Chapter Text
Despite what certain media outlets and Tony Stark's twitter feed has tried to tell people, Steve Rogers was not pining for the good old days.
For a start, the good old days were only a year or so ago. The so called good old days were split between a little place in Brooklyn with thin walls that never had enough heating in the winter and army accommodation or tents around the European Theatre. He wasn't what people seemed to want to make him out to be. There was no reason for people to make comments asking him if he missed the days when men were men and women were women, because men and women had always been self-defined in their neighborhood and decent people respected that.
When it came to the modern age, there were a lot of things Steve loved about it. He loved the food, which made consuming the mass amounts needed to keep his body running a lot more enjoyable than it had been during the army days. The internet was so helpful, particular on smartphones if you were hit by a pop culture reference or got lost in an area you used to know. The sheer volume of media was startling and he could feel like a wide eyed child again by watching how animation had developed. The advances in healthcare, though still not as widely available as it should be, meant a lot to someone who spent most of their life dragged down by their health.
There wasn't a lot he missed about the forties all told, except for the people. He missed the people as if a limb had been ripped from him. If he could have wrapped up the Commando's, Peggy, Stark and even Phillips and brought them as they had been then into this world to experience it with him, Steve was sure there would be only one thing he would truly miss in the twenty-first century . It was the same person he'd expected to find waiting with his mother when he put the plane down and the same person he couldn't bring up easily to anyone. His life was a textbook, but so few people were left that understood the life behind the words.
In almost every new thing he experienced, Steve could hear the ghost of his best friend (of the man he loved) making smart comments somewhere in the recesses of his mind. He could feel the ghost of home choking him at every corner. The Brooklyn streets still held enough familiarity to overlap, but every time he expected to see Mrs McGuinness giving her grandsons a ticking off or found himself hoping Charlie upstairs would be in because he couldn't find his key again, it felt like a kick to the stomach.
Steve did not settle back in Brooklyn.
He moved to Washington D.C. to wait for his ghosts to lay down and rest in peace.
Life assumed a rhythm of work, preparing for work and the occasional drawing class that Steve had no attention span for.
SHIELD was as close to the SSR as he could get, and they kept him busy. He often worked with Natasha Romanoff, who was a neutral but playful force in his life. There was an easy camaraderie between them, as she accepted him for who he was and lay no more expectations on him than that.
Peggy's home was close, even if she had laughed when he'd tried to do the right thing and propose. He truly believed that he would have married her, but she maintained she had no patience for breaking in a toy boy at her age. Steve visited her weekly and suffered through the bad days if only to enjoy the good ones enough to make him smile in a bitter sweet way.
He had missed being able to say his goodbyes to Dernier by only months. If the last vestiges of his old life were leaving this world, he wanted the chance to say goodbye and tell them it had been an honour.
D.C. had been beginning to feel like home, when Steve was contacted about an upcoming exhibit on Captain America.
It was more about the icon than the man, but they sent over endless materials, from his own sketchbooks to blurry childhood pictures. There would be a section for the Howling Commando's and beautiful artwork had been commissioned to capture them. There were newsreels, videos and tapes both before he had been frozen and long after. Steve had tried not to look up the families when he'd been given their files, as they had buried their loved ones and he didn't want to intrude with fresh grief. Hearing Dugan talk about his son Jimmy following on in his footsteps had reduced him to private, involved tears. They had, for the most part, lead long and lives and still had families shaping the world today. Steve couldn't ask for much better for them.
The new wave of information had proceeded to nag at him for weeks afterwards, before Steve finally gave into the need for closure and booked some time off from SHIELD. He didn't wallow. He made his way back to New York, spoke very briefly to Tony and Miss Potts because it would be rude to ignore them and went back to the ghost filled streets of Brooklyn. A lot of the old atmosphere had drained away but Steve promised himself closure and this was the home he still pictured when he shut his eyes.
It was just a little older, and so was he.
After three days of walking around the neighbourhoods mostly unnoticed, Steve did start to find people would give him a smile or a nod then go about their business. It seemed Brooklyn still took care of their own, even if he had strayed long ago and far away. On the fourth day, Steve found himself staring at a plaque on a building that had long since become a restaurant, declaring it the home of Steven “Captain America” Rogers and James “Bucky” Barnes. It was a particularly surreal image to see that near to the Burger of the Day.
Behind him, Steve heard another ghost. This time of Mrs. Morris, the wife of Mr. Morris who owned the building. She was a severe looking woman and had never been easily charmed, but she had known his mother (she had helped deliver one of Mrs. Morris' daughters when he was a barely a teenager) and she had never been a coddler. Like everyone else in the building, he had once owned several sweaters made by her hand and one given every Christmas. Mrs. Morris was so often found on those steps, needles clacking and telling anyone who loitered that if they had time to hang about, she'd soon give them chores to do.
She meant it too and he could still hear her now.
“Nan!”
At the sound of the embarrassed squeal, Steve turned around and realised that the voice had not been in his head.
There was Mrs. Morris with her eldest daughter, Frances. After a moment, the world shifted and he began to notice that there were differences – Mrs Morris was abnormally tall and this woman was not, she wore her hair in tight braids and this woman had short hair and she was a good maybe twenty years older than Mrs. Morris. Frances' hair was lighter, always patted down and always looking a little frazzled.
This woman was not frazzled, but she was bright red. “I'm so sorry, she doesn't have – Nan, you can't just give people chores!”
The woman who was not Mrs. Morris was smiling. It tugged at him, something that pulled through his memory telling him that this was familiar. It was too familiar, but not familiar enough to place. “My Ma used to tell people that,” She responded coolly, before something in Steve's mind clicked and his stomach plummeted out for greener pastures.
“Violet?” The word came out of him unsure, so very Steve Rogers and so little Captain America that it startled him. He was still trying to figure out it the insubordinate punk had been left somewhere in the ice.
Violet – and it was Violet – smiled, “Look a bit different, don't I?”
Steve shook his head. “You look beautiful.” And she did, with her eyes dancing like that and the experiences of eighty years behind her instead of a gangling girl only hitting her teens and complaining that she isn't growing up as quickly as she'd like to.
“Stop loitering about,” Violet said, ushering him towards to the door with surprising force. “Still own the building, so I reckon we can spare a cup of coffee.”
Violet beamed from across the table, “His Ma helped deliver me, you know.”
Violet Morris, now Violet McQuade, had been born unexpectedly. Mrs Morris hadn't known she'd been pregnant. It was pure luck that she had been talking to Sarah Rogers when she had taken contractions, who had identified what was happening and helped deliver a slightly premature baby girl to her stunned mother. It was the only time he'd ever seen Mrs Morris have a proper expression, but his mother had told him off for saying as much.
She had grown up with a few of the neighbourhood girls, including Rebecca Barnes who despite being two years her junior, had always tried to follow older girls around to find out what was what. Bucky had called the group nosy and with too much time on their hands. Steve was surprised to find out that Rebecca still lived in New York with her husband.
“Married in her fifties,” Violet explained as she took a drink, “Couldn't find no one to put up with that mouth on her before that.”
Steve snorted at that and made the decision that if he ever felt he could face her, he would ask someone at SHIELD to look her up. It was still too raw. He could still hear the screams at night.
Violet told him that she had been a teller before she got married, and had a couple of kids. Much like sister, she had twin boys and then she'd added another for good measure. The young girl turned out to be her Granddaughter, Alice. Alice obviously knew he was and smiled very politely, but mostly looked on exasperation that was more fond than not.
“Anyway, Beattie Braniff said you were skulking around the neighbourhood so I asked Alice to come bring me back down,” Violet said, blowing on her tea and pointedly ignoring Alice making a face and reminding her to take her acid tablet.
Steve opened his mouth to say he wasn't skulking, but it wasn't true – he had been, if only a little. He shrugged and took the hit. Instead the surname caught his notice, “Mark Braniff?”
Violet nodded, “Her step-father. Married Beattie's mother after her sweetheart didn't come back. Lot didn't, and more moved away.”
Steve nodded, appreciating the fact that life had gone on for people here and it seemed like it had been a good enough life for most.
He went back to his place in D.C. with a sense of purpose. This would be able making sure the public would remember the important people in his life, not just a propaganda machine who took down Nazi occultists. He wanted the world to know about the extraordinary people who had done so much for the countries in a time of need, who had done so much for him and who deserved to be remembered.
The size of the Howling Commando's area doubled in size and Bucky's got a complete overhaul.
The nightmares lessened.
Six months passed and Natasha's latest obsession was trying to get him a date.
“I hear there's an open air music performance going on this weekend,” Natasha said, amusement and what seemed like genuine affection colouring her tone. “I'm sure Andrea from Admin would love to go.”
Steve wasn't sure if Natasha was just trying to branch out from the usual chatter or if she genuinely just wanted to help. Maybe it was part of her assignment. Either way, the set ups and leading questions were reminders of double dates and how his last plans for a date had went.
At least this time, he had a retort ready.
“Then you'll have to take her,” Steve said, “I have plans.”
Natasha quirked an eyebrow, “Define plans.”
“Old friend is having a birthday party.” Violet McQuade would be eighty-two years young on Saturday and he had dutifully responded to the e-vite. Though they had not particularly stayed in touch beyond the occasional email, she had promised to dig up some of the old pictures from the neighbourhood for him and he had bought her a sweater as close to her mothers as he could find at short notice.
It felt like the right time to go home again.
“You're calling someone old?” Natasha's smile grew for an instant, then settled into a cool smirk. “I hope the fire department is on alert for that cake.”
A few blocks down from the old building was the current home of Violet McQuade.
In the time since Steve had arrived at the party, he had met her boys and a few other Grandchildren who were a little too awestruck for his comfort. He had met Beattie Braniff and her husband, talked to a few of the newer residents of the building with his most patient public voice and helped sing Happy Birthday to one of the few people who remembered a scrawny kid in the place upstairs.
He tried not to think about who was missing.
Despite Natasha's teasing, he'd enjoyed most of the afternoon. Sometimes, it struck him that he was stuck between sharing memories and times with people three times his physical age but was still too young to understand and share their lives completely. He didn't belong to either world. He wasn't sure what the serum would do to his ageing, if anything. He found himself wondering if he would have ever have something like this, surrounded by grandchildren who can't sit still and telling stories about jumping out of airplanes.
Steve said his thank you to his hosts and tried to make a quiet exit while the kids took cake. Violet disappeared, saying goodbyes at the door to get him apiece of cake to take with him despite his protestations. She had mercifully closed the door over to drown out the din. He leaned against the wall opposite the door, trying to ease himself away from stories about his childhood home and back into the present, where he had a stack of emails for the STRIKE team mission waiting in his email back at the hotel.
At the end of the hall, something caught his eye and his heart froze all over again.
At the end of the hall, the familiar figure seemed to search his pocket for his keys. Without warning, he turned and met Steve's eye.
Bucky?
“You alright there?”
Violet's voice from the doorway startled Steve out of his shock. He had been seeing things. He had to be. Bucky had died at the bottom (hopefully before he hit the bottom) of a ravine almost seventy years before. He was not wearing overgrown clothes and juggling a wet paper grocery bag in Brooklyn. It wasn't how he carried himself. It wasn't -- it wasn't real.
“Yeah,” Steve said, shaking his head. He, like a lot of the party guests, had a lot rattling around in his head and too many ghosts following him. It was natural when talking so much about them here that he'd think he saw someone he didn't. He glanced back at the man at the door, but it was already shutting and locking. “Sorry, I'm fine. Thank you for the cake.”
Violet studied him for a moment, before poking her head out the door and looking to see what he had glanced at. Guess she still had that nosy streak. “You saw him, didn't you?”
Steve blinked and played dumb. “Who?”
Violet seemed to ignore that, “He moved not long after I saw you wandering about. Dead ringer, aint he? Nice kid, but he's not got Barnes' charm. European, from the accent. Not really a people person.”
The world seemed to turn itself upside down again, then shuddered. For a minute, it felt as if Steve had his old lungs back and he was gasping. He barely noticed Alice pushing a glass of water into his hand until he was drinking it back automatically. He wasn't the only one who had seen him. That meant he wasn't a hallucination or a stray memory trying to place itself.
“I'd have said something if I thought he'd be about,” Violet seemed to be appraising him with sympathy, and something inside Steve bristled at that. “He usually doesn't come out much during the day. We get a few complaints-” she lowered her voice, “-screams in the night, stuff breaking, but he's a vet, still a bit fatigued, so we don't say much. Keep meaning to give him a pamphlet for one of those counselling places, have it around here some place...”
Steve couldn't trust his voice. He simply stared at back at the door and gave an absent nod, “I'm fine, really.” He gave an apologetic smile, which she waved off before rooting around in the drawers of the old cabinets.
“Shocked me too first time I saw him,” Violet said. “Got Alice to look up some of the pictures from that exhibit that's opening and even she said that they look a lot alike. Don't suppose he could've knocked up some local when you lot were flitting about Europe punching Hitler?”
There was a chorus of “Mom”, “Ma” and “Nan” from beyond the door that not only confirmed that other people had heard their conversation but that they were listening in. At least they couldn't see his grimace at that.
“It's not – impossible.” He grunted out, because it was true. He'd never been happy with Bucky's dates but Buck'd always sworn nothing had ever gone that far. Maybe he was just trying to spare his feelings, considering his body then wasn't reliable enough to do half the things he wanted within almost killing him. Maybe he hadn't wanted Steve to feel even more useless. But that wasn't the whole story either.
After the serum, it had always been Bucky who had kept things slower and pushed him to a distance one minute then was unable to get close enough the next. If he'd gone out with the Commando's and had a few, had come back smelling like perfume, then Steve had told himself it was better than watching him almost vibrate out of his skin half the night or working out a system for keeping quiet in enemy territory if he started screaming or repeating that same (name, rank, number) phrase in his sleep again.
If this was what he needed to get through, he wouldn't begrudge him something that didn't mean anything at all. Not when he seemed to accept Peggy as something that wasn't a passing crush. They'd always said they'd talk about it later. But even if he had gotten careless with some girl, what were the chances of the (damn it, it would be grandchild, wouldn't it?) showing up at this building at this exact time when he did? It was about as likely as a man surviving sixty plus years as a human icicle.
“Here,” She shoved the leaflet into his hands, as she grabbed the drained glass out of it. Somehow, she had not mellowed with age. “You could give him that and ask him. He might take it better from a soldier, men can be funny about these things.”
It was the last words that came out before Alice's father managed to say thank you and get the door shut, though he could still hear her saying that she'd say what she liked and if they didn't like it, they could lump it.
Though Steve had never had much of a flight instinct, he damn near ran from the building to clear his head.
On the other side of the door, the (man) weapon formerly known as the Winter Soldier dropped the shopping on the floor and leaned back against the (his) door.
He looked to the windows to calculate an escape route, taking one drawn out breath after another in a futile attempt to control his heart rate and spiking panic. It didn't work. It wasn't working.
“Shit.”