Chapter Text
Steven Grant Rogers was born on December 4 th ,1918. Some say he had died the day he crashed the plane into the Arctic. Steve himself didn’t think so. For him, Steve had died the day James Buchanan Barnes slipped from his grasp, Steve falling alongside him. The only thing that remained was the Captain.
Captain America was born on July 4 th . Those who made him believed that it would help his image. More propaganda. After all, that was what they did. They took his identity and shaped it to look as they wanted it to. Because he was never good enough as himself, they had always needed more.
So, no. It wouldn’t be Steve who they would bury if he didn’t return to the future. It would be Captain America. The national hero. The man who finally ran out of time.
When he stood on that platform, he buried the last fragments of himself under layers of duty and sacrifice. He had watched Bucky as a stranger. As the man who didn’t love him. Because he knew that if he were himself at that moment, he would crumble, be unable to do what he needed to do. Which was to stay away from Bucky because Bucky deserved better. He deserved peace in his life, somebody who could give him the world, and not - what had the Captain done to him but brought him misery?
He hoped, selfishly, that Bucky would mourn Steve. He knew nobody else would. Not in the way he wanted them to. It had been hard living at a time when more people knew him as nothing more than the Captain. It was hard trusting people enough to let them see who he truly was. Sometimes he feared there was nothing left for him to show.
After three grueling months, he had managed to return all but one stone with no hiccups. The only stone he was still holding on to was the soul stone. He had wanted to deal with that one first, but that was the last piece of Natasha he had. Her one last act of rebellion.
Soul for a soul.
Clint’s words echoed in his mind. Would it be possible? Could he get her back? It was hard to get rid of that hope. The longer he held onto the stone, the longer he got to hold onto the delusion that he could have her back. Hear her voice again. Hear her terrible jokes. Eat her even worse cooking. Put up with her obvious cheating while they played Poker. God, it felt like somebody carved out a hole in his chest.
He looked up as somebody turned on the light inside the house he had been looking at for the better part of an hour.
He wondered what kept Peggy up at such a late hour. Was it a case? Or nightmares and despair. Or was it something mundane, just a night where sleep evaded one?
Despite himself, he smiled softly. He remembered the nights with the Comandoes, before they lost Bucky. Those months, as bleak as they were, had been nice. They were friends, and more often than not, they would stay up longer than they should have, talking. Peggy would tell stories of her sisters, and Bucky would chime in now and then with stories about Becca. They never said that the reason those late-night talks started had less to do with them wanting to know about each other and more about the terror in their chest at being stuck in the middle of a war.
Standing, hidden from view, in front of Peggy’s house felt wrong. It felt right as well. That would have been his future had he stayed in the past. He knew that because he knew Buck, who would have decided for him. All in the name of keeping him safe. Maybe he wouldn’t hate him too much. Or maybe he would hate him even more.
Life there would be easy. Picket fence. Two and a half kids. A dog.
Steve never would have chosen that over a life with Buck. But that was before everything fell apart around them. Before they fell apart.
Part of him wondered what the fuck he was doing there. The space stone had been safely returned to the SHIELD base, but he still lingered behind. Like a ghost, unable to let go of the could-have-beens.
Peggy – god, he missed her. Burying her had been one of the hardest things he had done in his life. He just wished to know if it would have hurt that much if she hadn’t been one of the last pieces connecting him to his previous life. One of the last people who had seen who he was before.
He wanted it to be easy to stay behind. He wanted to love Buck less. But how could he leave him? How could he live in the years that Buck, his Buck, was being tortured? How could he ever go back?
A man out of time.
He never felt more like it.
Peggy would have a life. The kind of life he was jealous of. She would have a family. She would find happiness and peace. Wasn’t that all he ever hoped for? Sometimes he felt all he did was hope.
Hoped in the 30s for a more tolerant society, hoped in the 40s for the war to spare the one person he couldn’t dream of losing. Hoped that day on the plane that god was merciful enough to let them be together at least in death.
Hoped that day on the bridge that his dreams and wishes had come true. Hoped that the worst was over, only for Buck to break his heart again. Hoped when Bucky called him crying, but free. Finally fucking free. He had been so close to everything being over. There were plans and conversations he would have with Natasha, Sam, and Wanda. There was a want and need to get to Wakanda as soon as possible. There was an idea of staying there forever.
He glanced at the device wrapped around his wrist. He had hoped only for Thanos to show up, forcing them into yet another fight.
Another fight they didn’t deserve.
Steve?
Half a decade.
Enough to break even the toughest of men. Was it so weird that he found himself in the past, in front of the house of a woman who would provide him a safe haven? It was never about Buck or Peggy. God, if that were the thing, it would always be Bucky.
Buck, who had reached for him with a broken plea of his name, and Steve wasn’t quick enough. Why didn’t he run? Why didn’t he say anything? Why was he always too far away? Too fucking late?
He had grasped the ashes of the man he loved, wondering how many times a person could mourn somebody before they became numb to the feeling.
It took him days before Natasha got him sane enough for him to understand that no, it wasn’t just Buck. It was the whole universe, and Steve wanted to laugh. Tell her that he knew that already, because wasn’t that what Buck was to him? His universe. His everything. His salvation and ruin.
Steve loved him for so many things.
He loved him for so long.
He watched the house anyway, knowing he would never walk up to it. But it was nice, in a way, to envision a life he could get there. As bad as it made him feel, it was nice.
He never told Buck he loved him.
Buck never told him.
But they knew, didn’t they? Didn’t Buck know? He had to have known. Because Steve never used his words, but he told him anyway. In every kiss, every hug. It was hidden for so long that Steve wasn’t sure he would be able to tell it in words anymore.
It would be the cowardly way out, staying with Peggy. He knew that. God, did he know that. It would be easy because with Peggy, he would be able to be only partially himself, more a persona he had been for so long that he forgot how to stop.
Bucky deserved better than that. He deserved Steve. And Steve didn’t know if he could give him that. He had seen the way he was looking at him. He looked as if he was in pain. All because of Steve.
But the future needed Captain America. They needed him to be that. They didn’t need Steve. Nobody needed Steve for a long time. He could live with never being himself anymore, but not if it was hurting Bucky.
Peggy wouldn’t know better.
Who would have thought you were that much of an asshole?
Natasha’s voice rang inside his head.
The shield on his back weighed a ton. It hadn’t at first.
What would the future bring him?
More fights. More pain. Bucky’s broken looks. Hidden pleas for a man that Steve wasn’t sure existed anymore.
Sometimes he wished he could just go to before the war, take Buck away, hide them somewhere safe where nothing bad could ever touch them. Where they could be happy without decades of torture and pain plaguing their lives.
The lights inside the house turned off.
He didn’t really know what he was doing there anymore. Did he ever know?
Peggy was going to live a life. She was going to found SHIELD in his name. And wasn’t that just another punch to the gut, to know that even though she saw behind the persona he was, it was that shield that she chose to represent him?
He was tired, and Peggy loved just enough of Steve for him to forget that she loved Captain America, too. He knew how to love as Captain America.
He knew how to live as Captain America.
He was so fucking tired. Sometimes he couldn’t remember the time when he wasn’t tired. Should his bones hurt with the serum coursing through his veins? Should everything hurt?
There was dirt under his fingertips from a grave he dug out, trying to atone to a dead man in any way he could. Here, let me let you down one more time, he had thought bitterly as they laid Stark’s coffin to rest.
He had wanted to dig one for Natasha, too. He didn’t in the end. What would be the point when there was no body for them to bury?
The truth was that Steve didn’t want to exist anymore. Didn’t know how to anymore.
Buck only ever loved Steve. Even when Steve became Captain America, he saw behind the mask. Behind the shield.
That scrawny kid from Brooklyn. I’m following him.
How could Steve go back to him if he wasn’t sure how to be just Steve anymore? Could he ever be Steve again? Be the man Bucky needed and deserved?
Could he love him like he deserved? Could he learn to love and live as Steve again?
Choosing Bucky meant retiring. Choosing Buck meant choosing peace.
Could he do that? Especially now, with Natasha and Tony gone, the world still recovering. The world needed Captain America. Nobody needed Steve but Bucky.
“You could retire. Maybe hand it down to somebody else.” Buck said one morning during Steve’s visit to Wakanda, and Steve could hear what he was really saying – Please give it to somebody else. I love you. Please let me love you again.
How could he give the responsibility to somebody else when he knew how much it hurt? What toll it took?
But he wanted an out. He wanted to go back, kiss Buck, tell him in words how much he missed him, how much he loved him. He wanted to live in an apartment with enough light that he could draw and paint. He wanted to feel happy enough to paint again. He wanted to listen to Buck’s bad singing as he showered. He wanted to cook terrible meals that Buck would eat and pretend they were good, just like he did when they were just 18, unaware of the suffering that awaited them. Steve wanted so many things.
Being Captain America wasn’t one of them.
Didn’t he do enough? He gave his everything. He gave himself over completely to the cause, to the fight that was never his to fight in the first place.
Didn’t he deserve to retire? Didn’t he deserve to live and just be Steve again?
The world needed Captain America, but Buck needed Steve.
It didn’t come as a surprise to him that he would gladly let the world burn if it meant Buck was happy.
His heart always belonged to only one person, and that person was waiting for him 70 years in the future, alone and scared of Steve leaving him.
There were always others who would keep the peace. Wouldn’t it be the same, retiring or staying in the past? The result would be the same. But would he be able to resist the urge to help if he went back?
A memory of the past, of Buck’s dancing and his laughter louder than the music coming from the radio. Steve yearned to feel that happy again. In comparison, fighting didn’t have an ounce of allure.
He knew he would never get to be truly done, because one day another Thanos would show up and Steve would be dragged back in, but that fight he would gladly fight. Because then he would be protecting the peace he had made for himself.
Bucky would understand because wasn’t he also done when T’Challa came to him with a new arm? Wasn’t he also tired, but still willing to fight because he knew that they needed him?
Steve wasn’t the same Steve he was when they were kids, but Buck wasn’t the same Buck either. And Steve still loved him, scars and all. If there was anybody who could remind him what it was like to be just Steve, it was only the man who knew him when he was nothing more than skin and bone, determined even then to make a difference.
They would get through it like they did when Buck looked at him that first night after Steve rescued him ages ago and wept, repeating “What did they do to you?” and “You’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be safe.”
It had been so long since Steve allowed himself to think of his needs. Not since he went after Buck, not since he kept the fact that Buck killed Stark’s parents from Tony.
He wanted to learn how to love Buck properly again.
Steve clicked the button, feeling himself shrink and move through space and time, already used to it by now. All the nausea he felt was simple adrenaline, and for once, it wasn’t because of the fight awaiting him. It was the nerves of a future ahead of him. Because for the first time in ages, he was doing something just for him.
He was done.
Or he was going to be done. There was still something he needed to fix before going back.
Just one more mission before he could take a breath and leave it all behind.
And it wasn’t Captain America doing it. It was just Steve, the kid from Brooklyn, who never knew how to stand down. One that didn’t leave his friends behind.