KillSwitch ─ s. rogers ✓

two

Is this my best work? No. But I kinda had to get something out, so here you go. 

★★★

1948

ALEXANDRA in her arms, Peggy stood at the very beginning of the Brooklyn Bridge on the Manhattan side. The last time she was on this bridge was when she poured out the last vial of Steve's blood. Her current plan was to go all the way across and walk around in Brooklyn Heights for a while, but now that she was there, she wondered if she could force herself to go all the way.

Peggy had only set foot in Brooklyn once since Steve died nearly three years ago. Avoiding an entire borough of the city--the second largest, for that matter--was hugely irrational, which she knew. Steve was one man, and Brooklyn was full of nearly 2.8 million people. He was only one small piece of a 70 squared mile puzzle. But the thing was, her aversion to Brooklyn wasn't about the fact that Steve was gone. Not really, anyway. It was that stepping into Brooklyn felt like stepping into Steve's heart.

Each street was a vein, every person and every car and every animal that moved through them the blood pumping through him. Good or bad, all of them were the cells that made him up. Now that he was dead, Brooklyn was just the organ ripped out of his chest, still pulsing, blood pouring out onto the floor with nowhere else to go.

But with Steve gone, and with no friends or family of his left, this disconnected heart was the only piece of him Alexandra had left. It was the only piece of him she could ever know. Peggy at least owed her the chance to do that.

"Alright." Peggy leaned down and placed Alexandra on the ground. "You have to hold my hand, okay?"

Alexandra immediately took Peggy's hand in her tiny one and squeezed it hard. They weren't even really on the bridge yet, but she could already see just how far above everything they were. Being two, the world already looked massive to her when she wasn't on top of it. As a city girl, she also had a deep fear of large bodies of water, so being in a position where it was the only thing between her was less than ideal.

"No." She shook her head, her pin-straight brown hair bouncing in its double braids. "Don't wanna."

"Why not?"

"Scared." Alexandra looked up at Peggy with her big blue eyes and freckled face. It was anyone's guess what relatives she got those freckles from, because Peggy had no idea. She didn't really resemble either of her parents. "Hold me?"

Peggy laughed and shook her head, but she picked Alexandra back up anyway.

"You're getting too big for this," she said. Alexandra wrapped her arms around her mother's neck and rested her head on Peggy's shoulder. Peggy adjusted Alexandra on her hip and heaved her up. "You ready to go now?"

Alexandra nodded.

"Yes."

Alexandra held close to her heart, Peggy exhaled heavily and took a step forward on the bridge. She took a few more, and a few more after that, and so on until they reached the other side. At the very end, Peggy stood hesitantly. They'd made it all the way across, but she didn't know if she could take the very last step. She didn't know if she could face this again.

"Mommy," Alexandra whispered. She looked around. Nothing about this place was familiar. "Where?"

The sound of her voice snapped Peggy back to reality. She wasn't here for herself. She was here for Alexandra.

She began the short trip down to the street.

"This place is called Brooklyn," Peggy told Alexandra. "It's where...it's where your father grew up."

Alexandra blinked, confused. Every once in a while, she heard her mother use that word. "Father." It didn't mean much to her, or really anything at all, but it seemed to mean a lot to her mother.

"It was really important to him." Peggy tightened her grip on her daughter. Her throat constricted a bit as she fought back all of her sentimental emotions. "Just like you would have been."

There were few things Peggy felt she could be sure about, but that was one of them. If Steve was still alive today, he would have loved Alexandra, and he would have loved to be the one taking her hand and introducing her to the place that made him Steve Rogers.

Peggy sniffled. She blinked back any tears.

"Let's go walk around for a little while," she finally said to Alexandra, who nodded. She placed Alexandra down on the sidewalk and took her tiny hand, leading her down to the street. Being here took a lot, but dumb as it was, part of Peggy hoped that somehow, Steve knew they were here. It was the only connection they had left, that Alexandra had left. For Alexandra, Peggy would do anything.