Steve Rogers/Captain America One Shots

One Last Gift

(Please listen to Welcome Home by: Joy Williams while you read this one. Every bit of this song is embodied in this one shot. It not only lends itself to the story line, but helps tell it as well. It is beautiful and breathtaking and vital to this one. I hope you enjoy!)

Peace. It spread across the sky with a light that burned so brightly and yet, ever so delicately, that it softened the world it encapsulated. The sun's faint rays shone through the tall trees that surrounded the body of water, that glistened like sparkling jewels in every wave and every small touch of it's surface. The sunshine shone like soft spotlights through the deep green leaves, casting a paler light against the grass. There was beauty, all around the bodies that gathered with their somber and sorrow filled hearts. It didn't take the grey from their souls as they said goodbye, but the world around them was graced by a warm and kind light. One that warmed the trembling shoulders of those who shed tears, that soaked into the soft ground beneath them as they fell. And a light that simply made the mourning day seem more...peaceful.

Steve Rogers stood where Pepper had bent down only a few minutes prior, with his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his black dress pants. His crestfallen blue eyes--that were blue in more ways than one that day--were casted downward at the edge of the lake. The very tips of his shiny black shoes brushed the grass a few inches away from where the ground stopped and the water began. And he watched as the soft breeze that traveled subtly through the tall trees, blew small waves across the glistening pale blue water. It was hypnotizing, the repetitive flow of the waves. Up and down, flowing away from him only to be replaced by new identical ones. 

The air that Steve breathed into his lungs was crisp and fresh, but it still felt heavy as it expanded inside of his pained chest, that had tightened with the sadness of the day. And although the tightness in his lungs and the silence he stood in only made his thoughts echo louder around him, Steve found a breath of peace where he stood outside the Stark's home. It had taken him a back at first, the beauty that had transpired in the nature around him. It all seemed out of place in a moment like that. A time like this. Like the world around him had missed what today was... but then, as Steve stood out by himself in the breathtaking nature that surrounded him, he understood it. 

There was no reason for grey clouds to shadow the baby blue skies, or for raindrops to fall like teardrops alongside all the other's. There was no need for the Earth to feel hardened and cold, or for the air around them to nip and bite with vengeance. For there was no need for extra sadness. There was no need for the storm clouds to settle above them with the depressing nature they all already carried inside. For Tony Stark was at peace. And Steve Rogers witnessed that in every ray of soft light, every touch of warmth, every view of beauty that he stood within. He could feel the peace, and it made the day seem, somehow, a little bit easier to cope with.

"He has such a beautiful family," A voice startles Steve from his solitary moment of silence, and causes him to raise his head at the calm tone that comes from behind him. "I wish I would've gotten the chance to see them all together as one."

It was a voice that Steve Rogers knew, not only from memory but from feeling. For it made his heart race faster and his body flood with a warmth that made him feel as though his head was spinning. It was a voice he had lost long ago, and one he was beginning to fear was diming from his memories. But as it rang out in the dense void of silence out in the open air, Steve felt the breath he was breathing slip from lips and his stomach drop as he turned swiftly on his heels. 

And there, surrounded by the green sparkling nature that made her glow as though an angel sent from above, was the person who spoke with the voice that seemed far from Steve Rogers's grasp. She was adorned in a soft black cotton knee length dress, one that faintly blew in the soft breeze, along with the loose strands of her honey blonde hair that had fallen from her updo. Her hands clasped delicately in front of her, as she stood a fair distance from Steve in the long summer grass that nearly completely hid her black heels. She looked as beautiful as she did in every single memory Steve had of her in his mind, and yet, somehow, she looked even more beautiful than ever before. For she didn't seem real. She faded, five years ago with their daughter and so many of their friends. But here she stood, with her skin warmed by the sun shinning down upon her, and a warm gaze in her eyes that locked with Steve's immediately.