Steve's Diary

April 7, 1970

Dear Diary,

Now, we're in a time I've never seen, but once had the potential to see if I hadn't been frozen. Hell, in 1970, I would have been 52... maybe it's better that I'm young enough to enjoy it for a few hours rather than live my life through it all alone and without Bucky.

Either way, Tony and I made it to Camp Lehigh, which at this point, was still up and running like it was when I was there.

—————

"Clearly, you weren't actually born here, right?" he asked as we walked through in our disguises.

"The idea of me was," I corrected him.

"Right, well, imagine you're S.H.I.E.L.D. running a quasi-fascistic intelligence organization... where do you hide it?" he thought out loud.

"In plain sight," I replied, staring right at the munitions building that I noticed had been stationed in the wrong place the last time I had been here in 2016.

I watched as Tony used his eye glasses to scan the building before he head towards it, meaning I had been right to assume nothing had changed. We entered the elevator inside and made our way down with another woman inside.

As the door opened with a ding, Tony stepped out. "Good luck with your mission, Captain," he said.

"Good luck with your project, Doctor," I regarded him.

After the doors closed, the woman started talking to me. "You new here?" she began very nicely.

I waited a moment. "Not exactly," was all I could really think to come up with.

She nodded and looked at me funny. It was like she knew.

After I got off, I managed to get my hands on Hank Pym's phone number- you know, on a phone I actually knew how to work, at least somewhat. I called him as soon as I could.

"Hello?" he answered.

"Doctor Pym?" I made sure.

"That would be the number that you called, yes."

"This is Captain Stevens from... shipping. We have a package for you."

"Oh, bring it up," he requested.

"Well, that's the thing, sir. We can't," I lied again.

"I'm confused. I thought that was your job."

"Well, it's just... sir, the box is glowing and, to be honest, some of our mail guys aren't feeling that great," I told him.

"They didn't open it, did they?" he made sure.

"Uh, yea, they did," I replied. "You better get down here."

With that, he hung up and so did I. I made my way to the office he was running out of so that I could get the Pym Particles. I grabbed four of them as carefully as I could and made as swift of an exit as possible, looking out for danger in the hallway as I did so.

Though, I heard a guard speaking and couldn't help but think it was about Tony and me. "And you've never seen these two men before?" he asked... the woman from the elevator.

"No, I've got an eye for this. The two of them looked fishy," she replied from down the hall.

"Can you describe them?" the one man asked.

"Well, one of them had a hippie beard."

"Hippie. Like Bee Gees our Mungo Jerry?" the guy asked, losing me at those cultural references I never really did finish catching up on.

"Definitely Mungo Jerry," she confirmed. With that, I ducked into a room and tried to get out of their line of sight.

I heard the man radioing for help regarding a potential breach, meaning me and Tony. We had to get out of there... now.

I was just about to make my exit from the dark office when I looked on the desk and saw a picture frame with a picture of myself pre-serum in it. Hell, that had to be from 1939 and, in this timeline, that was 31 years ago.

I picked it up and held it in my hands, wondering who the Hell at S.H.I.E.L.D. in 1970 would want a picture of my ugly frail self to look at on their desk everyday. I didn't even wanna look at it and it had been almost 7 years in my timeline since I'd seen myself like that.

I looked back at the fogged glass on the entrance door to see whose name was printed on it- who was responsible for keeping this terrible memory alive.

A 5.1-7

MARGARET CARTER

DIRECTOR

I could not believe my eyes. Of course Peggy was still alive, and she probably wasn't even that old yet! God, I felt so compelled to find her and talk to her in that moment, it was incredible.

"I said bring them in," I heard in a faint British accent coming from in the room attached to this one. I looked over as the lights turned on and watched as Peggy walked through the door.

"We're trying, ma'am, but Braddock's unit has been stopped by lightning strikes," a man followed her in and argued.

"Oh, for the love of- I'll look at the weather projections," she continued, but it became indistinct in my own head. I couldn't hear her, but her mouth was moving... I could only see her and take it in that I had missed her so much and had barely been able to say goodbye. She had been my best friend other than Bucky and, God, she was and remains the only other person who knew about us other than us.

I approached the window that separated us and just stared at her from the darkness I stood within, hoping to God that she wouldn't turn and see me. As much as I want to talk with her once more, I couldn't possibly risk anything. She, of all people, would recognize me right away.

"It's not lightning strikes we're looking at," she announced, storming out of the room.

Like that, she was gone. Just like last time. Just like Bucky. In an instant, without warning, and all too soon.

After, I made my way outside where Tony and I agreed to meet. I watched him say goodbye to an older version of the Howard Stark I used to know and a younger version than he ever knew.

—————

Within a few moments of their goodbyes, we were zipping through the time-space continuum all over again and heading back to the new Avengers Facility.

All we can do now is hope we did it all perfectly.

~ S. R.