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In the end, it's like the snap never happened at all. Time rewinds on itself like a yo-yo, wrapping up the long thread of years that the world spent in mourning and chaos until all of it is tucked neatly away, out of sight. All of the destruction and loss is unmade, with not even a scar to show it happened.
Except for Steve.
Steve had been the one to wield the gauntlet. They hadn't known if he'd survive, had expected him not to in all honesty. He'd accepted his fate and, in those last moments, walked toward it with his head held high. But, when it was all over, he was laying alone on the ground and he was, against all odds, still breathing.
He and Tony had come alone together to this peak in Bhutan - they had been the last ones left. Wong had identified it as somewhere where the edges of their universe were at their frailest, easily manipulable by the power of the stones. It had been cloudy when they arrived, a storm boiling faraway across the horizon. In the last seconds, Steve had felt the cold wind on his face even as the heat from the gauntlet consumed him.
Now, there is peace. Steve can see snow and sky and white clouds, the long expanse of the world stretches in every direction, not a soul in sight. It's cool and calm, clear like an early summer day.
Did it work?
He has to assume it did. The gauntlet is smoking and twisted on his hand, the gems dull colored husks. Tony is gone, like he was never there to begin with. Maybe somewhere on this planet, Bucky will be stepping out of the trees and looking for Steve. This time, Steve won't be there to find.
But neither will Thanos.
He stands up with some difficulty. Something inside feels twisted, wrecked by the force of the stones that had churned through his body. His head is throbbing and everything feels muddled and slow. He manages it though, straightens and shakes out his legs to get out the numbness. Then, he tucks the warped gauntlet into his pack while it still smolders.
Time had not rewound for him, he realizes immediately. His hands still have that slightly wrinkled look he'd noticed in the last year. That click in his knee that started eight years after the Snap is still present. The scar across his cheek from when he held Thanos off at Vormir is thick and snake like under his fingers.
It takes him two days to walk to the nearest village: the quinjet they had used to get there has vanished along with Tony. He’s slower than he was before, his body aching and rebelling with every step. On the second day, he coughs up blood and knows that whatever the gauntlet did to him is not healing like it should. It’s getting worse. He keeps going, puts one foot in front of the other and doesn't think about anything except the destination and the hope that Bucky and everyone else await him somewhere at the end. When he arrives on the main street, he finds a newspaper. It's May 2018 and no one has vanished. The headlines are about rain and upcoming festivals - not the end of world.
He sits down on a old wooden bench and puts his head in his hands. It had worked.
Steve doesn't have any money or identification - no way to get home or even tell anyone he's alive. He tries Nat's phone but she doesn't pick up. Tony's still on a spaceship, probably. Bucky doesn't have a phone and he can't very well call the Kimoyo beads from a payphone.
The weariness is heavy across his shoulders even as the pain from his insides burns bright. He wants to go home. He wants Bucky. He wants to sleep, to have good dreams, to wake up in sunshine with Bucky breathing beside him.
When he gathers himself, he goes to an internet cafe and convinces the owner to let him have a few minutes free. "Just to send one email," he promises. He must look pretty rough because the owner agrees. He sends it to Natasha's secret account. It's just a string of numbers at another string of numbers. Only he and Sam and Clint have it.
"It's me," he writes and types in his coordinates according to the GPS that's still clipped on his belt.
Then, he goes back outside, walks across the town to the small park and settles in the grass under a large, spreading tree. He is so tired. He will just sit down for a little while, he tells himself.
It takes them six hours.
He hears them before he sees them: Bucky, urgent; Sam, soothing; Natasha, smooth. He opens his eyes and Bucky is there, dressed in dark fatigues with his hair pulled back. The sun is almost all the way gone but the glow halos his face, casts shadows across his hands.
They're across the park and walking quickly, looking down at a tracker of some sort. Steve thinks he should get up and go to them, call their names. He wants Bucky so badly. His limbs are heavy, though. His throat is stiff.
He watches them and his vision blurs. It's been so long. Ten years. Ten years since he last heard Bucky's voice, since he last saw him walk. It's been a decade without rest. His cheeks are wet and his chest is full.
"Bucky," he tries and his mouth just forms the word, a breath of air.
Somehow, though, impossibly, Bucky looks directly at him.
"Steve!"
It's like no time has passed by at all. Except, this time, Bucky isn't saying goodbye.
Everything goes quiet as Bucky lands on his knees next to him. His hands are touching Steve's chest and his arms, patting his face. "It's alright," he saying, "you're okay. I'm here now. Everything is going to be okay."
Sam is on his other side now, hand going to his neck like he's looking for a pulse.
Steve blinks, long and slow, staring up as Natasha stands over him. Does she remember? he wonders, somewhere in the back of her mind, does she remember the next ten years and the way they both fell apart and remade themselves into different, harder people. Does she remember…
"Steve," Sam asks. "Are you hurt? Can you tell me where it hurts?"
Everywhere. It hurts everywhere. It's hurt everywhere for ten years and six days.
"He's in shock," Sam says. "Pulse is thready, breathing shallow. Dehydrated. We need to get him back."
Bucky starts to get up and Steve manages to move. He wraps his fingers around Bucky's shirt, clings with all the strength he has left. No. Don't leave. His fingers are shaking and he can taste blood in his mouth again. Please.
"I'm not gonna leave you," Bucky says and his fingers wrap around Steve's, gripping back. "Just gotta get you up, okay? Back to the quinjet. Gotta get you warmed up." His voice is low and soothing and the same voice he uses to talk to the baby goats and the puppy dogs and the little children when they scrape their knee. He leans forward and kisses Steve’s dry lips, brief and reassuring.
Steve swallows and lets go, his arm falling back to his lap. It's so heavy. Bucky lifts him a moment later, cradling him against his chest like he did when Steve was small and sick. His prosthesis is smooth and warm under Steve's shoulders.
"It's not far," Bucky tells him, voice muffled against the crown of Steve's head. "Just a few blocks. Then we'll get you home."
Steve turns his face into Bucky’s jacket, breathes in. He has dreamed of this scent. He has woken on lonely, heavy nights with this sense memory lingering in his nostrils. He has pressed his nose to every single one of Bucky's shirts until all they smelled of was dust and Steve.
"What happened to him?" Sam is asking, sounding very faraway.
Bucky hums a little as if it to tell him to not ask about it now. His hand comes up to cup Steve's ear, shielding him. Steve closes his eyes and lets himself fall asleep.
He wakes up in the humming quinjet, lights dimmed to soft yellow. It's not the quinjet they'd taken to Bhutan. That one had been battered and held together by tape and prayers after the last Outriders attack. It had rattled and creaked and banged when they flew, wind whistling through all the leaks. “It’ll get us there,” Tony had promised - and it had. This quinjet is clean and quite, its engines a well-oiled murmur.
There are clean sheets underneath him, a pillow under his head. He's propped up a little and a blanket is drawn up to his chest. Someone has stripped him down to his under tank and he can see his bare arms on top of the covers. His aged hands and scars are all on display. An IV is in one of them.
"You're awake." Natasha sits down beside him, holding a bottle he recognizes as a protein shake. "Think you can drink something?"
He stares at her, licks his lips. "Do you remember?" he whispers. He doesn't want Bucky to hear. Bucky shouldn't have to carry that weight.
Her face shutters, going still, and her eyes dart like she's unsure in a way she rarely is. "I don't... I thought it was a dream," she says. "Until I saw you."
His throat feels like broken glass when he swallows. The elation at saving Bucky, saving the world, is tempered by the loss of all that time. Her, Tony, Scott, Rhodey, Bruce, Neb... They had been friends before the snap - Nat had been one of his best friends. But devastation had forged them into something else entirely. Now, they've all left Steve behind. They all got to go home.
"I remember some things," she says. "Thanos won. We were all that was left. But..." she lifts her hands.
Steve understands. He wouldn't want to remember either.
When she leaves, he turns his face to the wall. This is different to the last time he'd woken up after he thought the price to pay to save the world was death. That time, he'd been so young. Even with all the loss and the grief, he'd sensed that there was so much left in him to do, to give.
Now, he is wrung dry.
Bucky comes back a few minutes later, sits beside him. "We're going to New York," he says.
Steve blinks at him.
"Stark called - I guess he’s somewhere in space? He..." Bucky hesitates. "He says he remembers everything. He wants to see you."
They land at Avengers Compound and Steve walks off the quinjet himself, much to Bucky's unhappiness. He pauses there, on the flight deck. He can see the buildings of New York rising up in the distance, the tops of bridges. Planes are taking off from La Guardia and JFK and ferries are steaming up the river. Everyone's alive.
He sways and Bucky is there, taking his elbow and supporting his back.
"Steve, let's get you inside."
Steve resists the gentle tug, staring over the buildings. "There were fires," he says, the first thing he's said about the time that never happened. "Some instability in the electrical grid and gas mains." He shakes his head. "Whole buildings just burned up."
Bucky rubs his arm. "It's okay. It didn't happen."
But it did happen.
Steve lets Bucky take him inside. He sits on a low bed in the infirmary and pretends not see how worried Bucky is. His brain keeps skipping, the world around fading in and out of focus as people bustle around him.
"Where's Tony?" he asks, when the nurse is done taking his vitals.
"Still a few hours out," Natasha says. She's sitting in the corner and there has to be better things for her to do than watch Steve get helped out of his tac outfit and into a hospital gown. She looks so young, compared to how she did at the end. He'd never thought of her being young before but now he sees the youth, the softness, all over her face.
"Nat," he says and she leans forward, close enough to put her hand on his knee.
"I'm right here, Steve."
He doesn't know what to say. I'm glad you don't remember. I'm glad you were with me. I'm glad to see this you again even as I miss the friend who stayed with me until the end.
"We need to get you to an MRI," the nurse says and Nat sits back.
Bucky goes with him to the machine. "I'll be right outside," he promises, holding Steve's hand as he lays on the narrow bed. "If you need anything, just say my name."
Steve keeps his eyes closed the whole time, lets the pounding of the machine drown out his own thoughts. He opens his eyes to Bucky, helping him off the table and into a wheelchair. "I don't need this," he says, even as he sits. He's so tired.
"Let me take care of you a bit, okay?" Bucky puts a hand on his shoulder. "You gave me a good scare disappearing like that, pal. We thought whatever got Thanos had gotten you too."
It kind of had.
Steve closes his eyes and lets Bucky push him back to the clean room. They get him settled on the bed and he leans back against the pillows, half propped up so he can breathe easier. The pain is surging again, a signal from deep inside that something is wrong.
"Is Tony here?” he asks.
There's a pause. "Another few hours or so, Steve. We'll let you know as soon as he arrives."
Did he ask that before? He can’t remember. Everything is fuzzy, just out of focus in his mind's eye. "And Sam? He's here?"
Bucky's hand settles inside of his. "Sam's just down the hall. He was there when we found you. Remember?"
Had he been? Steve combs through the memory and finds Sam there, kneeling next to him by the tree. He nods. That’s right. Sam had come back too. They had all come back. Or he had come back. He can't remember.
"Sam's here," he says, just to be sure. He rolls his head on the pillow so he can look right at Bucky, catalog all the little grooves and lines on his face.
"Yes. And Tony will be here soon. Bruce and Wanda are going to fly back from Wakanda with Rhodey. Thor had to head out to take care of some Asgardian stuff but he'll be back in a few days. Clint is with his family."
Steve swallows. His throat still feels raw. "Vision?"
Bucky's face shutters and his gaze lifts from Steve's to Nat's. "Wanda had to kill him. Do you remember that? She destroyed the mind stone."
So it had only gone back that far. Steve closes his eyes against the burn of tears. "I remember," he says. He remembers Vision dying and then living and then dying again. God. He keeps his eyes closed, replaying the moments that never happened in his mind. How Thor had come down in a beam of light and then Bucky had...
"Is he asleep?" Nat asks quietly.
Bucky's fingers are gently stroking his wrist. "I think so."
"Good. He needs it." Nat shifts and Steve hears her lean forward. "He's in rough shape."
"He'll pull through. He always does."
"I've never seen him like this."
Bucky takes a long, slow breath. "We'll get him through it." His fingers pause on Steve's pulse, pressing a little between the bones. "He'll be okay. We got him back."
Steve falls asleep for real, their voices still murmuring over him.
He wakes up and the room is dim. Sam is there, one leg crossed over the other as he reads a book.
"Sam?" he asks. It feels like a dream because Sam is dust.
"Yeah, Steve. Right here." Sam leans forward and his hand feels so real where it rests against Steve's thigh. "Need some water? Something to eat? They got you on an IV but they said..."
"I miss you," Steve says because he always does in the dreams. "I'm sorry you're gone."
"No - hey. I'm right here. Whatever happened - it's fixed… I'm here. We're in New York, right? I can go get Barnes for you. Or Nat?"
Steve blinks, licks his lips. Why is he so heavy? Every limb feels like it weighs hundreds of pounds. He looks down and sees his hands resting on his lap. They look normal. Why can't he think?
"We came and got you in Bhutan,” Sam says softly. "We got docs looking after you here. They're gonna fix you all up."
Right. The gauntlet. Where's the gauntlet.
He inhales sharply and something starts beeping rapidly above him. Sam's eyes flicker up.
"I need... where's my bag?"
"Whoa, hey." Sam's hands flutter, press on his shoulders. "No, you can't get up. That's not a good idea."
"I need..." Steve struggles but he can't find his strength. His chest is tight and he ends up coughing, gasping. God, had he lost it? After all that, after all the lives and he'd lost it. Just left it behind and where was it. He couldn't have lost it. What if someone found it again? What if someone undid everything and everyone disappeared and...
The door swings open and someone runs into the room. Everything is suddenly so much brighter. Sam is standing next to him now, half holding him down and half propping him up. He’s saying something but Steve can’t hear it over the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears.
"Captain Rogers, we need you to calm down," a nurse is saying.
"My bag," he tries again. There's nothing at the foot of his bed, nothing on the chair where Bucky had been sitting. Had he left it in the park? Or the cafe? Or on the mountaintop? "I had it with me." Something plastic and tight goes over his face, covering his mouth and muffling his words.
"It's okay, Steve," Sam says, soothing. He leans forward so he fills Steve’s entire sight. "It's okay. Just relax."
He's suddenly very tired and his arms fall back and he doesn't want to struggle anymore. He wants to sleep. Sam is rubbing his shoulders and he looks so worried.
The door bangs open again and this time Bucky is there. He's in a sweatshirt and his hair is mussed on one side like he'd been sleeping and Steve remembers Wakanda and waking up on slow mornings and watching Bucky feed the chickens with his hair just like that. Then, Bucky had disintegrated right before his eyes.
"Don't go," he thinks he says but it's hard to talk with that thing on his face and the pain in his middle is swelling again. His lungs flutter and he gasps.
"What happened?" Bucky asks.
I failed and you were taken and I spent ten years without you and now I've let everyone down and you won't come back and...
"I think he had a panic attack," Sam says. "He's settling now."
"Steve?" Bucky sits on the edge of the bed, on his other side. Steve feels his fingers wrap around his.
His eyelids are so heavy but he doesn't want to go to sleep. He wants to stay with Bucky. Sam is saying something now, a low rumble below Steve's focus. He blinks, long and slow, and then falls asleep again.
His head is a little clearer when he opens his eyes the next time. The room is still dark but he can see sunlight peeking through the cracks of the curtains. His bag is sitting on the low table next to him. It's brown and dirty and still zipped up.
Steve sits up a little and pulls it to his lap. Inside, he has his clothes, the letter he wrote Bucky in case he didn't make it, and the gauntlet. It's twisted beyond recognition, warped and blackened. The jewels are all gone, just odd colored shadows left - whether they'd been destroyed by their use or whether the rewinding of time had caused them to fling back into the universe, he has no idea. For all intents and purposes though, what is in his lap now is worthless.
It's okay, though. It had been enough to save the world and now, hopefully, the stones were beyond anyone's grasp.
Outside the door, he hears voices.
"He's been in and out of it since we found him," Bucky says. "The docs say his EEG is all over the place. Like he had a massive stroke a couple days ago and the serum is still knitting all the connections back together. His internal organs are a mess. The serum should heal a lot of it but it's taking awhile."
"Did he say what happened?" Tony.
Steve struggles upright. His arms work well enough and he gets the oxygen mask off his face. "Tony," he tries and it's loud enough that they stop talking.
The door opens. Tony looks rough - but not as bad as he did the first time, half dead and hollowed out from loss and shell-shock.
"Hey, Cap," he says. "Looks like you did it."
Steve leans back and smiles. "We did it."
Tony comes forward, perches on the chair next to the bed. Bucky is hovering in the doorway.
"I don't remember all the details," Tony says. "I remember we went to the mountain and you were going to undo things with the gauntlet. And, then..." he hesitates. "I just remember light."
Steve remembers the light. It had burned like he was in the center of the sun, washing him down to nothing. It had been a swirling storm of light and heat and pressure and he knows he'd cried out. Then, he'd just been alone on the top of the mountain.
"It's weird," Tony continues. "There was no moment where I was dropped back into my body. It was like the thread just continued but I knew things had changed. I knew you had fixed it."
Steve's eyes burn. He had wanted that. Even when he'd known he'd be the one to wield the gauntlet and known he probably wouldn't survive it, he'd dreamed of just going back to that moment in time and the future rewriting itself before it even had begun. "I'm glad," he manages.
Tony contemplates him. "You saved us," he says. "I remember everything you did. What you were going to give up... We're gonna get you better. You can do whatever you want now. Okay? Whatever you want."
Steve nods.
Steve thinks everyone had just been expecting him to bounce back, like he was a rubberband that had been stretched and he'd just spring back to his old self with just a couple days of rest and fluids.
This isn't that. He feels it in his marrow. Something has fundamentally changed.
The doctors don't talk to him. They talk to Bucky like Steve’s too delicate to hear whatever they have to say and Bucky's smile gets more and more strained. He sleeps in a cot alongside Steve, barely leaves for showers and meals.
Steve feels like he's beneath a pane of clouded glass. He understands that people are worried, that something is wrong, that this is serious. Yet, he's too exhausted to care. Bucky is here, holding his hand or reading to him or helping him shower. That's enough. That's more than enough. It's much more than Steve ever even dreamed of having.
If the price to pay to save the world is a failing body, then, well, that would put Steve right back where he started, anyway. He was never supposed to be superhuman. He was supposed to be sickly and scrawny and die before he was 30.
Steve is 111 or 101 or 41 or 31, depending on how he counts it. In all of those ways, he's lived passed his expiration.
He can feel himself getting weaker, batteries running down to empty. How has he lived this long? How did he make it through the winter of ’29 and Project Rebirth and the war and the plane and the aliens in New York and Hydra at the Triskelion and killer robots and more killer aliens and…
Really, people should be more surprised he’s still alive than that he’s dying now.
“I want to go into the city,” he tells Bucky a week after they got back to New York. “I want to see it.”
Bucky blinks, thumb in between pages of Treasure Island. “When you’re better,” he says finally. “We can go.”
Steve nods but, before dawn the next morning, when Bucky’s been called away for some reason or the other, he puts a sweatshirt over his scrubs and some tennis shoes over the thick socks he's been wearing.
It's not hard to leave the infirmary. The morning shift hasn't come on yet and the ward is still quiet. All his access codes still work and he walks down the long drive to the main highway.
Halfway there, his chest starts feeling tight, forehead going clammy as his lungs struggle to fill. It's fine, he thinks. He had a lot of practice doing this as a kid.
The station is just a mile away and he makes it just before a train is about to leave. He sits in a half empty car with his hood pulled up over his head. His fingers keep trembling so he wraps them around his sleeves, clenches hard. He grits his teeth when the nausea builds in his stomach. This is a familiar thing to muscle through.
As they trek toward the city, the train car fills up around him.
So many people. He'd forgotten what crowds were like. There are black suits and bright t-shirts and colorful dresses. People bend over their phones or books or tablets. They listen to music and stare out the window and exist. They don't know that half of them are living impossible lives.
After awhile, the sway of the train makes him so nauseous and he has to close his eyes, tip his head back, and breathe slow in his mouth and out through his nose. Keeping going, he tells himself. You can do this. He just wants to see it. Just once.
He joins the mass of people getting off at Central Station, shuffling along the platform to the stairs and then the wide expanse of the main terminal. The familiar burn in his stomach starts, spreading across his muscles and making his back clench. He leans against a wall for awhile, lets himself breathe and smell the food court below.
He takes the subway to Brooklyn, gets off near Prospect Park and walks down the busy streets. He has to go slow so he clings to wall so everyone else can flow past him. There are little children in school uniforms and people walking dogs. Street vendors stand on their corners and taxis are honking in the streets.
He sits down on a bench at the entrance to the park and watches them all flow past him. No one looks at him. No one cares. He closes his eyes and listens to their footsteps and the passing conversations. It soothes some deep part of him. Bucky could be a dream. Sam could be a dream.
This is not a dream. He could never have dreamt the multitude of voices and stories and noises. This is something unmatchable. He watches, let the images overwrite the ones from before: of deserted streets and crumbled buildings, of parentless children and childless parents, of pets without owners and owners without pets. An entire world ripped in half, in soul, mind, and body.
This is why they had fought. This is why they’d been willing to die.
It was all worth it. Now, he is so weary.
When Bucky sits down next to him an hour or so later, he isn't surprised. Of course Bucky would come. This is what they do. He tips forward to lean against Bucky’s shoulder. He's exhausted. Whatever energy got him from the compound to here is gone.
Bucky puts his arm around him. “You can't go off like that, Steve,” he says. His voice is hoarse like he’d just been shouting. He's still so gentle with Steve, though.
“Hmm,” Steve sighs and closes his eyes. He's ready to go back now. He's seen it. He can feel the heavy way his lungs inflate, how his hands have gone clammy and cold. He should go home.
He feels more than sees Bucky touch a hand to the side of his ear. “Bring the car around,” he says. “I got him.”
The dark SUV pulls up just seconds later, two sedans on either side. One of the security teams from the compound is there, holding people back to keep their way from the park bench to the car door clear.
“Steve,” Bucky whispers to the side of his head. “Think you can walk to the car?”
He walked all the way here, didn't he? But, it's harder than he expected to stand - he needs Bucky’s arm around his waist to keep steady. They manage a few steps together. Natasha gets out and comes around the side and her face is strained, the skin tight around the edges of her eyes.
Steve takes another step and stumbles, one knee faltering when he breaks concentration. Bucky curses sharply and then Steve is off his feet and Bucky is carrying him the remaining couple steps.
Bucky settles him in the seat and then comes around the other side of the SUV, sliding into the back seat.
The interior is cool, drying the sweat beading on Steve’s forehead and neck.
“I'm sorry,” he says because now he can see Bucky’s face and there is a storm all across his brow. He's not sorry. If he's going to die, at least he was going to see that it was all worth it. They owed him that much, right? If he's going to leave Bucky, he should see that others got their happy endings.
Natasha is in the passenger seat and she doesn't move at all. She probably knows Steve's isn't really sorry.
Bucky heaves a sigh and then leans forward, puts his head in his hands. “It's okay,” he says, slightly muffled. “We found you. You're okay. Everything's okay.”
Steve slides his hand across the seat, palm up. He may not be sorry for going - but he is sorry for worrying Bucky.
After a moment, Bucky takes his hand and they sit like that the entire drive home.
Sam talks to him that evening. “You can’t do that again, Steve,” he says. “You scared all of us.”
Steve is still exhausted from the trip. He hadn’t wanted to eat dinner which made Bucky’s face get all pinched and the nurses scribble on his chart. He contemplates Sam now. “I just wanted to see the city,” he says. “I should see it before I can’t anymore.”
“Then tell us if it matters that much. You don’t have to be alone anymore. We’re all here.” Sam blows a breath through his mouth. “Bucky loves you, man. He was a mess. You’re all he worries about. He thought… you could’ve been dead somewhere.”
Steve closes his eyes. “You’ll look after him, won’t you?” he asks, not wanting to look at Sam when he asks it.
He can hear Sam shift and then feels his fingers gripping onto his wrist. “I’d do my best - but he’s gonna need you around.”
Bruce and Wanda arrive from Wakanda in the dead of night. Steve wakes up in his half-lit room and hears Bruce's voice in the hallway, speaking quietly outside the mostly closed door.
"Tony sent me his blood samples. Shuri's looking at them now too. But the serum looks like it's degrading and we don't know why."
Bucky lets out a long breath. "That's what they said here. When whatever happened... happened, he had a stroke and heart failure and suffered severe radiation poisoning. The serum's been healing him - but it was corrupted and now it’s degrading…” The hallway goes silent and then Bucky asks, "Do you remember?"
Bruce shuffles. "Nothing. From what Tony says I wasn't there at the end. It seems like people who were closest remember the most and the people who were furthest..."
"Don't remember anything," Bucky finishes. "Yeah. Steve won't talk about it."
"I'm gonna head down to the lab," Bruce says. "See if we can model out the serum degradation. We can keep treating his symptoms but if we can't get it to stop-"
"I know," Bucky says. "I know."
He slips into the room and Steve can hear Bruce's footsteps going down the hallway. Bucky pauses, leaning against the door with his head tipped back. His eyes are closed. Steve watches him, eyes half closed. He loves him so much that his heart hurts with it. He wept for him, he mourned for him, he was ready to die for him.
Bucky looks down at him and his face softens, goes gentle around the edges. "Hey," he says. "Why are you awake?"
Steve holds out his hand and Bucky takes it quickly, lets Steve draw him to sit on the edge of the bed. "I love you," Steve tells him. Has he said it enough? Does Bucky know that he's a miracle to Steve?
He hesitates and then says, "you died in front of me, before."
Bucky ducks his head, mouth pursing. "Steve. You don't have to..."
Steve shakes his head. "You just disappeared. Turned into ash. Half the world did. I know you know some of this from Tony."
"Fifty percent of all life just vanished," Bucky affirms. "I can't..."
"After awhile," Steve tells him. He needs to get his all out now, in the dark where it feels safe and quiet. "People, the world, had to move on. If we were going to survive, we had to stop grieving and find a way to live."
Bucky nods.
"I couldn't." Steve closes his eyes. "I couldn't move forward. I couldn't think about anything except getting you back for all those years. When Tony and Scott came up with this idea - Buck, we weren't even sure if it would work. There was no guarantee that we wouldn't die and the universe still wouldn't be fixed. When Tony and I went up to that mountain, neither of us expected to come down. You see?" He stops and has to breathe deeply, the flood of words hurting his lungs.
Bucky gets up and grabs the ever present oxygen mask from the bedside table, brings it over to hold to Steve's mouth. "Just breathe slow," he coaches, rubbing Steve's back. "In and out. There you go."
Steve pulls the mask away. "So every moment after, seeing you, being with you. Seeing Sam. Those are all things I never thought I'd get to have." He feels tears sting his eyes.
He can't see Bucky's eyes that well in the dimness, but he feels Bucky's fingers on his cheeks, tender and slow and wiping up the little bit of wetness that trails down.
Bucky gently settles the oxygen mask back on Steve's face and then clears his throat. "In Wakanda," he says, a bit roughly. "I knew you had gone down. I'd seen Thanos hit you. You weren't getting up. Then, Thor came down and you got up and I heard you say something and then... you and Thanos. You both just vanished. Not dust or ash. You were just gone. Like you'd never been there at all. Thor and Nat and Rhodes and Okoye... they all looked stunned. But for me, it was just one step to the next. And you were gone."
He looks down. "I thought you had died. We had no idea where you were or what happened. And, then, Natasha got that email and..." he pauses, breathes deeply. "I don't know what all that time was like, Steve. I can't know. But I also lost you in Wakanda and I'm so grateful to have you back. But I need you to not go again, okay?"
Steve likes the paths down by the river. Back before the Accords, he'd run down here every morning, miles and miles along the wooded shore with Manhattan rising up in the distance. In the pre-dawn light, there'd be birds and deer and squirrels and rabbits. After Thanos, the animals had been fewer and the city had smoked - but the run had still provided a comfort.
Bucky and he go together now. They take the walk slow, almost crawling it feels like. Steve leans against Bucky’s side, lets Bucky support most of his weight as they walk the well tended path. They sit on the grass at the bank of the river and watch the sunrise.
“What do you want to do now?” Steve asks one morning, when he’s feeling particularly strong. He’s stretched out on his back, arms crossed over his middle.
Bucky has his arms folded over his knees, hair falling long over his face. “I want a farm, I think. Like I had in Wakanda. Something small and nearby to here. I figure we’ll be commuting back and forth. I’ve been looking around at plots of land. There’s one six miles up river. It’s a little apple farm with a barn. It has some chickens and a horse and two cows already. I figure we can add some sheep and goats - maybe another horse. We can learn to ride, maybe. Get a dog and a cat. We can grow apples and have a garden...”
Steve closes his eyes and lets Bucky’s plans wash over him. Let it be true, he prays. He’s already asked for so much - but he wants this too.
Wanda comes to him the next morning. They’re just getting back from their walk and he’s getting back into bed when she comes in. His feet are bare on the tile floor and Bucky is still there, folding his sweatshirt into one of the drawers.
She stand in the doorway, just watching them, and then says, “Steve.”
He looks up at her and feels his heart break. The world may have been set back on track - but he had not fixed her world. “Wanda,” he says. “I’m so so sorry.”
Bucky slips from the room as she comes to his side, buries her face in his shoulder. She is so young, he remembers, and she has lost so much. Her tears soak into the thin scrubs he’s wearing and he puts his arm around her.
This he can do. He may feel clumsy in the old world, awkward at letting Bucky hold him and care for him. But grief? He has practiced at this for years.
“You saved the world,” he tells her. “We couldn't have done it without you and him.”
When her tears have slowed, she lifts her head and studies his face. “You are older,” she says. “So much more than you were before.”
Steve swallows. “Yeah.”
“They tell me you are sick. That you may not recover.”
He takes her hand in his. “I always knew the risks. They were worth it.”
She leans forward and presses a kiss to his cheek. “If I must keep living,” she tells him, “then you must as well.”
He is getting weaker. Steve knows it before Bruce comes in, face lined like it was in the days after Thanos.
Steve almost marvels at it, that he can somehow cause the same grief in Bruce as half the world. He thinks he should comfort him - but he can’t find the strength to reach out to him.
His thoughts are drifting again, like they did in the first days after time rewound. He gets confused easily, loses track of Bucky or where and when he is.
Bruce is talking to Bucky, their voices a low murmur over the oxygen tank. Steve watches Bucky’s hands, his jaw. Every part of him is a marvel. He is solid and warm and firm. He is the furthest thing from ash.
“Bucky,” he says and Bucky turns instantly, leaning over him.
“I’m here, Steve.” Bucky brushes a hand over his forehead. “Do you need water? Another blanket?”
“Buck,” he says again, just for the pleasure of saying the name and having Bucky’s eyes fixed on him. He reaches up and Bucky grabs his hand, squeezes it. He can’t think of anything else to say so he just gazes up and hopes Bucky can read everything in his gaze.
Bucky’s face goes soft and he leans forward, presses a kiss to Steve’s mouth. “I’m here, love. I’m here.”
That’s all Steve needs.
Whenever Steve drifts back to the world, he hears Bucky talk about the farm.
There are apples, crisp and fresh right from the tree. Flowers cover the walls in long vines. Sunlight streams through the windows each morning and, when the sun sets, the mountains turn purple. When rains come, they drum on the roof and splash down the windows. There’s a fireplace that will roar on cold winter nights.
Bucky talks his voice hoarse and Steve wishes he could memorize every word. He dreams of the farm when he sleeps: it distracts him from the pain and the weakness. It grounds him in the present.
When he wakes up in the dark, all he has to do is murmur Bucky’s name and, there he is, with another story of the farm.
If this is to be his end, it is a good end.
The glow, at first, seems to be just another aberration from his drifting mind. Bucky is holding his hand, speaking softly. His words are a gentle murmur, comforting even if Steve can no longer make out all the words. He’s looking out the window, watching the stars pop out across the sky, when he sees the orange glow, coming closer and closer.
He smiles because, god, he had missed her. He had wondered where she was, if she remembered, if she’d ever come back to this little planet and see him again. “She’s here,” he whispers and hears Bucky’s voice stop.
“What, Steve?”
Steve looks at Bucky then back out the window. “She came for me,” he tells Bucky. He hadn’t ever even let himself consider seeing her again and now, that he knows she’s coming, he feels the delight swell in his chest.
Bucky looks afraid, his hand suddenly a vice around Steve’s. “No one’s here, Steve. It’s just us. You’re not going anywhere.”
The glow is getting bigger, falling below the tops of the trees and dimming as she lands in the front lawn. She’ll come in the front door this time, if she remembers.
“Steve?” Bucky calls and he puts his hands on both sides of Steve’s face, turning him away from the window. His eyes are so bright in the dark. “Steve, look at me, please. I’m right here. You need to stay with me. Don’t… You can’t go.”
“It’s okay,” Steve tells him, brings his hand up to hold Bucky’s. “You’ll like her.” He’s tired then, so he closes his eyes, waits for her to come.
Bucky clings to him. “Steve. Steve. Don’t go to sleep. You need to…”
There’s a knock at the door.
Steve opens his eyes as she comes in.
“Hey Cap,” Danvers says. Her hair is pulled back from her face and she’s still in her flight suit. “Long time no see.”
He smiles. “You remember.”
“Of course, I do. Stark had Fury call me. He thinks I can help you out.” She comes closer and grins at Bucky. “We haven’t met. You must be Bucky. I’m Carol Danvers.” She holds out her hand and Bucky takes it, shakes it.
Steve lets himself lay back heavily in the bed. Everything will be okay now. He just knows it.
Carol’s blood, infused with the Space Stone just like his is, is the key.
“This won’t give you my powers,” she tells him, sitting cross-legged in the chair next to him, a cotton wad pressed to her elbow where Bruce had taken blood. “No flying for you.”
Steve shrugs. “No more space for me, I think. I’ve had my fill.”
Her mouth goes tight and sideways. “Yeah,” she agrees. “Don’t blame you. What are your plans then?”
Steve rolls his head to look at Bucky. “A farm,” he tells her. “Bucky and I want a farm.”
Even her blood can’t fix all of it. The serum had been irreparably damaged when he used the gauntlet, degraded to almost nothing.
“You’ll age a little slower, run a little faster, be a little healthier,” Bruce tells him. “But it won’t be like before.”
That’s more than enough.
Steve officially retires as Captain America the next day. The day after that, Tony informs him that he’s created a new position.
“Commander of the Avengers,” he says. “You like that? You better. I’ve already had business cards printed. Commander Steve Rogers. I’m having the plaque made now for your office. It’s right next to mine. It’ll be ready for you when you get back from your honeymoon.”
Steve wants to feel annoyed - but instead he feels vaguely pleased. “I won’t be far,” he reminds Tony. “We’re just staying at the farm.”
Tony waves him away. “Any time you take off comes out of your vacation days!” he calls as Steve walks out the door.
Bucky’s waiting for him out front, flipping the keys to his new truck. “You ready?” he asks. He’s in jeans and a flannel shirt, hair pulled back from his face.
Steve grins at him. “Yep.”
The universe is back in alignment.