#mcu based

“That’s a one way trip Stark.” Steve says looking up at the gleaming streak in the sky Tony is to their view.

“Don’t waste it.” 

The cheers from Fury’s end of things sound of the comm-line as Steve stares up at the portal hoping. His own accusation ringing in his ears too late to take back. 

“I can close it.” Natasha says. And waits for the order.

“Close it.” Steve answers because he won’t waste what Tony’s done for them all. Despite himself he’s waiting with baited breath for Tony to fall back down toward Earth.

But he never does.

Instead through the static they hear: “ ...hello from the other side you sons of...”

Steve laughs. Sound startled out of him and making something ache in his chest. It’s so reminiscent of Bucky to hear something like that. Tony is going out with his boots on, or boot jets. 

“You tell ‘em, Tony.” 

Thor’s hand settles on Steve’s shoulder. “We must finish this Captain.”

Steve takes a deep breath and nods. “Everyone regroup we have Loki to deal with still. We can’t rest yet.” Everything else can wait until the day is actually saved. Until the job is done.

“Do you know what he meant by it?” Steve asks Lt. Colonel Rhodes as he turns over the medal he was presented with for Tony post humorous. It’s not much but well Fury and Steve had pretty much demanded Tony be awarded the honor for his sacrifice. 

Rhodes’s eyes are red rimmed and his throat swallows rapidly before he nods. Clearing his throat before speaking, voice hoarse. 

“Someone said it to him when they saved him in Afghanistan. Told him not to waste the second chance. Tony thought a lot of him.”

Steve can only look at his shoes perfectly shined. His regret only grows.

“Later...if you were alright with it would you maybe tell me about him? Tony, that is.” Because Steve can only learn about Tony Stark second-hand now and it will have to do.

There were thousands of them he had come to learn after he had been defrosted. Between appointments to test how well he’d endured his seventy year nap and being prodded like a lab rat, Director Fury thought it might help him to have something to occupy himself in the hours sleep did not come. Thus bags of fan mail had been delivered to his assigned quarters.

The old U.S. Mail bags were possibly the only thing with color in his empty room. Inside the two bags he’d been given were two-thousand, four-hundred and sixteen letters all addressed to Captain America. Some of the envelopes were still more white than yellowed, some were faded red or blue and others were post cards even with salutations of cities he’d never seen before. Some of them had stars drawn onto them, be they crudely scrawled or obviously edged with a ruler, and others had little doodles of his shield. It was the small details that slowed him down, running his fingers over them with a mix of bittersweet nostalgia and soft pain.

It took him a few hours to open the first one.

The first letter was from a girl named Becky who said that one day she wanted to be able to help people like he did. Written in crayon he’d handled the paper like it might turn to dust in his fingers, worrying that he’d ruin something with so much character for all the bitterness he held in him. But, the letter had crinkled as expected, smelling of dust and must from years of storage, but never tore under his hands. Becky had even signed her name in a large heart. Carefully refolded and set back inside the envelope he set it behind him so he wouldn’t lose track of it, thinking he’d make a pile to reply to. Fury couldn’t have given him these and expected he’d never ponder that particular option. Though as the idea rolled into his mind what followed was the wonder if she was still alive, a chilling possibility to be proven false. Suddenly the bags seemed daunting where they rested against the wall, and the small stacks of envelopes he’d left out appeared unappealing. Caught on what to do he turned over the envelope from Becky between the fingers of one hand then the other, again and again. 

Sleepless hours made him look again and when he did Steve found it easy to get caught up in the letters. Without anything to his name these days they were reassuring. They were also a reminder that all he’d done had been for something. The thank you’s and well wishes he’d received had been perhaps one of the only things that kept him from causing trouble he didn’t need. None of the people who had written him letters thought he needed to be treated like glass, looked down at him like he was a walking experiment or like he was some dust laden relic pulled off the shelf after the trend had faded to be whispered over. 

Soon he had a dozen letters in his reply pile. They were mostly from children, they seemed the safest to reply to if he was going to. Steve hadn’t asked for the material to write his responses but they showed up in his quarters anyhow one day. Regardless, he didn’t touch them, too at odds with himself on how to reply as Captain America when it was Steve Rogers who read the letters. Or more honestly, when Steve Rogers was fairly sure he wasn’t Captain America anymore. 

It was weeks before he was Captain America again and then so much was going on the letters left his mind entirely. There were aliens and the Avengers taking up his time and attention. The letters sat untouched that entire time, waiting for his return.

So months later Steve was working his way through them with varying reactions. Not all of the letters were happy, which pleased him in a way. SHIELD hadn’t filtered everything like that out and let him be strung along to think the world had been all rose-tinted about him. Most were from children though and young adults. There were some ladies who offered to wait for him to come back and get hitched. The first of that variety he read about three time before he believed what his eyes were telling him. All those letters had their own pile and it was the one he planned on asking to be burned. Peggy wasn’t the same knife to his heart she’d been when he first woke up but each one reminded him of the life he hadn’t lived. The life he’d never had the chance to see through to the end. 

But the letter that got his full attention that he’d nearly torn clear in half when he saw the name signed at the bottom was perhaps a letter he’d never throw away. Still he turns over the envelope to be certain it is who he thinks it is indeed. Steve can only stare at the black inked name he knows even then - Anthony Stark. The letter itself is signed with just “Tony”. On top of some of the content that referred to the boy’s father he’d had to look. The letter is dated unlike some of the others, looking like a very properly composed piece, written just before when Tony’s seventh birthday should have been based on the file Fury gave him. Not that it hurt he was being invited to the birthday celebration as a reminder for the date, but it got a small smile out of him. Steve was rather certain the Tony he knew now would be mortified to know he had read it. It was inevitable he’d have missed it, he’d slept right through the seventies and Steve wondered if Tony had been disappointed or it had left his mind for that short attention span of his. Truthfully, Steve hoped he forgot and had a good time.

But he hadn’t as it turned out. 

Tony’s first letter began a new pile, the one for people he knew now. He would be adding to that stack as he worked his way through his accumulated mail. 

Tony’s second letter was less optimistic than the first. Words holding childish heartbreak and begging him to still come to see him because he needed him to. At first Steve just thought it was a typical reaction for someone so young to be denied something they very much wanted, but when he found out why Tony had wanted him to attend that birthday so much, what his birthday wish had been, he’d had to put the letter down.

It rested in his lap virtually weightless there and unassuming. Closing his eyes he ran a hand over his face but still couldn’t get that confessed wish to disappear. 

‘Please you have to come because I need you to make us a family again.’ 

A handful of letter made him wish he could find a way back to fulfill requests or wishes. This was perhaps one he would feel responsible for, to make up for. Howard had continued to look for him, He’d learned that from Fury and heard it from Tony as well. How the letter could confess the same thing and make his stomach lurch for the picture it painted made his mouth taste sour. Steve had a fuller picture of what Howard had become after his going down into the ice, and all of it made him want to find a way to shake his old friend. Tales warned of men with obsession and misplaced good intentions, but Howard had always been the type to never listen to others even when good sense demanded it.

With a swallow he finished the letter and noted the number of time Tony had put the word “please”. 

Settling the letter on top of the first Steve knew he was resolved to do something to make up for his absence. He had wanted to be there, but he wasn’t. Instead he was here now so he would make that count for something.

If Tony’s letters had been unexpected the last thing he expected to find was one from Hawkeye. It had been spotted and smudged with something that had browned (or maybe always been brown), penmanship small and squished onto the available writing surface. There had doubtfully been ideal conditions when it had been written judging by the state of the letter, since the envelope had been in better condition. He got the impression from the contents that tucked away it was composed sentence by sentence, ducking away from prying eyes. Steve knew Clint had for a time been with a circus in his younger days and it appeared the letter had been written about then. He’d need to look into some details but what really mattered was the rest. Clint had wanted out for he and his brother enough that he had tried to talk his way into being Captain America’s sidekick. Sad as it was Steve thought there was a childish charm to the trust being placed in him, like the world could write itself if only he’d gone to whisk them away. But like Tony’s letter it was no request he could grant.

There were more familiar names and his pile was growing. James Rhodes had written a polite letter thanking him for all he’d done and talking about his father who had enlisted as well in the Air Force. Smiling Steve thought it a pleasant surprise to learn a little of the history behind the War Machine pilot. The letter that had been addressed from a Virginia Potts, and signed Pepper, had been more surprising. She wanted to hear all about his stories and adventures as she’d called them. But there were more still one from the Human Torch, Johnny Storm for instance. But some of his favorites were all signed by a Mr. Philip Coulson. Steve had laughed outright when he’d read that name. Each of the letters had been carefully worded and impeccably clean if not for the yellowing of age. 

Finally Steve had an idea on how to begin on writing back. 

While the body of each letter was special to each and every letter he wrote to them, they did all have one thing in common. Every letter had the same signature. It was a pleasure to have met you, Captain Steven Rogers