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“I would understand if you don’t want to come back” Bucky said the night before the mission.
Steve kept silence, amazed of how his friend could read him so easily.
The silent streched.
“Come with me” He said.
“Steve…”
“Come on, Buck”
“But I like here” And I know you don’t, hang on the air.
“I’m trying, I had really trying since I…”
“I know, that’s what I’m saying, I would understand if you don’t want to come back”
“If I do it, I could save you”
“You had already save me”
“I could save you early”
“You wouldn’t be saving me, you would be saving other me, and who knows what that would cause”
“It would be worhty”
“Steve, please” Bucky pause a little before he continued “I’m gratefull and all, but think about what happen the last time you risked everthing to save me”
Steve didn’t answered, he just kept there, stoic as an inmovil force.
“Don’t do anything stupid, allright?” Bucky said playfully.
“I do my best”
“You always do”
The hug after that was maybe the longest of his life.
He returned all the infinity stone. Peggy’s office was at some steps of him. He didn’t reached inmediatly. He walked around a little, he get some clothes, he tasted the food, saw the skies, sit on a bank on the park when the children played and their mother were far away and everyone were smoking. His time in the future let him saw all the horrible things of the street. There was so few people of color, there were least hospitals, a man hit his son on the street. What he was doing? What he really had there? He must come back, the avengers had lost Tony and Natasha, they couldn’t lose him too. He can’t be that selfish. Peggy has a life, a life without him. The time wasn’t a thing to play with. The Avengers had lost Tony and Natasha. And they are going to move on and he can’t helped them with that.
He hold the wrist time devise and crushed it.
He followed Peggy until her house and when he said hi she pointed him with a gun. God he love her.
She get muted.
“Peggy”
“Who the hell are you?” She said.
“I´m Steve. Please let me explain you”
“Steve Rogers is death” she said while her hands shake and the tears appeared.
“No I’m not. It’s me Peggy, you know is me”
And both cried and trembled and laughted at the end.
He had to explained it to her in a way that he didn’t spoiled to much. She had to believed him, make shure that he is not an Hydra agent or Howard’s bad taste of a joke. They talked, and talked and danced and loved each other.
He changed his name, weared a wig and glasses, and prayed everyday to no one reconognized him. Howard make him specially unconfortable.
“Did you want to join SHIELD?” Peggy asked one day after he proposed.
His trought closed it. SHIELD. The organization that Peggy had dedicated her life, Hydra in disguise.
“Steve”
“No, I don’t want”
“Why?”
<don´t do nothing stupid>
It would be? It would be really that stupid?
He didn’t answered. He didn’t talked to her for some days. He wake up crying and screaming.
He get mad again, the sadness hadn’t left him. That empty hole on his chest was still there, the need to puch and run until he can’t anymore was still inside him.
What he had done? What if it was no solution? What if he is going to felt this way no matter what?
He and Peggy went to visited the Starks when his son was born. He passed all the stops on the way and get one ticket for high speed. He hold baby Tony Stark on his arms and murmured things to him when no one was listening
“It is about the future?” she asked one day after he weak up in the middle of the night screaming.
“Peggy”
“what is going on Steve?”
“I can’t join SHIELD, no one should join SHIELD”
“Stop”
“what?”
“When you come back I accepted that there is going to be things that you don’t tell me, and I am fine with that, but don’t hide how you felt, please. Don’t push me away again”
“Right now, I could do so much, I can’t stop so many bad things, I can undo mistakes that would cost so many lives, I could make the future better; but if I do, I don’t know if It would be”
“Steve”
“I know so much, and if I don’t warn you, it would make everithing my fault”
“We all are trying to do the world a better place”
“You don’t understand”
“Don’t patronized me” She said with a firm voice
“Peggy”
“We all had to make hard choices, some times are right, some times don´t, but don’t make the mistake to believed that the world only depended on you”
“Peggy”
“Do you want to join SHIELD?”
“No”
“Do you want me to talk the least I could about SHIELD when I’m with you?”
“Please”
“You need to think about yourself, you are pretty, but you need to be more than my pretty husband if you want to be happy”
The weeding was one of the happiest moment of his life. Peggy was smiling and all her friends congrats her for finally forget at Steve Rogers. Except Howard who gets drunk and told Steve on his face that he was nothing compared with the good old Capitan America. Yes, he was right.
He made a vow, he isn’t going to stop Hydra, that was a work for Peggy, SHIELD and eventually, the avengers. He had to do something else. He join the protest agains the war and segregation, he voluntered in horphanages, in homeless shelters, he teached self defense clases at poor kids, he tried to convice people to don’t smoke. And he painted. He painted beatifull Galaxy landscapes, tall buildings, horrible monsters that still haunted his dreams and vibrating colors. He hide the portraits of his friends.
One day he was walking for New York and saw a house on fire, a child crying inside. He walked in, the house was falling, the kid was hurted. But he saved him. It was so fast that he hasn’t time to think about the future or the consequences. The fireman departament saw everything. They congratulation him. He was trilled.
He tought about it all night. All the nights of the week. He made the test un month later. A fireman, he felt alive, he was helping, he hope it wouldn´t do nothing to hurt the time line. But he had vow to let Hydra be, he need to do something that allow him to live with that.
He worked fifteen years on the fireman department of New York until Peggy come to him with a serius face.
“I think we had to move” Peggy said one day
“Move were?”
“I get offered a good job on one secretary of goverment”
“international relathionship?” Steve said smiling.
“Steve! You had promise me to don’t said anything about…”
“So Washington D.C.?”
And they move on. Steve noticed that after Peggy left SHIELD she speaked least to Howard, they didn’t visited the Starks anymore and they lost contact. He now something had happen, but he and Peggy had aagree on kept their secrets like secrets. He miss young Tony, but he would be fine, the world would need him strong and smart. He colected a lot of newspaper. All the tabloids about the starks, every photo that he can get of Tony. Ocationally he saw Bruce Banner on the front of a science magazine and he almost cry on the street.
He was on his house one afternoon when he saw the calendar. 13 of december of 1991. Peggy had to hold him because he can’t stop crying. Steve reached for the telephone, but he can´t mark the number. His left arm was trembling and he can´t breathe. He fall out. When he wake up Peggy was by his side.
“Thank god, I was at one instand to call the doctor”
“No doctors”
“I know, I know”
“What happen?”
“I thougt you had a heart attack”
Steve can’t conttent the laught. “Me? Really?”
“It looks like it” she said with a tender expretion.
With the years passing the serum had been becoming weak, he had wrinkles, he even sneeze sometimes. But a heart attack? God.
The sun was rising on the window.
“Steve?”
“Howard and Maria are death”
Peggy get muted. The telephone rang. It was Jarvis.
The nightmares get worse. The wrinkles duplicated on his face. Peggy hold him closer by the nights. She can’t sleep well either. God knows what nigtmares haunted her. They both pasted the nights playing games, watching movies, going over the big colection of things that Steve had. Scientific magazines, band t-shirts. photos of people from magazines and papers, nordic mitology parafernalia. Steve followed with special candor the turbulent life of Tony Stark.
One day Peggy forget the keys before going to work. She started to forget dates, names and events. Steve hold her hands, he was always patient and kind.
They were on the birthday of one niece when the news on the tv anounced the kidnapped of Tony Stark. He was incapable to do anything for the next three weeks. He sent flowers at Stark Industries diary. He punched a man on the bar that called Tony weak for shut down the arm división.
Iron man existed in the world. It was a bright new world again. His colection of things grown more everyday.
He bought the best ticket for the Stark Expo. It was Tony Stark at his best, the mass scream at his public persona performace. Steve try to enjoy the moment, to don’t remembered that he was diying and sad. He bought all the newspapers and magazines. On one of them was an enterview with the photograp of Pepper Potts, next to her it was the half of Natasha, her shoulder and her red hair. He remember how proud she was that in all of her undercovers no one had taken a good picture of her. He recorted the photo and glued on his álbum, it had one full page for it. He had a full álbum with all the records of Thor in New Mexico.
One sunny saturday he bought a ticket to New York. He bought an ice cream and stand over wall street. He saw a blond confused man running over the street, the black cars following him. A nice man on a black suite asked him to please leave the place. That was a good day.
He come back at the house of the sister of Peggy, where she had passed the weekend.
Peggy’s sister talked to him.
“She would be better on an eldery home”
“You can’t cared of her forever”
“You can varely take care of yourself”
“You need help too”
Peggy was better in the elderly home. She had the best nurses, she had visits every day. Steve was by her side. He saw the photos on the cofee table and laught. He remembered the hurt on his chest when he saw them the first time. It was him, it was always had been him.
Maybe his sister in law was right, maybe he need some help too. He went at the V.A. in Washington D.C. He made friends. One day, after some years, he saw Sam entering the building, he had some sesions with him. He was as kind and fun as he remembered him. Sam looked concerned for how much Steve cried and how less he actually talked. Steve payed attention, Sam never turned his head to the other side, he was always helpfull and brave. He would look great with the shield on his back.
One weekend he insisted strongly with all his family on New York to visited him on D.C. They come to visited him and he let them there. He took the telephone guide and when to a public telephone. He called at every business on the center of New York.
“Hello kisrpy and cream how I can help you?”
“Hello Miss? I beg you to believed me, I’am mostly shure there is a bomb in the building, you must alert the policy and desocupied the stablishment.”
“What? Is this a joke?”
“I wished it will be miss, but is not”
“Oh my god!”
She hang the telephone.
He found the next number and made another call and called people all the morning.
Finally, he called his old fireman departamento on New York, he can’t contended the tears and cried over the phone as he said how much he love them, how they are so brave and he hang out.
He come back at his home, he hug his niece and nephews, he talked at his sister in law, he avoid to look Sharon at the eyes, as usually.
After the battle of Nwe York The Avengers where everywhere. He bought the biggest poster that he found, framed it and hang it on his living room.
One day he was watching the news when they annuncied the death of Tony Stark, it hurt him. He is going to get over it. He repeated at himself that tony is going to come back, stronger and wiser.
He visited Peggy less tan before. He had to programed his visits to don’t cross pat with himself. But he new he was good company.
Until the day that the helicarriers get down for the sky. Steve cannot control his feets. He traspass the line of evacuation and hide on the park. He had to see him. And he did. Bucky took him out of the wáter and walked away as he was still uncunsious. Then he ran away.
Old Steve followed him for the distance. He remembered the words of Sam. How it had been imposible for Bucky to run away, how the place had to be surounded by SHIELD and HYDRA. How there is no registers of mobs or robery and how the street cam hadn´t catch him walking away.
How he did it?
Steve waited. Bucky was at some metters of him, sitting on the street. He looked confused and tyred. The agents were close, looking for him. Bucky had to do someting. But he is doing nothing. He had no were to scaped.
Steve feet move before his brain.
“Are you okey? Buddy?”
Buck rise his head and looked at him.
“Did I know you?”
The question hurt him hard.
“Come on, it is dangerous to be on the street”
He help him to get on his feet, covered his face and walked him to his car. His heart was pounding on his chest. Bucky was on the co pilot seat, drinking wáter. Steve drove and stopped on his house. They both entered and Bucky fall slept on his couch.
He didn’t slept, He watched him all the night. He tought about Sam and young Steve, how good it would be to found Bucky now. And he saw Bucky, so lost, so confused, in war with himself.
He wake up with a knife on his trought.
“Who are you? And why you help me?” the Winter soldier said.
“Because it was the right thing to do”
Silent and Bucky thinking.
“Hail Hydra” Bucky said.
“No, is not like that”
Bucky retrieved.
“Are you lost?” Steve asked “You can stayed the time that you want”
Buck was quiet.
“Maybe I can contact some friend of you”
“I´m alone”
“Are you shure?”
“I want to be alone”
That was a statement.
“You can stay the time that you want, I´m not calling anyone”
And he stayed. Confused and broken. Steve give him food, shelter, clothes and space. How was that he has hidden Bucky for himself. Some how he was proud, he hide someone from the falcon and the black widow. Little by little he saw his old friend recovered. He could talk best, he can count, he slept better. But he was trapped on the house of a stranger, Steve know he is going to scape.
One day Steve left a bag full of cash and a ticket to Europe with a fake ID over his night table. The next morning Bucky was gonne.
Steve cry all day. But it was a diferente cry of his usual. He was moved, he was able to do something else for his friend, he has a place on this time at well.
A weeks later a postcard arrived at his house. It was a mountain of some place in Asia with only the words thank you. It was Bucky’s hand writting.
Then, Peggy died.
He was on the first line on the church, sitting there, mourning. Not only the love of his life had died after an agonized sickness, but he knew, he knew this was the day when the avengers break out. When he did his biggest mistake, this day was the day when he had to chose between promises, when he saved Bucky at cost of Tony Stark’s heart. If they had talked before, if he hadn’t been such a coward, if he had been the honest man that he knew he could be. But he had been arrogant, stubborn and a coward.
The coffin was entering at the church. And for the first time since the Bucky’s nightmare were gone he felt that he wouldn’t be able to stay a side, that he is going to scream and broke the future.
Steve saw himself loading the coffin. And dear god in heaven, he was so young. How anyone had expected for him to kept it together? What sick bastard had putting him in charge? Of course he would lied to try to kept the few friends that he had won, of course he would made mistakes in the name of his oldest friend. Where were the liders of the world? Why it had been so heavy weight on his shoulders? Of course it was going to break him.
And then, a miracle happen. He forgived himself.
He cried and cried as the old sad widow that he was. But his heart felt light and his hands were shaking. One of his nephews hold his arm and help him to left the church. His younger self was the last man inside. He let him be and walked out of the boulding and then, he saw her. She was on her black dress, the red hair until the shoulders, perfect make up and tender eyes.
“I’m sorry for your lost” she said before she kept walking inside the church.
The black widow, Heart of the avengers, líder of the world, the global general of order and defence on the snap time, martir of the infinive war, forever hero, the selfless more capable person that he had ever had the honor to know, Natasha Romanoff on the flesh.
“Thank you” he reached to said.
And the world spinned after that. He stayed on the funeral, surruonded by his family, rejecting all the proposal over how he shouldn’t had to keep living alone, he scold his young nieces who talked bad about Sharon for leaving early because she had to work.
Eventually, he come back at his house. His heart lighter and his consious still revolt. On the mail was a postcard of a beautyfull african landscape whose only message was Good bye. Bucky was in Wakanda and he was on the run. Sam didn’t come back at the V.A. and he pick every fight with all the people whit opinions over the Avengers break up.
One day, he saw the engaged of Pepper and Tony on the T.V. He send them flowers by the fan mail.
Many weeks happen. He was buying milk on the store when a car crashed otuside. He turned to the cashier and saw the girl banished in front of him. He closed his eyes, and prayed “please don’t, don’t make me go over this again, God plea…”
He opened his eyes again, the cashier was in front of him, confused. Steve get out at the street, people was hugging each other, laughing and crying. The excitment lasted some minutes. Then a lighting storm the skyes, and at the far away they could saw a battle beginning. The avengers headquarters were under attack. The people waited together afraid of was is going to come.
“It is going to be fine” he kept repeating.
The earth best defender died. Steve was there between the hundred of people who atteded the funeral.
He come back at his house, dust off the shield and walked at the encounter of some old friends.
He had regrets and he can’t sleep all nights, his hearth had been broken time after time. But now he felt wiser, peacefull, old. At least he had had the chance of choose his time and place, at least all his mistakes were his own, he had lost and won, he had lived.