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Since Michelle had becoming ‘drawing friends’ with Steve, she found herself looking up his past more, from articles to recordings of him in the war.
She didn’t tell Steve about it because she knew that he felt some type of way about so much of his past being on public display…and how he had asked for his pictures that he’d done of Sergeant Barnes and Agent Carter and the Howling Commandos back from the Smithsonian and they said no. He’d been positively fuming about it, even when he’d tried to hide it.
Steve had lied and said “Just having a hard time getting used to things, Michelle, that’s all.”
But that wasn’t it, clearly.
Michelle was sure that if she found out her art was being shown somewhere when she hadn’t drawn it for the purpose of being exposed in a gallery, she’d be pretty steamed about it.
They did give him back the ones of just Sergeant Barnes posing…in a risqué fashion and Michelle was all for posting them on twitter to shove it to the conservatives that thought he was one of their own.
“I’ll consider it,” Steve chuckled. Peter’s aunt had showed him the ins and outs of twitter and he had quite the following, despite not posting all that much. “I’ll need to run that by Becca first, though.”
Rebecca Barnes-Proctor, Sergeant Barnes’ younger sister. Steve had a standing monthly dinner date with her at her house. Her kids and grandkids were pretty mystified about the whole situation, she knew, but they’d been aware that her brother was queer, it was just surprising to find out that his partner had been the man that became Captain America.
Becca seemed like a cool lady, though, she was too old to protest like Michelle and Steve, but she’d done her share of it in the past and it was protesting that had led her to her husband. Michelle thought Becca would think it was a good idea but she couldn’t quite fault Steve for wanting to check with his dead partner’s sister before posting something she might not be comfortable with seeing.
She shook off her thoughts, returning to the article she’d pulled up on her phone.
Agent Carter wasn’t much with it anymore, she knew, she had dementia and was in some facility upstate, so this must’ve been some time before her illness had really set in.
“I would call us colleagues,” Peggy allows, clearly opting for diplomacy, “though I didn't think Sgt. Barnes cared too much for me -not because I was a woman, none of that, he was a perfect gentleman to other women in the army, so I knew the problem was me—”
"And what was the problem with you?" I couldn’t help but be intrigued. Agent Carter was a trail-blazer and a national hero for her efforts in the war. It was hard to imagine someone not liking her or even not admiring her.
"Who knows?" Peggy admits. "Sadly, he took that to the grave...but Barnes always thought the world of Capt. Rogers, and I daresay he didn't like his roommate and best friend being practically forced into Project Rebirth in the hopes of serving his country."
"Do you agree with that? That Steve Rogers was forced into the project?"
That was a well-known fact by now, that Steve Rogers had been a bit strong-armed into joining the project. Whether or not it was something he was actually wanting to be involved in is a bit suspect, though the Howling Commandos still alive have their own thoughts on the matter, undoubtedly, even though they have refused every attempt at elaboration.
If anyone knew the truth of how Steve Rogers felt about Project Rebirth, it died with him in the Valkyrie, lost in the Artic. Or with Sgt. Barnes, left where he’d fallen in the Alps.
Peggy pauses, choosing her words carefully. "I think Rogers was used to being seen as second rate...he was a disabled man who'd nearly died so many times from his own body betraying him. I don't know what he really felt about the situation, but we both knew that Project Rebirth would either kill him, or give him the opportunity to do more good than he was capable of...but I never knew him as well as Barnes, and Barnes always made it known that Rogers had grown up picking fights with bullies that Barnes had to drag him out of. And if we became the bullies, he would remove him from that situation, with force if need be.”
I can’t help but be surprised. “Even if it meant deserting the army?”
That makes Peggy laugh. “Barnes had loyalty to only one person,” she says. “If Steve had told him to jump, he would’ve asked how high. He was the one to get Rogers to take a breather when he was getting too into his head…but once he was gone, Rogers ran himself ragged until he reached death himself.”
Now I am the one pausing. “That sounds almost suicidal,” I say carefully.
“Who can say? Even I wasn’t privy to his mind in his last moments,” Peggy says with a shrug.
We are still left with many questions about Captain Rogers and Project Rebirth, answers we will never receive.
Who knows, maybe one day we'll learn them when they’re declassified by SHIELD.
One can only hope.
Reading too much on a moving vehicle gave Michelle a headache, so she put her phone away as the bus came to a stop, grabbing her bag and hopping out into the bright sunlight, catching sight of a familiar blond head in the distance.
She grinned and shouted “Steve!” before racing to his side.
When Steve had left the room early in order to meet Mr. Stark, Bucky had still been naked beneath the sheets and slurring sleepily about always loving a man in uniform, looking adorable enough for Steve to press a few light kisses to his mouth and murmuring to go back to sleep.
When he returned, Bucky was awake and wearing pants, but still in the bed.
"Hey, how'd it...go?"
Steve flopped into the bed, burrowing his face into Bucky's chest with a groan. Familiar fingers ran through his hair. "Why do you smell like flowers?"
Steve clutched him tighter.
"Doll? Tell me what's wrong."
"She grabbed me and kissed me."
Bucky tugged lightly on his hair to get him to look back, perfectly flummoxed. "Who? Carter?"
"No, some lieutenant, I tried to shove her off, but then Peggy showed up and, well, it ended with her shooting at me."
Fire blazed in Bucky's eyes. "What."
"I had the new shield at the time so—”
Bucky shifted Steve onto his side so he could look him in the eyes more easily. "She shot at you," he repeated flatly.
"Kinda, uh, yeah...I thought you'd be more pissed about the kissing, honestly."
"Why?" Bucky frowned. "When did you ever get pissed at me for some dame laying one on me that I didn't ask for?"
Steve stared at him. "I'm so in love with you," he said thickly.
Bucky smirked, leaning in close and dragging him closer by his tie, like she had, but it was so much better, it was Bucky to purr into his mouth, "Good, sweetheart, 'cause I ain't lettin' ya get away from me this time." And he sealed it with a kiss.