Authors note:
Endgame was an amazing, emotional end to an era. The Infinity Saga was as much a Titan as it's main antagonist and it had a fitting end. There was, I feel, only a couple of things missing from proceedings. This is my somewhat clumsy attempt to fill in those gaps. Hope you enjoy...
Steve Rogers was facing a conundrum. He stared in the mirror, wondering if his get up would cheapen the somber occasion he was about to attend. A black suit and black tie was the uniform dictated by convention for a funeral but, to be frank, convention was not something this fallen friend had particularly valued. He pictured Nat laughing affectionately at him and his mind was made up. It had always been fun to make her laugh. The navy and dull silver outfit that had been dubbed the 'stealth suit' by Phil Coulson, who could have had a profitable career in fashion had the SHEILD gig not worked out for him, had special significance for the two of them. He used to wear it back when he was a SHEILD agent. That was back before they had seen eye to eye on missions together and before they had blown Hydra's infestation wide open but from the moment he had met her, Natasha had had Steve's unwavering respect. Besides, Fury had gone to the trouble of fetching it out of storage. It was the least he could do to actually make use of it.
She had always seemed so unflappable, even more so in these last few years, when she had had to keep the faith that a solution to their nightmare could be found. It was hard to believe she was really gone. Especially because they didn't have an actual body to bury. The sacrifice that had paid for the misdeeds she had been manipulated into committing since a child a million times over and had helped to win them the day had taken place far from home. Steve had had friends die before, only to have them returned to him in some incredible twist of fate. He wondered if maybe years from now, he would be on a mission somewhere and she would happen to be there working on the same thing.
A wry smile quirked one side of Steve's mouth. Nothing wrong with hoping.
"Really, Steve?" Bucky suddenly stood in the doorway, an eyebrow raised. His dark hair still fell to his shoulders and it had clearly been a while since he'd held a razor but his garb was more traditional.
"Just felt right, Buck. Felt like something she'd appreciate."
Bucky nodded "I think you're right. You seen Barton this morning?"
Steve shook his head. This loss was hardest on Clint, the closest thing she had had to family. He had been the one who had brought her in to the fold that would spawn the Avengers, had fought beside her for years, had named his son after her "Probably reading his speech."
"You think he'll go through with it?" Bucky wondered, glancing at the door. Steve nodded. Barton would be in the next room in the temporary structure they had erected next to the ruins of the old Avengers compound. Amongst friends, comrades and the rubble that had once been manicured lawns felt like the right place to be. After the battle that had finally ended the Mad Titan Thanos, the team and the friends they had been reunited with had stayed in close quarters near New York. For the previously vanished, including Bucky and Sam, it had been only moments since they had collapsed into ash before horrified eyes. Once they had heard how long it had been for everyone else, there had been tears all around. The first thing Bucky had said to Steve was "You just can't seem to get rid of me, can you?" which had not been good for either man's composure. Even Sam had been emotional.
Steve couldn't think of the disintegration of Thanos's forces without thinking of Tony. Their friendship had been...complicated and had taken a while to develop. Many would have said they were too different to have been friends. Tony's swagger and arrogance had grated on Steve immensely until he worked out that it covered a huge heart and enough emotional baggage to fill it. Through hair raising missions, scrapes, flashes of downtime, differences of opinion and fights that had come to blows in a pretty spectacular and regrettable way, Steve had come to care for Tony and he believed the feeling had been mutual.
If it was difficult to accept that Natasha had died, it was nigh on impossible to swallow the fact that the brilliant force of nature that had been Tony Stark was also gone. That would be a trial for a different day.
"Starts soon. We best be heading over." Bucky reminded him before turning to walk out of the room. It would not be a large affair. A few good friends around a symbolic bonfire. She wouldn't have wanted much fuss. On balance, it seemed the right way to do it. With one last glance back at the mirror, Steve followed his oldest friend.
A week later, they buried Tony. It had been a beautiful send off. Sun shone across the water and through the trees that he had chosen to raise his family beside. It's beauty was bittersweet. This was the sort of place anyone could feel at home and at peace. Even someone as intellectually manic as Tony Stark. An amazing place to raise a child. This had clearly been the ideal haven Tony had wanted for any wife and children of his. Now he would never get to see little Morgan grow up in it.
A memorial raft had been sent off over the gently lapping lake and they had all watched in collective contemplation of what this complicated genius had meant to all of them until it was out of sight. That had been followed by a dinner hosted impeccably by Pepper, over which they had shared stories and a less serious mood until late in the evening. Some, including Clint and his family, had departed as the balmy evening wore on, returning to their own homes and concerns. Others had unfinished business to take care of so had stayed on.
Later that night, Steve sat up in the bed he had been given. Overcome with restlessness that had nothing to do with any lack of peacefulness of the guestroom or the comfort of the bed, he felt as if he had been waiting for sleep for hours. Sure enough, when he turned to face the clock next to the bed it's neon green display read 4.20am. Getting up with an exasperated grunt, he pulled on a grey hoodie and trainers, hoping exercise would dispel the unpleasant feelings he couldn't quite put a finger on. Careful not to wake anyone else in the Stark-Potts household (considerably swelled on account of the guests who had stayed on after paying their respects to Tony), he slipped out of the door and broke into a light jog. After a few miles, he was almost sprinting through the lush forest and still he couldn't break out of the mood. It felt like bees buzzing in his head. He wished they would coalesce their complaints into coherent thought so he could do something about them. Defeated, he slumped into a porch chair as soon as he returned. The first few tendrils of dawn were sending a blush of colour across the sky. Showering could wait for this view.
"Let me guess, couldn't sleep, huh?" Bucky stood in the doorway, a lopsided smile quirking the corner of his mouth, warmth in his grey-blue eyes.
"Hey. No. Hope I didn't wake anyone else."
"Nah, you're fine. Having the same problem myself. Beer?"
Steve gave a gentle snort "It's half five in the morning, Buck!"
"It's half ten in London. Besides we can't get drunk. Figure it doesn't really count."
Steve didn't quite follow his logic but accepted one of the leftover bottles from last night anyway. For a few moments they were just enjoying the gathering dawn together. They had done this a lot in Wakanda as Bucky was recovering from deprogramming. Steve had been adamant that Bucky take that time for himself. He was no longer a potential danger to himself and his teammates should he be taken on now illegal missions but that, to Steve's mind, was a pretty low minimum requirement to set. Seeing Bucky find peace in the Wakandan countryside had been a great comfort to Steve. It was then that he started drawing again. He wished he had the materials with him now.
"Our odds must be getting hella short." The trendy word made Steve smile. That's what came of letting his best friend hang round with a teenage genius for so long. It was largely thanks to Shuri, the firecracker of a Wakandan princess, that Bucky was finally free of Hydra's influence.
"Yeah. We've come a long way from Brooklyn."
"Not quite in one piece but close enough." Bucky gestured at the arm which was now made of vibranium rather than flesh and blood. "Thanks for bringing me back again, Steve. With all the others. Did I get round to saying that?"
"You don't have to. It's what you do for family. We lost each other before, Buck. At least this time I could do something about it."
Bucky's smile broadened. "Well. Here's to wherever our crazy lives take us next" Bucky tipped his bottle's neck towards Steve's and they connected with a soft 'clink'. Steve mirrored his friend's smile.
"About that. I'm gonna have to tie up some loose ends."
"The infinity stones." Bucky frowned "how's that gonna work again?"
"Pym particles. Bruce is building a platform here so I can use them to return the stones to the exact moment in time they were removed from. Timeline's intact and it means they wont be unaccounted for from now on. We'll know exactly where they are if a threat like Thanos turns up again."
"I don't relish the thought of that" Bucky spoke for Steve as well. The devastation he had brought was still being felt. The vanished were returned to their lives but had missed five years. Scott Lang had left his little girl behind and had returned to find her nearly a grown woman. There would be millions of bittersweet stories like that.
"Look, when you were in the past, did you really fight yourself?" Bucky asked.
"Yeah. I'm still processing that one. I would have thought we were past incredulity but..."
"Yeah. And Peggy Carter?"
That snagged on a nerve. Steve had never exactly got over her. She was the first and only woman he had ever loved but even he had been surprised at the strength of the feelings seeing her again had dredged up. He had carried her coffin to it's resting place, yet, there she had been, young, full of brisk energy and purpose as ever. He nodded.
"Guess you'll have to go back there to drop off the Tesseract?"
"Yeah. I...cant tell whether I want to see her one last time or not."
Bucky gnawed on the inside of his cheek "I've been thinking...it doesn't have to be."
"What you getting at, Buck?"
Bucky sighed "C'mon Steve. How many guys get that kinda chance? You got a time machine. You could stay with her."
"The purpose of this mission is to preserve the integrity of the timeline, Buck. That's like stomping over it in jackboots. Besides, there are people here I need to see to."
Bucky turned his chair to face Steve "Nobody's sure how this time travel thing really works. 'Sides, y'know at some point you gotta stop living your life for the sake of everyone else, Stevie. You deserve to be happy. You said to me once, in Wakanda, you feel like you'd never find someone for you to have a life with. The stones have practically gift wrapped it for you!"
"This isn't just about what I want. Where does all this leave you anyway?"
"Glad in the knowledge that my best friend is gonna live the life he deserves." Bucky shot back.
"Buck, I feel like I just got my brother back. You think I'm just gonna leave you behind?"
"Look, Steve, you've looked after me enough. Sacrificed enough. I can get by on my own."
"You don't have to." There was a steel in the blue of Steve's eyes. The old stubbornness that had carried him through all the obstacles a sickly adolescent in the Depression could encounter.
Two could play that game. "I want to! If it means you having your own good life...I want to." Bucky swallowed heavily. Steve himself felt like his Adam's apple had grown uncomfortably large.
"I could find you. When I go back I'll get you out of Hyrdra. I'll get Peggy to help me put together a team."
"No."
Steve stood and turned in disbelief to his friend "what?!"
Bucky followed suit "You worried about affecting the timeline? Finding your girl is one thing, removing the Winter Soldier...Peirce told me once that I'd...what was it? Shaped the century." At the mention of Bucky's last Hydra handler and tormenter, Steve visibly tensed. "If they didn't have me maybe...they'd make something worse. And that something worse..." Bucky seemed to have become very interested in the grain of the wooden slats of the porch they stood on. He let out a shuddering breath as he met his friend's gaze again "that something might not have a you."
"Bucky that's not all...that's not all it was. You...were strong enough to get away yourself. I read your file. The only reason they needed to wipe you so often was that you kept breaking programming. And I was still on ice. I might have helped with the final push but all those times you kept fighting your way out? That was all on you. Besides, who was it who spent his entire childhood looking after this formally skinny punk? Don't think I ever thanked *you* for that."
Bucky nodded, emotion rendering him mute. Eventually he murmured "Yeah, you did...please, Steve. Just...think about it. Promise me."
Steve crossed the space between them and enveloped his friend in wide arms. Bucky returned the hug, their heads on each other's shoulders. "Sure thing, Buck" Steve said, his own voice not entirely steady and his own eyes not entirely dry.
Bucky and Steve walked through the trees towards the pebbled beach. Incongruous in the middle of a clearing sat the technological marvel that Bruce had whipped up in a matter of days to spirit Steve back to the past. The man was certainly deserving of the praise his intellect got. He would be here any second and Sam was bound to see Steve off on his mission. They were running out of time and their conversation from the other morning had been cut awkwardly short by the wakefulness of Pepper. They hadn't had a moment since.
"So Steve...have you thought any more about...taking the chance?"
"Yeah and...I'm gonna take your advice."
"Hold it. I might just fall over. You, taking my advice? Who are you and what have you done with Steve Rogers?"
"Come on, Buck! It has been known!"
Bucky snorted "since when?"
Steve laughed with him. It was a fair question.
"I'm really gonna miss you, Buck."
"We'll see each other again. How about that bench? By the lake."
Steve could see what he was getting at "I'll take the longer road this time."
Bucky nodded, squinting at the sun filtering through the trees, listening to the sweet trilling of birdsong. "Well I guess there's only one more thing. When a captain retires, he gotta promote one of his guys. Figure we could still do with someone carrying that shield."
"It's yours, Buck. If you want it."
"Steve, come on. I can't be Captain America! I'm still down as a war criminal as far as the public is concerned for God's sake. Hows it gonna look?"
"I don't care. The've been misled. You can prove them wrong!"
"Right. But I'd have to do that first. I...want to do a few things first. Test the water." Bucky stared at the grass, momentarily far away from that lakeside.
"You clearly have someone in mind. You brought it up." Steve pressed.
"You're gonna laugh" Bucky grinned.
Steve thought for a moment. There was only one other person "Sam? You thought of Sam?"
"He's a pretty swell guy, honestly. He'd do you proud."
"I know."
"Do you think he'd kill me if I painted stars and strips on his wings?"
Steve laughed again. Bucky and Sam bickered like kids but a real friendship had developed between them. Sam's experience with the VA and his natural affable demeanour had been a great help to Bucky's recovery. He put an arm on Bucky's shoulder "look after each other out there."
"Sure thing Steve." Bucky returned the gesture, gripping Steve's arm tightly. They glanced towards the house, from which Sam and Bruce were striding.
"Time to go." Steve said and both men walked towards their friends and wherever their lives would lead.
*Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson will return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier*