(A/N: I had to get some of these speculations out of my head and onto paper. I want to continue this as a series of one-shots because you GUYS, STEGGY. It happened, it finally happened.
Let me know what you think and please enjoy!)
.
.
.
He hadn't really meant to stay.
Bucky's words had taken him slightly by surprise, since he had only really toyed with the idea a few days before, and even as he stood on that platform, Mjolnir buzzing in one hand and the six most powerful objects in the universe clenched in the other hand, he wasn't quite sure where he would end up.
As the floor flashed orange beneath him, he knew he had a choice to make. He had a chance to go back. Wasn't that what he had always wanted, ever since that fateful day in New York, almost twelve years ago? The moment he woke up in the fake hospital room and punched his way into an entirely new life, all he had wanted was to go back. Peggy was waiting for him, wasn't she? They never had that dance at the Stork Club.
His whole life in the 21st century had been filled with wishful thinking. He knew he could never go back to Peggy, but he still played out the dance a thousand times in his mind. He held her aging hand and reassured her that it really was him, sitting at her bedside . . . and he carried her casket to and from the church and watched her sink six feet deep into the very ground of the state she loved.
He moved on. He thought, maybe, Peggy was just a gateway to his life with her niece, but he couldn't shake the fact that even while he desperately kissed Sharon with pent-up emotions toward her specifically, his mind flashed back to that moment seventy-five years prior in the hangar, to the image of wind in Peggy's hair, lips bright red and eyes shining with hope and fear.
Even after almost two years of healing, a part of him still regretted the past.
.
Morag.
He pried open the doors, and in no time the stone was back in place, and Quill was just beginning to stir outside the temple.
.
Vormir.
He hadn't expected to see Red Skull, though Clint had mentioned a "red floaty guy."
He tried not to look down. He begged the Red Skull to bring her back, but it was not to be. A soul for a soul, he said. Irreversible.
Nat's hair was indistinguishable from the blood that stained it.
.
Asgard.
He never dreamed it would be this beautiful. His heart ached for what Thor had lost.
Jane slept peacefully, and the injection was quick. He was gone before she blinked.
.
New York.
The Sorceress Supreme smiled gently as he approached. The necklace clicked, and another weight was lifted from his shoulders.
He placed the long metal case right beside his own, unconscious, former self, and gave him a few good shakes. He was tough; he would wake in no time.
Finally . . . he carefully shut the heavy cabinet and welded the bolts back together. Good as new. The tesseract was safe.
.
He found a nice little corner booth to enjoy a cup of coffee. He kept his baseball cap and aviators on and stared into the table's dark wood grain. It was 1970, and he was torn.
The choice should have been simple: activate the suit, set the GPS to 2023, and meet Bruce and Sam and Bucky right back where he started.
After all, he did promise to meet them there, didn't he?
But he had snuck back into Peggy's office again, replaying the exact moment he'd seen before.
"We both need a life," he had told Natasha. All the events after that had confirmed it. Once, he told Tony that he didn't want a family or to settle down, but now . . .
Now, he watched a little family a few tables down. The young boy laughed, and it was the brightest, most joyful sound Steve had ever heard. The father smirked at the boy's antics, and the mother bounced a baby, smiling and content.
His heart tugged violently.
One thing he had only just begun to realize was his own age. The serum might have enhanced his regenerative abilities, and therefore probably extended his lifetime, but over the five years since the Snap, he had started to notice a few extra wrinkles and even a few gray hairs now and then. He couldn't stay young forever, and that fact made him hyper-aware of how much he really did want to make it worth it.
He had spent so much of his life as a soldier, a leader, a warrior . . . an Avenger . . . that he forgot what it felt like to throw off the weight of the world's pain for a while.
What if he could have a life outside of being a constant savior? What if he simply didn't go back to 2023? Would it be worth it?
Was that really and honestly the life he craved?
He believed it was. Deep down, ever since the moment he stepped out of Howard Stark's machine with his new body, he knew he was meant for more. He had just been interpreting everything the wrong way.
He saved the world a few times. He made his mark. He left his legacy.
And now . . . Now it was time for him to get a life.
.
He finally found meaning in his life again . . . in the form of six people.
It took weeks to explain everything fully to Peggy, but she accepted him immediately and they cried weeping, joyful tears after tears.
Then, years later, his life became even more meaningful. There was James, the strong, witty jokester, then Virginia and Natalie, the fiery red-headed twins, then Anthony, the shy blond sweetheart, and finally Steven, the courageous peacemaker.
He knew, like anyone does, that a bond between parents and children is like no other. But until he experienced it for himself, he could never have imagined the depth of the love he felt toward those five little people.
They were half him, half the woman he loved. They were his pride, his joy, his world. He could never, in his wildest dreams, have imagined himself in this place before.
And as cliché as it sounded, and as much as he might have rolled his eyes at Tony for expressing a similar sentiment, he would never have changed it, not for all the riches or fame or power the world had to offer.
He'd finally found his home.
.
.
.