Because I’m still not done with this idea:
Steve receives the text and rushes to the stairwell, trying to make it before the tears start falling. He sinks to the ground, and he fumbles for the compass in his pocket where it always rests, his constant companion. He pops open the clasp, an action driven entirely by muscle memory because his eyes are too full of tears to see anything clearly, including Peggy’s picture. Her face is blurry as he stares at his true north, and he feels the whole world tilt on its axis because that true north is gone forever.
It burns a hole in his pocket as he carries the casket, the heaviest burden he has ever shouldered. He feels weak and sickly, like he did in the depths of winter before the serum made him impervious to those things. He can feel the compass rubbing against his leg with every step, a constant reminder that the love of his life now only lives in his memory, encompassed in a small, round relic that kept him company during seventy years of isolation. It will keep him company for a little longer.
He rubs his thumb along the side of the compass through the whole service, a small point of connection, a nervous habit that he hasn’t managed to shake. The metal is cold, so cold, like it has just been pulled out of the ice, and Steve feels the cold in his bones more profoundly than ever before. He’s suddenly struck by the wrongness of it all. He should be holding Peggy’s hand, leaning in to hear her snide comment or dry laugh, rather than clenching the old compass tightly in his fist, a shadow barely compensating for the real thing.
He drives the VW Bug one-handed, even though he can feel Sam and Bucky side-eyeing the steering wheel nervously. The compass is clenched tightly in the other hand, questions and doubts swirling around in his head until he can’t hear anything other than the beating of his own heart and Sharon’s words (Peggy’s words) from the funeral. Peggy had always been his touchstone, his rock, and as the world seems to be falling to pieces around him (not for the first time), he wishes with all his heart that Peggy was there, to affirm his action or to shoot at him for being stupid again.
During the fight, he almost forgets that the compass is with him, but after it’s over, as Steve and Bucky are rushing toward Siberia, he pulls it out again. He feels her absence keenly as he flies a plane in order to save his best friend once again. It just doesn’t seem right not to have her there. Out of the corner of his eye, Steve sees Bucky eyeing the compass curiously, like there’s a memory just out of reach.
“Peggy,” he says, answering Bucky’s unspoken question. “She was with the SSR, worked with the Commandos a lot during the war.” Bucky snorts. “She was a lot more than that, Steve.” He shakes his head. “I may not remember a lot, but I remember you going moon-eyed over her at every encounter.”
“Yeah,” Steve sighs, rubbing his thumb along the edge of the compass, the edge now shiny from constant wear, “she was the right partner.”
After he drops the shield, after the fight is over, after Bucky chooses to go back into cryostasis, he hides in a forgotten corner of T’challa’s palace. He pulls out the compass, his constant companion, and rests it against his forehead, the cool metal a perfect antidote to the feverish rush of thoughts and excuses he couldn’t escape, no matter how fast he runs. “I don’t know where I’m going next, Peg. I just…I don’t know.” He sighs and goes quiet, straining for even a hint of her voice on the breeze that rushed through the corridor. It is silent.
Steve hangs his head, the compass hanging loosely from one hand.
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