Archive of Our Own

Steve slumped into the chair Wong offered him, resisting the urge to groan as his aching muscles protested. There was a not insignificant part of him that yearned for the compound, to go back home with the others and rest. What he wouldn't give for a night in his own bed, if he even had one anymore.

It had all been a blur after the battle in Wakanda. They'd gathered up the few who were still alive, taped back together the many who were injured. Everyone else was… gone.

Bucky was gone.

Tony was gone.

Steve had nothing left. Home would be barren and cold. As much as he wanted to be there, to curl up under a blanket that smelled like Tony's laundry soap and go to sleep and never come out again, in practice, it would only hurt more. All he had left now was doing something. Trying. That was all he ever had.

"There's nothing we can do," Wong said, and Steve's heart sunk. "I have nothing."

"Nothing, really?"

The Sanctorum was broken and battered, a giant crater had been blown through most of the stairs. But Wong had a small office upstairs that was undamaged, and when Steve had shown up at the door and knocked, Wong had gestured him upstairs through a portal he'd made. The room around them was dark - no power in most of the city - and smelled like burnt dust and ozone. It occured to Steve, that it was odd that Wong could use magic, but he hadn't bothered to clean up his home.

"Nothing," Steve repeated with a sigh. "Who do I go to next?"

Wong eyed him up for a moment, considering. "Dr. Strange."

"Strange is dead. He died with Tony and Spider-Man," Steve grit out, doing his level best not to stutter around Tony's name.

"Yes. He's dead. Now." Wong leaned back in his chair. "What would you do to save this world from Thanos' attack? What would you sacrifice?"

"Anything," Steve said. "Anything at all."

Wong considered him for a moment, expression unreadable. "There's one thing, maybe." He opened a small unassuming drawer in his desk and took out two simple-looking ceramic coins. He set them in front of Steve.

"What do they do?"

"They're used for time travel."

Steve looked up at him sharply. "I thought only the Eye could do that?"

"Only the Eye can do that reliably, safely," Wong agreed. "These are neither reliable nor safe."

"I don't care if it's dangerous. I'll do anything." He reached for them then stilled his hand, in case he set them off accidentally. "How do they work?"

Wong raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you know what you're agreeing to first?" When Steve didn't answer, Wong set his fingertip on one of the coins - the one with a large X scraped into it. "Break one and you go back in time. Break the other and you come back to the present again," he explained. "When you're in the past, you can change it. But there are three risks. The first is that you don't know how your changes will affect the future; you could make it worse."

Steve snorted. "I'm not sure that's possible."

"Wouldn't it be nice," Wong said, "if that were true."

Steve resisted the sudden urge to bare his teeth and growl. He'd lost so much; it was hard to imagine things could be worse any worse. He didn't want to.

"The second risk is that the coins are temperamental and not designed to be used by humans, especially ones without magical skills.The travel won't be pleasant, and I can't promise you'll end up where you want to."

"Why don't you use them? If it requires magic?"

Wong hummed thoughtfully. "I have the skill, but not the constitution. I would almost certainly be killed by the travel alone. But you, you have a good chance at survival. Better than me, anyway."

Steve nodded. That was a risk he took every time he put the suit on, picked up the shield. It hardly crossed his mind to be afraid. He was always looking down death's barrel. "What's the third risk?"

Wong looked sad for the first time. "There's a price to pay. When you return to the future, the changes you made will ripple forward from the past, but, now, there will be two instances of you. The one of you who travelled back -" he pointed at Steve "- and then the one of you who lives on from the altered past."

"There will be two of me?"

"Of course not. Don't be preposterous." Wong rolled his eyes. "Those two versions of you need to coalesce, so they will, but the price you must pay is that both of those men will live inside you."

Steve's lip curled. That didn't sound… pleasant.

"You'll have both sets of memories, and when the new past hits your current future, well, I've heard it's a very unpleasant process."

"I'll remember two lives?"

"Yes. And you'll be the only one who does. You'll be the sole keeper of a dead and forgotten timeline, regardless of whether things are better or worse. You'll have to carry that with you forever." Wong leaned forward over the desk, eyes fixed on Steve. "I can't ask you to take that on, you have to choose it. There were never many of these coins in existence, and as far as I know this set is the last, but from what I've heard… if you don't die during the travel, and you don't end up erasing your own existence in the past, coming to the future again, having those new memories rush to catch up to you? Most people can't take it. Their brains pop like an overripe pear. Worse for you since the serum augmented your memory, didn't it? It's a lot to hold on to."

Steve looked down at the two coins, sitting unassumingly on the desk, then back up at Wong. "I'm used to having a lot to hold on to. It's worth it." He held out his hand. "What do I do?"

Wong bustled Steve into the centre of the room. He tucked one coin - the one with a thumbprint shape in the centre - in one of the pockets on Steve's belt then handed him the other one.

"Strange can help you. Go back to before Thanos came and speak to him, tell him to look at the outcomes and figure out what you can do to change things, to stop him from being taken with Stark and the kid. But make sure you give yourself enough time. The coins work better if you focus on what you want and not a specific date. They're a bit hinky with dates."

"Oh sure, tell me that now," Steve muttered, rolling the ceramic coin around his palm.

"Think about where you want to go, as clearly as you can, then snap the coin. Whatever you do, don't lose the other coin in the past. You'll need to break it in order to come back. It'll take you to where you left off, back here. Give or take a few hours, maybe a day at the most. The longer you're in the past, the more things you touch, people you interact with, the more you'll change the future. It's a risky game to play. Things seem bleak now, but… your best bet is to find Strange, get him to help, then come back here before things butterfly out of control."

"Right." Steve looked down at the coin in his hand. "Okay. Think about where I want to go."

Wong nodded. He stepped back. "Good luck."

Steve tried to thank him, for his help, for his faith, for the luck, but he couldn't speak. He nodded instead. Wong took another step back, and Steve looked down at the coin in his hand. He ran his thumb over its indented surface. It was soft and smooth on the two flat sides, then rough on the edges, like it had been pressed flat then had the shape cut out crudely from a larger piece. He checked the pocket to make sure he had the return coin then let his eyes fall shut.

I need time to fix this, he thought, rolling his thumb across the coin over and over. I need to go back before this started so I can make it right. Two soft, brown eyes filled his mind, as they often did when his eyes were closed. He gripped the coin between his hands, tensing, ready to break it, but before he snapped it in half, his mind slipped in one more fleeting thought, I need time to save him.

At first, Steve thought it hadn't worked. He was still standing in the middle of the Sanctorum, and then the world spun around him in a violent arc. His stomach heaved, clenched by overwhelming motion sickness, and Steve dropped to his knee, gasping in air.

Deep breaths weren't enough to soothe him, though. His stomach heaved, rolled, and then he was coughing up bile - he hadn't eaten in so long, it was all he had in his stomach - and gagging. He spat, gasping in breath, his eyes stinging, but another wave of nausea hit him, filling his throat with acid.

It was several minutes before he was steady enough to lift his eyes and figure out where he was. He wasn't in the Sanctorum anymore - Wong had warned him that its warding spells might prevent him from landing inside - but he was nearby, in an alleyway. He could see the cars rolling past about twenty feet away. All for the best, really. He didn't want to be throwing up on someone's rug.

When he was sure his churning stomach had settled enough to move, Steve pushed gingerly to his feet, one hand braced on the wall. He felt weak and sweaty, chilled and overheated at the same time. He hadn't felt like this in years, not since he was half as big, with twice as much to prove. It was disconcerting.

The broken halves of the coin were gone, and Steve obsessively checked to make sure the other coin was still in his pouch. It was, safe and cozy, and he took a strip of gauze from the emergency kit he had in one of the other pockets and wrapped the coin until it had a soft cocoon around it. He tucked it back in and zipped it closed. It wouldn't do to break it before he'd fixed anything.

And that was what he was here for, so he needed to stop moping around in an alleyway and go find Strange. He took a few shaky steps, wishing he'd thought to bring water, then stopped to lean against the wall for a few breaths. It took almost ten minutes for him to shake off the worst of the seasickness, but by the time he reached the end of the alleyway, he was breathing normally again, and his stomach had stopped doing gymnastics.

He walked the block and a half to the Sanctum, but when he got to where he knew it would be, it wasn't. There was an empty lot where 177A Bleecker St. usually was. Steve stood there and stared at the trash and cigarette butts that littered the space where his saviour should have been instead.

There were safeguards on the Sanctorum, Steve knew that, but Strange should have noticed him out here. It wasn't every day that Captain America came calling, but no building appeared. Nothing happened.

Steve let out a huff of frustration. The only phone he had on him was the match to the one he'd given Tony, and he didn't have anyone else's phone number, especially not Strange's. If Strange even had a phone. Sorcerer Supreme didn't seem like a title that came with a lot of technology.

Steve was about to pull out the phone and dial Information to see if Stephen Strange was still listed from when he'd been a surgeon, but a sharp cry from around the corner drew his attention away from the phone. He tucked it away and set off at a jog towards the sound.

His improved hearing had picked up the cry from quite a distance, so he had to run several blocks before he found the source.

The yelp came again, sharper this time, and Steve turned a corner to find a young woman backed against the wall with both hands in the air. A teenage boy with a hood obscuring his face was brandishing a knife at her. She was rummaging around in her purse, pale and terrified.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Steve said, summoning all the authority of Captain America. "Put the knife down, son."

The boy spun and threatened Steve with the knife instead. "Fuck off, okay?" he said, voice shaking. He waved a hand at the woman. "Give it to me!"

"Alright, alright." She sounded more put-out than scared, but Steve could hear the breathlessness that said she was hardly breathing. She pulled her wallet out and threw it on the ground, as far away from her as she could. A local, Steve thought with a sigh. She flicked her eyes over to Steve and frowned, her lip curling as she raked her gaze over his appearance. It seemed that knowledge of his exile had reached most of the population by now, whenever now was.

He clenched his fists, and his gauntlets snapped into shields, claws descending. He moved towards the boy, trying to put his body between the mugger and the woman. He opened his mouth to speak again, but a sharp voice called from the end of the alley.

"Hands where we can see them!"

Steve turned to look and found three police officers crowded at the other end, guns out and pointed at them. Steve slowly raised one hand, snapping the gauntlet back together again with a twitch of his fingers. "Just helping out officers. He's only a kid with a knife, no need for guns."

But the officer barely listened to him, yelling again to put the weapons down and put their hands where they could see them. Steve looked over at the boy who had dropped the knife, turning pale, hands in the air.

The officer was looking at Steve with suspicion. It seemed that whenever this was, his presence in New York wasn't welcome. This was going to be harder to navigate than he thought. Steve shuttered the other gauntlet carefully then raised his hands. The officers swarmed the alley, and Steve found himself with his chest pressed against the rough brick wall, gloves and gauntlets stripped off. "Officers, I was just helping this young lady." Steve tried to turn in their hold and he was shoved rudely back against the wall. He relaxed, not wanting his strength to come off as a threat.

"Right. What's your name, pal?"

Steve frowned. They didn't know who he was? He briefly considered giving a fake name, but that wouldn't fly for long. "Steve Rogers," he said. "Captain America? Look, I know this is a complicated matter, and I know you probably have to talk to the WSC, but I swear, I was just helping."

One of the officers snorted. "Yeah, and I'm Batman. Look, buddy, the last thing we need is more wanna-be vigilantes running around the city pretending to be heroes of old, alright? You're coming down to the station, we're going to find out who you are, talk to this young lady here and make sure you were doing what you claim you were. If you weren't, you're going to see nothing but the inside of a cell tonight. If you were, well, we're going to have a long talk about appropriate applications of civic duty, pal."

They turned the corner, and Steve screeched to a halt. The officer, not expecting Steve to stop so suddenly, walked right into Steve's back, unable to shift his bulk. Steve stared. The street they'd turned onto was one he recognized. Along one side was a small cafe with a patio covered in metal-work chairs, and a kind blonde waitress. If he looked up, Steve could see, peering out from among the other buildings, Avengers Tower, looming above the city.

There were two things wrong. One, the cafe had been destroyed in the Battle of New York and it hadn't been replaced. Two, it wasn't Avengers Tower that Steve tipped his chin up to gaze at, it was Stark Tower, the letters bright and whole as they blazed across the newly finished building.

The coins can be temperamental, Wong had said.

Steve hadn't gone back to right before Thanos, not to before he'd left America to save Bucky, not even to before Ultron. He'd gone back to before the Avengers had even been formed. Maybe even before he'd been found.

"What year is it?" he choked out, unable to take his eyes off the undamaged tower.

The officer gave Steve a little shove, but Steve didn't move. "It's May 3rd," he said, as if that answered Steve's question.

"No. What year?"

"2012." The officer sighed. "Alright, what did you take?"

2012… terror surged up in Steve's throat. He was so far in the past, so much farther than he intended. He swallowed heavily and shook his head. 2012. What if it took him six years to fix this? Could he really face doing this all over again? And then to have the memories of both, stacked on top of each other...

It comes with a price.

He hadn't understood how high.

"Pal?"

"I - I'm not on anything. I just... " Of course the officer didn't know who Captain America was, or at least not as anything more than a long-dead war hero. "I'm sorry. I just wanted to help."

The officer pushed again, and this time, Steve let himself be moved. He leaned back in the car, hands cuffed behind him and watched the streets of an unbroken New York flicker past the window. This was before all of it. Before he was re-recruited, before he met the other Avengers, before Loki. It was unbelievable.

A wave of painful, guilty homesickness flushed through him. He didn't even know what he ached for. Was it the compound, that he'd left in 2018? Wakanda? Or this Tower, before he'd found Bucky, but before he'd lost everything, too. Did he even have a home anymore or just a pile of broken pieces that had once almost built something worth living for? His hand found the cellphone in his pouch, and he ran his fingers over the smooth surface.

Before they booked him, they tucked him away in a room by himself. He sat there, staring at the two-way glass, his own reflection looking back at him. There was another him here, another Steve Rogers, new to 2012, thinking he'd never again feel so displaced. God, was he ever in for a surprise.

He was alone for a long time, and Steve started to worry. If they really did arrest him, surely they'd take his uniform, his shield gauntlets, his belt. They'd get the coin, and he couldn't let anyone have that. He snapped the chain connecting the handcuffs, resisting the urge to flick his eyes to the security camera. He shuffled forward until his lap was tucked under the table in front of him then brought one hand forward, as subtly as he could. He was just flicking open the pouch when the door swung open, and he snapped his hands back together behind his back.

It wasn't the officers, though.

"Hill? Fury?"

The two SHIELD agents peered at him then shared a look. Hill was holding his gloves and gauntlets. "You're coming with us," she said, and Steve breathed a sigh of relief. They might actually believe him.

Another officer came in with a key, and Steve sheepishly brought his disconnected hands back in front of him. "I sneezed," he said, by way of explanation. The officer's eyes went wide, but he didn't say anything, merely unlocked and removed the two bracelets, now unconnected.

Hill and Fury bustled him off to a large black SUV and deposited him in the back. He saw Hill's eyes studying him in the rearview mirror. "What's your name?"

"Steven Grant Rogers," he replied easily. "Born July 4th, 1918."

"How is that possible?" Fury asked, right to the point.

Steve opened his mouth, then took a breath. If he told them he was from the future, they'd want to know why he'd come back, what happened that was so horrible that he'd travelled through time to change it. And the more he told, the more he'd affect the future in unknowable ways. He'd come here for Strange's help, and he should stick to that. Still, he would need SHIELD's help to get to Strange, it seemed.

"I'm from an alternate dimension," he said carefully. "I'm a different Steve Rogers from yours."

Hill's eyes flicked up to the rearview again, and she smiled. Steve supposed that wasn't a hard pitch, considering the way he looked. He resisted the urge to brush his hair out of his eyes.

"I'm - uh - lost. A thing happened, dimensional travel. I don't know how much detail I should go into… but I need Stephen Strange's help to get home. That's all." If he had five minutes alone with Strange, he could tell him he needed to save the future, and then snap the coin to go back, and everything would be alright.

"Strange?" Fury asked. He turned around in his seat and narrowed his eyes at Steve. "Stephen Strange?"

"Yeah. The Sorcerer Supreme."

Fury's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah… we don't have one of those here."

Steve opened his mouth to argue - they most certainly did - then realized that would blow his cover. "Oh."

"You're in luck, though. We have two of the greatest minds in the world on tap. They can help. But, for now, we're in the middle of a crisis, and we need you where we can see you, so you're coming with us." The SUV pulled up outside SHIELD HQ, and Hill led Steve out of the back, one hand resting not-so-subtly on his forearm as she guided him towards the doors.

"Crisis?"

The two agents shared a look, and Steve saw a reflection of the past in them. The Tesseract. It had already started. That meant those two minds they were talking about were Bruce… and Tony. Tony was still alive.

And they were taking Steve to him.

Without another word, the agents led Steve to an elevator, all the way up to the top floor and then into a Quinjet. Hill and Fury were quietly discussing something, heads pressed together in the cockpit, and Steve slumped in the back, finally taking a moment to breathe. He still felt a bit sick from his landing, his stomach churning away on nothing but bile for hours now. He wanted to ask how close to the Battle for New York they were, but he couldn't without giving away that he knew what was going to happen.

The flight wasn't long, the quinjet settling down after only a few minutes on the surface of the familiar Helicarrier, out on the ocean. Hill had an agent take Steve to a room of his own. He heard a significant click when the agent shut the door, and when he tried the knob, he wasn't surprised to find it locked. The room was stocked with food, water, a bathroom, and a bed, so Steve decided to take advantage of the fact that he had time - too much of it really - and take care of himself a little.

He drank four bottles of water, ate everything they'd left him, took a shower, then settled down on the bed for a nap. It was bizarrely familiar. In fact… was the other him lying awake in a similar room, only a few hallways away, freshly unfrozen, scared and angry at the world, about to take on a god for the first time? He did the math in his head based on the date the police officer had given him.

Yeah, Loki had taken the Tesseract on the 1st, and the team had been brought together over the next few days. The 3rd. That was the night Loki attacked Stuttgart, which meant that he and Coulson would have arrived on the Helicarrier this morning at the same time as Natasha and Banner.

God, Coulson… he was still alive too.

It was hours and hours before anyone came for him. He wasn't sure how long - he dropped off to sleep a few times, only to shock awake again an indeterminable amount of time later.

Finally, the lock clicked open again, and an agent Steve didn't recognize stood in the doorway. She beckoned to him. "You're to come with me."

Steve followed her down the hall, heart flip-flopping when he realized where they were headed. The doors to the bridge opened, and he stepped through. The first thing he noticed was his own double, several years and several hurts younger, sitting at the table Steve could still remember the feel of under his hand. Behind him, Bruce hovered nervously, eyes flicking to the guards that lined the walls. Thor was in full gear, hair back to its former glory. Nat sat at the table, back to him.

But Steve ignored them all. He spared one look for his past self, who was gaping back at him in open shock, then flicked his eyes up to the only other man in the room he cared to see.

He looked perfect. His beard was carefully trimmed, an impeccably-fitted suit snug over his lean body. His eyes were clear of the heaviness they'd come to carry in later years. The arc reactor still glowed softly behind his tie. He looked perfect.

Tony was alive.

"Tony," Steve choked out before he could stop himself.

Tony's eyes went wide, and he took a step back. "Wow, you weren't kidding."

Steve longed to fling himself across the room, gather Tony in his arms and hold him until the world wasn't ending, but he couldn't. Because Tony didn't know him, barely knew the past him, at this point. He couldn't believe how far they'd come from this, six years ago. Looking back on them now, he found it hard to believe it had been such a short time. So much had changed.

Tony crossed the room and eyed him with scientific curiosity. "Damn, you look just like him. I mean, an emo version of him, but still." He turned his head to look between the two Steves. "Cool."

The other Steve stood, moving more slowly, and eyed Steve up. After a moment, he held out a hand. "They say you're a me from another dimension."

Steve nodded. "Captain." He shook the other Rogers' hand.

"Captain."

Tony snorted. "This is like an Abbott and Costello skit. You should Prince and Pauper it and swap clothes and pretend to be each other. Ooo, Parent Trap."

Steve tried not to grin while the other Steve - Rogers - frowned. Tony had been so… bouncy back then. Before the weight of the Avengers pulled him down, drooped his shoulders and dragged his perpetual smile to a frown.

"I shouldn't be here long," Steve said. "I'm just trying to find a man who can help me get home."

"Well, we'd love to help you, Captain," Fury piped up, but I'm afraid it's all hands on deck at the moment. We're in the middle of a bit of an 'incident.'" Fury clapped him on the shoulder. "DNA scans are all good, and as much as I'd love to run you through the entire gauntlet of interrogations and blood tests, we simply don't have the time. We're going to have to trust you. So, you're free to roam about the cabin. As soon as we get this mess cleared up, we'll put all our resources on finding you a way home, got it?"

Steve nodded. "Sounds good." His doppelganger was eyeing him with an odd mix of curiosity, repulsion, and longing. Steve wondered if he was always so easy to read. He knew what the old him was thinking - an alternate dimension, maybe one where things had turned out better. He hated to disappoint him, especially when he knew, viscerally, how much disappointment lay ahead for him.

Steve ended up shifting back, melting into the shadows and leaving the conversation to the others. It would be all too easy for him to send this timeline off on a horribly different path. Maybe it would be better, maybe it would be worse, who knew? But his goal was just to get a message to Strange, and leave the rest to him. Time was too delicate for someone as inexperienced as Steve to muck around with it.

When they all went to Bruce's lab, Steve followed, for lack of anything better to do. The argument between his past self and Tony was even harder to watch from the outside. It gave him the distinctly odd reaction of wanting to punch himself.

He could feel the effect of Loki's sceptre rolling through him too, but it was more distant than last time. He remembered it, vividly, how angry he'd been, how hot he'd felt. He'd wanted to hit something - someone - and keep hitting and never stop. He wanted to break Stark's face as easily as he broke his punching bags.

But this time, he had the benefit of perspective and time. And something else his old self hadn't had. Love. Love for this team that wasn't a team yet. A painful, yawning, gaping nostalgia that wriggled deep and tore him up from the inside. This time, instead of being destroyed by rage, he'd be destroyed by despair.

"You're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?" Tony quipped.

"I swear to god, Stark, one more crack…" Rogers warned, bristling.

"Tony please," Steve said softly, stumbling down to sit on the edge of one of the work tables, body tense.

Tony's eyes snapped over to him, narrowed and piercing. He opened his mouth to say something, but Bruce drew Tony's attention away again.

"We're - we're a time bomb."

Steve's eyes fell to the scepter. Bruce's fingers curled into fists, a green vein throbbing in his neck. "You need to step away," Fury said to him. But Bruce stayed.

The room swirled with angry, snapped words, pettiness and hate, and Steve's head spun with it. He wanted them to stop fighting, stop arguing. This was the damn problem in the first place! He pushed to his feet, not sure if should drag his double away or Tony, not sure if he should do anything at all. He was painfully aware that everything he changed would change the future in unknowable ways, but the longer it went on, the more he wanted to change it, uncertainty be damned. He hated the future, he hated how everything played out. His fingers reached for the sleeve of Tony's shirt. There was only one thing he wanted…

"- you can't! I know! I tried!"

The whole room fell silent, and as one they turned to Bruce.

"I got low. I didn't see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out! So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good, until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk!"

Steve watched, frozen, as Bruce's hand reached back, seemingly of its own accord and curled around the handle of the scepter.

"You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You want to know how I stay calm?"

Nat popping the latch on her gun holster echoed around the now painfully silent room.

Rogers stepped forward. "Doctor Banner… put down the scepter."

Bruce blinked at his own hand as if he was only aware of having one now, for the first time. The sound of the beeping computer drew everyone's attention, shaking off the hold of Loki's magic. While they discussed the Tesseract, Steve pondered something. He watched Tony's finger pointing at the computer screen.

Tony had bugged the helicarrier, gained access to their files and information. He'd set up a search to find the weapons, find the Tesseract, but he had access to everything. And Steve now knew JARVIS' override codes. He could log in as Tony and find out everything SHIELD knew about Doctor Strange and the New York Sanctum. He wouldn't have to wait for them, and then, when they landed in New York again, he could run off, leave his message, and get back to the future before anything else was changed.

He just needed a minute alone with Tony's computer.

And then the explosion came.

Steve should have been ready for it, prepared, but he was still knocked to the floor with everyone else when the helicarrier lilted violently to the side. The lights turned red and smoke poured out of the hallway.

He watched distantly, as his past self helped Tony stand.

"Put on the suit!" Rogers called.

"Yep!" Tony agreed, steadying himself between Rogers and the wall, and then he was gone.

Steve took off after them, his head finally cleared from the scepter's influence. Tony was going to go restart the engine. He needed help, Rogers hadn't known what to do. He was halfway down the hall when Steve remembered the other thing that was going to happen during this fight. He slowed to a walk then stopped.

Coulson.

Could he let him die again? Was that the right thing to do? His death had spurred them on, brought them together, but how could Steve stand here, knowing what was going to happen, and do nothing? How could he look at that stain on the helicarrier wall and ask Tony if it was the first time he'd lost a soldier when he knew, deeply, painfully, that it would be far from the last.

He couldn't.

Steve turned on his heel and ran back down the hallway, away from the broken turbine and towards the armoury. He had to stop several times to help SHIELD agents who had been knocked down or hurt by the explosion. The halls were in chaos, emergency lights flashing, alarms blaring, and the press of confused and terrified bodies slowed Steve down. He didn't know the most efficient paths through the helicarrier and he kept taking turns into main pathways that quickly became lodged with people.

He helped two agents carry another to the medical wing then turned down the stairs to the armoury. It was quieter below, most people moving up when the explosion hit. It was almost eerie, hearing the footsteps and yelling above, but seeing no one down here. No one, at least, until Coulson came around the corner, holding a massive gun.

Steve stared him down. "You can't go after him on your own."

"They're here to bust Loki out. I have to stop him from leaving."

Steve held out his hand, summoned all the power of Captain America. "Give me the gun, Phil. I'll go."

Coulson's eyes went wide, and he swallowed, but he shook his head. "I have a duty to protect the people of this earth."

Steve sighed, ran a hand through his hair, brushing it back from his face. "Okay. But I'm going with you." He snapped his shields open and held one arm out in front of them. “Stay behind me."

Coulson made a small noise of frustration but pressed up against Steve's back, and they made their way through the undercarriage of the helicarrier on the way to the detention centre. They didn't run into any more of Loki's charmed agents, but as they pounded up the stairs towards the Hulk's cage, they could hear Loki talking.

"The humans think us immortal. Should we test that?"

Steve slammed his arm into the head of a man standing guard for Loki, and he dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Coulson levelled the massive weapon at Loki. "Move away, please."

Loki's eyes stayed fixed on Coulson, eyes carefully impassive. His hands came up, and he took two steps to the side. Steve flicked his eyes over to Thor, trapped in the cage Loki had been in only a few minutes ago.

Coulson waved the gun to encourage Loki to keep moving. "You like this? We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don't know what it does. Do you want to find out?" The gun powered up, the tip glowing orange-yellow.

Steve looked back at Thor and saw his eyes go wide just in time to spin and catch Loki appearing seemingly out of nothing behind Coulson. Without his shield to throw, Steve snatched up a broken wall panel that had been thrown to the ground during the explosion and, without hesitation, threw it across the room until it smashed into the wall, catching the thrust of Loki's spear and knocking it out of his hands. Coulson spun, a moment too late, but before he could get a shot in, Loki scooped up the scepter, ducked under his arm, and ran past the control panel smacking his hand down on it as he breezed past.

The floor opened, the cage released, and it plummeted out of the helicarrier, taking Thor with it. "Shit!" Steve dove forward, but it was too late. He was gone. He pulled the panel out of the wall and threw it, as Coulson took aim, but Loki disappeared in a shimmer of electric green light, and the sheet of metal bounced harmlessly off the railing then clattered to the ground.

Steve turned to Coulson. "You okay?"

Coulson hefted his gun with a sigh. "Damn. I really wanted to find out what this does."

**

Steve sent Coulson up to the bridge while he ran down the hall towards the lab. This might be his one shot to be alone with Tony's equipment before they all followed Loki to New York.

Steve stuck his head in the empty room. The windows were broken and shattered equipment and screens littered the floor. But one screen remained intact, a logo spinning on it serenely in lazy circles. Steve checked the hall - empty - then slid the door closed after slipping inside.

The computer sprung to life when Steve touched a finger to the screen. The old him wouldn't have known how to use it, but he was comfortable with StarkTech now. Not as comfortable as Tony, of course; he spoke technology like a second language - or rather a fourth language, Steve supposed. It was like music, the way he played the screens, the holograms, made them dance under his fingers, watching six, seven, screens at one and parsing them all. Steve longed to see that again, knew it was lost. But here was a piece of it, under his fingertips.

He found his way into SHIELD's files and set it searching, for Doctor Strange in one window, for the New York Sanctum in the other. It only took a few minutes before information started popping up. He scanned it as quickly as he could.

It seemed, that Strange was nothing more than Dr. Stephen Strange, neurosurgeon, at this point, and who knew how long it would be before he found his calling as the Sorcerer Supreme. Steve's heart clenched with fear at the thought that maybe, in some unforeseen way, he'd already changed things so that Strange never would. But he could spend forever worrying about that for nothing. He just had to hope. All of this mission rested entirely on hope.

He read through the information on the Sanctum and brightened. In that, was something useful. SHIELD had made contact with the guardians who kept the Sanctum now, the ones who had come before Strange, and that meant SHIELD was Steve's in. It was clear that the building, while apparently nonexistent, was still there, and monitored. All Steve needed was a way to show he was affiliated with SHIELD, and they might let him in.

Not that the information did much for him, up in the air, over the ocean. He needed to get back into the city, get to the Sanctum, leave his message, and go home before he messed any of this up even more.

**

Messy, sore, and angry, what was left of the group gathered on the bridge. Fury leaned against the railing by the control stacks, eyes fixed on the horizon. Hill had a gash over one eye that was still bleeding but she ignored it. They were airborne again, but only barely.

Steve hovered at the back, watching Rogers' shoulders hike higher and higher up towards his ears.

Fury waxed poetic about an idea, about bringing together the Avengers, but Steve knew it wasn't sinking in. He could see from the frustrated defiance in Tony's eyes and the blank coolness in Steve's that the last thing they wanted to do was follow Fury into a battle of his own making.

When Tony and Rogers didn't move, didn't respond, Fury swept out of the room with Hill in tow.

This time, they didn't have Coulson's death to bring them together, to guide them to the next step. Fury had manipulated them back then, sure, but it had worked, gotten them moving. Now, Steve had broken the chain. Panic flooded his stomach, hot and acidic. What if they couldn't solve it? What if they couldn't figure out where Loki was headed until it was too late, until the city was so swarmed with Chitauri that the nuke wasn't enough to stop them?

God… the nuke. Could he really let Tony fly through that wormhole again, knowing what it was going to do to him? Knowing how it would torture him after?

He shook his head. "He's trying to split you up," he said, voice ringing loud and clear through the mostly empty space. "First Barton, then Banner. He used his magic to get everyone fighting and then dumped Thor. He's trying to make this personal." Steve's eyes flicked, unbidden, over to Tony, willing him to pick up the thread.

Tony looked at him, curious, piercing. "He needs a power source."

Steve nodded.

Rogers looked up from the table. "We can put together a list… send out a group to each one."

Coulson frowned. "We're low on personnel."

"Too slow." Tony shook his head. "Why'd he play it out this way? Getting captured, bringing his baddies here. With that firepower behind him, you can't convince me he didn't give up too easily in Stuttgart."

Rogers nodded. "He wanted to be brought here…"

"He wanted to come in, hit us where we live…"

"Split us up," Steve repeated. "Tear us apart."

"He had to conquer his greed, but he knows he has to take us out to win, right?" Tony tilted his head, gears turning. "That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, and he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience. That's what gets him control. Witnesses to our defeat. The great defenders of Earth brought low."

"Right." Rogers nodded. "I caught his act in Stuttgart."

'Yeah... That's just a preview," Tony went on. "This is opening night. Loki's a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built in the skies with his name plastered…" Tony's eyes snapped up to Rogers' then cut to Steve's, bright now with understanding and anger. "Son of a bitch!"

Rogers ran off to let Clint and Natasha know that they'd figured out where Loki was headed. Steve followed Tony down the hall. Tony stopped abruptly, and Steve almost smashed into his back.

"Can I help you with something, Cap?"

"Uh -" Steve stammered, unable to explain that he'd merely followed Tony because he was Tony, because he couldn't bear to watch him walk away yet again. "You were beat up pretty bad starting that turbine again, you alright?"

Tony's eyes narrowed. "Sure. I'm fine. Suit's seen better days, but luckily I know where to get a new one. Oh, and hey, it's on the way. Or rather, it is the way."

"Right. Okay."

Tony peered at him closely again. "You alright? Didn't hit your pretty little head, did you? Only, the lost puppy routine is a bit… out of character."

"I - sorry." Steve took a step back. "In my dimension. It's - uh - it's different."

"What's different?"

Steve gestured between them. "You and me. We're, uh - It's weird to see us - you - you two, fighting, that's all."

Tony waved it off. "Just a little hoodoo from Loki. it's not like I hate the guy. I barely know him. Guess we met earlier in your dimension, huh?"

"Yeah," Steve breathed out a sigh with the word. "Yeah. We met earlier. We're friends…"

He's my friend.

So was I.

Steve swallowed hard against the intrusive memory and tried to shake it off under Tony's critical gaze. "It's just… odd. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bother you."

"No bother, Cap. But I'm going to go change and then get the remains of the suit back online, and I don't really need help for that." He smirked.

"Right." Steve planted his feet, and Tony turned to walk away again.

"Hey, Tony." Steve trotted three steps then grabbed Tony's arm to stop him. Tony pivoted on his heel, eyes flicking down to where Steve held him, but he didn't pull away.

"What?"

"Be careful out there."

Tony was quiet for a long time, eyes searching Steve's face. Then he nodded, short and sharp. "You too." He wriggled free of Steve's grip and disappeared through the doorway.

**

Steve suited up with the others, hanging back while they commandeered a quinjet. Fury wouldn't try to stop them, he knew that now. The whole ride to the city, all he could think about was Tony. Tony out there, fighting alone, fighting Loki. Steve was as useless to him this time as he'd been the last time.

When the quinjet hit the ground - not at all gently - Steve tried to leave, he really did. Every moment that he interacted with the Avengers, with himself, he was messing with the timeline, doing who knew what to the future. He'd come back here with a simple goal - get a message to Strange - and he knew, sort of, how to do that now, but when his feet hit the asphalt, they wouldn't move towards Bleecker St. He turned back to the screaming people, to the smoke and fire and alarms, and he couldn't run.

He just couldn't.

The split second of hesitation was all it took for the alien army to swarm him. He popped his shield gauntlets open and smashed the vibranium claws into body after body, ripping through their insectoid carpaces.

Steve looked up and caught sight of his doppelganger, tearing through his own onslaught of Chitauri. It was disconcerting, somewhat, so see the differences and similarities in the way they moved. Rogers of the past was quick, agile, yes, but choppy, uncertain, anxious.

It was different now. He moved with confidence, ease, assurity, but also with a weight he hadn't carried back then, a heaviness on his shoulders, bending his neck, that made him slower, stiffer.

He was getting old. Maybe not the same ways that other people aged, but he was. He felt it ache right down in his bones. He was getting old, but he'd never be done, never find peace. He watched himself fight, a broken, scared, lonely version of himself, but still, optimistic, hopeful, and he realized he had no words for him, no promises that it would get better or that it was worth it. He honestly didn't know if it was.

A Chitauri warrior broke free of the pack and charged him, knocking him to his knees. He clawed up with the gauntlet, ripping through its neck, then tossed it aside. There was a clattering to his right, and he saw the cellphone had popped lose of his belt and lay on the ground, ash marring the screen. With Tony gone, there was no need to keep it, to hold it as if some day it would ring, and he would be on the other end. The phone was useless, but when a Chitauri stepped forward, foot landing on the phone with an audible crack, Steve lost it.

He roared and launched himself at the alien, ramming both fists into its chest, the claws splitting apart its exoskeleton. He landed on it, straddling its hips and wailed on it, over and over. Never mind that it was dead, never mind that he was covered in blood and bile. Anger surged through him. It was unfair, brutally unfair that he had to do this again, watch his city, his world, fall around him again. He just wanted to be done.

When his rage receded, he pushed himself up and staggered back, panting. Alien blood dripped from his hands onto the asphalt below. He looked around and saw the phone, dirty and half hidden under a broken piece of metal. He pulled it out, flipped it open. It was still on. The crack had merely been the back of the casing, but the screen and the phone were still fine.

It was stupid, he knew it, but he tucked it back in its pouch on his belt, snapping it closed carefully. It was all he had left of Tony, one phone number saved on a useless flip phone. Tony had probably never even opened the package Steve had sent him, never found the phone, never thought about using it. But the number was Tony's, whether he used it or not, and it was all Steve had left. So he would keep it.

The battle raged on. They'd given him a comm, but he stayed silent, working on freeing the buildings that lined the battlefield of aliens so the people trapped inside had avenues for escape. His body ached and his mind rebelled against facing the same fight again, but he tamped down the unease and pressed on.

Until he heard Tony's voice ring out, loud and clear over the comm line. "No, wait!"

Steve stopped and spun. He saw Rogers and Thor gathered in the centre of the street, and he ran over to them, horror churning his stomach. He was supposed to be gone by now. He wasn't supposed to have to do this again.

"I've got a nuke coming in. It's gonna blow in less than a minute. And I know just where to put it."

Rogers face twisted, fell. "Stark, you know that's a one-way trip?"

Tony didn't answer, and Steve bit back the urge to scream, to slam his fist in Rogers face for daring not to care, for wasting all this damn time hating him when they'd get so little time in the end. So little. Steve grabbed Rogers' arm, jerked it until he spun around to look at him. "You can't let him do this."

Something flickered across Rogers' face. "There's no other way. He's right. It's the only place to put it."

Steve's heart pounded painfully in his chest. He should have found a way, back on the helicarrier, to disable the nukes. He didn't know how, but surely - he hadn't even tried. And now Tony was going to back through, see those horrors that would torture him for years, that would aid the birth of Ultron, that would wedge between them and pry them apart until all that was left was anger and fear and misunderstanding.

He looked up helplessly as Iron Man streaked across the sky. "Tony…" he whispered to himself. He didn't want to watch, not again, but he couldn't look away. Rogers, beside him, was the same.

With one last powerful fire of his repulsors, Tony shot through the dark wound in the sky and disappeared, the nuke disappearing with him. A heartbeat later, the Chitauri fell. As one, like puppets with broken strings, they collapsed to the ground, dead, disconnected.

Rogers and Thor stared, startling back as enemy after enemy crumpled to the ground but Steve ignored them all, eyes fixed on the portal above them. Tony had come back through last time; he'd come back again. "Thor! Get ready to catch Tony. He's coming back."

"Captain…" Rogers said, not unkindly, but the look Steve shot him was not to be argued with.

Thor wound up Mjolnir and shot off into the sky, headed for the portal.

"Come on, Stark," Nat muttered through the comm, and Steve mouthed the words along with her. Come on. But Tony didn't appear. The explosion blocked out the night sky, threatening to leak through the portal and rain down on the city.

Steve sighed, dropping his eyes. "Close it," he said to Natasha.

The portal worked its way shut, the endless dark giving way to clear, blue sky again, and in the middle, a tiny figure in red and gold, plummeting to the earth.

"Son of a gun."

Steve rounded on his double, fury rushing through him, hot and acidic as bile. He grabbed Rogers' uniform and hauled him close. "Don't you ever take that man for granted again, you hear me?" he growled. "The first thing you need to know about Tony Stark is that if there's a sacrifice play to be made he will always be the one to lie down on the wire. And most of the time, you won't ever know he did. So don't you fucking dare let him go so easily next time." Steve released him, and Rogers staggered backwards, eyes wide.

Steve tried to control his breathing again, get himself under control. That was stupid. That was time-alteringly stupid. He scrubbed his hands over his face then looked back to the sky.

This time, Thor was ready, scooping Tony out of the sky and bringing him to the ground gently. He set him down, limp and unresponsive in the armour, and both Steves ran over to him, falling to their knees on either side of the suit. Thor ripped the faceplate off and tossed it aside.

Rogers' hand landed on the unlit arc reactor, and Steve had a visceral flashback to smashing the edge of his shield through it. He bit it back along with the acid it brought up his throat. Tony wasn't moving, but Steve knew he would be okay. It didn't stop him from brushing his knuckles over Tony's cheek.

"Tony," he said, when no one else spoke. "Tony, wake up."

The Hulk ambled over, grumbling, but before he could yell again, Tony's eyes flickered open, the suit powering back on and revealing the blue glow from the reactor again. Steve ran his fingertips over it as he pulled back.

Tony blinked up, gaze flicking back and forth between the two of them. "What happened? Did I hit my head?"

Steve frowned at him. "No, you didn't hit your head. Why? Does it hurt?"

"Cause I'm seeing double," Tony quipped back, and Rogers smiled, sitting back on his heels with a sigh of relief. "Please tell me no one kissed me." His eyes landed on Steve this time, bright and curious, a little… flirty?

Rogers shook his head. "We won," he said softly.

"Alright. Hey. Alright. Good job, guys. Let's not come in tomorrow. Let's just take a day. Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it."

Steve beamed at him, heart singing. Some things never changed.

Thor turned up towards the badly-damaged tower. "We're not finished yet."

Tony sighed. "And then shawarma after?"

 Steve let the others go into the tower to take care of Loki. He had something else he needed to do. He tapped his comm to open a secure line again. "Fury?"

"Yes, Captain?" he answered right away.

"I have a favour to ask."

**

It took half an hour, but a SHIELD van eventually rolled up at the corner, a sleek black SUV. Inside was an agent with dark sunglasses and dirt all over her uniform. She handed Steve a SHIELD badge when he climbed inside, then set off.

She didn't speak a word, just pulled up in front of the empty lot at 177A Bleecker St and stopped at the corner, engine running.

Steve walked up to the sidewalk and held out the SHIELD badge. "Um. Can I come in? I have an important message for you."

For two whole breaths, nothing happened. Then the air shimmered, like the horizon through a heat wave, and a building appeared. The front door opened. Steve sighed. "Should have thought to ask nicely the first time around, Rogers," he muttered to himself.

An unfamiliar man in robes like Wong's was standing at the bottom of the stairs - pristine and unbroken, unlike the last time Steve had seen them.

"You say you have a message?" the man said.

Steve took a breath. "I've been sent here from a bleak future to try and fix a mistake that was made. I need to leave a message for Dr. Stephen Strange. You don't know him yet, but someday he'll protect this place."

The man considered him for a moment then nodded. He moved his hands in a complicated way and produced a sheet of paper and a pen. He handed them to Steve.

"Really? You believe me? Just like that?"

The man smiled. "Just because you cannot see magic being done, does not mean it isn't happening around you." He winked.

Steve frowned, trying to parse out what that could mean. Had he done some sort of secret, magical, lie detector test on Steve? He felt the urge to take a very hot shower. "Alright." He took the paper and the pen, hovered for a moment, unsure of how much to say, then wrote out:

Thanos is coming. We're going to lose unless you find a way to stop it. The Avengers, we'll try, but we'll fail. I came back in time to warn you now, so you can find a way to stop this before it begins. Please. I risked everything to come here - everything that hadn't already been lost. -Steve Rogers, Captain America, April 29th, 2018.

The other man took the note back, not looking at its contents, then waved a hand. It disappeared.

"If something happens to you…" Steve said cautiously.

"I will make sure it gets to Stephen Strange, no matter what happens."

"Thank you."

He nodded, polite, but a dismissal, and Steve turned to go. Then he paused, turned back. "It's not a nice future," he said. "For any of us. I hope this time it turns out better."

So, that was it. He could go back now.

Steve's hand fell to the pouch on his belt that held the other coin. The one that would take him to the future and prove if he'd managed to fix things or not. There was an urge, a small but insistent one, to stay. To wallow here, for as long as possible. Build something with Tony, enjoy what might be his last chance to see him, talk to him. In the "corrected" future Tony might still be gone. Or Steve might be, poofing out of existence as soon as he snapped the coin. Or maybe - Wong hadn't told him - maybe it'd be slow and painful, reliving his new death.

But it wasn't a choice, not really. He needed to go back, needed to make sure he'd set things right, and if hadn't, find another way.

But there was one thing he wanted - needed - to do first. One small indulgence the past had to allow him.

He needed to see Tony one more time, have him look at Steve one more time without the pain and distrust of betrayal. Just one more time.

It wasn't hard to find Tony's hotel. The SHIELD agent dropped him off by the tower and Clint was outside, talking to a collection of other agents. He pointed Steve in the right direction when he asked. Steve didn't tell anyone else he was leaving - things were complicated enough as it was.

He found Tony's room, surprisingly not a penthouse suite, and knocked, the sound echoing painfully around the hall. The door opened.

"You missed shawarma." Tony had changed into fresh jeans, a t-shirt, and a soft-looking sweater. There was an open suitcase of clothes spilling over the floor, stuff he must've grabbed from the penthouse in his rush to get out.

"There was something I had to do," Steve said. "Can I come in?"

Tony stepped back and gestured him into the hotel room. "Did you find Strange?"

"Um." Steve wandered around the room, poking at things to give his hands something to do. He picked up a single-serve coffee pod and rolled it around in his palm.

"Or does he not exist yet?" Tony added lightly.

Steve rounded on him. "What?"

"Oh, come on Steve." Tony grabbed a bottle of amber liquid from the bedside table and poured a healthy amount in a glass. "Steve from another dimension. Right." He rolled his eyes. "You're from the future, aren't you?"

Steve spluttered for a moment. "How did you figure it out?"

"Well, first of all, in however many years it's been, your ability to lie has not improved in the slightest." Tony perched on the edge of the bed and took a swig from his glass. "You know too much. So you're either from an alternate dimension that's off-kilter with this one, time wise, or you're just from our future. Which one is it?"

Steve hesitated. But why else had he come here tonight, if not to tell him? "Our future." And those were words he never thought he'd speak. They had no future, at least not one that wasn't hurt and pain and suffering at each others hands, over and over.

Tony nodded. "You know, a lesser man would ask for lottery numbers."

Steve snorted. He leaned against the wall opposite where Tony sat. "A poorer man might, you've got no need. Besides, why on Earth would I know the winning lottery numbers?"

Tony shrugged. "I can only hope that's why you came back in time and not because the world is ending."

Steve's eyes flicked down to the carpet. "The world is always ending," he sighed softly.

"But this time?"

"This time… we didn't win." Steve crossed his arms over his chest. "I came back to fix it."

"And did you?"

"I don't know. I did everything I could. But I won't know if it was enough until I go back." He gestured towards his belt. He steadied himself. Suddenly he knew why he'd come here, "I - Actually, I didn't do everything I could. You told me once you were cursed with knowledge." Steve heaved a weighty breath. "I'm going to add more to that burden, and I hope, someday, that you'll forgive me for it."

"Steve…"

"I have no idea if this is the right thing to do, but I'm desperate, Tony." He shuffled forward then fell to his knees at Tony's feet. "I can't do this again. I can't go back and remember us hurting each other, twice over. It has to be different this time, it has to be."

Tony startled then set his glass aside. He leaned in then dropped a hand to Steve's shoulder. "Steve, it's okay. It has to be different already. You've already changed things."

Steve shook his head. "It's not enough." He dropped his gaze to his hands in his lap. "Some day… I don't want to tell you when exactly. Someday, I'm going to find out what really happened to your parents, and I'm not going to tell you."

"What really hap-? Excuse me?" Tony's voice was strained.

"HYDRA had them killed. They used their most powerful assassin. A supersoldier called the Winter Soldier."

Tony spluttered. "What? And you don't tell me? Why not?" he demanded.

"Because I'll find out at the same time that HYDRA's most powerful assassin is my old friend, my best friend, Bucky Barnes. They took him and tortured his mind, carved Bucky out and poured something else in. I won't know for sure it was him, not then, but it was, and I suspect as much. And I'm terrified. And I don't want to hurt you, don't want to be the one to hurt you. I don't want to be the one to hurt him either."

"Holy fuck." Tony dropped his face into his hands, and they shook. "Fuck."

"Tony, I'm so sorry." Steve didn't try to touch him, as badly as he wanted to. "You and I, we're going to hurt each other in a lot of ways. But that's the worst. And it all comes out at the worst possible time, when we're fighting anyway. Tony, something called the S- S- the Accords, you're going to want to implement them and I'm not. We're going to fight about it, fight about the team."

Tony pulled damp eyes up to look at Steve, and Steve's heart stopped when the anger he should see there, expected to see there, was replaced with pain, fear, instead. Tony's voice shook. "Why do we fight?"

"We see things fundamentally differently," Steve said. "But we also don't communicate very well," he admitted. "I can't tell him, so I'm telling you. When it comes to it, talk to me alone first. Explain it to me. Be patient. Try, as hard as you can, to understand where I'm coming from. And then, when everything goes to shit. Try - I know it's hard - but try and trust me, please?"

Tony stared at him for a long time. "I… I don't know what any of that means."

"I know." Steve shook his head then pushed to his feet. "I'm sorry. I've probably just fucked everything up." He brushed his hair back from his face. "I didn't know what else to do."

And I couldn't leave without seeing you one more time.

"I don't know if I can change the past… but this is all I've got, Tony. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for every fight we haven't had yet, for every time that I'll think you're dismissing me, for every time you'll think I don't trust you. I'm sorry for every time I'll bottle everything up instead of telling you how I feel. I'm so sorry. I hope you can forgive me, this time." Steve's hand twitched towards Tony but he stopped it before it could touch.

Tony was still gaping at him, but after a moment, he pushed to his feet as well. "Okay… I don't really know what to do with all that, but okay… I do trust you. Weirdly? And I'll do what I can to build a better future. Even if I don't really understand, yet."

"Thank you."

Tony gave him a piercing look. "Do you have to leave now?"

Steve nodded. "I should." He hesitated, then the words spilled out before he could stop them. "Can I hug you?"

Tony didn't answer, just stared at him some more, and Steve stammered an apology and turned towards the door. But as he reached for the handle, Tony's hand landed on his forearm, stopping him.

"Steve? Is your… am I - in your future - am I dead?"

Raw, hot grief welled up Steve's throat, and he swallowed it down, eyes prickling. "Yes," he gasped out. "Yes."

Tony tugged, and Steve fell into his hold, burrowing in his arms as Tony wrapped around him and held him close. When the first sob clawed its way out of Steve's throat, ripping its way through with vibranium talons, Tony staggered backwards until he hit the bed then eased them both down to sit on the edge, Steve still wrapped in his arms. Every ounce of pain and grief and horror that Steve had been holding back for the last god knew how many years poured out of him, soaking Tony's shirt.

"I'm sorry," he gasped out a few times, but Tony just shushed him and held him closer.

Eventually, cried out and embarrassed, Steve eased back, taking a deep, shuddering breath and wiping his face. Tony got him a glass of water, his hand lingering on the back of Steve's neck as he sipped it.

In the end, Tony guided Steve up on to the bed, then shucked his jacket and shoes, leaving only his jeans and a t-shirt on. He lay out next to him, on his side. They looked at each other. "Did you love him?" Tony finally asked, barely more than a whisper in the quiet dark.

"Yes."

"Did he know?"

"No."

"Come here." Tony eased Steve back into his arms, twining them both together.

And Steve let himself be worked into a comfortable position, breathing in Tony. That was home, that smell, that warmth. "Tony…" he murmured.

"Go home tomorrow morning," Tony said, his fingers petting up and down Steve's spine. "You deserve a rest first."

Steve gave in. He settled in Tony's arms and let sleep claim him.

He woke up a number of times, and each time, he was still wrapped in Tony's arms, legs twisted together. He didn't deserve this, but Tony had seen he needed it. He barely knew Steve, and he gave him this anyway. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so safe.

But when the sun broke through the gap in the curtains, he couldn't pretend anymore.

When he shifted, Tony sat up too.

"I have to go," Steve said.

"I know."

Steve rummaged through his belt until he found the coin, still wrapped in the gauze. He unwound the wrapping and held it in his hand, scraping along the rough edge with the pad of his thumb. Wong hadn't said that he needed to think of the destination time for this one. It should automatically take him back. He looked up, and Tony shuffled off the bed and came to stand in front of him. He leaned up on his toes and pressed a soft kiss to Steve's cheek. "This future will be better," he said.

"How do you know?"

Tony stepped back, shot Steve the smile that never failed to stop his heart. He spread his arms wide, ever the presenter. "Because it has to be."

Steve settled his eyes on Tony, taking in every inch of him in a way he'd never been able to before, locked him in his mind. If he was going to be cursed with these memories, he wanted as many of them as possible to be of Tony. "Goodbye, Tony."

"See ya 'round." Tony grinned.

And Steve snapped the coin clean in two.

This time was no better than the first. Steve spent ten minutes throwing up against a brick building, a different one than last time, but it seemed the Sanctum had refused him re-entry yet again.

When he could finally stand without everything spinning around his head, Steve staggered off towards Bleecker St. He looked around for signs of change, but there were none. The main streets were still chaos, dust coating the ground, cars stopped in the middle of the road, people screaming for help. It seemed like nothing had changed.

Steve turned the corner and this time, thank god, the building was there. Wong answered on the first knock. "Did it work?" he said.

"I don't know," Steve replied. He pushed past him into the foyer. The stairs were the way he'd left them, shattered. "Nothing seemed different. Thanos still came?"

"Yes."

"I -" Steve shook his head. "You said I'd have two sets of memories, but I only have one. Did nothing change? Was it all for nothing?"

Wong shushed him gently. "Oh no, they'll come. I just takes some time for the two points to converge. Twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight. It'll hurt," he warned.

"Right, okay. But - but - I didn't stop it. I warned Strange. I - I did everything I could. Something must have changed."

Wong shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I don't remember any other life."

"But you remember sending me back?"

"Yes."

"So that still happened…"

"Don't think about it too much," Wong said. "Overripe pear."

Steve huffed in frustration. "I don't get it. Why is everything the same?!"

Wong shook his head sadly. "I… don't know," he admitted. "Maybe… maybe there is no way to stop him. But you tried. You tried." He patted Steve gently on the arm.

"Tony… did Tony still go with Strange? Is Tony still -?"

Wong's mouth flattened into a thin line, and Steve knew. "I couldn't even save him… oh god." He collapsed down on the bottom step and dropped his face in his hands.

"Time works in subtle ways…" Wong said cryptically.

Steve pushed to his feet before he could fully meltdown. "I have to get back to the compound. I have to check in with the others."

Wong nodded. He stepped back then raised his hand, drawing a circle until a portal appeared. He gestured towards it. "I'll keep an eye on the timelines, let you know if anything interesting happens."

"Thank you."

"Captain Rogers?"

Steve stopped, just about to step through the portal into upstate New York. "Yes?"

"Thank you. For trying."

**

The compound was cold and dark. The last rays of sun disappeared behind the tree-lined horizon as Steve walked up the drive to the main building. It felt like an age since he'd been here last, before the battle in Wakanda, before the dust…

He hoped everyone else had made it here okay. Everyone who had survived.

All was quiet, and he didn't want to wake the others after what they'd been through. He wandered through the halls until he got to the Avengers kitchen. It was so soft and familiar here. Nothing had changed. He ran his fingers over the counter top. Tony had stood here, told him about the Accords… his mind hitched and skipped. Coffee grounds. Or? No… What?

He shook his head. Something was twisting and re-righting itself. The world spun. He walked out of the kitchen headed back towards his room, but the sound of the fridge door opening made him pause. He turned back and saw light spilling on the floor, two jean-clad legs with socked feet sticking out beneath the fridge door. Someone was up; he could ask how the fight with Thanos had gone, if Strange had managed to change anything.

The fridge door closed.

"Oh my god."

Warm brown eyes looked up from a container of ice cream and a bottle of chocolate sauce.

Tony was alive.

He smiled around a spoon stuck in his mouth. "Steve."

Steve choked back - a sob? A laugh? He wasn't sure, but something hot and heavy was threatening to crawl out of his throat, but it couldn't get past the lump that had lodged there. "Oh my god… Tony. Tony. Oh god." He stumbled forward. He didn't have the right, he knew, but he reached out and grabbed a handful of Tony's t-shirt. He had to know he was real. Soft fabric crumpled in his grasp. "Fuck."

"Hey, Steve, baby, it's okay." Tony set his dessert down and reached out to cup Steve's jaw with one hand. Steve gasped, throat clicking, How could he touch him so calmly -? His brain hitched again, an overwhelming feeling of home washing over him.

"What? You're alive. Tony, I thought you were dead. Oh god."

Tony shifted forward into Steve's space. "No, no. I mean, yes, kind of. Or rather, you're not the only one who thought so. Getting flung into space on a giant donut doesn't usually go well for people. But, no, I'm alive. I'm swiss cheese -" he pointed to his stomach, rucking up his shirt enough that Steve could see a stark white bandage "- but I'm alive. I had to come back and give you these, right?" He winked, then hooked a finger under a metal chain that hung around his neck. He tugged and Steve's dog tags rose up from under his shirt.

"What - how?" But even as he asked, it felt right. Steve reached out and cupped the dog tags in his palm. They were his, no mistaking it.

"Steve, are you okay? Rhodey told me what happened. I… there's so much. We all lost so many people. I heard about Bucky…"

Steve blinked up at Tony. So Bucky was still gone then. "There's something I have to tell you."

Tony's brow creased. "What's wrong, what happened?"

"I - I'm not really me. Or. Not yet." He shook his head. "No that's not the right. I -"

"Wait."

Steve flinched, but Tony wasn't angry, he just guided Steve over to the couch. He set the ice cream container in Steve's hand, squirted a healthy dose of chocolate sauce inside then stuck two spoons in it. Then he sat in Steve's lap.

"Oh," Steve said, frozen.

"Steve?"

"I - wow." He didn't know where to put his hands. Something, something had changed. Something had very definitely changed. "I went back in time," he finally started. "When things didn't go our way with Thanos. I went back to the Battle for New York."

Tony's eyes went wide, and his spoon stopped halfway to his mouth, ice cream dripping from it. "Oh my god, we've finally caught up."

"What?"

"That night in the hotel room. You never told me how far in the future you were from. I've always wondered. Did you just get back?"

"Yes."

"And you don't remember?" His expression pinched tight.

"I will, apparently. In a day or two. I'll remember both lives, both timelines. That's the curse, I guess, for using the coins."

"Oh," Tony said softly. "In your future I was dead."

"Well, now, I don't know! Wong still thought you were, everyone thought you were. Maybe in my - in the other future you were still alive as well."

"Maybe." Tony shuffled in Steve's lap, poking at the ice cream but not taking another bite. "And in your future, you - uh - you said you loved me."

Steve swallowed heavily. "Yes."

"But you'd never told me that, had you?"

"No…"

Tony beamed at him. "Well… in this future, I told you first."

"I - you - what?"

Tony took the collar of Steve's uniform between two fingers and petted it idly. "I decided to just bite the bullet and tell you first. When Pepper and I broke up for the fifteen thousandth time, I told you I was in love with you, and you said the same back."

"Oh my god."

"We got married." Steve's eyebrows shot up, and Tony laughed. "Well… not really. But words were said, promises were made. That'll be a nice memory for you to get back. It was a really good day." He met Steve's eyes, warm and affectionate, and he was so beautiful it hurt. "You give me these whenever we're separated." Tony fiddled with the dog tags. "Tell me you'll always come back for them, or that I have to bring them back to you."

Steve reached out and lifted them again, rubbing his thumb over the familiar etchings in the metal. "Tony…" He frowned. "What about the Accords?"

"Hmm? Oh, yeah you said something about that. It - I guess it didn't play out the same way? You didn't give me much to go on back then. But we talked, talked it out. I don't know how much Coulson was involved in your future, but he was a big player this time around. Then Peggy died and we asked for an extension on the signing. They wanted us there so they let it happen. Uh, there was a thing with Bucky - he was framed for an explosion of a consulate in Milan - but we found the guy who did it, Zemo. Wakanda came out of hiding and agreed to take on Bucky, help him heal from his programming, as long as we supported their interests in America. We signed a first draft after, but the Accords ended up being a long, drawn-out process, especially with Wakanda revealing themselves, and before they were even on the final draft, well…" Tony looked around him. "This happened. You were in Wakanda with Bucky when they came, came for the stones. I - I don't know much else. I was busy having a moon chucked at my head. I guess you'll have to wait until your memories come back."

"Holy shit." Steve tried to make it all fit in his head. The thing was, the more Tony talked, the more real it felt, the less odd it was for Tony to be perched on his lap. It was like he almost knew what Tony was going to say before he said it. But it was still all mixed up and confused. He brought his hand to his forehead and rubbed his temples. Tony didn't move, didn't speak, letting Steve process, but he was suddenly hit with the realization that Tony was his. Tony was here and alive and his. "Can I -" he asked, bringing one hand up towards Tony's cheek.

Tony nodded with a soft smile and leaned in when Steve touched him, bringing their lips together softly.

"We're really in this together? You and me?"

"Together," Tony echoed. "Forever."

"I couldn't stop Thanos, though. I tried, Tony, I really did. But I couldn't."

Tony kissed him again then pressed their foreheads together. "I know. That was the plan all along."

"What?"

"Strange. He looked through all of the possible outcomes. Said you left him a note before he even became a sorcerer. He'd been puzzling over it for years. But it all suddenly made sense, so he looked forward and found the one way for us to win."

"How?"

"To lose first."

"I don't get it."

Tony shrugged. "I don't really either. He said he couldn't tell me too much or I'd try and control it all and fuck it up," Tony barked out a laugh. "Sounds like me. But he said the point of convergence was later, after Thanos left, after he thought he'd won."

"But all the people… the people who died…"

"I have to hope," Tony said, voice breaking, "I have to hope that we can save them. It's all I've got right now. That and you." Tony kissed him again.

Steve leaned into the kiss, pulling Tony in closer, revelling in it. "God, this is the last thing I expected. That everything would stay the same except you and I would be together? I don't even -" Steve sighed.

"Strange said we were the key. He wouldn't tell me how, but he said it would be up to us, together, to make this right."

Steve nodded. Maybe he'd saved the timeline after all. Maybe his reckless, vain hope to go back and save him had been what the world needed to be alright again. If Tony was the key. If they were the key together. "Tony, I - I'm so sorry about your parents. I'm sorry for the way I told you, in that hotel room, and I'm sorry if I - me - the other me, didn't tell you at all."

"You did," Tony said softly. He touched Steve's temple. "You'll remember."

Steve took it for the dismissal that it was and cast around for a change of topic. His head was still spinning. Tony dug back into the ice cream, and Steve pulled out the other spoon. His stomach was still churning from the time travel and something sweet and cool sounded perfect. He dug in, then put the spoon in his mouth. He tipped the container forward, still sucking the sweet treat off the spoon. "What is this?" he slurred around the spoon.

"It's our ice cream flavour," Tony said. "Starks and Stripes."

Steve couldn't help it, he burst out laughing. He poked around under the chocolate sauce and found vanilla ice cream with red, white, and blue, star-shaped sprinkles, swirled around with stripes of caramel. "You've gotta be kidding me. They named an ice cream after us. I can't believe it."

Tony grinned cheekily. "It's my favourite. We've done some very creative things with it. Those will be nice memories to get back, too." He winked.

Steve's cheeks heated, and he shoved in another mouthful of ice cream, hoping it would cool him down. But now the taste of the caramel and vanilla twinged in his mind, reminiscent of stolen moments, quiet laughter, of Tony's bare hips clenched in his hands.

They sat in silence for a long time, working their way through the rest of the pint. When it was empty, Tony stood, tossed it in the garbage, then came back and held his hand out for Steve. "Let's go to bed, love."

The pet name made Steve's heart thrill. He took Tony's hand, stood. "Shouldn't we, I don't know, do something? Figure out how we're supposed to fix this?"

"We can do something tomorrow," Tony said softly. "We can do all the things tomorrow. For now, I just got back from space, I got stabbed, I have a crazy, half-robot, ex-daughter of Thanos living in the guest room, I saw - " he choked "- we lost people today, we all lost people. I thought I might have lost you. Steve, it was random, it could have been anyone. It could have been you."

"It wasn't, I'm here." Steve gathered Tony to him in a tight hug, burrowing his face in Tony's neck and breathing in. "I'm here." And you're here.

"Let's go to bed. Maybe tomorrow you'll get your memories back, and then we can figure out, with everyone else, where to go from here. But for now? I just want to hold my husband and sleep."

Steve stepped back, holding Tony out and looking him up and down. "I can't believe I get to have you."

Tony just smiled and took Steve's hand. He led him down the hall, to Tony's room. But it was clear when he opened the door that it wasn't only Tony's room, not anymore. Steve's clothes were spilling out of the closet, his shoes on the floor. It was his book on one bedside table, Tony's glasses on the other. They shared this. Together.

They stripped down to nothing, brushed their teeth, then curled up in their bed. It was everything like the night before, in the hotel room in the past, but entirely different at the same time. Tony was his this time. It wasn't fleeting or half-broken and held together with duct tape and hope. This was real. They were together.

**

The memories came back in the night.

Steve woke up with his head screaming, two different timelines battling for space in his mind. He must have screamed too, because Tony shocked awake beside him and held him through it, kissing his brow and rocking him gently and whispering sweet nothings in his ears.

It was hours, felt like days, before he caught up to the present and the pain finally waned. Tony was curled around his back, holding Steve half in his lap, half sprawled across the bed.

"Shh," he sang, stroking Steve's hair back from his face. It was too long, it seemed, or maybe it had always been this length. And… hadn't he shaved? Or - he'd never had a beard, had he? But now he did... He could access the memories, if he really tried, but they were still jumbled and confused, one timeline crossing over with the other. It took effort to tease them apart. He wondered if it would always take effort.

But it was worth it. Because now, nestled amongst the memories he couldn't shake of him and Tony yelling at each other, of his shield slamming down on Tony's chest, of Rhodey falling out of the sky, now he had new memories, memories of the team working together, of Bucky and Tony shaking hands, of Steve holding Tony, kissing him.

Of the day they got married.

Tears sprung into Steve's eyes, and Tony brushed them away. "It's a lot," Steve admitted. "It's a lot to get all at once."

Tony hummed soothingly and kept petting, over Steve's jaw and down his neck.

"I -" Steve sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He lifted his belt from the floor and rummaged through it until he came up with his flip phone. It hadn't disappeared. He wondered if that meant it existed in this timeline too, or if the things he'd brought back with him - his hair, his beard, his gauntlet shields - were just along for the ride. He opened it, scrolled to contacts.

No contacts saved.

Tony crawled up and folded over his back, leaning over his shoulder to look down at the phone.
"What's that?"

Steve shook his head. He tossed it in the trash. "Nothing." He turned and pressed Tony back to the sheets, drawing a line of kisses across his jaw and down his neck. He could remember now, doing this a hundred times. Maybe a thousand.

Tony purred happily and wrapped himself around Steve, urging him to press closer, kiss deeper.

"I don't know what the future holds," Steve whispered against Tony's lips. "But I'm not afraid, not anymore, not as long as I'm holding you."