This is not the Endgame

And if we can't find where we belong, we'll have to make it on our own

Steve was sick. Tired, fed up, at the end of his rope and losing his grip.

Peggy, when she'd been succumbing to dementia, had once told him that you can't go back, that it's up to you to make the most of the time that you have. But she was wrong.

He could go back. Back to a time that made sense to him. A familiar Brooklyn, a lower-tech environment. He could find out who he was meant to be, no pressure. All his life, he'd been inadequate. Before the serum, his memories were hazed by the grip of angina, the constriction of asthma, shitty eyesight, scoliosis... his many maladies. He'd had a certain talent for art and an unshakable disdain for bullies, a thirst to make things right. Couldn't get into the Army, couldn't get a good job, couldn't get a steady gal. He did have Bucky, who had all these things, but didn't properly value them. Right after the serum, he'd chased down a Nazi spy, barefoot, punched through the glass of a submarine, for Christ's sake. Only to have Chester Philips tell him that he'd been promised an army, and all he'd gotten was him. The disgust that twisted his voice on his last word.

Once again, he'd been inadequate.

But he'd done his part--bond sales had soared following his appearances--and he'd gotten to go over to the European theater of war. That's when he'd truly started to find out what he could do. His spine was straight, all his ailments had vanished, he was taller and stronger and head-turning. He felt like what he thought Bucky always felt like, and it was great. Finally, he was enough. He rescued his best friend and hundreds of POWs, single-handed. He got a special squad as a reward, heads turned in his direction, positively for a change, and Philips finally acknowledging that he WAS enough. Girls were flinging themselves at him. Even Peggy, who'd initially just seen his intelligence and drive but dismissed his exterior, had come around. She'd been interested in him, not Bucky.

And for several months, he had been enough. He led his men against Hydra, and they had significant victories. But then there was Zola. And the ambush on the train. And all he'd had to do was hold on. Hold on to his best friend's hand, with all his new superstrength.

He'd failed.

He was not enough. Not close.

And when he'd wrested control of the Valkyrie away from Schmidt, there was a certain serenity in his choice to put the plane in the ice. He could save the mainland from the Hydra bombs. He could be enough. And, in his ending, his choice, he would stay that way. No more futile struggles. The future, which had once seemed limitless, seemed bleak and empty.

He was considerably dismayed to wake up and find himself in a future that he could not have imagined. The change in technology, in the social mores, fashion, attitudes, the role of women and minorities... the world had moved on in ways that boggled his mind. His transformation was no longer extreme; movies envisioned far more. Cyborgs more than just a full expression of one's phenotype. Fury had given him a lifeline in the offer to join SHIELD. He could contribute to the team's successes, protect. Serve. Except that it all went bad. Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD and was an insidious world force once again. He had to burn it down, it couldn't be saved. Shouldn't be. And he butted heads with his teammates. Well, mainly Tony. He cut him a lot of slack because he was Howard's boy and they were on the same side, or so he thought. But Tony had problems, ones that he wouldn't face, and he turned into quite a fascist. Project Insight, Ultron, all of it, his insistence that his tech could save the world, security at the expense of freedom and privacy. And Bruce, while Steve had no quarrel with him personally, enabled his behavior. Tony could be spiteful and had a bad habit of objectifying people and threw his weight around rather than taking the time to compromise, to actually use his genius to think through problems rather than suiting up and trying to blast his way through. He also had no compunction about leaving others to face the music while he evaded consequences thanks to his money and connections, arrogant. Thor had a similar mindset as Steve, but he was often gone to Asgard and wasn't terribly open either. Clint, he'd thought, was a good man, a family man, a good friend. Nat... Nat and Sam were special. He made himself acclimate to the new time, made a found family, and he was enough.