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not-close-to-straight · 5 years

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Whatever It Takes (Post-Endgame Fix It)

Warning: Contains EndGame Spoilers

And, uh... tissues? Definitely tissues.

Also Morgan Stark owns my heart and that’s just all there is to it.

*****************

“On your left.” The quiet voice was Steve’s only warning before the little girl climbed up on the bench next to him. “Hey Uncle Steve.”

“Hi Bug.” He smiled down at Morgan, who predictably wrinkled her nose at the ridiculous nickname. “On your left, huh? Did you learn that from Uncle Sam?”

“Mm-hmm.” Morgan kicked her feet idly. “He says it to Uncle Buck all the time when they run.”

“I bet he does.” Steve laughed quietly and went back to staring at the lake. “And what does Uncle Buck say next?”

“Thing I’m not s’posed to say.” Morgan said matter of factly. “But then he pushed me on the swing for a long time so I told him I wouldn’t tell. I know it’s extortion but that’s okay.”

“Extortion.” The idea of the former Winter Soldier held hostage by a five year old threatening to tell on him was the best thing Steve had heard all day. “Where’d you learn a word like that?”

“My daddy.”

Oh.

“Right.” Steve cleared his throat. “What other words did your daddy teach you?”

“Shenanigan.” Morgan answered promptly. “And re-donkulous. Exquisite because that’s what he calls mommy. Recon-- recon--” she thought for a second. “Re-con-silly-ation? He said that’s what adults do.”

“Yeah. That’s-- that’s what adults do.” Almost six years later and Steve could still see the look on Tony’s face, could hear the anger when he’d snapped ‘liar!’ and almost six years later, despite their laughs and moments of trust, almost six years later it still hurt. It still twisted something awful in Steve’s soul.

“What um--” It took more time than Steve wanted to admit to be able to speak again. “What do you have there? You’ve been coloring?”

“Oh yeah!” Morgan unfolded the construction paper, smoothing it out across Steve’s lap and pointing out the details. “That’s our house and there’s the lake.”

“It’s a very pretty lake, Bug.”

“Hush, I’m not done.” she smacked Steve’s hand away when he tried to point at something else. “There’s the gazebo where we put flowers for Auntie Tasha and there’s you because you always sit right here. My tent is over here--” a perfectly drawn triangle with a curly haired stick figure next to it. “And that’s mommy in the jet with Papa Happy.”

“--and here is where Grandpa Green works in the garage--” a miniature hulk with a big smile and thick glasses. “--here’s Sam and Bucky and Pete playing and this--” she tapped the far edge of the drawing. “--the blue one is Nebs, but I got her color wrong. And that’s supposed to be Harley, but he didn’t like how I drew his shoes so I gave him a skateboard.”

“Where’s your Papa Rhodey?”

“Right here.” A blob of silver flying in a corner. “Saving the world because that’s what he does.”

“That is what he does.” Steve nodded a few times. “It’s a great picture, honey.”

“I’m a great artist.” she said seriously. “Almost as good as you.”

“I think you might be better.” Steve drew his fingers across several long lines on the top of the page, dotted through with smiling figures. “What’s this up there?”

“That’s the multiverse.” Morgan dug out a crayon from her pocket. “Daddy told me that there are parallelogram universes? And they are out there too and there’s one of us in almost all of them. So that’s the multiverse and these are all the versions of my daddy watching over us.”

Intent on coloring in another rainbow in the sky, Morgan missed Steve’s face crumpling, missed the tears that he had to wipe away with his shirt.

“He told you about parallel universes?”

“That’s what I said.” Morgan added another stick figure with a blue circle over his heart to the rainbow. “Parallelogram universes. That’s why I try not to be sad, cos I know he’s not really gone. Just somewhere else, right?”

“...right.”

“Uncle Steve?” Morgan drew yet another rainbow and another stick figure, coloring this one in with red and gold. “Can’t you just go to a parallelogram and get my daddy back? And Auntie Tasha? That’s why Grandpa Green keeps working on the time machine right?”

“I--”

“Plus, you’re a hero.” she kept coloring. “And that’s what heroes do. Fix the story, whatever it takes?”

“Did your daddy tell you that, too?”

“My mommy did. After daddy--” Morgan’s hand stilled for just a second and Steve swooped her up in his arms in a tight hug. “Um, after daddy---”

“Hey, tell you what.” Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath so he wouldn’t break down. “Tell you what. Let’s go find Uncle Sam and see if he’ll take you for a ride with red wing, huh? Your mom will love that.”

“Mommy hates shenanigans.” Morgan peeked up at him and Steve wiped a tear off her cheek. “We should video it too.”

“Yeah, we definitely should. Come on, let’s go find him.” Steve folded up the picture and put it in his back pocket, then hefted Morgan up in one arm. “And maybe we can find a new magnet to put on Uncle Bucky’s arm.”

*****************

That night, Steve went to the garage that had grown into a workshop and now was practically a full blown lab, knocking on the door so Bruce knew he was there.

“Hey Cap.” It was still a little disconcerting to see Bruce’s face on the Hulk, but Steve smiled up at him anyway. “Is Morgan feeling better? She was pretty down, earlier.”

“Yeah, she’s alright now.” Steve settled heavily onto one of the stools, his head in his hands. “It’s pretty cute she calls you Grandpa Green.”

“It was cute until Scott tried to call me Papi Verde.” Bruce deadpanned. “Now it’s just sort of terrible.” he waited a beat then added, “You don’t ever come in here Cap, not since Tony. What are you doing here?”

“Bruce.” Steve blew out a loud breath. “Can you talk to me about the multiverse?”

“No.” Bruce said immediately. “Steve, no. You think I haven’t considered that? You think I haven’t ran every single equation and all the odds and--”

“Just tell me about it.”

“I miss him too. But we can’t just--”

“Tell me about it.”

*****************

No one knew how Steve did it, because Steve never told.

But one day he suited up in that white and red suit and winked over at Morgan, “Back in a minute, bug.” and was gone.

And then he was back, the entire left side of his body burned and ravaged and scarred, his eyes a little wild and his breath coming hard but he stumbled off the platform and into Sam’s arms--

--and Tony stepped off right after him.

“Daddy!” Morgan screamed and went running for Tony and Pepper collapsed on the cabin porch when she came out to see what the noise was and saw Tony crying and holding onto Morgan as tight as he could.

Not more than a second later, the platform rumbled and burst and Natasha fell through as if she’d been running for her life, coughing and gasping for air, clinging onto Bucky when he picked her up from the dirt, staring over at Steve with tears of disbelief running down her face.

It was a miracle and it was an impossibility and somewhere somehow laws had been bent and time had been forced and Steve never told anyone how he did it, but the damage was written across every inch of his skin, right into the very molecules that made up the All American Man.

He aged faster after that, almost faster than normal as if his body just couldn’t keep up. The blonde hair silvered and the strong shoulders stooped and the day he handed over the shield to Sam, his hands shook.

But the blue eyes never lost their glimmer and his smile for Morgan was as big as it had been before, his smile for Tony and Tasha a little sadder than it had been before but it was only one side of his face, the other side paralyzed with the nerve damage that no amount of nano tech could cure.

“I figured out how you did it.” Tony said one night after another physical therapy session trying to get a better range of movement in Steve’s left shoulder. “How you saved me and Tasha.”

“No you didn’t.” Steve shook his head and took the beer Tony offered him.

“Alright fine, I didn’t.” Tony huffed and dropped onto the bench next to him. “I was hoping to shock you into blurting out the right answer.”

“Valiant effort.”

“Yeah whatever.” Tony took a drink of his own beer. “Smart ass.”

They sat in quiet for a while, watching the stars come out over the lake, listening to the sound of the rest of their patched together family having dessert in the main house.

Tony was already drawing up plans for a massive addition since everyone had just sort of... moved in... after Thanos and showed no inclination of moving out, and every day he griped that the cabin was supposed to be his and supposed to be private, but every day the plans got a little more elaborate and he always always smiled about it.

“Tell me how you did it.” he finally demanded. “Just like.. a hint. I gotta know.”

“No.” Steve said, just like he always did. “No, Tony. That-- it doesn’t matter.”

“Well what did it cost?” Tony pressed, eyes darting over Steve’s side. “Besides-- besides this. What did it cost?”

“Everything.” Steve rolled the bottle between his hands, closing his eyes against a shudder. “It cost-- it cost everything. But I was willing to do whatever it took to fix things, so that’s what I did.”

“Because that’s what heroes do.” Tony finished. “Whatever it takes?”

“Whatever it takes.”

They were silent again until the house had calmed down and the moon had risen and Pepper started calling for Tony to come in to read Morgan a story.

“I’ve gotta uh--” Tony motioned towards the house and Steve nodded. “Thank you for this, Steve. Cap. I get to read my baby a story again tonight and that’s-- I couldn’t have done this without you saving us.”

“You saved us first, Tony.” Steve replied. “You saved us first.”

“Um--” Tony paused before heading in. “Is there a version of me out there that never made it on the plane to Afghanistan? Just stayed partying it up and never became Iron Man?”

“Yeah, he’s a dick.” Steve laughed and Tony laughed and neither one mentioned how the laugh sounded more like a sob. “And uh-- there’s a version of me that never went in the ice and got to love Peggy for a real long time too.”

“That version of you sounds boring.” Tony pulled a page out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Steve. “I prefer this one.”

Steve waited until Tony had gone inside and scooped a screaming Morgan up the stairs before he unfolded the page and opened it over his lap.

It was a genuine Morgan Stark drawing, complete with the cabin and the lake and her sitting in her ever present tent.

There was Papa Rhodey and Pepper in her Rescue suit off saving the world, there was Grandpa Green in the lab. Sam and Bucky running around and Peter flinging webs and Nebs and Harley playing what looked like monopoly. Over in the corner was apparently Uncle Clint with his family all holding bows and arrows and a red headed figure that was definitely Tasha standing with them.

And in the sky was drawn a series of rainbows, and sliding down the biggest rainbow was a stick figure with a star shield, bringing a red and gold figure back with him from the sky.

There were stars and hearts drawn all around, glitter and sparkles and flowers and scrawled across the bottom in Morgan’s adorably terrible writing:

My Uncle Steve saving the day.

Luv U 3000.

“Whatever it takes.” Steve whispered, staring down at his scarred hand and feeling the ever present push of pain, pushing away the memories of what he’d seen and what he’d done and the life he’d given up to save this one. “It was all worth it.”

*********************

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#ncts fics #avengers #avengers endgame #endgame spoilers #fix it fic #steve rogers #tony stark #morgan stark #whatever it takes #love you 3000

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