Chapter Text
It's in a small, unobtrusive cafe in New York city where you meet The One. You're a waitress; he's a customer. In his ballcap and thick jacket, you wouldn’t have recognized him even if you hadn’t been working a twelve hour shift on three hours of sleep. You stumble, and when he catches you, your arm is awash with the heat of a roaring Christmas fire. It trickles down your spine and fills your body with the comfort of home. You feel relaxed and rested for the first time in weeks.
His first words, “Are you alright?” burst into darkened life on your wrist, scratchy marks that look as though written by fountain pen turning from grey to black. Yours, “Holy shit, you’re Captain America” will later be found etched over his heart in your handwriting sometime later.
You wish you had thought of something more… well… graceful and ladylike to say.
“H-hi,” you smile, shy and disbelieving. America’s favorite hero and throwback is your Soulmate. Steve grins back, too relieved that he hasn’t missed you. His last thought, seconds before he had hit the icy waters some seventy years ago, had been on you. Not you specifically, obviously, but that he would never meet you. That he had damned some poor girl to a life without her soulmate. He had been sick with guilt over that, as well as with overwhelming fear for his quickly approaching death. Some all-American hero he was...
And when he had opened his eyes almost a hundred years later, he had just assumed he would never meet you. The girl that he was supposed to be perfect for, the one that would match all his desires and interests, would never be by his side. Those words that had puzzled him for his first twenty-some years of life would never be said aloud. You would either be dead or dying by this time.
But you aren’t. You’re wonderfully, and beautifully, alive. He immediately draws you in for a close embrace, completely intoxicated by the smell of your shampoo, the warmth of your body, the puzzle piece perfect fit you make in his arms. Like he was made for you, he thinks wryly.
“I found you,” he whispers to himself, holding you in a protective and tight hug. One neither of you would likely end anytime soon.