Chapter Text
Steve Rogers roamed his old, wizened gaze around the lake and the surrounding grove. For a moment there, he’d almost forgotten how beautiful the rolling hills and the lake flanking the Avengers compound were. His eyes had seen their fair share of both ugliness and beauty, grief and bliss, hatred and love. He was overjoyed that despite all that he had seen in his long and often trying life, he had found his way back as he promised his friends and himself that he would.
Steve had succeeded, returning the Infinity Stones to the moment in the timestream when they were taken. He had done that and then some. He didn’t have any regrets anymore.
Save for one.
But Steve was hoping that it would all work out, that his request was heard.
That if Steve Rogers had found his way back home, he wasn’t going to be the only one.
“You wanna tell me about her?” Sam Wilson asked, nodding towards the simple band on Steve’s ring finger that, like Sam’s mischievous and curious dark eyes, twinkled in the late morning sun.
Did he want to tell his friend about the journey he had ended up taking after returning the Stones to when and where they belonged? It felt like a dream, and maybe it was, seeing as the science of it all didn’t allow him to change anything that had already happened. But the feel of her hand in his, the taste of her lips against his, the pain of having found her only to lose her to nature, and the bittersweet joy warming his heart right now were as real as they come.
Screw science. The time he’d spent with her was real; she was real, and he didn’t need to tell people about her as affirmation that she was. Smiling as if thinking of a private joke and looking out into a distance as if remembering a long-forgotten memory, Steve answered, “no—no, I don’t think I will.”
Bracing himself to gather the old bones together, Steve stood up from the bench with a soft grunt. He’d lost track of how old he really was, but that didn’t stop him from feeling every one of his one hundred or so years upon him, at that moment. He hadn’t realized how much he’s missed his friends until they were welcoming him back. Turning from the lake, Steve’s eyes landed on Bucky, who was looking back at him knowingly and with nothing but kindness, and it made Steve’s old heart ache.
Steve wanted to let Bucky know that when and where he had gone, things had turned out differently. In another place and time, Steve was able to save Bucky, getting him out of HYDRA’s clutches and having him live next door with his own wife. They’d been able to live out their dream lives. There were difficult days for both of them: Bucky had a lot of prisoner-of-war trauma to get through; and Steve, during moments when he was alone with nothing but his thoughts for company, always had the nagging memory of his old life and the friends he’s left behind.
And Tony. Steve always thought about Tony, and if there was something he could’ve done differently for Tony to get to come home to his wife and daughter, after.
Steve didn’t know how he could have ever thought that he could move on after Tony’s sacrifice. Because if he couldn’t move on from the first time Thanos wrought catastrophe, then there was no way in hell he could move on now. Not when there was something he could do.
There was no saving this Bucky from the horrors brought about by HYDRA and the guilt from all the deaths dealt by the Winter Soldier. There was no saving Tony from wielding the Infinity Stones and dying because of it. But that didn’t mean that there was nothing that Steve could do for the friends that were so dear to him…
“Buck, I—” He began, tremulously, when he was within arm’s reach. Pain must have been shining out his eyes.
“Don’t give me that look, punk. I know the science,” Bucky interjected. “The doc did his best to explain things to me.” The brunet cocked his head towards where Professor Hulk stood, trying to be unobtrusive, and then smiled back at Steve wistfully.
“I thought I could—” Steve began to explain, his eyes growing hot and his voice breaking even more than it already was.
“What’s done is done, Steve… I’m just… happy you found your way back to us—skinny, wrinkled ass and all,” joked Bucky.
“You only wish you could have this ass when you’re my age,” Steve exclaimed, cheekily.
“What’re you saying? I’m older than you, jerk,” Bucky said, bridging the final, small gap between them and tugging Steve into a fierce hug. “For a moment there, I thought you’d skipped out on me.” Bucky whispered, his emotions finally getting the better of his composure.
“I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal, or have you forgotten?”
Bucky hummed in agreement, his mouth and eyes crinkling into a smile.
“Now, come on,” Steve bade with a tug at Bucky’s forearm before looking back at both Sam and Bruce with nods of acknowledgment and invitation. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” Bruce finally spoke in question.
“Tony’s lakeside lodge,” Steve replied. He started to feel rejuvenated despite his aged bones. Steve had a good feeling about it. They had to hurry—make sure there were friendly and familiar faces to greet his friend upon his arrival. “We have a guest coming. Let’s welcome him home.”
==========
“How’s the rebuilding coming along?” Pepper Potts-Stark asked, finally breaking the comfortable intermittent periods of silence that would usually fall between them during these semi-regular check-ins and visits that Steve had taken to doing to see how she and Morgan were holding up.
“Shaping up nicely,” Steve replied. It was only just a little over three weeks since Tony’d passed. It wasn’t nearly long enough for any of their broken hearts to heal or their eyes to dry from losing both Nat and Tony. “It wouldn’t even be possible if—”
“Tony would’ve wanted it,” Pepper interrupted before Steve could keep blathering on awkwardly. “He had the compound repurposed and built, first and foremost, so that his friends—his family—would always have a home. He’d have seen to it that the Avengers would always have the support you will ever need, with or without any government agency in the picture.”
“Still…” Steve said, letting the rest go unspoken when he meant to say that it was just as likely for Pepper to completely denounce any association with the Avengers after her husband’s death and withdraw any support regardless of Tony’s wishes if she’d had any vindictive bone in her body. It was all well and good for what remained of the team that Pepper didn’t hold any grudges or blamed them for what happened to Tony. And for that, Steve, in particular, was thankful. He didn’t have any family apart from the team or a place he called home apart from the compound. “Thank you,” he said, thinking it best to be simple and straightforward about it.
Another interval of silence. Then, Pepper spoke, “you guys are my family now, too, you know.” She looked down on the half-empty glass of juice, cradled within her hands atop her lap. “I think Tony would want you to be in Morgan’s life. If he couldn’t be here, he would want the people he considered his family to be here in his stead. And I really would like it if Morgan could see what her dad was like from different eyes and not just mine, you know. You fought beside him—against him, even. You know—knew—him in a different way than how I knew him, and Morgan… she would need all of those…different perspectives—different inputs—if she were to have a lasting idea of what kind of man her father was.”
If there was anything that could break Steve’s heart more than Peggy and what could have been, it was Morgan and the chance denied her to know firsthand how great her dad really was.
“It would be my pleasure to be in Morgan’s life, Pepper, as it would be an honor to get to tell her about her father,” Steve said, fighting back an onslaught of his own sentiments. “Tony and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but—” and at this Steve pursed his lips to keep his emotions in check, “Even when we fought, I’ve never not thought of him as a friend—a brother… And I…will never stop missing him.”
Silence. Pensive, this time.
“Will it be all right if I visit Morgan every Saturday?” Steve asked, hopeful. He would really like that. If he could see Tony’s daughter as often as he could and tell her about the crazy-smart, sarcastic but kind and generous person that her father was. It would be like Tony was still around. Because we could keep the loved ones we’ve lost alive in our joyous celebration of their memory.
Pepper smiled softly at that request. “Aren’t you, guys, also trying to reconstruct a new quantum tunnel to be able to return the Infinity Stones? I think Bruce told me about that. Can’t imagine you getting a lot of free time, what, with rebuilding the compound and making sure the Stones are returned to where and when they should be…”
“We’re a long way from being able to build a quantum tunnel in the compound in the scope it used to be without Rocket and Nebula. Bruce is considering the specs of a smaller—more portable—one to be temporarily built in the compound grounds, and, since I can’t be of much help in the science and engineering of it,” Steve relayed, turning his glass in his hand and watching the juice slosh around inside. “That means until the miniature quantum tunnel is ready for us to be able to return the Stones when and where they’re supposed to be, I can’t imagine doing anything better than getting to know Morgan and telling her what an absolute nerd her dad was.”
At that, Pepper actually chuckled, but, remembering something, segued, “by the way, about returning the Sto—” She didn’t get to finish, though, because it was at that moment that little Morgan came barreling out of the house, looking distraught over something. She immediately went and straddled Pepper’s lap, throwing her arms around her mother’s neck and burying her face in the older woman’s neck. “Hey, sweetheart. Hello—did you have a nice nap?”
“No, no, no…” Morgan whimpered, burrowing her face further and almost completely muffling her small voice. “I saw Daddy, Mommy. I saw him in my sleep,” Morgan continued, beginning to full-on cry now, and it took nearly all of Steve’s willpower not to sob with the child. “He’s calling me. Bad men are chasing him and needs our help, Mommy… I miss…Daddy! I miss him…so much!” She wailed, hiccuping her sentiments in-between her tears.
Steve felt like pieces of his already broken heart were breaking again. In his mind’s eye, he could still see Tony’s desperate face when they talked at the compound’s driveway about keeping what he’s found at all costs. Tony had so much to lose, and he’d done the ultimate sacrifice. While Steve had nothing to lose, and he was still there, looking at Tony’s widow and daughter, helplessly—powerlessly.
It was like the most twisted bastardization of poetic justice.
“It was just a nightmare, sweetheart. It happens because you’re always thinking of him, so you dream about him. But he’s not in trouble, don’t worry. Daddy’s in a good place. He’s in a place where there’s no pain, and he can play and build things all he wants,” Pepper patiently explained, her own eyes shining with unshed tears. Steve averted his eyes from the mother-daughter scene playing out in front of him, feeling like an outsider intruding in a moment he had no business being a party to.
“But how can it be a good place, when he’s not with us?” Morgan astutely said, pressing her cheek against Pepper’s shoulder and finally noticing Steve sitting there, like a deer caught in headlights. Morgan looked at him straight in the eye, unabashedly. As if asking Steve to make sense of that simple question himself—how could it be believed that Tony Stark was in a good place when he couldn’t be with his family?!
“We can’t always be with Daddy, sweetheart. Remember before when Daddy went to the city to go meet someone, and you and I stayed here to play and garden? Sometimes, there are places Daddy goes to that he has to leave me and you, but it doesn’t mean he’s not in a good place,” Pepper tried her best to explain, blinking away the stray tears threatening to spill from her eyes.
“Daddy came back then!” Morgan protested. “But he’s not coming back anymore, is he?”
Steve had zero doubt that Morgan Stark was Tony Stark’s kid, all right. She had the same superpower of being able to say just the exact thing that would hit you right where it’d hurt.
Steve wanted to excuse himself to go bawl his eyes out—survivor’s guilt eating at him. But he stayed put. Because this wasn’t about him but about this little girl who would have to live the rest of her life without a father.
After Pepper was somewhat able to console Morgan, the little girl bravely extricated herself from faceplanting against her mother’s neck, wiped away the tear tracks from her cheeks and her hair from her face, and looked at Pepper square in the eye. “Mommy, what’s Unca Steve doing here?”
Steve nearly swallowed his tongue in surprise. Tony’s kid knew him. By name! He didn’t expect that because Steve’s only ever seen the little lady once before Tony’s memorial, when Tony had been too busy shooting their Time Heist idea into smithereens to make proper introductions. And then Steve rarely saw her since despite checking in as frequently as he could, but apparently Tony’s kid knew who Steve was!
Did Tony ever tell Morgan about him? Did Tony tell Morgan about him in anger? With heaps of resentment? Or maybe it was just like that movie and Tony told his kid that ‘Steve’ meant the same thing as poop or something? Or maybe Tony told Morgan stories of only the good times that Steve and Tony had together? The good times may be few and far between but they were good. And they were precious.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Pepper urged the child, and then looked meaningfully at Steve as if wordlessly conveying, ‘you asked for this earlier; this is your chance. Don’t screw my kid up, Rogers, or I will end you.’
“Are you here to play Tea Party with me and Mommy, Unca Steve?”
“I would love that, sweetheart,” Steve replied, chokingly. He held out his hand, palm up, toward Morgan, eager to touch the last connection he had with his friend. Steve couldn’t describe the happiness he felt when Morgan, with the shyest of smiles, placed her small hand in his; it was like being handed a gift.
“Now, why don’t you and Uncle Steve,” Pepper began, lifting Morgan off her lap and gently nudging her toward Steve, whose hand still cradled her small one, “play and Mommy will see about dinner?
“Steve, you are staying for dinner, right?”
“Unca Steve is staying for dinner! And I can share with him Daddy’s favorite juice pops and he can tell me stories about Daddy and—,” Morgan started yammering, all shyness gone, making Steve giggle in amusement.
“Answering no is no longer an option, it seems,” observed Pepper with an amused smile of her own at her daughter’s antics.
“—me and Unca Steve can build a pillow fort in my room, and do sock puppets, and—”
“I’d love to stay for dinner and do all those things with you, little lady,” Steve answered, carrying Morgan into his arms and hugging her against his chest, happy to have been given the chance. Then, turning toward Tony’s widow, told her, “thank you, Pepper.”
“Keep her occupied, will you? Pasta OK?”
Steve nodded, turning towards the front lawns to carry Morgan to her little tent to play Tea Party with her, but he stopped when Pepper called after him again. “Oh, before I forget, Dr. Pym visited the other day and I think I must have mentioned the mission to return the Stones and he said you, guys, should get in touch with him. He’s willing to give you enough Pym Particles to accomplish what you need to do.”
Steve started to think, then, of the two extra vials of Pym Particles he’d stolen in 1970 that were burning holes in his lock box in the compound’s bunker that had been miraculously spared from Thanos’ attack. Looking at Morgan, who had so much of Tony in her twinkling brown eyes and her lopsided grin, Steve indeed knew what he needed to do.
==========
Steve shuffled to open the bedroom door while holding the tray laden with food. He had a feeling that Peggy would be up for some food today, that she would be ravenous and she would even manage to hold some of it down for a while. She’d been having a series of bad days lately that she’d called in sick to the office for the fifth straight day that Steve was certain Howard was going to come barging through their door pretty soon with the biggest bouquet of flowers and some homemade soup from Maria, demanding to know what on earth was wrong.
Steve had pulled it off.
He’d used up the last vial of his stolen Pym Particles that would’ve allowed him to go back to 2023 to travel to 1945 instead. Steve had made it to the Stork Club as they’d arranged, and he’d told Peggy everything before asking for her hand for that much-awaited dance that was years and years in coming.
Steve had dyed his hair and worn glasses, and introduced himself as a different person to his friends who were still mourning his supposed death—Steve Rogers’ death—aboard the Valkyrie. Peggy had gotten him a job at the Strategic Scientific Reserve where he worked as inconspicuously as possible trying to rid the organization of HYDRA infiltration as they transitioned from SSR to the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division or SHIELD, after the war.
A couple of years later, he had asked Peggy to marry him.
It wasn’t until the late 1950s, in that timeline, that Steve had found and gotten Bucky out of HYDRA’s clutches. He’d also told Bucky everything—when he was from and what things were like in his timestream of origin—making a grand total of two people who knew the truth about him.
And they’d built a life—the three of them. Bucky met a great lady, Gail—a nurse, and married her while Steve and Peggy tried to start a family of their own.
After three miscarriages, however, it became clear to Steve that he and Peggy were never going to be parents. It was the Super Soldier Serum coursing through his veins. His Enhanced genetics combined with that of a healthy, baseline female’s prevented a fertile egg from making it through the first trimester. Like them, Bucky and Gail were childless as well…
At first, it felt like a personal failure on Steve’s part. It was his fault that his Peggy was going to be denied the joys of motherhood that the Peggy from his timestream of origin enjoyed. He’d denied something to his Peggy all for the selfish reasons of wanting that dance. Of wanting that life that he never got to live.
That was quite the bump that challenged and nearly tore their marriage apart. But Peggy didn’t give up on him—on them.
“I don’t need to have children to be complete. I have us. I have this, and that’s all I’ll ever need. I didn’t fall in love with you because of the potentiality of you as a father, or a grandfather—no. I fell in love with you because of the actuality of who you are. And I’m choosing to keep loving you not because I keep seeing in you the father of my children. I choose to keep loving you because you’re my husband.
“I don’t need children to make our marriage work, Steve. I need you.”
Steve got through the self-blame with Peggy’s love and support. They’d gotten through that bump on the road and came out the other side all the better for it. He’d like to think they’d pull through this new challenge as well. He didn’t want to entertain the alternative.
Ten months ago, Peggy, aged 76, had been diagnosed with cancer. Steve was devastated but he tried his damnedest not to let Peggy know. Peggy, great gal that she was, took it all in stride and was confident that she could lick this illness, what with the new medical innovations that were constantly being churned out by the brightest minds of the world.
For his part, Steve didn’t let Peggy know of his fear and his helplessness. Steve still carried out like he always had: he would wake up in the morning and cook breakfast for both of them; if Peggy was feeling well, Steve would help her get ready to go to SHIELD; Steve would drive both of them to the base where they would stay for five hours at most just overseeing some concerns since neither of them could do field work anymore due to their age; Steve would drive them back home where he would cook dinner for both of them. Sometimes Peggy was feeling even well enough to slow dance in the living room or to curl up together to watch a movie. Some days, Steve would rub her back as she emptied the contents of her stomach down the toilet.
Peggy had tried chemotherapy for a while—those new types that didn’t result in hair loss but she stopped it because she noticed that she was often severely fatigued and irritable. She’d told Steve that she would rather go without medication instead of feeling that way all the time, especially since it was also taking a toll on Steve as her primary caregiver.
Steve tried to convince her to continue with the chemo, fearing that the cancer would get out of hand more quickly, but she would hear none of it, reasoning that she would much rather spend her remaining days with her usual optimism and grace than spend them crabbier than a bus driver in standstill traffic who badly needed to pee.
So Steve worried for her and dreaded the day that his Peggy was going to leave him all alone. He didn’t regret blowing by his time stamp and not returning to his timestream of origin—to his friends, no. Never. His life with Peggy was a long time coming, but the wait was worth it.
It wasn’t that he was expecting a perfect life. It was just that there were some days that Steve couldn’t help but feel a bit resentful that, after everything he’d been through, fate was still not done throwing him curve balls.
But he never, not once, thought about finding a way to get back. For better or worse, he belonged there now. With his wife.
Gingerly setting the tray down on the bedside table, Steve then went to brush dark gray strands of hair off of Peggy’s face, softly rousing her from the uneasy sleep she had fallen into. His wife was still, by far, the most beautiful woman Steve had ever seen despite illness and age—age that he, himself, notwithstanding the Super Soldier Serum in his blood, was also beginning to show signs of.
If he didn’t consider the intervening 70 years of being asleep on ice, spending time in the new millennium with the Avengers and battling Thanos in 2023 before time traveling back to the ‘40s, he was, chronologically, 79 years old, and he was actually beginning to look his age. Graying hair, laugh lines, and age spots. He still looked younger than his real age though, and he was never sick and still healed from minor scrapes pretty quickly.
If only he could share the Serum with Peggy, he would. He would give anything to have his beloved wife hale and hearty. But he couldn’t. He was useless. It was because of the Serum that they couldn’t have children, and it was also because of the Serum that he was healthy while his wife was battling with, and slowly losing to, cancer; he hated it.
But bear with it, he must. He had learned to cope with quiet resignation because he loved Peggy, and if he would again be faced with the choice between going back to 2023 or living the life he has lived with Peggy, he would choose Peggy. Every time.
“Honey,” Steve whispered, still gently brushing hair off her forehead. “You up for some dinner?” Steve offered, smiling fondly at his wife who was slowly blinking away the sleep from her eyes.
“I’ll try,” Peggy answered, voice scratchy and face drawn. She looked doubtful about being able to keep the food down, but she was, at least, game.
Steve hand-fed her soup and crackers, pacing each bite so her stomach wouldn’t protest. He whispered assurances and told her commonplace stories about Bucky and Gail, about the grandchildren of their neighbors from across the street, about Mrs. Hurwitz’s poodle and Mr. Calloway’s new car. It warmed his heart to see her smile at his stories.
“Do you miss them?” Peggy asked, out of the blue, that Steve, for a moment, forgot what inane story it was they were talking about last.
“Do I miss whom?”
“Your friends—Sam, Bruce, Clint…the Avengers.”
Steve was tempted to tell Peggy that no, he didn’t miss them. That wasn’t his life anymore. That was another life that happened a long time ago or was yet to happen, depending on one’s perspective. But the truth was, he missed them sometimes. He thought about them whenever he found his mind wandering.
Mostly, he found his mind turning to Tony and Natasha. It was Tony who’d always badgered him to try getting a life outside of the Avengers, to maybe start a family. It was Nat who’d pestered him to date someone—anyone. But he never did.
It was only when he had one Pym Particle left that was meant to take him back after returning all the Infinity Stones that it really occurred to him:
Why not? Why the hell not?
But on the flipside, he promised himself he was going to look out for Morgan. But he was here instead, selfishly chasing after his own happiness. He couldn’t be sure if the yearning offset the guilt. “Sometimes.” Steve decided to stick to the truth.
“You remember Howard’s kid, Tony?” It was Peggy’s turn to break the terse silence.
Steve gulped. He remembered not being able to know how he felt when he was first introduced to Peggy’s 4-year-old godson and Howard’s only son, Tony Stark. He stayed wide awake the night following that first meeting. The only thought running in his head was how much little Tony looked like a male version of Morgan Stark.
He saw Tony sporadically after that first time. God, he must be all grown up now—probably, what, 26, 27 years old? “Yeah, I remember Tony. Smart kid. Graduated Summa Cum Laude and has a boatload of doctorates, right?”
“Well, Tony volunteered to lead the expedition this year,” Peggy explained. She was talking about the frequent expeditions undertaken by SHIELD in cooperation with Stark Industries. To look for him. To look for Captain America in the Arctic waters and glaciers. They’d found the tesseract in the mid ‘50s. But no body, no Cap.
“And…he found it,” Peggy remarked, breath hitching. “Tony found the shield.”
“And hi—” He was going to say ‘him’ like it was somebody else. It was somebody else. “The, uh, the Captain?”
“There was still no body,” confirmed Peggy, and Steve didn’t know if he was relieved or disquieted by that. “Howard said this might be it—the last expedition. He said he was thinking of stopping. He didn’t want any more arguments with his son. Tony volunteered to lead the expedition this year as a last-ditch effort, to make sure that no glacier was going to be left unturned, to satisfy Howard that if nothing turned up now, nothing was going to turn up anymore—that was that.”
“What did you say?”
“What could I say? It wasn’t like it was my money they were spending looking for him,” Peggy murmured in reply. “Maybe this time, he isn’t meant to be found…”
“Perhaps,” Steve grudgingly agreed. “What will Howard do with the shield—donate it to a museum? Melt it down?”
With some effort, Peggy moved from leaning her back against the headboard to stooping over the side of the bed to get at something from under it. She produced a brown canvas bag and held it out toward Steve. Considering the bag’s dimensions, there was no mistaking what it contained. “Howard gave it to me because he thought I could use a memento of a man who had been dear to me,” answered Peggy. “And I’m giving it to you because it’s rightfully yours—”
“Pegs—”
“Don’t Pegs me, Steve. I don’t need a memento of Captain America. I’ve got Steve Rogers right here with me; I’m married to that Steve Rogers. What use do I have of it, anyway? And it’s not as if anybody else has any use for it—a man lost underneath tons of Arctic ice certainly doesn’t,” argued Peggy.
“Then what use do I have of it? I’m not saving anyone from alien invasions in this bag of old bones,” Steve reasoned out, trying to be humorous about it but looking at the canvas bag as if it was an improvised explosive device that could go off at any time, blowing them all sky high.
It was then that Peggy opened the canvas bag and retrieved a metal storage tube from one of the inside pockets. She flipped the cap open and tipped it over and out came a single tube of red liquid.
Pym Particles.
“I’ve had this tube for some time now. I filched it from Hank soon after my diagnosis. I’ve been meaning to give this to you as a…failsafe of sorts,” admitted Peggy, avoiding Steve’s eyes. “I wanted to spare you from the pain of having to see me waste away. I saw how hard it was for you—blaming yourself, thinking it was because of you—that we couldn’t have children. I knew you were going to find ways to start blaming yourself again for my illness.
“I had it all planned out: I was going to give this to you; you will refuse to use it at first, but I was going to drive you away, make you hate me until you can’t stand me, and you will remember about this vial and jump at the chance to use this to go back,” explained Peggy, her voice beginning to tremble. “But I was selfish, Steve, I couldn’t do it. If I lost you, then I will not have died of cancer but from a broken heart. And now I’ve doomed us both. I’m so sorry. If I weren’t so weak and self-centered, then I could’ve made sure that you didn’t have to go through all this.” Peggy was crying now. She still tried to hide it behind a curtain of her graying hair but failed. Steve thought she looked so frail, so remorseful for what she thought she had doomed her husband to suffer.
“I wouldn’t have left you, honey, not even if you stuffed me inside a quantum suit and pressed the activation button yourself,” said Steve, enclosing Peggy in an embrace. “I would have still found a way to stay with you. I love you with all of my heart, Pegs, and I will never leave you. We can triumph over anything as long as we’re together,” he reassured, swallowing down his own sobs. They would get through this; he was sure of it.
“No, we can’t, Steve. Not this time,” Peggy murmured, her face pressed against Steve’s collar. “Not even Captain America can cheat death.”
Squeezing his eyes shut and kissing Peggy’s temple, Steve wept silently. He wanted to argue with Peggy—why did she sound like the fight was lost already? They were still fighting the good fight, weren’t they? There was still hope. Howard would help; Tony would help. Medical science had new discoveries to prolong lives every damn day! Surely, they could find a way! But he didn’t want to demean Peggy’s suffering by telling her to hang in there and not to give up. All that he felt was within his power to do was to be there for her, to keep hoping for the best, for both of them.
“Promise me,” Peggy murmured in between her whimpers. Steve could feel her soft breaths against the exposed skin of his throat. “Promise me that when I’m gone, you will keep your head up, that you will go back to your friends and your world will keep on spinning. Promise me, Steve. Promise me…”
“I promise.”
==========
Hank Pym was pretty accommodating, notwithstanding his known falling out with Margaret Carter-led SHIELD and Howard Stark, whom Pym once accused of trying to steal his shrinking formula. Pym’s change of heart, Steve thought, must have been largely due to his grudging admiration of what Tony Stark had done to put an end to the threat brought by Thanos. The old scientist was only too happy to provide them with a container van’s worth of Pym Particles to restore the Infinity Stones to their rightful place in the timestream.
Steve had a different opinion.
“It’s too risky. Not after what happened to Thanos from 2014 getting his hands on some Pym Particles, reverse engineering it and using our own quantum tunnel to attack us,” Steve had reasoned, thinking about Nebula’s version of events that had led to the epic battle in the decimated grounds of the Avengers compound. “The prudent thing to do is to have just enough Pym Particles to do what needs to be done. No extras, no backup vials that might find their way into the hands of no-good people.”
So, the remaining Avengers hatched a plan again, and Dr. Pym provided them with 6 vials of Pym Particles: one for New Jersey in 1970 to replace the Space Stone; one for New York in 2012 to return the Mind and Time Stones; two to travel to Morag and then Vormir in 2014 to return the Power and Soul Stones, respectively; one for Asgard in 2013 to return Mjolnir and the Reality Stone; and one to return to June 2023.
And since they were pressed for both time and space for their equipment, having only built a miniature quantum tunnel on the outskirts of the compound that was already undergoing re-construction, and Bruce was more qualified to man the machine (in case something science-y went wrong) than run the mission himself, while Thor had already left with the Guardians to parts unknown, it was decided that Steve was the best person to do it: he knew the Time Heist plan best; he was Enhanced and, therefore, could protect himself from any unexpected contingencies; and he had Mjolnir in his hand as a weapon. It was a no-brainer.
“You know if you want, I can come with you,” offered Sam. They were doing final equipment checks and last-minute instructions and requests.
“You’re a good man, Sam,” Steve praised with a small thankful smile. “This one’s on me though.”
Walking up to Bucky, Steve looked upon his best friend fondly. “Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back,” he cautioned, remembering that day, long ago, when it was Bucky’s turn to leave for his Army conscription.
Bucky smiled that familiar smile from when they were growing up in Brooklyn. “How can I?” He answered. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.” They breached the remaining distance to give each other a brisk but meaningful embrace. “Gonna miss you, buddy,” muttered Bucky, knowingly looking at Steve as if he knew something about what Steve intended to do after the mission was complete.
How could he, though? How could Bucky have any idea about what Steve was planning to do? Was Steve that obvious or was it because Bucky just knew him so well? “It’s gonna be OK, Buck,” assured Steve. Bucky gave another lopsided smile, and then Steve was climbing the steps to the quantum tunnel platform and activating the time-space GPS on the back of his left wrist.
The quantum suit enveloped him just as Sam asked, “how long is this gonna take?”
“For him, as long as he needs,” replied Bruce. “For us, 5 seconds.”
Steve turned around, bent down to retrieve Mjolnir and braced himself. “Ready, Cap? We’ll meet you back here, OK?” Bruce reminded him.
“You bet."
“Going quantum in 3, 2…” Bruce counted down. “1.”
And Steve was off. He followed the plan, returning the Stones one after another beginning with the Space Stone in 1970 and ending with the Reality Stone and Mjolnir in Asgard, circa 2013. It was after he had accomplished his mission that Steve, using the vial of Pym Particles that should’ve taken him back to 2023, manually plugged in a different location and date in 2023.
To Tony’s lakeside lodge. On the evening before Tony will have gone to the compound after having cracked the quantum tunnel and engineered a fully-functioning time-space GPS prototype.
Steve ended up on the front porch. He deactivated the time-space GPS and was once more garbed in the Captain America uniform that Tony had made for him. He was going to see his friend again, knowing what he knew about what Tony had done to save them all. He clenched his jaw and squared his shoulders before lifting his hand to knock on the screen door.
It was Tony, himself, who answered the door, looking like his usual carefree, self-assured self until it dawned on him who it was, and then he was stunned to find Steve Rogers on his front porch at this ungodly hour. “Cap… What, how—what are you doing here?” He asked, craning his neck to try to see the car that Steve presumably drove in. His tone was still somewhat clipped. Ah yes, this Tony was not yet the Tony that shook his hands and returned his shield whilst standing there in the Avengers compound driveway. This Tony was yet to find the resolve to not let resentment get the better of their friendship…
Despite that knowledge, Steve didn’t know what possessed him when he had every intention of keeping his cool, but before he could stop himself, he was surging towards Tony and seizing the slighter-built man into a bone-crushing hug.
“Wha—whoa, hey, hey big fella. Easy on the goods there, buddy,” Tony warned, gingerly patting Steve back on the lower back. “Please tell me you’re not trying to hug me to know how big to dig the hole in my own backyard.”
Of course, Tony must think Steve was still bummed from being shot down a few days previously when they first brought the Time Heist idea to Tony, and that Steve must be there to try to convince him anew. Steve placed his hands on Tony’s shoulders and bore his eyes into those twinkling brown ones—so similar to Morgan’s. Apparently, missing your friend was more excruciating when you thought you would never see them again than when you were just fighting but you knew they where still around in the world, somewhere.
Before Steve could say anything though, Tony’s eyes were drawn to the device strapped around Steve’s left wrist: the time-space GPS. The time-space GPS the prototype of which Tony had just presumably engineered that day that Steve wasn’t supposed to know about yet…
“It really does work, doesn’t it?” Tony asked, quickly catching on. He looked smug and amused.
“Yeah it does,” confirmed Steve.
The brunet smiled brightly, rubbing his van dyke and jaw in self-satisfaction. “So, what exactly are you doing here? Is this a test run?”
Steve restrained himself from grimacing, not wanting to give Tony any idea about his fate. “Walk with me?” Steve requested.
Tony raised a finger to signal ‘hold that thought’ and popped in back to the house only to holler a by-your-leave to his wife that he was just gonna take a sec to get some air while Steve patiently waited.
When they were already trudging on the lakeshore, Steve was trying practice what he was going to say to Tony in his head. But the latter beat him to the punch. “I don’t make it, do I?”
“Tony, I can’t—,” he started to say. Thankfully, he was interrupted by Tony. Because, for the life of him, he really didn’t. Know what to say. How do you tell a person that they were going to die?
“—you don’t have to say anything,” Tony interjected with a sad smile on his classically handsome face. “It doesn’t take rocket science, Cap. If I made it, you wouldn’t be here talking to me, now would you?”
Silence. “My wife? My daughter? How are they taking—how are they?” Tony asked haltingly, turning his back to Steve and facing the water.
“Coping,” Steve replied, standing beside Tony and similarly looking out towards the water. “Things could be better,” he continued with a contemplative shrug.
“Could they?” Tony was doubtful. “I must have had my reasons for doing what I’ve done—what I’m going to do… Man, that’s confusing,” he said, trying to make light of the situation. “Was it worth it though?”
That was another tough one. Was Tony’s sacrifice worth it? To them, maybe. But to Morgan who was going to have to grow up without a father? Not so much. “I don’t know. I guess I’m here to make sure that it is.”
With that, Steve reached out, took Tony’s hand and placed a vial of Pym Particles in it. It was one of the two extra vials that Steve had pinched from 1970 and never told a soul about, not even Pym himself.
“Don’t you need this to get back?” Tony asked, dumbfounded at what exactly it was Steve was offering him. He was yet to pocket the vial, as if he was still expecting Steve to snatch it back.
“I can get back,” the blond assured with a soft smile at his friend. He closed Tony’s hand around the vial and patted the closed fist once.
“Then why the hell aren’t you using this one to get yourself to the ‘40s to finally get a life, Rogers?” Tony demanded with narrowed eyes, disbelieving that Steve was putting him first over his own shot at finally getting together with the love of his life.
“’Cause your daughter needs her father more than I need to get a life,” remarked Steve. “Consider this my apology. I was wrong about you—about a lot of things, Tony. That day at the helicarrier, I insulted you, thinking I knew the kind of man you are just by watching a couple of footage. But I didn’t. I had no idea,” he humbly admitted. “I’m sorry, Tony.”
He thanked God for this gift—this chance, this time—to be able to ask forgiveness and do something for his friend. Because if he couldn’t change things, he was gonna damn well make sure to fix them. Somehow.
“Water over the dam, or under the bridge—or wherever the hell it’s supposed to be,” assured Tony with a dismissive gesture. If Steve didn’t know the man, he would think Tony was being mockingly glib about his apology. But he did know Tony. If he wanted to know what Tony really felt, his brown eyes would say it all. Right then, Tony’s brown eyes gleamed with a variety of emotions. “The future is more important than the past, Cap.”
Steve couldn’t agree more. “Tony,” the blond began, staring solemnly into his friend’s eyes. “Don’t forget this,” he said, enunciating a particular date and time. “Everything will be all right.”
Giving Tony one last, lingering embrace, Steve stepped away from his friend. Activating the quantum suit, he produced the last of his Pym Particles and delicately placed the vial in the slot on his side to power his last time jump.
“Cap!” Tony called after him in a rush before Steve could press the activation on the time-space GPS. “You told me the when, but what’s the where?”
“Home,” Steve said with a small wink, and then he was gone.