Steve's Diary

June 13, 2016

Dearest Diary,

It really is the end of an era today, huh? I'm officially the last one- well, Bucky too I suppose, though, he's not really here right now.

—————

I was summoned to London, along with a few other Avengers, to attend the funeral arranged for Peggy Carter.

Additionally, I was asked to help carry her casket with a few other men. I really just cried in front of everyone there but, I don't care. Mourning is something I can't do without it... First it was mom, then Bucky, now Peggy.

We carried her to the front, draped in the English flag in honor of her service, and proceeded to listen to the ceremony.

"And now," the Priest began. "I would like to invite Sharon Carter to come up and say a few words."

As she approached the podium, Sam got my attention and had me look. She didn't really resemble Peggy that much, though, I don't see why I thought she should have.

"Margaret Carter was known to most as a founder of S.H.I.E.L.D. but... I just knew her as Aunt Peggy," Hold on. Aunt? As in, they're related and Peggy never said anything to me even after I mentioned the possibility of dating her? "She had a photograph in her office. Aunt Peggy standing next to JFK," she smiled. "As a kid, that was pretty cool. But, it was a lot to live up to. Which is why I never told anyone we were related. I asked her once how she managed to master diplomacy and espionage in a time when no one wanted to see a woman succeed at either. And she said, compromise where you can. But where you can't, don't. Even if everyone is telling you that something wrong is something right. Even if the whole world is telling you to move, it is your duty to plant yourself like a tree, look them in the eye and say, 'No, you move.'"

And, if those weren't words chosen by God for me and my exact current scenario...

Following her words and the last of the ceremony, everyone filed out. Though, I remained until there wasn't a single person left there. Not the choir, not Sharon, not even the Priest. Just me.

After a while of just standing there, as if I was waiting for her actual ghost to appear before me and be an apparition looking just as she had in the 1940s, Natasha walked in and stood there with me. She pulled me back down from whatever cloud I had been sleeping on and dreaming of a world where Peggy and I could have seen more of one another. A world where Bucky and I were together, even though we'd both married dames, because they knew and were okay with who we really were- just as Peggy had been. A world where we all got to live our lives the way they were meant to be lived.

"When I came out of the ice," I spoke first. "I thought everyone I had known was gone. Then I found out she was alive. I was just lucky to have her."

"She had you back, too," Nat reminded me.

I nodded and tried to forget that she was really gone. "Who else signed?" I asked.

"Tony, Rhodey, Vision," she listed.

"Clint?" I replied.

"Says he's retired."

"Wanda?" I continued.

"TBD," she relayed with a smile. "I'm off to Vienna for the signing of the Accords. There's plenty of room on the jet." I sighed. "Just because it's the path of least resistance, doesn't mean it's the wrong path," she clarified, stepping closer. "Staying together is more important than how we stay together."

"What're we giving up to do it?" I confronted her. She sighed. "I'm sorry, Nat. I can't sign it."

"I know," she responded.

I nodded. "Then what're you doing here?"

"I didn't want you to be alone," she pulled me into a hug. "C'mere."

—————

And, after we hugged for what felt like forever, I finally gave in and went on the jet ride with her to Vienna.

I couldn't let her go alone after she came all the way to London just so that I wouldn't be. What else are friends for?

But, still, I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea about this. It doesn't matter that I'm going, not at all.

I'm still not signing those damned papers.

~ S. R.