Chapter Text
New York City
2012
Steve yanks the cowl off his younger self's head and grabs his comm unit. He can hear the crackle of his teammates hailing him even before he has the earpiece situated in his own ear.
"–ap, do you copy? Repeat, do you have Loki in custody?" That's Clint, and from his tone of voice, he's been trying to get Steve's attention for a while.
"Negative," Steve responds. "We fought, but he disappeared into thin air." He can't risk the other Avengers coming to help, not while there are two Captain Americas (Captains America?) in the same timeline, one of whom is still unconscious on the floor. Hopefully, by the time anyone starts to look for him, there will only be one Steve left in this universe, and he won't have to worry about the team or the grammar. He just needs to buy himself some time.
"Dammit," Clint says in his ear. "He's got the Tesseract. You'd better get down here."
Steve eyes his unconscious double. "Yeah. Be there in a minute." Making sure the comm is turned off, he shakes Other Steve gently at first, then harder when he doesn't stir. "Come on! I don't have time for this," he mutters, rolling Other Steve over onto his back and slapping his cheek a few times. "You're a super-soldier, dammit. Shake it off."
What had Natasha done to break the scepter's hold on Clint? Cognitive recalibration, she called it. Steve grabs his double by the shoulders, pulls him up to a sitting position, then slams him back down, his head hitting the floor with a solid thunk. Finally, the younger Steve begins to stir. Steve quickly pins him with one knee on his chest, holding him down at the neck with one hand and immobilizing the arm closest to Steve with the other.
"What the – get off me!" Regaining consciousness, Other Steve starts to struggle, trying to throw him off, but he's unable to get out of the hold. Steve shifts more of his weight to his knee, pressing down on the other's diaphragm, making it harder for him to breathe.
"I'm. Not. Loki. Do you believe me? I can't let you up unless I know you're not gonna attack me again."
He's hoping for a nod of agreement, but he really should know better. Other Steve glares at him defiantly. "Prove it," he wheezes.
"Would Loki know the first girl you ever kissed was Mary O'Rourke? It was in the alley behind the grocer's on Front Street, the one that's a Starbucks now. You were twelve. You thought she liked you, but you found out later that Bucky had promised her a nickel to --"
"Okay, fine – fine!" Other Steve interrupts him, embarrassment etched on his face. Steve shifts some of his weight off his knee. Once he can breathe easier, the younger Steve says, "How the hell do you know that? Who are you?"
"I'm you. From the future."
For a second, it seems like the other him isn't going to buy that answer, but then Other Steve lets his head fall back with a heavy sigh.
"Sure. Why not?" After waking up from a sixty-seven-year coma to fight literal aliens from outer space with a Norse god and a Hulk, time travel is probably about par for the course. "What are you doing here?"
Steve sits back and loosens his grip on his double's arm. "It's a long story, and I don't have a lot of time. But the short version is – I'm here to offer you a choice."
New York City
2023
Steve walked into his apartment to the smell of garlic and onions and hearty tomato sauce. Mrs. Donato's recipe, most likely, their Sicilian neighbor from the forties.
"Oh, good, you're home," Bucky said from the kitchen. "Dinner's just about ready. How was your day?"
"Good. Bruce tested everything out today, so we should be ready to go."
Although they were both living in Steve's post-Snap apartment in the city, Steve had been spending a lot of time at the lake house, where Bruce was staying. Since Thanos and his army had destroyed most of the Avengers' compound, Bruce needed access to Tony's workshop to rebuild the quantum tunnel to return the Infinity Stones. He didn't really need Steve's help, but as the one making the trip, Steve had felt obligated to be there as much as he could. Now, there was only one thing left to do.
He leaned against the doorway of the kitchen, watching Bucky chop vegetables for a salad. "This is nice," he teased. "Coming home from a hard day's work to a home-cooked meal. It's kinda like we're married."
Without even looking up, Bucky whipped a whole carrot at Steve's face like a dagger. Steve snatched it out of the air and bit into it with a loud crunch.
"This is temporary, you punk," Bucky replied affectionately. "I gotta figure out what to do with my life, and you need to learn to cook for yourself."
Steve fidgeted, rubbing his thumb back and forth across his lower lip. "Yeah, I, uh, I had a thought. About that. Our lives, I mean."
"What dumbass thing am I gonna have to talk you out of now?" With the knife, he scraped the cutting board full of chopped carrots and cucumbers into the salad bowl.
"Time travel."
Bucky put down his knife and turned to face him, immediately growing serious. Even after all these years, he could still read Steve like an open book. "This is about tomorrow, isn't it? You're not planning to come back."
Now that Hank Pym was back, there were enough Pym particles to make as many trips as they wanted, but they'd agreed it would be less disruptive if only one person went to return the stones. And there really wasn’t any question who that person would be.
It was practical, of course. Mjolnir also had to be returned to 2013, and with Thor headed into space with the Guardians, Steve was the only one who could lift it. But that wasn't his sole reason for volunteering – and though only Bucky dared to say anything to his face, he suspected the other Avengers could sense he was restless and troubled.
Steve sighed. "I haven't made up my mind."
He expected some reaction, but Bucky merely thrust the salad bowl at him and turned back to the stove to toss the pasta in the sauce. "All right, come on. Table's set."
Bucky followed him with the pasta and a platter of garlic bread, both of which looked amazing. It wasn’t that Steve couldn’t cook; it was just that Bucky was so much better at it.
Once they'd dished out the food, Bucky said, "Do it." He pointed his fork at Steve. "Whatever it is you're thinking about, you should do it."
"I can't leave you --"
"Yeah, you can. I can do this on my own, Steve."
One side of Steve's mouth quirked up in a half-smile. "The thing is, you don't have to."
Bucky's eyes softened, recognizing his own words from nearly a century ago. "Yeah, I do. You've sacrificed so much for me, to get me back, but if I'm ever going to be more than an assassin, I've got to learn to stand on my own two feet." He paused long enough to shove a forkful of salad into his mouth, then looked critically at Steve, who was just pushing his food around on his plate. "Eat. Jesus. I slaved away over a hot stove all day, the least you could do is appreciate it."
Steve smothered a grin at Bucky’s scolding, but he twirled spaghetti around on his fork, suitably chastened. "It just feels so selfish, abandoning you – abandoning the world, when everything's still so messed up."
"The world's always gonna be messed up, Stevie. There's never gonna be a good time to hang up your shield."
He knew that was true. If the last decade had taught him anything, it was that there would always be another threat to contend with. But with so many superheroes active now, the world would be in good hands without him. Maybe Tony had been right, five years ago, when he’d said the Avengers needed new blood. Carol, Peter, Scott, T’Challa, Strange – all of them could do what Steve did and more, and without all the guilt and the baggage he carried.
In the weeks since they'd reversed the Snap, the rest of them – the rest of the world – had settled into the new normal, those who’d been snapped back finding their place again, the ones who’d remained shifting and reshuffling to make space for them. It was chaos, and probably would be for a while, but for the first time in five years, the future seemed filled with possibility.
And yet Steve still felt lost. Hollowed out, as though something inside him had disappeared with half the population and hadn’t returned.
Many of his teammates seemed to assume that Steve would be leading a new Avengers line-up. But every time he tried to imagine it, it felt wrong. Like trying to put broken glass back together like a jigsaw puzzle, with jagged pieces that didn't fit, and sharp edges that cut if you tried to hold on too tightly.
"Besides," Bucky said, "you deserve to be selfish for once."
Steve looked away. It felt like he’d already claimed more than his share of selfishness. Wanting his best friend back, no matter who it hurt. Wanting his way with the Accords, no matter what it did to the team. Wanting to reverse the Snap, no matter the cost.
But he couldn’t admit any of that to Bucky. Not when Bucky was the reason behind so much of what he’d done. "I'd miss you, Buck. I only just got you back."
"Well, that's the one benefit of having been cryogenically frozen for most of a century." Bucky smirked. "Whatever time you end up in, just thaw me out and take me on your adventures."
Steve furrowed his brow in confusion. "Whatever time I end up in?" He'd assumed there was an obvious choice. If he was going to time travel, he'd go back to his old life, to Peggy. Pick up where he'd left off when the plane went down.
Bucky clearly followed his train of thought, because he rolled his eyes and said, "You've got all of time and space at your fingertips, and you only considered the one option?"
"I --"
"You're gonna hate the fifties," Bucky said authoritatively. "Everyone was all buttoned up and repressed, nothing like before the war."
"What do you know about it?" Steve teased. "You spent most of the fifties as a brainwashed popsicle."
"I read!" Bucky said, and Steve found it both hilarious and reassuring that he was more indignant about his implied lack of historical knowledge than the fact that Steve had brought up his past. Wakanda really had done wonders for him. "Bet I know more'n you, pal."
When Steve looked unimpressed, he changed his tack. "Besides, the future's awesome. You're willing to give up the internet? Cell phones? Microwaves? You really will have to learn to cook for yourself, then. Carter sure as hell ain't gonna do it."
Steve shook his head. "It's not about that."
"Nah, I know." Bucky dragged his garlic bread across his plate, mopping up the sauce. "Just, you know. It's okay to want something else, too."
"What do you mean?"
Bucky was giving him a knowing look, like the two of them were on the same wavelength – and they usually were, but Steve genuinely didn't know what he was hinting at.
"You want more?" Bucky asked, instead of answering the question. At Steve's nod, he started to serve up second helpings. "You're in mourning, Steve. Anyone can see it. You haven't been the same since... you know."
Steve closed his eyes at the reminder, grief crashing over him in a sudden, unexpected onslaught. He was no stranger to loss – he'd been coping with it all his life – and on the face of it, losing Tony and Natasha wasn't any worse than everything else he'd been through. Perhaps he'd just finally reached his limit. The proverbial back-breaking straw.
He'd felt like this once before, when he was fresh out of the ice. When he wasn't sure what he was even living for. But he'd picked himself up, pushed forward, and built a new life, only to watch that get stripped away, too. There was only so much a person – even a super-soldier – could take before it was too much to bear.
Except he was just Catholic enough to abhor the idea of taking his own life, and despite a truly dangerous degree of recklessness, he somehow managed to escape every battle unscathed. So there was nothing for him to do but press on, keep living his life as long as the serum extended it. And if he had to watch everyone he loved die, that was the price he'd have to pay for the choice he'd made.
He opened his eyes to frown at Bucky. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Is it Stark? Or Romanoff? I figured it was Stark – the way you two fell out, it had to be more than friendship, but what do I know? Doesn't matter. Either way, you could go back to them."
Steve nearly choked on his spaghetti. Bucky thought he had romantic feelings for Tony? And possibly Natasha? "It wasn't like that. They're my friends – my family. Of course I'm mourning."
"Okay," Bucky said with a shrug. "I'm just saying, you don't have to want the same things you did in 1945. Not like you'll get a blue ticket nowadays."
Steve's stomach lurched at the words. Bucky had always accepted him for who he was, but he remembered how happy, how relieved Bucky had been when he'd fallen for Peggy, because it meant his life would be that much easier. He'd gotten so used to hiding that other part of himself that even in the future, when he could love whomever he wanted, he instinctively shoved those desires down.
"Never mind," Bucky said, taking Steve's silence as disagreement. "Forget I said anything. Go on, get the girl."
Steve went to Vormir first, of course.
It was the obvious choice. Despite what Bruce had said about not being able to bring Natasha back, he had to try. And if he was going to have to defy the laws of the universe, he wanted as many Infinity Stones in his arsenal as possible. Having Mjolnir didn't hurt, either, especially since Thanos had shattered his shield.
He reached the top of the mountain just in time to see Clint and Natasha leaping over the cliff's edge. Instinct propelled him toward where they'd fallen – to do what, he couldn't have said. He couldn't change what had already happened, he knew that, but he was moving before he'd even made a conscious decision to move. Before he could get close enough to see past the end of the dais to whatever lay below, a voice startled him from behind.
"Steven, son of Sarah."
He spun around and drew in a sharp breath at the hooded figure before him. Clint had mentioned a red-faced guy, but he'd never imagined... "Schmidt, son of a bitch."
If the Red Skull was fazed by Steve, he didn't show it. "I am the guardian of the Soul Stone. Who I was in a previous life matters not."
"Maybe not to you," Steve muttered. Louder, he said, "I brought the Soul Stone. What do I have to do to get Natasha back?"
"A soul sacrificed for the stone is gone forever. It is an everlasting exchange. There is no way to bring her back."
His breath hitched, and the frigid mountaintop air seemed to settle in his bones. "I don't believe you."
Natasha had been his first real friend in the future. His family. She'd stuck with him through everything – taking down Hydra, training the new roster of Avengers, the lonely time in exile with the team scattered and broken, and the long, hopeless years after Thanos when it seemed like the world would never be whole again.
He remembered her teasing him about finding a date and crying over a peanut butter sandwich. They'd held each other together when everything else was falling apart. She had been a lifeline, his one constant in an unfamiliar and ever-changing world. He couldn't give up on her now.
He opened the briefcase that held the Infinity Stones, ready to wield them even if it killed him – only to find them dull and lifeless, the glow of their power gone.
"Those are of no use here," the Red Skull intoned. "They cannot grant you what you seek."
He let out a wordless, frustrated shout. He dropped the case, hefted Mjolnir and fell into a fighting stance, channeling his grief into fuel for battle one more time. "There has to be a way!"
There wasn't.
Steve bashed the Red Skull into the ground. He tossed him off the cliff. He called down the lightning. He even smacked him into orbit with a mighty swing of Mjolnir, but the bastard just reappeared on the cliff again and again. He didn't even try to fight back, just silently let Steve land blow after blow, dissolving when he was beaten down and reappearing whole and unharmed, robes billowing in a spectral taunt.
Finally, lungs burning with exertion and sweat beading along his hairline despite the cold, Steve dropped the hammer and spread out his arms in surrender. "Take me instead," he offered, his voice breaking. "A soul for a soul. That's the deal, right?"
"It is impossible," Red Skull replied. "Return the stone and continue with your quest."
His quest. He almost laughed at the very idea. This wasn't a quest; this was Steve playing janitor. Cleaning up their mess after the battle was over. He didn't have quests anymore. No more missions, no more purpose, and after this last task, no more responsibilities. He was done.
So why was he still fighting?
He took the Soul Stone from the briefcase and pitched it as hard as he could into the empty expanse beyond the cliff's edge. "Fuck you," he said – to the Red Skull, to this cursed place, to the universe at large. Then he picked up Mjolnir and activated the time GPS.
After that, Morag and Asgard were simple. In and out, with no one he knew and no memories of those places to distract him. But Camp Lehigh was next, and this time he needed a moment to steady himself before going in.
He wasn't sure if he was ready to see Tony again. A mere glimpse of Natasha's death had left him reeling, and being unable to reverse it hit him harder than he'd expected, even though he'd known the odds were razor thin. If he came face-to-face with Tony, alive and breathing and so close to the end, he might not be able to stop himself.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts, straightened his Army uniform, and strode toward the secret SHIELD bunker, trying to exude a confidence he didn't feel to avoid being stopped and questioned by any security personnel.
He slipped inside the building just in time to see Tony and Howard pass by on their way out. He ducked into a corner to avoid being spotted, but Tony was too wrapped up in his fortuitous encounter with his father to notice him. Sure enough, watching them, his chest tightened and he struggled to breathe, his throat burning with unshed tears. For Tony, whose death was still fresh in his mind, but also for Howard, murdered by Steve's own best friend, the consequences of which had rippled through time and destroyed the only family Steve had left.
Hidden in the shadows where no one would notice him, he collapsed back against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut, gasping for air like he had during the asthma attacks of his youth. With a start, he realized he was grieving not only his friends' deaths, but also the seven years the Avengers had lost. The years they'd been broken, when they didn't have to be. When a single conversation with Tony could have kept them together, could have prevented everything that came after.
His grip tightened on the case containing the remaining Infinity Stones, so hard he nearly crushed the handle. So many regrets, so many mistakes that could be wiped away by the power held within.
So many things he could change without even using the stones. His own younger self was still inside somewhere – it was too late to stop the war or to save Natasha, but Steve could intercept him, warn him about Thanos' return to Earth, tell him to protect Tony at all costs. Use the gauntlet himself, if it came to that, even though it would kill him.
It should've been him anyway. Tony deserved to enjoy the happiness he'd found, the life he'd been desperate to preserve. He'd practically begged Steve not to mess it up. And now he was gone, and a little girl would grow up without her father, and Steve could have prevented it.
He should have prevented it. Whatever it takes, wasn't that what he'd said?
But... what if Strange had been right? Over fourteen million possibilities and only one where they succeeded. What if their only chance required Tony's sacrifice? What if, in trying to save Tony, he doomed their entire universe? If he could barely live with the deaths of his friends, how could he ever live with that?
He'd screwed up one timeline already, wasn't that enough? Just do what you came here to do, he scolded himself. He took several deep, steadying breaths to re-center himself before heading for the elevator down to the level where the Tesseract had been kept.
Security had increased exponentially in the short time since he'd infiltrated the building the first time. That woman in the elevator had put everyone on high alert, making it much more of a challenge to get around. Still, even if he wasn't a spy, he'd worked with Natasha enough to pick up a few tricks for sneaking around and blending in. He made it to the storage level undetected and was just looking for a place to put the Space Stone when he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye.
"Stop right there," a familiar voice said in a crisp British accent off to his left. "This floor is restricted access. Do you have clearance to be down here?"
He froze. His mouth went dry; his heart raced. He'd known she was here, now. Why hadn't he prepared for this possibility?
The click of a gun's safety being flicked off echoed through the bunker. "Answer me," Peggy demanded.
"Uh, yes, ma'am," he said, still facing away from her and ducking his head so the brim of his hat would hide his face. "I was just, uh --"
"Steve?" Peggy's voice was tremulous with disbelief.
He turned slowly, lifting his gaze to meet hers. "Peggy, I --"
"It can't be." Her aim had faltered in her initial shock, but now she straightened her arms, pointing the gun directly at his chest. "Steve Rogers has been dead for twenty-five years. Who are you and what is your business here?"
Steve gently lowered the case to the floor and raised both hands in surrender. "It's me, Peg, I swear."
"How?" she insisted. He could see the emotions warring on her face; she badly wanted it to be true but was too practical to let herself believe it. "You – it's not possible."
"It's a long story. I – I'm a time traveler."
Peggy arched an eyebrow. "Well," she said, finally lowering the gun. "Then I guess you'd better come to my office and tell me what you're doing here."
Once in her office, he told her everything. How he'd been found in the ice and woken up to a new century. How they'd discovered that the universe was much bigger than they'd ever anticipated. How shattered they'd been by the loss. How they'd snatched the Infinity Stones out of the timeline in a desperate attempt at a second chance. How they'd won, in the end, but not without sacrifice.
She took it all in stride, the existence of aliens and time travel and mystical, universe-altering artifacts. He supposed she'd seen her share of the inexplicable as Director of SHIELD. Or maybe it all just sounded too absurd to be a lie.
"So, you're here to return the Tesseract to its proper time," she surmised, inclining her head toward the case.
"Yeah, uh, about that." He opened the case to show her the remaining Infinity Stones – Space, Time, and Mind. They hadn't been able to restore the stones to their original housings, so Steve had to return them in their current form, even if it caused an inconsistency in the timeline.
They hadn't exactly managed to pull off the time heist without drawing attention to themselves anyway. Loki had run off with the Tesseract, for God's sake. If that kind of massive screw-up hadn't destroyed the universe, Steve wasn't going to worry too much about the fact that, rather than re-infecting Jane Foster with the Aether, he'd pretty much just lobbed the Reality Stone in her general direction before diving directly back into the quantum realm.
"We had to break the cube open to get to the stone," he explained to Peggy, "so the Tesseract doesn't exist anymore. The stone's the important part, but I guess you'll have to come up with a story to explain what happened to it. Sorry about that."
"I'm sure I'll think of something," Peggy said dryly, her tone an unexpected reminder of how she'd reacted whenever he and the Howling Commandos disobeyed orders and left her and Phillips holding the bag. The rescue mission in Austria was just the first of many times Steve had gone off script because he thought he knew better than the U.S. Army, and someone had to explain to the top brass why he shouldn't be court-martialed for it.
Peggy had scolded him plenty, but not once had he ever doubted that he was doing the right thing. So often during his foray in the future, he'd longed for the certainty of the war, when the mission was clear. When it was easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys. When his ideals didn't pit him against his friends and teammates, and he knew his place in the world.
As a wave of nostalgia crested within him, Steve couldn't help rounding her desk and picking up the picture of him taken before the serum. He traced the edge of the frame with his fingers as he studied his younger self. That photo felt like several lifetimes ago.
"You were the best man I'd ever known," Peggy said, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "I wanted to create SHIELD in your image. An agency that would be all the things that you stood for."
Steve swallowed hard, touched by her faith in him, and almost immediately felt wretched, knowing what would become of SHIELD. Should he tell her what was lurking within the agency? That their worst enemy had been growing in secret all along? Dammit, if this was how he felt after ten minutes with her, how would he ever manage the rest of his life in quiet retirement, knowing what he knew was coming?
"We've had to compromise our ideals a bit since then, I suppose," she went on, "so I've got to keep you around, to remind me what we're fighting for." With one fingertip, she brushed tiny Steve's cheek fondly, then glanced up at the real thing, her eyes twinkling. "It's also a reminder that good things come in small packages."
She was so close, he could smell her musky, flowery perfume. He'd spent so long with only her memory, and before that with her a mere shadow of her former self, that the reality of her was overwhelming. Her breath was warm on his neck, her red lips parted slightly as she tilted her head up to meet his gaze. His entire body ached with the sudden desire to kiss her, and before he could stop himself, he was leaning down to press his lips to hers.
Peggy kissed him back briefly, before bringing her hands to his chest and gently pushing him away. "Oh, my darling. I'm flattered, but I'm married now."
A flush of embarrassment spread across his cheeks, down his neck. "Oh, God. I'm sorry. I didn't mean – I just..." He trailed off helplessly.
She smiled at him kindly, reaching up with one hand to trace across his brow and coming to rest on his cheek. "It's been twenty-five years for me, but I never asked how long it's been for you."
"Eleven years," he said, his voice breaking a little. "Or seventy-eight, all together. But eleven that I've been awake."
Peggy sighed. "Oh, Steve. That's far too long to be unhappy."
"I tried to move on," he confessed. "I wanted to. But there was never – peace. Every time I thought maybe I'd be okay, I'd lose something else. Someone else."
Without warning, Steve was struck again by the memory of Natasha, the two of them in her office at the Avengers compound, talking about the need to move on. He'd been a hypocrite then, unable to practice what he preached. And what had changed, really? He was running back to the past instead of facing the future.
The future was part of him now; he couldn't escape his ghosts. No matter where (or when) he went, he'd always be haunted by what he'd lost, the people he'd left behind. Instead of longing for Peggy and the Howling Commandos, now it would be Tony, Natasha, Sam, and the rest of the Avengers he'd be missing. And as much as he'd loved Peggy, he'd spent far longer in the 21st century with his team than he'd spent with her during the war.
He didn't realize he was crying until he felt Peggy's thumb sweep across his cheek, wiping away his tears.
"My love," she murmured, pulling him into her arms and stroking the back of his neck comfortingly. "I wish there was something I could do."
Steve melted into the embrace, burying his face in her hair. There weren't enough words for how much she'd already done for him. She was so strong, and so brave, and she'd always been there to nudge him onto the right path when he faltered, whether it was in the rain in an Army camp in Italy, a bombed-out bar in London, or from her bed in the nursing home. There was a reason he'd picked his compass as the place to keep her picture.
He took a deep breath, gathering himself so he could look her in the eye without breaking down again, then pulled away. "The Steve from your timeline, he's still in the ice. I could tell you where to find him. Give you the coordinates."
Peggy studied him for a moment, searching his face for something he couldn't decipher. "Would that change anything?"
"For him, yeah. Maybe for the better, I don't know." He sighed. "At least he'd wake up when most of his friends were still alive." He looked down at the photo of his pre-serum self again, then set it gently back on Peggy's desk. "But will it change anything for me? No. For me, it'll still have happened the way it did."
"What will you do now?"
He gestured toward the briefcase. "Finish putting those back. After that... thought maybe I'd try retirement."
Her eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened almost comically. "I'm afraid I can't picture that. You're not meant for a simple life." She gave him a fond smile. "There will always be something to fight for. And you'll always be a soldier. But I do hope you find peace."
"Not sure I know how." He shook his head. "Sometimes seems like war's all I'm good for."
"That's because you're an idealist in a world that is far from ideal. You're incapable of standing idly by when you know you could make a difference." She placed her palm flat against his chest. "Follow your heart, Steve. It won't steer you wrong."
"So, you just program that – that --"
"Space-time GPS."
"Right." Now that Steve's explained his intentions, the expression on his younger self's face is a heartbreaking mix of wonder, disbelief, and longing. "You can program that for 1945 and just send me back? Just like that?"
Steve swallows hard around the lump in his throat, but there's no turning back now. "Just like that."
"Why me? Why – what's in it for you?"
He's been wrestling with it ever since he left 1970. Seeing Peggy again should've only made him more eager to go back, to finally have that dance. But as much as he wants to believe he could accept a happy ending, that he could retire and live out his life in the past with her, he knows it'll always feel like he's chasing a ghost.
Peggy had told him, back before everything went to hell with SHIELD, that the world had changed and none of them could go back. That sometimes the best they could do was to start over. He wonders what she'd have said if she'd known about time travel.
"I used to be you," he says. "I know how out of place you feel right now. You went in the ice a soldier and you came out a legend. All people see is the ideal, the hero from the movies and the comic books. Meanwhile, you still feel like you're drowning and until Fury showed up with this mission, you weren't sure why you were even waking up every day."
Other Steve turns away sharply, his jaw clenched, but Steve doesn't need to see his face to know what he's feeling. "You're pretending to be okay because that's what people need from you. But what about what you need?"
The younger Steve's shoulders sag and his hands ball into fists at his sides. Steve has to choke back his own emotion as he picks up his double's discarded shield. He can't face living in a world that doesn't have Tony and Natasha in it. But maybe he doesn't have to.
"Those people you fought with, the Avengers – they don't mean anything to you yet. But they're my family. Where I'm from, that family no longer exists. If you go back, I could stay here, with the people I love, protect them, make sure the things that happened to them don't happen this time around."
Other Steve turns around to face him, brow furrowing at the sight of someone else holding his shield. He takes a step forward as though to claim it, but then stops.
"I know you'd give anything to get your old life back. And I'd give anything to get back mine." Steve takes off the time GPS and holds it out. "So, what do you say?"
Having sent his younger self off to the past, Steve arrives in the lobby of Stark Tower to find it still bustling with frantic SHIELD agents. Before he even has a chance to get his bearings, he hears Alexander Pierce call, "Captain!" He appears to be in the midst of a heated discussion with Tony and Thor, but he beckons Steve over with some urgency.
"Mr. Secretary?"
"STRIKE team tells me you took possession of Loki's mind control weapon, claiming it was on orders from me," Pierce says. "I didn't authorize that. What do you --"
"We must've gotten our wires crossed, sir," Steve interrupts, before Pierce can start poking holes in his cover story. "I received intel that there would be an attempt to steal the scepter, so I made sure it was secure." In actuality, the Mind Stone is tucked into one of the pouches on Steve's utility belt along with the Time Stone, a fact he's decidedly uncomfortable with, but he isn't about to let them out of his sight while Hydra is still in the building. "Clearly that intel wasn't far off." He gestures at the chaos around them.
"I'm going to need you to hand the scepter over to me, Captain." He recognizes Pierce's tone of voice as the stern but deceptively amicable one he'd used in his office in D.C. when Steve wasn't cooperating, but the fact that he hasn't been arrested on sight means that Pierce hasn't totally seen through the ruse. "We've already lost one mysterious artifact today due to your associates' carelessness --"
"Which is why I think it's best if I run point on this. I assure you it's safe." He pulls the Secretary a few steps away from Tony and Thor and leans in confidentially, lowering his voice. "I'll make sure it gets to our mutual friend, the Baron, and his scientists."
Pierce looks startled for a moment but covers it quickly, studying him carefully for any sign of a lie. Steve tries to look as evil as possible and nods once to confirm Pierce's suspicions. "Hail Hydra," he murmurs.
"Well, then," Pierce says, loud enough for Tony and Thor's benefit. "Seems like we're all squared away here." He gives Steve a firm thump on the shoulder, squeezing in a way that might seem menacing if Steve couldn't flatten a baseline human with one hand. "We'll get out of your hair. I'll expect a full report on Loki's whereabouts ASAP. Find that cube, gentlemen."
Pierce turns and heads for the exit, gesturing for his lackeys to follow, and Steve's entire body goes lax with relief. He's definitely going to have to bring Hydra down a lot quicker in this timeline. He can't handle the stress of pretending to be evil for very long.
"Indeed, we must locate my brother, but first, we require sustenance. I shall go see if our big green friend has been subdued yet." Thor makes his way toward the door as well, leaving Steve alone with Tony.
"What happened down here?" he asks, even though he has a pretty good idea.
"Loki got away. He took the Tesseract and disappeared."
He resists the urge to roll his eyes at Tony's completely unhelpful response. "I heard. How did he escape?"
"I don't know. I was busy having a heart attack on the floor," Tony snaps.
"A heart attack?" Even knowing the plan, and knowing that future-Tony had assured them all he'd be perfectly fine, it's still a terrifying thing to hear. "Shouldn't you get checked out by medical?"
"Yeah, no, not happening. Thor defibrillated me with his magic hammer. I'm good." He smacks his palm against the arc reactor, as if to demonstrate his fitness. Steve's not entirely convinced, but Tony's already barreling past it anyway.
"I dropped the case. Loki must've grabbed it while everyone was freaking out over me." Unlike Steve, he has no compunction about rolling his eyes noticeably. "I swear to God, thirty SHIELD agents in the room, and not one of them managed to stop him?"
He hadn't planned on setting things in motion quite this quickly, but Tony's practically presented him the opportunity on a silver platter. "And that doesn't seem suspicious to you?"
Tony frowns at him. "SHIELD is mostly incompetent, but they're not evil."
"Are you sure about that? They are under the orders of a Council that just tried to nuke Manhattan."
Tony grabs his arm, pulling him in close as he says in a harsh whisper, "What are you saying, Rogers?"
"Hey, Stark! Rogers!" Interrupted by the shout, they turn to where Natasha is standing in the doorway with her arms folded across her chest impatiently, the others already waiting outside. "We're starving. You coming, or are you gonna gaze into each other's eyes all day?"
"Actually, we --" Tony starts, clearly intending to beg off to deal with more pressing matters, but Steve isn't about to miss their first team meal together.
"Coming!" he yells back, drowning out Tony's excuse.
Natasha tilts her head and her mouth quirks into a little half-smile. "Okay. See ya in a minute," she says, heading out the door.
It's like someone punched all the air out of his lungs. If he hadn't already made the decision to stay, that would have pushed him over the edge. This is what he'd come back for – his team, his family, together again. To Tony, he says, "We'll talk later. Shawarma first."