He had made a decision. Life was just a series of choices in the end. He couldn’t say he was proud of each and every one of the choices he’d made, but this last one -- passing on the shield, finding a life, that was one he’d had eighty years to embrace. When he stepped onto that platform outside Tony’s cabin, he’d known what he was going to do. He’d known there would be consequences, but they would be out of his hands. He had lost something, in that final battle. Watched another friend die. The best way he could think of to honor Tony’s memory was to emulate him, to go out and find the life the ice had stolen from him. He trusted Sam, he trusted Bucky, and he had enough faith left to believe that things might just work out.
He was sitting in Central Park. It was nicer than it was in his day, and now he’d had the privilege of watching it grow and change. He understood time a little better now. For eighty years, he had been having lunch in this park, with his wife or by himself, so he knew instantly that he was not in the same place. Despite appearances, something had happened.
Something always happened.
I can do this all day, That was still a thought in his mind. But he shook his head slowly. “I’m too old for this,” he murmured, shaking hands folding his newspaper carefully. “This time, I really am.”