“His Part to Play” - 20. Anchor

[breakinglight11]

Forever Captain:
“His Part to Play”
By Phoebe Roberts
~~~

Summary: “Steve Rogers has retired to the 1940s to build a new life with Peggy. In leaving behind the mantle of Captain America, at last he’s got a measure of peace. Still, Steve will never stop feeling the responsibility to step up as a hero— except he's not sure how much power his actions have at this point in the timeline. Somehow he must reconcile his new life and identity with the responsibility and burden of being a hero out of time.”

Previous chapters:
1. Lost Time
2. Building
3. Reaching
4. Bonds
5. Ghost
6. Stag Night
7. Wingmen
8. Mr. Carter
9. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
10. Suiting Up
11. On Maneuvers
12. Waiting
13. The World’s Oldest Battle
14. A Pinch of Salt
15. Elizabeth
16. Maria
17. Swinging for the Fences
18. The Marrying Kind
19. The Bargain

Chapter summary: Steve realizes there is only one way to deal with fear of the future.

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20. Anchor

It was still early by the time they left the wedding, and on the drive home they toyed with stopping at a restaurant for dinner. But Steve found himself more drained by the whole event than he'd expected, so they decided to make do with whatever they could find in the fridge.

The house was quiet and still, as Elizabeth was still at the Haywards', who had kindly agreed to look after her while they were out. It was a few hours yet before they were due to pick her up, so they took a moment to crash onto the couch and relax. Peggy kicked off her shoes as Steve loosened his tie and undid the layers of his morning suit. They reclined together on the sofa, her back to his chest, not even bothering to switch on the lights.

Steve lay there with his eyes closed, allowing himself to be soothed by Peggy's breathing. After a moment he felt her head turn. "Fancy a nap?"

"Just getting myself together," he answered. "I only need a few minutes more."

"Take your time. Might as well, before Beth comes home." She slipped her fingers through his shirt placket and began running her nails across his chest. "You know, it's funny. At first I thought I would tear my hair out if I didn't get a little quiet. But now the place seems empty without her."

"I know what you mean. Do you want to grab her early?"

"Maybe in a little. Not just yet." Peggy turned in his arms to face him. "I was thinking how many things in life are like that. Nothing like you planned, but somehow… better than you even hoped for."

Steve smiled. "You still can't believe Howard actually went through with it?"

She chuckled. "I'll admit I had my doubts, until I saw the ceremony with my own eyes. But I meant… all this. The two of us, together here, like this. And Elizabeth. I remember being so worried whether I was up to the challenge… and now I can't imagine our lives any other way."

"Sure wasn't easy," he agreed. "And certainly not what we planned. But I wouldn't change anything for the world."

"Really?" She smiled at him. "Does that mean you'd do it all over again? Or never in a hundred years?"

Steve raised his head a little so he could look her in the eye. "What are you getting at?"

"Well… we managed the first time well enough with no warning. And we know so much more now than we did then."

Steve's breath hitched. "You mean… you want to have another?"

She nuzzled in close. "Only this time, how about we do it on purpose?"

His heart leaped, and he took her hand. "Are you sure?" he had to ask. "With all your work and plans? I know with Beth, it took a while for us to adjust."

Peggy laughed. "Adjust. That's one word for it."

He looked at her very solemnly. "Are you certain you want to go through it all over again?"

"Steve. My darling." She twined her fingers into his. "When has it ever stopped us doing anything, just because it was hard?"

"Or crazy. Or life-threatening." He couldn't stop himself smiling. "I suppose a baby is nothing compared to that. Even a second one."

"Is that… something you'd want to do?"

Steve's arms closed around her, warm and real and present against him. He let it wash over him a moment, reminding him. That was the danger— for fears of the future to steal you away from the present. But Peggy and Elizabeth, his life with them, that was his here and now, the things that would not be possible without his strange journey through time. Holding himself here, with them, would save him from becoming lost in the river of what was to come. There was no stopping the flow, but there was security in building his life that was the anchor against it.

They decided not to pick up Elizabeth early after all.

It was not long before they were announcing to their friends and neighbors that they were expecting again— this time, according to plan. And when James Samuel Carter finally came along in 1953, named in honor of Bucky and Sam, their family felt complete.

By that point, a full six years after his return to this time, Steve was a very different man than the one who had stood against Thanos. The soldier disappeared into the husband and father. The wounds, the nightmares, even the memories receded into the shadows of his thoughts, as if they were from a very long time ago, and happened to someone else. And that constant fog of sadness that he'd quietly carried, like a yoke over his shoulders, finally was lifted.

Beyond even that, the time and place had changed him. The past is a foreign country, people used to say to him, as he had struggled to adapt to the vastly changed world into which he had woken from the ice. He did not miss the crowdedness, the busyness, the constant onslaught on one's attention from every direction. He'd never gotten used to how expensive everything had become, to the point where Tony had often teased him as a cheapskate. Some things had never felt right, despite his best efforts, and leaving them in the future came as a relief.

Even so, there were little things that had been worked out of him that would never come back. He had not been a modern man, but nor could he be a man entirely of the 1950s. The constant cigarette smoking annoyed him; he'd forgotten how ubiquitous it was, and as a former asthmatic, he'd never appreciated the habit. He never went back to wearing undershirts every day, which meant a little more laundry— though come summertime, he didn't hear Peggy, nor the other ladies in his neighborhood, complaining. It took him a very long time before he did not reflexively reach for his smartphone to look up things he did not know, nor to recoil in shock at the casual bigotry that some folks felt so much more entitled to openly express.

But Steve was fearless to live his life on his own terms. He was determined to push back against anything, even societal norms, that went against his hard-won peace of mind. He would ask for cigarettes to be put out, question when he didn't know the answer, and insist on people to behave with respect if they were to be in his presence. He had endured too much to live any other way.

And so Grant Carter made his place in the world. He had friends, family, purpose and meaning beyond just the making of war. He was happy. For the first time in recent memory, life was simple and made sense.

He should have known it could not be this easy.

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The End

Next story: Boulder in the Stream