“Chopinstraat 39, Amsterdam”. When she looked for Steve in the S.H.I.E.L.D files Peggy never guessed that she would read anything else but Brooklyn, New York in the address line. She flipped through the pages multiple times, checked the name and picture but it was the right file, no doubt. Of course, they informed her that administration has not been done on paper since the 80s and that the files from the archives hadn’t been updated since around then, but Peggy didn’t want to wait until she figured out the new system. Waking up in this new, confusing world was difficult enough. Peggy didn’t remember much at first but little by little it came back and those last seconds before she thought she would die were bright loud memories. She remembered being determined and unafraid but at the same time scared to death. And she remembers Steve’s voice on the intercom being the last thing she hears before the ear-piercing crash and the sudden silence after. If there is anything left from the past, Peggy has to hold on to it and maybe then she can slowly ease into this intimidating new millennium.
Of course, it wasn’t a good plan to take the first flight to Europe to look for a man who should now be 93, when nobody even expected him to live past 15, but here she is. In front of a beautiful red-brick building, almost completely covered by ivy, trying to gather the confidence to ring the brass doorbell above the little nameplate that said “Rogers” in classic cursive. Margaret Elizabeth Carter didn’t know fear in the 40s, not when she was a woman in a man's world, not when she was fighting Hydra and not when she stared death in the face and felt the fate of the world resting on her shoulders, but now, now she feels like a nervous schoolgirl again. But as soon as that thought enters her mind she presses the button, like a reflex from years of repressing any sign of weakness. She can hear someone moving inside, slowly the steps scuff closer, then a little rattling at the door handle, a key turning in the lock and finally the door opens.
“Goedenavond mevrouw, bent van de thuiszoorg? Is het dan al donderdag?”, an old man with full, grey hair is standing in the doorway. He looks like he’s trying to conceal his confusion and Peggy immediately feels a little more connected to him.
“I…, sorry, Steve, is that you?” she asks, even though the man doesn’t look like him. For all she knows, this is just an old Dutchman who has no idea what this young foreign woman could possibly want from him, but the doorbell said “Rogers” and that gives her a little hope.
“How do you know Steve? I don’t think I remember you,” the man replies, narrowing his eyebrows. He looks familiar, like someone she once knew, but she just can’t put her finger on it. That’s probably a consequence of living in two worlds, decades apart like she does.
“My name is Peggy Carter, I suppose you could say that I’m an old friend.” Peggy wants to explain, but the fog seems to lift from the man’s face and he smiles at her. Before she can say any other word, he takes her hand and invites her in.
“Peggy, damn I shouldn’t open the door without my glasses. I heard on the radio that they dug you up, I suppose those Hydra bastards shouldn’t have thought that they could bump off Peggy Carter this easily! Come in, come in, how did you find me here, you were looking for Stevie, huh? You’d think the dimwits who run S.H.I.E.L.D. these days would mention the death of one of their founders in their records,” he suddenly falls silent, as he realizes what he just said.
“I suppose I figured that it would be a miracle if medical-lucky-bag Steve lived to see this millennium, but he was the only one I could think of to clear all this confusion. He’s been fighting his entire life, it sometimes seemed like nothing could get him down.” Peggy follows the man into the living room. Dark red couches and an armchair in a painfully clashing orange plaid are arranged around a low, glass coffee table. The flames are flickering in the fireplace and the mantlepiece is filled with framed pictures and small trinkets. A larger picture shows Steve and Howard Stark in front of the first S.H.I.E.L.D. head office and Peggy suddenly remembers where she is.
“You’re… not Howard, are you?” she asks cautiously because the man still hasn’t introduced himself.
“Oh god no,” he laughs, “I just have that old pinhead on my mantlepiece because Steve looks so damn good in that picture. It’s Bucky Barnes, I’m almost insulted that you don’t remember all those pints we emptied together at the Whip & Fiddle or was it one too many for you?” he gives her a cocky smile that makes Peggy wonder how she didn’t recognize him right away.
“Barnes! Of course, the years haven’t done you any favours, old man,” she nudges him teasingly, “now pray tell, how come you live in Steve’s house?”
“We can’t all take a 70-year beauty rest, darling. And why would you assume that it’s Steve’s?” He almost doesn’t look like an old man anymore.
“Do you forget that I am one of the best agents the allied forces ever had, proficient in investigation and interrogation amongst many other skills?” she pauses and adds, “Besides, the plate by the doorbell says “Rogers” and you have pictures of him all over,” with a smile.
Bucky goes to the side table next to the armchair and picks up a picture. He slowly hobbles back to Peggy and hands her the frame. It shows two old men with neatly combed hair and fancy suits standing in a park. One of them is Bucky, the other, if a few decades older than when she last saw him, still unmistakably Steve.
“I have the doorbell sign, so the post people can correctly deliver my mail and I have pictures of Steve because I am a romantic sap and want to remember my husband,” he says. Peggy gives him a confused look and then looks back at the picture. They look happy. Of course, there was talk about dodgy Private Rogers and his a-little-too-close friend Sergeant Barnes, but now Peggy realises that it was never just talk. She also remembers Steve and the way he was to her, she remembers thinking that that little guy could really be someone she could fall in love with. And she thought that he loved her too, she thought that felt it when they danced that night at the pub after everyone else left and she felt it when he kissed her on the last day they were together before she went into the ice.
“There’s a lot you missed, Peggy. Why don’t you sit down, I’ll make some coffee or tea and fill you in,” Bucky says after Peggy stays quiet a little too long.
“Right… I was hoping to get answers today but so far, I only learned that the only man I ever loved is dead and also a homosexual,” she pauses a moment and then adds, “so it’s Bucky Rogers now, huh? You ought to go by James then, without the alliteration people will realize that Bucky isn’t a name anyone over the age of 12 should want to go by.”
Bucky returns from the kitchen with two steaming cups. He puts them down on Captain Carter coasters that make Peggy smirk and sits down next to her.
“Believe me, Steve was very much in love with you too. It damn nearly drove me insane having to watch him after we thought you died. He didn’t speak to anyone for a full week and when he finally came out of his room he looked even weaker than usual, I swear I thought that I’d have to bury the jackass before spring,” Bucky says to her in a calm voice. To her, it feels like just a week ago that she kissed Steve and yet here she his, next to his widower trying to understand everything that happened.
“That stubborn git, did he ever learn to take care of himself?” Peggy can smile at the idea of elderly Steve picking fights.
“On his very last day in this wicked world, he had a fight with a nurse who told him that he couldn’t donate his organs at the age of 84 and with every single disease in the books.” Bucky shakes his head and Peggy chuckles at the idea.
“That sounds like the guy I knew. Then please, fill me in on everything I missed, I have nowhere to be the next few decades and a lot of gaps in my historical knowledge.”
“Alright, let’s see, where should I start? After the war, we all felt euphoric at first, but after that faded, we were just kind of trying to get by. We didn’t get to be young and reckless, you know. Of course, I was a policeman before the war and Steve wanted to do art, so when we came back we thought we’d just try to go back to doing that. Steve was more political than me, you know how he was, always trying to save the world. He kept in touch with Howard and they founded S.H.I.E.L.D. to protect the little guy like him, that’s what he said, but I think he also did it to continue your legacy, he was stupidly inspired by you, you know.
They put all their energy into that, it was really quiet something. Of course, Steve wasn’t as active after we moved to Amsterdam and Howard also had Stark Industries that took up a lot of his time. That old bastard Hank Pym also did a lot if I recall it correctly, or rather his wife did. They were quite the pair, Pym and van Dyne, reckless the both of them. Sometime in the 80s, Steve had to fly to Berlin to call him on the carpet after he almost got himself killed, after that he took it a little easier on the field and did more in the office. Their daughter Hope is an active S.H.I.E.L.D. agent now, I believe that she works with your niece. Have you met Sharon? She’s a feisty girl, reminds me a lot of you back in the day.” Bucky pauses to take a sip of his coffee.
“Maybe I can find some old photos, get to my age and see if you can remember all the people you ever met,” he says and shuffles to a wooden cupboard. The whole living room looks like it used to be well decorated and matching a long time ago, but furniture has been replaced when it broke, and comfort was a priority over style. Peggy imagines that Steve found some of this stuff on flea markets or in antique shops and Bucky didn’t have the heart to tell him that it would look hideous. It smells like dust and smoke but also coffee and lavender.
“Do you smoke?” she asks without really thinking about it, but he seems to catch her train of thought.
“I stopped sometime in the 80s, but the damn smoke seeped into the walls. I never bothered to try and get rid of it, we bought those lavender sachets but it’s in the furniture. I don’t mind, reminds me of the good old days.” He finally pulls some albums out of the cupboard and makes his way back to the couch.
“See, this,” he points to a smaller version of the picture Peggy saw on the mantle, “is the one you know, with Howard and Steve, from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s founding days. This is the S.H.I.E.L.D. album anyway, so we got a lot of pictures of Steve shaking people’s hands,” he explains and flips to the next page. It is covered with smaller pictures of people in suits and stern looks, neatly stuck on the page and labelled with names and dates. The black and white pictures turn colourful somewhere in the middle of the album and Bucky tells anecdotes about some of the pictures and blames his age for every name he can’t remember.
“Here they are, Pym when he joined S.H.I.E.L.D., look at how young we were. And then here, a bit later, with van Dyne.” The later pictures are less official looking. One towards the end of the album shows two men in a heated discussion surrounded by futuristic devices Peggy can’t place.
“Who are they?” she asks, and Bucky looks at the picture.
“Ah, that’s Howard’s kid Tony. The little rascal spent so many hours with Steve and me, it almost feels like he’s our kid. He grew up to be quite the genius, reminds me a lot of Howard. The other guy is Bruce Banner, also a scientist. S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited him some time to work on a secret science project that I wouldn’t understand even if they told me what it was, and then they just never let him go. I think he has an excessive number of PhDs, but these days he lives in Africa and is put in his place by some kid he used to teach. I think we have some pictures of them as well.” Bucky closes the album and puts it down, “Tony gave a phone and said he’d send me pictures on there, but I pretend that I don’t know how it works because I prefer physical pictures.”
“Howard Stark settled down? I never took him for the domestic guy.” The thought of it makes Peggy smile a little. The thought of Steve raising a kid does so even more.
“Oh yes, Maria Carbonell. Believe me, we were just as surprised as you are. You know, I feel damn awful for thinking it, but I am almost happy that Howard wasn’t quite the daddy of the year. Steve always wanted kids, but of course, that would have been difficult for us. But when Howard asked us to look after Tony every once in a while, and then even for longer periods and or the entire summer… You should have seen the look on his face! Wait, I’ll show you the pictures.” Bucky grabs a leather-bound album with the name “Tony” engraved on the cover. Together they flip through the pages and for almost every picture Bucky tells Peggy a wonderful story about the past and the people he very clearly loves. The older ones show a little boy, sometimes sitting on Bucky’s shoulders in the park or holding Steve’s hand at the zoo. Then some from all over Europe in front of famous sights or stunning nature, always accompanied by the name of the place and a postcard. The most recent picture shows an adult Tony Stark in front of a mountain panorama.
“This one is from his recent visit to Sokovia. He does a lot of humanitarian work these days. Sokovia used to be a secret Hydra base, but Tony discovered that years ago when he went there for the first time. He goes there every once in a while now, he says that he just goes because he likes the chicken paprikash, but I know that it’s because he cares for the people. Most of Howard’s money goes into development aid but it’s not like Stark Industries doesn’t still generate seemingly infinite amounts of money. Tony’s wife Pepper is in charge of the company now and the company is more successful than ever. Tony calls me almost every week to ask if I really don’t want to move into a bigger house, but I keep telling him that if anything it’s going to be a smaller home for me.”
“Sounds like you raised a wonderful man,” Peggy says. Waking up in a different time was terrifying, she thinks, but learning about the success and happiness of her friends makes it a little less daunting.
“Tony’s a good guy, but he’s tough as iron, he would have made the world a better place without anybody’s help. I’m sure of it.” Bucky smiles and after looking through the whole album and hearing a story with every picture, Peggy feels like she is part of this family, as if she too has watched Tony Stark grow up and celebrated every milestone of his life.
“That sounds an awful lot like a certain other guy I used to know,” she says and they both smile at the memories.
“Yes, stubborn blockheads the both of them, but I wouldn’t want to imagine my life without them.”
“I believe that,” she says and pauses. Then Peggy asks: “How come Steve ever left Brooklyn, I honestly thought he’d be buried in the same street he was born in.”
“Believe me, so did he. But things changed. I told you I worked for the police after the war. Well, that and then I also started a group within S.H.I.E.L.D. to help veterans. When we came back I just saw all these guys who didn’t know how to live a normal life anymore, you know. The barracks where an awful place to be at night with cries and screams of grown men, but the shell shock doesn’t go away when you come home. It never really does. It hit Steve pretty badly, me too if I’m honest. I think the first week back in Brooklyn we didn’t get a single minute of sleep, so we met up with other guys. That fucking war messed up a whole generation but at least sitting together with others who’ve been through the same was good. Comforting. I proposed to form a group, somewhere for men to go and talk, somewhere they could help each other, or get help. A lot of the guys laughed at the idea, said that men didn’t need to talk, only nutcases needed that and all that bullshit. I got so angry, all those fools thought they could drink a bottle of rum every night to be able to sleep and that would be the healthy way to cope with something like that. If my mama ever taught me anything, then that there is nothing you shouldn’t talk about and that’s what I lived by, Steve could’ve told you quite some stories about it.” He chuckles a little.
“That wasn’t the reason we moved though, but it’s what I did besides police work. My only real contribution to S.H.I.E.L.D. Regular, small-scale police work was just more accessible for me, but they still have my programme on today, a guy named Sam Wilson leads it now. He does a great job, but don’t let him know that I said that, that jackass wouldn’t let me forget about it.
We moved in the 60s. By that time S.H.I.E.L.D. had offices around the world and Steve could work from anywhere, and I suppose I never really enjoyed police work quite the same after the war, but when there was talk of another war in the 50s I panicked. I don’t know how likely it would have been that they’d draft us, but I didn’t want to imagine having to go back to a battlefield. When they began sending boys to Vietnam Steve was still too weak to be drafted and I would be spared for being a police officer, but I begged him to leave before it could even get that far.” Peggy didn’t know that there was another war but imagining all those poor boys who were sent from one battlefield right onto the next made her shiver.
“So we just packed our stuff and moved. Howard said that we’d like it in Amsterdam because it doesn’t feel so much like a big city and because they had really good hospitals and medical care even then. He also said that it would be easier for two men like us living together there and I suppose he was right. Sure, New York was one of the best places to be in the US, but if we stayed there we never could have gotten married.” Bucky picks up another album from the stack on the floor, this one a little smaller, bound in light linen.
“Look, we had a real ceremony, with suits and cake and all.” His eyes light up and Peggy can’t help but feel incredibly happy for him. Bucky opens the cover and reveals the first page that says ‘Mr and Mr Rogers’ in golden calligraphy. They go through every page and Peggy recognises some of the people from other pictures, but many of them are not familiar.
“Who are they?” She asks pointing to a picture of a small group chinking champagne glasses.
“Ah, this one is Sam Wilson, the one I told you about, and the woman is called Natasha Romanov, one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s best agents. Janet van Dyne started an initiative to rehabilitate ex-convicts sometime in the 80s after Hank and she retired from active duty. Most of them were regular thieves and junkies, but they did supervise the odd assassin or Soviet spy and she truly was one of the best. Our friend Clint,” he turns to another page, says, “that’s him with his wife,” and continues, “he trained with her and saw potential so S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited her. And the kid is called Peter Parker, I don’t think that he’s old enough to drink but his parents didn’t say anything so neither did we, God knows I’ve been drinking much earlier. The Parkers work for S.H.I.E.L.D. and I think their son had some kind of encounter with a spider that gave him freaky powers. He is also supervised by S.H.I.E.L.D., but mostly Tony, he’s become like an uncle to the kid. Speaking of which,” Bucky turns to the next page and points to another group of people sitting around a table, involved in a heated discussion, “these are the Parkers and that it Peter’s real uncle, Ben, with his wife May. Anyway, they were to Peter a bit like Steve and I were to Tony and I think that’s why Tony has such a soft spot for the boy.”
“And here,” Bucky points to another picture of a group on the dancefloor in colourful dresses, “you see Dr Banner again. I told you he lived in Africa and from what he tells me he’s having the time of his life. Damn, maybe in another life I’ll get to go there as well. He’s researching Wakandan Vibranium, you know, the material that Howard used for your Shield.” Peggy interrupts him:
“I thought that was incredibly rare. Are you telling me Mr Stark told me yet another lie?” She asks in a fake offended tone.
“Oh no, what he told you about that was the truth, maybe the only one the old bastard ever told, but Tony travelled to Wakanda for his humanitarian work and in his discussions with King T’Chaka, who’s the guy in the yellow robe right here, he learned that the country really doesn’t need his help. When Bruce learned about it he rushed to Wakanda to study everything. The girl he’s dancing with here is Shuri, T’Chaka’s daughter. She basically grew up in Banner’s lab watching his every move and learning all she could, until she surpassed his genius at the age of 15 and made Mr-septuple-PhD look like a real fool.” Peggy laughed at the idea, but also because this young girl was only a teenager and possibly the smartest person in the world. If 15-year-old Peggy had known of Shuri she certainly would have been her idol.
“Look, in this picture,” Bucky says gesturing to an image of two serious looking old men and two younger people. The men are talking and one of them has his hands up in a wild gesture, the younger ones are a woman, who seems to be following the conversation and a man who’s pulling at her sleeve, turning towards the camera, “that’s Howard having yet another argument with Pym. Those two never seemed to get along, but I think a lot of it was just a façade and they secretly really admired each other. The woman is Hank’s daughter Hope, she’s a tough one, a bit like you, and that’s her boyfriend Scott. He’s… well, something else, but I think he is just what the Pym-van Dynes needed for their ‘all business, no fun’ attitudes. He was also one of the participants in Janet’s programme. Just a thief, but one of the better ones they say. That’s also how he met Hope, to this day it remains a mystery why she agreed to go out with him, but I am also still clueless how I got Steve to agree to marry me, so some mysteries might just have to remain unsolved.” Bucky closes the book and smiles down at it. Peggy does too.
The afternoon was filled with new information, faces, names, stories. So much more than Peggy thought she would hear today. When she stood at the door earlier she thought she’d have to hear a stranger explain to her that the man she is looking for died and that everything she knew is gone, but it turns out that it is not. Life goes on, it always does, and most of the people she knew are dead now, but there are new people, maybe a new family. When she gets back to New York she will look up this Sam Wilson, she thinks. And Tony Stark of course. She will teach her niece Sharon every skill she learned while being a female agent in the 40s and hope that she hasn’t figured out all that wisdom by herself and she will definitely travel to Wakanda and meet this genius girl Shuri. Maybe Bucky wants to come with her, so he doesn’t have to wait until another life to see it too.
“It is getting late. If you want you can stay here, I can fix you up with the guest room. Those ungrateful kids don’t visit their elderly enough. Why don’t you stay a few days, and I’ll catch you up on everything else you missed tomorrow? I have about a million stories about pointless fights Steve picked and maybe a dozen of those he actually won.” He smiles. Everything he says sounds sincere and Peggy thinks how odd it is, that just last week she would have never guessed that Bucky Barnes could invite her to stay the night and she’d say yes, but things aren’t the way they were last week and technically it wasn’t even last week, but 70 years ago.
“That sounds lovely,” she replies, and she means it, she really does.