"Hi, I'm here to see Captain Rogers." Tony beams his most brilliant smile at the woman behind the reception desk.

After a sudden decline of his health, Rogers had been forced to move into a nursing home. Tony still has a hard time to accept that Steve Rogers has become a frail old man. Maybe that's the reason why he used every excuse not to come here until now.

"Are you his son?" the receptionist asks unfazed.

"You don't know who I am?"

"No. Have we met before? I'm really not good with names... or faces."

Tony stares at her, not knowing how to feel. How could there be a single person on this earth who didn't recognize the savior of the universe?

"My name is Tony Stark."

"Nah... doesn't ring a bell."

He holds up his artificial arm, points at the arc reactor in the back of the hand and almost yells at her, "I am Iron Man!"

"I think there is something wrong with your hand. It glows."

"Don't you ever watch the news?"

"No, I'm not that interested what happens in the world. Keeps me sane."

After a deep breath, Tony forces himself to smile at her again.

"If you say so... Where can I find Mr. Rogers then?"

"Room 616."

"Thank you."

- – -

Nervously, Tony knocks at the door of room 616.

A weak voice calls him in.

"Hey, Cap?"

"Tony! So nice to see you!"

Steve appears genuinely delighted to see him. The soldier sits in a wheelchair in front of the window and looks out into the garden.

"Hey, man. Sorry, it took me so long to get here. I'm quite busy these days, you know..." He has a hard time looking Steve in the eyes.

"Don't worry. Bucky and Sam come over nearly every day. I'm not lonely."

The old man smiles softly at him, and Tony can't help but think that maybe Steve lies to make him feel less guilty.

"Oh yeah? That's great. Good to hear."

"Why don't you take a seat, Tony?" Steve points to a chair next to the window. It's an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair, and Tony frowns at it.

"Tell you what, Cap, how about we instead go outside to the park. The weather is a dream, probably for the last time this fall, so why waste it?"

Steve nods with a silent smile.

- – -

Ten minutes later, they sit side by side on a bench, Steve's wheelchair abandoned behind them. It was a bit of a shock for Tony to realize how thin and fragile the former super-soldier had become. Tony had been able to heave him effortlessly from the wheelchair to the bench.

Now they sit there in silence and watch the squirrels and the birds. From time to time, a jogger or someone walking their dog passes them, but overall they are alone.

"Ask." Steve's prompt rouses Tony from his thoughts.

"What?" It takes the engineer a second to understand what the other man has said.

"Ask. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"I don't know what you-"

"Oh, come on, Stark! I'm too old for this shit!"

Tony raises an eyebrow. "Language, Captain."

"Was I really that obnoxious?"

With a laugh, Tony shrugs. "Sometimes."

Tony's voice is soft and neutral. He has let go of the bitterness he felt after Siberia and Titan a long time ago. It had poisoned his thoughts for far too long.

They remain silent for a moment until Steve finally says, "I never really apologized."

"No, you didn't."

"I'm sorry. I was wrong. About so many things. I was young and dumb back then..."

"Took you only eighty years to get to this conclusion, hu?"

Now it is Steve who laughs. "More like one hundred twenty years, but yeah..." He looks back at Tony. "Ask."

"So, what has happened to you since you disappeared to bring the stones back to the past?"

"First, I returned the stones, which is an adventure on its own that I'll have to tell you about someday."

"And then?"

"Then I went back in time to fulfill a promise I gave someone before I was frozen for nearly seventy years."

"What promise?"

"I promised Peggy Carter a dance." Lost in memories, Steve smiles. "My initial plan was to return home after that."

"But?"

"I stayed there. I wanted to come home from the war. Live a quiet life; maybe have a family."

"Doesn't sound like that worked out for you..."

"Somewhere out there was my best friend, getting tortured by Hydra. I couldn't sit at home with that knowledge and do nothing. Also, Peggy and Howard worked so hard to found S.H.I.E.L.D. The idea that Hydra was already working on the infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D., trying to destroy all this hard work – I couldn't let that happen!" The smile on his face turns earnest. "I realized by going back in time, I created an entirely new timeline! And now it was me, who was responsible for this new universe!"

"I always knew you had a bit of a god complex, Cap..."

"But it is true! There were so many horrible things I knew I could prevent from happening! I talked to Peggy about this. She kicked my ass for waiting over a month to tell her that I was from the future. Three days later, we went on a mission to save Bucky. After that, we started to dismantle Hydra. Piece by piece. That took us the better part of two decades, but in the end, it was worth it: in 1970, when Tony Stark was born, Hydra didn't exist anymore."

"Does that mean..." Tony can't finish this sentence.

Steve nods. "Without Hydra, nobody tried to kill Maria and Howard."

"So they..."

"Howard died in 2012, age 95. Maria died a year later from a malignant brain tumor. It was diagnosed far too late – nobody could have helped her, not even the world's most renowned neuro-surgeon. In the end, she didn't have to suffer much; it all happened very fast. I think she missed Howard, so she was at peace with her fate." Consolatory, Steve put his hand on Tony's. "But don't feel bad for them – they had many happy years together. I should know that: Peggy and I were their closest friends. Little Tony grew up along with our sons. They were thick as thieves, the three of them – they founded the Avengers in 1996."

"The other Tony became Iron Man before..." Another sentence Tony can't finish, but Steve seems to read his mind anyway.

"He was never kidnapped and held hostage in Afghanistan. He never was in Afghanistan for a weapon demonstration, period. Stark Industries had stopped manufacturing weapons two decades ago. I choose to think this was due to my good influence. I want to believe that it was me who convinced Howard that war had no future, unlike clean energy and wireless communication."

"Wow, you got through to my old man? That's quite a feat!"

"Well, it wasn't that difficult, took me only fifty years," Steve laughs. "So... where was I?"

"Avengers. In 1996," Tony helps.

"Oh, yes! They were marvelous!"

"They? What about you? Weren't you part of the team?"

"No. By then, the super-soldier serum had started to wear off. I started aging again, no super strength anymore and all the other benefits of the serum. In the beginning, it was hard for me to adjust."

"The Avengers without a Captain America. That sounds wrong."

"Don't say that – when the original Steve Rogers from that timeline was found in 2003, he joined the team."

"You left the other Steve nearly sixty years in the ice and practically lived his life? That's cold! No pun intended."

"We tried to find him."

Tony shot him a disbelieving look.

"No, really! But even with the knowledge of the exact coordinates where the plane had crashed and where they discovered me in 2011, we weren't able to find him. The currents in the region were too complex to predict his position and the sensor technology was not nearly advanced enough to locate him. So, it took us longer than expected to find him."

"Okay. Accepted. But after you had found him: wasn't that complicated with two Steve Rogerses at the same time?"

"When I returned to the 1950s, I changed my name. I haven't been Steve Rogers ever since." He looks down at his hands. "I was aware the whole time that he would return someday. I've taken so much from him already. As you said, I lived his life while he was frozen. The least I could do was to let him keep him his name. So I decided to become someone else. And honestly, it is odd to be called Steve Rogers again after such a long time."

"What name were you called?"

"Gant Carter. My second name and-"

"You took on Peggy's last name. That's surprisingly progressive for a guy your age," Tony teases.

"Well, that's me. Full of surprises." He turns and stares Tony straight in the eyes. "But enough about me. How are you? Your arm..."

"Was just an arm. I'm alive, that's all that matters." Tony shrugs and waves his artificial arm through the air. "Honestly, I think I am the luckiest guy on earth. I am alive, and I have the greatest family imaginable. You know, I feel like someone who survived being struck by lightning twice in a row and won the lottery jackpot afterward. No one should be that lucky."

"Look, if anybody I know ever deserved that, it is you, Tony."

Tony smiles at Steve or should he call him Gant now?

While he is still debating with himself, a portal opens a couple of feet away from them.

Tony and Steve look up in alarm, but it is just Morgan, who storms out and climbs on the bench beside her dad. She is covered all over with some white powder.

"Hey, little Miss. Is that flour?" Tony asks.

"No, cocaine. She found your stash and covered herself with the stuff. Now she's hyperactive. I've tried to calm her down for the last two hours. It's been a nightmare!" It's Stephen who has followed Morgan. Behind him, on the other side of the gateway, lies Happy's kitchen, but Tony is too thrown off the loop by the doctor's words to notice.

"Cocaine? What the hell?! I'm not hiding any coke!"

"Just kidding, Tony. Of course, it's flour. We're baking a cake. Have you forgotten what day tomorrow is?" Stephen is unmistakably annoyed.

"Taco Tuesday?"

For that, Stephen regards him with this 'are you serious?' stare as an answer. The one he only uses when Tony has said something particularly stupid.

"No, dummy! It's mommy's birthday!" Morgan snuggles closer to her father, getting the flour all over his clothes too in the process.

"Oh, dammit! I forgot. That explains the cake."

"Tony! We talked about that just yesterday!" Stephen snatches their daughter from the bench and carries her close to his hip.

"I wasn't listening..."

"Yeah, I figured that out. The reason why we're here: Where did you put the gift? We want to hide it inside the cake. As a surprise. You know, as I discussed with myself yesterday."

"You can't bake that into a cake! That would damage it!"

"Tony, we spent the last two hours trying to make a hollow cake, where we can put the present in! It's been a fuck-" he looks down at Morgan, "...a fantastic nightmare and I want to finish that now. So, please tell me where you stored the damn thing!"

"In the sock drawer. I wrapped it into the purple socks nobody likes."

"With good reason, they are revolting! Thank you, Tony." He leans down and gives Tony a floury kiss on the cheek. "See you later."

Through the closing portal, they can hear Stephen and Happy bickering.

"What did you do now! Look at this mess you made!" the doctor yells.

"I did nothing! It just did that on its own! What should we do now?"

"How should I know? I'm a doctor, not a pastry chef!"

Between their quarrel, Morgan yells laughing, "Fuck!"

Then the connection breaks, leaving Tony and Steve alone in the tranquility of the park.

"Oh, great... Seems like Morgan has learned a new word," Tony groans. "Pepper's going to kill us when she finds out."

Steve beside him, doesn't react. He is too busy laughing his ass off.

"Maybe I should go home and help them," Tony muses, a dreamy smile on his face. "Unbelievable that this is my life now. It's batshit crazy, but I love every damn second of it."

Steve wipes a tear from his eye. "Yes, go to them." His expression turns into a melancholic half-smile. "Treasure it while it lasts. Because it will end."

"A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts..." Tony recites Vision's words. Sympathetic, he puts his hand on Steve's arm. "Is that why you returned here in the end?"

Steve doesn't look at him, now with tears in his eyes for entirely different reasons.

"You have to know my sons, they were a lot like me. Physically, I mean. I must have passed some of the super-soldier serum on to them. But not my longevity. So, when the last of them died, I saw no reason to stay there and came back. There was one last thing I had to do: Pass on the shield..."

"I'm sorry for you."

"Don't. I had a long and happy life, as well as my family. There is nothing to regret."

Steve grabs Tony's shoulder, and the engineer is surprised how familiar this friendly gesture feels.

"Also, I firmly believe that I will see them again, one day."

"That's a nice thing to believe."

Tony tries to wipe a tear unnoticed out of the corner of his eye. But one look at Steve tells him it was in vain.

"I should return to my room. It'll be time for supper soon, and you should go home before Happy and Strange burn down the house – or strangle each other."

That makes Tony chuckle. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea... But what about you?"

"I'm fine, don't worry. Also, you'll come 'round next week, same time, right?"

"Deal."

Tony helps his friend back into the wheelchair and drops him off at his room before heading home. The annoying, chaotic, and wonderful home he wouldn't trade for anything in the world.