Major spoilers for Endgame! Do not proceed unless you've seen the movie! I don't own the Avengers. No money changed hands. If I did own these characters things would have gone something like this.

Fix it for my shipper heart, because I didn't like where Endgame left either of my favorites. (Steve staying in the past was character assassination in my opinion, and did they really have to be labor the point that the soul for a stone thing was irreversible?) No daily updates this week due to deadlines, but I will update regularly. Romangers, but wait for it. Mild Steve/Peggy with a purpose.

With two stones left to return, Steve found himself sitting on a park bench in Central Park unsure what to do next. He had saved the hardest stones for last.

One needed to go back to the seventies into a lab just a floor below Peggy's office. Seeing her through the glass had been so painful. It took everything he had not to go to her, not to share that dance. She was the first woman he ever really loved, and she was right there.

The other stone, with its orange glow, was his last link to the woman who had become his closest friend in the twenty-first century, his first kiss since 45, even if he had never admitted it to her. If Strange's theory was correct, Natasha's soul was forever entwined with the stone. As long as he held it, he held her.

Steve hated the universe. Sure, the Avengers had saved countless lives, but the cost was too high. Why hadn't he just insisted Natasha go to New York? It never should have been Natasha and Clint. If only he'd gone to Volmir himself. Now, she was gone, and he dreaded going back to a future without his partner, his confidant, the one who had come to matter most to him.

Parting with the stone that ensnared Natasha was something he wasn't ready to do. His decision was made. It was time to see Peggy. Natasha's goodbye would have to wait.

1970

Slipping back into the government facility was trickier the second time around. Security was tighter now that Shield knew the stone was gone. He cased the place for three days looking for a window of opportunity and found none.

Steve finally set himself up in a cheap motel in town. He ate Chinese food and watched Johnny Carson at night, and watched for an opening to return the stone in the daytime. The two stones sat on the bedside table untouched, as he tried to come up with a new plan.

The idea came to Steve more on accident than anything else. He needed supplies and found himself at a little convenience store after another day of watching the facility. With his ball cap and a pair of sunglasses on his head, Steve wandered the chip aisle trying to decide what snacks he'd need to get through Carson's show. He grabbed a bag of bugles and was headed towards the checkout counter when he saw her, and she wasn't alone.

Peggy was talking to a boy who couldn't have been older than 9 or 10. "Steven Daniel Sousa, put down that comic book and come along. I already told you I'm not buying that rubbish until your math grade improves to acceptable levels."

"Yes, Mom," the boy said, half-hazardly putting the book back where he had gotten it.

Steve stood back and studied the boy. He favored his mother. That much was obvious, but he looked sad. The sadness on his face was much more profound than that of a boy who had just been told no. Steve moved a bit closer, careful to stay out of sight, and took a long, hard look at Peggy. She didn't look very happy either. What had happened to take her joy away?

Steve put his bugles back on the shelf and waited for Peggy to pay out and leave with her son. He had picked up a beat up Ford truck with money Bruce had suggested he take along in case things didn't go according to plan, and he used the truck to follow Peggy and her son home.

Once they were safely inside, Steve went back to his hotel room and spent the rest of the night in deep thought. He needed to know what happened to Peggy. The internet sure would be useful, but he was several decades to early.

The next morning, Steve skipped his routine of watching the security detail around Peggy and Howard's office and went straight to the library. It took hours to go through the old newspapers, but he finally found the answer he sought. Daniel Sousa, Peggy's husband, was dead.

Daniel had been gone 8 months. The details in the paper were sketchy. It smelled of a Shield cover up to Steve, but it wasn't the details that disturbed him. It was the grief of the family Daniel left behind Steve couldn't seem to get past.

He needed to talk to Peggy. Maybe he could help, maybe he couldn't, but he had to try. Steve waited until after dinner, put the two infinity stones in his pocket, and made his way across town to her house.

Steve parked across the street and just sat there. He couldn't decide whether actually going inside was really the right move or not, but the pain in his own heart sensed the pain in hers too strongly for him to just drive away.

The sun set behind the houses in her little neighborhood and darkness started to fall, but Steve didn't move. Indecision weighed on him. Could he see her, comfort her, give her the stone, and walk away? Or, would it be too hard to leave her again? He wasn't sure.

He wondered what Natasha would tell him to do? She always thought in terms of the big picture, and she never shied away from giving him her opinion. God, he missed her. He missed Tony, too, but Nat was the one who always called him out when he was about to make the wrong call. She was the one he leaned on when the world became too much. How was he ever supposed to live without her?

Steve pulled the soul stone from his pocket and stared at it. "I don't know how to do this without you, Nat," he whispered into the orange orb.

Soul Stone

"Go inside, Steve," Natasha said, knowing he couldn't hear her never stopped her from responding when he spoke.

She was so lonely. She had assumed she'd feel nothing after the fall, but she'd been so wrong. She felt everything.

The realization she was a prisoner inside the stone had come as soon as Natasha opened her eyes. Through the orange haze, she had seen Clint's tear-stained eyes and the look of horror on his face at what she'd done, and suddenly she knew. The soul stone was a world of its own, and she was the only resident.

Natasha felt the moment when Bruce snapped everyone back into existence. Unlike the others who needed to see proof, Natasha just knew. It was a peaceful moment she would cherish forever, knowing her sacrifice righted the wrong.

She screamed when Tony died, even though there was no one to hear her. She longed for the moments when Steve would hold the stone close and talk to her, and she dreaded the soon to come day when he would have to relinquish the stone, leaving her eternally alone.

But, right now, all she cared about was his happiness. Natasha knew what he was thinking. She could see it on his face. He had a second chance with Peggy, and she wanted him to take it.

There had been a time when she had hoped Steve's second chance would be with her. They'd been on the run. Sam was getting supplies, and Wanda was off-the-grid with Vision. Steve had suggested a comedy, and he and Natasha were sitting on the bed in some hotel room in Germany. They looked at each other. He leaned in so close she knew he was going to kiss her. She closed her eyes in anticipation, but before his lips brushed hers, the phone rang. Thanos's minions were on Earth, and they were needed to rescue Wanda and Vision. There was never another moment like that one, and their time would never come. "Go, Steve," she whispered again. "Be happy."

Depressing, I know, but this is only chapter 1. Hang with me. I have a plan.