( @americanhero ! ) she technically could have done this during her last life time , the one where she was a widow , dying TRAGICALLY YOUNG and not even getting the chance to meet natasha romanoff . technicalities didn’t always mean things would ever get done , though . as rebecca could have probably searched for him during her second reincarnation - but it would have gotten her killed earlier .
and that rebecca had wanted to survive, that rebecca was determined to break free . at that point , it was her against the world - the man who was her brother in another lifetime was god knows where .
but this time ? this time she had time to FIND HERSELF, find her past , perhaps find the true rebecca she was meant to be - without the darkness of the winter soldiers and widows looming over her shoulder . this time she was free, and she intended to use that freedom . she’s at the LUNAR NEW YEARS FESTIVAL, enjoying the food when she sees him , and a flash of memories come flying back to her mind .
meeting him for the first time with bucky , spending time buying hanukkah presents for steve , the excitement she got seeing him - like she was seeing her own brother when bucky ended up bringing steve home for dinner ! the piggy back rides he had given her even younger siblings ( never her , she was nearly the height of him when they first met ) , and laughter and creativity he brought into the household . steve rogers was always welcome, in the barnes’ home and rebecca’s heart .
“ hi ! sorry , uhm - … you’re steve rogers , right ? ” she asks , peering up at him . rebecca’s a bit older now , knows she looks way different than the last time she saw him , since he last saw her .“ i was wondering if i could …talk about something with you ? ”
It was strange, sometimes, to remember that a century ago, he had been nothing more than the dreamy child of poor Irish immigrants. It had been Joseph, always a little too deep in the bottle because he couldn’t hold a job, and who couldn’t hold a job because he was a little too deep in the bottle, who faded away until he was six feet under before Steve was ten years old. It was Sarah, who had tried her best, but had never been quite well or strong enough to hold the pieces together. It had been Steve spending as much time as he could the Barnes house, a home that felt so much warmer, so much fuller, so much safer than his little apartment. It had been Bucky, of course, adopting a fatherless child with a temper bigger than he was tall, but it had been the whole family, holidays and laughter.
There had been siblings, too, most of them too young to say much, but there had been Rebecca, a good kid, a sweet kid, who never seemed to mind having Steve around all the time. He was an only child, and even he was too much for his parents to care for, but, among the Barneses, he was one brother among many, the one who just happened to be blonde and Irish Protestant. He missed them all dearly, but he knew that life was in the past, on the other side of several wars and a few alien invasions. He wondered what happened to them all, but records were scarce, their echoes lost to history. He’d learned to leave it behind; he was lucky enough to have Bucky back.
But sometimes, in the worst of the long, cold, lonely nights, he remembered what it had been like to have a family.
He’d made himself as inconspicuous as possible at the festival, though he knew that was a tall order--he was, unfortunately, painfully recognizable, even in street clothes. (He’d hated that beard from his years in hiding, but maybe he’d been onto something. It was amazing how willingly face blind people could be.) He’d just finished admiring a vendor’s work, politely shaking the artist’s hand, saying yes, I am, that’s me, it’s very nice to meet you, when a young woman appeared beside him, asking his name.
Steve turned, prepared to give the Captain America smile and nod, the practiced public-facing spiel, but he stopped. She wasn’t quite right, wasn’t quite what he remembered, but he knew her, he was sure of it. Maybe time had played tricks on him, maybe his memory was fading, but--no, it was impossible. She was dead; they were all dead. It had been such a very long time ago. But, then again, he was dead many times over, and here he stood.
He realized he was staring. “Yes,” he said. “I am. That’s me. I’m sorry, I just--you look so much like someone I....” He shook his head, then rubbed the back of his neck. “Never mind. What’s up?”