Returning the stones hardly takes a few minutes, but for Steve it feels as if he’s gone for years. It’s cathartic, in some way, to go back in time and replace the stones from where they had borrowed them, but at the same time it feels like he’s ripping a wound open with every new place that he visits. Get in and get out, that had been the plan, but he lingers a little too long in the seventies, and then again in 2010. It’s tempting to stay, to try to find a way to save Natasha and Tony by altering events that he knows will be coming, but at the same time he’s very well aware that he could make things worse. What if he saves them, but gets someone else killed?
You have to respect his sacrifice, he remembers Peggy telling him in another lifetime, as he tried to drown his grief after losing Bucky. Or, after he thought he lost Bucky. He could try to save him by altering the timeline, and it would save Howard, and...he knows that Tony would chew him out if he could know what he’s thinking. If none of those things happened, would things work out the way they had for him, after all? Would he and Pepper have gotten married? Would he become a father? Would Morgan exist? He remembers the promise he had made, to not alter or undo anything that happened in the years after the Snap, and with a sense of defeat he finally takes the final trip back home.
And, when he arrives, he knows that his mission is finally complete. Not just to return the stones, but...he’s done. It’s not his turn anymore, to carry the shield and be Captain America. It’s time for someone else to carry that honor, and after sharing as much with Sam, he tells him that he needs to leave for a few days. He needs a break. He needs to mourn. He needs to just be, and maybe with that he’ll figure out a way to figure out what the hell is next.
By the time he comes back to New York a few weeks later, it’s hard to tell if he really has any direction of where he wants to go next, but he knows where he needs to be right now. He finds himself parked outside of an apartment building in Queens, leaning against his bike as he waits for Happy to send him the last piece of the puzzle - what apartment to go to. But, before his phone buzzes, he sees the person he’s here to see. Without the uniform, Peter Parker looks like just a regular kid, nothing about him screams Spider-Man, but Steve wonders how many people have noticed the change in him. How he doesn’t seem like just a kid anymore; how he had grown up, even if he technically ‘didn’t exist’ while he was gone after the Snap.
“Hey, Queens,” he greets as if this is normal. As if Steve Rogers stops by to see him on a regular basis, and a smile quirks slightly at the corners of his lips. “Good to see you.”
this is not the end, this is not the beginning;
You have to respect his sacrifice, he remembers Peggy telling him in another lifetime, as he tried to drown his grief after losing Bucky. Or, after he thought he lost Bucky. He could try to save him by altering the timeline, and it would save Howard, and...he knows that Tony would chew him out if he could know what he’s thinking. If none of those things happened, would things work out the way they had for him, after all? Would he and Pepper have gotten married? Would he become a father? Would Morgan exist? He remembers the promise he had made, to not alter or undo anything that happened in the years after the Snap, and with a sense of defeat he finally takes the final trip back home.
And, when he arrives, he knows that his mission is finally complete. Not just to return the stones, but...he’s done. It’s not his turn anymore, to carry the shield and be Captain America. It’s time for someone else to carry that honor, and after sharing as much with Sam, he tells him that he needs to leave for a few days. He needs a break. He needs to mourn. He needs to just be, and maybe with that he’ll figure out a way to figure out what the hell is next.
By the time he comes back to New York a few weeks later, it’s hard to tell if he really has any direction of where he wants to go next, but he knows where he needs to be right now. He finds himself parked outside of an apartment building in Queens, leaning against his bike as he waits for Happy to send him the last piece of the puzzle - what apartment to go to. But, before his phone buzzes, he sees the person he’s here to see. Without the uniform, Peter Parker looks like just a regular kid, nothing about him screams Spider-Man, but Steve wonders how many people have noticed the change in him. How he doesn’t seem like just a kid anymore; how he had grown up, even if he technically ‘didn’t exist’ while he was gone after the Snap.
“Hey, Queens,” he greets as if this is normal. As if Steve Rogers stops by to see him on a regular basis, and a smile quirks slightly at the corners of his lips. “Good to see you.”