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Steve stretched out his legs down the steps to the Stark lake house’s porch, his bare feet pressing into the dew-wet grass. He took a long, deep breath, and looked down at the lake, still a dark shade of blue under the pre-dawn sky. Steve was bathed in yellow from the porch light, but it only stretched so far into the grass, barely reaching past his shadow.
Today, they’d say goodbye to Tony Stark.
Though, Steve thought, he’d never stop saying goodbye. Not when there were reminders of Iron Man everywhere he went; the murals that had appeared the day after the battle, his photo plastered on every wall in every city on the planet, the news reporters recounting his life again and again, like something new had come up since last time they looked.
And Steve would never stop saying sorry, either. Because there was a lot to apologise for, a lot that maybe Tony hadn’t forgiven him for, that he didn’t deserve forgiveness for. Sorry for Siberia, for leaving, for not seeing him as much over the last five years as he should’ve. For not being the one to wield the stones.
That one hurt the most: that he didn’t take the gauntlet himself. That he didn’t take Tony’s place. Because here was his family, sleeping soundly in the house behind him; here was everything he cared about in the world, the life he’d been looking for almost as long as Steve had known him, and he’d lost it. He’d lost his happily ever after before it had truly begun.
Steve wondered how it might’ve felt to have taken the stones for himself; to feel that power, to use it. Thanos turning to dust by his snap; the world righting itself at his command, all the knowledge in the universe flowing into his body and out again, and Tony Stark, still standing upright.
He wouldn’t have said I am Captain America, but maybe something else. Maybe I am a good man, because that’s what he’s always wanted to be, always strived to be. It’s why Mjolnir flew into his hand, he assumed – because despite his wrongdoings, his mistakes and the things that may never truly leave his mind, that’s what he was at his core: a good man. A better man than Thanos, but not as good as Tony Stark.
In the dim shadows on the grass, a figure emerged from the house. Steve watched until they settled beside him before looking over.
“You’re up early,” Bucky said, resting his forearms on his knees.
“It’s ingrained in my mind to wake up this time for a run,” Steve replied.
“You’re not running.”
“It’s not the kind of day for running.”
They sat in silence for a moment, Steve studying the horizon and counting the minutes to sun up, and Bucky studying Steve, his eyes firm on the side of his face. When it seemed he wasn’t satisfied with what he found, he spoke up.
“When are you going back?”
“Going back?”
“In time. Using the time machine.”
Steve looked over, half smiling. “I’ve been told off for calling it a time machine.”
Bucky matched the expression. “What Banner doesn’t know won’t hurt him. So?”
“After the funeral,” Steve replied. “This afternoon. I’ve got enough of those Pym Particles to jump through time to my heart’s content.”
“You could see it all,” Bucky hummed. “Pyramids being built, Roman occupation, that day at Coney Island when you puked. You could relive the magic.”
“Didn’t feel very magical at the time.”
“Oh, I can assure you,” Bucky said, humour alight in his eyes, “it was particularly magical from my perspective.”
Steve exhaled a laugh and caught sight of Bucky’s expression sobering. Steve knew his best friend well; he knew him better than the back of his own hand. He knew Bucky like he knew the alphabet; in his sleep, backwards and forwards, in song and in another language. Bucky had something he wanted to say but didn’t know how to say it.
So Steve leant back, his arms propped out behind him, and waited.
It didn’t take too long, Bucky eventually running a hand through his hair and frowning as it got caught in the knots.
“This is your chance,” Bucky said at last, “to, you know, have a do-over.”
“A do-over.”
“Go back to where you left off. Find Peggy. Get your dance. Have your happily ever after.”
Steve’s expression turned neutral as he regarded the lake. Happily ever after, the same words he used about Tony’s life; his wife and daughter in the house behind him, and the boy that he’d taken under his wing as his surrogate son curled in a ball on the sofa, sharing with another teenage boy Steve had never seen before.
“Why should I get mine if Tony didn’t get his?” Steve asked.
“Steve.”
“No, really. Why should I? Tony was the one who wanted this life – he told me as much. He left the Avengers after Ultron and planned on – I don’t know, this.” He gestured to the house behind him and sat up. “This was his dream. Why should I get it?”
A crease appeared between Bucky’s brows. “Because he would want it for you.”
And all the air left Steve’s lungs.
He swallowed.
“What about you?”
Bucky frowned. “What about me?”
“Would you go back to the past? To where you left off?”
Bucky paused before shaking his head. “I’ve got nothing back there.”
“Your family,” Steve said. “Me.”
This time, when Bucky sighed, he smiled. He turned to the lake, to the horizon, not even a lighter shade of blue yet, and shook his head. “The difference between me and you coming from the past, is that you’ve woken up seventy years in the future and I’ve been awake the whole time,” Bucky said. “I’ve seen the world change, seen us not get those flying cars Howard Stark promised us, seen everything from JFK getting shot—”
“Because you’re the one who shot him.”
“—to a wormhole above New York City. This, here, now… this is where I am. It’s where I’m meant to be. Sure, I’d love to see my Ma again, see my sister, but I don’t think I could go back there and be happy.”
“No?”
“I think I’d know too much about what I was missing.” He sighed, and then quirked a smile. “And imagine getting a song stuck in your head in the forties knowing you won’t be able to hear it again for seventy years.”
Steve laughed and shook his head. “You don’t think all that applies to me, too?”
Bucky shrugged. “I think you’ve got a life you could go back to, if you wanted, and you’ve got the chance to do it.” He reached out, placing a hand on Steve’s forearm, right above his wrist. “But if you don’t, if you want to stay here, we can work with that too.”
*
Steve didn’t stop thinking about what Bucky had said until the moment Pepper appeared on the porch, a flower arrangement in her hands, an old arc reactor of Tony’s at the centre. A do-over. A chance to have that life that Tony had wanted, had begun having. An opportunity to see the woman who’d been on his mind since the 1940s – the woman who’d only kissed him once, whom he’d woken up hoping to kiss again.
He was too close to Tony’s family on the dock for his taste. Morgan was pressed into Pepper’s legs, both of them with tears streaming, though Steve suspected Morgan wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. Peter Parker, whom Steve had discovered to be Spider-Man at the end of the battle – that horrible, horrible end of the battle – was also nearby, eyes read, face pale, his jaw clenched.
Even Rhodes, whom Steve had formed a better friendship with over the five years since the snap, was wiping away stray tears.
I hope they remember you, Thanos had once told Tony. Steve found it laughable; they’d have trouble forgetting.
*
At the wake, they were mostly silent. Natasha’s funeral had been about this quiet until they’d gotten into the alcohol; pouring one or two or ten out for her and Clint finally telling everyone what had happened in Budapest. And though there were maybe four times the people at Tony’s wake, it was just as quiet, even after his final message had played in a hologram that had felt so real. Like he was still in the room, talking, walking, laughing.
Like Steve could’ve reached out and touched him.
He slipped out onto the grass when he’d heard someone crying inside and didn’t want to listen to it anymore, and looked over at the garden, lined with vegetables and flowers, finishing in a scattering of child’s toys and a small tent. This was all Tony’s; his life, his happily ever after.
As Steve was looking, the tent flap opened up, and Morgan climbed out into the light, her black dress wrinkled. She peered back inside to drag something out. Steve couldn’t help himself and wandered over.
“Hey, Morgan,” he greeted, hands in his pockets.
She looked over her shoulder. “Hello.”
“What are you doing?”
“Getting my toys,” she said. “Peter said he only had one Avengers action figure when he was little, and Harley said he had a bunch, but hadn’t seen them in years. I’m getting mine so we can play.”
“You need any help?”
Morgan considered him for a moment before nodding and clambering onto her knees. She reached into her tent and flung an arm out towards him, a bright green Hulk figure in her hand. He took it from her and flipped it around in vague interest.
“Mommy says I shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations,” Morgan said as she rummaged through her things. She produced a Hawkeye toy and he took that one, too, the likeness uncanny. “But I did anyway, and people are saying you’re going to go back in time.”
Steve raised his eyebrows and nodded, though she wasn’t looking at him. “Y-yeah. I am. I’m returning the Infinity Stones to when we took them.”
“Daddy invented time travel, you know,” she said.
“I know.”
“I should’ve been in bed but I watched him do it. Then we had juice pops.” She passed over a Black Widow figure and Steve hesitated. Morgan wiggled the doll at him and he took it, locking his jaw and looking away from Nat’s tiny face. “Are you going to do anything else in the past?” she asked, pulling out a bunch of toys at last.
Steve helped her pick them up off the grass, and she took a few for herself – Thor ended up in his pile, while she took Iron Man and Spider-Man, both of which looked well-loved. Steve couldn’t look at them for long, either. “I was thinking about visiting the dinosaurs,” he said, not a very serious look on his face.
Morgan giggled. “Why?”
“Well, I hear science says they had feathers and I want to double check.”
“Well chickens are their babies,” Morgan said, standing up, “so I think feathers makes sense.”
“You’re probably right.”
She began to lead him back towards the house. “But you could go back home,” she said. “Daddy said you’re from the past. You could go back.”
“I could,” Steve hummed. She was sounding a lot like Bucky. “There’s a girl I promised a dance to.”
“Oh!” Morgan said. “I love dancing! And Mommy says we’ve gotta keep our promises, so you should go dance with her!”
He smiled and followed her into the house, where Peter and Harley were sitting in the corner of the living room, talking quietly. “Maybe I will,” he said, and crouched down by Morgan’s side to help her present her toys.
*
“So he’ll go back,” Bruce said, though he was kind of the Hulk, and kind of still himself, “and then he’ll come back five seconds later.”
“But it’ll be, like, all kinds of crazy time for him,” Sam finished. The whole time travel concept was still pretty new to those who’d come back to life, though as Bruce and Scott insisted (and Tony had, too, when he was… alive), it wasn’t technically time travel, and more navigating the quantum realm – that really, really tiny place between the atoms that made up existence.
Steve referred to it as time travel.
The suit was just the same as it had been, and he wore it over his Captain America get up. In one hand was the silver briefcase, filled with magical all-powerful infinity stones and enough Pym Particles for him to go on an extended vacation through time. In the other, was Thor’s hammer.
Though he quite enjoyed wielding the thing, especially now his shield was gone (again), he knew it belonged with Thor in 2013. He knew the hammer had a lot more to go through before it was destroyed, and he didn’t really want Thor to go without it.
Then, he wouldn’t have a weapon at all anymore. And if he came back to the present, there wouldn’t be anyone around who could make him a new one.
He was still tossing up the choices. He couldn’t decide which one to catch.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Steve said, pulling Bucky into a hug. He knew one thing for sure: if he did decide to stay in the past, to have a life with Peggy, he didn’t want to regret not saying goodbye to his best friend.
“How can I?” Bucky asked, smiling before he pulled away. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”
Steve clapped him once on the shoulder and smiled. He didn’t know what kind of goodbye he was saying – whether it was see you in five seconds or see you never – but Bucky got the message loud and clear.
He stepped onto the platform, hammer in one hand, briefcase in the other.
“See you in a second,” Bruce said.
Will you? Steve wondered.
*
He took the hammer back first.
Asgard was all kinds of beautiful, and he slipped down long, ornate and golden hallways until he could find the room Jane Foster was supposed to be in. He poked his head through the door and frowned at the empty room.
“I’m not sure you belong here,” a voice said behind him. He jumped and turned towards the woman who stood only a foot away, peering over his shoulder. “Though I think you know that.”
She was blonde, regal, and a crown adorned her head. She smiled, gave him a once-over, and then froze at the sight of Mjolnir in his hand. “I would be able to sense if you were my son,” she told him. “So who are you?”
There was an edge of warning in her voice, but luckily for Steve, he was Steve Rogers: Captain America. Notoriously, mothers loved him. “I’m Steve, ma’am. Your highness,” he added, sparing a glance at the crown. “I’m returning something Thor took a few minutes ago… and, I suppose, returning something I took from Thor.”
She nodded and then smiled. “Really, Thor took it from himself,” she replied. “Just put it down wherever – when he wants it, it’ll come back to him.” Steve shrugged and placed the hammer on the ground, and when he straightened, the woman – Thor’s mother – was glancing down the hall behind her. “I’m Queen Frigga. A few minutes ago, an animal that came with Thor took something out of Jane Foster, I assume you’re bringing it back.” At Steve’s nod, she thinned her lips into a line. “It’s rather dangerous.”
“It belongs here.” He opened up the briefcase and watched her eyes widen at the stones, all glowing in their slots.
“You have a lot of power there.”
“I know. It’s why I need to give it back.”
Frigga nodded him into the bedroom he’d thought to be Jane’s and rummaged around in the drawers until she found a small jewellery box. She emptied it of the necklaces and rings – shining silver, gold, with gems Steve had never seen before – before holding it open.
“I’ll make sure it gets back to its rightful owner,” she promised.
Steve hesitated for a moment. It wasn’t Jane, but he didn’t know how he would put the stone back inside her anyway. He’d been given a strange syringe, but he hadn’t really wanted to use it. In Thor’s story, it would be taken out of her soon enough and end up in an enemy’s hands, and then Loki would fake his death for a few years before stealing his father’s throne…
With that kind of confusing story in his mind, Steve shrugged. Whether he gave the stone back or not, this timeline was forever separated from his own, just for the fact that the change had occurred in the first place. What mattered was that they had the stone. Maybe this time, things would go a little differently; a little better.
With the reality stone in Frigga’s jewellery box, she snapped it shut.
“Good luck on your journey, Captain,” she said.
“Good luck with yours,” he replied, and as she stepped out of the room, he took one moment to mourn having a weapon, before vanishing from that time completely.
*
2014 was a little more difficult, seeing as he had two stones to return.
He started with the power stone, fitting it into the silver ball they’d saved for this moment, and he wandered across the planet Morag, in search of whatever temple he’d been told to look for. The planet was grim, with dark skies and barren grounds. He kicked away the crawling creatures that scampered towards him and hummed along to a song as he walked. Maybe Bucky was right – maybe he’d miss modern music too much in the forties.
Steve really did like a lot of Tony’s classic rock, Sam’s hip hop and Clint’s radio top 40s.
He froze when he heard movement heavier than that of the alien creatures.
Steve moved into a crouch and ducked behind a rock, peering out from behind it to watch a man groan and push himself to his feet. He was muttering under his breath, rubbing at his head and trying to untangle the headphone wires that were dangling from his hip all at once.
Peter Quill, Steve thought. He hadn’t seen him much in the final battle, but he’d certainly seen him since in the crumbled ruins of the compound, on the quinjet heading away, at the lake house, amongst all the guests.
Again, he thought about returning it to the exact moment, but did it matter? In the grand scheme of things? Truly?
Steve exhaled through his nose. It wasn’t his timeline being affected, and what would the difference be? Giving it to him now instead of him finding it in five minutes?
He stepped out from behind the rock. “Hey, Quill!”
Quill span, shocked, one hand on his blaster and Steve stuck his hands up in surrender.
“Hey, hey, I’m friendly.”
Quill blinked. “Captain America? Jesus, I must’ve hit my head harder than I thought.”
Steve laughed and stepped over. “Yeah, I’m a hallucination. Sure. This is what you’re after in the temple, thought I’d bring it to you.” He held out the silver orb, and Quill stared at it.
“…Why would you do that?”
Steve shrugged. “I’m Captain America. I help people. Here. Feel free to go and look for it like you planned on, but it won’t be there. It’s here.”
“Right.”
“Sure. So, enjoy.” He pressed the orb into Quill’s hand and turned away.
“Wait! Wait, Captain America!”
Steve looked back.
Quill looked immensely confused, and he waved a hand wildly. “Let’s say you’re not a hallucination, and you’re actually here.”
“Sure.”
“… Didn’t you, like, die in a plane crash?”
Steve paused. “Yes,” he said. “I did.” Quill blinked twice. Steve smiled and waved.
Not my timeline, he thought, before slipping behind the rock and fiddling with the time travel watch. Not my problem.
*
Vormir was one he didn’t really want to deal with.
But he had to. He knew he had to.
Steve made the trek up the mountainside, breathing harshly through the snow and cold, all the way up to the peak. And then he stopped. Because no way was this going to be his reality. No way in hell.
“Steven Rogers, son of Sarah,” fucking Red Skull said to him upon arrival.
“No,” Steve said, low. “We’re not doing this.”
“The stone has already been taken,” he continued, as if Steve hadn’t spoken at all. “So unfortunately, your journey has been in vain.”
“You should be dead.”
“As I once thought too,” Red Skull replied. Johann Schmidt replied. “But I instead have found an eternity here, leading others to a treasure I myself cannot possess. This is where the universe has deemed me worthy of standing.”
Steve barked out a cold laugh. “You’re not worthy of anything, Schmidt. Now get out of my way.”
“The stone is not—”
“I have the stone,” Steve bit out. “I want to trade it.”
“Trades are not how the stone works.”
Steve scoffed and walked past Schmidt, who moved out the way in his strange, levitating cloak. He stormed up to the cliffside; two monolithic pillars raised up on either side, and the floor beneath his feet engraved and pointing towards the edge. Clint said that he and Nat had fought here to sacrifice themselves; they’d leapt off the cliff to be the one who died.
He peered over the edge. A long, long way down, he could faintly see a body.
Steve stepped away and swallowed.
“I want to trade the soul stone for Natasha Romanoff,” he said.
“The stone does not accept those kinds of trades,” Schmidt replied.
“A soul for a soul, right? Well, the stone for Natasha.”
“Natasha Romanoff traded by the rules. You are not.”
“Screw the rules,” Steve said. God he hated Schmidt. He hated everything he represented. He hated that he was still alive, still standing, while everyone he tortured, imprisoned and killed was not. “Give me back my friend.”
Schmidt gestured a hand towards the cliff edge. “If you would like to bargain with the stone, be my guest. But that is not how the sacrifice works. It is irreversible. Permanent. Not even the omnipotent combination of all six stones could resurrect Ms. Romanoff.”
Steve exhaled a long, ragged breath. He turned to the edge and knelt, opening the briefcase by his side. Carefully, he picked up the soul stone, glowing orange, and held it over the drop.
“Please,” he said. “Give me back Natasha Romanoff. A soul for a soul.”
He dropped the stone and in a flash of orange, the sky lit up, and stone disappeared. Steve waited in the silence, and then looked over the edge.
Still, a body laid, crumpled, at the bottom.
“Like I said,” Schmidt continued, as Steve pushed himself to his feet and turned on the guardian of the stone. Before he could get another word out, Steve landed a punch on his face, and the asshole went reeling back.
“I didn’t ask,” Steve said. He turned, shut the briefcase and hefted it to his side. “No one fucking asked you.”
With Nat still at the bottom of the cliff, and Schmidt staring at him with wide eyes, Steve vanished into the quantum realm.
*
In 2012, he first stopped off at the Sanctum, arriving on the roof to a woman sipping tea and reading a large tome. She quirked an eyebrow at him, her head fully bald and her robes a mild yellow and held out her hand.
“Captain Rogers,” she said. “I believe you have something of mine.”
He unclipped the briefcase and let her pick out her stone, green and vibrant. It floated into her necklace, and she completed a series of gestures to make it lock back into place.
As he moved to close the case, he paused. “Do you have any idea how I’m supposed to get the mind stone back in the sceptre?” She blinked at him. “Or the space stone back in the tesseract, for that matter? We didn’t think this through.”
The woman looked amused as she tilted her head. “Would you like some help, Captain Rogers?” With that, she drew complicated patterns in the air with her hands, and green mandalas appeared where she moved. She pointed them in the direction of the stones and twisted one hand anti-clockwise.
The stones shuddered and leapt into the air, jittering and flashing with brightness. Then, they turned backwards, reforming into what they had once been, the space stone stretching out spindly fingers of energy to form a cube and the mind stone forming a hard casing around itself, before a staff grew out of nothing.
When she was done, the tesseract fell back into the briefcase and the sceptre hit the table. Steve blinked.
“Well that was very helpful,” Steve said, picking up the sceptre.
“Time is what I dabble in,” the woman replied with a shrug, settling back into her chair and looking back at her tome. “It’s not for amateurs to mess around with.”
Before Steve had time to comprehend her words, she flicked a hand and the scene changed. What once was the rooftop of the Sanctum was now a storage cupboard in Stark Tower. Steve had been to the Tower enough times to recognise it as being in the Penthouse and turned to the door, gently clicking it open. SHIELD agents dressed in black marched around, searching, and he jerked back when he saw himself among them.
“What do you mean you kicked your own ass?” Tony’s voice asked. Steve let his eyes shut for a moment… what if he just took this Tony? What if he brought him to Steve’s present so he wouldn’t have to continue living in a world in which he didn’t exist?
“It was Loki,” 2012 Steve replied.
“No, Loki was in containment downstairs the whole time—well, until he vanished with the tesseract.” Tony sighed, and the two came to a stop outside the cupboard. Steve peeked through the gap he’d made in the door and watched Tony run a hand through his hair. “That’s gonna be a hard one to explain. The sceptre went missing before that. And Loki was tied up.”
“Loki is the only logical answer here,” 2012 Steve argued. “There’s not two of me running around.”
In the cupboard, Steve pulled a face. That’s where you’re wrong, he thought.
“But really?” Tony asked, turning to him. “You kicked your own ass?”
“He said that Bucky was alive – it caught me off guard.”
Steve straightened in the cupboard. Clearly, he couldn’t just give the sceptre back, nor would he be able to sneak out and hand it to the Hydra agents within SHIELD, not when he’d already persuaded it away from them. He paused. Did it matter where he put the sceptre? Like the power stone being handed to Quill and the reality stone given to Frigga – as long as they were in the generally right place, would it matter?
Steve shrugged and placed the sceptre down in the cupboard beside the brooms and mops. Only, when he moved his hand away, he nudged one of the brooms and that went tumbling into the rest. He swore under his breath as they clattered to the ground, the sceptre falling with them, and then froze when the door opened wide.
“Son of a bitch,” Tony Stark said, looking at the Steve in the cupboard.
“Language,” 2012 Steve muttered.
Steve huffed. “You’ve said worse.” He fiddled with the watch on his hand.
“Alright,” Tony said, raising a hand. The Iron Man gauntlet flew to him, slotting into place around his wrist. “Let’s not move ‘til we’ve figured out which one’s the clone.”
“I’m not a clone,” Steve said, looking up once he’d set the date. He took a long look at Tony and sighed, stepping over the knocked over brooms and mops until he was in the doorway. Before either of them could react, Steve pulled Tony in for a hug. He hadn’t embraced Tony Stark nearly as much as he should’ve. It was one of the mounting piles of regrets he was carrying with him now. “I’m sorry,” Steve muttered. “For everything.”
He knew this Tony wouldn’t be able to forgive him, nor would he know what Steve had done, but he felt Tony relax a little before he pulled away. It was better to say it to a Tony, surely, even if he wasn’t the right one.
Steve knew he couldn’t bring him back. He couldn’t pull him into a future he didn’t know, couldn’t place him in front of Morgan and tell him to be her father, couldn’t show him the teenage boys who’d been mourning him with red eyes and tell him to fix it. They weren’t his to look after, not yet.
And besides, he’d be depriving this Steve of his Tony.
“I don’t know if you understand this,” Tony said with a frown, “but me aiming a repulsor at you kind of means freeze.”
“I’ve done my time in being frozen,” Steve replied. He looked between the two. “Good luck. Try talking to each other before pulling out the big guns. Might save a whole lot of time, money, and German taxpayer money.”
He caught their frowns before he disappeared.
*
Steve slotted the tesseract back into place in its containment safe.
He stared at its glow, remembering the plane, Schmidt, the ice.
He should’ve known that travelling into the past would involve a long walk down memory lane.
For a moment, he considered going upstairs, to Peggy’s office, but he didn’t. He just looked at the tesseract and breathed out a long sigh. Then he left.
*
There was a house in the middle of a suburban street. Green door, low-hanging porch, a car out front. Steve leaned against a street lamp a little down the road and waited.
This could be his chance, he figured. Somewhere in the universe, Bruce was still counting to five, Sam and Bucky were still watching the time machine, and there was a wake going on for a man who shouldn’t have died. This was his chance for a do-over. To start again, to live the life he had thought he would.
A car drove down the street and rolled to a stop outside the house. Out of the passenger side, music swirled into the air as the door opened and a woman stepped out.
Steve stopped breathing.
Peggy Carter looked just like he remembered. Red lips, perfectly curled dark hair, immaculately dressed. She swung her leather briefcase out after her, before leaning back into the car to say something to the driver, then she straightened, shut the door and started off across the road.
Peggy Carter.
His Peggy Carter.
He thought about walking across the road, knocking on the door and waiting for her to answer it. Seeing the expression on her face; the shock, the surprise, the joy. He thought about kissing her, about telling her, I’d never miss a chance to dance with my best girl, about getting his happily ever after.
But he didn’t move. He couldn’t.
She slipped inside the house and the door shut behind her.
He could kiss her – she’d only kissed him once, right before he leapt into the jaws of death and crashed a plane to save New York.
He could tell her that she was his best girl, that he was here to collect on his dance – but she hadn’t been his in a long time. Peggy Carter had never really been his at all.
And his happily ever after...
There was no way of saying if this was it for him, if Peggy Carter was it for him. Steve didn’t know if this was his one shot at love, if she was the one he’d been destined to be with, his soul mate. He didn’t know what this life could be like, or if he’d even be able to live it; giving up Captain America for a quiet, suburban life; having to find Bucky again, knowing that his Bucky was somewhere in the future, in another timeline, without him. Knowing what he was missing in the future.
All he knew is that he couldn’t live it. Couldn’t have this. Couldn’t be this.
And if this was his one shot – well, he’d risk it. He had to. There was too much in the future to leave behind.
He fiddled with the time travel watch, setting the GPS back to his starting point.
Steve took one last look at Peggy’s house before leaving.
*
When he reappeared in the present, Bucky said, “You didn’t do it.”
He sighed, dropped the briefcase and stepped off the platform. “I couldn’t do it.”
“You didn’t put back the stones?” Sam asked, a crease in his brow.
“I did that,” Steve replied, waving his hand. “I just couldn’t stay. I couldn’t…”
“Have the life you deserve,” Bucky finished.
Steve quirked his lips into a smile and swung his arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “I get to decide what I deserve,” he said. “And I think I rather deserve the present. My best friends are here, anyway.”
*
They walked back to the wake, where it was winding down as the sun began to set past the treeline. Inside the house was still lively enough, people crying less than they were laughing, music playing in the kitchen.
“How was the past?” Clint asked when Steve walked in.
“Depressing,” Steve replied. “You didn’t tell me the guardian of the soul stone was Johann Schmidt.”
Bucky blinked. “You’re kidding me.”
“Schmidt?” Clint asked. “Like, Red Skull?”
“Not like Red Skull,” Steve replied. “Red Skull. Himself. In the weird, magic flesh.”
“What’d you do?” Bucky asked, slipping the briefcase he’d taken from Steve onto the kitchen counter.
Steve cracked his first real smile since returning to the present. “What do you think I did? I punched him in the face.”
*
In the living room, Morgan was star-fished on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling.
“Hey, kiddo,” Steve said, leaning over so he was in her direct eyeline. “What’re you up to?”
“Thinking,” she replied.
“About what?”
Morgan shrugged. Then she asked, “Mommy said you were time travelling.”
“Yeah, I just got back.”
“Did you visit the dinosaurs?”
Steve shook his head. “Nah, I figure scientists are probably right about the feathers.”
Morgan nodded sagely. “I don’t think feathers would make them any less scary. They’re still massive with pointy teeth.”
“You’re probably right.”
She sat up. “Did you get your dance?”
“My dance.” He’d forgotten that he’d told her about that.
“Your dance with the girl. You said you promised her you’d dance with her.”
Steve nodded and crouched. “I did promise that, but it’s okay that I broke it. I know she’ll get another dance partner. I know I’ll get one, too.”
She tilted her head, frowning. “Where are you supposed to find another dance partner?”
Steve paused to think, and then stood up. He leaned down, offering his hand. “Morgan Stark, would you do me the honour of a dance?”
Morgan giggled, pressing a hand into her cheek as the other took Steve’s. He helped her down from the sofa, and led her into the space behind it, so they were closer to the music playing in the kitchen. Steve took both of her hands in his, matching her grin with his own as they danced around the living room.
She laughed as they went, and he spun her around, catching her hand again, before they danced some more in the other direction. At some point, someone turned the music up a little louder, and Steve lifted Morgan into his arms, so she could place a hand on his shoulder, and he could hold the other, stretched out and guiding them as they span and twirled and grinned.
It wasn’t a dance in the forties with Peggy Carter, but it was something better. It wasn’t the happily ever after he’d pictured for himself seventy years ago, but it was just as good. And it wasn’t the promise he’d made in a divebombing plane, but it was still important.
It was Morgan Stark, it was the wake of her father’s funeral, and it was happy.
It was so, so happy.
And when he looked over her shoulder, into the kitchen, he saw Pepper’s tears and Bucky’s smile, saw his friends, his family, saw people he most cared about in the world. He saw the spaces where people should be standing, too – saw the spot where Tony would lean against the counter, or Nat in the space at Clint’s side. Saw where Vision could watch the room with a tilted head and the places where joy would swell and burn like it had never not belonged.
And when he looked at Morgan, he saw a happily ever after – maybe not his, not yet. Maybe it was Tony’s, the one he couldn’t have, but this was a little girl who would grow up and change the world, like he had once, like everyone in this room had done in their own ways, small and large all the same.
A happily ever after Steve might find for himself, in the present, without the help of a time machine and an ultra-scientific suit.
And when he finally set her down and she went running off to Pepper, saying, Mommy! Mommy! Did you see?, she also turned back, eyes alight just like Tony’s, exactly like Tony’s, and said, “Can we do it again later?”
And Steve said, “Of course. I’d never miss a chance to dance with my best girl,” and somehow, found it was true.