#mcu steve

And you have, honestly. You did a good job of learning fast and moving on. Still, all it takes is one odd word of slang you don’t understand or a reference to a world-altering event that you never heard of to shove you two steps back instead of forward. You never expected it to be easy, trying to live in the new century. You just didn’t think you’d have to do it alone, either.

The Avengers helped. Despite the infighting and the many false retirements and the deaths, that job helped put you together more than anything else. Everyone was strange there, so no one was. Even the person out of time. 

Maybe that’s why the TVA reached out after it was all over– they knew you needed a fresh start. A new team, too, one that didn’t really care about your understanding of any one particular timeline. It was the perfect fit. Why not risk your life for someone else all over again?

It had made sense at the time. After Thanos was defeated, you’d lost your purpose. The Avengers didn’t technically disband, but enough of the original core had been lost to death and retirement and better things. You could sense a new generation rising up to take the mantle, and, not wanting to go through the same cycle of learning new faces just to lose them again, you stepped aside.

Retirement wasn’t good for you. All that time on your own left you twitchy, waiting for something to do, someone to see. You suppose it wouldn’t have been a problem at all if it weren’t for one specific absence, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes. Maybe you should have learned a long time ago to never bet your happiness on Steve Rogers, because when he left, you felt like you’d lost everything.

Even after all this time, you still can’t fathom why he did it, why he left you behind. You had grown up in the 1940s by his side, next door neighbors and family friends. Your parents knew his, and died around the same time his did, too. You’d been inseparable for as long as you could remember. You thought it was the worst pain in your life when he and Bucky went to war, so you followed, taking on a position as a medic in their regiment.

Steve had been absolutely furious that you’d put yourself into harm’s way like that, but you didn’t care. Everything was good so long as you were still together, and for a while, it was. Sure, it took you a while to remember how to act normally after he underwent his Captain America transformation, but he was still Steve, your Steve. And that was okay.

You were almost starting to believe in fantasies that you’d be able to make it back to Brooklyn one day, and then the cards stopped falling in your favor. First, you were sent to hunt down Zola, which was doomed from the start. You’d lost Bucky from the side of the train, which was the beginning of the end. Steve was spiraling and you knew it. It should have come as no surprise that he’d plunge himself into whatever danger he could find to try and keep his mind off the loss. It should have come as no surprise that you’d go with him.

However, neither of you expected to find yourselves on a plane headed into the ocean. It felt fitting somehow, dying with Steve. Bucky was gone anyway. You might as well join him. It was cold enough that you didn’t feel the water entering your lungs. You knew Steve’s hand was in yours even after you lost the sensation in your fingers. You felt him with you even after you closed your eyes for the final time.

Only, it wasn’t the final time. You woke up after what seemed like a matter of hours and ended up being several decades. The new century was full of trouble, but you and Steve were determined to run headfirst into it. You can still remember listening to the new music with him, quizzing each other on current events, doing everything under the sun together in the name of embracing modernity.

Even if it felt wrong to be so suddenly transplanted out of your normal world and into this bright, fast-paced future, some part of you was glad for it. You’ve had a secret crush on Steve since you were ten years old and starry-eyed for the boy next door. What did you lose by leaving the 1940s, anyway– sickness, the war, significantly worse water quality? Steve needed you here more than he ever needed you there. There was so much more in this modern world that would bring the two of you together, and you were delighted for it.

You were delighted, that is. You had assumed that Steve was, too. He certainly seemed like it, always down to visit a new museum or take a trip out of the city. He’d been happy with you. You were certain about it.

Yet, years after you first woke up together in a strange new world, he traveled back in time to return the Infinity Stones and came back as an old man who had already lived his life back in the 1940s. You weren’t there when it happened. Steve had actually sent you away, back to New York, so you could monitor the sites where the transfer of the Stones would take place to see if anything went wrong in the future. You’ll always wonder if he did that on purpose, to make sure you didn’t come with him, or if he really was worried about something as mundane as the Stones after all.

In the end, you’ll never know. Steve never told you about his plan to go back. You’re certain that Bucky was aware of it, even if he denies it. You saw the look on his face when Bucky returned from the job alone and told you that Steve had made his choice. He wasn’t surprised or shocked like you. He was sad, but accepting, because he already knew.

It was the worst betrayal of your life. You told Steve everything except the fact that you love him, and he left without telling you a single goodbye. Somehow, somewhere along the line you had walked together all your lives, Steve decided that he would rather live and die in the past without you than face the future you’d been building since they took you out of the ice. You’ve tried to remember moments in which he wasn’t happy, when you could have seen the signs and known that Steve was going to leave, but you can’t. Steve never seemed to have a problem with the modern world until he left it. It makes no sense, and so the awful mystery consumes you whole.

It would be one thing to retire from the Avengers with Steve by your side, just like always. Now, though, you’re losing not just your main activity but the last vestige of your heart. Bucky is your friend, close to family, but he’s not Steve and never will be. You’ve tried to spend time with him, but every time you see Bucky, you’re haunted by a third presence that should be there yet isn’t. You haven’t talked in a while. It’s probably better that way, anyway.

Luckily, you weren’t left to your own devices forever. One lonely morning, an orange panel of light opened up in front of you, and out of it stepped Loki, who, according to Thor, should have died when Thanos visited. He’d explained briefly how he was still alive, but focused more on offering you a chance to work with the TVA. Without anything better to do but sit around and mope, you’d agreed.

You and Loki have gotten along well for the most part, surprisingly enough. Barring the part where he’d tried to invade New York, you’ve come in contact with him through Thor several times and gotten along through a shared sarcastic sense of humor and biting wit. You’re probably one of the Avengers Loki tolerates the most, a title you bear with no small semblance of pride. Loki had needed someone to advise him on a variant, and he’d gone to you.

It’s a good job for someone out of time. The timelines all converge and diverge in mysterious ways, so who could truly say what’s current or out-of-date? You help Loki and the other TVA officers in maintaining the timeline. Slowly, you settle in, and you stop thinking about going back to your usual timeline. Why bother, anyway? There’s nothing left for you there. Bucky has moved on. Steve is gone. Your family passed on decades ago, and your friends in the Avengers are dead or busy. It’s not a place for you anymore.

Honestly, it’s decent work, all things considered, until you hear about an errant variant totally destroying not just his universe but every one to cross his path. Loki comes bursting into the main office, which isn’t exactly an uncommon occurrence, but the look in his eyes certainly isn’t. Apparently, there’s some guy who left his universe and started jumping around in many others. He’d stayed in his first place for many years, but made so many major changes that the timeline was all but destroyed. Once this variant took note of the fires he couldn’t put out, he started jumping into other places, doing the same thing in less time.

He’s someone who’ll have to be stopped, to say the least. It’s certainly a cause for concern, but that doesn’t explain the cagey expression on Loki’s face. There’s something he isn’t telling you, to be sure, something big. Something that might make you rethink this assignment entirely.

“Loki,” you say slowly, once the god of mischief has calmed down enough to go from frenetic pacing to merely glaring at the small hologram of Miss Minutes across the room, “What’s really going on here? Who exactly is this variant?”

Loki hesitates, and you know what he’s going to say before he even opens his mouth. This variant isn’t just anyone, is it? No, of course not. That would be too easy, and if you’ve learned anything in your voyages across the timelines, it’s that nothing in any universe is ever easy.

The variant destroying the worlds– it’s Steve. And it’s your Steve specifically, the one who’d decided to leave you to go back in time. It’s the precise version of Steve Rogers from your universe who had abandoned all you’d built to go back and live to old age in the 1940s.

You suck in a harsh breath. “That’s impossible. Steve would never do a thing like that. He saves the universe, he doesn’t destroy it.”

Loki laughs bitterly. “Think again, Y/N. It’s him.”

You shake your head unthinkingly, but as little as you want to even contemplate the idea, you can’t deny that it might be likely. Steve already upset the laws of the multiverse when he went to live his life in the 1940s. Who’s to say what else he might do?

You stand up and join Loki in his pacing. “Don’t go through the usual steps. Bring him here.”

Loki starts to protest, but you silence him with a glance. “Think of it as a favor. You owe me, you know that. I won’t kill him, not yet. Not until I know what’s going on.”

One desk over, Mobius holds up his hands. “Wait, wait. Maybe this Steve is a friend of yours, but he’s still a dangerous variant who is quite literally destroying the fabric of time with every jump he makes. Are you sure that bringing him into the TVA is the best idea?”

You lift a shoulder. “Do you have any other ideas of where to put him?”

Mobius sighs. “No, but I don’t like this.”

“You don’t have to like this,” you tell him, “but I need to talk to Steve. Please.”

You look over at Loki hopefully, and feel a crush of relief when you see him caving. “Fine, but the second Rogers tries anything, we’re all over him. We can’t risk the multiverse for one melodramatic walking flag.”

You chuckle in spite of yourself. It’s not a happy sound. “Just let me see what I can do.”

You have no idea what you’ll do with your errant Steve once he gets here. Before that, though, you’re going to have to solve the problem of bringing him here in the first place. If what Loki says is true, Steve is not going to come quietly.

You’re still having trouble wrapping your mind around the whole concept. Steve– your Steve– destroying timelines? Rampaging through the multiverse? It doesn’t even compute in your mind. After all you’ve seen of him, through every decade, in every incarnation, every uniform, he has still been himself at the core. Even when he just came out of the ice. Even when he lost Bucky after Thanos’ snap. Even when you lost the biggest battle of your lives.

Something must have happened to him when he was going back in time, that’s all you can imagine. It’s certainly a better thing to tell yourself, it makes you believe that there was a reason outside his control that he would have left you in the dust. Yes, this must be the fault of traveling through time, and not the simple fact that Steve didn’t want you anymore.

You suit up with the rest, ready to head out and collect your errant Captain. You deliberate over the helmet when Mobius advises you to hide your face in any way possible. He’s had many bad dealings with variants over the years, he claims. No one knows what Steve would do if he saw you.

Face obscured, you walk through a Timedoor to the latest universe Steve has attempted to conquer. It doesn’t take long to find a disturbance; you’ve hardly stepped through the orange portal before you’re greeted with the sound of screaming, the smell of smoke. Buildings are burning. It’s like the world is on fire, and all you can think about is that somehow, Steve caused this.

“We have to move fast,” Mobius urges. “The timeline is unraveling by the second. Find the variant and drag him through a Timedoor as fast as you can.”

You nod your assent and start moving. The easiest thing to do is to head towards the center of the chaos, and so you do, the other TVA agents not far behind you. The smoke gets thicker, all culminating around one building in the center of the city. With a chill, you realize it’s what should be the old Avengers complex, but the letters on the outside still read Stark Tower. This universe might not have gotten the chance to ever get its Avengers, so there is no one to fight off a corrupted Rogers except the TVA, too little and too late.

“I see him,” Loki shouts suddenly, pointing towards a figure moving through the rubble. “Amazing, his hair shines even in a bonfire.”

You don’t have it in you to laugh, but surge forward recklessly. You have to see, you have to know, is it him? Could it be? As you draw closer, you’re certain that you see him, that Steve is here after all this time. A lump rises in your throat utterly unrelated to the pollutants clogging the air. You’ve missed him for so long, and now he’s right in front of you.

Mobius flings out an arm, stopping you short. “Wait,” he says. “He’s a variant, Y/N. Remember that.”

You come thundering back to reality at his words. When you look again, Steve isn’t standing there harmlessly, but holding an unconscious figure in his arms, the head thudding lifelessly against his bicep. This is the real Steve right now, someone you could never recognize.

Two of the TVA agents hurry forward, attempting to cuff him, but Steve brushes them aside easily, even after Loki and Mobius try to enter the fray. Suddenly, the situation looks like you’ll lose it for good, until a wild, terrible idea occurs to you and you shout out to him, “Steve!”

Instantly, Steve’s whole body goes rigid, and he starts scanning the area frantically. “Y/N?” He calls out.

He sounds like a madman, that’s the first thought that rises to your mind. His eyes are wide, his syllables unsettled. You rip off your helmet and Steve turns to you as if he’s seen a ghost.

“Y/N?” He repeats again, this time far more quietly, the words all but disappearing on the smoke-burnt wind.

Steve starts to reach out a grimy hand to you, but one of the TVA agents surges up behind him, jamming a syringe in his neck and knocking him out cold. Cuffs are tightened around his wrists moments later, and Mobius conjures up the requisite Timedoor straight to a holding cell back in the TVA. Everyone starts filing away, but takes you a few more moments to gather yourself together long enough to follow them.

Once back in the halls of the TVA, lights buzzing cheerfully overhead, Loki turns to you at last. “The move with the helmet was risky,” he chastises.

You can’t focus on the rebuke. “He knew me,” you whisper. “He knew me, and he stopped fighting.”

Loki’s lips thin. “That’s not Steve,” he says. “Not the one you know, at least.”

You steal a glance towards the locked door of the cell anyway. “I have to talk to him.”

Loki’s expression shifts from frustrated to simply tired. “I know.”

Still, you’re not blind to the wishes of the TVA, and you let Mobius go in to talk to Steve first. You decide it’s probably best if you’re not the first face he sees, and if you’re not going, Loki would be an even worse choice, so it’s Mobius alone in there with a few guards for security. He barely makes it ten minutes before he comes storming out again, though, obviously frustrated.

You could hear shouting outside the cell and down the hall, but still, you’re curious enough to ask Mobius, “What happened in there?”

Mobius drags an irritated hand through his hair. “Your little hero isn’t really the talking type.”

You frown. “That’s unlike him.”

“All of this is unlike him,” Loki intercedes. “You really couldn’t get through to him, Mobius? That’s startling. Surely there’s some sort of homegrown charm you could pull on him to twist his mind in your favor.”

“That’s just called manners,” Mobius frowns, “but no, I tried. He refuses to talk to anyone but Y/N.”

Loki swings around to stare at you curiously. “Fascinating. He left you and now he won’t even indulge in a friendly conversation with the authorities. What sort of Captain Rogers is this?”

You roll your eyes to hide your growing discomfort. “Forget that. Are we going to give in so fast? Don’t tell me you’re the type to give up on interrogating a suspect after less than half an hour.”

Mobius shrugs. “We might as well let you in. Might learn something, he doesn’t seem inclined to give us anything else otherwise. Why waste more time?”

You might argue a little harder were it not for the fact that you’ve been dying to see Steve since he got here. Before that, really. You’ve been wanting to talk to him since he left you in the first place. Maybe it’s not the best strategy for dealing with a variant, but in your heart, he’s still Steve, and always will be.

Steve’s head is down when you enter the cell, but it flies up the second you take a seat opposite him. He’s sitting down, hands cuffed behind him, but you have no doubt that he could free himself in a heartbeat if he tried.

Still, he isn’t trying. He’s just looking at you, eyes wide, mouth a little agape, as if he really can’t believe it’s you even after demanding to meet. “Y/N?” He asks quietly.

You nod. “Steve.”

Your voice seems harsh in the hollow stillness of the TVA cell. Steve doesn’t flinch, but he might as well; his eyes gain a thin veneer of hurt you’ve known since the forties. 

“You’re not my Y/N, though,” he decides. “You know, I never really believed in the whole multiverse thing. Strange tried to explain it to me after Thanos, but I just thought it was a bunch of crap. No way there were a million versions of us. But I’ve met enough of you and me to know otherwise now.”

Your heart feels heavy in your chest. “You’re referring to all of the universes you hijacked.”

“Hijacked,” Steve muses. “That’s a strong word.”

You fold your arms across your chest. “You entered universes that were not your own and caused chains of events that led to destruction of that world, every single time.”

It horrified you, looking at the footage. Every single universe was the same:  heroes gone or killed, skies full of smoke, thousands of dead. Everywhere Steve went, chaos followed him. It felt impossible, but it was true. Shockingly, awfully, it was true.

Steve’s eyes go dark. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“But it still happened,” you point out. “And you saw it happen but you kept going in more universes anyway. Why? Why didn’t you stop?”

Anger sparks in Steve like a match to gasoline. “I wasn’t trying to tear the universes apart, I was just trying to go back home,” he spits. “I couldn’t find the way back. I didn’t realize how delicate the multiverse was. Maybe that means you guys are bad at your job if a few detours can send the whole thing spiraling.”

The jab doesn’t even land, you’re too distracted by what he said before it. “You– you were trying to go back? Back where?”

A thundercloud of emotion passes over Steve’s face. “Back to the present,” he says softly.

He looks like he wants to keep talking, but he glances sharply back at you again and cuts himself off. “What does it matter to you, anyway? You’re just another version of you. What universe are you from, anyway? One where you leave instead of me?”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” you whisper. “You have no idea who I am, Steve.”

He laughs bitterly and shakes his head. “No. No, I know you’re not my Y/N. My Y/N never would have agreed to go in the same room as me.” 

He straightens up suddenly. “Say– you’ve seen all the endings of the timeline, right? Is there any– are there any universes where you forgive me? Where I’m able to go back?”

Your breath feels faint in your chest. “You want to know if you ever go back to the present?”

He nods. “Surely I could do it at least once. Don’t tell me it never happens. And if I do, don’t say you hate me for leaving.”

His face, suddenly pleading, makes you almost sick to your stomach. “I don’t know,” you whisper. “I never looked. I was too afraid that you would have left me for nothing.”

Steve draws back suddenly, looking at you with a fresh wave of curiosity. “You mean– Y/N. You’re the one I left? How did you get here?”

You nod. “I was lonely after you disappeared. I needed something to do. But Steve– I thought you would stay in the forties. Why would you ever go in the first place if you were just going to leave again?”

Steve looks stricken. “I thought I would like it better back then. I wanted to go home, but Y/N, I was wrong. The forties weren't home, you were. I realized it after a few months. Nothing felt right without you. I tried to go to our present day again, but it had been too long since I jumped and I couldn’t figure it out. I tried finding Strange, but of course he hadn’t been born yet, and I was sent into another universe instead of ours.”

You shake your head slowly. “I don’t understand. If you were trying to get back, why destroy all those universes?”

“I wasn’t trying to destroy them,” Steve says lowly, “I was trying to get you back. Only– you’re pivotal to all of this, and you don’t even get it. If the Avengers formed without us, they wouldn’t make the decisions needed to stop the Chitauri, or save the world from Thanos, or anything.”

You comprehend it all at last. “You weren’t destroying the multiverse, you were meddling with the timeline. Of course. The TVA always insisted on the danger of even the smallest variant. I get it now.”

“I made a mistake by leaving, Y/N,” Steve tells you. “I’m trying to make it right. Will you let me?”

And, looking at him in the low fluorescent lights of the TVA, you ask yourself if there’s still a place in your heart for the man you’ve known all your life. It’s been a long time since you saw him. It’ll be longer still before you forgive him for leaving in the first place. However, there’s not many people like you in this world or the next. You have Steve back at last. How could anyone not take a chance like that?

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