In Your Eyes // Steve Rogers

57

My seventh jump in the timeline was, by far, the smoothest. Steve's guess was proven correct. As long as some part of him was touching me, the force throwing me through time didn't dare to take the risk of swallowing him in a portal, too. In his arms, I was safe.

I could have stayed there for the rest of my life and been all right. But that wasn't my Steve. He didn't share any memories of me. That Steve didn't know my true voice, or my face, or my name. He knew me as a woman named Angel; a part I was longing to give up playing.

I escaped from Steve's grasp when he fell asleep. I hadn't made it more than two feet from his body when a portal appeared above my head and enclosed around my body. It was slowly, lacking roughness or an abrupt quality, unlike the other exits.

On the seventh jump, I landed light on my feet within the Smithsonian, specifically, the Captain America exhibit. I appeared next to a diagram on the wall. It was Steve, before and after the serum changed him. I reached to touch the wall, his face, yearning to feel his skin against my own again.

"Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable in both the schoolyard and the battlefield..."

I stepped out from the corridor. Head low, I kept an eye out for his familiar stature. I found him where I expected to: staring at the section of the museum dedicated to his fallen companion. I rounded it, then took his hand as I passed by, leading him from it.

I brought us into a storage closet. I left the door open a sliver, enough for us to see where the other stood, but it didn't bring enough light for him to see my face.

"I had a feeling I would see you today," he said softly.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"It's been two years since I've seen you..."

"And if I had control over it, I would have changed it, but--"

"No, no, that's it. I've had two years to think about when you've showed up. Why you showed up when you did," he said. "Every moment you showed up, I've been in doubt."

"Okay, let's think. I showed up in the alleyway when you were getting beaten up, when you got food thrown at you during the 107th show, after Bucky died, during the plane crash... How does that theory fit the gym?" I wondered.

"Before you popped in, Directory Fury invited me to join a team."

"The Avengers," I sighed. "It's a plausible guess, I suppose. So, what are you doubting here?"

"Angel, you told me the world needed Captain America."

I frowned. "No, I told you that when..."

"Before I crashed the plane," finished Steve. "Do you remember that?"

In the darkness of the storage closet, I was overjoyed he couldn't see the look of horror on my face. In Paris, the first time I heard about Steve's mystery woman from the '40s, he said the final time he saw her was before the plane crash. He hadn't seen her since then, at least, not in my timeline.

Because of my obliviousness to my words, I took away my chance of returning home early. On accident, I uttered too many things of the future to Steve. I was being punished for it. My home was farther than my reach, and it was entirely my fault. Any changes, good or bad, I was met with when I returned home, whenever that would be, were going to be of my doing.

"Yeah, I remember," I whispered.

"I don't know how much of that is true anymore..."

Despite the aching in my chest, the tears in my eyes, I ignored every part of my personal sadness, because, then, it didn't matter. My duty was in patching Steve together again. He was broken, undeniably more than I, and he needed his Angel to continue to fuel him. I couldn't strip him of that, simply because I was disappointed in my own actions.

"Once you take on the role of a hero, it's impossible to let go. You're always going to feel the need to do something, to take action. A hero's duty is never finished," I told him.

"That's the sad part," he chuckled.

"You're astounding, Steve, you truly are. You have an incredibly ability to bounce back so quickly from everything that knocks you down. It's a good trait to possess, but I have to ensure you understand it's okay to break, especially after finding..." I fell quiet.

"Angel?" wondered Steve.

"Nothing," I said, forcing a smile. "So, tell me about you. Where am I at?"

Steve hummed in thought. "Well, I enrolled in S.H.I.E.L.D, after the Avengers. I've met so many people... I have no clue where to start, if I'm going to find out who you really are. But, if anyone can help, it's Clara."

I chuckled. "Clara?"

"She's my leader, head of the S.T.R.I.K.E. team. She's... She's shy and awfully quiet, but she's incredibly kind and... I want to see her, outside of work. I would like that, a lot. I just can't," sighed Steve.

"And why's that?" I asked.

Steve's hand tapped against my thigh, then my waist, until he found my hand. He locked our fingers together, first, before he lowered his chin and kissed my lips softly. His forehead rested against my own, equally frustrated and pleased with his actions.

"Because I can't get over you," he whispered.