Steve Rogers always wondered what it would be like to fall in love...

Would there be bright fireworks in the sky and butterflies fluttering in his heart? Or would there be an explosion of both? Would he feel as though his world had finally become centered or would it completely flip over on its axis? Leaving him dizzy and breathless. Would there be perfection in the moment or a glittering fairytale to share over a lifetime together? Would he know... the second his eyes met hers, that he was in love? 

Steve always believed it would be this profound moment that would change his life, something so earth shattering and perfect that nothing in the world could come close to the feeling. He never once imagined his right eye would be nearly swollen shut, and she'd be helping him off the ground in a dirty old alley, when it happened.

She had shown up just as the man beating him to a pulp had left, rounding the corner and leaving Steve bloody and bruised in the corner of a nasty backstreet. Although his eyes were shut from the pain and exhaustion that nearly destroyed his body, he could hear the soft click of her heels against the concrete. And a sudden pleasant scent graced his senses, one that cut through the metallic scent of his own blood and the rank stench of the garbage that laid strewn around him. It was a soft and floral scent, one that made him think of his late mother in fact. It was comforting and warm, just as the fingertips reaching out to touch his arm felt. 

They brushed against his arm timidly, and he jerked involuntarily at the contact. He wore layers of clothing due to the chilling temperatures and hissing wind that swirled around them, and yet the very tips of her fingers felt like sparks touching his skin. They shocked him, both physically and mentally, as his eyelids fluttered open to take a look at the woman crouching beside him. His vision was blurry, as Steve was relying most of his sight on his left eye due to the swelling in the other, but it in no way diminished the radiating beauty that knelt before him.

She looked like an angel. With her deep auburn tendrils trickling down her shoulders, spreading color across the soft white fabric of the coat she adorned. It was like autumn leaves sprinkled across a valley of perfectly fallen snow. And her eyes, were like the trees that the leaves fell from. A deep brown shade that looked to him with warmth and compassion. He couldn't imagine what his face looked like right now, he doubted it resembled anything close to a human being at the moment, and yet she looked at him like no one had ever looked at Steve Rogers before. 

It felt as though she could see straight through him, as though he was as translucent as glass. And with that, she could see right into his soul. His heart. Everything that had always been hidden from everyone else on the inside, was now completely exposed to her eyes. But there was something in the manner of which she looked into his heart, that took away any sensation of uneasiness or nervousness. She looked at him like she could see who he truly was, and it stunned Steve Rogers to his very core. 

"Here," Her thick eyelashes flutter softly as she looked deeply at him. "give me your hand. Let me help you."

Her voice was as angelic as her appearance, and it seemed as though a light glowed around her. And for a moment, Steve questioned just how hard he hit his head against the hard concrete. But as his hand reached forward, and felt her warm fingers slide across his, he knew she was real. That this wasn't some figment of his imagination and that she wasn't some beautiful mirage he was seeing due to a deeper head injury.  

Her hands held an underlying chill from her lack of gloves, but the warmth that flowed through out her body, seemed to pour out into the palms of her smooth hands. They gripped his with a gentleness as her warm eyes scanned the cuts against his bruised knuckles, and she helped him to his wobbly feet. And there Steve Rogers stood, a couple inches shorter than the beauty beside him. Covered in dirt and blood and bruises, that instantly stood out against the cleanliness and pure shimmering white of her clothing. But she never once looked at him as though he was in some way less than she was. If anything, he wondered if he spotted a glimmer of admiration in her eyes, as she leant him a kind smile with a curl of her perfectly pale pink lips. 

Maybe there weren't fireworks erupting in the skies above them, and maybe the aching pain in his bones overrode the feeling of fluttering butterflies in his chest. But there was no denying the sensation that swept through Steve's weak body the moment their eyes met. 

He fell in love with the way she saw him. 

Steve knew how much of fool he resembled, as he continued to chase something that would ultimately cause this woman to slip through his fingers. Testing fate with the first woman to ever really give him another glance, a second thought and most importantly, a chance. She was out of his league; Steve clearly knew it. Everyone who saw them together knew it. But still, she proudly walked beside him with her fingers intertwined with his own. And here he was, doing all he could it would seem, to get away from her. 

Bucky questioned if it was really worth it, and he told Steve so. Why was he trying so hard to lose this woman after he had just finally found her? Was all of this lying on his enlistment forms and striving to get to the bloody front lines, worth letting the first woman to give him the time of day, go? 

"This is what you're meant to do Steve Rogers," She told him one night, as he shared with her what Bucky had told him earlier that day. His worries, his concerns for his best friend and his stubborn motives to fight in a war that would surely kill him. "they need you, out there, even if they don't know it yet." 

Her fingers danced against the back of his hand gently, until she laid her palm flat against his. And gazing up at him through the lashes that fluttered against her pale cheek bones, her smile not only shadowed against her lips. But it reflected back in her eyes. Bolder, more prominent, and more beautiful than Steve had ever seen it. 

And just like that, Steve knew that this woman was in no way a weakness. Something holding him back from making a difference in the world. Or something he would forever regret giving up, as his best friend so deeply believed. This woman, was his strength. She didn't see him as some scrawny, asthmatic kid from Brooklyn with a death wish. When she looked to Steve, she saw a soldier. One just as good as any of those who were already laying down their lives on the front lines... and better even. She saw a man wanting to simply make a difference. She saw someone selfless enough to willingly give his life to his country, someone with a heart that bled and beat for all of the people who couldn't fight and protect themselves. She saw Steve as a hero... way before anyone else did. 

He fell in love with the way she believed in him.

She was right there, waiting, after the transformation. She rushed down the metal stairs as the capsule they held him in opened, and he watched with exhausted eyes as she ran towards him. Her pale blue dress simply a blur, as the fabric flowed and twirled around her with each bouncing step. And as her feet came to a halt inches from Steve, he could hear her quickened breath. The way each inhale exhaled just as quickly, and the way her chest seemed to heave with each nervous breath. Her eyes looked to him with worry and love and hesitation, swimming in the warm brown he had missed. And although they were rimmed in red from her tears, collecting at the sound of his anguished screams, she was beautiful. There was a strand of hair fallen over her left collarbone that seemed slightly frayed, as though she had twirled it between her fingers like she always did, a little too much or a little too harshly. And she gnawed on her bottom lip so hard, as she studied his face closely, that Steve worried she'd chew right through the skin. But she released it from it's prison, as her right hand began to slowly reach forward. 

And just like their first meeting, Steve felt an electric shock beneath his chest as her soft fingertips pressed gently against his bare chest. Her hand rose and fell with the heavy breaths Steve took in order to slow his racing heart, but she didn't move her hand. In fact, she pressed her palm flat against his flesh and Steve swore he could feel her fingertips branding his skin right then and there. But he watched her face, as her anxious breaths slowed and a small smile spread across her nervously chewed lips. 

Her warming eyes fluttered upward then, locking with his own heavy gaze, and whispered breathlessly. "Hey you."

Her voice was soft, and so faint that he knew no one else in the crowded room could hear. But he did, for it radiated from her body and straight in to his chest. The way she held her hand right on top of his beating heart, and stared upward with love, Steve knew it was her way of making sure he was still there. That the serum hadn't changed everything about him. Everything that had been born into him, everything that had been inside of him before all of this, and everything that she had fallen in love with.

And a single touch of her palm to his heart, was enough to tell her everything she needed to know. 

He fell in love with the way she knew his heart. 

Disappointment weighted heavy over Steve Rogers's shoulders, as he sat outside shielded just barely from the falling rain. Chills from the harsh winds ran over his skin, but his heart was warmed by the handwritten words he read off of the fragile pages, that blew back and forth in his hands. Even when she couldn't be with him physically, she was there in every other possible way. 

Her letters, a constant in his life now, had a way of lifting him out of the ruts he found himself falling into time and time again. He expressed it her, when it was his turn to write back with a cheap pencil on old paper, how everything he thought he'd be contributing to his country was different. Here he sat, in tights and boots that squeezed his feet a little too tightly, cooling off after just being on a stage. With singers and dancers surrounding him as he paraded around ideas to crowds, instead of standing at the front lines with his fellow man. Fighting as he should be. 

And even as she sympathized with the way he felt, as though what he was doing wasn't in any way enough, she reassured him when he lost sight of why he was doing all of this in the first place.

"What you're doing is important Steve. Even as belittling and miniscule it may feel right now, it means something. And I won't let you give up just because you can't see that yet."

It was as though she sat right there beside him in the rain storm, sharing with him honest words that rang from his ears and straight into his beating heart. She was thousands of miles away, but she had never been closer as he felt the love she poured into the short but meaningful letters, that she never failed to write. It were those tiny envelopes that he ripped open that got him through the toughest days. The words printed on the paper that he ran his fingers against, that eased the disappointment and defeat aching in his chest. It was her that kept him going. 

He fell in love with the way she didn't let him give up.

They had managed to patch her through in the very final moments, and Steve didn't even care how they got her there, just that she was. Just that he was able to hear her beautiful voice once more. That he was able to picture her breathtaking face as he listened to the sound of her words echoing in his head. All that mattered was that he got one last chance to tell her everything he knew he wouldn't have the rest of his life to say. 

He could hear the tears threatening to overtake her voice, but she composed herself as she continued to stay present on the line. There wasn't a chance in the world she was going to let her emotion cause her to give up this moment with Steve. And he knew that she was aware of what was going to happen. She wasn't blind and she wasn't naïve to the truth in front of her. But even so, he still felt as though he had to apologize. For not being there with her. For not being able to come back to her. And even for leaving her in the first place.

It was in that single moment, that Steve Rogers began to wonder for the first time, if his late friend had been truly right about letting this woman slip from his fingers. But just as the regret began to settle in the pit of his stomach, her faint voice spoke up and halted the suffocating pain. 

"It's okay Steve," She cried out to him, and he felt his eyes close at the image of tears staining her porcelain skin. "I love you."

He fell in love with the way she let him go.  

Steve Rogers always wondered what it would be like to fall in love... but when he met her, he didn't have to wonder any longer. 

A/N: I absolutely loved this idea when it came to me, and although it took me a while to write it, as I wanted it to be as perfect as it could be, I am so happy with the outcome of this beautiful one shot! I hope you were all able to truly feel the love story I tried to convey in this one, and feel the emotion of the evolution. I really love it!❤Also, can we take a moment to swoon over that GIF?? I mean, c'mon Steve!😍😍😍