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Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution.
Only An Eclipse Away
3:24 PM, 24 July 2014, Brooklyn, New York
The rattle-clatter of a key turning in a brass lock jolted through the relative quiet of an open plan living area in a modest apartment. A subdued cacophony of honks filtered in from the traffic outside, rising and then fading quickly in volume as a series of bolts whirred and unlocked before an electronic beep sounded and the door opened.
An elderly man in a navy blue suit, head still full of hair though it was a melange of ashen cream and white, entered with a chocolate brown leather briefcase and a moderately-full beige canvas bag. The briefcase was quickly deposited on a console table with modernist lines that stood against the wall, by the door. The beige canvas bag was opened, peaked into and the contents rummaged through before being carefully set beside the briefcase. The man then began to shirk off his jacket, unbuttoning the solitary button before sliding it down his shoulders as he strode towards a hallway closet. He quickly hung up his suit jacket and selected a red cardigan to slip on. He shrugged the sweater on and pulled the zip up partway, making sure not to snag his sapphire blue silk tie. He rounded the muted blue linen ottoman placed next to a grey corner sofa and sat down on the former to take off his black leather oxfords.
A tinkling melody sounded, and the old man started, immediately looking up to where the noise originated: the kitchen. His eyes widened, and his brow furrowed, the man held his body ready to spring into whatever action he could manage. The tune was one he recognised from a long-running PBS Kids’ show, and the whimsical sound evolved to include a piano before the source was revealed. A cellphone, held up by a woman’s hand, was framed as the culprit in the open doorway.
A raven-haired woman’s head popped out, her face eliciting another jolt of surprise from the man before she stepped out to reveal the rest of her body. She was quite pale, something that was accentuated by her long dark hair and the soft fringe that framed her face; and she donned a loosely knit off-the-shoulder black sweater, frayed acid-wash denim shorts of a decent length and black converse sneakers with daisy print socks. She also had a steaming mug of herbal tea in her other hand.
“Teaching art to kids at a rec centre, wearing grandpa chinos and zip-up cardigans,” she listed as she pointed her chin at him. “I told you: if you dress like Mister Rogers, you become Mister Rogers.”
“Nat,” he scolded as he drew his hand back to rub over his chest, “I’m ninety-six, I’d like to keep being not-dead.” He sighed, ran a hand through his glossy grey hair and returned his focus to the blue tennis shoes he had been lacing up. Natasha paused the theme song to ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighbourhood’ that had been playing on her phone and strolled into the living room to take a seat opposite him in a worn but surprisingly comfy butterscotch coloured Barcelona chair.
“Steven,” Natasha acknowledged. She waited for him to look up at her and waved her phone in his general direction when he did. “How?”
“You’re so sure it’s me?” Steve chuckled.
“I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t,” Natasha assured him.
“True,” Steve agreed. He mulled his next words over for a moment before replying: “Time-travel mission.”
“Why? How?” Natasha nudged. She had slipped her phone into a red satchel handbag that Steve had only just noticed lying on his coffee table. Her fingers combed her dyed black tresses back behind her ear as she pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged and took a sip of her tea. The faint aroma that drifted across to Steve smelled like it may have been one of the red bush blends he kept in his pantry.
“I can’t tell you,” he stated simply. “It happened, it will happen, it is happening and I’m supposed to keep the flow as is to avoid further upsets to the universe.”
“Huh,” Natasha remarked. “When will it happen?”
“Natasha,” Steve tried to reason with his tone.
“No, Steve. What’s our expiration date?” Natasha demanded sassily. “Or did you leave me high and dry and however many decades ahead in the future.”
Steve glanced off to the view outside the large bay window across the room beyond his dining room set. It was a cloudy summer afternoon. The sky was the kind of stained blue that implied how humid the day was in New York City. Clouds tumbled by in slow motion. Still, he felt a chill, and it might have been his age, the significance of the date or the sudden company. He returned his gaze back to the young woman in front of him and smiled gently at her.
“Just let things play out naturally,” Steve murmured softly.
Natasha stared at him steadily. The fact that he couldn’t sense her emotions and only absolute neutrality in the air told him that she was indeed furious with him. After a few minutes, Natasha relented, inhaling sharply before she readjusted herself in her seat.
“I see you got married,” Natasha observed. She indicated the gold ring on Steve’s left hand with her eyes before she took another sip of her tea.
“Yes,” Steve revealed with a grin.
“Peggy?” Natasha inquired nonchalantly.
“First wife,” Steve confirmed before clarifying. “We divorced. I went back in time and I was still too late. We tried. Her heart was with someone else. Mine was too, I guess. The ring’s from my second marriage. I’m a widower now.”
“Oh,” Natasha breathed. She looked down at Steve’s tennis shoe clad feet, noted that they were actually Vans, and darted her eyes over to a small figurative statue on a floating shelf above the console table that looked as though it might have been one of those diplomatic gifts the Wakandans had been giving out in their recent efforts to engage more amicably with the global community. There were paintings, sketches, ink prints and even a Pride flag on the walls. Figures, figurines, and vases in oxidising brass, well-oiled wood and glass filled the display cabinet. “I… you have like two photos in this whole apartment, both are with very small children and one is in black and white.”
Steve shrugged. “I was a little paranoid.”
“You have to have a few albums- scrounging around your cupboards makes being nosy no fun,” Natasha teased. Her voice was light, but still carried the glimmer of an edge to it.
“Albums are in a safe deposit box,” Steve excused with his practiced smug ‘no comment’ grin. Seeing her brow quirked in challenge as Natasha settled her eyes back on him, Steve expounded incrementally: “My wife was in our line of business.”
“I see,” Natasha hummed.
“So, right now you’re building new covers,” Steve queried. He probably knew the answer but Natasha replied anyway.
“Yeah,” Natasha confirmed. “I’m meeting you for dinner and sex later. Young you.”
Steve snorted in reply. “I wouldn’t mind if you thought we were interchangeable. He’s got a great ass but personally, I think I’m more laidback. Plus I’m more experienced. I have more finesse.”
Natasha guffawed and shook her head. She set her three quarters empty mug on a coaster on top of the coffee table and set her feet down on the floor. Placing her elbows on her knees, she leaned forward.
“Y’know this explains why it was such an administrative nightmare to get your status changed from ‘senior citizen’, and why it kept being changed back,” Natasha accused monotonously.
“Yes, please stop me from changing it every month. Tell me to just let it be and enjoy the benefits,” Steve complained, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “The secret organisation keeping me secret is getting tired of getting the calls I feel I need to lodge with them complaining about the unfair price of cinema tickets.”
“I’ll try, but you know what you’re like,” Natasha snickered.
“I’ll listen in about four months,” Steve told her.
“This is so strange,” Natasha sighed. “I want to know more, but I can’t ask, can I?”
“Nope- well, not specifically, but maybe generally. Not right now. Ask about the past that is.”
“Are you happy now? How was it, your life? Did you get your dance with her?” Natasha rushed. She waited anxiously for his answers.
“I am happy now. I miss my wife. I miss quite a few of my friends. I miss Bucky, I miss Sam. But my life was… full of beautiful moments. Sad ones too.”
“You made peace with Bucky?” Natasha gleaned. “You’re going to.”
“It wasn’t easy. He’s going to give you the run around. But you know that,” Steve concluded.
“Yeah, I do,” Natasha grimaced. She let a shiver run through her and shook it off before taking a last glug from her mug and plonking it back down again.
Steve waited patiently for her to finish before he began again.
“I did get my dance. I had quite a few dances, my second wife actually taught me to do more than sway from side to side. She could really dance,” Steve admitted. His eyes gleamed as he recalled his past. Natasha recognised that contradictory velvet haze that lay beneath the surface; her Steve always got that look in his eyes when his mind went to a past she had no memory to share experience of.
“You learned to dance?” Natasha exclaimed brightly.
“What? Like it’s hard?” Steve retorted with a sneer. In a flash his mouth formed into a lopsided grin, one that Natasha had become increasingly accustomed to over the past nearly five months that she had been seeing Steve. “You get that reference, right?”
“You finally had time to catch up on noughties pop culture,” Natasha laughed.
“Brought my notebook to the cinema,” Steve jovially informed her. “Can’t rely on this eidetic memory of mine to grasp the important points.”
“Oh, you’re definitely my Steve,” Natasha wheezed. “Come on- I want to see you dance.”
“I haven’t done a revue since the forties,” Steve quipped.
“No, dance with me,” Natasha instructed as she hopped up and leaned over to pull Steve to his feet. “You have to back that kind of talk up.”
Steve allowed himself to be pulled into her arms, a strange expression in his eyes as he smiled down at her. The edges of his irises were tinged in a blue that was different to the shade she knew.
“Where’s your record player, old man,” Natasha asked.
“It’s 2014 and you already know I don’t have one here. You were in my apartment before I got here,” Steve reminded her. “Siri, play my dancing favourites.”
“Yes, Captain,” the familiar voice answered from an iPad docked on the side board beside the dining table. Natasha’s head darted up to look at Steve in surprise before she buckled over into peals of laughter. Soon enough a jive song began and Steve pulled Natasha closer into the correct stance for the lively dance. Natasha let him lead, and together they danced dance after dance, song after song between smiles, snorts, jokes and giggles until the setting sun begun to glare from behind the neighbouring building.
“Is that the time?” Steve asked in a solemn voice. His attention had been caught and held by the clock on the mantelpiece.
“Don’t tell me to go,” Natasha mumbled from her place wrapped up his arms. He wasn’t as buff as the other Steve, age saw to that; but he smelled the same. His energy felt the same, only more settled and perhaps his air was a little jaded.
“You know I couldn’t,” Steve whispered into her hair, “Not today, not right now.”
“What’s so special about right now,” Natasha asked as she tried to draw back to look up at him, but her efforts were in vain as Steve tightened his hold on her.
“You are, you were and you always will be my best friend, you know that,” Steve impressed upon her.
“Steve,” Natasha tried again, but Steve held her tighter. She let them finish their slow dance to the song playing before she gently pulled her body away from him. She wanted to ask, but her heart didn’t really want to know. He could never hide bad news well.
“I have to go,” Natasha reminded him. “I have a date with you in half an hour.”
Steve nodded vigorously at her, and swallowed audibly. He smiled, and Natasha noted the redness rimming his eyes. She leaned up to kiss his cheek- his skin was still soft, but it was different- and disentangled herself from his embrace.
She swirled to grab her satchel and swerved around her grey-haired former-yet-current-therefore-unable-to-be-labelled-with-temporally-descriptive-adjectives love to barge towards the door. She paused before she touched the handle and glanced back over her shoulder. Through ingrained habit, she noted that the beige canvas bag on the console table held a carton of eggs, a bag of apples, a jar of Nutella and what looked like a bottle of vodka from a distillery she was partial to.
“Can I come visit you again?” Natasha probed cautiously.
“If you want,” Steve replied. “You’re on the trusted persons list of my security system.”
“I know,” Natasha assured him.
“I’ll see you then?” Steve hoped. Natasha nodded her silent reply. Steve flashed her a tight-lipped smile before adding: “Just don’t bring that other guy around. Me- I mean.”
“Yeah, we don’t want the universe to explode,” Natasha chuckled.
“Not how it works,” Steve professed with a smirk.
“Goodbye, Steve,” Natasha whispered.
“Nat,” Steve called. She turned around fully to look at him. “I hope that one day you can look back and remember the wonderful life you had, full of beautiful moments, and the family you wanted.”
“I-” Natasha hesitated in her fluster. “Goodbye, Steve. I’ll see you around.”
“Goodbye Natasha- Natalia,” Steve bid. “You’re not a stranger, so don’t act like one.”
She smiled and slipped through the door before her tears could make themselves apparent. Natasha rushed to the building’s elevator and pushed the ‘down’ button. She ruffled her hair and dragged her hand down to swipe at her eyes. The elevator dinged its arrival. The doors opened and she almost ran right into a familiar burly chest covered in a khaki green t-shirt.
“Damnit, Steven, did you track me?” Natasha hissed as she glared at his boots. She blinked aggressively, but her vision wouldn’t clear enough for her to be able to make out more than his silhouette. She needed to get him out of there before he found out, because what she found that morning while exploring the neighbourhood of her latest cover would not be great for her boyfriend’s mental state. “Just because I taught you how to, doesn’t mean you can.”
Natasha wiped at her eyes with the edge of her sweater sleeve again and looked up at a familiar face, that wasn’t quite the same: A scruffily bearded chin, hazel green eyes with flecks of blue, unfairly long lashes, a few extra laugh lines and crow’s feet, and auburn hair tucked under a worn Dodgers baseball cap. It wasn’t her Steve.
“Ma-Miss Romanova,” the man spluttered. “Um, hi… are you visiting my father?”
Natasha continued to gawk at the stranger in front of her.
Remembering his manners, the man introduced himself: “Oh, I’m Steve’s son, James Clinton Rogers.”
He held his hand out towards her to shake. Natasha glanced at his hand in bewilderment, before frowning at the man who shared a name with a teammate and best friend of hers. A motion behind him revealed a little girl with slightly frizzy gingery hair tied back in two tight Dutch braids and caramel, freckled skin. She had hazel green eyes that carried more brown than her father’s, and was wearing a flowery red top, dark blue denim shorts and buttercup yellow leather sandals. She also had a purple mesh kit bag with her. James noticed Natasha’s scan and scooted the little girl in front of him.
“This is my daughter, Samantha,” James continued as he rested his hands on her small shoulders. The little girl peeked up at Natasha shyly and they stood in awkward silence for a moment. James slipped the purple bag from Samantha’s shoulder awkwardly and held onto it. The mesh holes revealed that it was stuffed with an assortment of martial arts and dance gear. Abruptly, he asked: “Have you already seen my dad? He can sometimes get lost in his art and not answer the door.”
“I did, we had a good visit,” Natasha explained.
“Good…” James responded a little too loudly. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak, but faltered before he did. “We’re doing a little something in memorial of my mother tonight. Would you- no, I’m being an idiot, I can’t ask that.”
“You can ask,” Natasha implored.
“No, I can’t,” James insisted firmly. “I can say that it was good that you visited today. And I hope you can visit him again. He doesn’t talk much about it, but I know he misses you.”
“He talks about me?” Natasha questioned doubtfully.
“He draws you,” James quietly stated. “Volumes and volumes of sketchbooks full.”
Natasha felt her eyesight become too blurry once more and nodded her goodbye to the pair of Rogers she quickly changed places with in the elevator.
“I’ll try,” Natasha promised as the doors closed.
James Rogers stood staring at the dull steel of the closed elevator doors vaguely aware of the panel of digital numbers indicating the floor ticking down above until it read ‘G’. Just moments ago, where he could right then only see the blue, grey and green blur of his distorted reflection, a living ghost had crossed his path. They hadn’t even touched- he wasn’t sure it had been real.
His daughter had already easily tugged herself and her bag out of his grip and skedaddled down the hallway to her grandfather’s apartment yelling out for her grandpa as she approached. James shook himself out of his daze and turned his head to find his father waiting for him in the open doorway with a sad smile on his face. Vaguely James recalled his daughter’s voice chattering to her grandfather in the background about a pretty lady they met by the elevator. Old Steve Rogers looked like he was about to start in on one of his emotional resolution sessions.
“Hey,” Steve began softly.
“Not today, Dad,” James stopped him with a hand held up as if that would protect him from his father’s understanding expression.
“Come on then,” Steve invited with a nod of his head. “I haven’t even started on dinner yet.”
“Does she know?” James asked his father as he followed him in.
“She’ll always know, son,” Steve promised as he had countless times before. He shut the door behind them and made his way into the kitchen to check on his granddaughter who had been tasked with putting away the groceries he had bought hours ago. He rescued the bottle of his wife’s favourite vodka from their uninterested granddaughter and set it high up on top of the fridge.
“I mean does she remember?” James reworded.
“No,” Steve declared simply as he joined his son at the sink to wash his hands.
“Are we talking about Great Aunt Peggy, Grandpa?” Samantha asked innocently.
“No, Sammy, sweetheart, another friend of mine,” Steve told his granddaughter as he bent to kiss the top of her head. “How about you go set the table so long, while your dad and I get started on dinner?”
Samantha happily accepted the responsibility and skipped off to accomplish her task.
“She looks just the same,” James mused as he pulled out a chopping board and knife.
“Well, that’s what cryogenics and the Kudrin Treatment will do for you,” Steve replied, handing his son an onion. James nodded thoughtfully and set about peeling the onion to chop, while Steve fished out tomatoes and vegetables out of his refrigerator.
“Do you think she’ll ever remember?” James asked his father earnestly. He’d put his knife down, half way through chopping, and sniffed loudly. There was moisture in his eyes, but that could have just been due to the freshly chopped onion.
Steve paused a moment to consider before answering, “I truly don’t know. I don’t know if she wants to. And it’s okay with me.”
“Honestly, I’d like to know more of her than what I remember. I’d like for her to know Sammy,” James admitted as he returned to chopping.
“She changes today. I remember that. Something changed in her today. Today, of all days… So we’ll see what happens,” Steve told his son sadly. “Though please try to understand, I wish I could do more, but your mother and I had what happiness we could.”
“I know,” James said. Still, he wished he could do more than finally make arrangements for a tombstone to place above the empty grave of Natalia Rogers.