Can We Keep Her?

The Trouble with Time

The reflection staring back at you from the mirror was beginning to feel alien to you. There was more grey in your hair. The laugh lines at the corners of your eyes had started getting much deeper. Your body had never truly recovered from when you were pregnant with the triplets. Not to mention, it was feeling its age. Your knees popped when you got up after sitting for a while. Your back ached when you stood for too long. That's what time did to people. It wore them down, taking no prisoners. Aging was never something that had scared you before.

That was until you realized that Steve and Bucky weren't.

It was becoming increasingly evident as your body seemed to get slowly taken by time, that they hadn't changed at all since you met them. For a while, you had thought it was just one of those tricks your brain played. When you see something happening so gradually that it doesn't seem to be happening at all.

That wasn't the case at all. Steve's skin was still completely flawless. He still had wide shoulders and a tiny waist regardless of how much chocolate you filled him with. Bucky's hair was still thick and full and an even dark brown. There wasn't even a little salt and pepper happening in his beard.

You wondered how much longer you could be with them before it started getting weird, and how much more weird your relationship could take. You'd been dealing with the looks over it being Captain America and the Winter Soldier - over a pair of bisexual superheroes - over being polyamorous. Surely already people were looking at you and seeing some kind of cougar that collected extremely gorgeous super soldiers. At what age would people look at you and grimace because of how creepy the three of you looked? How old did you have to get before Bucky and Steve looked at you and instead of love and desire in their eyes, there was only pity? How long before you were just an old lady and they didn't want you anymore?

The bathroom door opened and Steve stepped in. He'd been on his run and had already stripped out of his sweats and dropped them in the hamper. So here he stood, his chiseled naked form glistening. An example of all your current insecurities.

"Can I share the shower with you, sweetheart?" he asked, wrapping an arm around your waist from behind and kissing your neck. His eyes still had nothing but love in them but when you looked down and saw that muscular forearm with the prominent veins running down the perfect unblemished skin against your soft stomach, with its stretch marks and dimpled flesh. It was all you could do not to burst into tears.

"Hey, honey. What's wrong? What's happened?" Steve asked, turning you to face him. He cupped your jaw with both his hands and looked down into your eyes. The concern in his voice was very real, it was reflected in his eyes and the way he held you. You looked up at him not even sure what to say. Maybe he hadn't noticed and if you somehow pointed it out he would realize what a mistake it was to stay with you.

"I just... You and... Have you noticed you and Bucky aren't aging?" you stuttered.

Steve frowned and let you go. "Yes," he said, turning away and hunching his shoulders forward like he was trying to make himself smaller. "We originally thought, or maybe hoped is a better word, that it was the ice. You know? I was frozen for so long and he kept going in and out of cryo. Maybe it just put us into suspended animation."

It felt like your heart had stopped. He knew. They knew and when faced with it, he'd turned away from you. They had already started seeing you as too old and had been trying to save your feelings.

"Steve. If you..."

He turned to look at you and the pain written on his features made you forget everything else. You wrapped him in your arms and he collapsed against you, the full weight of his body against yours. You couldn't hold him and the two of you just sagged to the ground. You sat together naked on the cold tiles, him holding his hands against you limply like he had lost any strength he had. "What are we going to do?" he asked, his voice cracking. "How can we keep going when we're gonna end up losing everyone? I already lost everyone once. Now, I thought I'd get to live my life with these people and I'm gonna have to watch as they all go one by one and it's just me and him like this?"