The Other Rogers

Chapter 15

Steve was struggling. While he laid awake for hours, his mind was content with torturing him. Memories of Anya running around the background, their father chasing her while Steve sat on the steps bombarded him. Anya in a black dress, crying clinging onto him while their mother sobbed into a handkerchief. He knew their mother loved them but after their father's death, life wasn't the same for the Rogers twins.

Memories left as quickly as they came, only going slow for the actual reliving of the moment. The next one was his sister in a yellow dress, blood caked on the side of her face after she had hit a boy for stealing their father's compass watch, Bucky standing off to the side, his mouth hanging open.

Steve couldn't help but chuckle as he remembered Bucky telling him, "never shut up about her. I think I may have loved her before actually meeting her."

Thinking everything over, he seriously wished he hadn't been so harsh on Bucky when they had lost Anya for the first time. He still wished he had at least decked Bucky, but he knew he had done enough. After all he wasn't the only one to have loved Anya.

The cold of the winter did nothing to numb the pain of the loss for the two soldiers. Standing waiting for the train carrying the scientist Armin Zola, Steve and Bucky stood as far from the edge as possible. It had taken a while, but the two men had talked things over, and all was forgiven. Bucky had shown Steve the ring he had hoped to give to Anya after the war was over.

Bucky had apparently gotten the ring the weekend before his unit left back onto the frontlines, knowing deep in his heart that he would regret everything if he didn't at least try. Steve had regretted everything he had said in his pain-induced rant; his best friend was at least going to try to show his sister the love she deserved.

Sure, Steve still believed Bucky had been a royal arse for what he had done to Anya at the Expo; and he wasn't alone on that thought. Peggy and the rest of the Howling Commandos thought the same and they all had let Bucky know. But the sight of his best friend losing it and crying hard enough that he blacked out was what had drilled it into Steve that he was being unfair. Bucky was suffering just as much as he was.

"Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?" Bucky twisted to stare down the cliff-face and how high up they were.

Steve replied, "Yeah, and I threw up while Anya fell on the bench laughing so hard."

Bucky nodded, "This isn't payback, is it?"

Steve shrugged innocently, "Now why would I do that?"

Gabe interrupted their bantering despite being happy for the two friends. "We were right. Dr. Zola's on the train. Hydra dispatcher gave him permission to open the throttle. Wherever he's going, they must need him bad."

Nodding Steve walked away slipping on his helmet. James Montgomery sighed lowering his binoculars. "Let's get going, because they're moving like the devil."

He just wanted to leave so he could attempt to win a date with the dame at the bar but knew better than to bring it up with either Rogers or Barnes. Rogers at least had his dame the Agent Carter, poor Barnes; his dame was his guardian angel up above.

Steve nodded, clapping his hands together before setting up his zipline, "We only got about a ten-second window. You miss that window; we're bugs on a windshield."

James Montgomery smirked, "Mind the gap."

Dum Dum Dugan laughed joining in, glad he wasn't jumping. "Better get moving, bugs!"

Jacques started to push Steve and Barnes closer to the edge. "Maintenant!"

Steve, Bucky, and Gabe ziplined onto the train, their shoes slightly slipping. Running along the roof of a moving train wasn't the easiest thing to do, but lucky running after a rarely sick sister had given Steve practice at staying on the roof at least. Gabe stayed behind as Steve descended the steps at the first carriage.