"How'd I know I'd find you in here?"
Natasha stilled at the kitchen sink and smiled to herself at the sound of Steve's voice. She turned to face him, leaning back against the counter.
"Are you being antisocial or checking up on Wanda?" he asked, sliding up next to her and pressing a kiss to her forehead.
She set down the dish rag in her hand and turned back toward the sink, glancing out the window there that looked out over the backyard, "Maybe a bit of both."
Steve's eyes followed Natasha's to where Wanda was standing at the edge of the property. They'd buried Vision earlier that day without much fanfare, which is what Wanda insisted he would've wanted. At least two hours had passed since the last of them had gone inside to pour drinks and share stories about their fallen friends.
But Wanda hadn't moved from the spot in front of his headstone, even now as the sun began to dip behind the trees.
"I'm worried about her, Steve," Natasha pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. "She's lost so much."
"She's strong, Natasha. She's going to be all right," Steve wrapped his arms around her from behind and rested his chin atop her head. He understood Nat's concern. Yes, Wanda was strong-willed, but she also felt very deeply, and in the last eight years she'd lost her home, her brother, Vision, Barton and her own life, if only temporarily. It was enough to break any one of them. "And don't forget, she has us."
Nat leaned back into him, sliding her hands across his arms where they rested around her middle, "I know, you're right. I just can't help but be worried." She closed her eyes, trying to find the words to properly explain the bond she felt with the younger woman. "It's almost like… I see myself in her. She's at this crossroads right now, and we can help guide her, but she's got to choose her own path."
Steve leaned into Natasha, pressing a kissing to her shoulder. She didn't talk a lot about her past with the KGB, but he knew enough to understand what she left unspoken, "You mean the way Barton did by helping you get into SHIELD."
"Mmhmm."
She didn't say anything else, but Steve could tell she was anxious by the way she played with his arm hair as they stood there looking out over the backyard at Wanda, "Go talk to her, Nat."
Natasha sighed heavily against him, "She said she wanted to be alone."
"What we want and what we need aren't always the same thing," Steve said, turning her back around to face him. "You, more than anyone, should know that."
She smiled up at him, mentally chiding herself for expecting him to say anything other than exactly what she needed to hear in that moment, "It's so annoying that you're always right about this stuff."
"Not always," he said, leaning down to kiss her. "But I am right about this, so go."
Natasha pulled him down for another kiss then grabbed her jacket from the closet and headed out the back door. She paused a few steps down the yard and turned back to see Steve still standing in the kitchen window. He gave her an encouraging nod then returned to their friends in the living room.
As Nat approached Wanda, she cleared her throat, not wanting to startle her. "Hey," she said, bumping their shoulders together. "How're you holding up?" Wanda turned toward her, and Natasha was surprised to see she was smiling.
"I'm… I'm actually OK," Wanda tiled her head back and breathed in the chilly autumn air. "I didn't know how I would feel after today, but knowing he's here, that he's with me and safe again, it feels like a weight's been lifted."
Relief flooded through Natasha. She linked her arm through Wanda's, and they stood together in silence, watching as the last bit of sun disappeared from the horizon, until the only light left was from the back porch behind them and the stars in the sky.
"He would've loved it here," Wanda said after a while. "He would've loved everything about this place, the trees, the solitude."
Natasha smiled sadly, knowing Clint would have, too, "It reminds me a little bit of the Barton's farm in Iowa. Just a little less… fancy."
Wanda laughed, "You mean a little less Tony?"
"That's exactly what I mean," Nat said, shaking her head in amusement. "C'mon, let's go inside."
Wanda knelt in front of Vision's headstone and pressed a kiss to her fingertips before running them lightly over the cold marble, letting them linger there. She whispered, "I love you, Vis, always."
Then she stood, linked her arm back through Natasha's, and together they headed back toward the house.
Nearly a month had passed since the "unblip", as Peter was calling it, and Bruce and Tony had finally finished rebuilding the quantum time machine that would allow them to send the Infinity Stones back to their place in time.
After a lengthy debate about who would actually take on the mission – both Sam and Thor had insisted they should do it – they came to a compromise. Thor would return to Asgard with the Aether and Mjolnir, and Sam, who was much less conspicuous than their tall, blonde and other-worldly companion, was charged with the rest.
Steve was more than happy to relinquish the job and decided there was no better opportunity to pass the shield on to Sam.
"Remember, guys, you have to return the stones to the exact moment we got them, or you're going to open up a bunch of nasty alternate timelines," Bruce said, placing Sam's five stones in a padded silver case and handing Thor a vial containing liquified Reality Stone.
"Got it, Banner," Sam clicked the case shut and nodded. "Clip all the branches."
He stepped onto the platform next to Thor and drew in a deep breath. Steve turned to Bruce and held up one finger, signaling that he needed a minute. He approached Sam, holding the shield out toward him, "You forgot something."
Sam wrinkled his brows in confusion, "Cap?"
"I've been thinking about this for a while now, and It's time for me to hang it up," Steve smiled and stepped onto the platform next to his friend. "But we both know the world needs a Captain America, and I think that person should be you."
He held the shield out toward Sam again, who accepted it, tentatively, "Steve, I don't know…"
"I do," Steve said, resting a hand on his shoulder. "I can't think of anyone who deserves it more."
Sam sucked in a breath and glanced toward Bucky, who was standing a few feet away next to Bruce, "Did you know about this?"
"I tried to talk him out of it, but you know what a stubborn son-of-a-bitch he can be," Bucky said, stuffing his hands inside his coat pockets. After a second, a smile spread across his face, and he gave Sam a reassuring nod.
"Thank you," he said with a slight hitch in his voice, turning back to Steve. "I'll do my best."
"I know. That's why it's yours," Steve pulled Sam into a hug then stepped back off the platform. "Good luck."
"All right, guys, you ready?" Bruce asked, flipping several switches on the control board.
"Let's do this," Sam replied, tightening the shield's leather straps across his forearm.
"Going quantum in 3… 2… 1," Bruce flipped the last switch, and in an instant, they were gone. Bucky and Steve held their breath as Bruce counted down from five and flipped the switch to bring them back. "And returning in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1."
And as quickly as they'd gone, Sam reappeared on the platform with an empty case and the shield strapped to his arm. Thor landed back a split second later. From next to him, Steve felt Bucky let out a long breath of relief, and in that moment, he realized something important. These two friends of his, these two men from completely different times in his life, who could barely stand to be in the same room together just a few years prior, had become friends themselves.
"I can see your gears turning, Steve," Bucky said, raising an eyebrow. "What is it?"
Steve chuckled, "Just wondering if you and Sam are going to stop pretending to hate each other now."
"Probably not," Bucky deadpanned as Sam approached them.
"All that time travel's got me hungry," he said, tossing the empty case to Bruce who was deep in conversation with Thor. "Who wants burgers?"
Steve clapped Sam on the back, and the trio headed toward the house. Sam insisted on grilling burgers on the deck, even though the temperature had dipped into the mid-40s, so Steve and Bucky sat out there with him in solidarity.
"How the hell are the two of you not freezing?" Sam asked after about 10 minutes. Even though he was wearing a heavy jacket and had a hat pulled down to cover his ears, the cold air had already begun seeping into him. Bucky and Steve, on the other hand, were seemingly unfazed by the temperature, despite them both wearing only tee shirts.
"It gets pretty cold in Russia, so I'm used to it," Bucky shrugged and took a pull from his beer then pointed at Steve. "And he took a nap in the Arctic for 70 years, so…"
Sam rolled his eyes, "You're an ass."
"Yes, yes I am," Bucky said, grinning into his beer bottle.
Steve smirked at Bucky's antics and turned toward Sam, "It's the serum. It sped up our metabolism so much that we only really experience the effects of extreme temperatures."
"Thank you, Steve, for that non-sarcastic explanation," Sam said, tossing an exaggerated scowl over his shoulder at Bucky.
Once the food was ready, they moved inside. "I'm going to go grab Nat and see if anyone else is hungry," Steve said, heading toward the hallway.
"Actually, before you do that, there's something I wanted to tell you," Sam scratched the back of his neck.
Steve turned around in the doorway to see Sam's face filled with apprehension, "What is it?"
Sam was pretty sure however he phrased what he was about to tell Steve, it was going to be a shock, so he decided to just rip the Band-Aid off, "I met Peggy Carter."
Bucky choked on his beer, "You what?"
"Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too," Sam said, handing Bucky a napkin. He turned back to look at Steve whose expression was blank.
"Steve?"
He blinked a few times at the sound of Bucky's voice as he tried to process the information. Steve had no idea Peggy would be at Camp Lehigh when he and Tony had to improvise to secure the Tesseract, so he was more than a little shocked when the office he'd been hiding in turned out to be hers.
Seeing her name plate atop the desk next to a framed photo of himself, pre-serum, was like a punch in the gut, and when he heard her voice and saw her standing there on the other side of that window every moment they had together came rushing back. Steve allowed himself, if only for a moment, to consider what could happen if he gave the Pym Particles to Tony and stayed behind. The thought was fleeting, though, and he knew he couldn't stay. Not only could he not leave Natasha behind, but he didn't want to.
As soon as his feet landed back on the platform, and he realized how close he'd come to losing her, all thoughts of what might have been were gone. Peggy was his past, and she had been since SHIELD pulled him from the ice.
"Steve?" This time it was Sam's voice, and Steve shook himself from the memory. "Do you want me to tell you what happened?"
He answered almost immediately, "Yes."
Sam took a deep breath and began recounting the events of the interaction to Steve and Bucky.
He'd landed at the base about five minutes before Past Tony arrived to grab the Tesseract, taking cover behind a stack of crates. He shook off the second-hand embarrassment from witnessing the awkward interaction between Stark and his father and returned the cube to its home. But before he could program the GPS to his next location, someone else had come in, forcing Sam to exit out a side door.
He slid into the nearest open office and closed the door behind him. It wasn't a moment later that a female voice with a sophisticated English accent rang out from behind him, "Well, hello there."
Sam's heart leapt into his chest, and he froze. "Shit," he whispered under his breath.
"If you're going to curse, at least do it to my face," the voice teased.
He turned to face the woman whose office he'd just infiltrated and recognized her immediately. He kept quiet as Peggy's assessed him from her position behind the large wooden desk. Her expression remained impassive until her eyes locked on the shield attached to his left arm.
"You're not from around here, are you?" she asked tentatively, raising a questioning eyebrow.
"No," Sam said. He considered shifting his arm to try and hide the shield but thought better of it, not wanting to insult her. "And, as much as I'd love to chat, I can't stay." He reached for the GPS on his hand, but her next words stopped him short.
"You know Steve." It wasn't a question, but a statement, a fact. She spoke the words calmly, as if the knowledge that Steve Rogers was alive in the future was less surprising than it should have been.
"Yes. I know Steve," Sam said, taking a few steps toward her. When she didn't protest, he sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk.
"How?" she asked, her smooth British accent revealing just the slightest hint of emotion.
Sam wondered how much information he should reveal. Sure, Bruce and Tony had both told him that brief interactions with people in the past wouldn't change the timeline, but this seemed like a bit of a gray area.
"Please tell me," She implored, looking Sam in the eye.
He thought for another moment and ultimately decided to share what had happened, "SHIELD found him frozen in the Arctic in 2012. The serum kept him alive in a kind of, I don't know, suspended animation."
Peggy sat back in her chair, dumbfounded, "Will I see him again?"
"You will."
Her entire body seemed to deflate, and she ran the back of her hand across her forehead, brushing a few strands of perfectly coiffed chestnut hair back off her face. "What else can you tell me?"
"Nothing, unless you promise not to do or say anything with the information that could change your future or anyone else's."
"I promise," Peggy said, making a cross motion over her heart.
Sam proceeded to explain who he was and why he was there. He told her about the stones, how Thanos used them to wipe out half the universe and how The Avengers had used them to bring everyone back. He explained that Steve decided to give up the shield, which was why it was in his possession.
"You seem like a good man, Sam," Peggy said once he'd finished. She smiled warmly at him. "Steve is lucky to have someone like you watching his six."
"Thank you, ma'am," he said, unsure of how he should address her.
"Please, call me Peggy," she replied. "Any friend of Steve Rogers' is a friend of mine."
Sam nodded then stood, "All right, Peggy, I still have one more stone to get back to where it belongs."
"Before you go, I have one last question," she cast her eyes downward briefly before looking back up at Sam. "Steve, does he… does he have someone?"
"He does," Sam smiled at Peggy, "Her name's Natasha. She's an Avenger, former SHIELD agent and resident badass. Steve clearly has a type."
She chuckled at this, glancing at the old photo of Steve she couldn't bring herself to put away, even after 25 years. "And she's deserving of him?"
"Natasha Romanoff is the best of us."
"Good. Good, I'm glad for that." Peggy stood and reached out to shake Sam's hand, returning his smile with a sincere grin of her own. "It was a pleasure, Sam."
Sam slid his arm through the straps of the shield, punched in the time, date and coordinates to Vormir and disappeared before Peggy's eyes.
Steve sat back in his chair, stunned at the revelation that his past and his present had collided in this way. He looked to Bucky, who was studying him with an apprehensive expression.
"You all right, pal?" Bucky asked, placing a steadying hand on Steve's shoulder.
"I am," Steve said, tipping his beer bottle to his lips and emptying it. He stood, feeling a sudden need to be near Natasha. "I'll be right back."
Steve took the stairs two and a time, pausing outside her bedroom to take a deep breath. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest as he pushed the door open and saw Natasha asleep with a book discarded on the bed next to her.
Steve smiled to himself and slid in beside to her, immediately feeling every ounce of tension leave his body. She instinctively reached for him, and he pulled her sleeping form snug against his chest. He lost track of how long they stayed like that, as Steve rubbed slow circles on Natasha's back, and eventually the sound of her breathing and the warmth of her body pressed up against his lulled him to sleep, too.