Author's Note: I wanted to write a short story about Steve going to visit his mother's grave with Peggy and it somehow grew into this. To provide some context, this is set in the early fall of 1948, almost two years before "The Right Partner" and around three years before "Hero."
Family
Chapter 1
"Peggy."
"Hmm?" Peggy glanced over at Steve from her position at the sink where she was washing the dishes after their dinner.
It was such a familiar sight by now and yet at times, the very familiarity of it still took Steve's breath away, that he was actually here with her, married to Peggy and living with her in their house, his home that he shared with Peggy. Even now, almost a full year after he had returned to her, he found himself half-wanting to pinch himself at times and then not daring to do so because if this were some happy dream, he didn't want to wake up from it.
"Will you go somewhere with me this weekend?"
"I'm supposed to have lunch with Angie on Saturday, remember? But we could go somewhere after that, if it won't take too long since I'll have to go to work again from Monday."
He belatedly realized how cryptic his question had been. "Oh, no, I didn't mean go somewhere as in traveling anywhere. I just meant to go to Brooklyn." He paused and then finished quietly, "I was thinking of going to visit my mom's grave and I want you to come with me."
"Oh." her voice softened. "Of course I'll come, darling. We can leave as soon as my lunch with Angie is over."
"Thank you." He gave her a small smile, not that he had ever had any doubt as to her answer. He would be introducing his wife to his mother, he thought with a faint pang. His mother would have loved Peggy, he had no doubt of that, more, would have been so delighted for him. Delighted to know that he was happy now, happier than he had ever believed he could be. And he found himself wondering not for the first time today if wherever his mother was–in heaven, he assumed and hoped–she knew what had become of her sickly son, how he had become Captain America and in spite of all that he'd been through for years, how he had made it back here and found happiness.
His eyes rested on Peggy as she rinsed the dishes. It amazed him sometimes and rather tickled him too when he saw Peggy doing such domestic tasks because he would never have imagined that the Agent Carter he had first met, the woman who could knock a man down with a single punch, who could load and unload a gun faster than most men and was a better shot than most men too, would ever do such normal, domestic things as cooking or washing dishes. And of course, for the most part, Peggy did not cook much but she did usually insist on washing the dishes, saying that since he did the cooking, it was only fair that she do the cleaning up afterwards.
But then, of all the things about their life together, he sometimes thought that what amused him most was how much he had really come to enjoy cooking. It had started out as simply wanting to help Peggy, make her life easier since she was usually tired by the time she returned home from work, and then too, learning to cook had given him something to do, a purpose, to pass the time while Peggy was at work in those first months after his return when he was trying to figure out his place in the world, now that he was no longer Captain America. He was too used to being busy, having a mission of some kind, to feel comfortable simply doing nothing while Peggy worked. And fortunately for him, both Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis had been very willing to teach him. So along with rather hesitantly starting to draw again, with Peggy's encouragement, he had learned how to cook and by now, he would even say he was fairly decent at it.
He'd found there was something comforting about cooking. He felt a sort of control in following a recipe and trusting that the results would be as the recipe stated because it was methodical, ordered and predictable, in a way that almost nothing in his life had been since becoming Captain America. More than that, though, he found himself enjoying the process of making something new. Making as opposed to destroying. It was a refreshing and comforting change, after spending more than 10 years of his life witnessing scenes of destruction that his own actions had at least partly contributed to.
He was still haunted by the memories not just of the battles he'd fought in but his knowledge of the destruction and suffering those battles had left behind. If he had learned anything during World War II, it was that wars were destructive. There was always going to be collateral damage, innocents who suffered and, yes, died as a result. He'd seen the villages destroyed as a result of the fighting during the war, seen and heard of all the civilian suffering as a result. That was the nature of war. And for him, the fighting had never ended. He'd always hated the knowledge of the harm that was caused as a result of the battles he was in and had never been able to reconcile himself to the terrible collateral damage, all the people he had not been able to save.
He pushed aside the memories, the weight of the tiredness after all the years of fighting that still dragged at him and only felt heavier because of the memories. For all that he had lost in the future, he had made it back here, had regained the one person he loved the most. Had found the peace and the happiness he'd never had.
He focused on Peggy again, his eyes tracing every line of her so-familiar face and form, his attention caught and held as it always was by the unconscious grace of her movements as she dried the dishes.
A sudden, long-forgotten memory came winging back to him from when he'd been young, perhaps 12 or 13, he couldn't be sure, of watching his mother occupied in just this way, standing in the kitchen of their small apartment in Brooklyn, cleaning the dishes with water he had brought up from the closest water pump. It had been a struggle, to carry the bucketful of water up the stairs to their apartment and he had needed to stop and catch his breath quite a few times before he had managed it and once he had arrived back at their apartment, he had almost collapsed onto a chair, struggling to catch his breath and hoping that the exertion wouldn't trigger his asthma. It hadn't thankfully but he had still been winded and tired and had not had the energy to get up from the chair on which he had collapsed. His mother had been humming tunelessly under her breath as she scrubbed the dishes and then his mother had started to cough without warning, a cough that had lasted long enough to alarm him, but which she had eventually gotten under control and waved him away, assuring him she was fine.
It occurred to Steve with the distance and understanding of years that his mother must have already been ill with tuberculosis then, in the earlier stages perhaps, but still already sick. And he wondered if his mother, with her nursing experience in the TB ward, had known even then but had chosen not to tell him because she wouldn't have wanted to worry him. It seemed possible, even likely.
"Steve?"
He blinked and looked over at Peggy to see that she had finished drying the dishes and was regarding him with something like concern. "Yeah?"
"What is it? You looked rather sad."
He hesitated for a moment. It wasn't that he didn't want Peggy to know but his memories of his mother were… personal. He never mentioned his mother to anyone except for Bucky and that was only because Bucky had known his mother too.
Peggy came over, one hand coming up to lightly ruffle her fingers through his hair, and he found himself tilting his head into her touch, orienting to her as he always did.
"Just a memory," he finally answered.
"About something that happened in the future?" she guessed. A reasonable guess since he was still haunted more than he cared to admit by all he had been through in the future, still found himself jolting awake at night after nightmares of battles or reliving Tony's death or imagining Nat's death on Vormir. It had been almost a full year since he had returned to Peggy and he was still struggling, although it had gotten easier. He was able to sleep through the night now without waking about half the time and even when he did wake up in the middle of the night, he was usually able to return to sleep by shifting to drape his arm around Peggy and burying his face in her hair, the warmth of her, the familiar scent of her lulling him back into sleep.
His Peggy, his love. He looked up at her, meeting her eyes, and reached up to tug her down onto his lap, curling his arms around her to keep her in place. Not that she couldn't easily break free if she wanted to but fortunately for him, Peggy had no objection to sitting on his lap, which both surprised and delighted him. He could not get enough of this sort of closeness with Peggy. After missing her for so many years, there were times when even having her sitting beside him on a couch felt like too much distance and having her sitting on another chair, even placed right next to his, felt equally too far. He had been a little hesitant about tugging her to sit on his lap at first, unsure if his independent, strong-willed Peggy would care for such a position, but she had made no demur and after a while, he had stopped worrying, helped by the fact that Peggy occasionally perched on his lap even without his inviting her to do so. And of course, he knew that if Peggy did have any reservations about sitting on his lap, she was too direct not to tell him so outright. He supposed at some point when he was more settled, more accustomed to being with Peggy again, he would no longer feel the need for quite so much closeness with Peggy but it hadn't happened yet.
"It wasn't about the future," he responded belatedly. "It was about the past."
"What is it?" she repeated quietly.
He met her eyes and for a moment, for the first time in a while, he remembered the last time he had seen Peggy's older self, before everything had happened with the downfall of SHIELD, remembered the way she had asked 'what is it' then too, the same quiet tone, her dark eyes so gentle. Her eyes had been the same, whatever else had changed with the passage of 70 years, she had still had the same beautiful, dark eyes that had always seemed to be able to see straight through him to his heart. How he loved her eyes.
And he thought, not for the first time, that he could tell her anything. He had trusted her almost from the first moment he'd seen her, had always, somehow, felt able to talk to her. And that had never changed. In this century and the next, he had always felt as if he could talk to Peggy in a way he could talk to no one else in his life. He wasn't even sure he could explain why he'd always felt able to talk to her but maybe it didn't need to be explained. Or if it did, the reason was simply that she was Peggy and Peggy was the love of his life, his soul-mate.
"My mom died today, 12 years ago today," he amended. Well, 12 years ago by the calendar, closer to 25 years ago in his lifetime but he didn't add that. And anyway, he knew he didn't need to because Peggy already knew.
He felt her stiffen a little. "Oh, darling."
"I don't think about it a lot," he admitted. "It's been so many years and I've had so many other things to focus on," he added rather wryly. "But when I was going through the newspaper today, I noticed one of the obituaries mentioning that the person had died because of TB and I remembered that today was the day my mom died." He sighed and lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. "I don't know why it stuck in my head so much today but it did. And just now, I remembered… I was around 13, I think, and it was one of the first times I saw mom coughing that hard for that long and I realize now that she was probably already sick by then and I didn't even know it."
"Your mom passed because of TB?"
"Yes. Did you not know that?"
"No, I didn't know."
He felt a vague sense of surprise although he supposed it was irrational. "I guess I have a habit of assuming you already know everything about my life. I know you've seen my SSR file from my recruitment."
"I have so I know what your parents' names were and the years when they passed but the file didn't include the cause."
His lips twisted a little. "Well, my dad died of mustard gas during the Battle of Meuse-Argonne in World War I. And my mom was a nurse in a TB ward and she eventually caught it too." He paused and then went on, slowly, telling her what he had never yet talked about with anyone else. "She fought it for years. I've heard people refer to TB as a lingering disease but with my mom, she didn't linger so much as she fought against it, fought hard."
"Of course she fought it. She had you to fight for."
His lips curved faintly, warmth coiling around his heart. Of course she understood. "Yeah. I didn't fully realize it at the time but I know now she wanted to make sure I wasn't that young. I was still young, of course, only 18, but I could manage by then and I did. And I had Bucky so I wasn't alone."
She smiled a little. "Thank goodness for Bucky then."
He sobered at the thought of Bucky, the pang he always felt at reminders of his first and oldest friend, both from missing him and from the thought of what Bucky must be enduring at this time wherever he was to turn him into the Winter Soldier. Of all the things that had happened to Steve in the future, he thought that aside from the loss of Peggy, learning what had happened to Bucky might have hurt the most. As much as it had meant to him to be reunited with Bucky, the thought of all that Bucky had endured–all that Bucky would still need to endure to try to come to terms with his past and what he'd done as the Winter Soldier–was still painful, all the more because Steve knew that there was nothing he could do to help Bucky more than he already had. He had fought until Bucky regained his identity but if Steve had learned anything in his years as Captain America, it was the limits of what super strength could do and all the strength in the world could not take away Bucky's guilt, any more than his super strength had helped Steve deal with his own lingering guilt.
He sighed and tightened his arms around Peggy for a moment. He was with Peggy again and after all, being with her always made things feel not quite so bad. "Anyway, I've been thinking about my mom today and I thought I could go visit her grave."
"I understand." She lifted a hand to cup his cheek. "And of course I'll come with you."
He smiled at her. "Mom would have loved you, not just because I do, but because she liked smart people."
Her lips curved. "I'm sure I would have loved her too."
"I certainly hope so," he quipped.
She laughed softly. "I would have, I promise."
"I know you would have," he told her quietly and then he kissed her and for a while, there was nothing and no one else in the world.
On Saturday afternoon, Steve was waiting beside the car when Peggy emerged from the diner with Angie by her side and the two immediately headed towards him as he opened the passenger door for Peggy.
He bent to accept Angie's quick kiss on his cheek as she greeted him with her usual exuberance, "Hi there, Casanova."
"It's good to see you too, Angie." Steve grinned, as he always did at Angie's nickname for him, amused at how very inappropriate it was since he had, after all, only kissed a total of 6 different women in his life and gone further than kissing with only one. But Angie liked to give him a hard time for the way he had, as she had put it, swept Peggy off her feet so that Peggy had married him out in LA and deprived Angie of her chance not only to be at the wedding but to be Peggy's maid of honor. He knew Peggy didn't love the nickname but she let it pass and after all, it wasn't as if they didn't both understand how it looked to Angie, who didn't know his real identity or anything about his history with Peggy, and knew only that Peggy had met and married him within the span of six months, a rather whirlwind romance to all outward appearances.
It amused him sometimes to imagine what Angie might say if she knew that in actuality, he and Peggy had gotten married within four months of his return, which was quicker than even he had dared to hope when he'd first returned to her. He had intended to wait longer, give Peggy more time to be certain that a life with him was truly what she wanted, more time to be sure that he could fit into the life Peggy had already made for herself. But Peggy hadn't had any of his hesitation and faced with her certainty, he couldn't deny her, would never deny Peggy anything that she wanted, and certainly not when marrying Peggy was what he wanted most in the world.
Angie was one of Peggy's only friends outside of the SSR and as much as he knew that Peggy genuinely liked Angie and enjoyed her company, Peggy had decided that Angie was not among the very small circle of people who could be trusted to know his real identity and the moment Steve had met Angie, he'd understood why. Angie was fun, enjoyable company, but she could be indiscreet and was rather fond of gossip, albeit never with any bad intentions.
Angie gave him a cheeky once-over. "I swear you get better looking every time I see you." She turned back to Peggy with a teasing look. "You're lucky I'm such a good friend, English, or I'd definitely try to steal him."
Peggy laughed at that and gave Angie a quick hug. "Thanks for resisting," she returned dryly. "Good luck at your next audition and let me know how it goes."
"I will." Angie threw another smile at Steve. "Take care of our girl here, Casanova."
With Angie, Steve didn't bother to respond that Peggy was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. And he would always take care of Peggy, whatever she needed. "I will. And you take care of yourself, Angie."
"Oh, I always do," she returned blithely.
He laughed and lifted a hand in a wave which she returned as she turned to hail a taxi and Steve helped her into it before joining Peggy in the car.
He leaned over to kiss Peggy's cheek. "Hi, by the way."
Peggy took a handkerchief out of her purse and reached out to wipe his cheek. "That's better. With lipstick on your cheek, you almost look like you are a Casanova."
He grinned at her and glanced at his left hand that wore his wedding ring, something he never tired of seeing. "Well, I happen to be married and since my wife has been known to try to shoot me for kissing another woman, I think I'll refrain from any Casanova act."
Peggy shot him a narrow-eyed look. "For the hundredth time, I was not really trying to shoot you. I'd already seen the ballistics reports on all the prototype shields Howard made for you and you know how thoroughly Howard tests all his equipment."
"Credit me with some sense. Of course I know that. I just like remembering that moment."
"You wouldn't find the memory so pleasant if you'd been around for the earful Colonel Phillips gave me about it afterwards," she returned dryly. "And I think I'm a little disturbed that you like remembering a time when I was angry at you."
"I don't like the memory because you were angry at me. I like it because I'm pretty sure that was the moment when I fell in love with you, although I admit I didn't realize it at the time."
She blinked. "Really? I don't see why. It was hardly my finest moment."
"I thought you were amazing," he answered honestly. He couldn't even have said exactly why although she had been beautiful, formidable and beautiful, with that angry spark in her eyes, but more than that, he hadn't been able to help appreciating how forthright she was in her displeasure. She'd been, well, real for lack of a better word. She had made the predatory advances of Private Lorraine or the other marginally more subtle advances of some of the dancing girls on the USO tour seem even more artificial than they'd already seemed because he'd always known they were only interested in his newfound height and muscles as a result of Project Rebirth and would never have given him a second look as Steve Rogers. He knew they hadn't been interested in him, only in his new persona of Captain America.
"But more than that, it made me realize how important your opinion was to me, how important you were to me. You'd told me that you believed in me when I went to rescue Bucky. But then I did something stupid in kissing Private Lorraine and annoyed you and I realized just how much your opinion of me mattered. I didn't care what anyone else thought, all the people suddenly calling me a hero. All I really cared about was you and what you thought of me. And I knew for certain that you were the woman I'd been waiting for, my right partner." He admitted that he'd been an idiot. It shouldn't have taken the loss of Peggy's good opinion, seeing the spark of anger in her eyes rather than the softness, hearing the cool disdain in her voice rather than teasing or warmth, for him to realize just how important Peggy was to him. But he liked to think that he'd learned his lesson and he'd decided that he would do whatever it took to win his way back into Peggy's good graces.
"Oh. Well, if you put it like that, I suppose I can understand why you like to remember that moment."
He slanted a look at her. "Am I forgiven for bringing it up again?"
She huffed. "You do make it hard to stay annoyed with you."
"I can't say I'm sorry for that."
At that, she laughed.
He relaxed into a smile. "How was your lunch with Angie?"
Peggy's recounting of Angie's news and the various pieces of gossip she had passed along about some of their former house-mates and acquaintances from their old boarding house passed the time until they had driven into Brooklyn, the streets once more starting to look very familiar to Steve. He had not ventured back to Brooklyn in the few months since he and Peggy had moved to New York and he was struck all over again at how much Brooklyn had changed in the 70 years because he remembered how different, how strange, his old neighborhood had looked to him when he had gone to see it shortly after coming out of the ice. It had been just one more thing that had made him feel entirely out of place and lost in the future, that even the very streets on which he'd grown up had changed so much, buildings torn down and replaced, and even the old ones that still remained had somehow managed to look entirely different. And then he'd learned the cost of living in Brooklyn and had been shocked and horrified to his back teeth, although admittedly the cost of everything in the future had shocked and horrified him at first. Now, though, this was again the Brooklyn he knew, the same Brooklyn he'd spent all his youth in, and it brought back a flood of memories.
He felt Peggy's glance. "Is it strange to be back?"
"Yes," he admitted. "It might look the same as I remember it from before but it's been such a long time for me and I guess I'm the one that's different this time but it is strange." Not for the first time, he felt again a sense of surreality at just how far he had come, how far he had travelled in the last decade and more of his life. Not just in miles, traveling around the world and into outer space too, visiting other planets, but also in time, jumping back in time more than 70 years in order to return to Peggy, to his own time.
They passed by the road that led to the block with the SSR's secret lab where he had actually become Captain America and he glanced at Peggy, saw that she had realized where they were, and they exchanged faint smiles at the memory of the car ride over to the lab, their first real conversation, as awkward as he had been. And now, all these years later, he and Peggy were back, driving through the streets of Brooklyn.
They were nearing his old neighborhood, the streets becoming increasingly familiar. These were the streets he had known the best when he'd been growing up; this stretch of a few square blocks had been his home for almost 20 years.
He made a gesture with his head. "There's the elementary school I went to."
He paused and then went on, this time pointing to the other side of the road. "There's an alley on the other side of that building with the awning and that's where I met Bucky the first time. I was being beaten up by some of the bigger older boys and Bucky came along and jumped in to defend me."
"Good for Bucky."
He felt a sharp pang. "Yeah, he was good at that, showing up just when he was needed."
"No wonder you were such good friends. He sounds like you, being willing to defend someone he didn't know."
Steve stilled for a moment. He hadn't exactly thought of it like that but now that she said it, it was true. His friendship with Bucky had been cemented with more demonstrations of loyalty as well as shared fun and adventures than he could count but yes, it had started with Bucky's willingness to defend someone he hadn't known at the time. Until then, no one had done as much for Steve, tried to defend him, and Steve had never forgotten it.
And that was the man who had been turned into the deadly assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Steve inwardly flinched at the thought.
He pointed again and managed, "Bucky's folks live down that street."
"I know."
He turned to stare at her. "You do?"
Her expression was wistful, a little pained. "I looked up their address from the SSR's files and shortly after I moved here after the war was over, I went to visit them."
"You visited Uncle Henry and Aunt Grace?" It had been years since he'd thought about Bucky's parents but the old, familiar monikers for them came to his lips naturally.
"Yes." She hesitated for a moment and then went on, quietly, "I remembered that one of the hardest things about when Michael died was that the officials who brought the news were so impersonal about it, just said the stock phrases, and it was clear that they were only saying them. I tried not to blame them; they hadn't met Michael after all, but it still hurt. So when I moved here, I remembered Bucky's parents and I thought I'd visit, a personal condolence visit, not only for Barnes but for you. I knew that they were the closest thing you had to family and I thought they deserved more than just some impersonal telegram."
His throat felt tight and he felt a sudden swell of love for her. This was what he loved about Peggy too, that for all her cleverness and her courage, she was also kind, had compassion. He had loved her for the way she had sought him out and comforted him after Bucky's supposed death in the war. And now to find out that she had also remembered that Bucky's parents would have been grieving not only Bucky's supposed death but his own made him think, not for the first time, that he fell deeper in love with everything he learned about her. "What did you tell them?"
"I told them that I'd been a friend of Bucky's and of yours and had fought beside you both for more than a year. And I told them that they should know that Bucky died a hero in order to save you."
"Just my friend? You didn't tell them you're my best girl?" he managed to tease in an attempt to will away the tightness in his throat he still felt at the memory of Bucky's supposed death. Even now, after so many years, knowing what had happened to Bucky, he still occasionally had nightmares about Bucky's fall from that train, could hear Bucky's scream in his mind–perhaps especially because he knew what had happened, that Bucky's fall then had led to years of torture that Bucky would bear the marks of for the rest of his life.
She was silent for just long enough that he turned to glance at her, seeing to his surprise a faint trace of color in her cheeks. "No, I told them that I loved you."
He coughed, almost choking on air. "You told them that?" He tried and failed to imagine Peggy, Peggy who was usually so discreet, telling Bucky's parents whom she had after all just met that she loved him. He really had been teasing; he would never have expected her to tell anyone that she was his best girl.
Her lips curved in the faint ghost of a smile. "I surprised myself to say nothing of them but it just… came out. They were kind to me when I arrived and gave me coffee and biscuits and Mrs. Barnes told me about what good friends you and Bucky were all your lives and how you became like another brother to Bucky's little sister. And they wanted to know all about you as Captain America, asked how strong you became, how you'd changed aside from your appearance. They'd read the newspaper articles about you and even had a collection of newspaper clippings about you, but they wanted to hear it first-hand."
"What did you tell them?"
"I told them that the way you looked changed but inside, you were still you. I told them that you still liked to draw every spare minute you had, that you still tended to refer to yourself as just a skinny kid from Brooklyn and didn't put on airs about being called a hero, and that you were polite and kind and the bravest man I'd ever met."
"Peg…" he breathed.
"I didn't even realize that I'd started to cry while talking about you until Mrs. Barnes came and put her arms around me and said, 'my dear, I'm so sorry. We didn't realize that talking about Steve would be so difficult for you. You weren't just his friend, were you? You loved him.' And I couldn't deny that so I said yes."
"Oh," he sighed. His heart hurt as he realized all over again not only how much Peggy loved him but how deeply she had mourned for him. He could imagine the scene, knew that Peggy was not the sort to cry openly in front of other people, so for her to have broken down in front of Bucky's parents revealed the depths of her grief more than any words might do.
She managed a small, somewhat wistful smile. "It's all right. They really were very kind. It was… nice to talk to people who had known you so well and cared about you so much. I ended up staying for over an hour as they told me stories about you and Bucky and things you'd done as children and how good you were to Bucky's little sister."
Steve managed a smile. "Uncle Henry and Aunt Grace were good to me. Aunt Grace especially was, well, like an aunt to me. And as for Bucky's little sister, little Joanie, yes, she was like my little sister too. Bucky teased her, tended to call her things like Pest or Mouse, because of the way she would try to follow us around and peek at us from around corners, so they used to bicker a lot when we were kids. It was different for me because I'd never had a younger sibling before and I rather liked having someone smaller than me around." It occurred to him with sudden amusement that now, he really could call Joanie 'little Joanie' as had been his habit since childhood and it would be accurate, which it hadn't been for quite some time before he'd last seen Joanie as Joanie had grown up to be an inch or so taller than his old scrawny self. He had seen less and less of Joanie as they had become adults because he'd left for college and she had gotten married and been contented and busy with her husband and her family but growing up, she really had been the closest thing he'd had to a little sister. And in the occasional times when he had seen her as an adult, they had still interacted with the same childhood ease and familiarity, so that when he teasingly called her little Joanie, she had pretended annoyance and made as if to punch his arm.
"Mrs. Barnes said that it didn't surprise her at all to hear that even as Captain America, you were always kind and didn't put on airs. She said that sounded like you and told me a story about how one time when you were just a boy, you found Bucky's little sister crying and the next day in order to make her feel better, you bought her a couple chocolate bars and didn't even let Mrs. Barnes thank you afterwards."
He gave a small reminiscent laugh as the memory returned to him. "I'd forgotten about that, giving little Joanie those chocolate bars. I was 9 and Joanie was 8 and she was crying because some of the local bullies had been picking on her and made her drop her doll into the mud. I tried to defend her but only succeeded in getting the bullies to beat me up instead but Joanie ran and found Bucky who, as usual, rescued me. And afterwards, I felt bad because Joanie's doll was pretty much ruined so I took out some of the few coins I had and bought a couple chocolate bars for her as a treat."
She slanted a smile at him. "It's no wonder that Mrs. Barnes mentioned that Joanie always adored you."
He shot her a teasing look. "I don't know about that but Joanie was the first girl I ever kissed."
"Oh, was she? So you did have some experience with girls after all."
He feigned seriousness. "I suppose you could say that. I was all of 10 and Joanie was 9 and she asked me to kiss her because she wanted to see what all the fuss was about so I did. And afterwards, she wrinkled her nose at me and said, and I quote, 'kissing is dumb. I think grown-ups are silly to like it.' I agreed and that was that."
Peggy laughed. "That was that, hmm?"
He grinned. "Well, not entirely. Joanie did eventually change her mind about kissing and–" he threw a wink at her, "as you know, so did I, once I met the right partner. Joanie was married with one child and expecting her second the last time I saw her, which was a few months before I left for Camp Lehigh." He made a small face. "Come to think of it, her second child must be around 5 by now, strange as that sounds."
Peggy shot him a small smile. "As it happens, I can actually tell you more about Joanie. Mrs. Barnes told me a little about how Joanie was doing when I went to visit, mentioned that Joanie had three children by then and the youngest was just a few months old at the time."
"Three children." He made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. "Little Joanie, a mother of three."
"That's not all," Peggy went on more soberly. "Mrs. Barnes told me that Joanie was expecting her youngest when they heard the news about you crashing and Joanie decided to name the baby after you. The baby turned out to be a girl and Joanie named her Stephanie in your honor."
He sucked in a breath and choked on air. "Joanie named her daughter after me?"
"Yes."
Oh God. He had never thought, never imagined that. He had never really considered what it must have felt like for Bucky's family to have lost Bucky and then to hear the news about his own supposed death. But now, hearing the words, learning that after all, Bucky's sister, the little Joanie he remembered growing up with and teasing and defending, had remembered him so fondly that she had named one of her children after him made him feel a sharp pang.
He was silent for a long minute as his mind was flooded with memories of Joanie from years past and wondering about the little girl who was, apparently, his name-sake.
"Steve?"
He blinked and glanced at her. "Yeah?"
"Have you thought about–you could go visit Bucky's parents now that you're back, tell them that you're alive. They were so fond of you. I'm sure they would be delighted to see you and I would think that they of all people can be trusted to keep your secret."
He knew he could trust Bucky's family not to reveal his true identity to the world. He and Peggy both understood that Captain America needed to remain dead to the world if he were to have the peace he craved. Not trusting Bucky's parents wasn't the issue. "But I–I can't do that. How could I explain where I've been all this time, all that happened to me?"
"I don't think you necessarily have to, not about being in the future or anything like that. We could come up with a story about you surviving the crash, that you were found by some Nordic ice fishermen who rescued you but you had amnesia or something so you couldn't contact–"
"Amnesia?" he interrupted, amused in spite of himself. "Really? What sort of stories have you been reading?"
Her lips twisted a little as she gave him a look that was somehow melancholy, wistful. "Don't mock. In the year after you… the plane went down, I think I came up with at least 100 different stories for how you might have survived the crash, so many different scenarios for how you might come back to me." She paused and glanced away. "The scenarios were outlandish and I knew it was silly but I just… couldn't help it, I wanted to hope and believe it could happen so much. I imagined you coming back, dreamed about it so many times, until eventually I… stopped, told myself I needed to move on."
His heart hurt all over again. "My dear love…" he breathed.
She gave him a small smile. "Don't look like that, darling. It wasn't your fault. And you're back now after all and that makes up for everything."
He reached out with one hand and briefly squeezed her hand. "Yes, it makes up for everything." Being with Peggy again made everything worth it, all that he had suffered in his years in the future.
There was a pause and he tried to imagine going to see Uncle Henry and Aunt Grace, imagined their expressions when they saw him as he was now, in his Captain America form which they'd never seen in person. Part of him couldn't deny that he would like to see them. They had been the closest thing he had to family after his mother had passed. Talking to Peggy had brought so many memories flooding back, all the affection he'd once felt for Bucky's entire family. His own mother was gone but to be able to see Aunt Grace again, tell her that he was happy now, that he was married to Peggy, who she'd already met… To be a part of a family again…
But even as he thought it, acknowledged the tug of longing, he knew it was impossible.
"I can't," he blurted out. "I can't see Bucky's parents. I can't face them and know that they still think that Bucky is dead and all they would say about Bucky. I can't tell them what really happened to Bucky. They would never get over it. And once they mentioned Bucky, they would be able to see that I was hiding something. You know I'm not good at lying and I'd hate to have to lie to them."
"It's all right, love. I hadn't thought of that."
He sighed but managed a faint smile for her. "It was a nice thought. I would like to see them again. But with everything that happened to Bucky, it's better to leave Bucky's family as they are, let them move on in peace."
"Yes." Peggy reached out and rested her hand on his shoulder. "I understand."
Their eyes met and held for a moment. Yes, she understood, as she always had. And he didn't need to go see Bucky's family. He knew that they were well, thanks to Peggy, that they had gone on with their lives after the loss of Bucky and himself. That was enough. And he had Peggy; she was his family now so he wasn't alone.
~To be continued…~