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Steve pays a lot of money to make it happen, money he takes from his as-yet-unreleased back pay from the US Government. He feels bad, but then: maybe not really.
If he needed proof that he’s changed, really changed, that’s a good place to start.
He finds an outfit based in Iceland that is oddly amenable to helping him without asking too many questions. He says he’s looking to retrieve a fallen soldier to return home to loved ones for a proper burial—he’d been deliberate about his timing; he’d missed The Stork Club, but he’d also missed the rest of the War. They agree; he thinks he understands, now, how Tony moved through life, no one hesitating or thinking twice when faced with dollar signs.
The men he hires to extract the body don’t seem to notice or care about the uniform under all that ice: they’re in it for a paycheck, and nothing more. They just cut and heave and lower and take their winnings. Best that way, to be fair, but Steve wonders what it says about the world.
Well, no. He doesn’t wonder. He knows exactly what it says about the world, and it’s just that he used to think the world was something other than what it is.
He’s long since learned better.
The shield isn’t with him, thank goodness—that would probably have raised eyebrows even among the most disinterested of moneygrubbers, and Steve figures once this all shakes out they’ll go looking for it; if not, then there’s Howard to make another one.
Steve takes a moment to wonder how in the hell Howard Stark got his hands on Vibranium in the 40s to begin with, and wonders if he, even now, wants to know.
The small cottage he pays for with the too-large of a bag in tow is far out of the way; the extraction team had whittled the frozen body down to the point where Steve had needed to hide his face in the parka he stole, to avoid being recognized. There’s still frost all over the body, and it doesn’t move a muscle, so Steve scoops it into an oversized duffle and thanks them, and is grateful that, apparently, bracing the elements for sport required large fucking equipment to haul, and was a thing that eccentric people with money apparently did, because he doesn’t get so much as a frown when he lugs his own goddamn frozen body through town and asks lodging for a few nights to recover before he sets out again.
People don’t trust anymore, in the future he’s from, and Steve knew that, but he forgot how much people did trust, back then, and he can’t help but think in the corner of his mind how that’s a liability. How that may be their demise.
He hates that he thinks that, a little. He loves what it cements in his heart: he’s not the man he was. The man he was wouldn’t have been doing this at all, really. Changing the past meant creating new universes, alternate timelines. Steve’s playing with fire, doing something he knows he’s not meant to, but that’s the story of his life. He came back to do this. He made the extra jump to 1945 for this.
Somewhere deep down, he’s certain. He knows beyond a doubt that this is the right choice.
He waits, but it doesn’t take long. It’s mostly finding towels and linen and drying what ice drips off without being suspicious. It’s not the easiest thing he’s ever done, but neither is it the hardest.
Not even close.
Finally, though, his lashes flutter, and he thinks for a second that those are America’s lashes, because damn.
His eyes follow, though, and Steve didn’t realize he’d ever looked so young. So terrified and yet so determined, so dead-set on meeting this threat head-on, even half outside of an ice-induced coma.
Steve fights the urge to laugh at who he was; fondly, though, no malice in the thought.
“You don’t believe what you’re seeing,” he says before his former self gets his voice, his wits about him. There’s not much time to spare and he has a lot to say. “You’ll probably think this is a dream.”
The him on the bed looks like he wants to argue, or agree, or something, but Steve waves him to still.
“That’s okay,” Steve tells him, kindly but firmly. “As long as you listen.”
His former self, his other self: the self on the bed blinks, still coming-to.
“You’re in love with Peggy Carter,” Steve tells him, establishing some common ground, some reason to believe anything that comes after; “And you’re in love with Bucky Barnes. And when he fell you felt like you lost half your heart because of it, and you’re afraid that the only one of them you were allowed to be with in the first place deserves more than the half that’s left.”
The man on the bed—can he even call that man himself, any version of who he is now?—his eyes widen. Steve fights a sad sort of grin; he can call this man a version of himself, because those two things, those two loves, he thinks, might be true for every version of Steve Rogers, in every universe there is.
“You’ve got a big heart,” Steve tells him, a little detached, because he’s still only saying it because others have, not because he believes in it. But he trusts those who’ve said it, so he passes the wisdom on.
“You’re never going to believe it, but you do. And she deserves better than you can give her,” of course; she always did.
“She is a woman who probably deserves more than your whole goddamn heart because she’s a firecracker and a marvel and she’s going to do things you can only dream of.”
The man on the bed blinks, but his eyes only seem to get wider. At that, Steve does grin.
“But you’re going to go to her, and you’re going to tell her that you’re there because of nothing short of a fucking miracle, something you can’t even explain, and that you want to spend the rest of your life with her.”
The man’s lips part, but no sound comes out, not yet. Good.
“And you will have a beautiful life. Together. For so many years, through so much,” Steve shakes his head, wondering at what-ifs. “You will live through so much—”
His voice cracks, because he can’t be sure, except that something in him is sure. Something in him knows.
But there’s more than that. There’s more than them.
“You’re going to show Howard how to love his son,” Steve tells the man on the bed, tells himself; “and how to make sure that boy knows he’s loved. Because he’s going to change the world, more than even his father has, or will, and you’re going to watch and smile and love that boy for who he is, and not just for what he makes, or does.”
The man on the bed, his eyes twitch, and his brow furrows. But whether or not he understands just yet is unimportant. Just that he hears, and knows, and thinks about it enough to remember.
That is enough.
“You’re going to find Bucky,” Steve’s voice breaks on that, too, and he has to swallow more than once to keep speaking.
“Because he is alive, and they’re doing terrible things to him,” Steve leans in, because this needs to be heard. This is essential.
“Find him, and love him as your best friend and the other half of your soul, and know that he’s always at your right hand as much as he’s at your six, and be at his just the same,” Steve says with sheer fervor, with maybe more force than anything else because this part will be the hardest. This part will need the most skill to make real. They have to find him, first, and then it will be easy as breathing but the finding, and the fighting. That might take time, and more wherewithal than even Steve could ever anticipate, or prepare for. It’ll have to come from the core of him, when the time demands it. He knows he has it in him, but he can't prepare himself for it in advance.
“If he marries, love his wife like your own blood,” Steve tells him, though he knows he doesn't need to. “If he has children, love his like you’d love your own.”
He pauses, and smiles softly.
“Like I think you will love your own.”
The man on the bed is starting to move, now, starting to shift. Steve doesn’t have much time.
“Give Peggy the dance you promised,” he instructs; “but give her so many others. Don’t ever make her ask, just have them ready.”
Now the tricky part.
“You’re going to get rid of the infestation that’s going to come of the SSR,” Steve says, and his voice gets hard, because what would it have been like, what would have happened if—
“It’ll grow and change and the name won’t be the same, but Hydra finds its way in and you’re going to root it out.”
The man on the bed’s eyes harden. Steve knows he can be counted upon, but just for good measure:
“Arnim Zola is a virus,” he hisses out, the name a poison on his tongue; “don’t let anyone barter with him for what he knows. It’s not worth the cost in the end.”
The man on the bed’s chin dips down, assent there, his motor function returning.
“We don’t trade lives,” Steve says sternly; “make sure that’s the principle you live by. It won’t always work, but you’re supposed to feel bad when it doesn’t. That means you’re doing it right,” and he wonders a little, in that moment, draws out of his own mind to register the fact that he’s schooling himself, and he wants to laugh a little hysterically but he doesn’t have time, he doesn’t have time—
And yet, isn’t that what this is, entirely? Isn’t all he has, here, just time?
“I don’t know how long you’ll live,” he says, a little apologetically; “I don’t know what the serum does or doesn’t do but,” and that’s when he reaches into the pocket of his trekking pants, with too-big pockets. A letter, and a small box with impossible particles inside. Impossible to him a century later, still, but now—
“I’m going to give you this,” he stands, and holds up the box before he places it on the bedside table; makes sure the man on the bed follows his motions closely. “And this tells you what to do with it,” he sets the piece of paper, a detailed letter to his former, other self next to it with the same intentionality. “I know the year 2023 sounds like science fiction,” he huffs a little laugh; “but you’re fucking science fiction, aren’t you?” The man on the bed’s lips quirk, as if he does it against his will, without his own permission. It’s nearly time to go.
“So please,” Steve says, and there’s a little bit of begging in his tone; “please be there, and do what the letter says. It’s a one-way trip, and it’s selfish as hell of me to ask, but it’s the only way to find any peace, to pass the mantle on and not be questioned. And you won’t need to come back, not by then,” he says firmly, then smiles conspiratorially.
“But I’m going to leave you this,” he adds another case to the bedside table, an extra particle he’d slipped away with him into the quantum realm, knowing what he planned to do and needing to have enough ways to account for any actuality.
“In case you don’t believe me,” Steve explains in the abstract; “or in case I’m wrong.”
He hopes he’s not wrong, or else; if he’s wrong, he hopes it’s for all the best reasons in the world.
“Love, unrepentantly,” Steve tells him, knowing they're nearly at the end. “And try not to be afraid,” Steve smiles as he stands up straight.
“I know how much you tried to hide it, and you did, no one ever knew,” Steve assures himself, because the man on the bed looks apprehensive, like his cover was blown. “But know that you’re enough to face it, to best it, because you’ll have people around you who love you fiercely, and who will help you beat it back every time.”
To say it out loud, it’s so strange. To say it like he believes it, is something he never thought he’d see.
“Be happy,” Steve says. “Make the people around you happy.” Because what else is there, in the end?
And he smiles, and he pats the man on the bed’s leg beneath the blanket, and makes to leave, but then:
“Where are you going?”
The man’s able to speak. The thaw’s finished. It’s a shock, to hear himself. He didn’t expect it to shake him like it does.
Steve breathes in deep.
“Home,” and it sounds true, because it is true. He looks back at himself on the bed, but that man looks confused, looks skeptical, and Steve gets it. It’s all so absurd.
Gorgeously so.
“But you told me to—”
“The other half of my heart’s waiting somewhere else,” Steve explains, as simply as he can. “And I’m a different person now, there. Then.”
And god, but he is. He had known, but hadn’t realized the extent until seeing himself here, on the bed, with those eyes, eyes that have seen so much and yet nothing, nothing at all—
“And I can’t be here, like you can,” he tells the truth he’s never been able to say aloud before, and it’s freeing, just to speak its name.
“I can’t love her like you can. Not anymore.”
That’s a weight he didn’t realize was so heavy, until it lifts.
“But between the two of us,” he walks to the side of the bed again, and leans in, hand on the other man’s shoulder; “I think we’re going to love the most important people in our lives, the best parts of our souls, as best we possibly can. With all that we are.”
The other man eyes him warily, but there’s hope buried deep somewhere in the gaze, Steve can recognise that much, and it’s enough.
“And between who I’ve become and what I need, and who you still are and what you want,” Steve murmurs gently, squeezing the shoulder underneath his grasp; “I think we might just be the luckiest sonsabitches who’ll ever live.”
The man on the bed blinks furiously, and his throat works hard, but his voice is just shy.
“Tell the people downstairs who you are,” Steve says in farewell; “they’ll do the rest.”
He makes to exit, but then:
“Wait.”
He turns.
“If you’re not a dream,” the man on the bed struggles to sit up, and tries a couple of words in his throat, working around them before he finally asks:
“Time travel?”
Steve laughs.
“You’ve got a ways to go yet, but,” he nods down at the things he left on the bedside table; “what the hell do you think this is?”
The man on the bed’s eyes narrow, but then ease.
“Right,” he says slowly, trying to process. And that’s all Steve needs: processing. Remembering.
Following through.
“I,” the man says, hand coming to his forehead. “I think I’m hallucinating,” he says slowly; “or, dead already.”
“That’s okay,” Steve says quietly, understanding; “Take your time.”
“Okay,” the man says, and Steve knows it’s time to go.
“If you’re,” the man starts, his tongue growing quicker, the frost ebbing faster; “if you’re not a, I mean, if you’re not just in my head—”
He cuts himself off and frowns at the sheets around him before meeting Steve gaze, straight in the eye.
“If he’s alive then you’ll have a whole heart left, and so will I.”
Steve smiles this time, fully and without restraint because yes. Yes.
“You can,” the other man starts, hesitant before he dives in, just as Steve knows he will: “you can love him and not...” he trails off, but it’s a question, it’s all the fear and longing that came with the era.
Steve's smile widens.
“I can marry him.”
“Jesus,” the version of himself on the bed breathes out slow, marveling, wondering, trying to make sense; he abandons the work of it for the time being, though, to meet Steve’s eyes again.
“You’ll have a whole heart.”
Steve nods. He will. He does.
“Love him with all of it.”
“I do,” Steve promises this version of himself that wants that just as much as he does, because it was never a competition in his chest, it was always just love. “I will.”
His other self nods, and leans back into the pillows, damp as they are with the last of the ice.
“Rest,” Steve presses him further back into the cushions; “you’ll need it,” his smile turns apologetic. “Shit’s gonna hit the fan when you wake up for good, believe me.”
He takes one last look at himself on the bed, still just that little bit dizzy from the thaw, and he nods, a finality in it.
Steve hits the retrieval button at his wrist, feels his pulse skip in anticipation, and goes home.