MCU (c) Marvel Studios

Out of the darkness, we came running. Out of the darkness, we came running. Leaving all our ghosts and our hurt behind, leaving that bag of stones behind… in the darkness, we keep running…There's a need to believe,so we dwell on our dreams and somehow we forget to live,but you wake me up, you wake me up…See the clouds rolling in and we know what they'll bring and the fears crawling down your spine, calling your name… — My Indigo

Steve had to stoop to walk in the attic room, if he didn't he'd get a face full of dusty cobwebs and maybe a spider or two in his mouth. He wasn't keen on that, so he stooped. The room was cozy, though lacked pictures, there was a ladder leading down to the second floor and another door leading to the rest of the attic; it was for storage. Two circular windows on either end; one had the full-size bed beneath it and the other had a cushioned chest. The chimney ran through the wall between the storage side and the living side. His and Natasha's bags had already made it up, tucked at the foot of the bed. "Sorry about the mess," Clint said, poking his head up from the trap door. "If you need to move anything just toss it into the other room, I'll get to it eventually." He gave him a cheeky grin. "Laura's been yammering at me to get it cleaned."

"Oh, no, its fine," he said, smiling at the archer. "Just… last time I was in a tight place like that I was five-four, so it felt bigger back then." He made a face. "Now it just feels—"

"Cramped?"

"Yeah," Steve said, nodding in agreement. "Bit claustrophobic."

"I can see if we can't clear out the spare room downstairs. We hadn't had a chance to unpack anything, so everything is just piled in the actual guest room."

"No, it's fine," he said. "It's fine Clint, really. I appreciate you letting us stay here. Thank you."

"What are friends for," Clint said, "besides Nat's like a sister to me, so I can't turn her away. I'd never hear the end of it from my mother or my mother-in-law" — he grinned at that — "trust me Steve, don't get on the bad side of a mother-in-law."

"Well, I don't think I'll have to worry about that," he said. He put the duffle bag on the bed and pulled out a clean pair of underwear and a t-shirt. "You uh… can I take a shower?" he asked, gathering up the garments and his toilette tree wrapped in his towel.

"Sure," Clint said and a moment later there was a thump as he landed on the floor beneath. Steve climbed down and went to the bathroom. He showered and brushed his teeth, his mind wandering as he lost himself in the repetitive motions. For a moment he saw Peggy staring at him through the glass.

Let me go Steve, please… you must.

He spat into the sink and rinsed out his toothbrush. I'm seeing things, it's just my mind playing tricks on me, that's all. He never had a chance to mourn Peggy. The entire situation with Bucky and the Sokovia Accords… his grief seemed irrelevant and minuscule compared to everything else. Then he was on the run and Natasha came back into his life. It was too much for him when all he wanted to do was cry over the fact Peggy was gone. He couldn't cry though — he picked up the small pair of scissor and his razor, his beard had gotten too thick for his liking — he was Captain America, the Sentinel of Liberty (he wondered who came up with these monikers), and he had to be the stalwart unmovable force in the face of all odds — he tapped the hair clogged razor against the side of the sink, rinsed it and went back to shaving — the world didn't care that Steve Rogers lost someone he loved, the world didn't care that beneath the mantel of Captain America was a man with emotions, hopes, dreams, fears of his own. No, the world never cared about any of that. The world only cared about Captain America, and Captain America didn't cry, didn't break.

He splashed water on his face to get rid of the excess shaving cream; patting his cheeks dry before taking the scissors and trimming his beard until it was flush with his face, shaping it around his lips. He looked… better, less haggard. His face felt light too. He splashed some water and wiped his face again before cleaning up after himself. He opened the door to see Natasha, fist raised to knock. He swallowed, taking in her startled expression. "Nat."

"Steve." She flicked her eyes up and down. "Aw, guess I won't get to keep you warm."

He laughed weakly. "Yeah, too bad, so bad." He rubbed the back of his calf with his foot, slipped passed her and gestured towards the bathroom. "All yours, water's nice and warm, just for you."

"You're so considerate," she said, a teasing lilt to her voice. "Guess I'm sleeping on the couch since you don't need me."

"Bed's big enough," he said with a shrug, "no need to make more work for Laura." He tugged at a loose thread on his towel, glancing at the pictures on the walls. Clint and Laura's wedding, Cooper's birth, Lila's birth, Nathaniel's birth. The older two children at various stages of life, a picture of all the Avengers. He touched it, remembering when that day. He felt like he had found a family, a hodgepodge clobbered together one, but a family nonetheless. "I remember when that was taken," he said, pointing to the picture. "Third year being outta the ice, just after Shield fell. Tony joked that it was a family photo."

"It kinda is," she agreed. "The good ol' days, huh?"

"Yeah." He nodded, missing everyone in that photo. He still carried that burner phone, still checked it and kept it charged, waiting for Tony to call. He never did. So was I. He closed his eyes at that, the bitterness in Tony's voice when he said that, the utter hurt that he was choosing Bucky over him. He jerked when he felt Natasha's hand on his arm. "Hm?"

"Get some rest," she said, "I'll be up in a few minutes." She kissed his cheek, gave him a smile and slipped into the bathroom. The door shut behind her with a soft click and he stood there, in nothing but his boxers and a t-shirt, besides the bathroom door. He shook himself, realizing a small child could stumble upon him at any moment and retreated to the attic room.

The trapped door creaked, Natasha's damp blonde head appeared, and she hauled herself up. "Think it'll get too cold tonight?" She kicked the trap door close.

"Heat rises, so…" he gave a shrug, snapping the compass closed. "I've slept in worst places, colder places enough."

"I know" — she gave him a cheeky grin — "you had a bed of ice for the last seventy years."

He rolled his eyes. "That's not what I meant." He set the compass on the nightstand and crawled into bed. He propped his head up, watching her get ready for bed. She dried her hair, squirted some leave in conditioner into her palm and ran it through her blonde locks, then applied facial cream to her cheeks and hand lotion to her arms and legs. Her pajama shorts hung low and her hips and one strap of her sleep-tank fell off her shoulder.

"You watching me, Steve?" she asked, mock glaring at him. He smirked, amusement twinkling in his eyes.

"Just enjoying the view," he said. She slinked towards him on cat-silent feet, the bed sagged when she climbed in, her lithe body covering him, and she stared down at him. Her expression was unreadable with her viper-smirk and smoldering eyes. He swallowed, cheeks growing hot; she pushed him on his back, sitting on his stomach. "Darling?" he breathed, voice husky and he felt a bit nervous. She kissed his brow and slid off him, snuggling against his side. He pouted.

"Oh don't pout." She giggled, poking him in the ribs until he squirmed. "Steve," she said. "I'm sorry… about what I said. About how your dream with Peggy died when you went into the ice."

The silence pressed in around them, oozing into all the negative spaces. He flicked the desk lamp off, plunging the room into darkness and pulled her close. "You were right," he said. "No need to apologize."

"Still," she said as she pillowed her head against his bicep. "I'm sorry. I know how much she meant to you."

You have no idea. He closed his eyes, nuzzling her nape and a ragged sigh escaped his lips. "Thank you," he said. "I appreciate it."

"Shortly after I got done with my training, two or three years maybe, I was married to a test pilot."

"You were married?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "I was. His name was Alexi Shostakov. It was an arranged marriage, we didn't love each other at first but eventually… we learned to. It was nice, while it lasted." She half-smiled in the darkness. "Then one day I came home from a mission to our empty apartment, there was a KGB agent that was associated with the Red Room sitting at the kitchen table. Told me Alexi was dead."

"I'm sorry, Nat," he said, lips brushing the back of her neck. "If there's anything—"

"No," she said, rolling over to face him. "There isn't. Zima told me Alexi may still be alive, but—" she shrugged, pressing her face into the crook of his neck.

"But what?"

"I love you. So even if Alexi's alive, it doesn't matter." She sighed, he felt her lashes brush against his skin as she closed her eyes. "No sense in going back."

The words hung heavy between them; the silence gleeful and gloating as it wormed it's bullying way between them. Peggy had told him something similar, that at some point you realize that the only way to move forward was to start over. There was no going back. He didn't say anything, trying to pluck up the courage to do so and by the time he had gathered a sufficient amount, Natasha was asleep; her even breathing fanning the pulse point on his neck. He watched her, studying how her face went slack in sleep, the tension leaving her body; like a predator, her guard was down. It took him a moment to realize that she felt safe in his arms and the subconscious hyper vigilance that commanded her waking hours completely dissipated now. He envied her. He envied her because she felt secure and it was because of him. In the past he'd have felt a sense of honor that someone trusted him in such an intimate fashion, now he just felt a sense of inadequacy and regret. He couldn't protect those most important to him.

Natasha murmured something, snuggling closer to him and the nighttime sounds seeped peaceful tendrils out from the shadowy places of the house. Creaks and groans, squeaks and moans, a dripping faucet somewhere downstairs, Natasha's soft breathing, Clint's snores. The muffled howl the wolves and the laughing of the coyotes. Patterns in the darkness dancing before his eyes as he laid awake, Morpheus refusing to visit him. So, he listened to the house sigh, brooding as it protected its occupants from the prodding night. In this cocoon of darkness, his mind wandered down the long corridors of his memory, through time and place; memory after memory.

The night enjoyed coaxing his worst memories to the surface. His mother, pale and forlorn as she hacked up her lungs in their tiny Brooklyn apartment. Her eyes bright and feverish, sweat beading her brow. He called him by his father's name a few times, locked in fever dreams; telling him how she wished she could see Ireland once more: the rolling hills, green in the grey morning mist, smell the salty North Atlantic and hear the gulls cry as they circled the cliffs and the castle by the sea. Then she would cry, tears cascading down her cheeks, mourning the man he never knew anew; she'd tell him how he promised he'll come back from the trenches, how they'd go back to Ireland one day and live there again; she'd curse his father, too, demanding to know why he left her to raise their overly sick son all on her own, miles away from any kith or kin, in a country that looked down upon the Irish folk as if they were no better than the blacks. In her moments of lucidity near the end, she would cup his cheek and tell him what a good boy he was, quitting school and putting his own dreams and aspirations on hold to take care of his dying mother, how his father would be so proud of him for his noble sacrifice and how sorry she was for burdening him in such a fashion. He remembered smiling and telling her he was just being a good son, and that its no bother, he was happy to do this, she was his mother and he loved her. He'd have time later to go to art school and study under the French masters in Paris. It was an empty hope, but he clung to it all the same, even if he went to the roof at night to cry as his world sundered apart before his eyes and he was helpless to stop it.

She died. The war broke out three years later and when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941; he, Bucky and several other young men from their neighborhood and made their way down to the recruiting office to sign up. He remembered listening to Roosevelt make his famous speech on the radio as he read the newspaper waiting for his name to be called. The doctor took one look at his medical record, asked what his father and mother died of and stamped the dreaded 4F in the box on the lower right corner of the paperwork before handing it back to him. Bucky came out a bit later, IA on his paperwork and telling him he was to head to basic training in a few days. Bucky was crushed when he had said that the army rejected him. He considered trying the Navy on the off chance they were just that desperate to take a frail young man desperate to help with the war effort but decided against it. So, he went back to the Army, this time saying he was from various town in New England and the Midwest. Five times. Five 4F stamps. In the in-term he did his part, collecting scrap metal and rubber when he could, went to work and sat on the corner drawing portraits for young couples who had loved ones going overseas soon. The handsome young men — in their olive-green uniforms or navy jumpers, their peaked caps and Dixie cups jauntily cocked upon their heads — their pretty dames smiling on their arms. He'd smile and charge twenty-five cents.

Then at the World Expo he met Dr. Erskine and agreed to his mad proposal to participate in this secret program to fight Nazis. Despite his plethora of health issues, Erskine had selected him, turned him into a super soldier and he stopped a Hydra spy — or tried to at least, the man had killed himself before anyone had gotten to them. Colonel Philips had wanted him in a lab being studied like a bejeweled rat, but the Senator had different plans: promoting him to captain (he remembered vaguely wondering if the Senator could just hand out officer commissions like that or if because he was who he was if this was a special case). He toured the country for a year, selling war bonds and acting in films and other propaganda to keep the moral of the American people at home high and going strong. And while he was kissing babies and posing for pictures and signing autographs and punching Hitler (yes, he was aware it was just an actor, his name was Bob Radley, nice fella) over two hundred times, he knew that Bucky and the other young men of his neighbourhood and the country were fighting and dying in the Pacific and Europe; the understanding galled him. He could make a real difference in the war against Tōjō and Hitler, yet here he was prancing around like a trained monkey to the piper's tune.

Then he made it to Europe with the USO, and the stark reality had hit him hard. He put on a brave face, brushing it off and believing that these men that have seen hell and horrors he couldn't fathom would warm up to him and his little circus act. Peggy had saved him, that and learning that Bucky's unit had been captured and the desperate need to rescue his friend. He came back, rescued Bucky and four hundred other men; Colonel Philips had realized then that they had been hiding their best weapon — him — behind the mantle of war bond salesman. He led the Howling Commandos, dismantling Hydra, liberating Nazi prisoner of war camps, helping turn the tide of skirmishes. Stories of Captain America spread through the Allies' ranks, commanders used his possible showing up to instill a hope into their men to keep fighting, because maybe he'd appear — shield glinting in the sunlight — to break the Nazi lines and lead the charge to victory. Towards the end, the mission of the Howling Commandos shifted more towards rooting out Hydra. Though he did help liberate one concentration camp — Buchenwald. Never before had he seen such gaunt and haunted faces, men and women staring back at him as if he was a god descended from the heavens or a figment of their imaginations. It was sobering, leading the skeletal prisoners out, telling them it was okay, they are Americans and are here to help and that they were free; they didn't believe it, mistrust clear in their cadaverous eyes. He wasn't sure how he felt — hollow, empty, terrified — he sat with Peggy that night, sketching the ghoulish prisoners, he couldn't get the images out of his head, so he put them on paper. At least on paper they became tangible, something. He and Peggy shared a few words, stories about their respective childhoods, and then she went to bed. He trudged his way back to his bunk, only to find Bucky sobbing in the darkness. He had held his friend, listening to Bucky try to rationalize what they had seen that the camp, telling him how he'd never protest or complain about anything ever again. He cried too after a few minutes, the blatant horror he witnessed… the inhumanity of the human creature, was too much to bare.

Bucky's death — he still called it that for lack of a better way of explaining it — had followed on the heels of Buchenwald. Remembering it always happened in slow motion: the Hydra soldier attack him, Bucky picking up his shield to in an effort to make a valent stand against the man he was no match for, the blue energy striking the shield and since Bucky didn't have his enhance strength, he went flying into the side of the railcar, busting it open. The creak of the broken handle, Bucky's eyes filled with terror as he tried to reach for him — the barest brush of his fingers — watching him fall, his scream ringing in his ears (Bucky's scream still haunted him, plaguing him in the dark hours of the night). He buried his pain, forcing himself to continue on. He couldn't get drunk, not that drinking would numb the pain any, but he wanted to forget — just once — everything and he couldn't do that. Peggy had told him to honor Bucky's sacrifice, and he did. He gathered his heavy broken heart and soldiered on, defeating the Red Skull, making empty promises with the memory of her kiss still upon his lips. He had crashed the Valkyrie into the ice, saving the world, helping to end the war and while everyone he cared about believed he was dead.

If someone asked him if he remembered anything from his time in the ice, he'd say no. All he remembered was blackness and memories. His mind replayed every memory over and over until he regained consciousness. He woke up, seventy years in the future to the threat of aliens invading and the reality that the Norse gods existed. Afterwards, he tracked down everyone he used to know — most were dead, the living ones too senile to remember — and found himself alone in a new century, a new millennium. Finding had been a small comfort, but she had moved on, leaving him behind in 1945. He didn't blame her, how could he? To the world he was dead. Yet, it still hurt a lot to know she hadn't waited for him like in the stories of his childhood; and to add insult to injury, he learned that his sacrifice had been in vain. Hydra had seeped into the aching fearful wound left from the war and festered; putrefying and infecting the good intentions of a world trying to prevent another Hitler from rising again. An unholy phoenix rising from the necrotic flesh of its host. He had burned it in cleansing fire; bringing down Hydra in a maelstrom of fire, metal and blood. The charred bones laid at the bottom of the Potomac.

Yet, the worst thing to learn in this new time was that Bucky had survived only to be twisted into an agent of Hydra, a ghastly assassin with a metal arm that always got his mark. He had read the file Natasha got him, read the list of people Bucky had killed. It broke his heart — he punched the wall of his apartment in fact — when he learned that Bucky had killed Howard Stark and his wife. While Bucky and Howard never got a long per se, both men were his friends and to know he had lost them both in different ways had hurt. Sam tried to help, using his experience with vets suffering from PTSD from VA, but Steve had brushed him off. Natasha had been right, tracking Bucky had been a dead end; until the Sokovia Accords and Zemo's plot to shatter the Avengers surfaced.

He hated the entire thing, he disagreed with the Accords, with how Tony was insisting on them — he saw how government oversight mucked things up first hand during the Great Depression, all of Roosevelt's alphabet soup programs hurt the country more than the Depression had (he had read everything he could find on his era after the ice) — and how he felt that it was a violent breach of civil liberties. Peggy had died amidst it all; he had to forget his crushed heart, pick up its piece and shove them into his pockets and carry on, the dead could wait for mourning, but the living needed him.

A gust of wind buffed the house, jerking him out of his doze (when did he fall asleep he?), eyes wide and fearful, the ghosts of his past flickering in the shadows. Natasha snuggled against him, murmuring in her sleep and he brought himself back to the present, away from the beckoning memories. "It's in the past," he whispered, "can't hurt you." He pulled her closer and closed his eyes again, drifting off again, where his mind assaulted him anew.

Siberia was hellish, bleak and cold. Zemo gloating in his bomb proof bunker as Tony attacked Bucky; he tried to intervene, to calm Tony down, to make his friend see reason. But Tony had closed himself off to reason and logic, there was only seething hatred left. He fought one friend, while trying to protect the other and in the end, there was only blood — Bucky's blood — splattered on the white snow and iron grey walls. Bucky's eyes glassy and lifeless, his cybernetic arm severed, sparks and melted metal glowing orange in the dim light. A rage he never experienced flooded him and he attacked Tony with all the strength his possessed, smashing the weaker points of Tony's armour until he had the other man prone on the ground. He tore Tony's faceplate off, tore the bevor in half and wrapped his fingers around Tony's throat, squeezing the life out of him. "St-Steve," Tony gasped, clawing at his crushing hand, he raised the other to bash Tony's face in. "Steve, it's… it's me— Natasha. Steve!"

"Steve!" Clint's voice broke through his dream; Tony's image vanished as reality crashed around him. The trap door was open, the hall light was on and faintly illuminating the attic room and he felt Clint's hands on his shoulders. "C'mon Steve let her go — damn it, you're choking her! Her lips are starting to turn blue!"

Good, he deserves it for what he did to Bucky — wait, what? Her? Steve blinked, eyes focusing on Natasha, who stared back at him in terrified confusion, her lips tinting blue and face too pale. "Oh God!" he let go of her throat as if contact with her skin burned him and scrambled away. Natasha sucked in air with a loud gasp, color returning to her face. Clint was by her side, asking her what happened as if she was okay. She rubbed her throat and he felt their eyes on him. He shook, getting to his feet in a numb daze. He pulled a pair of sweats and a coat, brushing pass them and left the house.

Steve tugged the collar of his coat around his neck tighter, shivering in the pre-dawn gloom. It was still dark, the faintest of glows on the eastern horizon, the only hint that dawn was on its away. The events from earlier kept replaying in his mind: his dream, Natasha beneath him with his hand crushing her throat, Clint horrified face; Cooper had woken up and was standing beside his mother, the way Laura flinched, pulling her son closer to her as if he was somehow dangerous.

He closed his eyes against the pain, the ache building up in his chest, in his throat, behind his eyes. He wanted to cry, yet he didn't. The landscape was silent. The wolves had stopped howling, the coyotes no longer cackled, the frogs and crickets had bedded down for the colder parts of the night. Only the wind kept him company, rustling through the dry grasses, sighing through the drafty lofts of the old barn and folded wings of the Stark jet. Every now and then it howled, buffeting him with icy cold. He hated the cold, more than anything; Sam had joked he really was an old man. But he hated the looks in the eyes of his friends more. Monster, their stares said. Monster.

He always had been aware of his strength. It had never been a problem before because he was aware of his abilities, plus he had the tendency to be reserve with the patience of a saint (he had his impulsive tendencies, especially when it was connected to something he held dear). He reminded himself that he wasn't like Bruce. Yet, that didn't change the fact that he had hurt Natasha.

God, I could've killed her. He rubbed his face, ran a hand through his hair. I should just leave. He glanced at the jet behind him and sighed. Not for the first time, he wished he had died the day he crashed the Valkyrie into the ice. Then survivor's guilt would plague him, his regrets burdening him. He looked up when he heard footsteps, the sky slate grey and Natasha standing before him. "Steve," she said, her voice soft and a bit hoarse. He fixated on the purple hand shaped bruise on her throat; it ripped his heart out. He swore he'd never hurt her and he did.

Maybe Schmidt was right, maybe I am just like him. "Jesus, I'm so sorry Nat."

She gave him a smile as she sat beside him. "I forgive you." She patted his arm, and he flinched at her touch, though if it bothered her she didn't show it. She settled her hands in her lap. "I've had nightmares before. Hurt people I cared about in my sleep before, too. Don't beat yourself up about it," she said. "We're all experienced it before in our line of work."

"I hurt you." He stared at the sky, watching the stars begin to fade, no match for the light of the sun. The night retreating in the wake of day, slow and peaceful, Helios leading the way for Hemera. "I love you and I hurt you. What kind of man am I? What kind of man hurts the woman he loves?" He looked at his hands and all he saw them around Natasha's fragile throat. He swallowed thickly, self-hatred settling like a rock in his gut; he refused to let the tears fall. "The Red Skull said we were the same. Both men that have surpassed mere mortals. He had embraced what he became and said that I hadn't." He stared at his awful hands. "He was a monster… and at the time I knew I wasn't like him. How could I be? I was an American, I believed in freedom, justice and liberty. I was on the right side of the war. One of the good guys." He gave a weak laugh. "But now… now I wonder if he was right. That I'm just like him. A monster."

The slap across his face rung in the twilit air. Nothing stirred, even the encroaching dawn halted is advance in surprise. He stared at her in open surprise, blue eyes disbelieving. "Don't you ever say that again Steve Grant Rogers," she seethed. "Don't you even think it! You are nothing like the Red Skull. You hear me? Nothing." Her vitriol surprised him, and he swallowed a bit in nervous shock. "You are a good man. An honest man. A noble man. The man I love, and you are not monster." Her shoulders slumped, eyes softening as the fiery passion left them. A melancholic smile graced her lips as she cupped his face. "You are the sweetest, kindest and most honorable man I know. You are a good man. A good man with a good heart in a world that shits on people like you." She pulled him into a hug. "And that's why the world needs men like you."

He cried into her neck. Cried for his mother, for Bucky, for Peggy, for her, for himself. She held him; not judging him but accepting him. The eastern horizon was bleeding orange and soft pink, the sun inching its way into the sky. His tears stop as the first rays of the new day touched awashed them in aureate light. He pulled away, sniffling and wiping his tears with his thumb. He found his voice after a moment or two. "I never got a chance to mourn her… Peggy. The Sokovia Accords, Bucky… everything. It all happened so fast that I just buried it deep and now that I have a moment… it… it just all came flooding up" — he squeezed her hand, watching the sky — "it hurts Nat. It hurts so much. God, I miss her. I can't believe she's gone. We never had a chance. Between the war and Hydra, we never had a chance. And then I wake up and its has if I'm still stuck in '45 and she has moved on, left me behind. I feel so lost, adrift." He shook his head, his bangs falling into his eyes and he pushed them back with a haggard sigh. "The shrinks Shield had all said I was adjusting well, that I wasn't suffering from PTSD or anything else" — he gave a derisive snort — "what did they know. I'm just good at hiding my pain. Had to be with how I grew up, didn't want to worry my mother too much." He looked at the paling sky, indigo had given way to magenta and cerulean followed on its heels. "So now that she's gone I'm afraid to let go. Afraid to start over, even though I know I have to."

"I know," she said. "I know that feeling too. I felt the same way when Clint pulled me out. You feel like you're on semi-auto. Moving through life but not fully there. You fake it until it hurts, just to keep others from worrying but inside you're falling apart and everywhere you turn there are ten thousand obsidian sharp memories slicing you open and you are just drowning in them. Drowning and reaching for a life line that isn't there."

"Yeah."

"The difference between you and I is that I was alone" — she looked at him — "you're not alone Steve. I won't let you be alone."

It was then that the darkness that had shrouded his soul, that had grown thicker with Peggy's death broke apart; the light of Natasha's love piercing it like the first rays of dawn. He bit his lip to keep it from trembling as he pulled her into a tight embrace, whimpering as he gathered himself. It hurt, letting go, but he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He could do this, step out of the darkness and into light. He had a new guiding star. The sunlight felt warm on his skin; he looked up at the sky, a clear pale blue and for a moment he saw Peggy with a knowing loving smile on her face.

Whatever happened, whatever the future had in store for them, he could face it. He had Natasha by his side and she would never let him be alone again.

SEQUEL - ALL I NEED

Sorry it took me so long to get this up, but someone complained about Steve feeling like two different people so I spent two weeks or thereabouts. This chapter was vastly different originally but it just felt… right doing it this way in the end.

Ironically, it feels as if this tale is at an end. I'm not sure what else to do really. Well, I guess Natasha still has some past demons. I'll sleep on it. I actually know how the final scene of this story goes, so… (it ties into Infinity War so nicely too).

A brief blurp about history in the bit about Steve's mother: both the blacks and the Irish were horribly mistreated in American history, both groups had reasons to hate WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), that being said, a black woman faced slightly better prospects than an Irish woman in the 20s and 30s. If you wish to discuss this further, please PM. I believe in historical accuracy and the fact is both the Irish and blacks were mistreated.

Buchenwald was the first concentration camp liberated by US forces, on April 11, 1945. The war with Germany ended May 7, 1945. I wanted Steve to help liberate a camp for two reasons. 1. I think he did help liberate at least one camp, and that truly showed him the inhumanity of not only Hitler and the Nazis but also Schmidt and Hydra (because you know I both know Schmidt siphoned workers off of the camps). 2. Having him not help liberate a camp is completely not within his moral code, plus I headcanon that prior to April-May of 1945, he helped with other parts of the war as they hunted down Hydra camps. So he liberates Buchenwald. I also put Bucky's "death" near the end of April and the Steve's fight with the Red Skull in the first week of May. (I know I'm going to get shit from some rabid fanboy asking if I even seen the First Avenger, yeah buddy, I have. Thrice!)

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Love to all my silent readers.

Nemo et Nihil

PS: This chapter made me cry, I had to collect myself for a moment after writing the passage with Steve's mother. It hit too close to home.