so, what's the past for? i'll need it if love don't last long

Steve Rogers, long ago, was the man who never ran. He was the man who faced down his problems and enemies indiscriminately, who spat in the face of both Nazi generals and the very idea that anything could keep him from fighting for a better world. He used to be the paragon of bravery, the man who worked to uphold his reputation as the symbol of courage his country held in the highest regard.

Until that one fateful day, when he'd decided to run—away from the death and destruction, away from the friends he'd seen suffer too much pain to be truly happy ever again, away from time itself. He ran, straight until another timeline, hardly conscious of what he was doing until he ended up standing on the doorstep of a woman he'd last seen lying peacefully in a casket.

By the grace of God, or maybe the devil, Peggy had been home that day. After she'd recovered from her shock, she'd welcomed him in, he'd asked almost clumsily for a dance, and when the music stopped she'd pulled back and said, "I want to introduce you to Daniel."

He doesn't know what he was expecting, but he likes Daniel. Daniel is sarcastic and witty but warm and solid—a safe place for Peggy's often slightly-chaotic personality to land. So he'd shaken Daniel's hand and accepted his invitation to stay for dinner and then stayed the night because, honestly, where else was he supposed to go?

And then one night turned into two, which turned into a week, and then Steve ended up staying in their house permanently. They established a general rule that he was not allowed to tell them about the future, but could contribute to strategy discussions about missions he had never heard about. He helped them during the day and tried to stay up helping them at night, except Peggy started chasing him to bed with a broom a few weeks in.

He's never liked sleeping much, but after—well, after everything, he likes it even less.

Some of the dreams he's familiar with: the nightmares and memories full of too much blood and smoke and explosions that rack his imaginary body with tremors come initially, as he expects. Those he can deal with; those he has dealt with for years. The ones that he is markedly not equipped to deal with are the ones that come later: the ones that aren't vague flashbacks or terrifying possible futures but vivid, specific memories, memories that leave him with an aching heart and stinging eyes when he wakes.

Steve thinks this distinctly unfair, given that these memories haunt his waking moments too; but his life has never been fair, and so each night he succumbs to more and more detailed recollections of moments running infinitely around in his head.

The worst ones are always about her. Those run his mind in what feels like slow motion, forcing him to relive even the most minute details of the days they were carefree and alive and happy, at least as much as they could be. He starts seeing flashes of vivid red hair and brilliant green eyes everywhere, and in his dreams, they're inescapable. In his dreams, she's inescapable.

In his dreams, Natasha is always there. Sometimes, she's perched in the passenger seat with her feet on the dashboard where he'd always hated them, laughing at him as he steers the car down an open country road, the two of them alone in the car in the middle of the night. He turns the music up to drown out her laughter and she smirks, promptly deciding to sing along to the sounds of Out of the Woods coming through the stereo instead.

"Come on," she coaxes, her voice still viscerally real in the layers of his unconsciousness. "I know you know this song."

"I will not," he says, but a smile is still floating unwittingly to his lips, and by the time he pulls into the open clearing he's belting are we in the clear yet, in the clear yet, good with a fervor that would impress any concert crowd.

Sometimes, it starts in that clearing, with him shutting off the car and the two of them lingering in the darkness for a moment. He pulls open her car door, the moonlight filtering into the seat and casting a soft, silver glow over her features. She comes willingly, laying a blanket on the ground with a flourish as she steps out of the vehicle.

"When did Tony say it was starting, again?"

Steve checks his watch, and he's seen this dream enough times to know exactly where the second hand is going to be when he does. "Five minutes."

They settle onto the blanket, side by side, and he glances over at her. "What was the first shooting star you ever saw?"

She meets his gaze, her smile soft and nothing like the cold, calculating grin she'd given a certain arms dealer mere hours before. There is a brief moment of hesitation, and then she smirks. "You."

His mouth falls open before he digs an elbow into her side, and she laughs. "Get it? Because you had a gun, and that stupid star on your uniform—"

"Yeah, yeah, a shooting star," he groans, letting his head fall back onto the ground. "Shut up."

She does, but only because the atmosphere around them tangibly changes—Steve feels it too. A second later, a jet of silver streaks across the sky, and Natasha sucks an audible breath through her teeth.

He looks over at her, and watches the second meteor through the reflection in her eyes—the silver makes them glean, and she grins at him.

"Enjoying the view?"

He shoves her, she laughs, and he thinks he could live in this moment forever.

Sometimes, they're standing on top of a massive hill, gazing at the city of Rome, beautiful and regal below them. And even though it's a dream, he can feel the heavy exhaustion of a battle just fought seeping into his bones, can sense the relief of another disaster narrowly averted cloaking his shoulders.

Natasha reaches for him, the streak of blood on her face looking real enough to touch, and gazes out at the sprawling city beneath the hill. "I almost wish we could stay," she murmurs.

She doesn't voice the rest of the sentiment—that they could stay here, in this world away from the world, and live normal lives. Become normal people, people who window shop and sit in cafes and don't have to save the world every other day.

She doesn't say it, because she knows he understands, and also because they both know it's impossible.

"Me too."

There are other dreams, too—dreams where they're both tired and sad and frustrated; dreams where their friends have been snapped into thin air and the ones that haven't been are gone too.

There are dreams where they're the only two people left in the gigantic, designed-for-at-least-fifty-residents Avengers facility, where he walks into a room with zero lights on and her crying.

"You know, I used to think it was hard to tell when you were scared," he says, trying valiantly to lighten the mood. "But not so much anymore."

She looks at him ruefully through her tears. "You don't have to do this every time."

He shrugs and gives her the best smile he can muster. "I have no idea what you mean. I'm just passing by, and I don't want to leave you if you're crying."

She glares at him, but gives a half-laugh, and he moves to sit next to her. He doesn't say that he knows she tries to hide from him when she's crying, that he actively tries to find her when he hasn't seen her in a few hours. He doesn't tell her that he needs her there, by her side, that he's terrified he's going to lose her, finally, irrevocably, for real, every time it happens.

Her tears subside, every time, and every time he leaves once they do. She lets him go, turning back toward the screens with a sigh, and he watches her back straighten as she goes back to business.

Never, in any of the dreams or memories or whatever they are at this point, does he stay. He would if she asked him to.

And then there's the worst one, from the night before that day, where she shows up at his door before curfew with a bottle of wine in one hand and a key in the other.

"It's for my apartment," she says, placing it gently in his hand. "Just in case."

She cuts off all of his protests with a sad, firm smile, then uncorks the bottle of wine and pours it into two of his water glasses.

They talk, about everything and nothing, and at one point she perches on his bed and tucks her knees into her chest.

"I don't know if anything is ever gonna go back to normal," Natasha says quietly. "It all feels broken, somehow. Unfixable."

"What does?"

"Everything," she says, gesturing at the walls around them. "Life itself."

He doesn't know why that hurts a little to hear, but he shrugs and stands anyway. "We still have to try. For everyone."

"I know," she murmurs, draining the last of her wine and standing too. "Trust me, I know."

It's the last real conversation they have, and it's always the last one that plays before Steve wakes.

For weeks, Steve gets out of bed in the morning with tears staining his cheeks and a rush to the bathroom to collect himself, but Peggy intercepts his mad sprint one day and forces him to sit at the kitchen table and talk. He says he doesn't want to and she gives him a withering glare that would probably topple a wall of solid rock.

He tells her about Natasha, about the aliens, the assassins out to kill them, the Accords. He doesn't tell her about HYDRA, or about the midnight drives, the shooting stars, about Rome.

Peggy seems to understand anyway, and for some reason the sympathy in her eyes melts away some of the ache in Steve's chest.

When he runs out of stories to tell, he starts talking about her past, about the way she was taken from her parents as a child and then trained in the Red Room.

"Those ladies are tough," Peggy says with an impressed nod. "One of them escaped my locked trunk after I'd tied her wrists and ankles, then shot a policeman with his own gun on her way out. And that was when I was trying to work with her."

"Nat almost never obeyed orders after she had turned," Steve says with a laugh. "I can't imagine what it would've been like to try and work with her while she was still at the Red Room."

"Well, she was the only one who could do the job. We needed her."

Daniel snorts from where he's leaning against the kitchen counter. "For the record, I thought it was a bad idea," he mutters, earning him that exasperated but loving Peggy Carter glare that had once been reserved for Steve.

Steve is slightly surprised to find that he doesn't mind at all.

As the years go by, the memories become gradually less painful. The ache becomes a little duller, the wounds a little less fresh. The Carter-Sousa household adds a third long before children come into the picture, and they slip with only minor hiccups into a routine that works for everyone. Steve's only allowed in public with a disguise, so while Peggy and Daniel are at work he spends his time drawing, cooking, cleaning, and generally being a good housekeeper. When they get home, he helps them with plans if he can and plays old card games if he can't.

When the kids do arrive, Steve teaches and nurtures them as his own, and he gets through it with only vague stabs of pain as he remembers the Barton family. They know only that he is hiding from the world and that no one can know about him. They grow into strong, incredible adults, and when they move out Steve wipes away a tear that matches the ones coating Peggy's and Daniel's cheeks.

Peggy and Daniel are older, obviously, when the house goes back to holding only the three of them, and Steve starts picking up more of the dirty work. They both retire far later than most people would, finally admitting defeat to bodies that just can't keep up with their younger colleagues and targets anymore. It's hard, watching them become unable to do anything but gesture in frustration at the news, but it's not as hard as it was to arrive at Peggy's hospital bed, so many decades before.

He's had enough time, this time, with her. They've spent fifty years in the same household, they've had a life together. So he cherishes the wrinkles that now adorn her hands and the lines of her face, and he ventures outside to run errands with only the slightest twinge in his heart.

The only time he ever dislikes this whole arrangement is on a single grocery store trip.

He collects everything on his list with little issue, keeping his hood up and his head low as he peruses one particularly crowded aisle for the hot sauce Peggy likes. Nobody pays him any attention, and as Steve wheels his cart into the checkout lane he congratulates himself on a faultless grocery run—God knows he's had some close calls.

One would think he'd have learned some lessons about celebrating too soon.

He's aimlessly selecting a pack of gum and skimming magazine covers (Brad Pitt is the sexiest man alive this year, according to People) when he hears a laugh.

An unmistakable, once life-affirming, thought-he'd-never-hear-it-again laugh.

His blood freezes over in his veins as his hands go slack, the Trident mint in his hand falling onto the conveyer belt and tumbling underneath a couple bags of Doritos. He stares at the fallen gum for a moment, not seeing it at all, before forcing himself to raise his head.

She's there, in the flesh, helping the customer in front of him—her nametag says Natalie, and her hair is darker than it was when he met her, but it's definitely her, and Steve thinks he might faint then and there. His hand tightens around the cart as he fumbles his phone out of his pocket and stares at the date—November 15, 2000. Of course.

Steve is desperately trying to find a way to get out of this when the woman in front of him takes her last bag and leaves with a grateful wave. Steve swallows thickly as Natasha beckons him forward, smiling brightly at him as she does.

There is no recognition in her eyes—of course there isn't—and something about being a stranger to her makes him want to grip the counter in front of him so tightly that it breaks.

She says something, but he doesn't hear her; his ears are full of a roaring, sharp wind, and suddenly he's back on a dark, foreign planet, a jagged cliff behind him and a limp body lying broken in front of him. He can feel the cold, tough dirt between his fingers again, can see the ice crystals forming on the strands of red hair he had run his fingers through so many times.

Her eyebrows knit together in mild concern as her mouth moves inaudibly once more, and Steve wrenches his mind back to reality.

"Sorry," he manages. "What was that, again?"

Natasha gives him a perfectly practiced customer-service smile and says, "How are you today?"

"Great," Steve says, trying and failing to keep an edge of panic out of his voice. "Just dandy. You?"

"Well, you know, a little nervous," Natasha says easily, swiping a can of chickpeas past the scanner. "It's my first day on the job."

He remembers. He also remembers her seated at the foot of his bed, playing with her hair while she told him about one of the first missions for SHIELD she'd ever failed.

"I was undercover as a cashier at a Safeway—"

"O-oh," Steve sputters. "I'm sure you're doing great."

"Well, so far, so good—"

"I had him, for a moment, and then I didn't—"

"—But, you know, things can always change, right?"

Steve feels curiously as if his head is swimming, and he doesn't think he can hear anymore. He wonders dimly if Peggy would find him, were he to faint in a grocery store.

"He'd somehow stolen my nametag while we were scuffling and I didn't even notice—"

"Um, sir?"

"He picked the lock with the pin—"

"Sir!"

Steve jumps. His hand smacks against his cart on the way up, the rattling of the metal doing nothing to calm his nerves.

"Sorry," he says, shaking his head to clear it. "Did you say something?"

Natasha frowns, and the familiarity of the sight almost sends him back into the recesses of his brain. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," he says, trying to sound unconcerned. "Yeah. Long day, sorry."

She gives him a sympathetic smile and hits the keyboard. "That'll be two hundred and one dollars and thirty-five cents. Paper or plastic?"

"Uh, paper," Steve mutters, wiping his hands on his jeans. "Thanks."

He takes the bags off the counter as soon as she fills them, trying his best not to look like he's impatient but still trying to move as quickly as possible. When the bags are all in the cart, he grabs the handle and speed-walks away, throwing a feeble "thank you" over his shoulder.

He looks behind him the entire way out of the store, relaxing slightly only when he turns the corner to a different area of the parking lot. Then, as he spots his car, he almost has his second heart attack of the day.

Natasha is standing next to the trunk with her arms crossed and a half-guarded, half-inquisitive look on her face.

"Do I know you?" She asks as he shuts his eyes, desperately praying that this is a dream.

Once it becomes clear that this is not, Steve takes a deep breath and resigns himself to whatever nightmare scenario happens next.

"No," he says hoarsely, unlocking his trunk and gesturing at her to move aside.

"But you know me," she says matter-of-factly, taking a step to the left and watching him place the bags she'd just packed into his trunk. "At least, you seem to."

Steve stays silent as he finishes loading his groceries and shuts the trunk door, then turns to face her. "I'd rather not do this here," he says quietly. "Where I'm exposed."

"Okay." Natasha shrugs. "Follow me."

She leads him into a small, dark alleyway behind the store. Steve thinks the overwhelming scent of garbage is going to rot his brains forever, but he does appreciate that they probably won't be overheard.

"So," Natasha prompts. "Who are you?"

Steve hesitates. He's made it decades without telling anyone anything—besides Peggy and Daniel, of course—and a prickle of anxiety is creeping up his spine at the mere thought of saying the words out loud.

On the other hand, that anxiety is nothing compared to the way he's pretty sure his nerves are currently fraying at the edges, and he's sure that Natasha would see right through him if he decided to try and lie his way out of this.

Besides, if there's one person who can keep a secret, it's her.

He settles on a half-truth, one that gets him out of most of the hard conversations but is still hopefully enough to satisfy her.

"I'm, uh, from the future," he says carefully. "I promise."

Her eyes narrow, her natural skepticism overtaking her features. He can see her brain working, can see her scrutinizing his facial expression, his body language, anything that might betray a hint of a lie.

"I believe you," she says finally. "Some of the tech I've seen being developed…well. Do you work for SHIELD?"

"I did."

"So we worked together?"

He gives what sounds like a half-laugh, half-sob. If meteor showers and midnight drives and painful conversations overlooking the city of Rome are "working together"—

"You could say that."

She bites her lip, assuming the thoughtful expression he knows to mean she's trying to decide whether she wants to know the answer to whatever question she's going to ask, then tilts her head slightly. "Can you tell me one more thing?"

Steve nods.

"When I die, have I contributed something good to this world?"

He almost chokes on his breath, staring at her with equal parts wonder and horror. "How—Why—"

"You were a little too surprised to see me," Natasha says wryly.

Half a century, apparently, is enough time to forget how well Natasha can read people. How well she can read him.

"You give more to the world than you could imagine," Steve says softly. "You save it. More than once."

Her smile is more relieved than anything, and Steve wants to bask in its remnants forever. This is a younger Natasha, a less-worn Natasha—he'd almost forgotten how she'd looked before the snap, before she'd chosen to take on a burden that was far too heavy for anyone to carry.

This is the Natasha that he'd catch dancing in the early light of dawn, carefree and lost in her solitary art, even if it was just for a moment. The one that'd been lost five years before the rest of her was, too.

"Well," she says as her watch beeps, breaking Steve out of his reverie, "I should get going. I assume you know I'm not actually here to bag groceries."

"Of course." Steve moves to leave, then turns back towards the disgusting, garbage-lined alleyway, suddenly aware that his next words are the last words he's ever going to say to her. That he has a chance, now, to do what he hadn't been able to do so long ago.

He wants to tell her that the key to her apartment is still on his keychain, sandwiched between the keys to his car and his current house. He wants to tell her that his fingers brush against it as he unlocks the door or starts his engine; he wants to tell her that it's the only thing he has left of her. That everything she has—everything they have—is going to be destroyed in about twenty years, that a big purple titan is going to ruin any hope he has of living a life that he is unequivocally happy with.

Instead, he says, "Take your nametag off before you go after him. Trust me."

Maybe, in this timeline, she'll remember. As she makes her decision on that icy, god-forsaken mountain, maybe she'll think about today. Maybe she'll think about this mission, the one that went smoothly, and wonder if he'd used his last words to make things a little bit easier. And maybe she'll think about all the other ones, too, the ones where they fought side-by-side, and realize that this was him trying to do it one last time.

Her soul is hers, he knows—but he'll help it move if he can.

The corner of her mouth ticks up in a half-smile. "Aye-aye, captain."

He almost laughs.