Seventy years. It had been seventy years since he's seen her. The war between the Avengers and the Chitauri had ended about one year ago, and Steve had one mission left before saying his final goodbyes to the rest of the Howling Commandos at their memorial at the Statue of Liberty. He couldn't believe just how long he'd been under that ice in the Northern Atlantic.
His agenda? Former agent Margaret Carter.
Currently, he was on a quinjet, heading towards Winchester, UK. He had read her file before Loki had attempted to invade New York City, and he was now studying to memorise it until he knew it word for word like the back of his hand. She had retired as an extremely successful agent. She had helped completely weeding HYDRA out of existence, helped lead the group that had found Hitler in his home in Austria, aided in the Vietnam war over twenty years later. Steve felt proud to have known her for the three years he had.
He should call before he just showed up. He wouldn't want to give her a heart attack. She was old, after all.
He stared at the cellphone that had been given to him. He was still working on learning how to fully use it, but he could make calls fairly easily. Which was what a phone was for, wasn't it? He didn't understand the necessity of text messaging, though he understood how useful it could be in certain situations.
He couldn't bring himself to call. He had half a mind to ask the pilot to turn the jet around, but they were just over Ireland now. It was too late to go back. He was always too late, wasn't he?
Not even half an hour later, the jet landed in a small field, just a mile off from the nursing home Peggy was a resident at. With no living relatives other than a niece too involved in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s work to take care of her, where else was there for an old woman to live?
Steve strode down the halls of the place after asking a kind orderly for Peggy's room number, and signing himself in as a visitor, her first in years from the look of it.
He found it easily. Room 304. The door was open, and the old woman was sitting at the window, staring at the river in the distance.
"Peggy?" He called anxiously. Would she even remember him? Would she care?
"You're late," she murmured without even looking at him. She turned slowly to face him, her lips chapped, yet still painted red, and pulled into a soft smile, her eyes faded with age and shining.
"I couldn't call my ride."