Steve goes back through time to return the Stones, someone has to and he wants..., needs to see Peggy again, he owes her a dance after all.
So he steps up and smiles at Bucky, so sure of what he's doing, even if it hurts to leave Bucky behind, but Bucky wouldn't be happy going back, he's changed too much and maybe Steve has too, only Steve is feeling much more selfish than he used to.
Most of the drops go just fine, a small stumble over the Soul Stone and bargaining Natasha's return in exchange for the Stone.
He sends her home alone and she stares at him knowingly before she leaves him.
"You won't find what you're looking for there." She tells him softly before vanishing.
And he tells himself she's wrong, tells himself that Peggy will make him happy.
He lands outside her door, he'd already dropped off the Stone, it'd been his first stop because this one, this one was his last.
He adjusts his tie and he starts to walk up the steps when he hears soft music playing, he hears Peggy laughing, she sounds happy and Steve pauses, steps back so he can look through the curtains, they're open, same as the window.
Steve's breath catches in his throat as he sees Peggy dancing in the arms of another, her face alight as she grins.
He lets her lead, hand on her waist, dips her and gazes at her in a way Steve knows he never looked at her.
It should hurt more, Steve thinks, to see Peggy in the arms of another, he's stealing Steve's dance, it should make him angry but...
It just makes him sad, he knows that look, he knows that if he walked up those stairs and knocked on the door that that man would let Peggy go, would let her be with him if she wanted because that man..., that man loved her enough to let her go as long as she was happy.
Steve walked over to sit on the porch, the music still playing softly, now that he was listening for it Steve could hear the noise their shoes made on Peggy's wood floor, could hear them speaking softly, hear her laugh and his deep chuckle.
How could he just walk back into her life when she'd moved on? Surely she had mourned him, let him go, why should she wait, why put her life on hold for a dead man.
It should hurt, Steve thinks, to hear her dance with another, to know she moved on, laid him and whatever future they might have had in the grave he'd made for himself by putting the plane in the Ice. It should hurt, but it doesn't.
Steve stood up and began to walk away.
He paused at the sound of Peggy's door opening. He shouldn't look, he knows that, but he wants just one more look on her happy face.
The man she'd been dancing with is leaving, he kisses her softly as she stands in the doorway and then she closes the door and he descends the stairs.
Steve knows that he never looked that way walking away from Peggy, like each step hurt more and more.
Steve turns away before turning back.
He walks up to the man, puts his hand on his arm to halt him.
The man looks at him, eyes widening, face falling in grief as recognition fills him.
Steve forces a smile, "Take care of her, alright?"
The man looks confused but shakes himself, "Of course but..."
"She'll say she can handle herself, and she can but there are more ways to take care of someone than fighting battles for them, with them, sometimes the best way to take care of them is to remind them of why they are fighting, to remind them that they've got something to come home to." Steve tells him.
Steve thinks of Bucky, Bucky with his sad eyes as Steve gets ready to leave him for Peggy, thinks of how nothing mattered after Bucky fell, how nothing mattered until he recognized Bucky on that street, and then how all that mattered was saving Bucky, protecting him, bringing him home.
"Oh." Steve says softly, "I am so very queer."
The man before him looks at him incredulously before snorting out a laugh.
Steve looks up startled, he'd forgotten about the man.
"Sorry, sorry, but um..., you were doing something before you had a realization." The man said though he sounded amused.
"Right, take care of Peggy, that's mostly it, and um..., you'll be a good husband and father, I mean she never said anything bad...but..."
"Are you..., are you from the future?" The man asked.
"Um..., I don't think I'm supposed to answer that. But make sure she's happy and..., love her like I can't." Steve said awkwardly.
"Because you're homosexual?" The man asked, no judgement in his voice.
"Yeah, kinda, I think it's only for one man though, they probably have a word for it." Steve shrugged, "I should probably go before I let anything else slip."
"Probably." The man sounds amused.
"Right, just..., bye?" Steve waves and then heads down the street.
"Hey! Rogers!" The man shouts, "She'll be alright, and I'll hold her when she's not, promise." He tells Steve when he turns back to him.
Steve smiles, this one real as he nods while his hand twists on his device and lets Bruce bring him home.
Steve stands on the platform in the future and he breaths in at the sight of Bucky's surprised face.
He breaths out as he steps down towards Bucky, breaths in as he reaches out, as Bucky steps into his arms.
"Thought you were going to stay?" Bucky says, drawing back to look in his eyes. There's a question there, the 'why did you come back?' question.
"I..., I couldn't take her future from her, not when I have my own here." Steve said softly, "Bucky, I think I want to kiss you, may I?"
"Took you long enough, punk." Bucky said and dragged him down into the best kiss Steve had ever had.
"I am so very queer." Steve repeated as he pulled back to breath.
"Yeah, kinda." Bucky agreed, "Me too. Why do you think I asked you to keep the outfit? It was so tight it showed everything."
"You..., that long?" Steve asked.
"Longer, you didn't notice but everyone else did, why do you think we always shared bunks?" Bucky asked.
"I thought you just got cold like I did before. Plus we'd lived together before." Steve pointed out.
Someone gasped, "And they were roommates."
Steve looked over at a newly embarrassed Peter.
"I said that out loud, didn't I?" He asked rhetorically but Bucky nodded.
"I'm so sorry, but um..., Mrs. Pepper sent me to get you, apparently something weird happened and Mr. Stark is alive again and he's talking about the Balance of the universe and Miss Lady Black Widow is back too and she's teaching the Little Stark to throw knives and we kind of need Captain America." Peter said quickly and ran back to the house.
"So, how much you want to bet Tony annoyed the god or whatever of death so much that they kicked him out to live again?" Steve asked.
"That's a stupid bet, you can't annoy death enough to make it return you to life." Bucky told Steve, "Fifty bucks and loser buys dinner for our first date."
"Deal." They shook hands and headed after Peter.
Bucky paid for dinner.
--
A/n: I don't know.
You can pretend the man Peggy is with is Daniel Sousa but I never watched Agent Carter, therefore I can't say that's who it is.
I don't really agree with Steve going back and just staying, ignoring everything he knows is happening, it's not really in character.
I can see him going back because everyone expects him to be with Peggy, himself included, so you have this fic where he goes back but realizes that he is in love with Bucky.
I had to change the last line because everytime I saw it it just threw me off a little, the new line feels more fluid comparatively.