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Steve Rogers is not the men he used to be, he wasn’t that little guy from Brooklyn that used to get bullied in the alleys; he also wasn’t the men that had fought on WW2, that had loved Peggy Carter with all his soul and had wanted a family on her side, that would have given his own life for his best friend Bucky Barnes, that had defeated Schmidt and that had crashed ending up frozen in the Atlantic ocean for years. No, He was now a new men.
He was the best of both: he had the moral compass of that little guy from Brooklyn and the ambition of the war hero, but on top of all of this there was something new hidden beneath the surface, something that the little guy from Brooklyn and the war hero wouldn't understand. His happiness wasn’t tied to a beautiful wife and three kids, his happiness was not in the muscles and the strength to save people, he was Captain America, but he didn’t have to be the perfect American men. He needed to follow his heart and his instinct, those where the ones that, at the end of the day had made him Captain America, that’s what had made Erskine trust him.
The new Steve still loved Peggy until her last breath and beyond, he loved her as the memory of the first love, what could had been and specially that final dance; The new Steve worked 24/7 to get Bucky back, his best friend that he thought dead…and Bucky was in some ways dead, just like Steve. The new Steve didn’t want a family anymore, at least not at the moment, this new Steve wanted to make first the world a safe place for said family, where nobody else would lose loved ones because of a war and where nobody would ever have to kneel again.
Captain America was now reserved for someone that shared life experiences with him, someone that could speak his language, someone that did not only sympathize but that also had been frozen, born in his time and lost as many things as him thanks to HYDRA; and for the longest Steve thought that would be impossible for him to find his half, he was probably one of a kind and just like that he rejected with kindness any person that tried to enter his heart.
Those thoughts lingered in his mind for a while, but it’s when Bucky came back as the Winter Soldier that all his life had been scripted by some twisted mind, a joke and a bad one at that. First when Bucky had reappeared once HYDRA was taken down, Steve didn’t give a second thought at how all he could think about was Bucky, how he was to blame for his insomnia and also his dreams, dreams that most times ended up in nightmares.
But when he finally saw him again he knew he was fucked, his heart beating faster than it had ever done when he kissed Peggy by just having Bucky face to face. That’s when Steve Rogers knew what he wanted for the rest of the line, he wanted to be close to Bucky, heal Bucky, guard his dreams and fight his nightmares, he wanted to be the one to save that frozen heart.