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Steve was beginning to wonder if the ship was ever going to dock again. He was restless, sure, but there was a part of him that could see the strategic advantage for the Starfleet crew. After what happened last year at Alemar, the surprise arrival of Starfleet brass (and their rushed exit), the incidents on board, and the increasing danger each new passenger posed -- quarantining the ship would be a smart move. Not telling anyone would keep people calm, focused on finding a way home.

But dock the ship did, at last, and he was grateful. He hated sitting on his hands, waiting, not having anything to do. As soon as he acquired permission to disembark he was gone, this time with his shield slung over his back in that now-weathered leather satchel. Just in case things turn pear-shaped here like they did on Alemar.

The first few days, they didn't. Steve wandered through the nearby towns, trying to keep out of the local's lives as much as he could. But he tended to stick out, standing at over 6 feet with blonde hair, and wearing strange clothes. The children started following him by day 2, and after day 5 of exploring he had his own small clan.

Today, he's shaken the entourage, staying outside the city boundaries in favor of getting to know the lay of the land. The planet is spartan, but not sparse. Mostly scrub and craggy outcroppings, but every now and then he reaches a cliff that looks out over a river valley, where green things are growing in plenty. The jewel plant the planet is known for is beautiful, for sure. He hasn't tried to pick one, but he has thought about it. For Peggy.

He's taken advantage of the space to go through a more intense physical routine; something he couldn't do on the Enterprise, even in the holodecks. Why? Ask the pile of rocks that used to be boulders. Judging by the position of this world's sun by the time he's done, he'd guess it to be late afternoon. There should still be a few hours of daylight left, but it may be time to think about heading back to town and finding an officer who can beam him back to the ship for the night.

Panting, he pushes himself to his feet and dusts the dirt off his clothes before collecting his shield. Slinging it over his back again, he starts the trek back to town.

Steve feels like he's just getting back on his feet. Not that he'd ever willingly admit it out loud, but losing Peggy for the second time in a row was hard on him. It took the better part of two years to get over her after waking up the first time ... and only then because he could see her, and talk to her in D.C. (once he worked up the nerve to pick up the phone). Even if time had different plans for them than dancing at the Stork Club and sharing a kiss on V-E Day, he still considered her one of his closest friends and most trusted confidantes.

And then he came here, and there she was. Not retired Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Margaret Carter, but Peggy. His Peggy. Like looking back through time at the second chance they never got.

And he squandered it.

There's a part of him who believes he did the right thing. She lived a life after he "died". A good life, full of family, children, love; a life where she rose to all of her aspirations, not that he ever doubted she would. Director Carter. He's damn proud of her for that. Everyone on this ship talks about getting home, stopping Q, and could Steve have lived with himself if he took Peggy away from that life because he selfishly wanted his second chance? He finally broke down, asked her on a date, and maybe it was fate punishing him that sent Peg home before that date ever happened. Still, there's some other part of him that will always kick himself wondering what if?

It's taken a few months to stop brooding, mostly at the prodding and eye-rolling of his friends on board, but he thinks maybe things can get back to the way they were. Maybe he can move on this time.

And then he sees her again.

He's walking out of the room he shares with Akito on his way to the gym, pocketing an iPod that's going to run out of battery life eventually, when he catches her going into a room a few doors away out of the corner of his eye. Maybe he's just seeing things, but the way his chest constricts and his mouth turns to cotton is without reason.

"Peg?" he calls, twin lines forming between his brows, watching and waiting to see if the apparition turns back.

for sizeofyourbaggage

Steve was ready to go in an hour and fifteen. When the only connections you have scatter or burn to the ground, your only ties to a place can fit easily in a duffle bag slung over your shoulder and some small room in your heart where a half-formed sense of home never got a chance to put down roots. Things were a little different for Sam. He had responsibilities, people who relied on him. They took the day to get ready, and left first thing in the morning. Peggy would be safe from the media buzzards circling her room with her grandkids to look after her, and Steve was glad for that.

Nat was right about the file she gave him. He had it taken apart and spread across the floor of his apartment the night before they left, and then neatly reassembled when he met Sam at Union Station the next morning. Traveling by train was their best option given their renewed celebrity and the fact that Dulles still had air traffic grounded after the incident with the helicarriers. Everything seemed fine. Bags neatly packed. String around the folder tied in a smart knot. Steve was put together, determined and focused. But inside he felt as scattered as the contents of Winter's life strewn across hardwood.

He talked during the trip, answering Sam's questions and forming plans about where they would start -- he even managed some small-talk about music and how the food on the train rated against what he got in the hospital -- but it was always punctuated by moments of silence. He'd go someplace in his mind, brow knit and jaw squared, staring out the window at shapeless land rushing past (not France, or Italy, fields chewed by war and spat up again), but each time he'd blink, smile crookedly, and come up with some sarcastic remark to get conversation moving again. He almost had renewed energy by the time they arrived in Grand Central, despite the declining hour of the day. It's one step closer to the next step, and the next. One step closer to finding Bucky.

"Hope you weren't expecting the Ritz," he says, once they've made it out of the throng and up 42nd. "Since SHIELD isn't footing my bills anymore, we're gonna have to do this on a budget. I figure you won't mind, but I'd hate to get a reputation for being a cheap date."

It hadn't been much of a vacation to begin with. Steve had just gotten back to the Enterprise, only to discover his long-lost best friend and his new partner had known each other. In the Biblical sense. Up until now, part of him believed the Bucky who showed up on the ship was from an alternate universe, a universe where he didn't die. Believing Bucky was dead was easier than knowing he left him there to get captured and turned into --

He doesn't want to think about it. Which is what brought him down to the planet to begin with. The people he'd talked to said it was a beautiful place; perfect weather, warm beaches, friendly natives. Steve wasn't in the mood for sipping mai tais, but any place was better than the ship so long as things between him and Nat remained awkward, and going for a run along the beach was less hazardous than doing it in the hallways. He didn't expect to see Akito.

Or what happened next.

They always say after a disaster that things just happened so fast, which is true to a point. The cliffs along the beach were beautiful but steep, which made them ideal if you were into daredevil activities like skating up and down them (which is the best description Steve has for what Akito had strapped to his feet, though no normal rollerskates would have defied gravity like that). Something went wrong, that was easy enough to see even before the kid started falling, but the worst part of it was the one thing that didn't happen nearly fast enough was Steve. He couldn't get there in time.

"Akito!" he called out, running at full tilt. The kid was motionless, and as Steve got closer he could see ribbons of blood curling through his hair. No. No.

He wished he could say the next half hour was a blur, but he remembered every second of it in striking clarity. Akito couldn't be roused, but he wasn't dead. Not yet. Steve gathered his limp body up, so small and frail it was like cradling a feather, and ran back to the resort as fast as he could without aggravating his head wound even more. He moved in on the first Starfleet officer he saw, who called up to the ship for three to beam up.

Steve will never forget the look on Dr. Crusher's face, or the sharp words she had for him as soon as he'd transferred Akito's body to a biobed.

Why wasn't someone with him?

Steve didn't know why.

But he was with him now.

He was a lucky kid, maybe luckier than even Steve knew he was given the few things he overheard in Sickbay while the doctors patched him up. He'd been through worse. He was a fighter. And the medicine on the Enterprise was unlike anything Steve had ever seen, even with S.H.I.E.L.D. They got him stabilized, stopped the bleeding. He would make it, but he was in a coma and there was no telling when he'd come out of it.

"I'd like to stay," he'd said, twin lines between his brows and all of his focus on Akito. And, just in case Dr. Crusher mistook that for a request, he moved to Akito's bedside and took a chair next to him.

He didn't know why he had been alone on Risa, or why no one else had come to him in Sickbay, but he wasn't going to be alone again. Steve was with him.

[ fanart taken from here ]
for irememberedhim

It had happened in an instant.

He was arguing with Q, demanding answers, demanding clemency, angry and concerned over his missing teammates, frustrated with being kept on the ship against his will. All he did was move to his room to grab his duffel, and then there was a high-pitched chime and a flash of light and suddenly he was kneeling in a parking garage.

The parking garage, below headquarters at the Triskelion.

Exactly where he had been when the Enterprise first picked him up.

He stood, feet planted shoulder-width apart, and stared at the world around him for one very long minute.

---

The first thing he does is dig out his smartphone and turn it on. The display reads 12% battery (not bad for going to the end of the universe and back), the time and date (exactly the day he left, give or take a few hours), and 14 missed calls. Only 14 missed calls? It's no trick, then; Q sent him back exactly as he said he would.

The first message is from Barton. No space flu, no alien babies bursting out of my stomach yet. Psychological warfare? Call me. Steve breathes a sigh of relief. The next two are from Commander Hill, and there's another from Director Fury himself. They want to know what's going on.

The three that follow are from Nat, and all vary on a similar theme, though with more obvious restraint in her voice. She's on the verge of panicking, and he can tell.

A tension he hadn't realized he'd been holding uncoils from his shoulders.

He calls his supervising officers as soon as the last message ends. He had been on his way to see Director Fury, and if he hasn't missed his meeting entirely he at least owes the man a briefing. That goes about as well as expected, with strict instructions to get inside immediately. Steve loiters in the parking garage for five more minutes instead.

There's protocol, and then there's looking out for one's team.

He dials Natasha's number.

---

The battery of tests at S.H.I.E.L.D. stretch on for three days. Hill and Fury had already been briefed by both Clint and Natasha. Natasha had even been surprisingly candid about everything that happened.

Steve was less so.

He believes you have to work with the system, be trustworthy, loyal, a team player -- to a point. He doesn't always trust Fury, and he has been prodded by enough men with clipboards to know that if the wrong thing comes out of his mouth, he could be sitting in a clean room for months. He can't do his job from inside S.H.I.E.L.D., so he tells them what they need to know and reserves the rest.

---

He steps out of his own shower and fumbles around for a towel.

It's 6:15, five days after coming home.

Usually he waits until after his morning run to clean up, but evals at S.H.I.E.L.D. ran late the night before, and all he wanted to do when he got home was get some sleep. He pulls a carton of juice out of his own refrigerator (sitting next to a Tupperware with one of Natasha's chocolate cupcakes he's been saving), pours it into his own glass, and changes into his own jogging pants.

The sunrise looks wrong as it slats through the blinds.

Like the world is tilted .5 degrees to the left.

His world.

(His world?)

---

Routine is good, comfortable, reaffirming. That's what they tell him, anyway. He starts wondering if everything he experienced really was some sort of illusion, if the shared experience with Natasha was just a trick of the mind. This is reality, and there is nothing to indicate it will be changing anytime soon.

But Steve surprises himself. He starts longing for time on the ship, with Bucky, with Peggy, conversations with Captain Hunt, and Genesis.

Nat always did want him to make connections.

Making them on a spaceship probably wasn't what she had in mind.

---

On the sixth day, he sees him.

---

He's been running surveillance for the last twelve days.

The subject seems fairly routinized, which doesn't come as a surprise. He hasn't tried to engage, but Steve still keeps his senses alert, watching for any hints of deception. A mark he can deal with; in and out, clean, quick, and easy. The spy stuff has never been his strong suit.

He doesn't even feel comfortable referring to him as "the subject."

---

He wonders, absently, if his fascination seems unusual to any passersby.

It's not stalking. It's recon.

---

On day twenty-one, he finally engages.

The pavement thuds firm and motionless and easy underfoot, not like the hum of a ship's corridors, not with the uncertainty of perpetual motion. It's crisp, and since it's April the breeze is just slightly sweet. The sun is eking just over the National Mall when he speaks.

"On your left."

His smirk is caught only by the glistering water as he runs past.

[Right after this happens...]

Peggy. Peggy is on the Enterprise.

Bucky had been upset -- whatever they talked about had really done a number on him -- but all Steve can think about is Peggy is on the ship. At first he thought she would be old, much like he was even if he didn't look it; the Peggy he left in DC. As Bucky ranted and raved, it became clearer that it was more possible it was the Peggy he knew during the war. Steve has a hard time processing that, even if her picture never leaves his mind.

Once Bucky's settled, and Steve's sure he's not going to do anything to hurt himself, he moves into the halls, bent on hunting down the chief of security. If Peggy is here, he'll know where she is. There's a ball of nerves nestled tight under his ribcage, making him anxious, impatient, aggravated when he can't find the lieutenant, movements quick and choppy. For whatever reason he needs to find her, and he needs to find her now. He's about to start knocking on doors until he finds the right one, but his eyes drift to the computers instead.

Right. This shouldn't be too hard. Steve walks to the wall panel, leaning both palms against it, and stares blankly at the LCARS display. "Uh. Computer? Do you have a Margaret 'Peggy' Carter on file?" It chimes, and the automated voice answers: "Peggy Carter is located on Deck 7, Room #0733."

Steve cranes his neck down the hall, pushing off in the direction of her room before he remembers his manners.

"Thanks," he says, before jogging away from the computer. His feet move quick, that ball of nerves turning into a small boulder; he doesn't know why he feels nervous, why he's breathing fast and fighting off panic, why he has to get down the hall as fast as he can to make her door chime sound, why every second he waits outside, hoping for her to answer, is a kind of slow torture he was never trained for -- but that's where he finds himself, braced against the doorjamb, hoping she'll answer.

for sizeofyourbaggage

That's five bases down, and the whole world has begun to talk about Captain America and his Howling Commandos. Hydra finally sees them as the threat they are, and Steve's entire faction has taken time to celebrate their latest victory before moving on to the next stop. But there's always going to be a next stop, until every last factory, base, and facility has been taken down.

They're on a train god knows where, because getting to Poland means traveling through Nazi occupied space on the fly. No Red Army, no air support; take this train here, switch to this detail there, go on foot through here, cross your fingers and pray to your gods you don't get stopped. You sleep with one eye open and ready yourself to change lines at the drop of a dime. That's why not everybody is in this boxcar. The colonel and Carter are tucked away somewhere in third class, everybody else scattered with the lumber and supplies. Steve's in a boxcar with Gabe and Bucky, the former curled up under a pile of newspapers in one corner, while Buck sits at the open door watching the twilight landscape streak past in hues of blue. Steve pulls some hardtack out of a belt pouch, and meanders over to him.

"Remember when we'd jump on the back of the trolley heading out to Coney Island, and hide under the back seats so the conductor wouldn't find us?" he says, voice hushed as he kneels beside him. He smirks, and offers Bucky some of the hardtack.

Even with the serum, it took a small coma and a lot of PT to get over the physical wounds he sustained when the helicarriers went down. The emotional ones would take a little longer.

"You're my mission!"

Bucky was out there, and Steve was going to find him. He should have died in the crash, but he didn't, and something in his gut tells him Bucky's the reason why. Whether it was mercy, loyalty, or sick curiosity, he knew Bucky would always bail him out of trouble. Steve owed him a fight. He'd fight for him, for their friendship, for their history, till the end of the line.

With Sam's help, it wasn't too difficult tracking Buck back to Kiev, and from there Steve could guess where he was going. The old Hydra facilities where they gave him his cybernetic arm and wiped his memories has been long defunct, a hollowed-out shell of former greatness, but they still housed information. Steve wanted to know what they did to Bucky, surely Buck would be wondering the same thing.

He's got his uniform on under nondescript civvies, but it's kind of hard to get his shield to blend in. He doesn't look all that different than he did on the bridge, but if he finds Bucky here he hopes that's not the first thing he's reminded of. He steps over tipped filing cabinets and loose wires, footfalls quiet and precise. There's no guarantee he'll find Bucky in here, but if he doesn't it's going to take weeks to figure out what his next move would be. Steve's hanging on hope when he rounds a corner, and discovers a dust-covered chair straight out of a horror movie, leather straps decaying from time and neglect, but metal clamps still imposing. He steps inside the room, eyeing the machine with dull horror.

At first, he doesn't even see the shadow in the corner.

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Steve Rogers, aka Captain America

December 2015

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Page Summary

[Personal Log:] Exploring Folnar III (Darmok Event), Part 1
[Personal Log:] A Dream is but a Dream... for peggy_carter
[PSL] Post-canon TWS | Steve & Sam
[Personal Log] Risa, Rescuing Akito
[PSL] Steve + Bucky, post-TWS [locked to irememberedhim]
[Personal Log] The Return
[Personal Log] It's Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song ; Peggy Carter, Deck 7
[PSL] Steve and Sam ; mid-Winter Soldier
[PSL] WWII ; On the move with Bucky
[PSL] Steve & Bucky, post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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I'm loyal to nothing, General

...except the dream

Recent Entries

[Personal Log:] Exploring Folnar III (Darmok Event), Part 1

[Personal Log:] A Dream is but a Dream... for peggy_carter

[PSL] Post-canon TWS | Steve & Sam

[Personal Log] Risa, Rescuing Akito

[PSL] Steve + Bucky, post-TWS [locked to irememberedhim]

[Personal Log] The Return

[Personal Log] It's Just an Old-Fashioned Love Song ; Peggy Carter, Deck 7

[PSL] Steve and Sam ; mid-Winter Soldier

[PSL] WWII ; On the move with Bucky

[PSL] Steve & Bucky, post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier