The Avenger, The Assassin, and The Vigilante || B. Barnes

70 Years

No one had ever told Steve Rogers what had happened to his sister.

The Howling Commandos had kept it a secret that Allison Barnes had turned to alcohol when she believed that her brother and husband had died. Even when interviewed after passing along the sketchpads of Steve and Bucky Barnes, Allison's scripts of Shakespeare, and Allie's uniforms to historians, no one let Allison's reputation falter.

On a particularly cloudy evening, Steve sat in a chair at the Avenger's Compound with the file regarding his sister laid open on the coffee table. Sighing to himself, he picked up the file and reread the words "Missing in Action" that was stamped in bright red just below her picture.

He wasn't exactly fond of the feeling that wherever she had gone missing, she had been through too much loss for the second time in her life. He'd received her file along with the other Commandos when he'd been brought out of the ice a few years prior. He had learned that he and his team had become historical figures and his sister had become an inspirational image for women and girls. Even with the sad ending to her story, Steve was proud of her.

The sounds of shoes clicking against the floor alerted Steve to someone entering the room. Looking up, Natasha Romanoff took one look at the file in his hands and took a deep breath.

"You seem to be looking at that file more and more lately," she said as she walked over to him.

Steve looked up at her and gave her a small smile before looking back at his sister's picture. Closing the file and placing it back onto the coffee table, he rubbed his temples before crossing his arms across his chest and leaning back.

"I've just been thinking about it all lately," he shrugged softly.

"Is this because of Barnes?" Natasha asked as she sat down in a chair next to him. She took the file into her hands and opened it to look at the picture of Allie.

Steve sighed. "It's kind of hard not to think of her knowing that he's alive. She had to think that he had died twice. The first time we were all back together. The second time she was alone."

Natasha sighed and closed the file before placing it back down. Looking over at Steve, she tried to give him a smile.

"I know how much you miss her, but you can't let it become the only thing you think about," she said.

"I know," he said as he took a deep breath.

More footsteps were heard coming into the room. Natasha and Steve looked up and over to see Vision walking into the room.

"Mr. Stark wishes to speak with us," he said as he too let his eyes fall on the file in front of the two.

"Did he say what it was about?" Natasha asked.

"No. I suppose that's why he wishes to see us immediately," Vision responded before looking back up to them and leaving the room.

Steve and Natasha looked at each other, sighed, and stood up to walk to the conference room. It seemed that everyone in the compound had been called in. Sam Wilson could be seen sitting back in an office chair speaking to James Rhodes. Wanda Maximoff was sitting alone before Vision joined her. Natasha and Steve took their seats before Tony Stark himself walked into the room and silently transferred a video feed to a projection screen.

Watching the video feed, Steve watched as a building burned before the fire quickly disappeared. The video switched to a different clip of a town that had been covered in thick ice. Looking over at Tony, Steve gave him a confused glance.

"What exactly are we watching?" Steve asked as the others looked over.

"That seems to be the question," Tony started. "No one knows."