A thousand apologies for the delay in getting this chapter out! It fought me tooth and nail these three months (and that was on top of me getting covid in January! All good on this front, I was ridiculously lucky and covid for me was just the symptoms of a head cold)! The goodbyes kept going on and on and on, and then Howard had to go and be dramatic about how his entrance was, thus resulting in another chapter before we head back over to England.

But enough of me rambling. Onto the chapter!

Enjoy!

Chapter 22: Goodbyes are hard to say

The chiming of a clock somewhere in the mansion makes just about everyone jump. Steve keeps his hand on Evelyn's arm when she flinches slightly at the noise. He wishes there was something he could do for her, but he knows from first hand experience that war instincts will settle when they settle and that there's not much anyone can do about that. It really doesn't help when you're taken from an active war zone and dumped unceremoniously into civilian life, as it were.

"Right, okay, England," Tony says, never one to let a silence linger. "When exactly are you going back?"

"Shortly," Evelyn returns. "My portkey departs in about a half hour. I need to prepare for the bloody House Meeting I mentioned earlier." She scowls heavily. "And figure what the bleeding hell it's even about. There wasn't one last time as far as I'm aware, so that can only mean it's because I've been changing things."

Tony's face scrunches up. "But isn't it almost eleven o'clock over there already? And is anyone even waiting for you over there?"

Evelyn raises an eyebrow at him. "I'm well aware that it's nighttime over in England, thanks. We did just arrive in the States about an hour and a half ago. As to your other insinuation, I'm going to assume it's due to the fact that I look like a child at the moment. I could take care of myself fairly well when I was ten."

"Eve—"

"But yes, Remus is waiting for me."

"The werewolf?"

"The full moon isn't for another eight days, Stark."

Tony huffs. "Well excuse me for not having the moon cycle memorized."

She rolls her eyes at him. "And I don't expect you to. You're not the one with friends and family affected by it. It's just become a habit, one that I didn't even truly need while we were fighting because I wasn't even making potions by the end."

Steve interjects himself into the conversation before the two of them can really get into it. Because they can go for hours if left unattended. There was video proof at one point. It's a small mercy that Loki isn't here egging both of them on, because that's happened too. "Do you know when you're going to come back to get me?"

"The 27th at the earliest. I'm not leaving Remus alone during a full moon if I can help it." A wicked grin spreads across her lips. "I'm sure Stark here can find something to keep you entertained until then."

Tony squawks indignantly, and then it's Evelyn running away with Tony hot on her heels. Steve just sighs as her cackling laughter fades a bit as she disappears to somewhere in the monstrosity of the mansion. When there's no immediate shrieking from one or the other signaling Tony's caught up, he decides to just let them be for the moment.

"I assume, given your lack of reaction, that this is normal?" Ana inquires hesitantly, probably because of the earlier occurrence before Peggy and her family arrived.

"Very," Steve states dryly, "and it's bound to get worse as we check in on everyone else, especially if they all decide to come stay with us. Clint's always one to join in on their mischief, but Natasha's downright vicious when provoked far enough." Steve knows that to find Natasha, they first have to find Clint. The man was one of the few people the former Black Widow fully confided in, therefore giving him the best bet at locating her. Of course, that requires finding him. Hopefully Tony will have an idea about how to do that, because Steve's rapidly coming to the realization that he doesn't have a clue how to use the current technology. Again. Only this time, he's going to have to unlearn certain habits and expectations.

"Other members of your team?" Peggy asks.

"Yeah. Clint's a marksman who specializes in using a bow and arrow that Fury recruits to SHIELD sometime in the near future as far as I'm aware, and he's the one who brought Nat into the fold." He grins a bit mischievously. "She's a former Black Widow, or will be at any rate."

Peggy's eyes widen. "A Black Widow and you trust her?"

"With my life. She's one of the few people who really helped me acclimate to the 21st century." He snorts out a chuckle. "Kept trying to set me up on dates, of all things, though. Not that I had much time for dating, given the amount of missions SHIELD continually sent me out on." He shoots her a sad smile when she makes a pained noise. "And besides, most people can't see past Captain America and see Steve. The team did, and I was happy enough with that, especially because of the chaos going on around us." He pauses, picking up on thundering feet starting to head back in their general direction. "Excuse me a moment." He meanders over to the doorway, faintly listening to the continued squabbling if only to better judge how close the two idiots are. Then, as they start approaching the room, Steve steps out into the hallway just in time to be able to snag Evelyn around the waist. She shrieks in startled delight as he immediately transfers her to his other arm so he can do similarly to Tony, who's scrambling to stop before he runs into them.

"Shit, shit, shi—oof." All the air is driven from Tony's lungs as he hits Steve's arm full on. "I hate you," he wheezes pitifully, now clutching at Steve to stay upright.

"Uh huh, sure you do," Steve says blandly, hefting Tony up just enough that he can walk the three of them back into the room. Tony makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat that Steve decides to ignore, although it does send Evelyn into a fit of breathless giggles.

"I hate you both," Tony bemoans as Steve drops him onto a couch.

"How will I ever survive?" Steve deadpans, earning him a snort from Evelyn before she continues giggling. "You alright there, Eve?"

"I'm fine," she gasps, while Tony mumbles something into his hands that Steve doesn't catch. Regardless, Evelyn starts wiggling around, obviously wanting to be put down, but she unfortunately manages to twist herself in such a way that she slips through his arms. Steve scrambles and fails to catch her before she drops straight onto Tony's stomach.

"Fucking shit, you're heavy," the startled man spits out.

"Excuse me?!"

"Language," Steve says almost absentmindedly, ready to snatch Evelyn away if it looks like it'll devolve into another spat but willing to just leave them both be if it doesn't.

"Fuck you, Captain Spangles, this is your fault," Tony retorts back, kicking out a foot and clipping the back of Steve's leg. All three of them pause for a moment as that registers. "Why the hell am I acting like a brat?"

"You're twenty eight years younger, Stark, your hormones aren't what you're used to," Evelyn says primly, patting his chest almost condescendingly. "Give it a few months, and you should be back on what amounts to an even keel for you."

"Hardy har har," Tony grumbles, but tellingly doesn't dump her off.

Evelyn heaves a sigh. "Tony, you just saw me have a meltdown in your hallway, and I've only been back for about a month. You, at least, are still an adult. I went from thirty nine to ten. You will be getting no sympathy from me on the hormone front." Tony pulls a face, as if the mere idea is offensive to him. "That's what I thought. Be thankful you're still legal."

Tony looks even more horrified. "Oh good god."

"Exactly."

"It's not like you really indulged much in things that required you to be legal, Eve," Steve points out.

"It's the principle of the thing, Captain," Evelyn states, sliding off Tony with more dignity than should be possible given both of their gangliness. "And it is much easier to say no to the utter imbeciles in England when I am fully grown, for all that they're also twice as persistent." She wrinkles her nose in obvious disdain. "The price I pay for being Lady Potter as opposed to Lord Potter. I am very much looking forward to them trying to get through Sirius, Remus, and Loki this time round."

Tony barks out a startled chuckle as he leavers himself upright. "You must really not like any of them, to sick the literal God of Mischief on them."

"He's my betrothed, according to all the old men in England, it'll be his duty to care about what I do, along with Remus as my House's Head Retainer and Sirius as my godfather. See how much they try and control their precious Girl-Who-Lived with those three playing gatekeeper." She looks very satisfied with herself, and from the few stories Steve remembers, she has every reason to be. Loki alone should be enough of a deterrent, but the stories she shared of her father's friends makes him think that they'll be up to the task just as much.

And, because he seems to be the only one of them three that seems to be paying attention to the clock, Steve murmurs, "Five minute warning."

"Right then." Evelyn pulls her necklace out of her pocket and takes a few steps back out of the circle of couches.

"A necklace?" Tony says, skepticism practically dripping from his voice.

Evelyn fixes him with an exasperated look. "You do realize that I came here looking like a grown woman, correct? It wasn't that long ago, you moron."

"Yes I remember, but I don't see what—oh."

"Honestly, Stark, I worry about you sometimes."

"Oh, like you're one to talk. You fried at least three different tablets of mine within the first month of staying in my tower."

Evelyn scowls. "My apologies for attempting to save Jane's life. It's not like I knew the residual power left in her from the Reality Stone would amplify my magic that much." She waves Tony off as he opens his mouth again, obviously trying to avoid delving into the ongoing argument they have about that. "Right, so I don't know how much attention you were paying to my doing this last time, but I warn you that it's rather abrupt." She fixes her necklace back around her neck, causing Tony to jerk and swear under his breath even with the warning. Steve manages not to react only because he's seen it a few times already, for all that it still weirds him out every time she does it in his line of sight. "I said it was abrupt," she grumbles.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Tony heaves himself up off the couch and wraps her up in a hug. Only by virtue of where he's standing does Steve see Evelyn blink away tears gathering in her eyes before she presses her face into Tony's shoulder. "You need anything, you call me," he whispers fiercely. "I'll throw around my name as much as necessary to get things moving for you."

Evelyn barks out a watery sounding chuckle. "I'm the Girl-Who-Lived, Stark, and the last Potter on top of that. I'm not above using that to my advantage as much as possible." She exhales shakily, and her fingers bunch up Tony's shirt as she clings to him. "But it's really good seeing you again, Tony."

"Thanks for bringing me back."

This earns him another laugh. "As if I'd ever leave you behind." She squeezes her arms around him one last time, then makes to step back.

Tony only lets her go so far before stopping her by touching his fingers to her face. She visibly shudders as his thumb strokes across her cheek, wiping away some the tears still lingering. "Write to me, if only so I know I don't have to lay siege to all of England to make sure you're safe."

Evelyn scoffs through a fresh wave of tears. "As if Loki would ever allow that to happen." Her lower lip trembles. "Fuck, I haven't had to leave anyone behind right after them getting their memories back. This is harder than I bloody thought it would be."

Tony blinks at her. "Who else has their memories besides us and Thor and Loki?"

"My cousin Dudley, my godfather Sirius, and his friend Remus. We originally thought that Thor and Dudley remembering was just a fluke, given that we weren't even sure if Loki would remember and he was the one who cast Soul Magic on me. Then my idiot brother and husband broke my godfather out of prison and we found out that the Soul Magic hadn't truly left me yet." She presses a hand to her heart. "We tested it again on Remus, and then Steve once we fished him out of the ocean. Our next stop was you."

"You're getting the team back together," he says softly, reverently.

"I'm getting the family back together," she corrects him. "My entire family apparently, magical and not." She reaches up a hand to mirror Tony, touching his cheek. "Take care of each other, please." Steve can't see Tony's face, but his expression must be bad because Evelyn's softens into pained understanding.

"I don't think I'll be able to let him out of my sight anytime soon."

Evelyn darts forward to press a quick kiss to his other cheek before she whirls around Tony to throw her arms around Steve instead. He readily returns the embrace, lifting her clean off the ground as he does. Her breathless laughter is his reward and he revels in it, given that it wasn't a frequent sound near the end of his life.

"See you in about a week, Eve," he says quietly into her ear, because while he's had her longer than Tony, it's still only really been three days since he woke up in the past.

"If you aren't exactly where I've left you, Captain, we'll be having words once I've hunted you down," she warns.

He drops her back onto her feet and shoots her a cheeky grin just because he can. "Yes ma'am."

She gives him an unimpressed look, but doesn't comment any further. She does, however, visibly gather herself up before turning on her heel to regard everyone else still in the room who haven't really said much of anything since Evelyn and Tony had their brief race around the mansion. "It was a pleasure meeting all of you. I hope in the future we won't be so pressed for time."

Ana is the only one who seems to be able to find her voice. "You as well, Heiress Potter."

"Please, it's Evelyn or Eve. You're Tony's family." She marches over to where the backpack has been resting on the floor ever since Steve took his shield out of it. She sticks her hand inside and withdraws the glove that is her ticket back to England. Glancing back towards where Steve and Tony still are standing, not having moved, her lips quirk in a war weary smile even with the tears shining in her eyes before she vanishes. Lewis and Edwin make startled noises, but otherwise they all just stare at where she'd stood.

"I'm going with you," Tony says abruptly.

"Hmm?"

"England. I'm going with you."

Steve raises an eyebrow that the man doesn't see, given that he's still staring at the spot Evelyn vanished from. "You sure about that? From what little I've gotten from Eve, there won't be much for you to do over there."

"Yes I'm sure, Captain," he spits out through clenched teeth. "I didn't lie to her when I said I don't think I'm gonna be able to let you out of my sight for the foreseeable future. So that means if you're going to England in about a week, then so am I."

"Tony—"

Steve almost feels like he can hear the other man's temper erupt. "Don't you Tony me! I just told you that I had to watch you get run through with a sword! The fucking coms were designed by me, Steve! State-of-the-art coms designed to give us every advantage possible out in the field, and that meant picking up all the sounds that it could for further analysis after every mission!" He chokes, his breathing ragged as he stares up at Steve with a fierceness rarely displayed. "I just watched you—"

And it's only now that Steve realizes that for Tony, it was little over an hour ago that everything happened. Steve's had three days for everything to settle, and while that's not really much time, it's still time. Tony might've been able to rapidly compartmentalize in those first few moments, but now that there's no longer an immediate pressing demand for his attention, it's all crashing down on him.

"Come here," he says softly, pulling the trembling man into his arms. He ignores Tony's half-hearted protests, and he's glad he does, because the man clings to him like he's drowning and Steve's the only one who can keep him afloat. "I'm here," he whispers hoarsely. "I'm here and I'm not going anywhere anytime soon."

"Fucking hell, I didn't—I didn't think—shit—you can't do that to me again, Steve," Tony chokes out.

"I have no intentions of dying anytime soon."

He hears more than feels Tony's lackluster slap against his side. "Like any of us had any real intentions of dying, Cap," the man growls.

True, but this is one of the few empty promises that he likes voicing anyways because, since waking up seventy years in the future, it's always been true. He built a family with the team, and therefore he had something to live for again. So he always went into each fight with the mindset that he had something to go back to, so he had to live. It wasn't until he hit his knees on Nidavelir that he realized that that was the moment he wasn't going to live through the fight. It'd been so quick he hadn't even been able to voice a single goodbye.

With a quick glance to the other side of the room, Steve sees that both Ana and Peggy have tears in their eyes, for all that Peggy's face offers nothing else. It's the hand she has clenched tightly in her husband's that's most telling of the turmoil she must be experiencing. He's just as stoic as Peggy, although Steve can see the muscles in the man's jaws twitching. Edwin, on the other hand, looks just as horrified as his wife, who's clinging to him while they both stare at Tony with wide eyes. Peggy's son just looks like he wants to be able to do something, but doesn't have any idea what that something should be. Steve knows the feeling so well.

"God, don't tell me that everyone is watching us," Tony mumbles hoarsely.

"Tony," Ana all but sobs, springing up from the couch and rushing over. Steve takes a step back and lets her wrap Tony up in her arms, touching a hand to Tony's back when the man twists like he's trying to follow where Steve's going.

"I'm not going far," he murmurs. Only then does Tony settle, and Steve makes his way across the room to where Peggy still sits with her family. Because Edwin followed after his wife, Steve drops down onto that couch. "I'm sorry you had to hear that."

Peggy exhales shakily. "I'm sorry you had to live that." She clears her throat. "So, you and Tony are close then?"

Steve shrugs a shoulder. "We led the team together, and that creates its own kind of closeness." He can feel a fond smile spreading across his lips as he looks over to where Tony is haphazardly attempting to palicate Ana and Edwin. "But yeah, we're close for all that we went after each other's throats our first meeting. Circumstances were against us, but we managed to pull through together in the end."

"There were aliens in the sky, Cap, and a magicy staff screwing with all of our heads," Tony pipes up. "What more of a bonding experience do you want?"

Steve lets his grin morph into a smirk, because there's still a darkness lingering in Tony's eyes and he'd really rather that go away. "Well, I've always been partial to going after Nazis and HYDRA agents myself, but aliens and the like are quickly becoming a close second."

As intended, Tony snorts before descending into downright cackling, his laughter chasing away the shadows for now.

"I haven't heard him truly laugh like that in years," Peggy says softly.

"Rhodey said something similar once we all started settling in with each other," Steve comments just as quietly, smirk never wavering. "We were all broken in some way and instead of rubbing each other raw, we settled almost seamlessly into this new family where we didn't have to put on masks of any sort when it was just us. We healed and then lived because of that."

"You know Rhodes?"

"He and Tony were still best friends when we all showed up." He slides a glance over to Peggy with a rueful smile that she just blinks at. "And the man has no qualms about telling super soldiers off if we mess up with his Tones. I got a bit of an earful after a particular incident that I really deserved." He holds off on all the details, because they've dropped enough information onto Peggy right now. There's more than enough time to tell her the truth about Bucky at a later date.

"My platypus does have a bit of a protective streak in him," Tony agrees, throwing himself onto the couch next to Steve. "Him and Pepper both." Tony frowns. "I should look into finding her. See if I can't poach her before she goes to Killian."

"So long as you don't run yourself ragged," Steve cautions him, though he knows it's futile. Tony runs himself ragged regardless of what he's doing. "We're going to be busy enough as it is. And on that note, do you have any idea of who you want to look for first? Besides Pepper."

"Probably Birdbrain numero uno. We need him for Nat, and I'd rather find her sooner rather than later. No need for her to stay with the Russians when we can just bring her home. And I can probably swing him as a bodyguard or trainer of sorts if people start asking questions. At least until I can find Happy again too."

Of course Tony is continually adding to the list of people they'd like to find and possibly have remember the years that were. Still, Steve will let Evelyn have that particular discussion with Tony, given that the Soul Magic necessary will come from her. "You know, both Clint and Sam will probably still take exception to being called that."

"Then they shouldn't come with call names like Hawkeye and Falcon. That's just practically begging for themed nicknames from yours truly." He grins widely. "And anyways, I paid through the nose to house and gear you guys up. I can call all you free loaders whatever the hell I want."

"And yet you're the one who offered to let us all live with you," Steve drawls, remembering that they'd gotten it out of Tony at one point that he'd been planning spaces for everyone shortly after the invasion in Manhattan. The man's not fooling Steve at least. "Not to mention you cursed all of our previous gear to hell and back, and then proceeded to design us all new stuff despite anything anyone said otherwise."

Tony huffs. "Like I'd let my friends walk around with such inferior tech. I'm a Stark, I can make the best of the best. And don't think I didn't catch how pleased you all were with your upgraded tech. Clint wouldn't shut up for weeks after I—"

A sound catches Steve's attention, and with practiced ease he keeps from tensing up as he strains to listen to the new sound over Tony's continued talking. The door that he'd definitely heard open shuts and then there's a male voice he hasn't heard in person since before he sunk the Valkyrie in the Arctic Ocean but still vividly remembers.

"Iron Man." His call name falls from Steve's lips almost unconsciously, very much feeling like he's suddenly gearing up for a battle. Surprisingly enough, there must be something in his voice, because Tony immediately shuts his mouth and looks at Steve expectantly. "Howard's back."

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