Infinite ★ Steve Rogers [6] ✓

Sixteen

FOUR YEARS LATER
-New York-
2023

Five years passed since the snap, and in those five years, the Avengers have been trying their best to help everyone with the grief and the loss they had suffered in their own ways. The team had been split around the world, taking on different occurrences that happened because of what the snap did, in hopes to try and keep everything from falling apart even more. But after the wedding of Ashley and Steve, the teams contact with Tony had become minimal at best. The only contact Ashley really had with him was whenever she would go over to see Morgan and Pepper, but even then she hardly spoke a word to him or even gave him a second glance. Sometimes she cried at how their relationship had got to this point, but most times she knew that it was all on him and the decisions he had made whilst everyone suffered around him. Unless he randomly changed his mind to look into what could be done to save everyone, Ashley was keeping him at arms length. Deep down she didn't want to do it, but she felt like she had to.

In the late afternoon of a Wednesday, Steve was holding one of the group sessions in a nearby baseball stadium. The group sessions had gotten more popular as the years passed, with people coming in to either get stuff off their chest or get some advice about something in their life. George and Ollie joined the groups after the wedding, which Ashley was glad at. At least they were trying to be better in the horrible situation they had been put in thanks to Thanos.

"So I huh.....I went on a date the other day." George spoke to the group. Steve sat on a seat next to him, with Ollie on the other side, and a couple different people scattered around the circle. "First time in five years. I didn't know what to talk about with her though." He told, looking to Steve.

"What did you talk about?" Steve asked.

"Same old stuff. You know, how things have changed. My job, her job. How much she missed the Mets, and how much I miss West Ham. United. It's a football team I support from England." He clarified for the mostly American group. "And then things got quiet...and then she cried as they were serving the salads."

"What about you?" A bald man with glasses asked.

"I cried just before dessert. But I'm seeing her again tomorrow, so.... and I feel good about it."

"That's great." Steve told George. "You did the hardest part. You took the jump. You didn't know where you were gonna come down. And that's it. That's those little brave baby steps we gotta take..." He addressed the group, then paused upon seeing Ashley appear in the doorway of the room. She leaned on the door frame and gave him a small wave, then nodded for him to continue what he was saying. "..to try and become whole again, try and find purpose. I went in the ice in '45, just before I could tell, funnily enough, my wife that I loved her. Woke up 70 years later. Luckily she was there, but everything else was different. People I knew were no longer around. You gotta move on. The world is in our hands. It's left to us, guys. And we gotta do something with it. Otherwise Thanos should've killed all of us." Ashley nodded at his words, and so did the group. Well, all except Ollie.

Ollie was still finding it hard to live on without Fred, despite Steve's constant reminders to move on and as well as his own brother moving on. He never took his wedding ring off and kept all the photo's with Fred up in their apartment that he now lived in again. He didn't blame George for moving on, but his situation was different. He still very much loved Fred and was willing to stay committed to him for the rest of his life.

"Okay, that's our session done for the day. Hopefully I'll see you next week. Keep fighting on, guys." Steve announced, standing from his seat. The group began to disperse from the room, with George and Ollie sticking behind when they noticed Ashley coming in. She smiled at them and went over to give Steve a kiss on the cheek.