You Always Stand Up

He glanced sideways at her, a small frown playing on his lips at her answer to his query. “Well, I-” He hummed quietly and took another sip. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? The only people who know what it was like for us… well, we can’t marry them, can we?” His thoughts drifted to Peggy and his heart ached. “And we can’t just- find someone else, someone young. They don’t understand. They couldn’t.” So they were doomed to be alone. And even though they had one another, it was still a lonely life to lead.

Sarah smiled warmly and hugged Steve tight, tucking her head against his shoulder. “Thank you so much sweetie. Oh, it’s been so long since I celebrated this day!”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that you’ve changed in more ways than just cooking. And that’s not a bad thing. We all have to change and grow.” She reclined a she watched him work, enjoying the fact that she was being spoiled by her son. “Stevie, I just haven’t had the time for a cooked meal. Going to school for nursing is a lot harder nowadays.”

No one’s got that flag in seventeen years.

Tony gets Clint’s attention, signs think fast at him, Clint is about to sign why and gets hit in the face anyway

Bucky held a cloth to his bleeding torso, insisting that he was fine. Steve made the call anyway and now they sat waiting. 

She started setting up everything on the coffee table before she noticed that there was someone sitting on the couch next to Steve. When she finally looked up and saw James, she dropped everything. “Jimmy?” She gasped, scrabling over and looking him over. “Oh my god, how? No, not, you’re bleeding.” She turned back, snagging the supplies to stop the bleeding. 

He’d thought he was seeing things, he’d thought that maybe it was some sort of hallucination. His mother was dead, had died when he was a kid, and had been buried. He’d gone to her funeral, after all. It wasn’t a thing he was going to forget. Not when Bucky had told him they’d be there for each other till the end of the line. Except there she was, standing at his side wounded. “Steve Rogers,” he said, the look of surprise clearly etched onto his features. This was definitely his ma. It wasn’t something he’d easily forget. But she hadn’t recognised him. And for now he had to play along. “Are you okay? We can’t stay here for long. We need to get somewhere safe and out of the line of fire.”

Sarah was mildly concerned with the expression on Steve’s face. It was like he was seeing a ghost, but the expression on his face was much worse than what she would have expected. She gripped her hip as she tried to stem the blood flow. “I’ve got through and throughs on my hip and thigh. I don’t know how fast I’ll be, but I can at least move. Lead the way, Captain, I’ll limp the best I can.”