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Steve watches her on the dance floor one night, when Bucky takes him out for a drink. She's dancing with her friends, and the soft lights of the bar illuminate her skin in the darkness. She's wearing a dress that hugs her figure just right, and he's fairly sure the colour brings out her eyes. Why does he notice that?
She's the only one who wants to dance with him.
Normally, he'd sit alone, with a drink, waiting until Bucky had finished dancing and came back to him, laughing, telling him that this is amazing Stevie, you gotta try it!.
And now, before he knows it, she turns, and his eyes meet hers, and despite knowing better - knowing that there's no way she will see him - he tries to hold her gaze for a while. She has beautiful green eyes, he now notices, with flecks of brown in them. She's not that far away from him, he then notices and how can it be that he didn't notice? He swallows, and she smiles and extends her hand.
"Y/N." She says, and he tries to muster up the courage to smile and take her hand. He can only smile, though. She's really pretty, and her hair is a bit tousled, but he likes the look on her. She sounds slightly out of breath, but he likes that too. "Steve," he answers, and her smile widens. "Are you gonna take my hand?" She winks playfully, and instead, takes his hand and pulls him up. "Dance with me."
His mouth is dry, and he follows her up the dance floor and she ignores all the weird looks she's given - because who wants to dance with him?
They have a great time. She's happy, jumpy - and fuck, her laugh is so beautiful. Steve already wants to hear it near him forever. It's not possible, he knows.
Despite that, she stays with him all night. When she tells him she's tired, he asks her if he should take her home - because his Ma raised him right, and he'd be damned to let her walk home alone. He thought she would decline. But she smiles, and says that she would love for him to take her home.
So she says goodbye to her friends, and he tells Bucky he's bringing Y/N home and his best friend grins and see? I told you Stevie. Steve ignores it, even though the smile that she gives him sparks up hope in his chest.
She laces her fingers through his somewhere along the walk, and she swings their arms happily back and forth. She's still smiling, still laughing, albeit softer, and he feels butterflies in his stomach when she stops and kisses him on the cheek out of nowhere.
When they arrive at her house, the lights are still on.
"My dad is still home," she tells him, and he catches the slightly worried expression on her face that is quickly replaced for a happy glint in her eyes.
"I had a good time," she says, and she steps just a bit closer, and he feels his body heat up, because fuck this never happened before and what do I do now?
But she doesn't care that he's inexperienced. Instead, she puts her hands on his cheeks and guides him closer.
When they kiss, all he can think of is the jump his stomach makes, and the warm feeling that spreads through his body where she touches him.
It ends all too quickly, and she lets him go, giggles playfully and enters the house.
When he's home, he touches his lips again and faintly wonders what it would be like to kiss her again.
He sees her a lot over a short course of time. Bucky teases him endlessly, but eventually gives up when Y/N shows up and kisses Steve in front of an entire crowd, and then proceeds to tell Bucky to shove off because she needs Steve for herself. He blushes helplessly at that, and Bucky only laughs and gives him a clap on the shoulder. "She's a good one, Rogers," he laughs, "keep her."
And then he leaves for the army. And despite his immediate yes to being asked to undergo the experiment, he knows that he might lose her. It scares him so much more than it should.
He visits her before it starts, and he kisses her goodbye, tells her that its going to be okay and that he's coming back I promise, I promise I'll always come back to you Y/N, I promise.
After he saves Bucky he knows that there's one person left who he's willing to walk through a minefield for. But his duties call, and he writes her a few letters that she responds to in fervor, and her words are filled with so much love that one day while reading them, he bursts out into tears. Surprisingly, his friends comfort him and tell him that its almost over, that its going to be alright.
He wants to believe them. He really does.
When he's on the plane, all alone, he knows he's going to die. He calls for Peggy, asks her to leave Y/N a message. He doesn't notice Peggy's breath catching in her throat as he tells her I love you Y/N, I always have and I'm so, so sorry, sugar, I'm so sorry. I promised I would come back to you, I know I did, and I'm sorry. I love you. Then there's nothing.
When he wakes up in New York City, years into the future, the first thing he thinks of is her. She would have comforted him, been able to hold him back from punching the bag too many times.
But now there's no one with him.
He visits Peggy, though, and he asks Fury to track Y/N down, but Fury can't find her. There are no records of her - it seems like she has never existed, but Steve knows, he knows that she did. She was there. She was real. Because he remembers her laugh ringing in his ears, and he remembers her warm hands touching his body, and he remembers her soft lips, and her words whispered to him when they were alone.
But Peggy doesn't remember who Y/N is.
Steve tries to let it go.
But he's alone, all alone in the universe now, because both his best friend and the girl of his dreams are gone. And his heart clenches because fuck, why did this have to happen? Why couldn't he just survive, why couldn't he come back to her, to her arms and her smile? Why did he have to leave her alone? He couldn't even say goodbye.
He becomes an Avenger. He pushes his past in a corner, and focuses on the present and the future, and he makes friends. Family.
But he can't stop thinking about her. He can't stop thinking about the fact that she seems to be non-existent, or that nobody actually knows how that happened.
Peggy dies, and Steve is heartbroken, because that's the last person from his past, and she's gone.
Natasha tries to console him, and he can't believe it had to end like this.
Then the Winter Soldier shows up.
And Steve doesn't know what to do when he finds out its Bucky. His best friend. His brother.
Is there one piece of his past that has been saved?
He holds onto Bucky like he's a lifeline, and he wants so badly for Y/N to appear too, out of nowhere, telling him that its going to be alright. That she loves him.
The Avengers work past their differences. Bucky gets into rehab, Tony makes him a new arm, and all is well.
He almost forgets about her.
He almost forgets about the bruises that stained her skin whenever she knocked on his door. He almost forgets about Bucky, who would step up like a big brother, and who beat up her father like he deserved.
But then he remembers.
Because the Sleeper shows up. And there's something about her- something so familiar, something so Y/N, that Steve wants to believe its her.
She's graceful, he notices when he sees her fighting S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. And deadly. She slices their throats with her daggers, and she pushes someone off a bridge.
She doesn't remember him at all - she tries to kill him - but he takes her back. He grabs her arm, and Bucky calms her, and tells her its fine, that its going to be alright. She fights, of course.
Shuri puts her into cryostasis, and tries to fix the mess that her mind is.
When she wakes up, the first thing she mutters is "Steve?"
He's right beside her, and he clings to her, and he cries and cries and cries because god he missed her so much and he never got to say goodbye and now she's in his arms again.
It's different.
She moves in.
She stays with him. She stays in his bed, and she lays on the bed in his arms, and she's always awake when he has a nightmare, and she comforts him. But she never tells him she loves him. She never smiles.
He misses her laugh. He misses her smile and the happy twinkle in her beautiful eyes.
He tries so hard to get her back to him. To get her soul back.
Bucky does too. He sits with her and talks to her about Hydra, and about the haunted memories they share.
Slowly, she starts to come back.
There is a smile on her face when Tony falls on his ass in the living room. She chuckles during a movie night, when she's tucked under Steve's arm.
She whispers things in Russian that Steve doesn't understand, but judging from her touches and her sweet, longing looks at him, it has to be something good.
She doesn't say the words, but Steve knows anyways. He knows she loves him.
They do the dishes together, and they swing on the music, and she eventually sings a soft song that he remembers, and he puts it on and they dance in the living floor, and he cries again.
She shushes him, tells him its okay. Something feels wrong. It feels like its the end.
But nothing happens. They go to bed like they do, and they wake up and she makes breakfast for him and the others, and he kisses her softly, and Clint whistles, while Tony tells him to grab a room.
She laughs, and she sits next to Natasha during breakfast, and they discuss the dresses they are going to wear to the gala next week.
Everything goes well.
She wears the most beautiful dress he's ever seen, and it makes her even more beautiful.
Bucky takes Natasha, and Steve offers his arm to Y/N, who smiles softly, and takes it without any hesitation.
The gala goes perfect. He dances with her, and he kisses her and he tells her that she makes him so so happy, and he feels the ring in his pocket because he's meaning to ask this evening.
He does.
The ballroom goes quiet as she cries, and tells him of course I'll marry you!
They kiss, and then they go to their bedroom because Steve needs to feel her body against him as they rock into the mattress, and he needs to feel her lips on his chest and her soft moans and her nails scratching his back--
And when they lay against each other after, he kisses her neck and tells her that he never wants this to end. She giggles - giggles! - and turns around and shushes him with a kiss or two.
Weeks later, when she and Wanda are browsing for wedding dresses without Pepper and Natasha because Nat is still asleep and Pepper is in her room, they get a call.
They suit up, and Steve just squeezes her hand before he climbs onto his motorcycle and she steps into the jet.
He hears her voice in his ear, telling the team what she sees from her position up on the rooftops with Sam.
"They have a bomb!" He hears her panicked voice, and he looks up to where she's standing as he sends his shield flying and Thor jumps in with a loud roar.
And then something rumbles, and she doesn't make a sound as the building under her feet starts collapsing.
Steve faintly hears Sam and Tony screaming, and he sees their colours flashing through the skies towards her. He has a sinking feeling in his chest as he sees that the building next to hers falls apart too.
And then he knows.
They'll never make it.
He closes his eyes, and he groans before setting off from the pavement, and he runs to her because he needs to do something. He can't let her die!
They were supposed to get married. She was supposed to smile that sweet smile of her to him every morning.
The tears are burning in his eyes.
She makes contact through the earpiece.
"I love you," she says, calm as ever. "I love you, Steve."
And he screams, because no no no no, he can't lose her--
She falls. Her cape flutters around her, and her hair is pushed up in the wind, and the sun falls on her just right, and he chokes through his tears.
He screams as the building falls on top of her, enclosing her in the rubble, and the line disconnects. Tony flies into the building, and there is a faint sound of an explosion, and then the building is covered in flames.
Steve sinks to his knees, and he hears Natasha yelling on the comm for Tony to answer.
He feels a warm hand on his shoulder and he doesn't need to look up to know its Bucky. He cries - its not silent, its heavy sobs that wreck through his body and he shudders because this can't be happening.
And Natasha's heart breaks for him. Everyone's heart breaks for him.
"We were supposed to say goodbye," Steve says, almost inaudible. "We were meant to at least say goodbye to each other! Fuck!" He yells, and he throws his shield into the pavement while he gets up, and then he immediately crumbles, falls to his knees. Bucky catches him, and Steve closes his eyes to encircle himself with darkness, because that's the only thing he wants right now.
Its dark without her.
They wanted so much. He wanted so much with her - a future, a family--
Its gone. She's gone.
And he doesn't know how to breathe anymore.