Archive of Our Own

More than 80 years later and Steve still couldn’t get drunk.

The old man sat alone at his small table, silent in the dimly lit bar. Everyone inside had given him a wide berth, and the bartenders had turned off whatever weird junk they usually played over the speakers. He almost wished they hadn’t. Something ought to distract him from today.

“S’up, viejo.” A young woman sat down at his table. She wore an American flag hoodie and leaned over toward Steve, assessing him with a smug expression.

Okay, maybe alone was better. “I’m not doing autographs today. Shoo, kid.”

“Autograph what? Oh, this?” she said, glancing at her hoodie. “Oh you’re not signing this. If anything, it’s my autograph that’s in demand.”

Kid thinks this is banter. Figures. “I’m not joking, kid. Go.”

“I’m not leaving. But I know you’re thinking about it.” Hmph. Steve slowly got up to move to a new seat, but she continued. “Not the table. The universe. This one you escaped to 70 years ago.”

Steve stopped. He said nothing, but his mind raced inside. What did she say? Did he hear her say that? How could she know? Had someone told her? Only Peg, Bucky, and a few at SHIELD had known. Was she friend… or foe?

Steve cautiously turned to face her, still standing, hand gripping his chair tightly. “What are you talking about, young lady?”

“You scared of me, old man? That chair’s not gonna slow me down if you swing it.” The woman smirked and leaned back in her chair. “Relax, you’ve got nothing to fear from me. If you really plan on fighting back, you’d do a lot better with… this.”

Steve felt a clank hit his shoe. Peering under the table, he saw… his shield?? How was it here? He hadn’t owned it for years, not since-

Glancing up again, he saw the young woman had disappeared. Steve looked around the bar wildly for her, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Fearing the worst, he reached for his shield… and it was gone. In his hand was a note.

See you at your place. Go round the corner, I’ll save you a trip.

Around… this corner? Steve peered down the hallway leading to the restrooms. At the end was something glowing blue, man-sized, the shape of a… star?

This could be a trap.

It was definitely a trap.

Well, 110 years deserve an interesting end. Better than staying and staring at a glass.

With a grim resolve, Steve went down the hallway, took a deep breath, and stepped into the star.

“Nice place, viejo.” He was back home. In the little suburban house he and Peg had owned ever since 1946. The creepy kid was plopped down on his family room couch. “Did your kids leave any snacks before they left? You can just tell me where.”

“Explain yourself. Right now”, said Steve. “Who are you?”

The woman smiled. “Consider me a paramedic for the Multiverse.”

Multiverse? Steve had read SHIELD’s theories on the Multiverse, but he’d never had to interact with any of it. Until now.

“And your name?”

“Chavez. Call me Chavez. I can call you ‘Steve’, right?”

“And why are you here, Chavez?”

The woman’s face turned more serious. Reaching into her hoodie’s pockets, she pulled out a familiar object. Steve’s old time-space GPS. “Tomorrow, you bug old Hank Pym into giving you more fuel for your toy. You try to return back to your old timeline, using a 70 year old wrist gadget built in some guy’s garage… and you end up breaking time. You create a bunch of paradoxes, countless evaporating timelines, and people spend the end of the universe drawing diagrams and complaining.”

Steve stared. “I… I was just thinking about going back, that was it. I didn’t intend to try it.”

“Steve. Steve”, said Chavez. “Have you ever been a sit-back-and-let-life-happen guy?”

“…no.”

“Of course not. That’s why we’re in this world. One where you didn’t have to leave Peggy hanging and Bucky kidnapped. One where you told them all about HYDRA and got them routed out from the start. Where you invested in the next generation and helped them build a nation you could be proud of.” Chavez smiled, not arrogantly like before. She seemed genuinely admiring of him.

Steve wasn’t feeling so proud of himself, though. “And then I blow it all with this, don’t I?” he muttered, gesturing at the gadget. Chavez was still holding it out, and he took it in his hand, examined it closely… and crushed it. He let the pieces fall out of his hand. “Some things stay lost. Peggy’s gone, Bucky’s gone, my old Avengers are gone, and that’s that. No use chasing after them again.”

Chavez chuckled. “If you really believed that, we wouldn’t be here, viejito.” She stood up from the couch, and looked Steve straight in the eye. “So how about one time heist? My treat.”

Steve looked at Chavez quizzically. He felt like he should protest. He should protest. He’d tell her not to, and yet… he didn’t.

Chavez waved a hand and a glowing star like he had come through appeared, the size of a picture frame, floating at eye level. “Through there is your old timeline. One branch in the Multiverse, just like all the others. All your old friends are there, just seconds after you left, wondering ‘where’s Steve, where’s Steve’.” Chavez smirked, and the star grew bigger, enough for Steve to walk through it. “And if you want to give them the shock of their lives, you can walk right through there and the Multiverse will have absolutely no problem at all.”

Steve stood there looking at the portal, marveling at the sight. Just like that, after 70 years, back to that moment again? It was a lot to take in, and Steve felt his knees weaken.

“Whoa, grab a seat, old man.” Chavez held Steve by the shoulders as he sank back into a chair she’d moved beneath him. This kid really could summon anything she wanted. Steve took the moment to catch his breath.

“…there’s a few things I need to do first”, said Steve.

“Sure. What do you need?”

“First… I need to say goodbye to some people.”

“I can take you to them right now.”

“At my own pace, kid. At my own pace. I’ll walk myself without anymore of this zipping about through stars here. But I won’t take more than a day.”

“Fine. Make sure some of them are the Avengers and Fury so they don’t rip up the world trying to find you.”

“Next, I need a shield.”

“Done. It’s in your closet. All yours again.”

“It’s not for me. I know who I’m going to give it to.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Not you either.”

“Psh, who needs an old hunk of metal?” The kid sniggered, but playfully. And for the first time in their meeting, Steve looked at her with esteem.

“I don’t know much about you, kid. But I sense you do a lot of good work wherever you go… Paramedic?”

“America, actually.”

“Huh. Well, that's a name that's served me well; America.” Steve got up and began to walk back to his room. “I’ll see you when I’m ready.”

Ready would be 6:30 pm tomorrow.

“Time to head out, old man?”

“By Tony’s lake. Evening. On the day we said goodbye.” They stepped through the portal together.