Angst warning

"Ugh, this is so itchy."

"Excuse me?" you laughed, turning to Steve with a wide grin. "Is this something that I should hear, or is it more of a private matter that you should have cleared up before getting onto the jet and sharing a bench with me?"

"Shut up, it's just my arm. You're so gross," he snickered in reply, with a firm nudge of his shoulder to tip you off balance. "I'm not sure what's going on, but it's never done this before." He pulled up the sleeve of his uniform, pushing his arm towards you to have a look for yourself at the words scrawled across it; they were the final words of his soulmate that you had seen too many times. The skin of his wrist was reddened slightly, from where he had been scratching at it all morning.

"Maybe it's because you won't leave it alone."

"Okay, but why?" he whined, scratching at it again. "My soulmate has been gone for a few years now, so why would this start acting up again?"

"I don't know, Steve. Maybe somewhere in the afterlife, Peggy is saying them again just to mess with you. She's probably getting a good laugh at your expense right now."

"Sounds about right." He continued to stare at the letters and the irritated skin around them, sighing heavily at the memory he wasn't allowed to have. He hadn't been there to hear her final words, robbed of the moment that he should have been given. It was a cruel twist that fate had bestowed, leaving the mark of someone's final moments on their intended partner, as if to drive the pain home that life wasn't fair and it was a mistake to think otherwise. "What about yours? Has this ever happened to you?"

"Nope, never," you shrugged. "I've kind of given up on the whole soulmate thing anyway. I mean, how sad is it to not know who they are until they're gone? I'd rather live my life with people that I love without having a reason, you know? Kinda like how I love you. I don't have to just because of some words scribbled into my skin, I just do."

"Because I'm very lovable."

"With just a pinch of arrogance."

"Hmm, well maybe," he chuckled. It didn't take long for his mood to wane again, however, when his focus shifted from banter and back to annoyed scratching at his skin. "This is gonna drive me crazy."

"Well, it is a short drive, babe."

"Rude, (Y/N). I'm gonna remember that, and you'll be sorry later. As soon as this mission is done and we get back home, you'll be very sorry."

"Promise?" you laughed again, this time returning the playful nudge that he had given you earlier. All Steve did was smile back and look away, back at his wrist with a mournful groan in his throat. You watched him struggle to finish suiting up, putting his boots on with a pause to scratch at it again, followed by gloves that went on quickly, but were just as quickly removed and tossed aside.

"Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get my arm cut off," he muttered angrily, only to be halted by a harsh gasp from the pilot seat. He didn't want to look, knowing the expression that would be looking back, but he slowly opened one eye and grimaced, turning to his friend. "Oh...hey...uh, sorry Buck. I didn't mean that...I didn't think you'd hear..."

"Well, I did," he snapped, turning around again, "keep it up and I can make that wish come true for ya. Jackass."

"Uh oh, Cap. I think that you're the one who's gonna be sorry later."

~~~

"We're out of time."

Steve's stomach knotted immediately at your words heard through his earpiece, his feet coming to an unwilling halt when his mind only wanted him to run as fast as his legs could carry him. His wrist burned like a white-hot fire beneath his suit, with a heat like he had never known, but it wasn't what had stilled him now; this was unbridled terror.

It wasn't Peggy; it was you.

"(Y/N), I'm on my way," he mumbled almost to himself, his voice inept in the moment when you would need to hear it most. He shook off the pain in his wrist that was growing and moving up his arm and into his chest, stabbing through his heart to remind him that no matter how fast he ran, and no matter how strong he was in this perfect body, it wouldn't stop what was about to happen. Nothing could stop this, and fate was making sure of that with every step he took.

All that his body could do now, was to ensure that he would be there to see the end. With his own eyes, he would connect to yours only one more time just before they closed for eternity. There would be no other words spoken by the lips he had wanted to kiss just once more; no other sound of your voice to echo in his memory every night as the nightmares came, which they would with a renewed, unrelenting attack after this. Your last words would haunt him for the rest of his life, and the searing pain in his wrist might never stop, but he welcomed it. It would remind him that he failed to save you. If Steve couldn't even save his one person, his true soulmate, then for the first time he finally believed what Colonel Phillips had told him some seventy years before.

He wasn't enough.