Chapter Text
Steve Rogers woke up in an unfamiliar room drenched in sweat and with a heavy heart.
Today was the day. It was time to go back to the five places in time where they took the infinity stones and return them. It would be a long, taxing journey and in the end he wouldn’t even be sure if he came out alive.
It was five in the morning, and he could’ve gone back to sleep for another three hours, but one thing he had quickly realized was that once he was awake, there was no going back to sleep.
They set him up with a hotel room that was swarming with other occupants after the battle, as many houses and apartments had been destroyed, making many households displaced and without a home to stay in.
The sun was just about rising, and he could see that today was going to be a cloudy day of white and grey.
He drags himself out of bed, the exhaustion dripping off of him. Steve doesn’t know why he still goes to bed, knowing he either won’t get any sleep, or be woken up by nightmares soon after his eyes shut.
Today was different. It was his first solo mission, and he could die. He never entertained death as plainly as he did now, but with both Tony and Natasha having recently departed, he couldn’t help but think that his demise was inevitable too.
He showers quickly, trying to use the hot water and soap to scrub the memories off of his skin. By the time he finishes showering and towel dries himself until his hair is soft and fluffy, his shield, a suit of armor, the infinity gauntlet, and Mjolnir are lying on his bed.
Steve grimaced. The last thing he wanted to do was put on the same suit he last saw Tony in. It had been so soon after the war, the suit hadn’t even been thoroughly cleaned. It was visibly a lot cleaner and wasn’t soaked in grime, but it still smelled like death and lost friends.
He didn’t say anything on the elevator ride down. Some local news station had reported that today was the day that the infamous Captain America would be going back in time and returning the infinity stones, and now there were reporters and passersby alike swarming him with questions on his descent down.
He doesn’t answer any of their questions. Not the couple in the elevator, not the receptionist at the front desk, and certainly not to the reporter in the lobby.
“Are you returning the stones today?” The couple asks. And yes, he is.
“How do you feel about Tony Stark and Natalia Romanoff’s death?” The receptionist asks. And first of all, her name is Natasha.
“Did everyone come back from the dead?” The reporter asks. Yes, everyone is back from the dead.
“Will Bucky Barnes be there to send you off?” The reporter asks again, before Steve has time to evade the press. Unfortunately, yes.
He answers them in his head, but never out loud. Because every single question makes his stomach turn.
Steve is infinitely grateful when he steps into the limousine. The driver takes one look at him and wordlessly raises the partition between them.
He’s grateful until about five minutes into the drive, when he realizes he has to endure the drive in silence, his conscious the only companion.
It starts to feel more and more like exile. Like he’s walking to the guillotine.
They have to do the ritual deep into the woods because the press keeps finding their tentative locations, with the air smelling of the sweet scent of the forest and something more sinister. Like ashes. Like pain. And as he came across the clearing in the woods, it felt more and more like a death sentence.
Bucky, Sam and Bruce had all been waiting there for him, and Bucky was the first to see him. It makes Steve’s heart twist a little, knowing that he might not even come back.
“Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.” Steve says, the words decades old.
Bucky smiles, and the response is natural after all these years. “How can I?” He asks, voice low and raspy. “You’re taking all the stupid with you.”
And that was all they said to each other, a few recycled lines. Because Steve was too scared of what his heart might do if he said anything more. Because his heart had been put through the wringer lately.
He wants to say something else, but he decides to hug Bucky instead. He hugs him with everything left in hus body, because he wants to grip Bucky’s shoulders so tight and be certain that he wouldn’t crumble into very dust in front of his eyes again. And when they let go, Steve takes a deep breath and tries not to cry. He smiles for Bucky’s sake, but he knows damn well it doesn’t reach his eyes.
Steve steps onto the platform, all his weapons and objects in hand. It was time to do one last mission, because no one else would. Bruce Banner began the procedure, but everything was drowned out by the beating of his heart.
And then before he knew it, it was 2012 in New York City.
The mission is simple. Go in, return the stones, go out. He’s returned all five stones without even breaking a sweat. By his calculations, it would’ve been just about lunch time back in the present day. The last stone he returned was on Vormir, and he did that one so quickly because he was afraid of what might happen if he spends too long staring down at Natasha Romanoff’s lifeless body.
It wasn’t right, was what Steve knew for sure. It wasn’t right that Tony got a hero’s send off and a proper tribute while Natasha’s body was left on a foreign planet. But the mission wasn’t to retrieve Natasha’s body, and as much as he wanted to do so, he had to stick to the mission.
He was just finishing up on Vormir when his hands travelled to where the Pym particles lay. They had provided Steve with an additional Pym particle, in the event that something would occur.
And then, right as he was about to return to the time he had left, something had overcome him. A sudden urge and desire to just not go back .
He can’t go back to the 21st century. Because everywhere he goes the hollow stares of broken people follow him. He can’t go back, because he’s weak. Because every bone in his body threatens to shatter under the scrutiny of the public eye. Because he’s been waking up every morning with his heart hammering in his chest.
Because Tony and Natasha died, so he could live. He could live, when he knows all too well that he should have died in the ice seventy years ago. And he can’t handle facing a hero’s welcome when he should have died instead. It was always the plan, it was destiny. He should have died a martyr because people like him don’t have long lifespans anyway.
But if he went back to where he belonged, if he went to 1946… maybe the time of day would wipe out the beating in his heart.
It’s springtime, 1946 and the clouds are grey and the sky is moments away from rain. Oxford looks like something from Steve’s imagination, somewhere he had never been able to identify until now.
He recognizes the house, too. Sharon Carter had showed it to him on one of the slower days at the S.H.I.E.L.D agency. It was a large, ancestral home that looked like it had more stories than him. It was where families breathed.
He walks through the cobblestone path and pushes the creaky iron gate open. His heart is still hammering, but he also feels at ease. Because in this world, Natasha and Tony hadn’t been born yet, and therefore they cannot die.
He stands outside the wooden door and knocks on it twice, one for each death he could have prevented. Steve hears someone unlocking the door from the other side.
And there she is, Agent Margaret Carter not a day older than Steve’s memory.
Steve smiles his award winning grin, trying to hide the fact that the world had just stopped burning. “Agent Carter,” he says, thinking back to all the times he was driven mad with longing. “I believe I owe you a dance.” He says softly.
Agent Carter was not like any other woman that Steve met, and Steve admired her for that. It was the reason he was so drawn to her, because if it was any other woman, she would have already allowed Steve in. Instead, Peggy frowned and folded her arms, questions rolling off of her insistently.
“Steve?” She asks, just the slightest bit agitated. “How are you alive?”
Steve looks down bashfully at the ground. He really should have put more thought into this. He takes Peggy’s hand, as she leads him into the room in a daze.
Steve smiles at Peggy. “Someone found me in the ice.” He said, leaving out the part where they found him in the ice seventy years later.
“You’ve been gone for seven months. People pronounced you dead! Where have you been all this time?” Peggy exclaimed, as they were led into the living room.
Steve tried to hide his distress upon hearing this question, for he had been gone for seven decades , not seven months.
“I’ve been… travelling.” Steve decides on. “I’ve been in New York, but I could never stay away from my best girl, now can I?” Steve replied, as if he had been here all this time.
Peggy gave Steve a mournful smile and turned to put on a record. He’s almost astonished at how well Peggy reacts to this news. He knew that if they were in the 21st century, she would have flown to her smartphone device and checked if what Steve was saying matched with the faces.
And as the record came on, Steve’s body tensed. He recognized the record from another life, one before Thanos and infinity stones and Tony and Natasha’s death. It was the song that Nick Fury was playing the night he visited his apartment. It was the song that was playing when Nick Fury told Steve that S.H.I.E.L.D was compromised, that someone, who had later been identified as none other than Bucky Barnes, had tried to kill him. It was the song that played when the link between 21st century Steve and Bucky was drawn.
Steve dances with Peggy, because that was what they came here for. He came because he was a man of his word, because he never broke a promise.
Didn’t he promise to be with Bucky? Didn’t he promise to stay? Those things didn’t matter, now that he wouldn’t have any chance defending earth without the aid of Tony and Natasha.
Their deaths resound deeply in his minds. And every time his eyes close, he can’t help but think that he doesn’t deserve to live. He should have died in the ice all those years before. Instead, he was here. He was dancing with Peggy. And no matter which way Steve looked at it, he was a science experiment bending the rules of time, not just a boy from Brooklyn anymore
Steve smiled as he held his future in his arms, mustering up the bravery left in his body to reach out and reclaim his destiny. He thought of Tony, and how even under dire circumstances he still managed to live a life with Pepper Potts and have a child. He saved the world, and then some. But the memory was tainted with the knowledge that he was dead .
And so, if Tony could go back in time and right some wrongs and save half the universe and still come back with a wife and kids, shouldn’t Steve be entitled to the same as well? Steve wanted to believe that, but that wasn’t how it worked. Tony went back to save the world at the cost of his own life.
This is what Steve wanted all along, wasn’t it? This was his endgame. Peggy and him, they were soulmates cut from the same cloth.
The music ended with a swell, and Peggy smiled up at Steve. Steve smiled back, but he still felt that inescapable grief that came with shouldering his comrades deaths. He knew it would get better with time, though. He looked at Peggy and kissed her chastely.
“Do you have anywhere to be, Steve?”
Steve shook his head. “I’m right where I wanna be, Peggy.”
“You’re welcome to come and stay with me.” She said demurely.
Steve smiled bashfully. “I’d be honored.” He replied.
The two of them spent the time drinking glasses of wine in the afternoon and whiskey after dinner. They were catching up on missing months, and Steve felt more and more like this is where he needed to be.
Peggy had set him up in one of her guest rooms, and Steve kissed Peggy goodnight with a grin.
“G’night, Peg.” He said through a tired tongue.
Peggy smiled and raised her hand to caress Steve’s cheek. “Goodnight, Steve.” She said, turning left at the end of the hall and going into her room. Steve opened the door to his room and fell asleep on the bed almost immediately.
The last thing he remembers before going to sleep is how the sheets smelled like another man’s cologne.
In the morning, Steve Rogers woke up in an unfamiliar room drenched in sweat and with a heavy heart.
He got out of bed with a start, looking around at his surroundings. A chill crept up at the back of his neck and he felt his skin tingle. He looked to the left side table, and there was his smartphone on its charging stand.
Steve reached for his phone and checked the time, and that was what made his blood curdle. It was the exact day they were slated to return the stones.
Something was seriously wrong.