Who lives.
She's brilliant, full of joy and laughter as she dashes here and there.
She's a bright star in the darkness that surrounds him most days. But she draws but his smiles.
She drags him to play, drags him around from space to space.
She teaches him how to create again, something he thought he list. She reminds him what it's like, that rush when something works, the adrenaline when it blows up in their faces.
Her laughter fills his heart with joy he once thought he'd never feel again, it stretches and engulfs the emptiness he felt, fills it to the brim until her joy spills from his mouth in laughter.
He forgets that her joy is not his own, lets himself forget that it's borrowed, stolen, gifted.
She's brilliant, her smile is bright, her joy catching, her laugh music.
She grasps his loneliness, wrestles it into submission and then befriends it, tucks it close to her own self and carries it with her.
She never lets it break her, not like he had.
She grows like a weed, still brilliant and she still takes his hand and they walk down to the park, to her school, to her first date.
She can only smile when he makes that boy promise to treat her right, to not hurt her.
She laughs later about it, accepts it with grace and he never forgives her when she stops him from following through with that threat.
When she tucks herself to his chest and cries, mascara running, face blotchy and eyes swelling when that boy breaks her heart.
He forgives her when she falls asleep on his shoulder after her tears are spent, when he carries her up to her bed and tucks her in like so many nights before.
He forgives her when she peaks an eye open and asks for a story like she used to when she was small.
And so he tells her a story, talks long after she's asleep again and is still talking when she wakes in the morning with a sad little smile for him.
He cries when she gets engaged, cries with both sorrow and joy, more sorrow than joy because....because....
She asks him to walk her down the aisle and he cries because he shouldn't but how can he refuse that bright little star with her chocolate brown eyes and crooked grin and that spark of fire that she got from her father.
He walks her down the aisle, hands her over to the man she chose to marry.
He cries the entire time, cries when the first dance os had, when the mother/son dance occurs, when the father/daughter one doesn't.
He asks for forgiveness later, in the darkness of his apartment, when he's alone with his sorrow and guilt.
He's the first to know when she gets pregnant, the one that goes to the confirmation appointment with her because she's scared and doesn't want her husband to get his hopes up.
He makes her a baby blanket, soft blue and gold and red, she doesn't know why those colors, was too young to remember and once again he begs for forgiveness he doesn't deserve.
He's the third to hold the child when it comes into the world, screaming, loud, alive.
He cries then too, smiles through it at her, at her husband and wishes that he wasn't there, that her parents were there beside he in his place and he cries because it's his fault that they aren't.
He hands the squirmy bundle back, makes his excuses and leaves them to rest and bond.
Every birthday, every holiday, e goes to see them, he brings gifts, teaches them little things.
He babysits when she and her husband want to be alone, want to be alone, want to go on a date.
He loves those times, days filled with parks and laughter, nights filled with movies, bath-times and stories.
He recalls the girl's own childhood, he smiles and tucks in her children.
She ages, her hair grows grey and white, her husband's receads. Her children grow, graduate, join the company, invent new, brilliant toys and gadgets that make life better.
They get wrinkles, get married, have families of their own.
They live, he tries to.
Who dies.
They build them a monument, the two of them holding one another, gazes filled with love even encased in stone.
There are always flowers surrounding the base, at their feet, living ones, plastic ones, felt roses and cotton daisies.
It's considered good luck to leave your wedding bouquet at their feet, it's said to ensure a long, love filled marriage and for many years this hold true.
There are no words to describe the monument, no words would ever be enough.
Many people, from all over the world, come to pay their respects, whisper their thanks and offer little gifts, trinkets, in payment.
It's guilt that drives one man to the monument every day. He stops on his run and just stands, stares for several long moments before the child that he carries on his back begins to stir and he continues his run, lulls her back to sleep as it's much too early for her to be up.
As the years pass, the girl ages, grows tall, soon she runs beside the man instead of being carried.
The man doesn't pause his runs once the girl no longer sleeps through them, instead he returns later, offers stories to the monument rather than trinkets and tries to hide the tears that fall.
He begins to leave sketches, tucking them tight in the small space that separates the two figures. Eventually the rain disintegrates them and they fall apart, swept away by the wind when the paper dries.
One day he comes, late at night, still in his dress uniform, he tucks a beautiful sketch of a smiling young woman in a wedding dress in the tight space and he cries. He asks for forgiveness and he cries and sobs out a story, about a wedding and the joy of it and how he wished, he wished....
He comes more often after that, telling stories, some call him crazy and perhaps they are right, maybe he is but he comes around again, walking with the same girl as before, as months pass it becomes obvious that she is expecting a child.
When it is born the man begins his runs again, the child tucked in a little baby wrap against his chest.
He stops at the foot of the monument to feed the child in the cool mornings and he tells story after story until the child is droopy eyes and on it's way to sleep again.
As time passes children are added, the older ones move from being tucked against the man's chest to clinging to his back as their mother once did before graduating to running along side the man.
The monument soon becomes a resting spot and snacking place and the man will tell them stories as they eat and rest against him.
The children age, they stop running with the man, the man keeps running, pausing at the statue to talk.
The children age, the man does not appear to.
Many times the man asks for forgiveness, tears filling his eyes.
The monument does not grant it.
Who tells your story.
A group of children playing pretend, playing heroes, one holds a circular trash can lid, one a heavy mallet, one has a squirt gun in hand, another a toy bow and a plastic arrow, another wears a set of boxing gloves painted green, and the last wears red and gold.
They fight battles together, laughing and enjoying themselves, they play happily ever afters and make believe their heroes get married, sometimes to each other, sometimes to a newcomer.
A young girl, who is not young really, whispers a story, drunk or on the way to being so, into her cup.
A story about a man, scarred and broken, who had been kind to her, soft, gentle, in a way no one else had ever been.
Most of her parts are painted blue, all but one arm which is painted red and gold, carefully kept up when it begins to fade.
A man with a single eye wanders the universe, searching for something, someone who, in his heart, he knows is gone for good this time, he whispers a story about a man he once knew when he comes across frightened children just to make them laugh and smile again.
A king smiles at his sister and her friends, they remind him of another inventor and he watches as the group finishes their newly improved reactor and the building lights up.
They are excited and enthusiastic and the king has to turn away as they dance around.
The king pours two drinks and raises one up, leaving the other on the table, tilting his head slightly in difference before throwing the drink back. The other remains untouched as the children call to him excitedly.
A man tucks in a young girl, she does not belong to him, not really but he is all she has left so here he is and here she is and he tucks her in tight, puts her plush doll in the crook of her arm and is standing up to leave when she grabs his hands and looks up at him with bright eyes, brown, like her father's.
"Tell me a story, please?" She asks and he can't refuse her, not now so he asks what sort of story she'd like.
He's not prepared for her answer.
"About mommy and daddy." She says.
So Steve Rogers tells Morgan Stark about Pepper Potts and Tony Stark, tells their love story, with tears in his eyes and guilt in his heart because it's his fault they are gone, his fault that Morgan is an orphan now.
That instead of parents she's just got him now.
And he can't bring himself to ask her to forgive him for that.
He knows he doesn't deserve it.
A/n: in this story Pepper helps Tony use the Gauntlet and they both die leaving Morgan an Orphan and their will leaves her to Steve, reasoning unclear to everyone so Steve returns the stones, dances with Peggy once and returns home with Natasha in tow because retuning the soul stone brought her back and takes care of Morgan and raises her.
He takes her by the monument so that her parents can see her.
The Serum changed Steve so much that he doesn't really age, still appearing young even though Morgan grows up, no one recognizes him as Captain America anymore, that's Sam's place now.
I'm sorry that this wasn't a fix it.