January, 1949.

In which time travel has its downsides.


Peggy got off work a bit later than usual, and the sun was setting as she drove home. It went down quickly in the winter, and by the time she was pulling into the driveway, it was completely dark. The house was dark, save for the light in the living room, and to Peggy's surprise, she could see Steve silhouetted against it, sitting on the porch swing. She parked the car and walked back around to the porch.

"What are you doing out here in the dark?" she asked. Just like any other night she worked late, she'd called ahead, so she doubted he was out here worrying about her.

"Hi, Peggy," he said softly, not really answering the question. He didn't really look at her, staring out over the snow-covered yard, and she hadn't noticed the bottle and glass on the table beside him until he lifted the glass and took a drink. Closer to, she recognized that distant expression of his that wasn't really looking at the icicles on the mailbox—this was something about Steve that she'd had to get used to after he came back, something he hadn't really done before the Valkyrie. He was brooding. He didn't do it as much as he used to—the first few months, almost any time it was quiet and still for too long, he would drift off into the memories that weighed so heavily on him. As time went by and he settled, healed, truly rested for the first time in fourteen years, he did it less. But she still saw it sometimes, and tried to help when she could or give him space when she couldn't. The bourbon was new, though.

"Should I carry on inside?" she asked gently, uncertain if he wanted company or space. "Or…?"

"You can stay if you want," he replied. He still wasn't looking at her. His eyes were so far away right now, and she wondered what he was looking at.

She settled down onto the swing beside him, glad for the warmth he generated as she snuggled up against his side. He took another long drink of the bourbon, grimacing as he did so, and Peggy wondered how bad the memory was that had driven him to sit and drink in the dark. They both knew he couldn't get drunk. The last time he'd tried it was in 1945, the night that Bucky fell from the train.

He noticed her watching and he shook his head in the direction of his glass. "No," he said. "It's not doing anything for me. Wasn't expecting it to." He took another drink. "Burns like hell going down, though."

"Is that a good thing?"

"Depends," he said with a small shrug. "It hurts. I figure something should, so…"

Peggy looked up at him sadly, wrapping a hand around his bicep. "Darling, what's the matter?"

He took long enough to answer that she thought he wasn't going to. "Do you know what today is?"

She shook her head.

"It was today," he said softly. "Today in 1945. That was when he fell."

Of course. This was the day Bucky had died (or, the day they'd thought he'd died). The bourbon made a lot more sense now.

"Four years ago today was when I lost him," he said, his voice cracking.

Peggy swallowed down the urge to tell him it wasn't his fault. She'd said it in 1945, and Bucky had said it in 2016, and eventually, he'd come to believe it. But that wasn't what this was about. Bucky was safe and alive again in the future, and whenever Steve talked about him, it was with the fondness for a friend who lived far away, not the sadness for a loved one who was dead. But it was there tonight, that sorrow that he was trying to burn away with the alcohol and hide from in the dark. So Peggy didn't say anything. She just shifted closer to him and waited.

"He's out there somewhere right now," Steve whispered, nodding across the street at Mrs. Markle's oak tree and the world beyond it. "Right now, he's out there, locked up in a metal box, frozen and in pain in the dark. Hydra's had him for four years."

He took another long drink and pulled in a ragged inhale. "They've had him for four years, and he's lost his arm, but they haven't hurt him yet. He's just locked away, frozen. Waiting for Zola to get there." He sighed deeply, and his voice was not particularly steady when it came back. "They haven't hurt him yet. They will. But not yet. He's not the Winter Soldier yet. But it won't be much longer now." He was quiet for a long moment, staring coldly into the dark, then with a sudden burst of motion that surprised Peggy, he hurled his empty glass into the yard. It shattered against the mailbox in an angry spray of glass that was a sharp contrast to the musical tinkling of the icicles falling to the ground. "And there's nothing I can do," he whispered, dropping his head into his hands.

Peggy rested her hand on his back, feeling the shudders of breath as he struggled not to cry. She leaned her head against his and rubbed her hand up and down his back until his trembling muscles stilled. "Why can't you?" she asked softly.

He looked up at her as though she had slapped him, pain shining bright in his eyes.

"No, Steve," she said quickly, taking his face in her hands and ignoring just how cold his skin was. "I didn't mean it like that," she assured him. She hadn't meant to sound like she was accusing him of abandoning his best friend. "I'm sorry," she said, raising one hand to stroke back over his hair before cupping his cheek again. "I shouldn't've said it that way." His expression softened somewhat, though he still looked so sad and lost that it broke her heart.

"What I meant was," she began. "I know that there are rules about time travel and established timelines and things, and I know that you're trying to keep this one intact. It's just that, well…knowing how much Bucky means to you, I would hardly blame you in this case for telling the universe and its rules to sod off."

A ghost of a smile flickered across his lips. "Yeah," he said softly. "I've thought about it. A lot. But I can't." He shook his head, though not hard enough to dislodge Peggy's hands, then closed his eyes with a soft, sad little sigh. "He asked me not to," he breathed.

"Bucky asked you not to save him?"

Steve sighed again and nodded, then opened his eyes. "Yeah. I…I offered to," he told her. "When I was getting ready to come back. I knew where he was—well, where he is—and I offered to get him out. And he said no."

"Why?" Peggy wondered. Steve had told her everything that had happened to Bucky, as well as his long journey to recovery after Steve found him. Why on earth would he not want to erase all that?

"He said it probably wouldn't work—that I'd die trying or Hydra would recapture him or something so that he still became the Winter Soldier so the future didn't get messed up…or, on the off chance that I did get him out, it would create some alternate branch timeline and it wouldn't really be him that I saved." He sighed deeply. "But what it really was…what really scared him, was the possibility that it would work. He—you have to understand, Hydra messed with the inside of his head for decades, and it took him a long time to find himself again. And he told me that, even with all they'd done to him, even with all he'd suffered through, that he'd fought his way through it and was finally in a good place. He was at peace with who he was inside his head again, and he didn't want to lose that. So many things had rewritten his mind over the years, and he didn't want Time to be one more. He didn't want to risk what he'd finally found."

That was a lot to digest, but as Peggy mulled over the words, she thought she understood. Bucky would have known what a request like that would do to Steve, and she tried not to be angry with him for making it, because she did understand. Still, there was a small part of her that wished Bucky could see Steve sitting here in the cold and the dark, floundering in self-flagellation and whiskey under the weight of one more burden he had to carry.

"He apologized," Steve said, as if he knew what she'd been thinking, huffing a sad laugh. "He said he knew what a hard thing he was asking me to do, but he was asking anyway." He pressed his lips together tightly and swallowed hard. "So I said yes. I promised him I wouldn't do anything and let him stay the Bucky he wanted to be, and he promised me that he'd be there for me after I caught back up to 2023."

The fact that Bucky had promised to be there for him in the future did soften her anger towards him somewhat, but Steve was still hurting in the present. The moon had risen up over the tops of the houses, and it caught the moisture sparkling in his eyes. "So that's why I'm sitting out here drinking and crying in the dark," Steve whispered as a tear slipped down his cheek. "Because 2023 is a long way off, and I know what they're going to do to him before that. And I have to let it happen."

Another tear slid down his cheek and Peggy pulled him forward and kissed him. She could taste the salt of his tears as they kept flowing and the bourbon on his breath, and there was a desperation to the way he kissed her back, the way he pulled her against him as if he were bleeding out and she was the only thing that could stem the flow. "I'm sorry, darling," she whispered, kissing him again. "I'm so, so sorry."

She held him for a long time—all she could do, because this wasn't something she could fix. Eventually, his tears ran dry and he sagged against her, the desperation in him drained away, replaced by fatigue. "Come on," she said softly, wrapping her arms around him and getting slowly to her feet. "Let's warm you up."

They shuffled inside, Peggy locking the door behind them and flicking on some lights as they went. Here in the warm light of home, Steve looked dreadful. His eyes were red, weary and hurt, and his skin was cold as ice and far too pale. Peggy wondered how long he'd been sitting out there before she got home.

"Sorry," he said thickly. A little bit of color rose in his pale cheeks. "You must think I'm pretty pathetic right now."

"Not at all, darling," she said, kissing his cheek. "Not at all." She guided him up the stairs. "I think you're very tired, and very hurt." She met his eye and smiled encouragingly. "And that's very human. Which, despite the miracle of science flowing through your veins, you still are." That brought the tiniest of smiles to one corner of his mouth, and Peggy stopped at the top of the stairs and hugged him. "You're human and you're allowed to fall apart, but you're never going to have to carry anything alone." She kissed him softly. "I've got you now."

She led him to the bathroom and started a hot bath flowing, then coaxed him down into it. Picking up soap and a warm, wet cloth, she cleaned him off, feeling his muscles relax under her ministrations. His head was lolling on his neck as she worked the shampoo through his hair, his skin back to its proper color and flushed from the warmth now. He staggered on heat-exhausted legs when she helped him up out of the water and dried him off. "Almost there," she said softly, sliding his pajama pants up his legs and maneuvering his arms into his shirt.

He sighed deeply as she lowered him into bed, but it wasn't a sad sigh this time. "Don't go," he whispered.

"I'm not," she assured him. "Just changing." She slid out of her work dress and into her nightgown. "I'm not going anywhere," she said, climbing into bed next to him. "Never ever." He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, and she snuggled into his chest. "I'm here, darling," she told him. She kissed the side of his face. She might not be able to take his burden away, but she could keep him from having to shoulder it alone.

"Thank you," he whispered, resting his forehead against hers. "I couldn't…" He kissed her softly. "I love you, Peggy."

"I love you too, Steve. With all my heart." She shifted and tucked his head down against her chest, stroking his hair as she kissed the top of his head. "Rest now, my darling," she soothed. "Just rest. I've got you now."