Author's note: Thanks to Guest, Guest, LatteLady and Jedi Alex Colbent for your reviews! To answer questions, I'm afraid I don't know much about Red Guardian, so he won't be appearing in my story, but you can definitely expect to see some important scenes with Howard Stark in future chapters. I also had no idea Steven Strange had a sister (thanks for giving me an education, guys!), but as for Carol Danvers... well, you may notice that we are almost up to the right year for her origin story. :-)

1974-1986

There was a lot to celebrate in the Carter family as the '70s advanced. The summer after Sarah's wedding, Mike followed suit, marrying Tien who, like Dave, was brought in on the family secret. By now Mike was making a name for himself at S.H.I.E.L.D. as Agent 45, and Steve was happy to see him settle into a lifestyle reminiscent of Clint Barton's, who just so happened to be born that same year. Like Clint, Mike poured all his ambition into achieving excellence at work, but his heart was never far from his home and wife.

Only a few months after Mike's wedding, the whole family came together again to meet Sarah and Dave's firstborn, a boy they named Abraham in honor of the scientist they were hoping to emulate. Sarah and Dave both took a short leave of absence from their medical practices, partly to care for their newborn but also to get a jumpstart on their personal project of attempting to extract the super-soldier serum from Steve's blood to develop medical applications for it. Steve and Peggy hardly needed the excuse to come over and hold little Bram, but they often joked that they were generously doing it just to help free up Sarah and Dave for their work.

They were lucky they now lived close enough to be of help. That year, Peggy and Steve had made the bittersweet decision to move from the home in New Jersey where they had raised their children and relocate to the Washington, D.C. area. S.H.I.E.L.D. was currently undergoing an agency-wide expansion, and had long ago outgrown its facilities at Camp Lehigh. A new headquarters was now under construction, a modern and spacious building to be located on the Potomac. Peggy was intensely proud of the project, having worked long and hard to see it come to fruition, and Steve hated to think of the Triskelion as he had last seen it, a smoking ruin on the banks of the river as the broken remnants of three helicarriers rained down from the sky. It was even more painful to think that he'd be the one to do it.

He knew there was no point to relitigating the past - his actions had saved 20 million innocent lives, and there was really nothing more to be said about it. He often thought of the words Peggy had spoken to him so many years ago when he had visited her at her bedside a few days before the Project Insight disaster: "You saved the world. We rather mucked it up," she had said with regret, and Steve now saw that Peggy had already known what was wrong with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Still, when he'd first told her, years ago, about Hydra's future infiltration, he hadn't been able to suppress the uneasy pulse of guilt as he admitted, "I shut down the agency you founded."

"You didn't," Peggy had said firmly. "Hydra did. If I were asked to choose between human life and an institution, Steve, it wouldn't be a difficult choice." She shook her head. "And if I understand correctly how Arnim Zola's algorithm worked..." She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I think you must have saved more than just 20 million strangers. What are the odds that our entire family wasn't on that hit list for Project Insight? Not to mention all the best people at S.H.I.E.L.D., the ones I trust the most to do the right thing. Hydra would consider us all a threat... and they'd be right to." There had been a savage undertone to her words.

The destruction of the Triskelion had also been the beginning of the end for the parasitic Hydra, and even if S.H.I.E.L.D. as it had formerly been was destroyed, all the best parts of it had eventually been restored. Now, as he watched the Triskelion be built phase by phase, Steve chose to make a conscious effort to focus on the positive. S.H.I.E.L.D. had done a lot of good from its base in the Triskelion, serving to protect innocent people from threats both earthly and unearthly for many years. It had cultivated people like Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne. Phil Coulson and Maria Hill. Clint Barton and Nick Fury. He himself had fond memories here of his S.H.I.E.L.D. training and early missions with Natasha and Clint fighting by his side. He could not condemn the project just because a handful of evil people would eventually misuse it. Peggy was right to be proud of what she was doing. He was proud of her, too.

Once he and Peggy were settled in Washington, D.C., Steve busied himself leading therapy sessions at the Department of Veteran Affairs, his choice inspired by a good man of his former acquaintance. By the time Ronald Reagan took office, Sarah and Dave had four children and Mike and Tien had three. Like Peggy, Mike was based at the Triskelion, and Sarah and Dave had both taken jobs at George Washington University Hospital, so they all lived within a short drive from each other. The Carter cousins saw each other so frequently that they were as close as siblings, and Steve and Peggy spent much of their free time with all of them.

On the day the family gathered to celebrate the day of Sam Wilson's birth, Steve watched his small grandchildren excitedly running around the house wearing sunglasses and cardboard wings strapped to their backs, and he thought back to the day he'd come to the VA and Sam had asked him a simple question he hadn't been able to answer: What makes you happy?

He looked around at the chaos in the kitchen. Sarah, attempting to frost the cake with a harried expression on her face, stopped to wave the chocolatey spatula at Mike's oldest, Natty, and her own Maggie, who were running around underfoot and shrieking as only 5-year-old girls can, trying to shoo them back to the dining room. Bram, who took his position as the oldest grandchild very seriously, shouted at them indignantly to get out of the way. Harrison had dashed up to the counter and very nearly succeeded in getting his fingers in the frosting, only to be snatched away at the last moment by Peggy, who already had her arms occupied with little Steven. Steve felt a little guilty about the fact that he wasn't helping with crowd control, but newborn baby Samantha was sound asleep in his arms, and he didn't want to jar her.

Thankfully, Mike and Dave came back in then and started wrangling the kids, and by the time Tien had set the table and Sarah brought over the cake, things had settled down to a dull roar. The kids gathered around the cake to pose with their wings for the obligatory picture to be added to the Birth of the Avengers photo album. They were still under the impression that they were dressing up as a comic book character their Grandpa Grant had invented, but one day, they too would learn the whole story.

Only 40 years to go before he could show Sam this photo. Steve could hardly wait for that day, and not only because he thought Sam would get a kick out of it. More than anything, he wanted to tell Sam that he had finally found out the answer to his question.

This. This is what makes me happy.

In the early 80s, Sarah and Mike each added one last child to their families, and then, somewhere in Russia, Natasha Romanoff joined the world. Steve had endless fun watching his youngest two grandchildren grow and reach each new stage of development, all the while imagining his old friend at the same stages.

Between family and work, Steve's life was fulfilling and he wasn't looking for more; when it came to S.H.I.E.L.D. matters, he was content to be a shadow adviser for Peggy and leave the heavy lifting to her. But despite all the foreknowledge Steve had about history, his personal life still had some surprises in store for him.

When Steve had first met Hank Pym as the Avengers and their allies met in the aftermath of the battle to decide how to handle the return of the Infinity Stones, the scientist had been an old man. Now the shoe was on the other foot: Hank was in his 30s, married to Janet and raising a daughter, while Steve was twice his age, with a grandchild the same age as young Hope. Yet despite the differences, to Steve's surprise the two of them made an immediate connection and quickly became good friends. Hank was not yet tired and cynical, and thanks to their similar military experience and a shared interest in baseball, among other things, they found a lot to talk about.

Janet had joined Hank as a S.H.I.E.L.D. adviser and together the couple had unlocked the secrets to shrinking live subjects. They worked to develop several varieties of shrinking suits, as well as the communication devices they used to control ants. Peggy became close friends with Janet, and frequently pled with the Pyms to move their laboratory into the Triskelion so they could eliminate the constant travel between their lab in San Francisco and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s base in D.C. But Hank was unmoving; he was fiercely protective of his technology and did not trust S.H.I.E.L.D. to keep it safe from misuse.

Steve felt a certain amount of responsibility for that; when several vials of Pym Particles had gone missing from Hank's old lab at Camp Lehigh back in 1970 and S.H.I.E.L.D. had been unable to find the culprits or recover the vials, Hank had been livid. On the other hand, Steve knew Hank's distrust would ultimately lead to a good end. Hank's eventual furious resignation from S.H.I.E.L.D. meant that his research would be safely out of reach of the growing influence of Hydra, and yet it would be ready in time for the Avengers when they would need it to go after the Infinity Stones. But in the meantime, Hank was becoming S.H.I.E.L.D.'s first enhanced operative since the days of Captain America. The Ant-Man had been born.

Hank carried out his first few covert missions on his own, but eventually Janet, with Peggy's support and encouragement, persuaded him to let her join him wearing a winged suit they had dubbed "The Wasp." Together they were making a big impact - or, more accurately, a tiny impact - on world events.

1987

One spring evening Steve went out to the backyard, partly to keep company with Peggy as she worked to plant pansies in pots before the sun went down, but mostly to work out the right words he needed to say in order to hold what was going to be a difficult conversation with his wife.

He sank down into the stone bench and, for a few minutes, watched Peggy smile over her work as the evening sun slanted through the trees. She had always loved gardening in her free time, which she unfortunately never had much of. But, as Peggy always said optimistically, that was what retirement was for. She had a dream of one day buying a cottage back home in Winchester and designing a traditional English garden around it. Steve hoped it would come true, and thought it probably would: her post-retirement S.H.I.E.L.D. file in the future had in fact listed a U.K. address for her, and now that she was in her late 60s it could be happening soon. He was glad he didn't know too many specifics about it; as a time traveler, he treasured the occasional surprise.

But tonight, he was going to have to give Peggy a surprise, and unfortunately it wasn't going to be a pleasant one.

"Peggy," he said. She glanced up at him expectantly, both hands still in the dirt.

"You've told me before that if I knew you were going to lose someone close to you, you would want some warning," he said gently. "I need to know if that's still what you want."

He watched, heart sinking, as her cheerful expression was slowly replaced by one of apprehension.

"Is it time?" she asked at last.

"Yes."

"Not if it's our children," she said quickly, barely repressing a sudden panic. "Not if it's their children. Oh, Steve-"

"I don't know anything about that," he said. "Our own family's future is a mystery to me. I'm talking about a friend."

Peggy nodded and took a deep breath, calming herself. She turned away from him and deliberately took a minute to turn on the hose and wash the dirt off her hands. When it was done, she joined him on the bench and turned to face him.

"All right. Yes. I haven't changed my mind. Just tell me... How far away is it? Tell me that first."

"That's the trouble," Steve said. "I don't know the exact date. I only heard about what happened secondhand, and I... I just didn't know then that it would be important to me later. I didn't get details. I know it's sometime soon."

"All right," Peggy said again, her voice going up a little higher.

"It's an unusual situation," Steve said, anxious to give her the whole picture, both the good and the bad. "This friend... they're not going to die. They're going to meet with an accident that was like mine in some ways. They'll be believed dead, and it'll be a long time before rescue comes. So long that... you won't get to see them again. For you, it will be as if they're dead."

Peggy was silent for a long moment, processing that. Finally, she visibly steeled herself. "Who is it?" she asked.

"It's Janet Van Dyne," he said gently.

Instantly her face crumpled. "Oh, no! No!" she cried, shaking her head in denial. She cupped her hands over her mouth, tears springing to her eyes. "No!"

"I'm so sorry, Peggy," he said, reaching out to her, feeling his own grief surge in response to hers. Janet was so brilliant and full of life, beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. She was a good wife and mother. A good friend to Peggy. He'd dreaded sharing this news.

"What happened?" Peggy demanded tearfully.

"A group of separatists is going to hijack a Soviet missile site and launch a nuclear warhead at the United States," he told her wearily. "Hank and Janet were sent on a mission to deactivate the missile, and they managed to stop it. But Janet had to shrink down between the molecules to do it."

He didn't have to explain to Peggy what that meant. There was no coming back from going subatomic. None of the Pyms' cautious attempts over the years to send miniaturized probes into the Quantum Realm had ever been successful; the probes simply didn't come back once they went subatomic. Nothing did.

"But she's a mother," Peggy whispered, horror-stricken.

"I know." He hugged her close, comforting her. "I hate to think of it, too. But Janet saved a lot of lives, Peggy. I know that doesn't make it any easier to bear, but she must have felt that it was worth the sacrifice."

He held her in silence for several minutes, giving her the time she needed. Finally, she pulled away and looked up at him seriously. "When you say that they were sent on a mission... you mean I sent them on that mission," she said matter-of-factly.

"I don't know, Peggy," he said wearily. "Probably so."

"And I still have to do it," she realized, widening her eyes. "If it's already done..."

"You don't have to do anything," Steve said firmly. "You're free, Peggy. Knowing the future doesn't take away your agency. You're going to choose whatever you think is right and do it, the same way you always have."

"But are you absolutely certain we can't change what happened?" she asked, suddenly fierce.

"I'm sure," he said. "Not without opening up an alternative reality. And even if you could, Peggy... would you?"

"I don't know," she said, thinking rapidly. "If we could find a way to stop the missile without losing her... we've saved how many lives before? How would this be different?"

"Because Janet made the choice," he said simply. "She did it willingly. And if we manipulated events to change things around, we'd be unmaking her choice. We'd be making ourselves out to be gods, controlling everyone's fate according to our own judgement. And no matter how well-intentioned we are... I'm not prepared to do that. To become that. Are you?"

Peggy sighed. "I suppose... I wouldn't want someone to go back through my life and take away all the things that hurt me," she admitted slowly. "All the good things in my life were tangled up with the bad things. If I lost the bad, I'd lose the good, too."

She didn't know yet how right she was. Because Janet's sacrifice hadn't only saved the people who would have died if the Soviet missile had struck land. The knowledge she would eventually bring back with her from the Quantum Realm would make it possible for the Pyms to develop the Quantum Tunnel, leading to the defeat of Thanos. The private grief of Hank and Hope would be transformed into a public victory for countless lives across the galaxy. And one day the three of them would be reunited.

But that was a cold comfort now. Right now, all Steve could think about was that a man was about to lose his wife. A little girl was about to lose her mother. And all they could do was wait, watch, and grieve for them.

Peggy didn't waste the time that she'd been given. She knew she couldn't stop what was going to happen, and she accepted it - but she was determined to do what was in her power.

For herself, that meant that she made the most of every moment that she saw Janet, making sure she said everything she needed to say to her friend before the end, but more than that, she was fixated on helping Hank and Hope in any way she could.

The Pyms had planned a long family vacation for later in the summer, but Peggy managed to persuade Janet to take it sooner. After they came back, Janet eagerly showed Peggy all of their vacation photos, with the family playing on the beach, and riding the teacups, and Hope standing in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle with her Mickey Mouse ears on, smiling happily. It had taken all the strength Peggy had to admire the photos with Janet and wait until she got home to do her crying.

"Are you sorry I told you?" Steve asked her that night once she was calmer.

"No," Peggy said wearily. "I hate this, but if I didn't know, you'd just be carrying this burden alone, and I wouldn't like that either. At least this way we can grieve together. But sometimes... I wish there was some way we could warn them, too." She laughed humorlessly. "And then I remember that I can't even bear to have you tell me when I'm going to die. Nor would I want to know when you are. I can't do that to Hank and Janet, either."

Steve bowed his head for a moment, thinking. Like him, Dr. Strange had seen the future. He had known exactly how and when Tony was going to die, and he'd done nothing to stop it. In fact, he had intentionally acted in such a way to ensure that it did happen. Only now did Steve begin to appreciate just how painful that must have been for Strange. Like leading a lamb to the slaughter. The only saving grace was that the lamb had gone willingly, and Strange had the dubious comfort of having received visions of the terrible futures in which Tony didn't die and far worse things had happened instead.

And Strange, in his wisdom, had staunchly refused right up to the last moment to tell Tony what he knew.

If I tell you what happens, it won't happen.

Steve set his jaw and renewed the commitment he had made long ago: He would not make the mistake Thanos made, and make other people's choices for them. Hard as it was, it was right for him and Peggy to hold their silence. Steve briefly wondered, not for the first time, if it was dangerous for him to tell even Peggy these things in advance. Would Strange have approved of that? Maybe not. But the Ancient One had trusted Steve to travel to the past without making a mess of things, and he in turn trusted Peggy even more than he trusted himself. The greatest comfort of his life was knowing that whatever might happen, they would face it together.

Peggy came up with one more idea of how they could ease Hank's burden when the time came. After she had explained it to Mike and Tien, they readily agreed to help, and so the two of them began to work as quickly as possible to finish their basement in preparation for it.

One rainy day, Steve came over to help with the kids, since Mike was needed at work and school had just gotten out for the summer, leaving all four kids underfoot just as Tien was trying to finish up the work downstairs.

The older two, fortunately, were adept at entertaining themselves. Mike and Tien's oldest child Natty, teetering at the edge of adolescence, ate, breathed and slept only for her ballet lessons, and today she was in the living room dressed in her neon leotard and leggings, going through one of her routines accompanied by the incongruous sounds of her brother Harrison, who was practicing enthusiastically on his tuba in the same room at the same time.

To distract the two younger kids, Steve brought out a stack of puzzles, and Sammy made steady progress on a pink-and-purple-splashed Lisa Frank puzzle as she chattered away about the last few days of school and her plans for the summer. The youngest, Joe, made a half-hearted effort to put together his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles puzzle, but quickly grew bored with it and with the talk, and ended up playing Tetris on the Gameboy instead. Steve had taught him how to play the game; living his life backwards from everyone else meant that he frequently got to introduce his children and grandchildren to the latest fads and technological advances, rather than the other way around. Taking the whole family to see the "Star Wars" movies on their opening nights had been one of the highlights of this phase of his life.

The phone rang. Steve got up to answer it, knowing Tien would not want to stop her work downstairs to take a phone call unless it was an emergency.

It was Sarah.

"Hi, Daddy," she said, and in the background he could hear her kids making their own jumble of happy noise to match what Mike's kids were doing. "Do you have a minute?"

"You bet. Are you ready for new blood samples from me?" He'd been expecting a request like that sometime soon. They had long ago settled into a routine of regular blood draws to assist Sarah and Dave in their quest to find medical applications for the super-soldier serum. The two of them had decided to focus on attempting to treat heart disease first. "Might as well start with the biggest killer," Sarah had reasoned, and Dave had agreed with her. Steve had assumed at first that meant cancer, but Sarah set him straight. "Heart disease kills more people," she had explained, "and it's the more promising avenue for us in this case. We can't know for sure whether the serum has ever prevented you from developing cancer, but we do know for sure that it cured your heart palpitations."

Over the phone, Sarah sighed. "No. I mean, yes, we've used up the last batch you gave us, but... we don't even know what step to take next. The truth is, we've run into a brick wall." Her frustration was obvious from the tone of her voice.

"What happened?" Steve asked, concerned. "I thought Dave had managed to extract the components affecting the cardiovascular system. The animal testing-"

"The results are wildly inconsistent," Sarah said. "Some of the subjects become healthier, yes. Some of them don't. Instead they develop obsessive behavior... either they won't stop eating, or they won't stop trying to mate, or they sleep themselves to death. Dave and I have gone over and over our process, and we just can't identify what makes the difference between failure and success."

"It's the same problem every other researcher ran into," Steve said wearily. "The serum isn't stable."

"But we know it's possible to be stable," Sarah said. "That's the part that kills me. You turned out perfectly. Obviously Dr. Erskine knew something we didn't. Or he had some tool we didn't. He just didn't see fit to share it in his notes, and I would really like to know why."

"He didn't want anyone creating super soldiers outside his control," Steve said, surprised she would even ask. Wasn't it obvious?

"Well, then he failed," Sarah said bluntly. "How many unstable super soldiers did we end up with? The Hulk, the Abomination, the Red Skull... It isn't impossible to replicate the chemical components of Erskine's serum, Dad. The Army researchers did it for General Ross, and even Dave and I have managed to do it. It's establishing stability that's the real trick. I just keep thinking that we're missing a big part of the picture, and I don't know how to find out what it is."

"You'll get it, honey," Steve said. "I know you can do this."

Sarah sighed. "I feel like we need to start back at square one, think completely outside the box. And it's hard because everything is always so crazy at home. We have the kids to think of, and I want to be there for them, but I also feel this urgency with my research... I don't know, Dad. I feel like I'm being pulled in two, and I don't even know where to go next."

"You know I can help as often as you need me to," Steve said. "I can stop taking new clients, free up some time to come watch your kids while you and Dave are working on this."

Sarah didn't answer for a moment. "I hate to ask that of you," she said at last.

"Well, playing with my grandkids is a terrible sacrifice, but if that's what needs to be done to save the world, I guess I don't have much choice." Sammy glanced up from her puzzle and made a face at Steve, overhearing his comment, and Steve reached over and tugged her braid. "Grandpa!" she complained, pushing his hand away, but she was smiling. Steve knew he wasn't supposed to have favorites among his grandchildren, but the fact of the matter was, whichever grandchild he was with at any given moment tended to feel like his favorite, which meant that right now, Sammy was the lucky one.

Over the phone, Sarah laughed, as he had hoped she would. "Dad, you really are too good to live on this Earth, you know that?"

"I know, but that one time I died, it just wouldn't stick."

She laughed again. "Well, do me a favor and stay away from any freezers. Your family hasn't finished with you yet."

"Honey?" Steve said quickly. "Mike's phone keeps beeping, I think someone else is trying to get through." As always, he felt a moment of regret that he didn't have his cell phone with caller ID anymore. Well, another decade or two and it would come back. He was used to waiting for things like that.

"Okay. I'll let you go. Love you, Dad."

"Love you."

He pressed a button and answered the second call coming in. There was a long pause, and then he heard Peggy's voice say: "Steve?"

Steve, not Grant? When she was calling from work in the middle of the day? "What's wrong?" he asked automatically.

"It's happened," Peggy said, her voice coming in a little fainter than usual. "Janet's gone."

Heart sinking, he held the phone and listened patiently as Peggy worked to get through the explanation of what had happened, the details of which he had never known: first Hank had attempted to go subatomic to deactivate the missile, but the regulator in his suit had malfunctioned, and Janet hadn't hesitated to make the sacrifice herself.

"Oh, Steve," Peggy said shakily. "You should have heard Hank when he called. He wasn't even crying, but he just sounded... broken."

"I know," Steve said quietly. "He was in shock." He'd seen it many times before in his therapy sessions. And although he had long ago grown accustomed to seeing people in the most extreme forms of grief, and even though he had known that this day would come, he felt his eyes threatening to overflow. As far as anyone else knew, Janet was gone forever. She would not return for long decades. Not until Hank was an old man. Janet would become a woman out of time, doomed to the same fate as Steve himself.

Steve took a deep breath and let it out, permitting the grief to wash through him. His eyes fell on Samantha as she earnestly searched for a place to put the next puzzle piece. She was 8 years old, only a few months older than Hope. If Sammy had to face something like that... her father was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Suddenly Steve felt a spurt of real fear. He didn't know Mike's future. What if something like that did happen to their family? What if one day he got a call like this about his own son?

"I sent Hank over to see you, now that he's been debriefed," Peggy was saying over the phone, her voice clearer now. "He'll need you, both as a friend and a counselor."

"That's a good idea," Steve said, clearing this throat roughly. "And Peggy... I'm so sorry."

His daughter-in-law Tien came back upstairs just then, and Steve quickly explained what was happening. She went into the kitchen to wash the paint off her hands while Steve watched through the front window for Hank's arrival. He saw a S.H.I.E.L.D. car pull up to the curb and two agents got out of the front of the car, the younger one holding an umbrella overhead as he opened the back door for Hank. The three of them came down the sidewalk, and suddenly Steve's eyes went wide. He hurried back into the kitchen.

"Tien, I need you to answer the door," he said quickly.

"Me? Why?" she asked, frowning as she dried off her hands and glanced down self-consciously at her grubby paint clothes.

"I can't let those agents see me," he said briefly.

She didn't question him any further, but nodded seriously and went to answer the knock at the door while Steve slipped partway down the basement stairs. Tien knew the importance of Steve keeping his distance from certain people at S.H.I.E.L.D. He hadn't anticipated a problem today, but of all the people to accompany Hank Pym here...

He heard the front door open.

"We're looking for Grant Buchanan," he heard a familiar deep voice say.

"Badges, please," Tien said levelly. Mike had taught her S.H.I.E.L.D. procedures well, and after everything she had seen in Vietnam, she had a healthy dose of caution when it came to her home and her family. It was a good attitude to have, considering her husband's profession, and Steve was glad to see it.

There was a long pause as Tien checked their badges.

"Agent Fury," he heard her say at last, "and Agent Coulson. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Buchanan's here. Dr. Pym, isn't it? Come on in. I'll take you to him."

"Dr. Pym?" he heard Coulson say. "Give us a call whenever you're ready to leave. We can arrange transportation for you back to San Francisco." He sounded impossibly young, and Steve's heart was seized with a pang of regret that he couldn't have answered the door himself, and spoken to Coulson just one more time. He heard the front door shut, and a few moments later came the slam of car doors outside. Steve waited until the sound of the engine faded into the distance, just to be safe, and then he emerged from the stairwell to greet Hank.

Hank was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, wearing civilian clothing and sporting a deep cut curving around one eye. It had been cleaned up and stitched closed. He was staring at Steve's granddaughter, Sammy, like he was seeing a ghost, not even noticing Tien asking him politely if he would like something to drink.

"Hank?" Steve said. "It's Grant."

Blinking several times, Hank turned to look at him, but his eyes were watery and distant.

"I heard what happened," Steve said gently. "I'm so sorry."

Hank's lips curved downward, and he silently nodded in acknowledgement. Steve's heart went out to him. He knew something of what Hank was feeling, all too well. What is there to say when you've just lost half your soul?

"Come on. Let's go downstairs," Steve said, putting an arm around Hank and guiding him to the stairs and away from the noise of the children.

Once they were alone in the quiet of the basement, Steve went through his well-practiced grief counselor routine. Hank was too much in shock to want to do much talking, though, and Steve didn't push him. The important thing right now was to simply let Hank know that he wasn't alone, and that support was available to him when he was ready for it. He sat with Hank for hours, as the sun slipped down over the horizon and the sky grew dark outside, talking when Hank seemed to want it, and remaining silent when Hank seemed to want that.

Eventually, though, Steve thought of a practical matter that probably needed to be seen to.

"Who is with Hope?" he asked Hank.

Hank didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the wall at the moment, looking at nothing in particular.

"Hank?" Steve prompted him after a long moment. "Who is with Hope right now?"

Finally Hank seemed to hear him. "Uhhh..." He cleared his throat and closed his eyes, thinking for a long moment. "I think... Rose? Our neighbor. That's who Janet usually..." He trailed off.

"Do you have her phone number?" Steve prompted. "We need to call her to let her know what's happened. Peggy said no one answered the phone at your house when she called earlier. Maybe Rose took Hope to her house."

Hank patted his pockets in an absent-minded kind of way, and finally managed to come up with a slim address book. He flipped through the pages, but before he had reached the end his fingers slowly stopped moving, and he sat there with the pages slipping out of his grip, eyes going vague and unfocused.

"Here, let me," Steve said, gently taking the address book out of his hands. Hank sat there and silently watched him flip through until he found the phone number for Rose.

Just then Steve heard the front door upstairs slam shut, and through the walls he could hear Peggy's voice greeting Tien and the kids. Relieved that she was here, he put his hand on Hank's shoulder. "I'll be right back, Hank. Why don't you try lying down? You look exhausted."

He didn't get a response. Hank had resumed staring at the wall.

Steve hurried upstairs, where Peggy greeted him with an unusually fierce hug. "How is Hank?" she asked after she released him, her face anxious.

"Nearly catatonic," Steve said. "Tien, do you have any sleep aids in your medicine cabinet? I think he's going to need some help getting rest tonight."

"Stay the night?" Peggy said, looking alarmed. "But Hope is in San Francisco. He needs to go home to her. She doesn't know what's happened yet."

"Hank's in no state to be going anywhere," Steve said. "And he's not going to be able to deliver that news to Hope, not without scaring her even worse than she's already going to be. He's just going to have to stay here until he's recovered from the shock."

He gave Peggy the phone number of Hope's caretaker, and Peggy went into the next room to make the phone call. She was there for a long time, and when she came back she said that she had explained the situation to Rose, who said she would try to rearrange her schedule to stay with Hope until Hank was able to return.

"She won't tell Hope anything about the accident," Peggy said. "I don't think a child needs to hear news like that from a stranger, particularly when we don't know how long it will be before Hank can go home to be with her."

"What did you tell the neighbor?" Tien asked, putting an arm around Peggy's shoulders and giving her a comforting squeeze. "About the accident?"

Peggy sighed deeply. "I said it was a plane crash, God forgive me." She looked around at them soberly. "Janet died saving millions of lives. But that can't ever be publicly known. Only those of us at S.H.I.E.L.D. will ever know what she did."

Hank ended up staying at Mike's house for more than a week before Steve judged him well enough to go home. He wasn't exactly back to normal even now, but Rose had now been watching Hope for two full weeks, counting the days the Pyms had been carrying out their mission, and together Steve's family agreed that it shouldn't continue any further. Ready or not, Hank needed to go home now.

Steve and Peggy helped Hank pack up his few belongings and explained to him everything he needed to know about his travel plans.

"And Hank?" Peggy said. "After you get home, I want you to pack up your things, and Hope's things, and whatever you need from your lab, and I want you to move here to Washington, D.C."

"I'm not putting my lab in the Triskelion," Hank said, showing a spurt of anger for the first time. "How many times do I have to say it? My technology is dangerous. I think that's been demonstrated in a pretty spectacular way in recent days, hasn't it?" His tone was harsh, although he seemed to be on the verge of tears.

"Then don't move into the Triskelion," Peggy said calmly. "Find an office space here in D.C. that you can rent out, and set up shop there. I don't want you living alone with Hope all the way down in San Francisco, Hank. School is out for the summer and she'll need someone to look after her all day while you're at work."

"My neighbor, Rose-" Hank began.

"I spoke to her, remember?" Peggy said. "She isn't available to be a full-time nanny for you. You would have to leave Hope with strangers, and she needs something better than that right now." She spoke kindly, but there was a hint of steel in her tone, too. She had anticipated Hank's objections, but she had also made up her mind about what was best, and she wasn't going to back down easily.

"I don't know anyone here," Hank said.

"You know us," Peggy said. "Our son is looking to rent out this basement right now." She gestured around them. "You and Hope can stay here. My daughter-in-law can look after her while you're working. There will be other children her age to play with all summer. It will be good for her. And it would be better for you, too, Hank. You shouldn't be alone right now."

Hank didn't seem to have the heart to argue. A few weeks later, after Janet's memorial service was over and all the arrangements had been made, he and Hope moved into Mike and Tien's basement apartment with the intention of staying for at least the summer. He didn't sell his home or his lab in San Francisco; he obviously intended to go back. But for now, he seemed grateful for the help they were offering for Hope's sake.

TO BE CONTINUED

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