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Margaret “Peggy” Carter was the last person on earth who knew Steve. And she was alive. Her file lay open on his kitchen table, the phone number staring at him accusingly. So he went for a run instead. Besides, he had his first mission soon. He’ll call afterward.
After turned out to be nearly a month later.
SHIELD wanted him to attend his first public event, the grand re-opening of the Captain America exhibit. They had shut it down shortly after his big debut on the world stage to revise their information. Apparently, they wanted interviews, but Steve declined. In exchange, he has to cut a fucking ribbon.
Steve stood awkwardly in his bright costume, psyching himself up to perform on stage for the first time in years. His PR handler nodded encouragingly, and Rogers stepped out into the grand hall.
“Ladies and gentlemen. In 1941, I was given a chance to help my country, to fight. Later that same year, I was given that opportunity again, to help my fellow soldiers.” Pause for effect, “For four years I fought alongside the bravest men I have ever known. Our missions were secret, as were our identities. In 1970, we were fully declassified, and historians began their tireless work to preserve our stories. In 1983, a version of this exhibit first opened. And today, it opens again, on the anniversary of my USO debut. I know more than anyone else on the planet how important it is to get your history straight. So without further ado, welcome to the new and improved Captain America exhibition!” Rogers cut the ribbon with a smile, ushering in the reporters.
He was doing a quick walkthrough for the press when he came across a video of Peggy in 1960. She was perfectly put together, as always, telling stories about the Commandos. Steve turned away, forcing down the guilt that welled up inside him.
The minute Steve got back to the apartment, he dialed the number, pressing call before he could second guess himself.
“Hello?” Asked a young woman.
A confusing mix of relief and guilt washed over him, “Sorry, is this the phone number for Peggy—Margaret Carter?”
“Yes, it is. Who are you?”
“I’m Steve. Rogers. I’m Steve Rogers. I was hoping to talk to her?”
“Oh! Of course! My apologies, Captain! I’m Peggy’s nurse, Sarah-Jane. I have to warn you, she has dementia, so she might have bouts of confusion and forgetfulness, but today has been pretty good for her so far.” Steve sat down heavily. The idea of Peggy of all people becoming a doddering old woman felt so wrong. “Ok! I’m putting her on now!”
“Hello?” Her voice was worn with age, softer than it was before.
“Hi, Peggy.”
“Steve? Is that you?”
“Yeah,” he whispered.
“They told me you were alive again, but I thought it was just my mind going off with age again, what with the aliens and all.”
“No, the aliens were real. Not the weirdest thing we’ve been up against.”
“No, it’s not.” They both paused, overwhelmed with the enormity of it all. “How long has it been for you, Steve?”
“Four months. I woke up in late April.” Steve could hear his heart beating fast, could feel every pulse making its way through his veins. He needed to move. Pacing the floor, he spoke again, “I’m still sorry, Peggy.”
“And I still forgive you. Always.”
“I mean it. I lied about you. To you. I don’t…” he sighed, “You don’t have to forgive me. I know —knew— how you felt, and I just…”
“Steve. You both made your choices. I made mine. Bucky would not have wanted you to still be agonizing over him.” That name stopped Steve dead in his tracks. He had barely started to think it, and her saying it out loud felt like being struck by lightning. He waited with bated breath if she was going to say anything else, but nothing ever came.
Eventually, the nurse spoke, “Sorry, she fell asleep. But, um, you should come in to visit her! Visiting hours are 9:00 to 7:00, everyday. I recommend you come on a weekday if you can swing it though, less busy.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Another few weeks went by, a whirlwind of training and missions. The rest of the STRIKE team was still on medical leave from one such mission gone wrong, and Steve found himself at the front door of a nursing home. It was a nice place, plenty of windows, lots of staff, likely costing a fortune. He was wearing his biking leathers, his only concession to modern “safety standards.” Clearing his throat, he steps up to the front desk, “Hello, ma’am, I’m here to see Mrs. Carter?”
“Of course, mister…”
“Rogers. I was hoping someone could tell me where to go? This is my first time visiting.” The young lady finally looked up, staring at his face, hard. Rogers plastered a small smile on, ignoring the instinct to look away. He’d already been made, no use for it now.
“Ohmygod.” The woman, Roxanne by her name tag, said, but recovered quickly. “Yes, yes. I’ll take you myself, Mr-Captain-Rogers-sir.”
“No need.”
“I insist!” She practically ran out from behind the desk, and began marching down the hall. “She is so excited to see you, by the way. Talks about you all the time!” Babbled Roxanne. They were attracting a lot of attention, what with her talkativeness and his…size. Thankfully, Peggy’s room was close to the entrance.
Steve cut her off with a quick “Thank you.” And stepped into the room.
Peggy was small. He remembered her as being larger than life, commanding every room she stepped in. But here she was, wrinkled and old, sitting in an old armchair, without any makeup on at all. And yet it was definitely her. Her eyes might be slightly glassy, and her hair might be loose, but her hands were folded precisely in her lap like always. The pit in his stomach lurched as she met his gaze.
“Hello Steve.” Peggy said, “Sit down.” He did, of course. “You haven’t called. Is SHIELD putting you to work so soon?”
“Yeah, I asked them to. It was…you know.”
“Mmm. Built it for you. When you came back.”
“They told me.” Steve shifted uncomfortably in his seat, “Did Howard really search for me?”
“Of course he did! You were his life’s work, his greatest achievement! There wasn’t a day that went by where he didn’t miss you.” She cleared her throat, “We both did.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Steve.” Peggy fixes him with a piercing look, exactly the same as she used to. He was always afraid of what she saw when she looked like that. “You made your choice. For better or worse, you went down in the arctic. This is where we are now.”
“You’re right. I just…I am sorry. For leaving you.”
“You left long before that.”
“Yeah.” He said softly.
Most of that visit was spent in gut churning silence or stilted small talk. In a way, it was like the Peggy Carter he knew had died along with everyone else, and this was her ghost. She had bits and pieces of the woman he knew, living beside, on top of, and underneath someone brand new. Like mixing a dollop of green into blue paint. You could see the influence, but it was new.
Steve found himself driving back to the Air and Space Museum. On the way in he unzipped his jacket, put on a baseball cap, and slouched a little. It wasn’t a disguise Natasha would be proud of, but it kept people from noticing him. Or at least, noticing his face.
Overhead flew old planes and spacecraft, but the most buzz was still around the new exhibit. The entrance was gaudy, a massive picture of himself saluting filling up an entire wall. But just past that there was a small picture, accompanied by reams of text. It was of the Howlies, one of their personal photos. Dum-Dum had made a stupid joke, and Jacques made such a sour face it sent everyone off, falling over each other laughing. Steve couldn’t help but smile to himself. It might be mostly propaganda, but those were his friends.
There was a surprising amount of information, things even Steve didn’t know. His main cover identity, Private First Class William Burnside, was a real man, one who died early in the war. His family wasn’t told of his death until after Captain America officially died. There were still more than a few omissions, particularly about who gave what orders and when. Phillips was the only CO Steve even considered following orders from, and even then he often went rogue. But Captain America was a perfect soldier, so orders were invented, chains of command created to justify his actions. He felt a cold shiver as Bucky’s ghostly laugh washed over him.
Each of the Howlies got their own display, but Bucky got a whole wall. Glass etched with his life’s story, half lies that Bucky made up himself. He always used to do that. Make up stories about anything. The video that played beneath it was the two of them. Bucky looked happy. He was joking, “Steve here shits five times the amount of us regular doughboys. And I swear ta ya it comes out in red white and blue!” Jonsey was on the side agreeing, the two of them trying their best to convince the camera crew that Steve had a birthmark the shape of the USA on his ass. It damn near worked, too.
Glancing up at the wall again, he caught the flat, dead eyes of Bucky. It was a picture of him right after the camp. He couldn’t look. Steve tore away from that wall that told more of his life than the paragraphs upon paragraphs that were written about Captain America.
In another room there was a video of Peggy reminiscing about one of their declassified missions. She always made him sound so serious, so dignified. Perhaps it was because she didn’t go on their missions, only read the reports, but in her mouth it sounded like a grand adventure. Tromping through the snow to defeat the Nazis! What fun!
But on that mission, one of their auxiliaries had died. The video said that Bucky was the only Howling Commando to lose his life. It wasn’t really true. There were others, just none who were permanently on their team. The one who died was called “Pippy.” He was an Irish man, a paratrooper with the RAF. He hated getting his socks wet, said his father lost his toes in the trenches. And he always waited to deploy his chute. He died plummeting to the earth, parachute more hole than fabric. Steve couldn’t help, he had already deployed his chute. So he watched as the man he knew for two weeks splattered against the muddy ground.
That night, the Howlies and the rest of Pippy’s subsection toasted to him. Dum Dum burnt half his beard off, and they laughed. The man died with dry socks.
Peggy knew Pippy. She drilled his unit. But she doesn’t remember him. Not like Steve does. Nobody else on earth can remember the rush of breath that his lungs made as he hit the earth, the smear of blood and hair and bone that his body turned into. Not like Steve can. Every memory, echoing unchanging forever. In a way, the train moving on was a mercy.
Steve shook himself out of it, focusing back on the video. Peggy looked halfway between the woman he knew and the woman he didn’t. Stomach clenching, he pulled himself together, forcing himself to leave the little viewing room. He wanted to go back to visit Peggy, to let that nugget of guilt crystallize in his chest, filling up that empty void.
Instead, Steve Rogers signed up for the next mission he could and vowed to visit every week.