This story contains "Avengers: Endgame" spoilers.

Title: The Third Life of Steve Rogers

Rating: K (no violence, sex or language)

Description: After the final defeat of Thanos, Steve Rogers is resigned to living out the rest of his life in the present, until he makes a startling discovery that opens up new possibilities for his future. This story fills in the blanks left by "Avengers: Endgame." POV Steve Rogers, pairing Steve/Peggy.

Chapter 1

Steve Rogers held the slender quantum reflector in both hands and, with great care, slid the delicate component into its housing unit. He glanced up at Bruce Banner, squinting against the sunlight that came filtering through the trees surrounding the clearing.

"How's that?" he asked.

"Not connected," Bruce said, scrutinizing the monitor. "Give it a jiggle. Okay, there it goes. Next one." The big green scientist lumbered over to the work bench to get another part.

The new Quantum Tunnel was nearly complete. Steve had spent the day helping Bruce put the final touches on it. He still marveled over the peaceful stillness of the Stark lake house property, with the chirping of birds and the lapping of waves and the occasional rush of the wind whistling through the trees. It was a welcome change from the din and fire and blood of the battleground surrounding Headquarters in upstate New York. Steve could still see it sometimes when he closed his eyes, but the horror was beginning to fade.

At the edge of their work area, an innocuous-looking case rested on the ground, containing all six Infinity Stones - which Steve had secured by the simple provision of laying Mjolnir on the lid.

"One more," Bruce said, handing Steve the final component and pointing a thick green finger at the slot where it belonged. Steve slid it carefully down until it clicked in place, and then looked at Bruce for confirmation. The scientist squinted through his glasses at the readout on his monitor, and then nodded in satisfaction.

"We're all set," he said. "We'll hook up a fresh bank of arc reactors once the Pym Particles arrive, and then we'll be ready to go." Bruce yawned and stretched luxuriously, his knuckles brushing the branches of the trees overhead. "I'm beat," he said. He lowered himself to the ground beside the platform with a reverberating thud and stretched out his full length, which was considerable. "I'm gonna close my eyes for a while," he mumbled, and then did just that.

"You did good work," Steve said, and Bruce waved a sleepy hand in response. He had been working on the new Quantum Tunnel night and day since the moment Tony's funeral had ended. He had been forced to start over from scratch, since they had not been able to recover anything from the rubble of Headquarters. Bruce's break was well-deserved.

Steve sat down on a fallen log nearby, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked over the glittering span of quantum reflectors suspended above the platform. It was hard not to focus on how much smaller this quantum tunnel was compared to the first one they had built. After all, there were not so many of them as before - Steve felt his heart constrict painfully, thinking of Tony and Nat - and during their long discussions over the last several days, the Avengers had agreed that returning the stones would be more straightforward than taking them had been. They would not need so large a team this time. In fact, no one had put up much of an argument when Steve had volunteered to take on the task himself.

Clint had already returned home to be with his family. No one had begrudged him, knowing how his family's absence had torn him apart him in the five intervening years... and he had been trying to retire to family life since well before the Snap, anyway. T'Challa, too, had returned to Wakanda. He had an enormous job ahead of him, as his people had never managed to fully rebuild their war-torn lands with half their workers missing. Bucky had gone with him. Peter Parker had returned to Queens with his aunt, Scott was in San Fransisco with his daughter, and Stephen Strange had returned to his duties on Bleeker Street. This morning Thor had left Earth with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

"Everyone is going home," Steve thought. "And here I still am."

How many times had he longed to go home? He thought of those first few months he had spent in 2011, lost, confused, lonely, and angry - yes, angry - that everything he had known - everyone he had known - had been taken from him in a freak accident. He had always been ready and willing to die for his country. He'd prepared for it. Countless good men had made that sacrifice, and he knew he had no right to give any less. But Steve had never dreamed that instead he was fated to live. To live on, in a country so changed in some ways it was practically foreign. A place where he didn't belong, a place he didn't choose. A man out of time.

Bruce mumbled something and rolled heavily over onto his side, one large hand curling protectively around the case containing the Stones. His muscles relaxed, his breathing deepened, and within a few minutes it seemed he was fully asleep.

Still, Steve made no move to go inside the house. He just sat there, feeling the breeze gradually dry his sweat-soaked T-shirt, and let his thoughts drift. How many times had he dreamed of going home to his own time? But it was impossible. Faced with no other choice, he had eventually made his peace with the fact that he was here to stay.

Except when he wasn't at peace.

His contentment in this time seemed to ebb and flow like the waves of the lake. Sometimes, when he was intent on his work, when he donned the uniform to fight alongside his friends, it was good. It was enough. He was even happy.

But at other times, there seemed to be an empty hole in his heart that threatened to consume him.

Everyone else was going home. Why couldn't he?

Abruptly Steve stood and strode away, leaving Bruce dozing in the sunshine in the clearing, and wove his way through the trees until he reached the edge of the lake. He stood at the end of the dock and gazed out across the lapping waves, where he could see the rowboat at the far end of the lake. Pepper and Happy had taken Morgan out on the water to keep her occupied. As if you could distract a child from the fact that her father was dead.

Steve lowered his head for a moment. Tony's absence here was like an open wound. Steve knew he had to stay here until the Stones were back in their proper times, but there were too many reminders of Tony here, and at times it was nearly unbearable. It wasn't just that Steve missed his quick wit and perpetual irreverence, endearing even when it was exasperating. It was the regret that hurt more than anything. They had butted heads so many times. Steve had always been certain he was in the right, but sometimes he wondered if he had handled things in a different way, found a better way to reach Tony, maybe their clashes wouldn't have gotten so personal.

He'd never know, now.

Steve felt his skin crawling, whether from the dust and the sweat of the long day's work on the device, or from his troubled thoughts, he wasn't sure. Impulsively, he sat down at the edge of the dock and took off his shoes and socks, followed by his pants. Clad in his shorts and T-shirt, he dived off the edge and into the water.

Autumn was coming and the water was almost too cool to be pleasant, but at least the physical sensation was a welcome distraction from his thoughts, and Steve swam out into deeper water with long, steady strokes. His muscles still ached from the battle, although the bruises were starting to fade.

He made a couple of trips, swimming back and forth between the dock and the center of the lake, when he heard a loud splash. He paused to tread water and saw that Wanda Maximoff was swimming toward him. So she had returned from wherever it was she had disappeared to this morning.

"Can I join you?" Wanda asked when she got close enough. She seemed strangely timid.

"Of course."

"You like to be alone," she observed, stopping to tread water.

"Not all the time."

Wanda was panting slightly from the exertion of her swim. "I hate being alone," she said. Water droplets dotted her face. Steve wasn't sure if it was just lake water, or tears. Wanda was miserable, and no wonder. For her, Vision's death was all too fresh.

"I know," Steve said gently.

Wanda said nothing further, but rolled over onto her back, and they floated side by side in the water in silence.

After a while, Steve could hear Wanda's breathing grow quick and shallow. At first he thought she was shivering in the cool water, but one glance told him that no, she was definitely crying this time.

Steve reached out to touch her shoulder. "Hey. Let's swim in."

Wanda nodded mutely, and together they swam back to the dock. Wanda heaved herself up onto the dock and sat there on the edge, legs tucked up against her chest and both arms wrapped around them, shoulders shaking with her sobs.

Steve sat beside her, and put his arm around her shoulders. "It's okay," he murmured. "You're okay."

"I don't know what to do," she choked out, and he knew she was truly distressed because her Sokovian accent was coming out strong again, as if she'd forgotten those years they had spent in hiding, trying to scrub themselves of all outer traces of their former selves. "Everyone's going away. Everyone is going, or gone, or dead, and I can't stand how quiet it is in my mind..." She drew in a long, shaky breath, and he knew what she was referring to. The power of the mind stone she had shared with her twin brother - and later, with Vision - had bound her to them both in ways that went beyond emotion. Losing Pietro years ago had nearly unhinged her mind for a time, and now she had been dealt a double blow.

"Not everyone is leaving," Steve said quickly, although she was only articulating the exact thing he'd been thinking a short time ago.

"You're leaving too," she said. "You're taking the Stones-"

"Well, I'm coming back," he said firmly, but Wanda only shook her head frantically, water drops flying off the dark strands of her hair.

"You don't know that," she said. "You don't know what will happen. They've taken so many people, those Stones." She spat out the word like a vindictive. "All the fighting over them. Pietro... and Vision... and Natasha..." She bowed her head, and two big drops streamed down her cheeks.

"The worst is over now," Steve told her.

Wanda shook her head again, although her sobs quieted. "The worst was over when Thanos Snapped me," she said, her voice raw. "At least then I could rest. But now... now I have to live." She took a steadying breath. "And I don't know how to live. I don't know if I want to. I don't even know..." She sighed shakily. "I don't even know what to do with myself."

Steve thought for a long moment. "What would you have done if none of this had happened?" he asked slowly. "I don't just mean Thanos. I mean if you never volunteered for Strucker's experiments. If your parents had lived, if Sokovia hadn't been thrown into turmoil in the first place. What would you have done with your life?"

Wanda shook her head wearily. "I don't know."

"You could have done anything you wanted. You're smart, you're determined. You could have gone to college. You still could."

She laughed bitterly. "Yes, I can just see it. Me, going to classes. Making friends and doing my homework. Pretending to be a normal person."

"You could do it. You are a normal person, Wanda."

"No, I'm not," she whispered.

Sighing, Steve gave her shoulders a squeeze. He couldn't blame her for feeling that way. He'd felt the same, when he first met Sam Wilson and he'd asked Steve much the same question. Steve hadn't been able to imagine himself doing anything but work for S.H.I.E.L.D. How can you go back to an ordinary life after so many extraordinary things have happened to you?

"You know, I used to think maybe Ultron was right about me," Steve said slowly. "That I couldn't live without a war. And then... I just spent the last five years not throwing any punches or slinging any shields. I was leading therapy groups, helping people heal. And do you know what? I was good at it. I was fulfilled." He turned to face her. "Dr. Erskine may have created Captain America, but he didn't create me, any more than Strucker created you. We were people before that, Wanda. And even soldiers are allowed to come home from war sometimes and live their lives like everyone else."

Wanda regarded him thoughtfully. "Did you ever go to college?" she asked.

"In my first life. After I graduated from high school, I spent a year taking art classes from Auburndale," Steve answered. "And then the war broke out, and then Project Rebirth..." He shrugged his shoulders. "With everything that happened, I never got a chance to finish."

"Do you miss it?" she asked.

He hesitated. "I still do a little sketching sometimes, but mostly... I've just been too busy."

He rubbed Wanda's shoulder. "It's all right to think of yourself right now," he said. "Everything's quiet right now. Take some time and find out what you need to make yourself happy, and go after it."

"You don't do that," Wanda said quietly. "You never think of yourself. The others, they told me. They said everyone fell apart after... after it happened, but not you. They said you took care of everyone else instead of yourself."

"Well, I've had more practice than them at losing everything and learning to live with it," Steve said.

Wanda looked at him a little too knowingly. "Tell me the truth," she said. "If you could do anything, what would you do?"

"Exactly what I'm doing," was what Steve wanted to say, but by long force of habit, he couldn't quite make himself tell a falsehood. How many more of his friends were going to tell him to go get a life? First Tony, then Nat, now Wanda. Didn't they realize that if he could, he would?

Wanda looked directly into his eyes with a sudden intensity.

"Show me," she said. "Show me what you really want."

Hesitantly, she lifted her hands and curled her fingers into graceful twin gestures on either side of Steve's head. He froze, not sure how to react. She had never attempted to touch his mind since the day she had attacked him at Ultron's behest.

"Please," Wanda whispered, wisps of red light flickering behind her eyes and leaking from her fingertips. "Please, everything is so quiet in my head. I don't want to be alone in there anymore. You don't talk about it, but I don't think you want to be alone, either." She took in a shaky breath. "I won't hurt you."

Slowly, he nodded. There was a flare of crimson light, and Steve blinked. Suddenly he was no longer sitting on the dock. He looked around to get his bearings.

There was no question where he was. He had been there only a few days before. Camp Lehigh, 1970.

Where he had seen her.

Hardly daring to breathe, he stood in the darkened office and gazed at that lighted window, knowing what he would see on the other side of it, torn between eagerness and reluctance. But in the end his compulsion won out. He took one step toward it, then another. His destination seemed to be miles away, but somehow, step by step, he reached it.

She came walking briskly into the room onto the other side of the glass, and Steve felt chills shoot down his entire body.

Peggy...

She was perfection.

He had dreamed of her so many times over the years, but somehow he had forgotten so much. The energetic way she walked, with a swish of skirt and click of heels. Her voice reached him faintly through the glass, crisp and animated. She came over quite close to the glass, shuffling through papers, talking to someone else. It didn't matter who. Peggy was all that mattered. Breathless, he gazed hungrily at her face: the keen intelligence shining through those almond-shaped eyes, the flash of a dimple, the expressiveness of her bright red lips... it all seemed to belong to him, though she never knew he was there. Standing there, looking through the window, in that moment, every single particle of his being longed to be with her. To just walk through that door and be back in her life. If Tony hadn't been waiting for him, if Pym's vials had not been weighing down his pocket, if he hadn't had a mission to accomplish... he would have done it. No looking back. No regrets.

The light faded away. The window faded away. Peggy faded away.

When Steve came back to himself, Wanda was looking at him with sudden understanding.

"It is the same woman," she said, low. "The same woman I saw before."

"Yes," Steve whispered.

"She is from the time before. Your time."

"Yes."

"If this is what you truly want," Wanda said slowly. "Then... you should go to her."

"No," Steve said hoarsely. "I can't."

"But you can," she insisted, and despite the tear stains on her cheeks, her eyes lit up with hope. "Steve, the Quantum Tunnel! You could go. No one would blame you. We have defeated Thanos. The world is at peace, your work is done. We would-" Her face twisted. "I would miss you terribly. But as soon as the Stones are returned, you could-"

"I can't," Steve said harshly.

"But-"

"You heard what Bruce said when we all met together," Steve said. "What Doctor Strange said. You can't change the past. It's too late, Wanda. It was too late 80 years ago. She married someone else. She had a family. She..." He set his jaw with determination. "I can't go back. All I can do is my best, and sometimes the best we can do is to start over. She learned to be happy without me, and I'll have to learn it, too."

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's note: "Avengers: Endgame" was a fantastic capstone to a slew of movies filled with very fine writing. It gave a fitting ending to many of the Marvel characters we have come to know and love over the years. There were a number of un-seen scenes implied in the movie, particularly at the end, that I wanted to explore further, such as Cap's decision to return to the past, his farewell to Bucky and the others, and his reunion with Peggy.

There has been some debate among Marvel fans (and even between the directors and the writers!) about several issues, such as whether Cap started an alternate timeline when he went back to the past, as well as questions including "Was Steve Peggy's husband all along?" "Were there two Steves living in the world simultaneously?" "Why did he give the shield to Sam?" "How did the shield get to that bench?" This story is my answer on these questions, and is also my homage to all the professionals involved in Marvel Phase 1, who pulled off the nearly impossible task of tying up a sprawling franchise in a satisfying way. I hope you enjoy it! Please feel free to leave a review.