in the shadows ? steve rogers

036 ? dog tags

Steve stayed silent making her suck in a breath and poured herself another glass of whiskey. "Sorry," she said quietly, letting the liquid travel down her throat. "It's been a long day."

He shook his head. "You don't need to apologize."

"I'm just tired of everybody dying," she sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Don't get me wrong, I love that you're alive. And I love that we can... I don't know, figure things out. But for the past six decades, I have watched everybody fall in love and start a family. And then they all die. I've been to more funerals than I'd like to count."

"I'm sorry you've been alone for so long," Steve said and she shook her head. "Maybe you were right and we could've found somewhere for me to land—"

"Don't you dare apologize to me, Steve Rogers." Grace looked over at him and shook her head again. "Don't you dare take any blame. You did what you thought you had to at the time. Who was to know that you would be frozen for sixty years?" She cleared her throat. "Have you seen Addy?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Last I saw, she was talking to Tony."

"I should check on her," she said, standing up from her desk. "Phil was the one who trained her. Who made her the sarcastic agent she is. He told her so many stories of you." She smiled fondly. "And then she would find me and ask if they were true. You really are her hero, Steve."

"I don't know if I am that hero anymore."

Grace paused at the end of her desk and looked up at him. "Here." She took his hand and placed the metal dog tag into his palm. "I don't know what's going through your mind, but to me, you're still the same Steve Rogers that I fell in love with. You're still the same good man. The man Dr. Erskine chose for his experiment. Never forget that."

She kissed his cheek softly before leaving her office and Steve sat in the empty room, looking down at the dog tag.

𝚂𝚃𝙴𝚅𝙴 𝚁𝙾𝙶𝙴𝚁𝚂
𝙲𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙰𝙸𝙽 𝙰𝙼𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙲𝙰
𝙱𝚁𝙾𝙾𝙺𝙻𝚈𝙽, 𝚄𝚂𝙰

He glanced at the door she had walked through and smiled softly. She still had them. Even after his presumed death, she still had the dog tags.

⸻ ~~~ ⸻

𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐓 𝐎𝐍 𝐀 bench, hugging her legs to her chest. Her mind hadn't stopped racing since she had heard Phil was killed. She didn't know what to think. For as long as she had been at SHIELD, he had always been there.

"There you are." Adelaide looked up and saw Grace leaning against the wall. "I've been looking all over for you."

"Did you need something?" she asked and the brunette shook her head, moving to sit beside the blonde.

"I know how much you loved him," Grace said and Adelaide glanced over at her. "He was your mentor. He trained you."

"He made me," Adelaide added quietly.

Grace shook her head. "You made yourself," she corrected the girl. "He just... helped you find who that was."

"I just keep thinking... if I went with him to the cell—"