The Messrs. Carter and Potts Expansion Pack

He'd told himself not to look. It was obvious—don't look, because looking was a terrible idea, the worst idea, a snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory level bad idea. He was a lucky guy, lucky like a country song played in reverse: he'd gotten his life back, his wife back, his daughter back. He'd even gotten his dead friends back, not to mention that they'd saved everyone in the universe and fixed the past, duct-taping it all together.  And so they'd won themselves a future, which was a beautiful thing: spooling out endlessly in front of them like a car cruising down an endless, scenic highway, full speed ahead. Every moment full of surprises. Don't look.

Pandora's goddamned box, and he'd opened it. Death by Google News.

February 14, 2005:  Natalie Carter, former operations officer of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.) dies at 86.  And then a month and a half later, in April, 2005: Michael Carter, deputy director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.) from 1952 to 1975, is dead at 88. 

But the one that had got him, the notice he'd known not to look for except some perverse, insatiable curiosity had made him look anyway:  S. G. Carter, husband of Margaret Carter, the first and longest-running Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division (S.H.I.E.L.D.), died at home Thursday of complications from pneumonia.  

So okay: it was bad enough to imagine Natasha dying (again), and despite everything, it brought him no pleasure to imagine Barnes finally biting it and being buried under another man's name—lovesick bastard hadn't even made it two months. But Steve...now that was just fucking intolerable , because the thing was that at least Natasha got a decent obituary honoring her long career, the fact that she'd been the first female S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to be awarded the Career Intelligence Medal, blah blah. Barnes had also gotten a good write-up, though of course almost everything in it was a lie. Peggy’s brother's early life had been grafted onto Barnes's career at S.H.I.E.L.D. , so not only was there nothing about him being a Howling Commando or, you know, murdering dozens of people, but now he'd also apparently gone to Cambridge and been recruited for special ops by the British army. How the fuck had nobody noticed that Peggy Carter's brother didn't have an English accent? Maybe they figured that he was a master of disguise—or hell, maybe they thought that Peggy's accent was a put-on: who knows?  Anyway there were a couple of polite column inches noting that Michael Carter had been his sister's loyal protector for years, which was fair enough.

But Steve...S.G. Carter got only a four-line squib at the back of the paper, simply noting that he'd fought in the war and had chosen to pursue a reclusive life thereafter—which aside from really not being true made it sound like he had been damaged or something, which maybe even was true. He'd been survived by his wife, three children, and four grandchildren, private services to be held at St. Paul's Chapel. And that was it, all there was…except by some unbelievably cruel cosmic irony, those meagre couple of lines had been published on November 25, 2008—a date that was so ingrained on Tony Stark's psyche that he thought at first he must be hallucinating it in some kind of self-centered fugue state. But no—Tony looked up the late edition of the paper and saw that the headline was the one he remembered: "I AM IRON MAN," in huge black type. Cap's death had been announced on the same day as the press conference that was Iron's Man's coming out. 

Services to be held at St. Paul's Chapel... Thing was, Tony didn't do funerals, did not as a matter of principle do funerals, had had quite enough of funerals by the time he was 21, thanks for nothing, Bucky Barnes. And subjecting himself to this particular funeral was doubly stupid, considering that he was planning to hang out with the guy this coming weekend, which he and his family were planning to spend in 1962. Still, having learned about Steve's funeral, he felt it like an itch, almost a compulsion—made all the worse for being the kind of problem that wouldn't go away by itself. It wasn't like he could just somehow accidentally-on-purpose miss it.

He had a time machine. Or maybe, Tony thought, looking down at where his scarred hand had fused with the Infinity Gauntlet, it was more accurate to say that he was a time machine.

Tony had lived on the North Shore for much of his childhood, but he'd never been to St. Paul's, which turned out to be a tiny Episcopal chapel in a leafy clearing at the end of a winding drive.  It looked like a child's drawing of a house—a white clapboard triangle on top of a square with a black rectangle of a door—and had a small graveyard full of listing tombstones on one side. A black hearse stood out front, and a couple of cars were parked haphazardly on the road. 

He stared up at the bare November trees where they stretched out around the white steeple. The service was in progress, he could hear the organ music—God, he hated organ music. The urge to blip back to Pepper and Morgan was enormous. Instead he turned up the collar of his coat, tugged on the door's handle, and went inside. He knew enough not to wear a hat in church, but carried a folded-up newspaper that he could raise to hide his face— yesterday's paper, the same "I AM IRON MAN" paper that carried S.G. Carter's meagre obit.

But to his relief, nobody turned to look at him.  The church was small, and nearly empty, with what people there were mostly clustered down in the first few rows. Tony quickly slipped into a row closer to the back and sat down. The flag-draped coffin dominated the aisle. Looking at it made Tony feel sick, and so he turned to stare stonily at the stained-glass windows, which seemed to feature a bunch of haloed guys in brown robes basically high-fiving each other and hanging out. 

Was this enough? If Tony somehow managed to live through this service—if he survived watching them put that star-spangled coffin into the ground—would that be the end of it?  Or would he feel compelled to find out exactly what had happened to Steve and the rest of them? 

He stole a glance at the front of the chapel, and his attention was caught by a little girl in a black lace dress—Vera, he thought, realizing only a second later that it couldn't be Vera: in 2008, Vera had to be fifty, at least. It must be one of the grandchildren. Frowning, Tony tried to guess who was who from the back. Peggy was easy to spot, sitting regally with a black silk hat and veil pinned over her gray hair. The women beside her had to be Ellie and Vera, and there were a couple of guys up front, too—the girls' husbands? Was that little James, now middle aged? 

Sitting behind the family at a respectful distance were a row of functionaries in badly cut suits—government people, Tony surmised, peering over the folded newspaper, sent to represent various agencies, and S.H.I.E.L.D. people, come out of respect for Peggy, their former boss. Tony recognized whatsername, Lorraine Something, who used to report to Nick Fury, and a guy called Oscar Randolph, who'd been sent to talk to him (who will be sent to talk to him?) by the CIA Director in the days following the Iron Man press conference. Behind the row of suits, people were scattered among the otherwise empty pews—sitting alone, or in small groups of two or three. Local people, Tony guessed. Neighbors, maybe friends of the Carter children. Plus there were a couple of little old ladies who looked like they maybe went to funerals just for fun.

There was some terrible singing, and then everyone sat down and the Reverend began his homily. "The liturgy for the dead is an Easter liturgy," the Rev said. "It finds all its meaning in the resurrection," and Tony had to close his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose, hard, because S.G. Carter had known all about resurrection, but his luck had maybe finally run out for good. 

“But still we grieve for the loss of our brother Steven, as Jesus himself wept at the grave of his friend...” A happy ending depends on where you stop, and now he'd blown it, gone too far and... 

Someone—something—tapped his arm, and Tony looked down. A newspaper, rolled up, and when he looked back, a man was sitting in the pew behind. Dark overcoat, blond hair, full blond beard. Blue, blue eyes, framed behind tortoiseshell glasses. The pew creaked.

“Don’t believe everything you read,” Steve whispered, and the sonofabitch was smiling.

Steve stared down at his hand and decided he could open.  "One diamond."

"One spade," Peggy said, giving nothing away.

Natasha pursed her lips, then looked up at Steve.  "Two hearts," she countered.

"Three spades," Bucky told Peggy, and slid back in his chair.

"Four hearts," Steve said, and then, glancing up, "Hi, Tony, drinks on the sideboard," because Tony Stark had just materialized in the library behind Natasha.  Tony peered theatrically down first at Natasha's cards, then at Peggy's, miming shock before heading over to the sideboard to pour himself a gin. Everyone else passed, and then Bucky threw out the first card—ace of spades—and Steve lay his hand down so that Natasha could play out their four heart contract.

"Are we gonna make it?" Steve asked as he got up from the table, and Natasha let out such a dismissive snort that he laughed out loud—oh yeah, they were going to be fine. 

"Aren't you playing?" Tony asked, when Steve joined him at the drinks table.  

"I'm the dummy," Steve said, and Tony shot him a look that said, clearly, that there was an obvious joke to be made but it was beneath him to go for it. "Pour me one of those, will you?" and Tony grinned, dropped some cubes with tongs into a glass, and splashed gin into it. 

They clinked, and Steve took a quick sip; he'd been hoping Tony would pop in, and he wanted a word. "Listen," Steve said, lowering his voice. "In 2014, when Bucky came back and we were fighting Pierce, Natasha wore something to disguise her face at the World Security Council—"

"A nano mask," Tony said definitively.

"No..." Steve said slowly, "or at least she called it something else.  A photostatic shield?" 

Tony waved a hand and said, "Same thing. Nano masks have gotten better since then.  I brought one to Natasha as part of her Black Widow Super-Spy Destructo-Kit—" 

"Yes, I know," Steve murmured, "and I was wondering if you could possibly bring us two more." 

Tony didn't say anything for a moment, just raised his eyebrows.  "For you?"

"For me," Steve confirmed. "And…."  He tilted his head in the direction of the card table, and Tony's eyes moved in that direction, to where Bucky was no doubt looking on with some pride at Natasha's expert handling of the cards. "You know, we're not getting any younger," Steve said wryly, and then immediately added: "And we're not getting any older either, which is starting to look suspicious. I'm older than Peg and I need to be sure to look it. And Ellie's seventeen," he added, laughing a little incredulously, because how had that happened? Time really did fly when you were having fun. "And I'd rather nobody mistake Bucky for her prom date."

Tony was now squinting narrowly at him. "Wait, did you put some gray in your hair?"

"A little bit," Steve admitted.  "How does it look?" 

"Like you're 35 with some gray in your hair. Meanwhile I'm trying to take some of the gray out of mine without looking like I'm trying too hard." Tony sighed and then said: "I'll bring you a couple of nano masks. Though I'm surprised you didn't just pop into a lab to pinch 'em yourself."

"I don't—" Steve began, before realizing that he really didn't want to finish that thought, but Tony was looking at him, and Tony knew him better than anyone who wasn't currently playing bridge, and so he had to finish it. "I don't travel past the Snap," he admitted.

That seemed to take Tony aback. "You don't? I guess you don't. You've never come to the house—you know you're welcome to come to the house," Tony said seriously.  "To 2023, all of you—"

"I don't travel past the Snap," Steve repeated gently. "Because it was hell the first time, and because after that is a future that...I don't know about, and I don't want to know about it." It was a future without Peggy for one thing, and he'd survived that once, but he wasn't going to think about it until he had to. "I don't like it when people tell me the end of the movie, either," Steve said, smiling to try to lighten up the conversation. "I'll find out what happens when I get there."

Tony looked like he was going to say something about that, but then he didn't and said, instead, "Why do you let Barnes partner your wife? In bridge," he added puckishly, and Steve gnawed thoughtfully at his lip and wondered what exactly Tony was asking. Not that it mattered: he owed Tony a lot, but he didn't owe him any answers on that score. Ain't nobody's business if I do.

So Steve just grinned and said, "Well, you obviously don't play bridge, because if you did… " 

"I play manly games. Poker. Blackjack. Card games for men," Tony said, following Steve back to the card table where, indeed, Natasha'd made the contract and was just collecting her last trick. 

"Husbands and wives shouldn't play together; too many arguments." Steve smiled at Peggy. "Bucky and I can't play together because we know each other too well. This way it's at least sort of fair," Steve concluded, putting his drink down and taking his seat for the next round. 

"Fair, he says," Bucky muttered. "She finessed my queen like a shark," and Natasha blew him a kiss.

A man walks into a bar. The bar, Harry's, is on West 32nd street, and it's been there for years. It's close to the Garden, so there are pennants tacked up on the battered oak walls and no fewer than five televisions, each broadcasting a different game. It's not what it used to be, but it's a place they both know, so Steve suggests that they pop over there for a post-funeral drink. 

Tony's beaten him there, and he's snagged them two seats at the end of the bar, near to the TV that's showing hockey. He's more comfortable here than he was fifty years ago, and he's ordered a beer and an enormous plate of cheese fries. Steve slides onto the stool next to him, and Tony turns, dark eyes thunderous but not able to conceal his happiness; mock-furious only.

"Son of a bitch!" Tony declares. "The nerve of you holding your fake-ass funeral on my big day!" but before he can respond, Tony's grabbed him by the lapels and yanked him in for a hug. Steve laughs helplessly, then closes his eyes tight, trying to really be here, to feel it. November, 2008.

"Listen," Tony says, once he lets go, "you don't have to— Shouldn't you be with your family right now?" and Steve grins and rubs his beard and says, "That's just where I can't be. Peg's unflappable, of course, and Vera's inherited her poker face, but Jim and Ellie are hopeless— they're like me, they've got no talent for guile. Peggy told me to stay out of sight, and I did, I tried, but then I saw you arrive and…"  In fact, he'd been shocked to see Tony at the chapel. S.G. Carter's funeral was a necessary formality, a public announcement of his exit from the lives of his wife and children. He'd never dreamed anyone who actually cared would show up.

Tony snatches a folded-up newspaper off the bar and hits him with it.  A bit of the headline is visible: "RON MA." "Yeah, and why today?" Tony demands. "Did you think that was funny or—?"

"Well, that's an interesting question," Steve says, and Tony immediately drops the theatrics and listens. "I knew today was the day because practically the first thing I did when I came out of the ice was to look Peggy up and—" his chest still tightens at the thought, "—discover that she'd got married," and even knowing what he knows, he has to stop and take a breath. "So of course I had to look him up and—I gotta tell you, Tony, I was relieved to discover that the guy was dead." 

Steve rubs idly at his temple, because thinking about it brings him there immediately. Memory is its own form of time-travel. "I mean, I had fantasies," he confesses. "I thought maybe I could still marry her, despite everything. Anyway I looked him up, and there wasn't a lot about him—which, sure, of course—but at the time, I thought: right, she loves him, she loved him, and she wanted to protect him from—you know, all of it: the whole Captain America thing, the S.H.I.E.L.D. thing." Tony's making a face; he knows all about it. "She said—I saw an interview—all she ever said about him was that he was one of us: a soldier, a guy who served. I thought, well, it's none of my damn business. I thought, right, he was smart enough to take her name, protect himself from being a dancing monkey."

And he's there again: sitting at a desk in an empty Brooklyn apartment staring down the deaths of everyone he's ever known. He's looking at this thing called a laptop and typing the names of people he cares about into something called Google which tells him that Peggy Carter's husband S.G. Carter died in 2008, survived by his wife, three children, and four grandchildren, private services to be held at St. Paul's Chapel. Steve shakes it off with an effort and returns to the here and now, which is the then he was reading about, and he is the him who died.

Except he didn't; he's the same him he always was, just come to this day the long way round. "So it wasn't exactly my choice," Steve told Tony, "So —"

"Whose choice was it?" Tony mutters, finishing the thought.

"Right.  And I don't know, Tony—I really don't.  And before you ask, I'm not exactly sure what happens now, either. I mean, I do know a couple of things. We're selling up in Oyster Bay and going to England—we've got a place in Winchester, near to where Peggy grew up. Right now, she's still physically strong and sharp as a tack, so I'm going to stay for as long as I..."  Steve doesn't finish that thought but he doesn't have to; he can see the look of grim sympathy on Tony's face. "After that, I don't know—but I think that's what having a future means."

Tony frowns.  "You still haven't been past the Snap?"

"I haven't, no, but Bucky says I'm being dumb about that," Steve sighs, and Tony jerks to stare.

"Barnes is alive, too?"

"Oh, sure," Steve says, and waves the bartender over. 

"Can't you drive any faster?" Natasha asked tensely, as they sped their way up the M3, dodging and weaving through the traffic. They were nearly there, now, and the Porsche's engine was thrumming happily—had been over the entire five-hour drive from Paris to Winchester.

Bucky side-eyed her from where he was slouched in the driver's seat. "Sure I can—in fact, I can drive straight up the embankment, smash through the hedgerow, cut through a couple of backyards and the Cathedral gardens and make a hard left into their driveway—but I warn you, we're gonna have to go full-out supersoldier when the cops come for us. I'm game if you are."

Natasha's lips twisted as she stifled a smile. Then she sighed and said, "I'm just afraid that..."

"Yeah," Bucky murmured. "Me too."

"Just—I should have remembered."  She turned away to stare out the window. "I was there."

"You can't remember everything," Bucky told her.  

"Thank God Ellie thought to call," Natasha said. "What the hell Steve is thinking, I don't even—"

Bucky snorted. "You think he's thinking? He's not thinking, Nat." That much he was sure of. 

When they finally got to the house, they pulled up behind a couple of unfamiliar cars, both rentals. Ellie opened the door; she looked paler than her white blouse, and was that a touch of gray at her temples? It was wild: Steve and Peggy's kids were older than they were now.

"Auntie Nat," Ellie said, sounding relieved.  Natasha hugged her, and then moved past her to hug Vera, who was wearing a black floral frock and no shoes, her hair cut sleek and short. Ellie kissed his cheek and said, "Jimmy and Suzin are in the air, it's 13 hours from Seoul, but Dad seems certain that it's going to be today." She took a short, wet-sounding breath, but didn't cry; she was Peggy Carter's daughter after all. "Though why on earth he didn't tell us sooner.  We've been losing her for so long, and now suddenly—"

"Because he didn't want us to come." Vera cocked her hip.  "As if he could stop us." 

"He wants to be alone with her," Ellie said softly. "I mean, I know that he wants to be alone with her.  And we've all been saying our goodbyes to her—over and over, for months now—"

"Well, the hell with what he wants," Vera said bluntly, and Ellie turned away, lip quivering.

Nat went to her and put her arms around her, and Ellie forced a smile.  "There's coffee," she said, and waved distractedly toward the dining room. "And food...little sandwiches, I don't know; something. Whatever the caterers brought."

"There's also wine open," Vera muttered.

"Where is he?" Bucky said, and, in unison, the girls pointed: upstairs. 

"He's been up there for ages," Ellie told them.

"He threw us out," Vera said plaintively.

Natasha looked at Bucky, alarm in her eyes. "Go," but he was already going, turning for the stairs, taking them two at a time. The door to Peggy's room was shut. Bucky hesitated before it—raised his hand, contemplated knocking—and then just opened it and went in. 

Peggy was in bed, nestled in a pile of pillows, her eyes closed. She looked comfortable, but Bucky knew right away she was dead. And he'd been prepared for that—or he'd thought he was, but he found himself shaking with grief, his vision blurred. "Peg," he said, and was shocked by the hoarse sound of his own voice. He went to the bed and gently took her cool, papery hand in his. She was still wearing the ring that he'd fished out of his vest pocket and handed to Steve sixty-four years ago. He bent to kiss her, and then whispered, "Godspeed, darling." 

Finally, he straightened, wiping tears from his eyes, and turned. Steve was sitting, perfectly still and silent, against the wall on the far side of the room. The nano mask that he typically used to look older was lying crumpled on a side table. But Steve's face, while young again, now seemed like its own sort of mask: he looked blank, Bucky thought; unnaturally calm, and very far away.

"Steve," Bucky said softly.

Steve didn't reply; in fact, he didn't move at all. Like a statue—or like he was dead, too.  

"Steve?" and Bucky wondered how long it had been since Peggy'd drifted off: how long had Steve been sitting there? This time Steve blinked and flexed the little finger on his right hand—and so Bucky went to him, crossing the room in two great steps and dragging a chair close.  He stroked Steve's hair with both hands.

"You don't have to," Bucky managed; he was more than a little breathless himself. "Do you understand me, you dolt? You don't have to," and for a moment they just sat there, knee to knee and forehead to forehead, heartbeats going in sync and breathing each other's air.

"Look, the girls are downstairs," Bucky said finally, "and Jimmy's on his way.  And they just lost their mom, pal, so let them love you a little. I know you're crap at it but just suck it up and deal."

"Okay," Steve said faintly. 

"I'll be right here beside—" and there was a beep and a bright flash and Bucky jerked back and looked toward the source of it: the chronograph, which was still strapped to Steve's wrist.

Steve tapped it and it went quiet. His voice was a scrape:  "Someone needs to… text.  Him.  Me ," and suddenly Steve's face crumpled and he bent forward to sob silently against Bucky's shoulder. Bucky held steady; he was prepared to let Steve go for as long as he wanted.

When Steve lifted his head, he'd gotten control of himself. "You know, I had always thought…" he began, but then he had to swallow around the lump in his throat. "I always felt that Peggy's family was keeping me at arm's length. I met Ellie once, sort of on behalf of the family. It was very formal, tea and…" Steve made a vague little gesture, evoking the tea table, the cold politeness of the situation. "But it was clear that they didn't want to know me, and that hurt." 

"But now you know why that was, right?" Bucky asked levelly. 

"Sure. But now—God, it's crucial that they don't know me and that I don't get to know them," and Steve must have seen his confusion, because he went on: "I didn't know who they were supposed to be, Buck—so they got to grow up and be who they are without any of this hanging over them like the goddamned sword of Damocles!  All I knew about them when I came out of the ice were their names, and that was probably too much. They deserve to live their own lives."

"And so do you, pal," Bucky said softly.  "So do you. Who sent the text?" 

Steve took a very long, very deep breath before he answered. "I don't know. One of the family, I guess. It came from Peg's phone," and Bucky got up and found the phone on the nightstand, lying among the detritus of Peggy's long illness.  

"Do you remember what it said?" Bucky asked, and Steve burst out, savage and tearful: "No, Buck, I forgot—it's not like it's burned on my goddamned heart or anything," and Bucky handed him the phone. Steve's face convulsed into something ugly, and for a second, Bucky was sure that he was going to hurl the phone against the wall. But then Steve got control of himself and typed in, "She's gone. In her sleep," and handed the phone back to him. Bucky pressed send.

"Look, there's something we've got to talk about," Bucky told Steve. 

He'd suggested a walk, and now they were sitting on a bench in the Cathedral gardens watching the people go by: mothers supervising toddling children, young people who'd come out on their lunch breaks to eat in the sun. Just two old guys on a bench under a beautiful blue June sky—or, more accurately, they were two endlessly-young guys on a bench wearing nano masks. Bucky'd reluctantly aged himself up to match Steve: Steve seemed committed to presenting himself as an old man in England, probably because of the kids, even when the kids weren't around.

Bucky sighed and said, "There's a saying, you know—when you're tired of Paris, you're tired of life," and Steve looked at him with obvious concern.  Bucky forced a quick smile. "I'm not sure that's true, but I'm tired of Paris, anyway. I'm ready for something else."

Steve looked shocked.  "But you've been so happy there, you and Nat."

"I have been. We have been," and God, how he'd loved being in Paris with Natasha—having her on his arm, spoiling her within an inch of her life with clothes and food and evenings out, dancing and drinking magnums of champagne in long bars full of stained glass and golden light. He'd do anything to please her, though he'd never come close to repaying the debt that he owed her. His heart still raced every time he got near her, his senses overjoyed by her. It was a Pavlovian reaction from a time when she was the only beautiful thing in the whole world, and his only connection to a life beyond pain and the horrors of forgetting—or worse yet, remembering. 

They'd had good times with Steve and Peg, too—going out with them for long, wonderful dinners of the sort that you couldn't get anymore, even in Paris. They'd taken the kids to the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and the Tuileries, all the good tourist stuff, and then he'd happily trailed Steve around whatever museum or gallery he'd decided to tackle on whatever trip, ready to whisk him away when he got overwhelmed. Because Steve was crazy vulnerable to art, so much so that HYDRA could have used it against him if they'd only known how to weaponize it. A single Van Gogh or Kandinsky could knock Steve off his game, and he had a bad habit of going way past his limit on Picassos, seeing four or even five before reeling away from them like an angry drunk. Bucky always tried to cut him off at three and then drag him out to a cafe, ideally someplace with terrible fake impressionist art or a lot of mock Toulouse-Lautrec on the walls to help restore his equilibrium.

Still, despite the architecture and the wall-to-wall masterpieces, "I don't think you ever really liked Paris, did you?" Bucky asked, curiously.

"Sure I did. Do," Steve said, a little defensively. "I like it fine. I like that you were so happy there," and Bucky smirked at him, because that was very much not the same thing.  Steve rolled his eyes to acknowledge that Bucky'd read his hedge, and then shrugged and said, "I don't know, I guess I always felt that Paris...sold its soul, a little, in the war and then after... "

Bucky couldn't stop himself laughing. "Oh, it did, it totally did; that's just what I like about it," and Steve's wrinkled face grew horrified as the penny dropped and Bucky laughed even harder, because Jesus, Steve. "Everybody's guilty or complicit or sure as hell that they fucked up something somewhere, did somebody over dirty—you can see it in their eyes; we all look the same, or we used to. Now all the interesting people are dead and it's just tourists and—I don't know, fashion models, and I ain't either. Though I guess with this mask I could be anyone—why do you insist on looking so goddamned old?" Bucky asked, half to give Steve cover to get himself together. "We could look like anybody. I could look like Marlene Dietrich if I wanted."

"Well," Steve said, and he was, manfully, getting his act together, "this is a side of you I haven't seen," and then he added, a moment later, "Lately," and Bucky laughed again: attaboy, Steve.

So this was the moment.  "Listen to me: we have got to get the fuck out of here, and I have ten thousand reasons for you but let's just start with two or th—"

"I can't," Steve said immediately, and Bucky clenched his gnarled fist, which was 100% pure vibranium underneath, and which he was prepared to use on this lunkhead if necessary.   

But he'd try talking first: "You wanna hang over the lives of your kids?" he asked, low and deadly. "Because I overheard Ellie on the phone: she's trying to get you an apartment in Boston, in or near her building—fine town, Boston, but you want to sit there for the next 20 years while she brings you soup and macaroni? Or fuck that, how about this: the Snap is coming, and it's been like two centuries since I was in Mrs. DeSantis's math class, but if 50% of living things are going to go, and there's three of us, what are the odds of you, me, and Nat—" and the horrified look was back on Steve's face, which—good. Good. "I've been snapped once already, pal, and I don't much fancy doing it again, and even if we're not snapped," and here Bucky had to take a breath, because if Steve gave him an argument on this point, he really was going to punch his lights out,  "— we're still in the window of the fucking time loop, which means that we can't do anything, we can't help, can't fix things, even if, even—" and Christ, it felt like his lungs were collapsing, like the ice was creeping up over his face. But he didn't need to finish that thought, because Steve knew what he was talking about and why it mattered to him so goddamned desperately. Still, he managed to get out, "Because those are the rules, aren't they or aren't they?"

"They are," Steve breathed, and so okay, then. Okay. Bucky let out his own breath and let himself come down from DEFCON 2: slowly, slowly.  "So what do you—where do you want to go?" Steve asked finally.  

But that was an easy one.  "Where I always want to go: to the future," and when Steve stared at him, Bucky said, "Hey, look, I came to the past with you when I wanted to see 1952 again like a hole in the head—sixty-four years we've been here. So how about we do things my way for a change?" and there was no goddamn way that Steve could argue with that.

His little hut by the lake was still there, though it was weatherbeaten, its familiar cloth hangings tattered and bleached pale by the sun. He could tell at a glance that the village had moved the herds out some time ago, probably up to the grassy lands on the other side of the mountain. The pasture seemed overgrown and abandoned. Bucky turned to look out over the lake and its lush foliage.  Little seemed to have changed around here in fifteen years; in fact, this spectacular view likely hadn't changed in thousands of years, maybe even tens of thousands.

Steve was wandering around, wide-eyed, in front of the hut, taking everything in: the mountain, the lake, the enormous blue sky overhead.  "You lived here ?" he asked Bucky. 

"Yeah, for a year--very happily," Bucky said. "Me and the cows and the goats and ten or so village kids, who taught me how to handle the goats. Those kids were the brains, I was just the brawn," he explained, and Steve grinned at this like it was funny, but it was the God's honest truth. In fact, Bucky was pretty sure he'd already spotted some brightly-painted faces peering at them from behind the twisted branches of the flowering trees. Bucky'd long ago learned that there was no hiding anything from the village kids--certainly not two white guys suddenly appearing from out of nowhere with chronographs flashing on their wrists. Sherlock Holmes had known what he was on about when he deputized all them London street kids.

Bucky went inside the hut to see if anything was salvageable, and decided that mostly everything was: the roof was in good shape, and the bedframe, and his kettle was still hanging from the hook where he'd left it. The air inside the thick walls was noticeably cooler than outside. They'd need to go into the village to get bedding, and to buy beans and grains and spices, though they could probably make do for tonight, just hunker down with their packs like they'd done in the war—

"Buck!" Steve called, and Bucky ducked out of the hut out to see Steve standing with his hands raised and a woman pointing an enormous and very sharp looking spear at him.  Her face was painted in the manner of the village, and her eyes moved briefly to Bucky when he came out of the hut, his own hands raised and empty--and then she did a double-take, staring him down.

Bucky stared back.  For a moment, the name wouldn't come, and then it did: "Zani?"  and the woman dropped her spear and broke into a broad grin.

"White Wolf!" she said, and Bucky strode forward, took her in his arms and hugged her; the last time he'd seen her she'd been seven years old. "We thought you were gone!" Zani said.  "But you came back."

"I came back," Bucky said, and then: "I was hoping to see Shuri," and Zani pulled back and fixed him with a look that was a mix of pride and reproof.

"Our Shuri is now the Queen of Wakanda," Zani told him, and whoa, okay: the future was good.

"C'mere,"  Bucky said, after dinner, and Steve obligingly slid closer on the colorful woven mats they'd placed before their fire. It was now very dark, but they were happy and full of all the delicious welcoming dishes the village had been kind enough to bring them, and Bucky'd made hot coffee over the fire and splashed in some amarula. He took another sip and felt the warmth spreading through his chest even as Steve came close and leaned against him, pressing in. 

And that was so inviting that Bucky was tempted to just push Steve back onto the mat and go right to what he hoped would be the evening's main event.  Except… "Look up," Bucky said. 

Steve looked briefly, if gratifyingly, disappointed, pouting for a second before tilting his head back and…. " Holy cow," Steve breathed, and Bucky smiled, knowing what Steve was gaping at but riveted by the play of starlight across Steve's pale, upturned face. It was a long time before Bucky could force his eyes away from Steve and look at the enormously dense starfield overhead—a sky like he'd never seen in his life before he'd come to the Southern Hemisphere. 

He'd always wondered how the ancient astronomers had the patience to map the stars and their motion, but that was before he realized that, in a place without light pollution, all the stars were right there in the sky. Densely crowded and super-bright, with constellations easy to pick out—nothing like trying to pick out a single goddamned star in Brooklyn, and realizing it was the flash of some lightbulb on a Manhattan skyscraper, or some plane taking off from Idlewild.

"You've got to stop and look," Bucky said softly, "really look," because there must have been stars in the sky over Siberia, or in Nova Zemlya, but he'd been kept with blinders on, seeing the world as only a pinprick of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. And he'd bet that Steve had never taken the time to stargaze, either; Steve had been trapped in his own sort of tunnel.

"The southern cross." Bucky pointed with his metal finger. "Alpha Centauri. The Carina Nebula."

Steve reached out and moved Bucky's arm to another part of the heavens.  "I feel like my eyes are blurring, or fogging over," he whispered. "That big white smear across the sky, is that—"

"The Milky Way," Bucky said, nodding.

Steve laughed out loud and said, "But that's ridiculous."

"I know," Bucky said.

"It's huge," Steve said.

"I know," Bucky said.

"It's huge," Steve said again, and together they stared up at the enormous white smear across the sky that was a hundred thousand million stars.  Bucky'd fallen in love with the sky over Wakanda the first night he'd spent in his hut, and he felt like he could stare up at it forever—

—except then Steve muttered, "C'mere," and slung an arm around his neck and dragged him in to kiss him. Bucky moaned and leaned into it, made fists in the back of Steve shirt and opened his mouth, deepening the kiss and giving himself over to it totally—and so he was startled, panting and already hard, when Steven shoved him onto his back and loomed over him, unbuttoning and unzipping him.  "Steve," Bucky gasped as Steve's hand closed around him, possessive and familiar, and he closed his eyes and lay back on the mat, arms splayed, because Jesus, anything—he'd be up for anything and everything Steve wanted to do.

Steve leaned down and kissed him, still gripping him, feeling the shape of him—and then Steve was sliding down his body, heavy and warm, kissing his throat, chest, and belly on the way down.  Bucky let out a soft sigh as Steve's mouth found him, moved over him, and he sank his hand into Steve's hair and stroked a thumb over Steve's temple, trying not to thrust too wildly or come too soon. But his heart was racing, pounding in his chest, and he was overcome with—

So many stars, so many and so bright—

When he came, he squeezed his eyes shut but still some tears leaked out—he still had this, from then to now to now to now, it was 1936, it was 1945 it was 2016 or 2023 or 1952 or 1962 or 72 or 82 or 92—and now it was 2033 and they were free now, to do anything they wanted, and here was Steve; he still had Steve; somehow, despite everything, there was still Steve. 

He gasped raggedly for a moment, trying to get control of himself, and then tugged Steve up so he could kiss his stupid, fond, familiar face. Then Bucky nipped at his jaw and leaned in to lick and suck meaningfully at his earlobe, declaring his intention to reciprocate—but Steve's hand was closing on his wrist, Steve was dragging Bucky's hand to his cock, and so yes, sure, he would do that. He moved his mouth to Steve's and swallowed all Steve's moans and whimpers, panting and gasping along with him as he jerked him off slow, slow, just the way Steve liked.

Finally, they collapsed together on the mat, half-undressed and very sticky, and stared up at the sky and listened to the soft crackling of the fire. "I could get used to this," Steve said finally. "I mean, I see what you like about the place. It would be a good place to retire, I can see that..."

Bucky smiled at this and said, "Sure, we could do that; I would like that.  But I wasn't imagining we'd settle down yet—In fact, I wasn't actually thinking we'd stay long.  We only came here because..." and then he was nudging Steve with his elbow and pointing up at the sky again.

Beside him, Steve propped himself up and peered up. "Is that a shooting star? Or a comet?"

"No," Bucky said, and grinned to himself in the dark.  "It's a spaceship."

Steve was still asleep when Bucky got his first glimpse of whatever that was coming toward them across the plain. He stood, squinting into the eastern sun, trying to make out who it was: there were at least six or seven of them, carrying weapons and dressed in the armor of the Royal Guards—and Bucky grinned and quickly cast his eye around the campsite to make sure they could pass for respectable. Then he ducked into the hut and gave Steve a rough shake.

"Steve," he said, and Steve lifted his head blearily, "get dressed. Hurry. Shuri— "  and then he went out again to meet her, pulling the colorful cloth hangings behind him to give Steve some privacy. 

When the delegation was close, Shuri waved her hand and stopped her guards in their tracks, then came down into the lake-clearing alone.  Bucky tried to keep his face schooled into blankness, but it was hard--he was so damned pleased to see her. She looked well: she'd filled out some, and now had the gravity and solidity of an adult woman, but other than that she was the same, and the mischievous intelligence radiating off her was both familiar and palpable. 

Bucky crossed his arms over his chest and bent forward.  "Your Majesty," he said, head bowed.

"Sergeant Barnes," Shuri said, and then, in mock outrage:  "Where the hell have you been?"

Bucky glanced up at her from under his lashes.  "How long have you got?"

"And the other white boy you brought here, I have my suspicions as to who—" and as if on cue, Steve pushed aside the curtain and ducked through the door to the hut, looking sheepish.

Shuri put her hands on her hips and declared, "Ah-ha! I was guessing that there were time-shenanigans, and now I see I was right.  Captain, it is very good to see you. I always suspected that there was more to the story than what we were told. Come here and show me that thing you have there upon your wrist," and Steve came close and held his arm out to her.  

She examined it closely, then nodded with satisfaction.  "Ah, a Bose-Einstein condensate. Did you start with sodium atoms?" and Steve just looked at her and said, "No, I, uh--stole it from Dr. Pym's lab in 1970," and Shuri beamed and said, "That would work, too. " She looked from him to Bucky and then mused, "So you have been surfing the timestream. For how long, please?"

Bucky and Steve looked at each other, frowning and doing math in their heads.  

"Not long," Bucky hedged.

"Not long," Steve agreed.

"Sixty...four?...years," Bucky suggested, looking to Steve for confirmation.

Steve shook his head, "More than that. For me, it was more than that." 

"Well, for at least sixty-four years, then," Bucky amended. "And counting."

Shuri looked amused.  "And that is not long."

"No," Steve said.

"No," Bucky agreed. "I mean, we were more than a hundred before we left."

"Riiiight." Shuri shook her head. "And now your journey has brought you back to Wakanda.  I don't suppose you wish us to draft an international press release announcing your return?"

"No," Bucky said hastily.

"Please, no," Steve said with soft urgency.

Shuri smiled reassuringly.  "Then you are welcome to live a quiet life with us, and we will protect your secrets and your privacy." 

"Thank you," Steve said, soft and heartfelt. 

"Thank you," Bucky said, "But also…" and Shuri and Steve turned to look at him. "We also came because it occurred to me that, well. If there's intelligent life--you know, out there," he said, raising his hand and waving his fingers at the sky, "then they're going to be here, talking to you, in contact with you," and Shuri tilted her head slowly, acknowledging the truth of this. 

"Yes, Wakanda has successfully established diplomatic relations and even some preliminary trade agreements with several planetary governments and federations," Shuri said with some pride. "As you suggest...well, let's just say we were well-positioned to make such alliances."

Bucky snorted.  "Yeah.  And I'll bet you the so-called 'first world' has been trying to find their ass in the dark with both hands," and Steve was about to elbow him for the rude language, but Shuri just laughed and said, "Let's just say that their efforts are wayyy more preliminary.  A NATO expedition was recently formed and tasked with building the necessary relationships - I believe Carol Danvers is involved. But my brother has been on a royal tour of space for four years now." 

"Could you hook us up with the right people? If we wanted to…you know." Bucky pointed up at the sky. "Hitch a ride?" 

Shuri grinned and said, "Yes, I think something could be arranged for you."

"I thought you were the one who'd been to space," and Bucky was rolling his eyes, "because I sure had to hear about it, all about how you and Natasha had been to space and—"

"I have, I did—I went, except it was different, Buck—it was right after the Snap, and we were on a mission and—" half out of our minds, he didn't say. "The ship we went on, it was more like a QuinJet, a souped-up fighter plane—" and in fact, the Benatar was close enough to the Valkyrie that, overwhelmed with grief as he was, Steve had had a brief but vivid fantasy of putting her into a nosedive, sending her hurtling down to crash like he'd done once before and ending it all.

He didn't tell Bucky that, either.

"Point is, Buck, it was nothing like this," and here Steve waved at the floor-to-ceiling window on one side of their cabin on this interstellar cruiser, which gave out on a field of stars so dense and bright it was dizzying.  "We—it was fast is what it was. Mostly I remember the speed and the sudden drops—believe me, Coney Island had nothing on it.  We went so fast I felt like my brain was being dragged out of my skull. Then we got to this place, the Garden, with Thanos and…"  

And the truth was he didn't remember anything after that. They must have gone home—gotten back on the Benatar, traveled through space, seen stars—but Steve couldn't remember doing any of it. He'd been at the bottom of a dark, all-too-familiar well, and all he could remember was Natasha's tear streaked face, her quivering lower lip, blindly reaching out to grasp her hand. 

"Well, this ain't gonna be fast." Bucky slid back in his chair and stared, fascinated, out the window. "This space station Shuri told us about is more than halfway across the galaxy--and that's only our first stop. It's gonna take time to get there--if time even has any meaning out here. So I guess we'd better get settled in," though that was easy enough. The quarters they'd been given were a hell of a lot larger than the apartment he and Bucky'd shared in Brooklyn back in 1936, and it was equipped with anything a person could need and a bunch of things that Steve didn't understand or know what to do with, just like his Brooklyn apartment in 2011.

"We've got all these buttons to press," Steve said, gesturing, "though maybe we should read the instruction book first, if we can find one.  And personally I'd like to study a map, try to chart exactly where we are and where we're going. It's unnerving," Steve said, turning back to the enormous window: star after star after star,  "having no landmarks. I feel a little lost, don't you?"

"Steve, I have not known where the hell I was or where I was going since 1945. You get used to—" and there was a flash and then Tony demanded, "What happened to 'we don't travel past the Snap?!'"

With a little time and effort, Steve got good with the maps, and so he was able to anticipate the appearance of the Oasis on the navi-computer well before the space station would have become visible to the naked eye. By then, their quarters had taken on a distinctly lived-in look; they'd reverted to old habits, which they'd mostly kept in check when Peggy and Natasha were around. But when it was just the two of them, they fell into wearing each other's clothes and leaving coffee cups and half-eaten cheese danishes from the replicator sitting on the table next to the flashing holograms they used to signal each other's attention, which was just an update of their old habit of leaving circled newspaper articles on each other's pillows or breakfast plates.

Steve felt an unexpected surge of joy when the Oasis appeared on the edge of the starchart—far, still, but now no longer unimaginably far; now anticipatedly far. It felt like maybe this could be the first day of the rest of his life, and he found his hand, his heart groping blindly for something before he realized, consciously, that he was looking for Bucky—Bucky wasn't here. Probably gone down to Engineering: he'd befriended some of the ship's yellow-complected Disniche engineers who'd taught him a lot about the engines and let him poke happily through the ship's arsenal of weaponry. The Disniche looked basically human to Steve except for the extra joints articulating their fingers, which gave them unparalleled motor control and dexterity. 

He turned, planning to jog down to Engineering and get him—if he went without taking any of the lifts it was more than a mile—and nearly crashed into Tony, who'd blipped into being behind him. "Give a guy a little warning, willya?" Steve jerked back. "Clear your throat or something."

"You guys remember that you have a time machine, right?" Tony deadpanned.  "You could have taken the quantum tunnel from here to wherever you're going in five nano-seconds."

"Sure, but where's the fun in that?" Steve asked, and then said, pointing, "Look, that's the Oasis—Shuri says it's an interplanetary space station, a waystation really, for all kinds of people and species and stuff to mix while traveling—"

"Mos Eisley," Tony said confidently, but Steve wasn't sure where that was.

"Maybe?" Steve hedged.  "I was thinking more...Ellis Island."

"And so what are you planning to do then?" Tony crossed his arms; he seemed almost angry. "Emigrate?" and it was funny, but Steve hadn't really thought ahead that far. This was Bucky's plan, and he was just going along—which felt familiar and welcome and right. Bucky always turned up just in time to drag him out of trouble, or to pull him out of whatever hole he'd fallen into. "C'mon," Bucky would say—and drag him to the fair, to the movies, to the beach or the boardwalk at Coney Island. The rides were bigger and more terrifying now, but all the same…  

"Yeah, I guess," Steve said, giving the matter serious thought for the first time.  "We're traveling with Wakandan papers, but Shuri says there's an American delegation—we could try to connect up with them, I guess. Apply for a visa or whatever they call it— I mean, my mother crossed the ocean all by herself at sixteen. That must have seemed like going to an alien planet…"

"Uh-huh." Tony looked skeptical. "So you're going to try to make it in the new world? Get a little apartment on the lower east side of Alpha Centauri, sew shirtwaists or sell fruit? Because I don't see it.  You haven't got the temperament to keep yourself to yourself—you're gonna end up back in the superhero biz, Cap, whether you've admitted it to yourself or— "

Bucky appeared in the doorway to the cabin.  "Alpha Centauri is a star, not a planet," he told Tony, "but of course he's gonna end up back in the hero biz, he was doing that on the real Lower East Side back when he was 98 pounds and had arms like noodles. And we're past the Snap, now—which means that all bets are off, all restrictions lifted. As far as we know, the future is wide open, which means our hands are untied. We can try to change things, or help—"

"Yeah, thanks but no thanks," Tony shot back. "I like you better with your hands tied." 

Bucky flinched like he'd taken a blow, and Steve immediately stepped between them, arm raised.  "You don't know what the hell you're talking about," he warned Tony. 

Tony lifted his chin.  "You know, I think I do," he said.

Steve felt the temper rising in him, blinding him, but Bucky's hand gripped his shoulder.  "It's all right," he said, softly. "Let it go. Let it go, Steve," but Tony hadn't been there, hadn't known what it cost Bucky to abide by the rules of the snap.

He'd known without knowing—and so had kept Bucky in sight all day without letting himself think too much about it. But some internal clock started ticking every time Bucky was out of view—drifting into the kitchen to refill his coffee cup; fine—disappearing into Peggy's office with an urgent briefing that had been delivered by a messenger on a motorbike; fine—slipping out onto the veranda for a cigarette; "Hey, Buck, wait up, I need to stretch my legs," and had he simply imagined the look on Bucky's face when he turned around?  Maybe.

Still, there was no imagining the fact that Bucky began to drink heavily at about four in the afternoon, and was jittery all throughout the evening—getting up from the dinner table to go to and from the sideboard on the pretext of refreshing his drink, then pacing back and forth beside the large window as it grew dark, rattling the ice in his glass. Natasha shot Steve a worried look, and Steve jerked a nod to show her that he knew, he saw. He suggested they play cards but Bucky said he'd rather just sit by the fire and read—but when Bucky put his book down on the end table and got up, Steve waited only a minute or so before following him out of the library.

He saw that Bucky was headed for the other side of the house, where the offices were, and thought that maybe he wanted something on his desk—except Bucky bypassed his own office and slipped into Peggy's, closing the door behind him. And Peggy's office had its own door that opened out onto the patio, so Steve immediately lunged for the French doors in the dining room: he would run around the house and catch up with Bucky in the gardens behind Peg's office…

But Bucky wasn't in the garden. Instead Steve saw him framed in the window in the warm light of Peggy's desk lamp—at the telephone—and he put on speed and, finding the door locked, smashed through it without hesitation. "Don't," Steve gasped, grabbing for the phone just as Bucky threw an unexpected punch, which connected hard; sonofabitch! Steve staggered, and through the ringing in his ears, he heard the faraway ringing of the phone. Bucky swung again and Steve ducked just as the call connected. Howard's tinny voice said, "Hello? Hello? Who is this?" as they struggled, grunting, and then Steve's brain clicked on and he turned and yanked the cord out of the wall, bringing a big chunk of paneling with it; it had been a secure line. 

The receiver went dead in Bucky's hand. Bucky's face reddened with rage—and it had been a long time since they'd sparred, even for practice, and this wasn't practice. Bucky came at him full-force in wounded fury, and Steve had to work hard to defend himself without hurting Bucky any more than he already was. He blocked or blunted Bucky's punches, then dropped down and went in for a low tackle. They smashed hard into Peggy's antique credenza, then rolled and careened back against the desk, which collapsed under them as two of its legs broke.  

"I can stop him!" Bucky shouted. "Goddamn you, Steve! I can still stop him— he's me, I was there, I know when and where—!" and Steve wrapped arms tightly around him, trying to straight-jacket him, to shake him, to make him hear sense. "No, you can't, you can't do it— I can't let you do it, Buck, do you hear me? You can't fucking do it," and Bucky stopped then and sagged against him, gulping for air. Steve loosened his death grip and hugged him, stroked his hair and kissed his wet cheek. They stayed like that for a long time, until past time, until the door opened and Peggy said: "Well, I was thinking of getting new furniture in here anyway."

The alehouse on the Oasis was lively and crowded with travelers of all sorts, mostly clusters of bipedal humanoids of various skin textures and colors, with shades of blue predominating. There were also a couple of more peculiar folks—a tall, jagged ice-creature, a yellow-eyed werewolf. Also the bartender kind of looked like a lizard, though he had long-fingered hands that made drinks with surprising speed and grace, and the ruff around his neck gave him an air of elegance. The far side of the room appeared to be a window—except it couldn't be, because it gave out onto a view of an alien sea and a beach full of glittering black crystalline sand. This seemed a shame, Steve thought, considering the astounding views they'd seen when their ship docked—the endless starfield on one side and a view of Abarta Ocalia, the planet they were orbiting, on the other. Maybe if you spent a lot of time in space you got tired of seeing stars.

Bucky was on high alert for the first few minutes as he checked out the place with a series of darting sharp-eyed glances, no doubt scanning for weapons and mapping all the exits. After a moment, he relaxed and said to Steve, soft and wonderingly, "You ever see the like?" 

"Sure," Steve said. "It's just like that place we used to go to over on 47th and Eighth," and Bucky burst out laughing, probably because it was true. "C'mon, pal," Steve said, nudging Bucky with his elbow and then towing him through the crowd toward the bar, "let me buy you a drink."

"What the hell do we even ask for?" Bucky was eying various concoctions as they passed. 

"How should I know? We'll ask the bartender what's popular with humans," Steve suggested.

He was trying to flag down the lizard bartender when Bucky gripped his arm meaningfully—and Steve turned, fast, to see what was happening. Bucky was craning his neck and staring off through the crowded bar—and then he set off, moving with sufficient speed and purpose that people got the hell out of his way. Just then, the bartender asked, "What will you have?" but Steve waved him off and hurried after Bucky, following in his wake, which was already closing. 

It wasn't until he'd nearly caught up that Steve saw the table that had caught Bucky's attention—because Natasha'd looked up from her drink and her face was alight with joy. A moment later she was rushing into Bucky's arms, and he was hugging her and kissing her...and then still kissing her...and continuing to kiss her, long enough that Steve rolled his eyes and looked away—which is when he saw that the other person at Natasha's table was Clint Barton. 

The laugh lines around Clint's eyes were deeper, but he looked wiry and tough, and he stood and smiled as Steve came over to embrace him.  "You know, Natasha told me you were alive, but I swear, I don't think I quite believed her until right this second. God, it's good to see you."

"Same," Steve said thickly; he found himself surprisingly choked up. "What the hell are you doing all the way out here?" 

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world..." Bucky was saying to Natasha, as they grinned into each other's faces; he'd stopped kissing her long enough to form words, anyway.

"Pull up a chair, we need two chairs," Clint said, and then he was negotiating for chairs with the table behind theirs in a language that Steve didn't recognize. Meanwhile Natasha detached herself from Bucky long enough to greet Steve with a kiss on the cheek and a sultry, "Hello, Sailor—what's a nice boy like you doing in a place like this?" 

They pulled chairs round the table. "We came on a freighter from Wakanda," Steve replied. "You?"

Natasha lifted her wrist; the red particle in her chronograph was blinking steadily. "I came looking for Clint. He's part of a delegation here that Carol's in charge of." 

Steve looked at Clint, who shrugged and said, "Nathaniel went to college. Turns out there's only so many times you can rebuild an engine and only four good biographies of Bruce Springsteen." 

Natasha rolled her eyes. "You're also one of maybe three people on earth with the relevant experience."

"Yeah, and the Parker kid said no—he's got a young family now," Clint explained. "Probably just as well; I think some things are better left to us old dogs. But I guess you already knew that. Natasha's told me a little of your adventures in the past," Clint added, cutting his eyes warily at Bucky. "You've had a lot of bad luck, Barnes, but you're lucky in love, I guess. I just want you to know," Clint said, suddenly hoarse, "that this woman saved my soul on her way to you.  " 

Bucky looked amused. "I think you've maybe got that exactly backwards," he said, smiling knowingly at Natasha, "depending on which way you're approaching the timeline." 

"Either way, I'm a little jealous," Clint said.

"Well, I'm not," Bucky replied with an offhand shrug. "I'm not a jealous man by nature," and that was true, but also jealousy began to look pretty ridiculous when you were getting near to 200 years old. Steve covered his mouth with his hand; he was pretty sure that Bucky and Natasha had figured out that the best way to keep their relationship going into its ninth decade was to part frequently and reunite passionately. They'd made it into an art form, in his opinion. 

Meanwhile, he and Bucky had gone in the other direction, refusing to separate, becoming basically one person.

"Maybe that's why you're the first man I ever slept with who I didn't kill afterwards," Natasha mused.

"I'd like that carved on my tombstone," Bucky deadpanned. "Here lies—" and he jerked away, because Natasha was laughing and hitting him. "'He was just that good." The waiter may have saved Bucky's life by arriving just then to take their drinks order, and Clint ordered a round of something called a Watashi Smash: a white, foggy drink that totally did the trick.

"Bucky and I just wanted you to know that we're happy to be of service—you know, if we can be of any use to you," Steve said, and Carol folded her arms across her red and gold chest and said, "Guys, please pardon my goddamn French but you bet your ass I could use you."

However, Carol wasn't asking them to work on Earth's alliance with the representatives of the interstellar federation in these parts; she had something else in mind.  "The Kree have voluntarily dismantled their Supreme Intelligence—" Carol began, and Steve immediately raised a hand and said, "Apologies in advance, but you're going to have to slow down and explain." 

It turned out that the Kree were one of the most advanced and powerful races in the galaxy, though they had, in Carol's words, "a hellishly bad case of exceptionalism, which allows them to do the most godawful things and still believe they're the noblest, most amazing heroes ever." 

"Sounds familiar," Bucky drawled.

The Kree had been ruled for generations by an AI called the Supreme Intelligence, but after a recent civil war—and Carol's show of teeth and happy thrum of photons told Steve all he needed to know about that —their better angels (and Carol's fists, very likely) had inspired them to try a new tack: self-governance. They'd invaded the capital and taken the AI apart.

"It appeals to their egos, democracy," Carol explained wearily. "Who better to govern the Kree than the Kree themselves? It also lets them off the hook for all the years of war, imperialism, and exploitation—it wasn't them , you see; it was just the lousy leadership of the Supreme Intelligence. So it gives them plausible deniability, and with that, the chance of a clean slate—"

"So let them have it," Steve said. "Let them save face if they're really serious about a fresh start—"

"Oh, they're serious about it, they're just crap at it," Carol replied. "They're a hierarchical culture, a military culture, so everything's about rank—they haven't got the instinct for political equality. They don't even have an instinct for freedom, they've all been taking orders for so long—"

"Well, this is clearly a job for Steve, who's never followed an order in his life," Bucky said.

Carol looked at him and said, earnestly, "I think it is a job for Steve. He's enough of a warrior that they'll respect him, but he's the opposite of them in almost every other respect. He's a team player but not a company man, and he's always on the side of the underdog, the little guy..."

For a moment the deja vu was so real that Steve could almost smell the army disinfectant.  "It's funny," he said slowly, "but someone else once chose me for a mission on that same basis…." 

"And did you accept?" Carol inquired.

"I did," Steve said, laughing. "I did, actually," and he wondered if they served schnapps in the Oasis alehouse, because he found himself in the mood for a glass right now.

"So that's it?" Tony demanded.  "You're off on some mission to outer space and—"

"Actually, I'm told that Hala is very centrally located," Steve replied. "And it's got a capital city bigger than New York, Carol says—and full of skyscrapers and flying cars," but Tony's face was mottled with an emotion that Steve didn't understand, and so he stopped and tried to figure out what he was missing. You're off on some mission—was Tony mad they were leaving?

"Tony," Steve began cautiously, "it doesn't matter how far away we are or how long it takes us to get there. You've got the gauntlet, you can always get to wherever we are in a matter of—"

"Your wife is dead and so now—boom —you're off," Tony accused, and Steve recoiled like he'd been punched.  "What about your kids, you've got three kids—are they alive or dead, were they snapped?" and Steve was fumbling for a reply when Tony went on, thickly, "Morgan turned nine, Steve. In the reality that I'm—back at the house where I live. I'm trying to let her live her life straight through, but —" and suddenly Steve's stomach dropped and sympathetic dread crept over him, because now he understood exactly what Tony was upset about. But he didn't have any answers or advice for him. Only...experience, which was not at all the same thing.

"Ellie's...seventy-eight, I guess," Steve said softly, "if she's still alive—or maybe older than that, because relativity starts to affect time when you're out in space this far. But she'd retired from the law school before the Snap, and she was planning to move to Rhode Island to be closer to Steven—my namesake grandchild," Steve added, unable to stop himself from smiling. "He teaches drawing at RISD, can you believe it?  I guess those genes were there somewhere. Meanwhile, Vera was in Berlin, last I knew—she got pretty high up at INTERPOL, so high that she could hardly talk to me about anything; everything was classified. And then there's Jimmy, our problem child—"

Tony rolled his eyes and laughed.  "Are you kidding?  He's the most successful of all of them! They don't make you the CFO of a big outfit like that if you're a dummy— "

"Finance," Steve said, and shuddered. "I swear, he did it to piss me off— Bucky says that that's what sons are for. But look, the point is they all got to live their lives, even Jimmy. I know that you want to protect everybody, Tony—that you would have put a suit of armor around the world if you could've—but that would just have blocked out the sun. You can't put people in amber. If you stop them from dying, you've stopped them from living, and that's just wrong."

Tony was breathing hard now, like he'd run a race.  "I thought about creating a time loop with Morgan and Pepper in it," he said softly. "I thought about casting a dilation field to make time run more slowly. I thought about trying to create my own version of the serum— " and there were few things on earth that could shut Tony Stark up, but the look on Steve's face stopped him cold.

Steve clamped down on the torrent of outrage that was building in him—another version of the serum? really?! —and managed to ask instead, "Did you ever read Gulliver's Travels?"

Tony blinked at him.  "You mean that thing where he gets captured by a bunch of tiny people—" 

"Yeah, not that part," Steve said.

"—and they tie him up and crawl all over him? I always thought that was some kind of kinky—"

"Yeah, not that part," Steve repeated, "I don't know why people are so obsessed with that part, but that's not the good part, if you ask me. There's another bit where he talks about people who live forever and it's not the blessing you would expect: they become monsters, Tony. And the people around them are smart enough to know this, and so they basically write them off as dead once they turn eighty or so—make them outcasts, hound them out of the village. Bucky was the first one to twig onto this—which figures, I guess, because he's older than me and he's spent a lot more time considering these questions, but—we have to try not to become monsters, Tony."

"And how the hell am I supposed to do that?" Tony asked, and Steve scrubbed at his face and said, "I don't know, but I can tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to Hala with Bucky—on a spaceship, not via the quantum tunnel. Because I'm not looking to save time—I'm looking to spend it—to live it—to experience everything I can from moment to moment until my time's up."

"So just let the time go, is that it?" and it was almost an accusation.  "Let it flow until Pepper is old and Morgan's all grown up and—" 

"I didn't say it was easy," Steve said quietly. "It's just the only alternative," and Tony turned and softly banged his gauntleted fist against the thick glass of the Oasis's window and the starfield beyond. Then he blew out a breath and said, "Okay," and then again: "Okay, then. Okay."

After Tony left, Steve took a walk through the Oasis's lush indoor gardens and found a bench in a quiet spot reserved for meditation. He sat there for a long time, wrestling with himself, and finally gave into temptation after the hopeless realization that he wasn't going to be able to move on, otherwise. He thought carefully before raising the chronograph, and—

September 30, 1976

Peggy glanced up from her briefing book at Steve's soft knock. "Is it dinner already?"

"No," Steve said, and something about the tone of his voice made her look again. He'd been a little melancholy lately—well, they'd both been, since Jamie left for NYU. The house seemed so empty, and even as they joked that the bicentennial year of 1976 marked their own declaration of  independence, they both knew they were whistling in the dark, a little. They hadn't yet found their footing without the children. "I just wanted to look at you," Steve said softly.

She immediately put down her pen and stood, smiling at him. Steve crossed to her, put his hands on her waist, and eagerly pulled her in to kiss her. She slid her hands up his chest, even as his hands roved over her body—smoothing her hips, then skimming up to cup her breast, caress her hair. He loved her, he wanted her—and she would have known that even if he hadn't taken pains to tell her so again and again, whispering as he worshiped her body in the dark.

"Steve," she said, a little breathlessly, "I love you," and it was she who never said it enough, damn her reserve. "You're every good and wonderful thing in this world to me, darling," and when Steve kissed her again, she felt joy blossoming.  Everything would be fine: they were still young, and they still had each other. There were so many things yet to see and do; they could travel the world without having to bother about the children's schedules and— Peggy slid her fingers deep into Steve's thick hair and deepened their kiss. Then, "Come upstairs," she said.

This seemed to jolt Steve out of their shared reverie. "I can't now," Steve said sorrowfully, and he had the good grace to look apologetic when Peggy pouted at him. "But later," he added, and  gently kissed her forehead. Peggy retook her seat at the desk as Steve left and tried to refocus her attention on the briefing: China; the movements of Madame Mao; their opportunities for intervention. She'd only just gotten back in the swim of it when the knock came again and— 

"I've brought you a treat," and Steve was leaning, grinning, against the door to her office and waggling his eyebrows, "but you'll have to wait until after dinner or you'll spoil your appetite," and he was wearing a white jumper under a jacket, where a moment ago he'd been— 

"Oh," Peggy said faintly, aware that her heart was pounding like a mad thing. "Yes. Yes, I see."

Stardate 2240.9

It was late by the time Steve left the gardens, and the Oasis's artificial light had changed so as to send out shorter, more relaxing wavelengths. Steve went back to their quarters to find Bucky, and so great was his need of him that he went straight in without knocking—only to do a fast 180 when he realized that Bucky wasn't alone, that someone else was in bed with him. 

"Steve," Natasha said, but it wasn't a cry of surprise or a rebuke, and so he turned cautiously back, one hand on the door. She was sitting up in bed with her arm outstretched, the sheet having fallen to her waist, her breasts bare. Bucky was lying beside her on the pillows, red-faced and panting in an all-too-familiar way—he'd been interrupted, but he seemed more amused than irritated by this, and, from the way he settled back, sprawling, one arm tucked behind his head, he seemed to welcome further interruption. 

"Steve," Natasha said, and then Bucky said, "C'mere —shut the door and get over here," and so Steve did as he was told, taking Natasha's outstretched hand and letting her tug him down onto the bed between them. And then, bless them, they drowned him, Bucky pinning him down and kissing him as Natasha rode him, and then nestling his exhausted body between them.

It really did feel like they were shipping out to war all over again, because Carol requisitioned each of them a trunk of supplies for the long journey: good clothes and boots, currency and tradeable metals, a medical kit, a universal translator, weapons. This was all to their satisfaction except that Bucky asked for, and was given, additional knives, because "knives never run out of power, Steve, and they don't need ammunition," and nobody was going to argue with that.

It had been decided that they'd travel to Hala on a scientific vessel rather than on a military ship, all symbols at this point being important when it came to encouraging democracy among the Kree. Clint and Natasha came to see them off at their ship's berth at the spaceport, and Steve noted with amused fondness that Bucky kissed Natasha for a long time and was careful to say au revoir rather than goodbye.  Steve kissed her, too, and said, "You know where to find us."

They were about to head up the ramp when Tony blipped into existence beside Natasha, startling her into a laugh and sending Clint Barton into a goddamned conniption: "Jesus Christ, not you, too!"

"What about me, aren't you going to kiss me?" Tony demanded, glaring at Steve.  "You kiss all these people now, but never me; I'm starting to take it personally." 

Steve came back down to the dock.  "Do you want me to kiss you? Because I'll kiss you." 

"I'll save it for something to look forward to," Tony said, making a face. "We've got nothing but time, I guess, so pencil me in for a torrid affair sometime in the 24th century. Meanwhile, here—I brought you something. I thought it might help you in your mission to bring democracy overseas," and Tony raised his hands and seemed to split the fabric of space-time open to pull out...a shield.

He handed it to Steve, who flipped it in his hands and stared down at it in sudden panic.  He looked over at Bucky, whose face was the mirror of his.  "Oh, shit," Steve said.

"Fuck," Bucky muttered. "You were supposed to set your watch! You said you'd set—"

"I didn't have the shield, though!" Steve protested. "This is the first time I've had a shield to— "

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tony looked at Natasha. "What the hell are they—?"

"We jumped over it," Bucky groaned.  "We blew right past it—"

Natasha looked baffled. "Blew past what? " 

But Tony'd gotten with the program.  "Past who, past Sam," he said. "But Sam's Captain America, he's been Captain America this whole time, since the 2020s," and then Tony wheeled on Clint, who was staring at them like they'd lost their minds.  "Sam Wilson's still Captain America at whatever time you come from, right?" 

"You mean now ?" Clint asked warily.  "Because I'm from now, and yes ?" 

"See, so it's fine, the timing doesn't matter," Steve said, and then he looked to Bucky for confirmation. "It doesn't matter, right? I can still go, because I was always already there.  Because you saw me." He and Bucky stared at each other. "Hell in a basket,"  Steve said.

"You have a time machine, " Tony reminded them. "You can't be late by definition.  So just—" 

"But wait wait wait," Natasha said. "Maybe you don't go yet, because James said you were old at the lake—"

"Could be a nano-mask," Tony and Bucky said, near-simultaneously.

"Could be a nano-mask," Steve agreed, but that set off an itch in his mind, and he closed his eyes and tried to track it down.  Then he had it:  "What would Peggy say? She'd say that if there's something I'm supposed to have done that I haven't done, then I'm obviously yet to do it.  So I just have to do it, I don't think it matters when, because like Tony says—"

"What would Tony say, how about that for a question?" Tony muttered.

"—we have a time machine. We can't be late by definition," Steve finished, in relief. 

"We can miss this fucking boat, though," Bucky said, and indeed, the spaceship did seem on the verge of departing.

Stardate 2269.4

"You remember what you've got to do," Bucky said, for the thirtieth time.

"Yeah, I think so," Steve said; he looked small and incongruous in his old man clothes standing beside the enormous window of the space cruiser. The black bag holding the shield was at his feet, and he bent to pick it up. "I give Sam the shield, then tell you to pack and hurry back to the lake to meet me—the other me—in ten minutes. Then I get Sam and Bruce away until—"

"And the notebooks," Bucky reminded him.  "Don't forget to tell me to bring—" 

"—the notebooks, I won't forget." Steve raised the wrist with the chronograph, but Bucky gripped his shoulders to stop him, then carefully brushed the dust off Steve's tan windbreaker, fixed his blue and white checkered collar, and licked his thumb to guide a bit of white hair back into place. The photostatic veil was very convincing—maybe too convincing, because Steve appeared unnervingly shrunken, and those were so clearly Steve's amused blue eyes in the old man's wrinkled face. Bucky stared at him and wondered if he'd live long enough to see Steve truly as old as this, or if the super-healing power of the serum meant that they wouldn't ever age at all.  

The old man quirked a smile and said, "Don't do anything stupid until I get back, all right?" 

"How can I?" Bucky replied mechanically, "You're taking all the stupid..." and then it felt like his lungs were seizing, like couldn't breathe.  "You're coming right back, right? You swear?"

The smile fell off the old man's face.  "I swear.  I'm coming right back, Buck." 

"Okay," Bucky gritted out, then stepped back. "Well. Break a leg," and Steve hesitated for a second, then tapped his chronograph and vanished. Now Bucky stood alone in the room, and he turned to look out the window of the spaceship. Outside, a space station loomed, slowly spinning. The Gateway was their last chance to restock and refuel before they entered the long expanse of nothingness between here and the Greater Magellanic Cloud beyond the Milky Way.

The station drew incrementally closer, and Bucky tried to pretend that he wasn't panicking. Apparently right back didn't mean instantaneously , but Steve's return should have been instantaneous, he had a goddamned time machine. Still, it clearly hadn't been long; time had just lost all meaning. One Mississippi, Bucky made himself think. Two Mississippi.  Panic struck: did it matter that the spaceship was a moving target? No, right? Three Mississippi. Steve was a master of the chronograph after all these years spent reinforcing the timeline. He'd disappeared and appeared in moving cars, in airplanes, and even from that houseboat (four Mississippi) they'd rented in the south of France.  Bucky made himself take a breath. Five Mississippi. There was always the chance that something could actually go wrong; a butterfly could flutter its wings somewhere and Steve could be hurt, or break a leg for real. What if the chronograph broke? Six Mississippi. If Steve didn't come back he was going to jump out this goddamn window. Seven...

There was a flash, and Bucky turned and there was Steve, yanking the photostatic veil off his face and arms so that he was suddenly young and strong and healthy again: fully super-sized. 

"Jeez, you never said you put up such an argument!" Steve exclaimed. "When I came to get you from '52, you were game and ready to go—you never told me that it was because I'd just taken a crowbar to your thick…" Steve stopped, maybe seeing something in his expression. "And then Sam and Bruce…" Steve stopped again, staring at Bucky before abruptly shifting tack.  

"It's done, Buck," Steve said, low and serious.  "The loop is closed—I gave Sam the shield, and you're on your way back to—well, to me, I guess."

"Back to you, yes," Bucky said softly.

"So that's all our obligations met. And now... " Steve shrugged helplessly, smiling. "We can do anything we want, now."  

"I know what I want to do," Bucky said.