would never again have to feel the loneliness that I knew would destroy him.

    I leaned my head against his shoulder, "Thanks James."

*~*~*

    Steve POV

    I sat at the table with a cold cup of coffee between my hands, regret burned through me at the way I treated Bucky, the way I had treater her. This wasn't me. I wasn't this guy. I'd prided myself on being the one that everyone could count on, hell it had nearly eaten me alive to keep Bucky's secret from Tony for as long as I did but I did it for my friend. For both of their sakes, even if in the end it ended up being the wrong choice. I owed a lot to Tony Stark, for everything that he did for all of us. I also owed a lot to Bucky too. Without him where would I have ended up?

    The automated lights came on in the kitchen waking me from my self-pity stupor, and I thought that it might be best to go apologize to Bucky. He didn't deserve my anger.

    Neither does she. The nagging voice at the back of my mind reminded me. A voice I chose to ignore.

    I moved from the table and to the stairwell my mind filtering through the things that had happened today for the thousandth time. This was a far cry from how I thought this day would end but perhaps in time I would be able to do what I wished to accomplish. I had to keep that kernel of hope, I had to didn't I?

    The heaviness of the shield I carried weighed down on me, I ached to be rid of it, to hang it up and live the life I had worked so hard to achieve. But there would always be a new threat and I would always be expected to step up.

How could I not?

I am Captain America.

My thoughts immediately went to Tony. He had the life he dreamed of and he just...

No, not just.

The magnitude of his sacrifice was so overwhelming, and I carried so much guilt for it now.

It should have been me.

I have serum in my blood I could have survived it, I know it.

    I reached the top of the stairs, and I took a deep breath before I stepped out onto the roof. In the time it took me to climb the steps the remaining daylight was gone, and I could see the lights of the city glowing all around. The air was cool too early in the season to keep the heat of the day for long. This city still took my breath away every time I looked upon it, the sheer size that it had grown in my long life.

    "Hey Steve," Bucky's tired voice spoke softly from behind me.

    When I turned I was surprised by what I saw. Bucky sat against the wall next to Evelyn, her head was on his shoulder, and she was sound asleep. I took a moment to look at her without those damned green eyes boring into my soul practically demanding me care for her. Even in sleep she looked exhausted, her skin looked so pale beneath the dark curtain of hair that was now dry and waving gently down to her waist. The hands that were resting atop her outstretched legs were scarred, silver lines criss crossed over her knuckles. She had a light smattering of freckles dusted over the bridge of her pixie-like nose. My eyes moved down to her mouth, those plush lips a deep pink reminding me of the roses that used to grow on the fire escape when I was a kid. I watched her pull that damned lip between her teeth no less than half a dozen times today, a habit that I was certain she didn't know she had.

    "She's been asleep for a while." Bucky's voice broke through my examination.

    My eyes moved over to him, his long hair pulled back out of his eyes, "What are we going to do Buck?"

    He looked down at her letting his head fall back against the wall behind him, "I don't want to fight."

    "Neither do I," I kept my tone soft as not to wake her.

    "Hey, look I get it," he said flashing a look of irritation in my direction. "You feel like you got denied the life you always wanted, but so did I Steve and so did she."

    His words were like a slap in the face.

    "Hydra fucked me up bad, they fucked her up too, and even though today didn't go the way you wanted it to" he paused swallowing hard looking back down to Evelyn, "They gave me a new friend, a friend who gets it."

    I didn't like what he was saying but I didn't have too, even if I had wanted this day to be about the things that I wanted it couldn't be. Not anymore.

    "I'm sorry Buck, I should have done better."

    He shook his head, "I don't need your apologies man."

    "I know you don't, but you deserve them." I ran my fingers through my hair then stuffed my hands into my pockets, "Listen, I called Doctor Raynor and told her that we ran into a bit of a problem around here this afternoon, that's why you missed your appointment, and she agreed to see you tonight for a late session. But you've got to get going before you miss it."

    "I can't just leave her here." He said a frown line between his brows.

    "It's ok Buck, I've got her."

He gave me a weary look and a muscle in my jaw ticked.

"She is sleeping, I will just take her to her room and be on my way." I spoke.

"Ok," he nodded turning to her and cradled her head so it didn't fall back then he knelt and picked her up in his arms the metal one slid beneath her knees, lifting her easily. He took a step towards me and passed her into my arms, immediately her head leaned against my shoulder, and I heard a contented sigh exit her mouth.

My gaze shot to Bucky, but he kept his expression guarded.

"See you later pal." He said before rushing into the building and down the stairs.

Evelyn POV

I was warm again, the cold that had seeped into my flesh had ebbed. But I was used to the cold, we usually slept outside in a place where we could easily get away if we were found. I burrowed into the warmth unwilling to let it go, but no matter what I did it seemed to pull father and farther away.

My eyes shot open, and I was laying on top of the strange bed in my new apartment, alone. Then all thoughts of warmth and happiness left me, and I huddled in on myself trying desperately to quell the gaping loneliness that was carved into my chest.

My eyes flashed to the doorway of my bedroom when I heard a noise and a very familiar form stood in the doorway and that ache only intensified.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he stepped into the room placing a glass of water on the nightstand. Steve did not meet my gaze, "Go back to sleep."

I didn't have the courage to open my mouth, but his words from earlier flashed into my mind and a pair of garish red lips and nail polish flashed in my mind's eye and I turned away from him facing the window opposite the door. Resentment replacing the loneliness.

He didn't leave right away. I felt his eyes on me. I evened my breaths hoping he would just go, there was too many feelings inside of me to have him here not all of which were fair to him either. I knew I would either beg him to stay or flay him alive and I couldn't tell you which I would have rather done.

He left before I fell back to sleep, but not before he watched me cry myself into oblivion