#memory sequence

It was the one place Anaxagoras allowed himself to walk without his gloves.

You remember this day — vividly, impossibly so — the kind that burns so deep into memory it defies time. His left hand, warm against yours. His right, still gloved.

"Even gods are jealous of cities like this," he said, and his voice had that rare softness. "They hold no dominion here — only memory does."

You had argued with him earlier that morning, of course. Over a star chart. Over the meaning of a flame-shaped constellation whose pattern you claimed predicted a catastrophe, and which he stubbornly called a "statistical coincidence amplified by myth-making." His words. You’d thrown a chair. He had laughed. And now here you were, walking alongside him like nothing had happened.

Anaxagoras stopped before a street musician playing a lyre, the notes faint, meandering like drifting stardust. He tilted his head toward the music, eye half-lidded as if listening to a voice only he could hear.

"You know," he said after a pause, "I’ve always found something poetic about your belief in destiny."

"You mean foolish."

"I said poetic." A pause. “Besides, I only call things foolish when I secretly wish I believed in them.”

You narrowed your eyes. “You’re being sentimental again, Anaxa.”

“Mm. And you’re not running away this time.”

He was right. Usually, intimacy made you freeze. But now — walking beside him, amid flowers, music, and that waning sun — you felt calm. Tethered. Real.

You paused in front of a small fountain, where dromas pecked at fallen petals floating on the surface. It reminded you of the stories he told you when you couldn’t sleep — of artificial birds, of wind-powered toys that never soared, of a boy who knelt alone beside a burned house and never once cursed the gods.

He sat on the stone edge of the fountain. His eye was brighter than the sun through stained glass. And for a long moment, he said nothing. Just... looked at you. Like he was trying to memorize every fragment of your face, should time rip it away.

Then softly — so softly — he said:

“I never thought I'd live long enough to fall in love.”

You flinched. The words stung more than they soothed.

“You won’t,” you whispered. “You’ll die, won’t you?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

“I’m not scared of death,” he murmured. “I’m scared of becoming a god. Of losing the capacity to change. To fail. Of forgetting what it meant to feel—this.”

He took your hand again. This time, both hands were bare.

“I’m scared of forgetting you.”

The stars weren’t out yet, but you knew them by heart. You’d named constellations after his scars. His laughter. The asymmetry of his love.

You sat beside him, pressing your forehead to his. He smelled of dust, ink, and something sweet — Antila oil, maybe. The silence stretched between you like silk.

“If I become a god,” you whispered, “will you destroy me too?”

He smiled — that crooked, beautiful smile. “Only if you ask me nicely.”

And the petals kept falling. And the birds kept singing.

And somewhere in the echo of a future that had not yet collapsed, a Titan’s heart trembled.

Of course he tried to be strong for Peggy, starting each visit with the decision of losing her, a life before the ice. At least, that’s how it would start. Instead, each visit ended with an unspoken plea for her to stay and, without fail, she would hear him. He knew he was being selfish, knew she was content with her own mortality, but...

Steve was just a man.  

Not a super-soldier--damn being a super-soldier--but a man. And he was absolutely terrified of losing her, of what that could mean.  

Steve gently grasped her hand, pulling it close to his chest as he leaned in from where he sat beside her hospital bed. Peggy was already smiling at him, soft and understanding, her reassurance cutting off his apology.

“It’s all right, Steve,” she said firmly. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it. In all honesty, I’m not that surprised.”

Steve brushed a light kiss over Peggy’s knuckles in gratitude, then rubbed little circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. Sensing she had more to say, he waited for her to continue. Her eyes flickered down to their joined hands, her smile turning sad with bitter edges. Closing her eyes as if to steel her nerve, she breathed a sigh before squarely meeting his gaze.  

“After we lost you, Howard completely changed.”  

Steve quietly listened as Peggy recounted Howard’s descent into alcoholism, fueled by the irrational belief that with Steve’s death went his only chance of ever creating anything good for the world. (“Stupid man,” she hissed.) The man tolerated living by existing down the neck of a bottle. Too stubborn to end his own life, Howard fashioned himself a new purpose: weapons manufacturing. Stark Industries became an empire of weaponry, built on Howard’s need to mask his weaknesses, to destroy any lingering vulnerability.

And with it, his humanity.        

After years of obsessive entrepreneurship, wild philandering, and escalating alcoholism; Maria Carbonell entered Howard’s life and managed to stave his self-destruction by loving him. However, the reprieve was short-lived. When Maria gave birth to their son, Anthony, Howard recoiled in the face of fatherhood and retreated back to the comfort of Stark Industries.

And to the bottle.  

Meanwhile, S.H.I.E.L.D. continued to contract Howard, willfully blind to his spiraling so long as he kept them stocked with state of the art weapons. Peggy maintained her close, albeit tumultuous, friendship with Howard and attempted to intervene when she could. It led her to form a surprisingly close friendship with Maria.

Peggy explained their friendship was gradual, starting with a dinner invitation after an impromptu visit to Stark estate on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. Both women bonded over shared interests and it steadily progressed to outings, like for tea and coffee, or to the park for little Anthony. Peggy admitted she quickly grew attached to Anthony, even volunteering to watch him when Howard and Maria traveled abroad, despite their available housestaff.  

“He was such a sweet, sensitive child,” said Peggy, beaming at the memory, “very loving, but so quiet and so painfully shy. It took him some months to get used to me, but he did.”

“That’s hard to imagine,” Steve couldn’t hide his disbelief. The image of a shy little boy clashed with the hyperverbal and abrasive man he remembered from the invasion of New York.   

Peggy eyed him reproachfully, effectively shutting him up.

“It’s true he’s changed much over the years, but I’m certain you can thank Howard for that.” She gave a derisive sniff.

“Anthony was beyond gifted and that kind of intellect would have felt like a curse,” she said matter of factly. “Children like that are branded as different--treated different--they start thinking they’re a mistake or unwanted. It’s even worse when that difference is punished by their own parent.”  

Steve realized he could empathize with Stark.

Steve knew what it was like to be “different” from what society considered “normal.” He was born with a “different” body, near handicapped and unable to play with the other children. His head was filled with “different” thoughts, an attraction to men, a shameful secret too dangerous to reveal back then. “Different” was society’s polite way of saying “bad,” “unworthy,” and “unacceptable.”    

A pang of guilt struck him for judging Stark.    

Seeing Peggy’s stern face, Steve was reminded that she, too, could relate. He recalled their first meeting: Private Hodge’s crude, sexist remarks and Agent Carter’s fist meeting his face in righteous reply. Indeed, she was no stranger to being “different,” spending years judged or rejected solely for being a woman in a supposed man’s world. In the end, she persisted and made others respect her. Peggy never allowed herself to just “make do” with her differences, she embraced them, empowered by them.

She showed Steve what self-acceptance could look like.  

Meeting Peggy had been the catalyst for Steve to begin accepting himself. Before Peggy, those back alley fights and military dreams were attempts to prove his worth, prove he can be good even if defective--a feeble nancy boy. He’d later realize his recklessness stemmed from a seed of self-loathing. It whispered, ‘I’m not good enough.’ After Peggy, he learned to tell himself, ‘I’m more than enough.’

Steve was torn from his musings when Peggy continued.

“Maria loved Anthony, unconditionally so. She tried to protect him from feeling apart from other children, but...” she paused, her hand tightening in his, “Howard was not so forgiving.”    

As their friendship grew, Maria started confiding in Peggy about concerns for her family. How Howard held Anthony to such high expectations. How Howard too readily expressed his disappointment in Anthony. How Howard seemed threatened by Anthony’s budding genius.

Apparently, Howard was willing to go far to punish his son for his own shortcomings.

At three years old, Anthony’s IQ was tested and ranked well into genius level. Instead of pride, Howard justified the need to further distance himself from his son. He was convinced affection would only detract from the boy’s genius and cripple him with childish wants. He believed unnecessary attention would make the boy soft. So, if Anthony wanted acknowledgement from Howard, he would have to earn it.

And, oh, how the boy tried.

He tried everyday to earn his father’s love.    

What little time father did spend with son consisted of condescending lectures and grueling projects. Each test a failure, in one way or another, according to the unachievable bar set by Howard, himself. At times, he would punish Anthony’s failures with vicious insults, other times with a heavy hand, but always with a stiff drink or two (or five) already in him.

At four years old, Anthony created his first circuit board. A big achievement for a little boy with hands too small to even nudge his father awake from a drunken stupor to appreciate it. At five years old, Anthony contracted chickenpox. His father forbade his mother from risking contamination by visiting the hospital. Their butler, Jarvis, was sent to check in on him as an afterthought. At six years old, Anthony found the courage to share his academic accolades with his father, like sacrificial offerings to appease a wrathful god. His father simply pushed past him to pour a drink, remarking on the ridiculous trend of schools celebrating mediocrity.  

Steve swallowed hard as he forced himself to continue listening, his body drawn taut, but keeping his hands gentle around Peggy’s. Disgust gnawed at the pit of his stomach as he took in the information he was fed.   

“What Maria was unable or unwilling to tell me, I learned from Anthony when he would stay with me. I felt so betrayed--not for myself, but-- for Maria and for Anthony. I confronted Howard, of course, and it was ugly.” Peggy’s voice began to rise in anger, her eyes flashing like dark clouds heralding a maelstrom.

“I couldn’t protect Anthony, not with Howard’s endless resources. He made sure I was kept away and any cage rattling I did was stilled, any court I appealed to was swayed by his money. ‘Silly complaints from a hysterical woman,’ they said. (She scoffed) S.H.I.E.L.D. was no better; one child’s safety was worth trading for a better arsenal. After a year or so, I learned Howard removed Anthony to boarding school and Maria was made to sever ties with me. I had no way of reaching out to him.  

“After the accident, I had to stop myself from combing the media for news about Anthony. All the revolting things they’d smear about him, soulless cowards--it was destroying a part of me. I had to move on. But even though I lost Anthony, I still...I-I still...think a-about h-him.” She faltered.   

With a sharp intake of breath, Peggy leaned back into the mountain of pillows stacked behind her. Closing her eyes, brows knitted, she grimaced as the brunt of the pain hit her. Steve knew it would be pointless to ask her if she was OK. Increased pain was par for the course, unfortunately. Freeing a hand, he gingerly rubbed her blanketed stomach and attempted to distract her.

“When I came back, I tried tracking down everyone from the war. I wanted to know who made it out, who got to live it out like we talked about in the trenches. I never would have guessed all of this about Howard,” he said, disillusionment laced with disappointment. “But, if you and Stark were so close before--I mean, even if Howard prevented you from seeing him, he would have remembered. He should have at least mentioned you, right?”

Steve recalled the S.H.I.E.L.D. reports issued to him when Loki stole the Tesseract, each a detailed profile on the Avengers. He knew his own profile was likely given to the others and would have included Project Rebirth, would have documented the involvement of one Agent Margaret “Peggy” Carter. Stark would have seen that, put two-and-two together, and...

He said nothing to Steve.

Granted, what Stark divulged or not was his choice and they were busy fighting a massive alien invasion at the time. Somehow, a part of Steve still felt unsatisfied by this. However, if he were honest with himself, their introductions were less than ideal, so really, would he have been open to a heart-to-heart with Stark then? Probably not. At least they parted on agreeable terms or he liked to think so.  

Besides, reconnecting with the past has been Steve’s mission. Not Stark’s.

After tense moments of paced breathing, Peggy eventually relaxed. Opening her eyes to stare up at the bland ceiling, a noticeable shimmer glossed over her world weary eyes. A tear managed to glide down the many valleys of her face when she turned her head towards Steve, but she paid it no mind. The corners of her mouth curled, heavy with emotion and with a knowing that only the seasoned in life were privy to.    

“What you are missing, Steve, is how tempting it is to run away from ourselves when all we know is pain. The deeper the pain, the further we run, especially when we think ourselves responsible, like all children often do. Genius or not, Anthony was no exception and even if he was, Howard made sure he thought everything was his fault. So, no, I’m not surprised he didn’t mention me. I’m forever tied to something much too painful.”

More tears chased a path down her cheeks, her next words gaining a depth of meaning.