Author's Note: Because I couldn't get the idea of Steve's older self now retired and watching the events of "Captain America: Brave New World" out of my head. Spoilers for the movie ahead.

One Cap to Another

"Dad, phone call for you."

Steve looked up from his idle sketching as his daughter walked in, holding his cell phone out. "Oh, thanks."

Sarah shook her head a little as she handed his phone to him but a faint smile was playing around her lips. "You know a cell phone is supposed to be kept with you, not just lying around."

He felt a quick spasm of poignant joy at his daughter's expression, the wry tone of her voice, so like Peggy. In appearance and personality, Sarah was very much his daughter but in her dark eyes and in the quality of her mind, she was all Peggy's and as she grew older, he had noticed that more of her gestures, her little mannerisms, her turns of phrase, were becoming like a hazy reflection of Peggy. It was a never-ending source of private wonder to him, to see the ways in which his children were a reflection of both himself and Peggy while still being their own unique selves. "I was using cell phones before you were born," he reminded her mildly. "I just figure there's no need to keep it with me when I'm at home and it's not like many people need to reach me these days anyway."

Even in his years when he'd been living through the future, while he had slowly become accustomed to having a cell phone and had learned to keep it with him, he had never become as addicted to it as some people were–Tony came to mind. And these days, very few people outside of his family knew his current cell phone number, the number he had used since he and Peggy both had come around to getting a cell phone themselves. The only people among his old friends, the Avengers, who even knew his new cell phone number were Bucky and Sam. The other Avengers, Bruce and Clint, did not need to know, he figured, and if in the off chance they ever really wanted to contact him now that he was well and truly out of the game, he knew they would know to reach out to Bucky or Sam and either one would pass on his number if necessary.

Sarah rolled her eyes even as she gave him an indulgent smile since this was a fairly frequent refrain between them these days. "Well, this is one of those people who might, which is why I thought I'd better answer it. It's your old friend Sam Wilson."

Steve straightened up in his chair, managing not to grimace at the stiffness he felt these days when he changed position. He remembered hearing that getting old was not for the faint of heart and he had learned what that meant. Not that he, of all people, particularly minded having aged physically but it was an adjustment, even for him. He brought the phone up to his ear. "Hi, Sam."

"Hi, Cap." He heard Sam's familiar voice on the other end of the line.

Steve smiled. "I should be the one calling you Cap now. And you should just call me Steve." He nodded and waved at his daughter as she quietly slipped out of the room.

Sam huffed a little laugh. "Nah, you'll always be Cap to me and you know it."

"Force of habit, I suppose. Well, what's up? Don't you have bigger and better things to be doing than talking to an old man?"

There was a brief pause and then Sam said, his voice sober now, "I suppose you've seen the news, saw what happened with Ross and Stearns."

Steve's smile faded. "Yes, I saw. I'm retired, not dead. At least not yet."

"Dude, don't even joke about that."

Steve had to laugh. "I'm 120 years old, give or take a few years. How much longer do you think I have? And don't give me some platitude about me still having a lot of years left. I know I don't and truth be told, I'm not sure I want a lot of years but don't worry about me. You're the one who's in the thick of it, after all."

It was Sam's turn to sigh, the sound coming clear over the phone line. "Yeah, I guess. I was just at the Raft."

"Decided to revisit your old haunts?" Steve joked.

Sam laughed a little. "Yeah, you could say that. Ross said the food isn't any better."

"It wasn't meant to be a luxury accommodation," Steve noted dryly.

Sam huffed another laugh. "No, it wasn't."

A brief silence hummed over the line while Steve waited for whatever it was Sam wanted to say, although he thought he had a pretty good idea. He suppressed a sigh and thought, for about the millionth time, that he did not miss being Captain America at all. It was, he knew, something that almost no one who hadn't been, well, one of the Avengers, could really understand, the weight of the responsibility of it, the pressure, the guilt. To carry that iconic shield emblazoned with the shining star was not an honor or if it was, it was a very heavy one that came with its own burden. Always feeling the eyes of the world on him, needing to be the perfect hero. Even more so for him because after he'd come out of the ice, when everyone had known about his sacrifice in crashing the Valkyrie, people had tended to view him as not just a hero but something more like a saint, a living legend.

Peggy had been the only person who had never viewed him as anything other than just a man. She had understood but then she had understood everything. And even after all these years, he had to blink away the tears at the thought of her, the sharp pang of missing her. He could not become accustomed to it, to the absence of her. He might have thought, if he had thought about it at all, which he had deliberately avoided doing, that his years in the future when he'd always been mourning her, would have helped prepare him for losing her a second time but he had learned that there was no way to prepare for such a loss. Even knowing, as he had, the exact day on which it would happen, had not prepared him. Her loss had ripped a gaping hole in his heart, his life, and the hole remained, would never heal. At least not until the day he finally joined her, for good. The only thing that came close to filling in some of the void left by her loss was the presence of their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren. The family they had made, the memories of the life they had made together. That, and the sure and certain belief that wherever she was, she was waiting for him to join her. They would not be apart forever, not even for much longer, he was sure of that. And part of him was only waiting until the day he would join her again.

But for now, he had a friend who needed him.

He waited for another few seconds but when Sam still didn't speak, Steve finally said, "You know, if you wanted to curse me out, I'd understand."

Sam coughed and then choked a little. "Curse you out? For what?"

"You really have to ask? For handing over the shield to you, making you Captain America. I know, the shield's a nice shiny toy, looks great. You might have thought I was giving you some big honor. But you've been doing this for long enough to realize that the shield is more of a burden than it is an honor." He paused and sighed a little. "I didn't do you any favors, Sam. I sometimes think I owe you an apology."

"Cap, no," Sam blurted out, sounding rather horrified. "I wasn't–that's not why I'm calling at all! I just–I wanted to say that I understand now in a way I didn't then why you made the choice you did and… I just had to ask, how'd you do it, be Captain America for so many years?"

"I had help."

"Yeah, you had the serum to help you," Sam commented. "I kept thinking that I should have had the serum too. It would have helped."

"That wasn't what I meant. I meant that I didn't fight alone. I had friends. Like a certain former soldier who can't run worth anything but who's got a set of wings that make him a useful ally."

Sam laughed at that. "Oh, you're still harping on that run, huh? You had an unfair advantage and you know it."

"You should have seen me before the serum. I was really something then," Steve told him dryly.

"I've been to that Smithsonian exhibit about you too, Cap. I saw the pictures of the old you."

"There, see, so you do know. Can't blame me for getting a little bit of fun out of my new advantages when I could." Steve sobered. "You did just fine, Sam. I saw what happened but you did fine, you did what you had to do and you got through it."

Sam sighed. "I don't know, man. The kid, my friend Joaquin, the one I passed the Falcon suit to, he's still in the hospital, got a long road ahead of him. And I keep thinking that maybe if I'd been better, faster, smarter, I–"

"Did you do your best?" Steve interrupted him.

"I–yes, of course I did. But I–"

"Then that's enough," Steve cut him off again. "The hardest lesson I had to try to learn when I was Captain America and something I never really accepted was that not even Captain America can save everyone. My wife always used to say that all we can do is our best and as long as we do our best, then we have nothing to reproach ourselves for. And she was as right about that as she was about everything else. You did your best, Sam, and that's enough, that's all that anyone can expect. And as for your friend, he made a choice too and as my wife once told me, we should allow our friends the dignity of their choices."

There was a second's pause and then Sam ventured, "Your wife–Margaret Carter?"

Steve jolted a little at the name, the use of Peggy's full name still striking him as sounding odd. His Peggy had never gone by Margaret, had told him that she rather disliked the name, thought 'Margaret' sounded so stuffy and formal, which did not reflect who she was at all. It was why Peggy had vetoed using Margaret as Sarah's middle name, as he had initially suggested, so Sarah's middle name was Elizabeth instead, Peggy's own middle name which she had said she liked much better. "Did Bucky tell you that?" Bucky, who was the only one among his old friends who knew who he had gone back to the past to spend his life with. Steve had never been comfortable with talking about Peggy to just anyone; his feelings for Peggy, how much she meant to him, were too personal and he had never been someone who confided easily.

"No, actually. I guessed and he couldn't deny it when I asked."

Steve blinked. "How'd you guess?"

"I saw your face at her funeral, remember, and I thought I'd never seen anyone look so… bereft in my life."

Steve flinched a little at the mention of Peggy's funeral, the memory of which still lashed at him as the worst and hardest days of his life. He'd had to live through it twice now and each time had been its own special agony. He pushed aside the pain in his chest, deliberately did not allow himself to sink back into the memories. He couldn't bear it.

"It wasn't only that, though. Later, after you got me out of the Raft and we were in Wakanda, I went to find you one time, I don't know if you remember, to tell you that Shuri wanted to talk to you and I caught you staring at a picture in your compass. You put it away the moment you heard me coming but I got a glimpse of it and I realized later who the picture was of." Sam paused and then added, his voice softer, "You tried to hide it, kept your eyes averted when I came up, but I saw that you had tears in your eyes."

Steve did not remember that particular moment but he knew that he had spent a lot of time in the days and weeks following the prison break he had orchestrated from the Raft looking at Peggy's picture in his compass. They had been the hardest, saddest days of his life, his grief over the loss of Peggy mingling with his grief over his fallout with Tony, the resulting break with the Avengers. It felt like–it had been–a lifetime ago for him now but he still shuddered a little at the memory of those years he had been on the run. "Oh, so you know," was all he could think to say, inanely.

"Yeah. It took me a while after you came back from returning the Stones, but I figured it out. Guess that explains why you were never interested when Nat suggested girls for you to date."

"Yeah, that was why," Steve confirmed.

Sam hesitated but then went on, "I didn't know, didn't realize at the time how important Peggy Carter was to you. But you never forgot her or got over her, did you?"

"No. She's the love of my life." It didn't even occur to Steve until later that he had used the present tense but then, that was only accurate. Peggy was not part of his past to him; she was still a part of his present. She was still there with him, in his heart, in his memories, in their children. And of course, it was still the truth that Peggy was now, as she had always been, the one and only love of his life.

"I am happy for you, Cap. And I understand. Of course, once you were given the chance, you chose to go back to her."

Steve sighed a little. "I went back to see her but it wasn't only about her. I was… ready to be done with being Captain America." He had needed to be done with being Captain America, had felt too drained and exhausted to keep fighting.

There was a brief pause and then Sam said, "I can imagine. You were Captain America for more than 10 years. It's barely been two years for me and I'm already exhausted. I can't imagine how you managed it for so long."

"I didn't have a choice," was all Steve could say.

"You could have hung up the shield earlier," Sam suggested. "After everything went down with Hydra and the end of SHIELD especially, you could have said, enough."

"And gone into ultimate fighting?" Steve finished dryly, echoing Sam's suggestion from so many years ago.

Sam chuckled at that. "It was just a suggestion. You'd have been great at it."

"Thanks, but no. Anyway, we both know it wouldn't have been that easy to just hang up the shield and walk away. Even if I'd tried it, the world wouldn't have left me alone, you know that." He knew that, knew that the only way he had been able to live his life in peace after he had returned to Peggy and even now was if the world believed him to be dead. Sam and the remaining others had let it be understood that he too had been lost in the final battle against Thanos, like Nat and Tony, and of course, in a way, it was true. The Steve Rogers he had been was gone now, along with his youthful body.

Sam sighed briefly. "Yeah, I suppose I do. The world needs a Captain America. But as I've been reminded more than once lately, I'm no Steve Rogers."

"You don't need to be Steve Rogers. And take it from me, whatever people might say now, I made plenty of mistakes in my time."

"Not that many."

"I made my share of mistakes, Sam, believe me, and I've had to live with them, as we all do. All I'll say for myself from when I was Captain America was that I always did my best, tried to do what I thought was right at the time. I didn't give you the shield because I expected you to be another Steve Rogers. I gave you the shield because you're a good man, one who tries his best and doesn't give up. And that's all that really matters, the most important part of being Captain America. It's not about having super-strength from the serum or about what you look like–looking like the perfect soldier doesn't make a person Captain America, just look at John Walker. You did your best, Sam, did what you thought was right. And that's enough. It's enough for me, for what it's worth, and it'll be enough for the rest of the world, no matter what anyone says. All right, Captain America?" he added after a moment, half-teasingly.

There was a brief pause and then Sam responded, his voice the way it was when he was trying to sound more humorous than he felt, "You know, you and Bucky both have a really effective line in inspirational speeches. You could go on tour or something."

"Bucky gave you an inspirational speech?"

Sam gave a little huff. "Yeah. He stopped by the hospital while Joaquin was in surgery, talked me out of my funk. The little speech he gave me might have been even better than the one you gave on that last day at SHIELD, when you told everyone that SHIELD had been infiltrated by Hydra."

Steve gave a brief chuckle. "'The price of freedom's high,'" he quoted rather sardonically. "My wife always said that I had a knack for being overly dramatic so I guess when the moment actually was dramatic, I was able to match the moment. So now Bucky's giving inspirational speeches, huh?"

"Yeah. Don't tell him I said so but I'm not sure I've ever been so glad to see anyone in my life."

"I won't tell but it doesn't surprise me." Steve smiled faintly, a little sadly, memories from a lifetime–a century–ago returning to him. "He was always good at that, being a loyal friend and showing up when he's needed."

"I'm beginning to see that."

"I'm just glad he's managing to move on, put his past behind him."

Sam gave a little laugh. "He really is. You should have seen him, wearing a suit and managing to look distinguished."

Steve's smile widened into a real one. "Oh, I know. I've seen his picture on the news talking about his campaign." He made a sound that was half a breath and half a chuckle. "The boy from Brooklyn's come a long way."

"Yeah, you could say that. Oh, you'll get a kick out of this. Bucky has an admirer of sorts."

"Oh, really? Who is this brave lady?"

"Ruth Bat-Seraph, Ross's security advisor."

"I remember hearing the name but if I've seen her on the news, she wasn't identified as such. What's she like?"

"She's a former Widow, trained at the Red School, so that should pretty much tell you what you need to know."

Steve sat back, feeling the tug of grief at the reminder of Nat. "Another former Widow, huh. I know from experience that if you're lucky enough to have a former Widow on your side, then you've already got a leg up in any fight. Well, I suppose if anyone is going to be strong enough to deal with Bucky, it would be a former Widow so I wish her luck. Knowing Bucky, she'll need it."

"As it is, he seems plenty busy these days, what with his campaign and all."

"Oh, yes, his campaign. My children contributed to it, for my sake, I know, although they didn't say as much. I sent Bucky a message to tell him so."

"Your children?" Sam repeated.

Steve smiled, feeling the swell of love and pride in his chest that he always felt in talking about his children. "Yes, my children. You just spoke to my daughter when she answered the phone and you met my son Jamie at… the funeral, if you remember."

Sam sucked in his breath, choked a little, and then coughed. "Wait, the James Carter we met at the funeral was your son?"

"Yeah, I pretty much reacted like that too when I realized it a while back," Steve said rather dryly. By now, he, at least, was over the surprise, not to say shock, he had felt when he had realized that in this universe, he had always been destined to go back to Peggy and live his life with her, that her husband and children who he'd learned about in the future had been himself, his children, all along.

"So you were meeting your own adult son and you had no idea."

"That pretty much sums it up."

Sam blew out a breath. "I thought I'd gotten used to the weirdness that was your life but it just never ends, does it?"

Steve laughed almost in spite of himself. "Yes, well, I have lived a life." He remembered Peggy saying those words and managed a small smile at the memory, in spite of the tears that pricked at the back of his eyes.

"You can say that again." Sam paused and then added, "I met your daughter at the funeral too, actually, just a quick introduction, I'd almost forgotten. And her name is Sarah–after your mom? And your son, James–you named your son after Bucky."

"Yes." Steve had never really thought about having kids until meeting Peggy and then after everything, waking up in the future, being Captain America, he had never thought that he could even have children but when it had become possible, when he'd been able to go back to Peggy, he had never doubted that he would name any son he might have after Bucky. His Peggy had understood that too so he hadn't even needed to tell her. It was something he would never forget, the way his Peggy had said, in one of their conversations discussing names when Peggy had been pregnant with Sarah, that of course, if the baby were a boy, they would name him James. He had kissed her for it and for a while, any discussion about possible baby names had been postponed.

"Say, Cap, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, what is it?"

Sam hesitated for a moment and then asked, "Was it worth it?"

"Worth it?" Steve repeated. "What, all the years I spent as Captain America or leaving behind my life as Captain America in order to go back and actually live my life?"

"Yeah, both those things, I guess. It's just… you did so much. You saved the world, what, four, five, however many times? Captain America meant so much to so many people."

"I don't regret a thing, if that's what you're asking," Steve answered slowly. "My life as Captain America was both a privilege and a burden and while I was ready to leave it behind, I don't regret the years I spent serving either. But the life I've lived since, my life, the one I chose, is what made it all worth it. Being a husband and a father is the best thing I've ever done."

There was a brief silence. "You know," Sam finally responded, "everything that Ross did, from the deal he made with Stearns to become President right up until the end when he accepted responsibility for being the Red Hulk, he did because of his daughter, because he wanted to regain his relationship with her." Sam paused and then Steve heard him blow out a breath. "I don't know. I've been trying to understand it but it still seems crazy to me."

Steve felt his lips twitch a little. Sam might say that but he knew that Sam almost certainly understood more than he thought. Sam had a talent for empathy, for understanding. It was what had made him such a good counselor for other vets. "I think you understand better than you think. It's how you were able to get through to Ross, make him stand down from being the Red Hulk. You did that, you and your counseling experience. And it's more than I would ever have been able to do."

"Yeah, well, Thanos wasn't exactly the sort that could be reasoned with," Sam responded rather dryly. "I'm just lucky that it worked, that Ross wasn't so far gone that he couldn't be reasoned with."

"Sometimes, we make our own luck and that's what you did."

There was another pause, lasting long enough that Steve could guess that something else was still bothering Sam, another reason for his calling. Steve waited and after a long moment, Sam abruptly blurted out, "They want me to reboot the Avengers."

Oh, so that was it. Steve couldn't say he was that surprised either. He should have half-expected such a thing but he hadn't really thought about it. He really was out of the game now. "Oh. Well, if you're calling to try to recruit me, the answer is no," Steve joked.

Sam huffed a laugh. "I figured. No, I'm not trying to recruit you. You've earned your retirement, Cap."

"Well, then, what is it?" Steve prompted mildly after a moment.

"You have to ask? It's the Avengers. Those are some pretty big shoes to fill. I almost got Joaquin killed in this last mission. What kind of qualification is that for recruiting a group to be Earth's mightiest heroes?"

"You know as well as anyone that the Avengers weren't perfect. None of us were. We all made mistakes, had our differences." He paused, feeling the quick stab of regret and grief he still felt when he thought about his falling out with Tony and how long it had taken before that friendship had been mended, along with the grief over what had happened to Tony, the grief that had been revived in the last couple years of having to watch as it happened all over again, witnessing all the various tributes to Tony and his Iron Man. "And even the Avengers couldn't save everyone, not even ourselves. What brought us together and held us together in the end, in spite of everything, was the mission, the belief in fighting the good fight. You of all people understand that and I'd say that's the best qualification for creating a new team of heroes. It's not about being perfect. Just find people who will have your back, who'll help you up when you get knocked down. People who will volunteer to help when two near-strangers show up on their doorstep because an entire intelligence agency is out to kill them." Steve paused and added with a faint smile, "I have it on good authority that when Captain America shows up asking for help, there's no better reason to get back in the game."

Steve could sense or hear Sam's smile in his voice as he responded, "I suppose, 'because Captain America asked you to,' is as good a recruitment pitch as any."

"You ought to know, Captain America." Steve smiled and then sobered. "You'll be fine, Sam. You're already a hero and you have what it takes to be a good leader because you care."

Sam let out a breath, audible even over the phone line. "Thank you. I'll try not to let you down."

"You won't let me down but I'm not the one who matters anyway. Try not to let yourself down and that'll be enough."

"Thank you, Cap," Sam said again.

"Stop thanking me or I swear I'll hang up," Steve pretended to threaten.

Sam laughed. "Okay, okay, I'll stop. Enough about me anyway. How are you doing?"

"For a 120-year-old man, I'm fine."

"That doesn't sound reassuring. You're not… in pain or anything?" Sam ventured rather awkwardly.

Steve smiled and inwardly sighed a little. He could understand that it was a little difficult for Sam to relate to him now, after so many years of treating him as a contemporary, never mind Steve's actual age, but now that Steve's physical body essentially matched his actual age, Sam wasn't entirely sure how to refer to Steve's physical well-being. Bucky had an easier time of it, in the occasional times that he and Bucky spoke these days, but then Bucky had the advantage of having known Steve all his life, had known Steve back when he'd still been the scrawny asthmatic kid. "Don't you start fussing over me. I get enough of that from my daughter," he quipped, only half-facetiously. Since Sarah had retired from practicing medicine, she had started to channel at least some of her physician's energies into him, although he knew that part of it was lingering concern over how he was coping with the loss of Peggy. It was, in part, why he had agreed to move into Sarah and her husband's house, to assuage his children's and his grandchildren's concern over his living alone in the house he had shared with Peggy, and then it had been easier for him too because continuing to live in the house he had shared with Peggy had been both a comfort and a torment all at once, had made his loss and his loneliness seem so much more acute. "I'm not ill. I'm just ancient."

Sam had the grace to give a self-conscious laugh. "All right, sorry. I just want to know if you're doing well, if you're happy."

"I'm fine. I have my family with me. I stay busy, or at least as busy as I want to be."

"Nice not to have the weight of the world on your shoulders, huh?"

Steve smiled. "Yeah, I can't say I miss that. I'll leave the world-saving to you young people."

Sam laughed. "I think you're enjoying making cracks about your age now that you actually look it."

"Guilty as charged. My wife joked that I was the first person ever to be happy to start physically aging."

"I'm sure you were. So, is being actually old everything you hoped for?" he joked.

Steve gave a wry chuckle. "Yes and no. It's interesting, I'll just leave it at that."

He and Sam chatted for a few minutes more before ending the call. Steve's smile faded slowly as he absently balanced his phone in his hand. It was a little strange even now to be only a spectator to all that was going on in the world. A small part of him still felt as if he should be out there in the thick of it–but no, if talking to Sam had done anything, it was to confirm that he didn't miss being Captain America at all. Even if he were physically capable of getting back in the game, which he wasn't, he wouldn't want to do so. He was done with that life and happy to be so. He had, as Sam had said, earned his retirement.

He put his phone down on the side table next to his armchair and reached into his pocket for his compass that he still kept with him at all times, flipping it open to look at his Peggy's picture, rather faded now. Not that he needed a picture to see her face; he saw her face in his mind every time he closed his eyes, she was constantly present in his thoughts. But just the act of opening his compass to look at her picture had become a sort of comfort all on its own, had become a tangible reminder of his certainty that no matter what, he and Peggy would be together again one day and this time, when they were reunited, it really would be forever.

He sighed a little and once more closed his compass, turning it over and over in his fingers as he found himself sinking into his memories, as he did more and more often these days. A sign of old age, as he sometimes quipped. His gaze settled absently on his hands, now wrinkled and spotted with age and that retained maybe the strength of a normal, middle-aged man if that but not more. His hands, that were as old and tired as he was, which was fine as the most strenuous thing he did these days was play with his great-grandchildren, although considering the inexhaustible energy of children, that was exertion enough for anyone. His hands, that had been bruised and bloodied in the service of the country and the world more times than he could count. The hands that had caressed his Peggy, had held his children and his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren too.

Yes, he had lived a life. He had fought and suffered, had endured years of loneliness and devastating losses. But he had also known a great love, had almost 70 years of marriage with the love of his life and raised a beautiful, happy family with her.

His lips curved. He had lived his life and he wouldn't change a thing.

~The End~