Author's note: Apologies that this chapter has been slow to come! Don't worry, I have no shortage of ideas or motivation to finish this up. I've been trying to get my kids ready for school, and thanks to the pandemic everything is different and I'm scrambling to adapt. Crossing my fingers that things are finally starting to settle down into a routine once more.
My beta reader (who is also, conveniently, my daughter) surprised me by making a Carter family tree visual using photos of the actors I had in mind to "play" Steve and Peggy's descendants! She is the absolute best. If you'd like to see it, visit view/forceforgood-cartertree/home. We'll try to keep it updated as the family grows. Random note: I found out this week that John Krasinski actually auditioned to play Captain America when I saw that someone on the internet created a deepfake of him replacing Chris Evans in a few Marvel scenes. Believe it or not, I did not know that when I chose him to "play" one of the grandkids!
Thanks to Nimbus Llewelyn, fuchsbeu, Nimrodel101, jerseydanielgibson, girliemom, sofiarose613, LdyPhantom and Guests for your reviews. They really help!
2001
Now that Clint had flown the nest, all the grandchildren were on their own, preoccupied with their schooling and their budding careers and their small but growing families, and Steve and Peggy found themselves experiencing something on a regular basis that they had only known in fits and snatches their whole married life: quiet.
In the mornings after Dave and Sarah had left for work, Steve and Peggy would sit in the breakfast nook and share the newspaper between them, with no sound but the clink of Peggy's teacup against the saucer, the steady tick-tock of the grandfather clock, and the chirping of the birds outside. Sometimes they took day trips around the countryside to see Peggy's old acquaintances who lived in the area or to try a new restaurant or see local sights they had always wanted to try but never really had the time. It had been a while since they had been able to focus on each other without distraction, and between the long talks and the uninterrupted moments of tender affection, it felt almost like a second courtship. It was a new phase of life that they found themselves enjoying deeply.
The long flow of days where each one was much like the last was punctuated from time to time with another wedding or a new baby to welcome to the family. In September Harrison married Christina, an accountant who worked at Stark Industries with him, by which time Bram and Aliyah, and Natty and Quyen, each had their first baby.
The celebration for Harrison and Christina was tinged with worries that the family did their best to suppress for the day. They all knew what would be happening in New York City in less than a week. They had already made a plan for it, and even Harrison and Christina arranged to be back from their honeymoon in time to do their part. When the morning of September 11 came, Steve and Peggy's children, grandchildren and in-laws all sat around a table in a restaurant close to the World Trade Center, food untouched and expressions tense, with backpacks full of first aid supplies at their feet. Sarah, Dave, Bram and Aliyah had paramedic jackets draped over their chairs with the inner pockets lined with vials of serum that Dave had been laboring for over a year to stock up on. They knew it would be needed.
Steve and Peggy were the only ones who weren't there. Peggy was developing a bad hip that made it difficult for her to walk very far without pain now, and after a brutally honest conversation with himself, Steve was forced to admit that he too might be more of a liability than a help in this situation.
To say that it felt wrong to be staying behind when everyone else was running toward the danger was an understatement. Peggy tried to comfort him with the reminder that watching over their three great-grandchildren while their parents were occupied was important work, too. He knew she was right, but it didn't stop him from feeling utterly helpless as he paced the living room bouncing little Shuri and Roger in each arm, trying to keep them soothed as he and Peggy watched what was happening on the TV. Steve had missed the attacks the first time around, sleeping in the ice, but he still remembered the horror he had felt when he had first learned about it. To think that after the sacrifice he had made to stop Johann Schmidt's bombs from reaching New York, some other madman had managed to succeed where he had not...
Knowing the loss of life to come and the global consequences to follow would have been bad enough, but Steve and Peggy both knew that even with the foreknowledge their family had and the precautions they were taking, there was no guarantee for them, either. They would be at Ground Zero, freeing people from wreckage, helping them evacuate, caring for the wounded amid the collapsing buildings, the falling debris, the fires. Anything could happen.
It was a long, draining day, and each time the phone rang they both prayed it would only be one of the teams calling to check in or ask advice, and not to give them bad news.
Finally, it was all over, and a portal opened into the cottage to admit Sarah and Dave, along with Bram, Aliyah, Natty, Quyen, Maggie and Henry. They were exhausted and filthy, but none of the anxious young parents made a move to get cleaned up until they had seen where their baby was sleeping and made sure all was well.
"We evacuated a day care," Maggie said, her voice hoarse from the smoke as she gazed down at little Jim in Peggy's arms, visibly restraining herself from picking her son up. "The little ones didn't understand what was happening. They weren't even scared." A single tear cut its way down her blackened face. "Just us."
"You're certain the whole family made it out?" Peggy asked Sarah, and she nodded wearily.
"I watched Tien portal everyone else back home," she said. "We were the last to leave."
"You did good work today," Steve said, and Sarah nodded again in acknowledgement, although she looked too numb to fully absorb his words. "We saved as many as we could," she said in a near monotone, and Dave put his arm around her in a silent squeeze.
"When you're all cleaned up, we've kept dinner warm for you," Peggy said gently.
Even after that terrible day, the work wasn't over yet. Some of the grandkids had managed to arrange vacation days with their employers ahead of time and spent a week as volunteers, helping with the cleanup. Steven wasn't one of them. He was ordered back to base, and in the beginning of October, Operation Enduring Freedom was launched. Steven's unit was among the first to be deployed.
He wrote as often as he could, but his letters were short and vague about his day-to-day activities; whatever Steven was doing in Afghanistan, it wasn't intended to be public knowledge. They knew he had learned Farsi, and that he was leading a small but elite team of Marines. There were hints that he had been given an unusual amount of latitude by his commanding officers to carry out his missions as he saw fit. When there were aspects of his work that he could talk about, Steven didn't have a habit of sugarcoating things, but in his letters there was always a sense of quiet resolve. Whatever needed to be done would be done, despite any obstacles, and he had nothing but praise for the men and women he worked with.
Everyone else in the family did their best to get on with their lives as the months slipped past, but they all learned to live with a constant, if quiet, anxiety on Steven's behalf. There was a brief but joyful time that he was able to come home, and they all made the most of it. He met Sammy's new husband and the nieces and nephews that had been born in his absence, looking slightly awkward and uncertain as he held each of the babies in turn, but Steve could see the subtle longing in his eyes when he reluctantly handed them back over to their parents.
But it wasn't long before he was deployed again.
November 24, 2005
The Carter family had long ago accepted being the odd expats in their Winchester neighborhood who celebrated Thanksgiving when no one else there did. Mike and Tien's family were holding a separate celebration in Vietnam this year; there were really too many of them to comfortably fit in one dining room anymore, although there were plans to do a little portaling around in the evening when it was time for pie, so everyone could see each other at least briefly.
They had more reasons than usual to be thankful this year. Steven had finished his second tour in Afghanistan just in time to join the family, and everyone was glad to have him home safe and sound. Instead, it was his little brother Joe who was overseas and missing the family festivities this year. After graduating from college, Joe had been hired by a Boston newspaper to cover the military beat, and this year he had managed to wrangle the chance to go overseas to write in-depth about the efforts that were being made to give the servicemen and women who were deployed a good holiday despite the separation from their loved ones.
It was the first family holiday Joe had ever missed, and Sarah and Dave clearly missed him and kept excusing themselves from the kitchen to check his news website, eager to read his story the moment it posted. But it was a happy Thanksgiving — if a bit noisy with a handful of great-grandchildren under the age of 5 to be cared for amid the meal preparations — and they were all glad to see Steven again and catch him up on everything that he had missed during his latest deployment.
"How do you like Santa Monica?" Steven asked Amanda as he chopped up the vegetables for the stuffing.
"Fantastic," Amanda said without hesitation, reaching around Bram to snitch a fingerful of whipped cream out of the mixing bowl, and getting her hand slapped for her troubles. "What's not to like about sunny Cal?"
"You don't have any trouble with the sling ring, getting back and forth to work here?" Steven asked.
She shook her head. "Nope. Portals weren't all that hard to learn, actually. Or maybe Bram's just a good teacher." Amanda smiled up at her big brother, and he grinned back. "It's the other stuff that's a little trickier," she added.
"Other stuff?" Steven asked, looking surprised. "Are you learning Mom's healing techniques, too?"
She negated that with a quick shake of her head. "No, I'm learning how to make rune-shields. I've started popping over to Kamer-Taj a few times a week for lessons. Figured it might come in handy if I could incorporate it into my hand-fighting."
"Yes, because that kind of trouble comes up on a daily basis for young ladies who manage their parents' international health care companies," Maggie said wryly.
"Actually," Steven cut in, glancing at Amanda, "Dad told me this morning that you had a, uh, incident at the mall last weekend."
"Oh. Yeah." Amanda grinned easily. "I went to the Promenade to buy a new dress, and ended up taking down a bad guy while I was there."
"What?" Maggie said, looking startled. "What guy?"
"I don't know. Some idiot who tried to stroll out of the store with a bunch of merchandise. I had just come out of the dressing room to show my friend something I was trying on when we heard all the commotion. The guy tried to run right past us, so I took him down." She shrugged casually.
"Did you seriously risk giving away the whole family secret just to stop a shoplifter?" Bram demanded with a hint of a smile.
"I didn't do anything fancy," Amanda defended herself. "I just body-checked him and held him down until LAPD got there. Anybody could have done that."
"Yeah? And how long did the cops question you once they had the guy in custody?" Bram challenged her.
"I did have to go to the station to fill out a witness statement," Amanda admitted. "I thought that'd be the end of it, but then one of the officers — the rookie, actually — called me a couple of days later and started asking me if I took martial arts lessons or what my deal was. I thought I was about to get raked over the coals or something, like maybe I was too rough with the guy or something, although I swear I was so gentle with him, I don't think I even left a bruise-"
"And?" Bram demanded after a long pause. "What did the cop say?"
Amanda shrugged one shoulder. "He just wanted to ask me out."
Maggie choked on her drink, which was unfortunate because she was nursing little Aisling and the pristine white baby blanket was promptly splattered with cranberry juice.
"What happened with Doug?" Maggie demanded as she dabbed at the red blotches with a burp cloth. Just then there was a loud clatter, and they all looked over to see James and Phillip rolling on the ground in the hallway, wrestling over an inflatable ball they both desperately wanted to play with. "Jim! Phil!" Maggie said in a sharp, authoritative tone. "Stop that and figure out how to share, or I'm taking it away!" They looked over at her guiltily and then grudgingly let go of each other's hair.
Amanda shot Maggie a funny look. "Doug was two months ago!"
Maggie let out a heavy sigh of disappointment. "And I was so excited about him, I thought maybe I wasn't going to be the only one in the family to marry a Brit."
Amanda rolled her eyes. "I've only had two dates with Rob," she told Maggie. "We're not exactly picking out curtains."
"You've already had two dates? In less than a week?" Maggie exclaimed.
"We just had coffee the first time. And then we decided to go roller blading at Venice Beach the day after, and I challenged him to a race and completely kicked his butt," Amanda said matter-of-factly. "Who knows if he'll call me again. He acted like a good sport, but a lot of guys secretly hate that kind of thing. Steven, seriously. The whole kitchen reeks of onions now."
"So do my hands," Steven said ruefully, handing his dad the bowl of chopped peppers and onions and then heading over to the kitchen sink to wash his hands, only to discover that one side was full of dishes and the other was being used by his mother to drain potatoes. He changed course and headed for the hallway bathroom instead, and Steve got up from the table stiffly — pausing to pat Peggy's hand as he passed her playing peek-a-boo with Bram and Aliyah's little girl Shuri, who was shrieking with laughter each time the blanket was pulled off her head — and followed him.
Steven glanced over at Steve as he lathered up his hands at the sink.
"My little sister's going to get married before me, Grandpa," Steven said matter-of-factly.
"You don't know that," Steve said.
"Oh, come on." Steven shot him a slight smile. "She's beautiful, she's outgoing, and when she decides she wants something she doesn't stop until she has it. Whether it's this cop guy or someone else, it won't be long. Did you know Joe has a girlfriend now, too?"
"The grad student? Historian, I think?"
"Yeah. I talked to him on the phone a few weeks ago. He's head over heels. Sounds like a pretty terminal case." He smiled a little again. "I think I'm destined to be that one uncle. Every family has one. Slightly odd and perpetually single."
"You know," Steve began carefully, "some people don't want a family, or aren't suited for one. I don't think there's anything wrong with deciding to go another way." He paused. "If I thought you were that kind of person, Steven, I wouldn't say anything. But-"
"I know, Grandpa, but when would I have time for dating?" Steven asked with a hint of impatience, clearly anticipating where this was going. "I might be home for now, but this war is going to drag on and on and on. You know they'll send me out on another tour. Probably another one after that. And even after this is over..." He trailed off.
"What?" Steve asked.
Steven slowly dried his hands and didn't answer for a long moment, a muscle in his jaw tensing and untensing.
"What comes after that?" Steve prompted him again.
"The Hydra Uprising," Steven said at last.
"The Marines didn't have anything to do with that," Steve pointed out.
"Yeah, but I probably did," Steven said, his voice quiet but firm. "Don't tell me our family's just going to sit back and watch while Hydra comes after you and Sharon and Nat and the other good people at S.H.I.E.L.D., not to mention all the civilians they have on their little hit list."
"Maybe not," Steve admitted. "But that's a long way off. You don't need to be worrying about that right now, Steven. One war at a time."
"We need to get ready now," Steven shot back with feeling. "It's gonna be a massive operation, and by then Uncle Mike might not be up to leading us himself. It'll be up to us kids. That's half the reason I'm glad I was deployed. I need to learn tactics. I need to get good at leading my team, so I'll be ready to lead ours."
"You're already a good leader," Steve said patiently. He'd heard the praise from Steven's commanding officers and the men who served under him at his medaling ceremonies, and it had been effusive and sincere. "But you don't need to feel like the Uprising is all on your shoulders. Harrison's planning to be part of it too, but it hasn't stopped him from starting a family with Christina."
"Maybe he's a braver man than I am," Steven said softly. "I can't help it, Grandpa. Every time I think about the fact that I might not come back from a battle, whether it's Afghanistan or the Uprising..." He sighed and shook his head slowly. "I can't do it. I can't leave behind a wife and kids to fend for themselves. All that will just have to wait."
"For what?" Steve asked.
Steven didn't answer.
"Because even after the Uprising, there's worse coming."
Steven bowed his head slightly. "I know," he said, his voice so soft as to barely be heard.
"If family is something you want, it can't wait forever," Steve said gently. "There's no time when the risk will be over. Life is risk. Live it while you're young."
"You waited," Steven said with a hint of rebellion. "Until you had hung up the uniform for good. You were 40 before you got married."
"If I could have done it another way, I would have," Steve said frankly. "Yeah, I was worried about doing my duty, like you. I met the woman of my dreams and figured I'd wait until the end of the war, but... well, you know what happened next. Then I regretted waiting, but by that time it was too late. I'd lost my girl." He took a deep breath and let it out. "After that, I did try. I dated."
Steven frowned up at him in surprise. "You did? What, even in the middle of the Captain America gig?"
"Yeah. Off and on."
Steven absorbed that for a long moment. "Then why-?"
"I couldn't get over your grandmother," Steve said calmly. "It's easy to look back now and say that everything turned out right, but back then I didn't know it would. I was lonely. I did have my team, and I was lucky to have them, but now that I've been on the other side, I can tell you: there's nothing like having a family of your own. I don't want to see you living unhappy if you have another option."
He put one hand on Steven's shoulder. "Just... think about it, okay?"
May 2, 2007
When Peggy opened the door, Sharon Carter was standing on the front step, dressed in jeans with holes in the knees and a rather worn T-shirt, with her blond hair swept back into a ponytail. Peggy couldn't quite suppress the surprise she still felt when she saw Sharon — not the little blond firecracker she had been as a child, but a young woman of 22 now, still full of vim and vigor, if a little more dignified than she had once been.
"Aunt Peggy," Sharon said, her eyes brightening as she leaned forward to hug her. "It's wonderful to see you."
"I'm so glad you've come, darling," Peggy said, patting her back in return. "But you really don't have to help us paint. I'm sorry the house was already out of sorts when you called."
"Aunt Peggy," Sharon said with a touch of impatience, "I'm not going to just sit around and watch poor Joe do all the work himself. All I want is to have a good talk with you. I can do that while I paint."
"Thanks a lot, cuz," Joe said as he came up behind Peggy, dressed in his own grubby clothes, and gave Sharon a swift hug as well. "Thought I'd have to do this alone. Amanda squirmed out of it at the last second, and I forbade Grandma from doing anything but supervise us." He laughed easily.
"No Uncle Grant?" Sharon asked curiously. "I thought maybe I'd get to meet him today."
"He's out visiting a friend," Peggy said, and she stepped aside to lead Sharon into the formal living room, their feet crackling on the plastic protecting the carpet. All the furniture had been pushed to the middle of the room and covered with drapes.
"Are you still in school?" Sharon asked Joe, but he shook his head.
"I'm still in Boston, but I graduated," he said. "I write for the Chronicle now, covering the military beat. How about you? Still in Toronto?"
"Well... not exactly. Does that mean my parents didn't spoil the news?" Sharon asked, a sudden eagerness in her voice as she glanced back to Peggy. "I was hoping to tell you myself."
"What news?" Peggy asked.
"I got a phone call yesterday," Sharon said, her cheeks turning pink with excitement. "They accepted me. I'm in." A brilliant smile lit up her face, crinkling her eyes at the corners. "I'm a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!"
"I'm so proud of you, darling," Peggy said warmly, and she reached out to enfold Sharon in a second hug.
"Well, that makes two, then," Sharon said lightly as she returned the hug. "My dad was so excited, he could hardly sit still. My mom... well, she tried to look pleased. I guess that's the best I can hope for."
"This makes three," Joe corrected her as he gave her a tight hug in turn. "I'm proud of you, too."
"Your mother is too, I dare say," Peggy added. "But she fears for you. As any mother would."
"You must have felt the same when Uncle Mike joined up," Sharon said, her worried expression clearing a bit.
"At least I knew I would be around to keep an eye on him," Peggy said. "Your mother won't even be in the same country."
"It's only a day's drive from Toronto to D.C.," Sharon pointed out, the words tripping out so easily that they guessed she had already leveled that same argument at her mother. "Okay, Joe," she added, her eyes roaming over the walls in a business-like way. "How are we going to tackle this?"
"I've got everything all taped up already," Joe said readily. "We're ready to roll."
Peggy settled down onto a drape-covered chair to keep them company as Joe opened up a can of paint, poured it into the pan, and the two of them got started, all the while discussing Sharon's schedule for moving to the States and starting her S.H.I.E.L.D. training.
"So how are things in the newspaper world?" Sharon asked Joe after they had been working for a while.
"Depends on the day." Joe laughed with an uncharacteristic note of cynicism as he finished painting around the last outlet. "No, it's good. I love what I do. It just... isn't always easy to do it."
"How come?" Sharon asked curiously.
"You've probably heard that journalists take it as their bedrock principle to be fair and unbiased to all viewpoints?" Joe asked as he pulled the plastic sleeve off a paint roller and dipped it into the pan of paint. "To always tell the truth and nothing but the truth, no matter whose bear gets poked in the process?"
"Yeah," Sharon said.
Joe nodded. "There are people in my newsroom who believe in that passionately," he said. "And there are some who try to reach the ideal, even if they don't always succeed. And then there are some... who don't even think that way at all." Joe looked down at the paint dripping off his roller and back into the pan, a deep crease forming between his eyes. "One of them's a supervisor over me."
Sharon looked at him for a long moment, concerned. "You mean-"
"They have an agenda," Joe said flatly. "And they don't see anything wrong with that."
"But... what do you do when that happens?" she asked, blue eyes wide.
"You learn to be careful," Joe said with a touch of weariness. "I can't write anything that violates my conscience. I can't cut things out of my stories that need to be in there. I just can't do it. But when the pressure's coming from someone who has the power to reassign you, or even remove you from your job... it's like walking a tightrope. You have to be canny. And I despise playing that game, but they force me to play it."
"That's life," Peggy said softly from behind them. "It can happen to anyone, in any profession. You'll always have to deal with people who don't share your values."
"That's what I fear the most," Sharon blurted out. She put down her brush and wiped her hands on a paint rag, looking uncertain and even younger than she really was. "I'll be out there with a gun in my hand, and the power to make or break things. Things that really matter." She shook her head slightly, a strand of blond hair escaping her ponytail and sticking to her cheek. "It's hard enough to think I'll have to figure out the right thing to do, maybe without the luxury of time to really think it through. But to think that someone above me might override what I know is right? And that I'll be stuck having to do it?" She looked over at Peggy. "Did it happen to you, Aunt Peggy?"
"Oh, yes," Peggy said seriously. "It's inevitable for any new agent, I'm afraid."
"It must have been even worse for you," Sharon said slowly. "With so few women in the profession. Did they even take you seriously?"
"Some did," Peggy said firmly. "Dr. Erskine did. And Steve Rogers; he knew as well as anyone what it felt like to not be taken seriously. But there were many who weren't accustomed to seeing women in espionage or diplomacy, and they weren't particularly invested in seeing me succeed at it."
"So what do you do when that happens?" Sharon asked with concern creasing her brow. "When they order you to do something that isn't right?"
Peggy paused to choose her words carefully. "Compromise where you can," she said at last. "Where you can't, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move. It is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye, and say, 'No, you move.'" She softened it with a smile, and touched Sharon's paint-streaked cheek gently. "Understand, darling?"
Sharon absorbed that for a long moment. "They won't like hearing that," she pointed out wryly.
"Fortunately, life isn't a popularity contest," Peggy said calmly. "I made enemies, both in and out of S.H.I.E.L.D., from pulling that particular maneuver." She smiled a little. "But I also attracted all the right people. And I kept my conscience clear." She took a deep breath and let it out. "You'll do well, Sharon. You'll find the right balance."
Sharon brushed away a strand of hair, leaving a paint streak across her forehead. "I hope so."
"You will," Peggy said firmly. "You'll change the world. In all the right ways. You'll make your whole family proud."
August 28, 2008
One afternoon Peggy's hip pain was particularly bad, and when the medication she'd taken didn't seem to make a dent in it, she reluctantly decided to lay down for a few hours. Steve sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her hair gently for a few minutes before leaving her to her rest, and he took his book outside to sit in the garden and take advantage of the good weather before it turned.
He was three chapters in when he heard footsteps swishing through the grass, and without looking up, Steve smiled. Steven had come home from his latest deployment only a week ago, and since he had given up his place back in Twentynine Palms, he had come back home to Winchester for now. They had all been very glad to have him back.
When the footsteps stopped in front of him, Steve looked up from his book, squinting slightly in the sunlight, to see Steven standing there in jeans and a white T-shirt, wearing a serious expression.
"I'm gonna do it," Steven said matter-of-factly.
Steve waited expectantly.
"I'm gonna quit the Marines."
Steve let out a long, slow breath. So Steven was finally biting the bullet. He'd had a feeling lately that something like this was coming, he just hadn't been sure when. After seven years of deployments, Steven's letters had lately taken on a different tenor: making little to no mention of his daily life, instead turning to long, philosophical rambles that were often surprisingly moving, interspersed with little sketches he'd done. Sometimes he sketched villagers he'd encountered, sometimes a bird or plant that had caught his eye, and once a wide scene of Tikrit, too far away to see the damage, with shafts of sunlight brightening the domes of mosques and the ancient arched entrances of the restored Church of Saint Ahudemmeh. Whatever was on Steven's mind these days, Steve suspected, it wasn't fighting.
"Have you told your parents?" Steve asked.
Steven slowly sank down next to him on the bench. "This morning."
"What did they say?"
"That it was my decision to make." Steven's eyes roamed over the golden clumps of Black-Eyed Susans nodding in the fitful breeze. "But I think they were relieved. They've always been proud of me. As supportive as parents could be. But I don't think they were ever completely convinced that I was happy where I was."
"Were they right?"
A smile of faint amusement touched Steven's lips. "Maybe a little. I don't have any regrets about joining the Marines, Grandpa. I did a lot of good there, I think. I learned a lot, and not just about war. I learned things about myself, things about the people I served with, the people I fought... things about the world and the muddled, beautiful mess that it is..." He took a deep breath. "But it's time to move on. I can feel that there's a change in the wind. I'm just not sure yet which way it's going to blow me."
"Did you tell your commanding officer yet?"
Steven looked down at his hands and frowned slightly. "Yeah. He couldn't believe it. Says I was born to be a Marine and that I'm crazy to do anything else. Says if I need to take a break I should try becoming an instructor instead."
"You interested in that?"
Steven shook his head briefly. "No. If I do come back, it'll be as chaplain."
Steve wasn't surprised to hear it; serving as a chaplain was something Steven had talked about off and on over the years, especially since he had become close to one of the chaplains who had served his unit during his tours of duty.
"But I haven't settled on that yet," Steven continued. He laughed dryly. "Somehow I doubt Nakoa would be thrilled to see me there in a collar instead of a uniform. That's not what he wants from me."
"When do you leave the service?" Steve asked.
"Next month."
"And then what?" As careful a thinker as his grandson was, Steve knew he wouldn't have pulled the trigger on this decision without having a plan in place.
Steven paused for a long moment. "You won't like it," he warned.
"I'm your grandfather and your namesake," Steve pointed out. "I have to like it, even when I don't. Just ask Clint."
Steven smiled slightly. "I know, but it's kinda the opposite of what you — and everyone in the family — probably had in mind for me. The thing is... I've been looking back through my life, trying to figure out where and when I was the happiest. When my mind was the clearest. When I felt most at peace." His eyes grew distant. "And I keep thinking back to when I was a kid and I stopped needing so much sleep, and sometimes I'd lie awake at night, and go under the covers with a flashlight to read about St. George, or St. Augustine, or the Bible, or just do my rosary over and over..." His voice trailed off. "I was happy then, you know? I was alone, but I never felt alone."
"I know what you mean."
Steven took a deep breath and let it out. "Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go next or what I'm meant to do. But I do know that I need my mind to be that clear again before I decide. So I found a place that can maybe help me figure it out. You remember that place Mom and Dad took us to when we were kids, out by Bath? The old monastery? I've had some talks with the prior there, and he says they're willing to take me as a postulant."
A strong gust of wind blew through the garden, rippling through the long, ornamental grass at their feet.
"He explained what they'd expect of me," Steven continued. "A lot of work. A lot of prayer. A lot of silence. Six whole months of it." He paused for a long moment. "What do you think?"
Steve put his hand on Steven's knee and patted it. "After all the fighting you've done? Sounds peaceful."
"It isn't a full commitment," Steven said a little anxiously. "At the end of it, I can decide if I want to keep going or not. Whether I end up a monk, or a priest, or a chaplain, it'll be good training for me. Or maybe I'll settle on something completely different. But Grandpa... if you thought I was completely out of my mind to do this, would you tell me?"
"I have a habit of telling the truth even when I know people won't like it," Steve admitted. "But this... sounds like it would suit you."
"Are you completely out of your mind?" Clint asked, his voice rising in utter disbelief.
Steven put down the pan he had just finished washing and shot Steve a long-suffering I-told-you-so look across the breakfast bar. Steve had to hide his smile.
"No girls?" Clint pressed. His T-shirt sleeves were rolled up several times, the better to show off the new henna "tattoo" snaking up his arm: a woman's face half-concealed in tangled vines. Steve thought it was a little nicer than the last one he'd sported, which had looked more appropriate for a Halloween party than anything else. "For six months? Or maybe forever?"
Steven picked up a kitchen towel and dried off the pan industriously. "Well, you know, Clint, if I had a girlfriend like yours I would never even consider something like this."
Clint snorted. "Yeah, I can just see you dating a girl like Karma. Your parents would have a conniption."
"I like Karma," Steven said mildly. "And so does everyone else."
"Yeah, everyone in the family likes her. They just don't get her."
"We don't get you, Clint," Steven said, deadpan. A lot of people didn't recognize when Steven was teasing, but he did it more with Clint that anyone else, knowing that he at least not only got Steven's subtle humor, but thrived on it.
"And I don't get you," Clint shot back. "No girls? Seriously?"
"It's really not that different from being deployed."
"So what are the rules at this place?" Clint asked, his tone clearly indicating that he already suspected he wouldn't like the answer. "Besides no girls?"
Steven smiled slightly. "No TV. No secular music. No books but religious ones. And they keep warning us that we wouldn't have time for all that anyway. We'll work long hours every day, and studying and meditation and sleep will take up all the rest."
"Sounds like a barrel of monkeys," Clint said sardonically.
"I think that's kinda the point," Steven said with a maddening serenity.
"You think it sounds like a dream come true," Clint said as if in accusation.
Steven shrugged, and didn't deny it.
"You are one odd duck," Clint said. "Are you sure we're related?"
"Come arm-wrestle me, and I'll prove it," Steven said easily.
"Please don't," Steve cut in. "If you two break another table, your grandmother might not let you into the cottage again."
Clint teased Steven mercilessly about his self-imposed "sentence" at every available opportunity for the next month, but when it was time for the family to gather for his send-off to the abbey, Clint came and handed him a wrapped package with an uncharacteristically serious expression.
"You said you're allowed to read books if they're religious?" he asked Steven.
"Yeah."
"Well, hopefully this qualifies," Clint said as Steven opened the wrapping paper to reveal a book, "but if it doesn't, just... wrap it up in your underwear and smuggle it in anyway, okay?"
"What is it?" Steven asked, turning it around to read the cover aloud: "'Starting Over,' by Maria Beatrisa de Sousa."
"Remember Joao?" Clint asked. "That homeless guy I took in when I first moved to Chicago, and kinda helped him get straightened out?"
"Yeah, I remember."
"I found this under my couch a month after he'd moved into his own place. I tried to give it back to him, but he said he'd already bought a replacement and I might as well keep it. I've actually been giving copies of it to some of the other 'strays' I've picked up over the years. Karma has one, too. She really likes it."
"What's it about?"
"It was written by a Brazilian woman whose husband committed suicide," Clint explained. "Happened out of the blue one day; she didn't even know he was struggling. Left her alone with two kids. Just completely rocked her world. It's about her trying to figure out how to cope and... and praying to figure out what she needed to do with her life, I guess, and who she needed to become to take care of her kids and learn to be happy again. I know, it sounds like pretty heavy stuff, but it actually isn't. It isn't really a book about despair, it's more about... reinvention. I just thought... maybe you would like it." He looked a little uncertain. "Everyone I give it to says they like it."
"Thanks, cuz," Steven said, giving Clint a swift hug. "It sounds great. I'll read it and let you know what I think."
"Ha! Ha! HA!" Mike suddenly shouted out loud, and everyone in the room turned to look at him in surprise. He had a huge smile creasing his face, and he pumped his cell phone in the air in a gesture of triumph before nudging Sammy aside to hand the phone to Steve. Steve glanced down at the screen and read:
HAWKEYE: Hey, 45. I need your advice on something, stat.
HAWKEYE: It's sensitive. And urgent. Can we meet?
HAWKEYE: I'm in Budapest, but heading home. I'll be in D.C. in 12 hours. Got something to show you.
A smile slowly spread across Steve's face, and he looked up to meet Mike's eyes.
"It's Natasha," Steve said with quiet certainty, and Mike nodded in eager agreement.
"What?" "Wait, what's going on?" "What about Natty?" A chorus of questions from the rest of the family filled the room, and Mike quickly held up a hand to quiet them.
"Clint Barton has just recruited Natasha Romanoff to S.H.I.E.L.D.," he announced, managing to sound calm but unable to fight the smile from stretching his face again.
A chorus of whoops and hollers filled the air, and little Wanda, startled from a sound sleep in Amanda's arms, started to cry. The next few minutes were a cacophony of demands for more details and Amanda eventually had to take the baby outside to escape the tumult.
"I don't know, I don't know!" Mike finally had to remind them all impatiently. "I'm thinking Hawkeye hasn't told Fury yet. Look here, he's asking me for advice. It's not like S.H.I.E.L.D. explains in the employee handbook how to introduce to your boss the KGB assassin he sent you to kill."
"That's going to be one heck of a surprise," Harrison said wryly.
"Fury liked Nat as much as Hawkeye did," Steve said automatically, although he felt strangely disconnected from the excitement. Instead, a warm sensation was slowly filling his chest, like a balloon was being inflated inside him, making him feel light and tingly. So Nat was finally escaping the nightmare that had been her life from her earliest childhood memories. His joy on her behalf was profound. For all these years, she had never been far from his thoughts. Even now he could still sketch her face with accuracy, right down to the quirks of her expressive eyes, even though his fingers were getting stiff with age. He'd missed her, more than any of the others.
And he knew he couldn't see her again.
The disappointment triggered by that thought was crushing. Most of the other Avengers he could see in 15 years, if he managed to live that long. But not Nat. She would never know about his return to the past. She was one of the few people he had bared his soul to about Peggy, and she would never know that he had finally won her against all odds. That he had had the family he had always wanted. Lived the life that Nat herself had tried to get him to live after that terrible day in Wakanda when they had lost everything.
Steve's eye fell on the book Clint had given to Steven, left lying on the table unnoticed amid the family's excitement about Hawkeye and Nat, and the title "Starting Over" seemed to widen until it filled his whole field of vision. He had done exactly that, and more than anything, he wished he could share that fact with Nat. But there would never be a chance.
He tried to express what he was feeling to Peggy that night as they got ready for bed. She listened carefully to everything he had to say as she sat on the edge of the bed in her nightgown, slowly pulling a hairbrush through her graying waves. But when he was done, she looked at him with a thoughtful expression and said only: "Well, why can't you see her?"
Steve frowned. Wasn't it obvious? "Nat can't know about the Quantum Tunnel until it's invented," he pointed out. "None of us had any hope that what Thanos did could be undone. If she had known about my time traveling..."
"Well, that only means you can't tell her who you really are," Peggy pointed out.
He hesitated. "You think I should try to arrange some kind of chance meeting with her once she's settled in D.C?" he asked. That wasn't really the kind of reunion he had been hoping for. But he had to admit that the thought was tempting. Being able to look into Nat's eyes and talk to her again, even as an anonymous stranger, would be better than nothing.
"I don't think she would recognize you," Peggy continued. "By now you don't look much like the man she's only seen in photographs, the Captain America that's been dead since long before she was born."
"It'll be years before she meets the younger me," Steve took up the thread, some part of him lighting up with a tentative hope. She wouldn't connect him to an old man she only saw in passing. "Maybe..."
Peggy smiled up at him knowingly. "Yes. Maybe so."
February 2009
Bad news came in the early spring, even if it didn't come as a surprise. Harrison came home from work one day to report that Obadiah Stane had made the official announcement to Stark Industries employees: Tony Stark's convoy had come under attack in Afghanistan, and his survival could not be confirmed.
It had been a grim day, as Harrison wearily recounted to Steve, Peggy, Sarah and Dave as they sat in the living room talking it over. Happy Hogan was furious with himself for not accompanying Tony on the overseas trip, even though the Air Force had insisted that they could provide him with the appropriate security. Happy had been mollified by the fact that Tony's friend, Colonel Rhodes, would be there. Rhodey was a consummate professional and, despite the frequent eye-rolling he tended to send in Tony's direction, clearly cared for him as much as Happy himself did.
But Rhodey had been riding in a different convoy. They didn't know why yet. The Air Force told Stane that Rhodey was now personally overseeing the search for Tony. But that was too little, too late, according to Happy, who had managed to keep it together during the board meeting but had raged about it afterward during the security staff meeting, his anger obviously only a thin veneer over his grief.
"He wants to believe they'll find Tony," Harrison said quietly. "But he's afraid they won't."
Steve bent his head and looked down at his hands. Tony must be terrified, and his ordeal would last for months; it was tempting to think of ways to help somehow. But they couldn't stop what needed to happen. Iron Man was being born. Tony would become a better man in facing the consequences of his choices. He himself had once said something to Steve about Afghanistan being the best thing that ever happened to him... trying to pass it off as a sarcastic joke, of course, but the statement ringing a little too true for comfort. It was a reckoning Tony needed. But the price he would pay was heavy, and Steve hated to think of it.
He wished he could send in some of his family, if only to provide some measure of comfort or strength to Tony in his trial. But with the Ten Rings involved, the situation was too volatile; there was simply no way to reach him without making things worse. At least Tony was not alone. He had Dr. Yinsen with him. Tony hadn't talked about him much to Steve, but he'd said enough to make it clear that they had bonded over their shared captivity.
And so all they could do was watch, wait and pray as the weeks ticked past, until Harrison came for another visit to update them, this time bringing his wife Christina with him.
"Pepper Potts is struggling," he told Steve and Peggy. "Christina said... Well, you tell them, honey."
"She had a meltdown," Christina said bluntly. "In the board meeting this morning. They wanted my advice on making some adjustments to the company's finances. Changes that Mr. Stark has been very clear that he doesn't approve of. I tried to explain to them, as tactfully as I could, what a mess it would make of things if we did it and then Mr. Stark returned and changed everything back. The money that would be lost, the legal implications. Well, they didn't want to hear it. They're all following Obadiah Stane's lead, basically operating under the assumption that he'll never come back from Afghanistan. I mean, it's been almost two months now." She sighed heavily. "And that was when Pepper just... snapped. Tore into them all and told them they were being a bunch of greedy ghouls, and that of course Mr. Stark was coming back and that heads would roll as soon as he found out how they'd handled things while he was gone."
She shrugged one shoulder. "Then she locked herself into her office and cried for an hour."
Steve absorbed that for a long moment. "Is she already in love with him?" he asked with some surprise. He hadn't ever known exactly when that development had taken place, since it had happened before his time.
Harrison blew out a sigh. "I don't know, Grandpa. She gets so annoyed every time she has to 'take out the trash' for him. Sometimes she acts like she hates him. But maybe she senses what we already know: that he's capable of being so much more."
"Were you able to do anything for her?" Peggy asked.
"Oh, Obadiah Stane came sniffing around her office door, acting magnanimous, like he was planning to comfort her like some kindly old grandfather. I managed to head him off. He's the last thing Pepper needs right now. Greasy old weasel." The disgust in Harrison's voice was plain.
"You didn't talk to her?"
"I did," Christina broke in. "I persuaded her to go out for a long lunch afterward and let her unload. I... I won't betray confidences. But she seemed better after that. I think I managed to give her some hope."
Steve patted her hand gratefully. "You'll keep an eye on her?"
She put her other hand on top of his. "Always."
In March, Steve took a trip to Brooklyn, grateful for the distraction of a task to fulfill. And this task would be more pleasant than most; it was more for his own benefit than anyone else's. Once upon a time he would have felt guilty about that, but he was wiser now. He intended to enjoy this moment without reservation. It had been a long time coming.
A large crowd of young people had already gathered outside the concert hall, laughing and chatting gaily despite the chilly spring breeze. He hung back a little, watching intently, until he finally caught sight of a flash of red hair among the knots of people walking by, and his heart gave a great warm throb in his chest.
She was here.
He moved forward as quickly as he could, ignoring the complaints from his creaky joints and the odd looks he was getting from the young people lining up to enter the venue, and managed to get in line right behind her.
At first he was only staring at the back of Natasha Romanoff's head. Her hair was long and wavy, in a style he'd never seen before, tumbling down loose over her shoulders. The line into the venue was so tightly packed that he was pressed forward close enough to be able to smell her shampoo. Then she turned her head from side to side, scanning the crowd seriously, and he realized in a flash that she was assessing potential dangers and picking out escape routes. Never a moment to let down her guard, not even when she was here for pleasure.
Nat had told Steve long ago, in the first few months they'd known each other, about the first thing she'd done when Fury had finally taken off her leash and permitted her to move freely without supervision, having earned his trust. After a lifetime of coercion, it had been the first time in her life that she had ever been free to do whatever she wanted, with whoever she wanted to do it with. The day she truly became an American.
Steve had never imagined back then that he would be able to see it with his own eyes.
Her head turned far enough that he could see the curve of her cheek. Nat looked heartbreakingly young, even younger than the first moment he had laid eyes on her on the helicarrier so many years ago. It did not seem possible that she was old enough to have already had a notable career as a KGB assassin, much less a complete reinvention as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent on top of it. The same age as his grandchildren, really. If she'd had a normal upbringing, she might be doing what they were: Going to school, getting married, having children. But normality had been denied to her by people more cunning than compassionate.
He noticed that the expression in her eyes was a little harder than he remembered.
Nat was studying the people ahead of her in line now, noting their easy smiles, their loud laughs, their relaxed body language as they chatted with their friends, and she seemed to realize that she was not blending in properly. In a flash, she adjusted her expression into a more open gaze, eyes a little brighter, lips curving up into a slight smile. She tilted her head first to one side and then to the other, popping her neck, and then she deliberately raised her arms into a long, luxurious stretch. The hem of her shirt lifted up a few inches above her waistband, and he saw that her abdomen was perfectly smooth and unblemished. No scar from Bucky's Soviet slug. That was coming soon, though. Within the month, if he recalled correctly.
She turned to scan the crowd behind her, too, and abruptly they locked eyes.
There was a long, expectant pause as Nat looked him up and down appraisingly, her eyes resting by turns on his conservative shoes, his pressed slacks, his cable-knit sweater, and his graying hair neatly parted on the side.
"Big fan of the Beastie Boys?" she asked him at last, her face utterly deadpan.
He smiled a little knowingly. "A friend of mine is," he explained mildly. "I'm meeting her here."
"But you hate this kind of music," she guessed. Her eyes were a blend of green and blue in this light, her expression openly curious.
Steve's smiled deepened. "Yeah."
Nat squinted her eyes and tilted her head a little. "Then why-?"
"I don't love the music," he admitted. "But I do love her."
Something about that statement seemed to tickle her, and Nat's eyes widened." Ahhhh," she said, drawing the syllable out with a smile tugging at one corner of her lips. "So that's how it is."
It had been a long time since Nat had teased him, and it felt good. Real good.
"She's a good friend," he clarified.
"Oh, well, that's what they all say," she quipped. The wind blew a long red curl across her face, and she brushed it aside, using the gesture as an excuse to flick her eyes to the side, scanning the crowd again. "So tell me about her," she prompted after a beat, folding her arms expectantly. "Old, young, tall, short? Blond or brunette? Or maybe a redhead?" She arched her eyebrows and waited.
"Her age depends on the year," Steve said, and then added wryly, "and so does her hair color."
Nat laughed lightly, and then her attention drifted momentarily as she eyed a man walking past wearing a jacket bulky enough to conceal a gun. A few seconds later, apparently satisfied that all was well, she looked back at him.
"Sweet or sassy?" she asked next.
"Both. But she doesn't always admit to the first."
"No, of course not," Nat agreed readily. "Too dangerous. I wouldn't."
"And she's a good person," Steve continued. "Even if she doesn't always believe it."
Her brow puckered together. "She doesn't?"
"She made some mistakes when she was younger," Steve explained. "Thought she didn't deserve forgiveness for it. She's pretty smart, you know. But it took a while for me to convince her that she did."
Nat had frozen into stillness, and to his surprise she seemed to forget about scanning the crowd and for the first time gave him her full attention, her eyes wide with a flash of unexpected pain.
"I'm sorry," Steve said, knowing that was his cue to ease off. "I'm probably talking your ear off." He smiled ruefully. "Seems to come with old age."
She waved this aside with her hand. "You... really believe in forgiveness?" she asked, and there was the faintest hitch in her voice. Not the kind she did on purpose when she wanted to appear vulnerable, to manipulate someone. She was good at that, but he knew all her tells. This was her real vulnerability, the one she always worked strenuously to hide... and mostly succeeded. At least until they had gotten to know each other better. After the Hydra Uprising, when the last of their distrust and caution toward each other had finally dissipated. The day they had become friends for real.
"I do," he said.
They kept talking as the line inched forward. Just small talk. Trivialities, really. But it was like drinking cold water after a long, hard run. He cherished every moment of it. Every half-smile, every gentle tease, every expression of her eyes for him to rediscover. To his surprise, he found he wasn't sorry anymore that he couldn't tell her who he really was. Instead, he was getting a completely new first-meeting with Nat, and that was a gift, too, one he couldn't be ungrateful for.
But he was genuinely sorry when, after a good 20 minutes of this, suddenly Nat's gaze slid past him and her eyes brightened with recognition.
"Clint!" she called out, waving, and a few seconds later Clint Barton was there, wearing jeans and a leather jacket and a broad smile, pulling off his sunglasses before he reached out and gave Nat a quick hug.
It was impossible not to notice the instinctive stiffening of her back, the wariness in her eyes... until she seemed to make a deliberate choice to relax and briefly hug Clint back, her eyes softening slightly.
"Who's your friend?" Clint asked as they pulled apart, looking Steve over curiously. He, too, looked ridiculously young to Steve's eyes. How old would his children be now? 5 and 3, maybe? And little Nathaniel had not yet been born. So Clint was still a new father. Still trying to work out how to balance an extraordinarily dangerous job with the family life where his heart truly resided. The same battle Peggy had fought all those years ago, with all the heartaches and comforts that came from having a second, secret life.
Suddenly Steve found himself biting his tongue to stop himself from asking Clint to pass along his thanks to Laura, for showing him the way to be the supportive yet invisible spouse, in a situation most couples never had to face. To thank Clint himself, for showing him and Peggy that such a life was possible. Clint had always been so steady. Steve had relied on him more than he had known sometimes. He'd missed Clint too. He'd missed both of them, deeply.
"Oh, Clint, this is-" Nat broke off, realizing they hadn't exchanged names.
"Grant," Steve quickly supplied.
"-Grant," Nat told Clint. "He's meeting a friend here." She smiled mischievously. "She's a big Beastie Boys fan."
Clint grinned broadly as he tucked his sunglasses into his jacket pocket. "Your friend has terrible taste in music," he told Steve.
Nat made an indignant sound and punched Clint in the shoulder, hard.
"Ow," he muttered, glaring at her.
"Don't be mean," she said archly.
"Me, mean? Who just punched who?" Clint said, rubbing his shoulder. "And by the way, genius, you're standing in the wrong line."
"What?" Nat said, digging a crumpled ticket out of her pocket and frowning down at it.
"Door C. That's us. Over there."
Nat sighed heavily and looked at Steve a little sheepishly.
"It was nice meeting you, Grant," she said.
"It was good to talk to you," Steve said, looking warmly into her eyes as he offered his hand. "Real good."
"Enjoy your visit with your friend," Nat said as she gave his hand a quick squeeze, and as she walked away, Clint put his arm around her shoulders to help steer her through the crowd. This time, she didn't stiffen up, but leaned into him ever so slightly.
Watching them go, Steve couldn't help but smile.
"I did," he said, too quietly for the retreating pair to hear. "Every second of it."
TO BE CONTINUED
Author's note: I'm excited to share the next few chapters with you! Let me know what you thought of today's update. Leave a comment!