A/N: I hope that this snippet-fic style is working for everyone. I really enjoy writing in it.
On your left is a joke, by some reckoning. There's irony—he used to be the straggler, and now he leaves them all behind. There's a touch of wryness to it, too. Running circles around normal people, unable to hide how different he is.
He leaves them all behind.
He leaves them all behind.
(Steve wonders what would happen if he never stopped running.)
...
Nick Fury has a headstone in a cemetery in the suburbs.
Steve Rogers has a museum display. He's only been there once. It wasn't the photos that got to him; it was the mannequins.
White, faceless, blank canvases.
Sometimes he wonders if skinny little Steve, with the split knuckles and the big voice in the little body, had a story that got erased so Captain America could live.
(And he lived. Oh, but he lived. And lived. And lives.)
...
In between the battles, the grandstand last stands of the Avengers (he's getting to think it will never quite be the last stand), he looks for Bucky. He tries to be a good friend to Natasha, to Clint. Even to Tony.
They keep looking for Bruce, too.
They keep working on these new lost souls, these new additions—and on his better days, Steve can believe in the team.
On his better days, he buys a drink with Sam afterwards, even swaps a story or too. Memories hurt less when you give them away.
On his less-better days, he listens to old records and buries his face in his hands.
...
War is coming. For a soldier, war is the thin line of red clouds on the horizon, the reminder that blood is in you and so is never far away.
The truth is, when the camaraderie wears off, it leaves a bitter taste. He and Tony didn't care for each other at first sight, and that wasn't without reason. They're friends.
That makes it worse, the feeling that everything's starting to fall apart.
It's not that Tony hasn't suffered, Steve knows now. It's that they haven't suffered the same way.
...
Peggy is dying and Bucky is alive and Steve just is.
It isn't supposed to be like this.
Maybe if he finds Bucky—
But another trail goes cold, and Steve lifts the needle off the record and sets it down again.
Ghosts on your left, on your right. Ghosts all around.
Captain America dies in the war.
(He just doesn't know which one.)