captain america one-shots/imagines

"Whatever it takes." (Part 2)

*****SPOILER WARNING: This contains spoilers from Avengers: Endgame (kind of).*****

"How long is this gonna take?" Sam asked. Steve vaguely heard him as he picked up the case containing the infinity stones. 

After you had sacrificed yourself, and Steve lost the love of his life, he felt empty. It was like he lost the ability to be happy. Really, the ability to be anything but sad.  He found himself in a constant state of denial. He believed that one night you would randomly appear outside his door, knocking softly with your bright smile and twinkling eyes. The eyes that he wanted to spend the rest of his life staring into.

His denial is what made your funeral the most difficult and heart wrenching thing he had ever gone through. Seeing the picture of your face, being surrounded by your family, both biological and Avengers, and watching them walk through the church with your empty casket nearly killed him. 

He knew you did it for the greater good, but he found it hard to live with the fact that you had to lose your life to save everyone else's. Which is why he intended to sacrifice himself when he realized the only way to stop Thanos was to redo the snap and turn his entire army to dust. However, Tony beat him to it. That made it even harder to continue going on. 

"For him as long as he needs," Bruce said as he looked at Steve. This snapped him back into reality and out of his thoughts. "For us five seconds." With one last look at Bucky, Steve climbed onto the platform to head back in time.

He quickly switched on his Quantum Realm suit and took a deep breath.

"Ready, Cap?" Bruce asked. Steve responded with a nod. "Alright, we'll meet you back here. Okay?

"I'll be back," Steve replied before his helmet came on. He picked up Mjolnir and within the next few seconds he was sucked into the tunnel.

~

What they didn't know was that Steve had managed to grab a few extra vials of Pym particles as well as your suit and watch before he left. 

After Steve had returned the stones, he found himself in the past just before you two had initially met. He determined the only way he could get you back was to convince you to come back to his original timeline with him so he could live out the rest of his life with you. He knew that by doing so he'd likely cause a huge mess of problems back home, but if he didn't have you, he feared he would never be happy again. He didn't care, nor think about, the consequences his actions would cause.  

He remembered before you started working for SHIELD, you had a job at a small coffee shop down the street from your old apartment in Brooklyn. The fact that you came from the same place is what made you two click instantly after meeting. He managed to stay mostly hidden in alleyways out of view of people. He figured he'd look strange in his suit as this was before the Avengers were introduced to the world.

When he got to your workplace, he couldn't help but smile as he watched you through the window. You were happy and didn't have the saddened look that was seemingly permanent after everything that had happened five years ago. Just seeing you smile almost brought tears to Steve's eyes because, as always, he thought you were absolutely beautiful. He missed you.

It took a few hours for you to get off work and by the time you were done, the sun had almost set. Steve had watched you nearly the whole time from his hiding place in an alley. He had planned out everything he wanted to say and do to get you back. 

It was at that moment as he watched you walk down the sidewalk with a content grin on your face that Steve realized he couldn't take you away from this. Here, you were happy. You weren't weighed down by the years of fighting against both enemies and even close friends that you considered family. You weren't constantly hyper-aware of your surroundings because as a SHIELD agent you can never be too careful. You hadn't had to worry every second about a new threat coming to destroy the world. You didn't yet have to watch your life fall apart as your newfound family turned to dust. You were still the old you.

You were genuinely, completely, and utterly happy. And although Steve knew that this was the past, he also knew that he couldn't make this kind of decision for you.

After all, you wouldn't have left him if you didn't know for a fact that he was going to be okay without you.

Steve watched you walk past his hiding spot and he couldn't keep himself from smiling. This was probably the last time he would ever see you, but he tried to ignore that fact. If this was the last time, he was glad you were happy.

Which seemingly restored his ability to feel the same.

~

"And returning in five, four, three, two, one," Bruce counted down. They all sighed in relief when Steve appeared on the platform, but that relief soon changed when they saw his tear-filled eyes. Steve glanced around at them before stepping down to the ground. He dropped the case and hammer he still held in his hands before sitting on the platform, elbows on his knees, and head in his hands.

Sam, Bruce, and Bucky watched him for a few seconds without saying anything. Eventually, Bucky approached his friend and sat beside him. He put his non-metal hand on Steve's shoulder.

"I'm not going to ask if you're okay because it's pretty obvious you're not," Bucky said. Steve kept his head in his hands. "You went back to see her, didn't you?" 

It took Steve a bit to reply, but he pulled himself together enough to sit up and drop his hands. "I thought I could bring her back and pretend it never happened. I wanted so badly to believe that bringing her here would fix everything and that I'd be able to continue my life with the woman I love." Steve paused and took a deep breath. "But then I realized that I can't do that to her. She sacrificed herself to save everyone else. She's the reason we got that stone and saved the world." Steve looked at Bucky's face. "And I can't take that away from her."

"You did the right thing," Bruce said. Sam approached Steve and put his hand on his other shoulder.

"I just really miss her." Steve's voice cracked slightly.

"I know." Bucky tried to smile, but seeing his friend so upset made him feel the same way. 

The three of them stayed with Steve for a while in comfortable silence. No one told Steve that he had to move on and be happy. They didn't tell him that it's what you would have wanted because Steve already knew that, saying it out loud wouldn't make him feel any better. This wasn't something Steve had to get over because he never would. Instead it was something he had to get through. 

And Steve knew that somewhere, very far from where he was, you were watching.