Bucky pulled his arm away and Steph thought, this was it, this was the part where he walked away, and she would lose not just the Bucky of her timeline but this one too. It didn't matter that he had his own version of Steph; he was still her best friend, and, in a way that was both confusing and reassuring, she still loved him.

But then he placed her arm around her shoulders and she practically melted into him. Thankfully, enough time had passed for the sun to have fully set, and as Coney Island wasn't as bright in the future, the darkness gave them enough cover on the boardwalk.

You're not unloveable. She supposed he could say that because he'd only ever known her as the sickly, scrawny kid who Definitely Did Not Start Fights she couldn't win.

So she didn't say anything to that. But also because part of her wanted to believe it, that even after everything, he could still love her.

"Lemme buy you dinner?" she said instead. "For old times' sake."