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calumfmu · 5 months

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could u maybe write an angst fic where steve leaves reader for nancy? based on traitor by olivia rodrigo. maybe she writes him a letter/song?

Yess baby of course. Here it is. Thank you for your long continued patience and for the others—I promise I’m getting to them.

2.4k; cw: cheating (but not really), swearing, angst, Steve’s a dick—and not in a cute way.

You had to admit to yourself that you knew it was always weird. How fast Steve had gone from pining over Nancy and always thinking about her to suddenly being interested in you. You thought it was a dream come true at first, something that he had finally came to his senses about. It had been years you had liked Steve, pining over him during high school, always pressed to the background, but always there.

Getting to know him was the easiest part of it all, learning the way that his body fit into you, like two pieces of the same puzzle. He was always sweet, so kind to you, called you beautiful even when you felt like it was your worst days. You loved Steve Harrington. Loved everything about him because you knew how deep his love could truly go. There was one thing though.

Your head sat against his chest, ear pressed to his sternum while he laid underneath you, half propped up on the couch. Your eyes were dropped low as he ran his fingers through your hair, trailing them along the hair at the nape of your neck, dancing over the skin. The hug you two found yourself in was lazy, but comfortable, a tangle of limbs that had it hard to decipher where one body ended and the other began.

“Don’t fall asleep on me now,” he whispered, laughing softly as you hummed at him. His calm heart beat was felt through his sweater, lulling you further into slumber.

“Shut up!”

Robin’s voice was heard from the kitchen—loud and brash—like it always was. The two of you heard the click of the receiver as she threw it down, her stomps announcing her arrival into the room.

“Hey Robin, when are you going to stop running my phone bill up?” Steve questioned, shrugging at her with a faux frown as she was wide eyed, hand on her stomach. You laughed at his words, knowing just how much he would rather have her in his house, running up any bill than anywhere else in the world.

“Oh quiet, you know you don’t even pay a single bill on this house,” she muttered, waving a hand to brush off his words.

You rubbed your head against his chest, turning slightly to look at her standing in front of you guys. Steve awaited her next words, eyebrows raised as she took a deep breath.

“You guys are never going to believe this,” she was grimacing her words, mouth exposing her teeth in an awkward fashion. She made a pause, pressing her hands in front of her in the air.

Steve raised a hand from your hair, urging her on before placing it on your back. “Well… spit it out.”

She rolled her eyes, “Jonathan and Nancy broke up. Like officially. Broke up, broke up.”

You waited for the next line, waited for some jaw dropping moment. Not having to wait long, your eyes crinkled in confusion, feeling Steve’s heartbeat beneath his chest kicking up a notch. He shifted below you, your head falling from its resting place as he sat up, suddenly.

“Wh-what do you mean?” His voice was concerned, slightly shaky as you sat up, rubbing your eye from where it had caught on his sweater in his hasty movement. Your side eye was lethal, boring into him as he was staring deeply into Robin’s eyes.

“I know! Isn’t that crazy?” She exclaimed, eyes wide as she waved her arms around.

You felt like the odd one out, chewing your bottom lip as she two of them discussed the separation. Clearing your throat, you closed in on yourself, clasping your hands at your waist.

“Can I ask—“ the two of them looked at you, cut off mid-speech. “Who’s Nancy?”

Robin’s eyes widened as she straightened up, mouth clamping shut as she briefly glanced at Steve. He was silent, staring down at his hands.

“Steve, you didn’t—“ she shook her head, briefly shutting her eyes. “She’s, uhh, how do I-? She’s Steve’s ex, well—friends now, but ex.”

You nodded, glancing over at him as he found interest in the couch, picking at a loose thread. It dawned on you that you were only aware of one person from his past, that girl he was with in high school, the reason why his reputation turned sour. The most you heard of her was from other people around town, brief memories of her from high school, everything but from Steve himself.

“Wait, Wheeler? Junior year Wheeler?” You questioned, confusion crossing your features. Steve cleared his throat, a loud cough that filled the awkward silence in the air.

“Yeah, that doesn’t matter now,” he said, ignoring the pointed look Robin gave the two of you, choosing to walk out of the room. “She’s just a friend now.”

You couldn’t help, but linger you gaze on him, doubting his words even as he leaned in to press a kiss to your forehead. There was a weird sting in your chest, a feeling that felt like a forewarning.

Your reflection stared back at you, a hollow ghost of a shell as you applied your moisturizer, smearing the cool gel across your cheeks. It was weird, seeing yourself like this. Stuck inside of a memory of a person, you didn’t even recognize yourself anymore.

It was late—three in the morning, the comedown of another argument you had with Steve, over something stupid he had done or said earlier, you couldn’t remember it at this point. Maybe it was something you had done or said at this point, possibly joking about him hanging out with his ‘other girlfriends’, something that used to make him laugh, but now had him on the defense.

As you finished up your night routine, his footsteps came down the hall, slowly creeping open to door with the push of his socked foot. His head peaked around the corner, his brown eyes widening as they caught sight of you.

“I thought you were gonna be in bed,” he said, making his way over to your bed. His shirt was off, exposing mole dotted skin, hair on his abdomen, trailing down into the waistline of his pants.

Three months ago and you would’ve jumped him in that moment, exhaustion the only thing on your mind lately.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Your voice was curt, short responses residual from the argument. Glancing at him in the mirror, you could see his eye roll.

He turned over, back to you as he flicked off the bedside light. It left you in darkness, your own eyes rolling in response as you had no choice but to go to bed next to him, awkwardly shuffling under the sheets.

He breathed deeply, body rising and falling with his breath, tucked away in his corner. You stared at his back in the darkness, sadness over your features as you adjusted to the dim room, only lit by the moon shining through parted blinds.

“Steve?”

Your voice was small as you said his name, waiting a few moments before he turned around to face you. You could see the reflection of the moonlight in his eyes, slightly glowing as he traced your face.

“What’s wrong, babe?”

Your heart ticked, the first time he had called you that in months. It was the bare minimum, the sheer uttering of the word reminding you of why you fell for him.

“What were you doing?” He was confused, brown crinkling asked he reached over to run a hand down the length of your side. His fingertips got caught at the hem of your night gown, slowly pushing the material up so it exposed more of your thigh.

“What are you talking about?” His fingertips ran circles on your skin, goosebumps prickling up underneath the touch.

“After we argued,” you said, breaking eye contact as you suddenly became nervous. “You disappeared. You always do around this time, when you think I’m asleep.”

His hand left your thigh, it drew into him like there was a strong magnet, like something had burned him. You could hear him thinking, gears turning as he thought of a lie to tell you.

He settled on the truth.

“I was, uh, just talking to Nancy,” he said, indifferent in his tone. You nodded, biting the inside of your lip.

“Nancy?”

He nodded, your eyes seeing it out of your peripheral as you were still not looking at him. Steve didn’t know what to say, choosing to wait for you before he dug himself in a hole.

“About what?”

“Just, uhm, things, I don’t know,” he ran a hand through his hair, turning so he laid on his back. Staring up at the ceiling, he tilted his head to the side, taking a deep breath before closing his eyes. “We’re friends, so…”

A wetness stung at the corners of your eyes as you closed them, wiping away a stubborn tear that fell down your face. “Yeah… friends.”

It had been two weeks since your breakup with Steve, 15 days to be exact. Two weeks of crying, shoving your face with anything you could see, watching shitty romance movies with Robin, and trying to distract yourself with anything you could—wine and Dirty Dancing were your latest endeavors.

Robin sat opposite of you, handing you a tissue as you began to sob at the film, Patrick Swayze having a close up. She side eyed you, biting back the smirk that sat on her lips.

“Babe, it’s not even a sad part,” she muttered, shaking her head as you tossed your head back on the couch, lips finding your drink, wrapped around a crazy straw found in your kitchen that led the drink into your mouth.

“It’s so sad because perfect men do exist,” you whined through sobs, squeezing your eyes shut. “And I just lost mine.”

Robin sighed, placing the tissue box aside as she leaned into you. Her hands wrapped around your waist as much as she could, her head pushed into your stomach.

“It’s okay, Steve’s a dummy anyways,” she said, you knew she was lying. He was still her best friend, even though she chose to comfort you during this breakup. It had been your decision anyways, deciding to take a break when things got too tough between you guys.

“Isn’t he?” You sighed, wiping your face as she straightened up, removing herself from you. You ran a hand over your forehead, feeling heat come off of your skin. “He’s going to so regret this.”

Robin gave a toothy grin, pride covering her face as you seemed to come to your senses. “There she is.”

You sat up from the couch, legs wobbling as the alcohol began to settle in. Your hands found your hips, triumph high in your shoulders. “He’s regretting this. I was the best damn thing to happen to him.”

“Damn straight,” your friend agreed, taking a sip from your wine.

“He’s going to realize that he needs me,” you said, stomping to emphasize your point. “Maybe he’s realized that now, it’s been a while you know.”

Her face fell as you continued speaking, her lips forming around silent words. “Okay, well maybe—“

“Maybe he’s giving me space,” you tapped a finger against your face, thinking. “I should call him!”

Robin’s jaw dropped, her brow furrowing the most it possibly could as she stood up off the couch. You were quick, running to the phone before she could stop you, your fingers dialing that memorized number. It rang as she stood across from you, eyes wide as she shook her head, mouthing the words ‘No, no, no,’ over and over.

You figured it was because you were a little too drunk for this, you were bound to say something you were going to regret.

“Harrington home!”

It wasn’t Steve. That high pitched voice that answered the phone. It wasn’t his mom or anyone who should be at the home at this hour. It was her. Nancy. The girl who had plagued your relationship despite never being apart of it, despite being friends with your boyfriend—your ex.

You didn’t realize the phone had clattered to the floor, you stumbling back to the living room or sinking to your knees in front of the coffee table, your elbows resting to cradle your head in between your hands. You didn’t notice Robin kneeling beside you, calling your name as she rubbed small circles at the small of your back.

“Babe,” she whispered, pulling you out of your trance with the nickname she called you.

You looked at her, watching as she came to focus, the room finally not spinning. It wasn’t even the alcohol that had you in this state, it was the reality you had been longing to desperately ignore hitting you in the face.

“Is he—“

You couldn’t get the words out, a wave of nausea hitting you as you thought of it. You thought of Steve and Nancy, them starting—or finishing?—the memories that you once had.

She nodded, avoiding eye contact as a sob escaped you. Your chest hurt, feeling hollow and empty as she confirmed your worst fear. Robin fully wrapped you into your arms, pulling you into her chest as your cries filled the room.

Her arms were warm, felt like somewhat of a home, but nothing like the oasis that Steve had been.

“It’s been two weeks,” you muttered, shaking your head as she rubbed your back, her fingertips ghosting along the skin. The old sweater you wore bunched up underneath her touch.

“I know,” her lips pressed to the top of your hair, comforting you as you experienced the worst heartbreak of your life. You weren’t used to this side of her, but forever grateful for who she had become.

“How long have they been together?”

She was silent for a moment, sucking her tongue against her teeth as she thought of what to tell you.

“I-I don’t think you want to know.”

That was all it took for you to fully break inside. The fact that Steve was everything you had believed he wasn’t. The gentleman imagine you had of him was gone, his desperation and love for Nancy never going away, despite the years you spent together as a couple. It took the sound of her breakup with Jonathan to get him to fold, to get him to start fighting so you had no excuse to end things.

He was terrible. He had betrayed you in everywhere possible.

You hated Steve Harrington. Hated everything about him because you didn’t know a single thing about him.

Masterlist. Inbox and requests are open! <3

a/n: I hate mean steve with no pay off. He’s a jerk here, but it was an amazing request that was sent in. Once again babe, Ty for your patience. I hope this sufficed.

#my writing #Steve Harrington x you #Steve Harrington x reader #angst #requests #ughhh #this pained me to write #but im ngl #this is my headcanon bc I can actually see Steve doing this for Nancy #he loves that girl

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bromcommie · 6 months

Text

moving like a river of trouble crossing

Rating: M | Word count: 10,260 | Tags: Set in the lead up to and right at the end of CATWS, Character Study, PTSD, Grief/Mourning, Dissociation, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug (And A Friend), Wait No Not That One, Going Down Memory Lane, SHIELD Has Shitty Therapists, Horrible People Still Acting Like People, Captain America Politics, Natasha's Love Language Is Surveillance, Folks Trained For Violence Engaging In You Guessed It: Violence | Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanoff, implied Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers/Brock Rumlow (non-explicit, but still reasonably fucked up by virtue of Rumlow being Rumlow)

(belated) fic for @catws-anniversary, day 2. Thank you so much for putting it together, guys! | march 27th theme: steve rogers | prompts: guilt, "it kind of feels personal" | part of a WIP to be published on AO3

and because I apparently can't help myself with the music-fic thing, playlist for this here

Good morning Captain Rogers. It is 05:15 AM, EST. Up 'n' at 'em. Good morning, Captain Rogers. It is 04:41 AM, EST. Would you like me to set the blinds to a lower density? Don't you nuh-uh at me, sunshine - get your lazy ass out of bed. You're gonna be late. Good morning, Captain Rogers. I understand you are under some duress right now, but please do not be alarmed. It is 2:32 am, EST. The year is 2012. You are in New York City. You are safe. Please try to take a breath. Would you like me to call anyone?

Good morning, Steve. Good morning. You're gonna be late. You awake? You awake yet?

Sure. Sure, he's awake.

That afternoon he packs his bag, the single duffle that fits all of his earthly possessions. He tries to ignore the vaguely smug tone of Fury's voice when he tells him they already have an apartment set up for him in DC: ten minutes from HQ, real convenient, and has he ever been to see Lincoln Memorial? He'll love it, it's a nice spot for a walk, especially in the summers, or so Fury's been told.

Steve's been to DC, but he's never beeen to the memorial, never seen much of the city outside the confines of the hotel the USO booked for them. He thinks he can count the grand total of places he's gotten to see up close on his right hand, and half of them were in the European Theatre. The other half he's running from now.

He's sure it'll be grand, he tells Fury. Beats the smell of moldy brick in the heat and a patchwork city manifesting ghosts out the corner of his eye, he doesn't say. ii.

They get him a therapist as a part of his onboarding at SHIELD. It’s due diligence, they say, in the aftermath of New York – someone to help him transition into his new role. But it’s been almost nine months now, and Steve’s learning their language, the words that get caught up in between all the red tape: saying assistance when they mean overwatch.

“This is supposed to be a safe space, not an interrogation,” the woman says at the start of her first evaluation, meeting all of his unease with a reassuring smile, and something about the misplaced quality of it puts him on a knife’s edge.

He only pieces it together the second time he’s called in to meet with her, when he's a bit more clear-headed and a whole lot more impatient than during their initial encounter. It only takes a few perfunctory exchanges before he starts registering the image as a whole: the painstakingly nonthreatening, gentle demeanor, the conservative clothes she’s wearing; the pale complexion and the sharp features and the unmistakable lilt to her voice, soft and rolling and decidedly more old country than east coast.

It would feel almost perverse, he thinks from a distance, if it wasn’t already painfully transparent and tactically inept to boot: this attempt at the same trick that didn’t work in their favor the first time around. He supposes he can’t blame them for trying to fill in the gaps between what they could scrounge up from paper and old photographs with something predictable and comforting, something expected of his background and what is now probably regarded as an antiquated time period.

He also knows that going off of little information when dealing with a potential threat is dangerous. What’s even more so, he thinks as he nods politely along to the lady's explanation of their work together, is believing you know more than you do, and that’s the easiest mistake to exploit.

Here's a fact probably still recorded somewhere on a faded death certificate: Sarah Rogers never lived long enough to get gray in her hair like that.

Here’s another, probably only still recorded in his memory and nowhere else: his mother had been fiercely caring, yes, and compassionate to a fault, but her kindness had never translated to docility, and it sure as hell had never translated to softspoken dishonesty.

So when the shrink bearing a near-painful resemblance to her starts asking incisive questions enshrouded in unoffensive words and indulgent tones, Steve packs his entire reality into a series of half-truths without batting an eye and doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt.

Yes, he’s eating. Yes, he’s sleeping well. No, he’s not on edge – sure, it gets hard, sometimes, but exercise helps, meditation, music. Going out into the world, meeting new people. Trying new things. Yes, he’s ready to be back in the field. No, not so much so that he’s itching for it. Yes ma’am, he’s doing fine, just fine, thank you for asking. iii.

“I heard Hannah’s single,” Romanoff's saying, and it’s not the first time his brain is latching onto the fact that she’s keeping pace with him without losing too much breath, without any discomfort in the cool air that's just starting to roll in as fall bleeds into the city, painting it in darkening evenings and dimming colors. “You know, from forensics? Glasses, leggy, science-y type. Blonde – you like blondes, right?”

“I’m starting to think you only have one thing on your mind,” Steve pants, pushes harder ahead until his calves start burning, just to see if she'll allow herself to follow. Keep moving, keep moving. You awake yet? “Gotta admit, it’s making it kinda hard to enjoy all this quality time we spend together.”

“What, you’re going to stop inviting me on runs? Aw, Rogers. Break a girl’s heart, why don’t you.”

“It’s not really an invitation if you just show up without me letting you know where I’m going, you know.”

She shrugs. “I needed to burn some energy, and you’re not exactly the most unpredictable person in this city.” Her ponytail whips over his shoulder as she follows his sharp right turn around the War Memorial and passes him towards Constitution Gardens, too close and competitive. “Brunette, then? There’s a girl in operations, real tough, good with a gun – at least your propensity for that type has been well documented, but I guess you didn't really have enough time to enjoy it, y'know, all the way –”

Steve knows she’s talking about Peggy, he does. It doesn’t help the hard-wired alarm bells going off in the back of his head any. He digs his heels in, skids to a stuttering halt over the wet pavement, and somewhere in the back of his consciousness he’s quietly pleased that it catches Romanoff off guard a little.

“What, too far?” she jokes, but her eyes are quick over his face; cataloguing the boundaries, the places she can still push.

He's sure it's well-meaning, as much as a blatant handler can get. But some habits are just harder to shake than others. That, he's intimately familiar with.

“If I say yes, will you stop? Or at least stop tailing me?”

“I don’t tail you. That’s below my paygrade,” she says, mouth quirking up at the corner like that’s all the punchline she needs as she types something into her smartphone. “I’ll text you her number. She likes spicy food and old movies.”

“Sure, fine. Great.”

“It is. You'll see.” The phone disappears back into one of the many hidden pockets of her skin-tight leggings. The marvels of modern technology, Steve thinks. Natasha quirks a challenging brow. “Now can we start the actual run finally or have you reached your limit, grandpa?”

He's all but ready to chicken out of the date all week, fighting the urge to cancel at the last minute, but he figures the girl doesn't deserve his bad manners just because he feels like spiting Romanoff when she tries to play his puppetmaster.

In the end it goes...surprisingly well. As Romanoff described, Lina’s beautiful and sharp and a little closed off, tough as nails and maybe even more rigid in her approach than him, but once they get over the initial hurdle of awkwardness and expectations the conversation flows with relative ease. They swap the basics, they talk interests and habits and what moving to DC's like, fun little stories from growing up; he tells her about the butcher on his block when he was a kid that kept a rooster in the backyard, and she tells him about the kid on her floor at community college that set the dorm on fire trying to boil an egg. They talk SHIELD and her work training the new recruits and there’s a spark in her eye as she dives into giving him a breakdown of what he should look into, BJJ and MMA and gyms around town that would be discreet enough to take him in.

“SHIELD’s got plenty of hand-to-hand experts,” she says in a pensive tone over the dessert, “but it can get a little…”

Steve chuckles around his spoonful of the sticky rice, the sweetness of the mango across the back of his palate soothing the previous burn of the spice. Turns out he likes Thai food, too. Who would’ve thought. “Intense?”

“Testosterone-riddled, I was gonna say,” Lina grins, conspiratory. “And paranoid. Not the best scene if you just want to learn,” and he nods along because it’s true, and because it’s a relief to have someone else say it for him.

So it’s nice, and sweet, and ultimately entirely impersonal. He walks her to her door and she gives him a kiss on the cheek, and when she explains how she’s not really looking for anything right now her dark eyes are warm and honest but not overly apologetic. It’s a gesture he’s grateful for.

“Besides, not to be blunt, but you don’t seem all that…” She trails off, waving her hand.

He winces. “Interested? I am, really, but...” And that’s just it, isn’t it. He’s interested; she’s wonderful, just his type, seems to like him well enough. But.

“Look, I get it. We’ve all been there. Can’t really avoid it in this business.” She shrugs as if to say what can you do, smiles up at him knowingly. “Wrong place, wrong time, right?”

And Steve thinks, yeah. Yeah, something like that. iv.

“–piece of shit, every time, wet sand all up in the fuckin’ thing. Goddamn Kandahar all over again,” Rumlow’s muttering, agitated and half to himself, and Steve doesn’t ask about the last part, just dumps his own gear on the rack and drops down onto the bench. They might be friendly, but they’re not friends – Rumlow doesn’t owe him his history. “I get sent to the fuckin’ desert in this weather one more time, I’m gonna start missing New York winters.”

The jet’s engines hum at his back, adrenaline leaving his body in slow pulls as he watches Rumlow work, notes the intermittent scarring over his hands as they strip the jammed gun down like it’s muscle memory, quick and capable. There's not a spot on him that seems unmarred, really - the scars are a continous, scattered motif up to his face, moving faint in the dim light of the jet.

Loved being in the ring, he'd said once with a wry grin, as far back as I can remember. Might've gotten the shit kicked out of me more than was strictly necessary, though. Accounts for me ending up here, in any case.

He’s drawn this exact scene, it occurs to Steve before he can push it away; down to the boxer's shoulders, down to the complaining, and more than once.

“You from the city?” he offers, an easy distraction that Rumlow seems grateful for.

“Yeah. Yeah, born and raised right off of Arthur Ave.”

“No shit?”

“Yep. Good old Belmont.” He looks up, gaze turning sharp at whatever he catches on Steve’s face before he can look away. “Wouldn’t think you’d know where that is. You ever even been past Central Park?”

Steve gets a flash of washed-out color and brilliant light, of Art and Charlie and the rest of them from the Y dragging him up to Harlem; thinks of the queens with their elaborate glamour and loud, unapologetic laughter and that last wet spring before the cops started shutting everything down, of stumbling tipsy towards the A down 155th Street with empty pockets and Jeanie giggling into his shoulder about some honey-eyed daddy that gave her a sweet kiss goodnight. A well-insulated secret, a fleeting memory of feeling like he could swallow the world whole.

It’s not what Rumlow’s talking about, he knows. He nods anyway.

“Loved that neighborhood. My folks moved us out to Staten when I was in high school, though,” and Steve must make an involuntary face at that because Rumlow chuckles and says, “Alright, tough guy. Not all of us had the privilege of living within two blocks of Prospect Park.”

“Neither did I, but it sure beat Staten," Steve snorts. "And it wasn’t even as much of a privilege, back then.”

“Yeah, I think you’ll notice a lot of things’ve changed.” He tilts his head, scratches contemplative at his stubbled chin. Steve wonders if he’s projecting the bitterness in Rumlow’s voice. “A lotta things’ve gone to shit in that place. Food’s still way better than fuckin’ DC, though. Not nearly enough Italians over here.”

“Yeah. All that white marble and not a single decent, roach-infested deli. Real shithole. Should put that on the tourist brochures,” Steve says after a moment, testing the waters. It gets another laugh out of Rumlow, low and maybe a little surprised, and the sound settles like molten lead in Steve’s stomach, grounding. v.

One morning in November he gets a phone call from a Washington Post journalist asking for his statement on the newly planned Captain America exhibit, and then in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it feat of persuasion it’s three days later and he’s somehow been roped into a grand opening ceremony, a speech and a press conference at the Smithsonian.

It lasts for-fucking-ever.

By the time he's back in his neighborhood his ears are ringing with leftover noise and applause, his cheeks sore from a constant smile that'd felt more like a slashed tire than a friendly gesture even as he was forcing it. He'd reverted back to the Best Foot Forward, Always mentality of the bonds circuit quick enough - but at least back then it felt like it had a marginal purpose, no matter how flimsy or false. Back then it didn't drain him this much, he doesn't think, no matter how frustrating. Best Foot Forward these days feels more like sleepwalking his way off a cliff than anything else.

The second he's through the door he shrugs out of the tie and starched shirt chafing at his neck, tries not to think about how he still would've preferred all the commotion and the pretense to the unfamiliar silence of the otherwise big apartment building. Tries to give the feeling resurfacing in him now that he's got attention enough for it a name other than unbearable.

Here's the thing: pain, Steve knows on an intimate level, is something you get used to. It's not to say you forget it exists completely: you just subsume it, you learn to expect it. It’s less about it becoming a habit and more that it becomes a part of you when you’re not looking: fills up all the empty crevices it can find and creates a mold, and that’s the shape you start to take if you live with it long enough. The problem with that is that the longer it goes on, the less space in you there is for other things.

He was five the first time he got really sick. It'd started simple enough – the winter of ’23 came early and sudden, and New Year’s Eve found him in bed with a fever that earned the dreaded prefix scarlet soon enough when the spread of dotted red started taking up more and more space on his body. He'd spent two weeks feeling like someone's dangling him off the edge of the unknown, and much longer than that after with his mother's watchful eyes following him from the window whenever he left the house, like she couldn't force herself to look away.

But he made it. Despite all indications, little Stevie Rogers didn't die, and it was a miracle with a capital M. All he had to do is make peace with having a somewhat faulty heart as a keepsake of his survival and maybe never playing for the Dodgers, which is not to say it stopped him from trying.

But then next year it was the whooping cough so bad it cracked a rib, then his left ear giving out on him after a prolonged sinus infection, then the asthma he barely even noticed amidst everything else until it layed him out flat midway through a game of stickball bad enough it landed him in the hospital. The minor league dreams dissolved fairly quickly after that.

In ’25 he missed more school than he attended. The kids from down the block came round to call on him less and less, and it wasn't too long before they forgot completely and it was just him and a handful of toy soldiers left, with names like Joe and Jack and occasionally if he allowed himself, Steve. Their neighbors started smiling at him more. The grocer started handing him a fistful of candy under the counter every time they came in, looking at his mother in a way that said sorry for your loss and that Steve hated with a passion, least of all because he couldn't even enjoy the pity because hello, here comes diabetes. Then it was the pernicious goddamn anemia and months and months of the liver-fucking-everything diet followed closely by its sworn enemy the ulcers, and then the growing pains, and then the bad back, and then the bum joints –

Here’s the thing about pain: the longer you carry it, the more you forget you’re doing it in the first place. You ignore it because it’s the only way to survive it, because what the hell else are you supposed to do? And that’s when you start thinking you have it under control. You start to think you’ll be ready when it comes for you again.

Here’s the other thing about pain: you’re never ready. It comes as a surprise each time. He wasn’t ready in ‘30 when the neighborhood suddenly started reeking of despair and death and he wasn’t ready in ’36 when his ma went and he wasn’t ready in ’44 when he got shot in the neck and thought oh, so it can still hurt like this. I can still bleed.

Then '45 rolled around and a new thought followed, a miserable dot at the end of a sentence: maybe bleeding out would've hurt less. At least it would've made us even.

None of that experience and understanding stops him feeling it now, again, still, like an interrupted line from that first fever chill to here, standing in the middle of his living room with a glossy brochure full of dead faces in his hand and an exhaustion so deep it roots him to the spot.

And then there’s the anger, of course: equally familiar but much more muted, less expressive than it used to be, dancing around the edges of everything else. He looks back down at the crumpled pamphlet, to where the folded-unfolded-refolded creases cut through the title:

Captain America’s team: the top tier of the World War II effort and a leading example of integration!

As if they were somehow Captain America's or even the US army’s to begin with; as if it was encouraged and Steve didn’t have to stand around in moldy tents arguing his brand-new, star-spangled ass off with Major Whatshisname and Colonel Whoever-the-fuck for days on end just to keep them eating in the same mess hall and sleeping in the same barracks. Nothing about any of the ugly parts, about the blood and the bureaucracy and the bullshit. Nothing about any of them, either - no mention of Dernier's politics or Gabe's professorship or Morita's writing. Not a single inch of space left for their families or their own stories except as a footnote in Steve's own, a way to make it picture perfect.

Nothing about Bucky other than the barebone facts: he was Steve's friend, he was a good soldier, he died. The meat and blood and soul of the person, left out; the fact of whose fault it ultimately was, conveniently gone.

And that name – the Howling fucking Commandos. The bunch of them would’ve busted a rib laughing at it, laid out all grandiose like that. For one, it’s still as ridiculous as it was back then – sounds more action novel than historical account and distinctly less bureaucratic and arbitrary than the Specialized 107th, which is what they were strictly called in the paperwork. Personally, Steve always thought that out of the variety of nicknames they’ve been awarded, the Invaders was by far the most fitting. Truer to wartime, to what it was they really did, and far more threatening if it ever reached the other side of the line. Then again, from what he’s gathered so far, it seems like America’s done far more than its fair share of invading since. It definitely accounts for the 180 degree change in branding.

Turns out it’s still all about selling comic books and war bonds. And Steve, too caught up in his own sorry wallowing, is just going along with it.

Jesus, he thinks, the tone of it coated in a wry, familiar voice nestled in the back of his brain but much harsher than it ever was in reality, drop the philosophy for one goddamn minute. Anybody ever tell you idle hands are the Devil's playthings? Get moving, Rogers. Trade the speeches in for something useful.

So he does: chucks the paper into the empty white fruit bowl collecting dust on the countertop, turns the TV on to a random channel to break the silence. He doesn’t recognize the title of the movie playing but it’s soothing, the background awash with static and the accents just familiar enough to make for pleasant white noise. He heats up his leftovers, sprawls out on the couch and gets to reading the reports Fury had unloaded on him, tuning in every so often to the witty back-and-forth dialogue. It’s maybe half an hour of squinting at indecipherable bureaucratic jargon before he finally gives up, lifts his head to rub the sleep from his eyes.

One of the men on screen – Nick, Steve thinks, or maybe that one’s Mikey, he hasn’t been following along all that well, to the work or the film – is trying to dissuade the other from visiting his mother’s grave in the dead of night.

It’s 1 in the morning.

That makes it nicer.

It doesn’t make it anything, Nick. A grave is a grave. There’s not a religion in the world that says a person’s soul is buried with them in their grave, the man argues, and it’s like whiplash pulling him out of the serene lull, the memory of a name over a plot in Greenwood he’d never gone to visit, and he thinks, a little disoriented – of course there’d be no soul in that patch of land. The grave itself is empty.

They’d given him reports in the beginning, too: a neat stack of papers, most of them stamped DECEASED in glaring red letters, and the single mocking MISSING IN ACTION. At the very end there’d been a laughably short list of contacts; among them a phone number and address for one Rebecca Barnes-Proctor.

God help us all, he can imagine the voice of George Barnes saying even now, jokingly abject, our Becca’s married a Proddie.

But there had been briefings, then, and the shitshow over Manhattan, and in between all of that the days where he couldn’t even find the will to leave his apartment block, let alone go to Brooklyn. Over and over, he’d given himself the same excuses as with Peggy – it would be too much, too soon, too selfish to usurp her life like that.

Of course, the truth of it all was much simpler. All too cowardly, too, in a way that has the guilt blooming with a vengence somewhere in the pit of his stomach: he didn’t have the guts to look Bucky’s baby sister in the eye, no matter her age, and say, I’m sorry you didn’t get a body to bury. I’m sorry the one time he needed it I didn’t do the job he spent his whole life doing for me. I’m sorry I left him behind when it should have been me down there in the first place.

He watches the two men stumble around in the muddy dark of the graveyard and yell and bicker in a way that strikes Steve as bitterly melancholy, the familiarity of it unmooring.

Mike, y’know what? Now that I’m here, I don’t know what to do, Nick finally admits at the foot of the tombstone, wild-eyed and devolving into a rambling laugh, and ain’t that a kicker. Welcome to the club.

It’s very hard to talk to a dead person, we have nothing in common. Hi, ma.

Nick, you’re making me forget the kaddish, Mike chides with mounting frustration as Nick keeps giggling and it’s not funny, it’s really not, the whole premise of it deeply morbid, but Steve finds himself laughing right along with Nick’s hysterical hiccups, his childlike plea of I don’t wanna die, ma.

You don’t get a choice in the matter, his own mother had told him when he was maybe 8 or 9, faced with the concept of death the first time when Mrs. Kowalski from 4C got sick, if that’s the way the chips fall, then that’s God’s will. But what matters is the middle, what you choose to do with it. Do you understand?

He didn’t, really, not back then, and ten years later when they’d lowered her into the ground all he could think was: what is the point of it, anyway, of all those right choices, if all that happens is you end up dying alone?

Steve hadn’t been, of course. For all of the isolation he’d felt during those last few months of his mother’s illness, he’d never been really alone. There’d been the Barnes’ and the old ladies from church and even some of the folks Sarah had helped treat at the hospital coming by and Bucky, Jesus Christ; Bucky crying at the funeral and saying kaddish for months like Sarah was his own and letting Steve rage and lash out until all the fight had drained out of him, his arms like a vice around Steve’s shaky frame.

And there’s the actual goddamned truth, he thinks, bone-weary. The only truth that matters, the one that’ll never get written on any museum walls: Steve was only ever as strong as the people propping him up.

I think that’s the reason we’re such good friends, Nick is saying to Mike when he tunes back in, and Steve’s not laughing anymore, hasn’t been ever since his throat had gone tight a long few minutes ago, because we remember each other from when we were kids. Things that happened when we were kids that no one else knows about but us. It’s in our heads. That’s how we know they really happened.

What are you talking about? I know what really happened when I was a kid.

Yeah, but no one else does, Nick says, painfully earnest. I mean, everyone we knew as kids is dead.

He shuts the TV off with a soft click, waits a long while before the heartbeat pounding in his ears has settled. Thinks about what it really means, then, to embody the final resting place of all your ghosts.

Maudlin, Bucky’s voice echoes in his head again, fills out the crevices of the silent apartment like a slow bleed. Always gotta be so maudlin, Rogers, like you’re Scarlett O-fucking-Hara. Just get up. Get up, Steve, c'mon.

“Yeah,” Steve sniffs, wipes a rough hand over his eyes; laughs again because it’s a damn joke, all of it, and he can afford to lose the plot in the privacy of his own home. “Yeah, fuck you too, asshole. Go haunt somebody else.” vi.

"Heard you had an eventful weekend," Rumlow comments when they all pile into the locker room the following week, a little roughed up and beat and stinking of iron and sweat but otherwise in decent spirits. "Seemed like a good time, all those pretty girls throwing themselves at you to shake their babies and kiss their hands or whatever."

"Shows how much you know. The pretty ladies were all balding men over the age of 50," Steve says, only half-joking, shrugging into his civvies with a wince. There's a cut on his side where he fell a little too close to a protruding piece of rebar that's already reopened twice by the time they've gotten off the jet, but despite the sharp sting of it he's feeling better than he did just a mere twelve hours ago.

Idle hands turns out to be true enough. Wryly, he thinks he might owe sending an apology up to Sister Andrea, although he figures anyone that enjoyed using a ruler on little kids that much wouldn't have ended up in Heaven, anyway.

"But sure, it was alright. A little too much attention all at once, if I'm being honest."

"Oh yeah?" Rumlow huffs. "Big talk coming from someone who dresses like you do. I hope you didn't show up there wearing that."

Steve frowns down at the faded jeans, the fitted grey shirt – one of many pairs that came with the closet in his apartment. It rubbed him the wrong way, at first, but it's easier in the end; not having all that wide array of choice dumped over his head all the time. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Nothing. I just get worried they're gonna start cutting off blood flow at some point, y'know," Rumlow grins, his teeth very white in the bright fluorescent lights. "God forbid we go to a bar one of these days, I'd have to mind every creep from here to Dupont tryna get a peek down your shirt."

"Fuck off," Steve huffs, feeling heat flush down into his neck despite himself. Yeah, blood flow really isn't the problem. He gestures at Rumlow's own undershirt, all slick black and skin-tight, motion packed in. "Look who's talkin'."

"Yeah, but I don't dress like this out there. This is all for you guys," he yawns with a stretch, all exaggerated bravado. "I got one of those, y'know - work-life balances. Out there I clean up nice. You, I imagine you sleep in that shit."

Steve snorts. "You'll be happy to know I clean up just fine. Got the one suit and everything."

"Is that right? They get you decked out in some bespoke threads for the parade, Cap?" He chuckles at the face Steve makes when the word bespoke fully registers. "See if I believe that without any evidence."

Steve digs out his phone reluctantly. He does have pictures, is the thing, woke up the next morning feeling like a sack of potatoes tossed from a great height just to see his phone light up with an email from SHIELD's HR with an attachment sent over for approval - like he was a celebrity ending up in a tabloid, he thinks again with distate, like he should care much either way what he looked like. He thumbs through his email to the one labeled FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, and shoves it over at Rumlow before he drops onto the bench to sort out the rest of his pack.

"Looking good, you weren't kidding. And the mural's all heroic," Rumlow comments lightly as he scrolls through. "Wait, don't tell me - the little mustachioed, scruffy looking one is the frogeater, yeah?"

Steve laugh comes easier this time. "The little mustachioed, scruffy looking one would've kicked your ass six ways from Sunday if he'd heard you call him that. Yeah, that's Dernier. Gabe, next to him," he lists, trying not to think about how it comes across that he's memorized the order, "Dum Dum - he didn't like that nickname, either - Bucky, Monty, and Morita."

"Sure were big on callin' each other everything other than your names, huh?" The joke is followed by a stretch of quiet, and when Steve looks back up Rumlow's frowning at the phone a little, a flicker of uncertainty over his face that Steve doesn't get to figure out before it's gone. His face smoothes out into a mostly neutral expression, an undercurrent of something unnerved and white-hot, and Steve can't help himself.

"What?"

Rumlow passes him the phone back with a shrug. "Nothing, just - haven't seen those pictures since I was in high school," he says, a little distant like the memory's faded to oblivion since, and hell if Steve'll ever stop finding it strange that all of them ended up in dusty old school books, long obsolete. "Long time ago, now. Guess I just remembered all of you being much older, is all."

He leans back against the wall of lockers, pensive, watches Steve fumble with the zipper of his hoodie where it keeps sticking for a minute. "You must miss it, though. The good old days. Your people."

Steve clears his throat, yanks at the cheap piece of plastic again. The fit and cut, he might've gotten used to - but he'll never get over the waste; just how quickly everything falls right apart in the future. "Yeah, well. Like you said, it was a long time ago."

"It was, wasn't it. Longer for some than others, though," he says cryptically, and Steve really has nothing to say to that that won't land him right back where he was two days ago. He doesn't have to, in the end, because Rumlow throws a curt nod at his front, and it takes a second too long for him to interpret what his zeroed-in expression means, to register the dotting of blood through the thin fabric of his shirt. "You're bleeding all over the place again."

"It's fine. Don't feel it much," Steve says. Something's different. What's different? Wake up.

"Sure. Never do, do you," he says, gesturing to the hoodie with a thoughtful expression that's inching away from the easy banter. "That shit's gonna stain, though."

"I was gonna throw it out anyway."

It should be enough, and in any other situation it would be. Any other situation he'd shrug it off with more conviction, Rumlow'd call him a tough guy with just the right amount of mockery, and the tension would pass. Except that Rumlow had to lead them into uncharted territory and Steve hadn't been quick enough to notice before he was flailing, too exposed.

Except that instead of a quip what he gets is Rumlow's stepping into his space, the casual slouch of his shoulders replaced with something more deliberate when he reaches for where Steve's hand is still holding onto where the teeth of the zipper have gotten all gnarled. In a heartbeat Steve's back to square one: keenly aware of the proximity and every inch of his body in the cramped space; back to that first day in the elevator with Rumlow's dark eyes turned on him with a questioning look and a twist to his mouth that said it's a pleasure, Cap but meant I've been here long enough - you don't impress me any more than any other kid I've seen this place chew up and spit back out.

It'd been enough to get his spine straightening of its own accord back then, too; the sheer challenge of it, pushing at the boundaries of hierarchy. It makes him want to pull away now, want to put the usual distance between them, to get the hell out of this stuffy locker room. Makes him want to push forward until he meets something immovable and solid. Want. want, want - too much and for things that were unreachable. That's always been his problem, hasn't it?

The sound of the zipper is too loud in the mostly empty space when it gets yanked loose, pulled up and over the slow spread of the stain, and Steve realizes with a start that he didn't notice the chatter die down as the few stragglers left the room. Realizes that he hasn't moved a muscle in a good minute, like a butterfly with its wing pinned.

Rumlow's touch lingers, just the barest pressure under his Adam's apple, and Steve's breath catches. Rumlow makes a considering noise.

He snapped a guy's neck with those hands not two hours ago: a thoughtless, instinctive thing in the middle of the ambush that was waiting for them. It's not that Steve's forgotten it; Steve's aware of it to the point of failure. It's just that it got bound up with everything else, the easy reliance and the ribbing bordering on rough and the adrenaline under his skin like a necessity.

Wake up.

Rumlow's eyes on him are sharp, a little curious. Less surprised than they ought to be.

Wake up, get moving, get out of sight. We've been here before.

Steve swallows. "Thanks."

"Sure." Rumlow steps back to hoist his bag over his shoulder and the moment breaks as quick as it came on, the whole uninterruped line of him lax and easy again, surface friendly. "Now you won't scare the guys at the front desk."

And then he's off down the hallway, leaving Steve to lean on the cool metal of the wall and do everything but think about the sudden feeling of being off balance, a little too tight in his skin in a way that only half has to do with the too-quick beat of his blood, the lingering smell of Rumlow's cologne.

vii.

Funnily enough, the Christmas gala almost slips his mind – an extraordinary accomplishment, considering that he spends most of December thinking up viable excuses not to go, dodging Romanoff’s questions and sideways looks with the agility of a man running for his life.

“We can hang out with the civilians. Break the record of how many weapons contractors you can piss off in one night,” she says one brisk and sunny afternoon when she manages to drag him out to a coffee shop barely across from SHIELD, the steam from her tea swirling up in billows to fog her opaque sunglasses. “It’ll be fun.”

“I don’t know any civilians,” he says, deliberately obtuse. It’s a joke; he can’t help that it’s also mostly true.

“What about Kate?”

It’s not a surprise anymore, really, that she knows everything about his life, that she has no problem making that clear to him when she wants to. He’s fine with it, he has to keep reminding himself. Maybe it’s a control thing, like when she acts like she’s not holding back when they spar, a holdover from some other life. Maybe this is the closest they get to trust, and it doesn’t matter. Much like the tails that he pretends not to clock, the check-ins and evaluations and this whole neatly preordained life someone else's drawn up for him – it comes with the package, and what difference does it make, anyway? It’s simpler like this. He can do his job, and if thinking that he’s a situation she has a handle on makes Romanoff feel better, then that’s fine, too.

“What about her?”

“You talk to her yet?”

“I talk to her all the time,” he points out. Natasha cocks her head, the rest of her expression as obscure as her shaded eyes.

“It’s for a charity. The gala.” She keeps switching lanes. Trying to get him to stumble, he thinks.

“Yeah, Ms. Potts said.” Two can play at that game. “You want a date so bad, why don't you pester Barton this much about it?”

“Clint doesn’t need pestering. It’d be good publicity if you showed, you know.”

He scoffs; there it is. “For what, the charity or Stark Industries?”

“So it is about Stark, then.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, over-sweetened and dark. 100% pure Colombian arabica, apparently, and with the price tag to reflect it. The acidic taste sticks at the roof of his mouth. “I don’t have a problem with Tony.”

He doesn’t. Stark’s a good man, he thinks, despite having inherited all of Howard’s arrogance and none of his approachability. Whatever tension was there in the beginning had dissipated, though, the second Tony plummeted thousands of feet from the sky after having, for all intents and purposes, blown himself up to save all their sorry necks. They’d broken bread, shaken hands, parted ways.

For the best, probably. Good man or not, Tony has a singular way of getting under his skin.

And then there’s also the fact that being in Manhattan just doesn’t feel right, not with the destruction still settling over everything like a cloud of noxious dust, the fenced off craters and leftover vigils scattered every few blocks like an improvised graveyard. Good morning, Captain Rogers. It is 4:47 AM EST. It is a new day. Do you see it? Do you see it yet? Are you awake?

It’s not new, this sense of loss: looking at the city and feeling grief, compounded.

“Not what I said.”

“What are you saying, then?”

“I’m saying SHIELD throws shitty office parties.” Natasha frowns and chugs half the scalding cup in one go before pushing up from the table, checking her phone. “I have to go,” she says, gives him a long look that he can’t really decipher, unusually lingering and far too serious by Natasha's standard. “Come to New York, Steve. Or at least think about it.”

viii.

He goes to see Peggy again, because of course he does. She greets him at the door with her most pleasant, polite smile this time, the kind reserved for strangers – Time for my medicine again, is it, darling? – but it’s alright, he understands. They’ve explained it to him, the good and bad days, how there’s rarely any constant. He’s grateful, anyway: just so grateful to have her around, as much as he can. Which is why he doesn’t flinch when she cries, when she calls for him like it’s been another seventy years, why he holds her brittle hand in his until she gets hazy around the eyes again and he feels a nurse’s gentle tap on his shoulder, hears her suggest that he come another time.

He takes the Harley out on the highway and drives aimlessly for the rest of the evening and well into the night, down and out and then back again until the traffic has thinned out to semis and the rare leftover commuter. He watches the speedometer kick up to 80, 90, a 100, the bike struggling, feels the rumble of the engine all the way up his spine when it skids unbalanced over the odd ice patch and thinks, grateful, grateful, grateful.

ix.

“You’re up late.”

“Hey.” Most of the building’s emptied out by now – he’d thought he’d find some privacy in the abandoned atmosphere of the holidays, and instead here Rumlow is when he was meant to be three states over, strolling through his periphery looking like he’s got nothing but time on his hands. “Thought you left with everybody else.”

“Nah. Had some business to take care of.” He settles against the wall opposite Steve, watches him shake out a one-two-three pattern that has the chain of the bag groaning. “Thought you’d be at Stark’s fancy party and putting that suit to good, promotional use.”

He never gets a chance to think about it, it turns out, getting called in two days before Christmas and ending up sending Ms. Potts – Pepper, please, call me Pepper – an overly apologetic, last-minute message excusing himself from the night. It’s a good call, in the end. The last thing he needs tonight is to be stuck in a room full of obscenely drunk, obscenely rich people expecting him to gush over the hors d’oeuvres and play at appearances.

He feels as though what he’s doing right now isn’t much different, though. It takes a whole lot of effort and posturing to dredge up a wry smile for Rumlow, anyway. “Well, it’s been busy here. Couldn’t fit it into my packed schedule.”

Rumlow snorts. He gets that expression on his face, sometimes, that same brand of amusement that makes Steve second-guess whether he’s actually in on the joke or just the punchline of it, that gets him hot under the collar in all the wrong ways. The punching bag chooses this moment to finally release its desperate grip on the physical realm, flying off the chain with one last pitiful creak and sending sand spraying across the floor. Rumlow’s eyes track the movement with unabashed fascination.

He walks over to the neat row of bags Steve’s lined up and picks one up with relative ease, a casual show of strength. “So you gonna talk about it,” he pipes back up, handing Steve the replacement, “or do I have to keep standing around here until you’ve run the rest of ‘em into the ground?”

“Talk about what?”

“Whatever’s got you shredding through these poor fuckin’ things at 11 pm on Christmas Eve.”

He wants to point out that he could be asking the same question – that there really is no reason for Rumlow to be here this late when he’s still technically on medical, to be in his usual tac clothes and looking as wired as Steve’s feeling. You ever take a day off? he considers asking, but that’d be prodding. What’s worse, it’d be hypocritical.

“Nothing, you know how it is – mission ran long. Had some leftover energy.”

“Yeah, Rollins mentioned you guys ran into some kinks.”

It’s not exactly the word Steve would use to describe the shitshow of that morning, utter failure avoided by a narrow margin because it was an old school lab, Christ, still had extracurriculars on the weekends and everything, and they just charged in half-blind.

It’s rigged, naturally. The room blows as he’s getting the janitor out, tears the face of the building open towards the sharp drop below, and all Steve can think is what a stupid, avoidable way to die. The electrical fire smell lingers for a long time after the explosion, the patter of the wet snow through the blown roof nowhere near enough to put the flames out.

They’re told to avoid detailing the collateral in the report, after: SHIELD had no way of knowing the complete situation beforehand, they say, short and brooking no argument, and Steve’s getting real damn tired of hearing that. By the time they wrap up cleanup he’s shivery and exhausted and when he finally dozes off on the long flight back with his ear to the monotonous drone of the engine, it’s to vague, uneasy bursts of the taste of ash in the mouth and many small, cold hands dragging him deep into the frozen ground.

Absurdly, the first thing he thinks of when he startles awake is Dugan’s thick mustache chained solid with frost, lips blue with the cold and grumbling under his breath.

"Gee, you're looking awful familiar there, Dum," Gabe'd say, biting off the ends of his sentences with the chatter of his own teeth. "Made this snowman that looked just like you when I was a kid - all white and lumpy with a great big bush over his lip. 'Cept his carrot nose was half as long and he never ran his fuckin' mouth this much."

And despite the cold and the misery, Dugan would elbow him and Gabe'd elbow back, obstinate. And Bucky'd laugh, Bucky'd call them all a bunch of fucking morons, and do they really want their last to be the Germans hearing them squabbling like two bitter old biddies out on the steps of the church for the whole neighborhood to see? Think of the image of our troops, golly gee. God forbid.

He strips out of his wet suit at the compound by rote and doesn’t think about the numbing cold of December among towering trees, of snow burning his fingers raw, clinging to his lashes. He runs until his lungs burn and it’s nothing like that thin, strangling air of the mountain range, nothing like warm skin sticking to icy metal, muscles all locked up and tears hot like bile in the back of his throat and the wind screaming in his ears, and –

Winters are warmer now, somebody’d told him at some point. Something about northern lights and the ozone in the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Kinks, right.”

He smooths out the edges of the tape that’s come loose over his knuckles, tries to tuck it in where he’s spotted red through the fabric. Suddenly he’s all too aware of the seconds lumbering on in silence, the eerie, empty quiet of the building; Rumlow looking at him with a single-minded intensity that makes the back of his neck prickle with heat, gets him on edge in a way he doesn't want to parse, doesn't have the energy to hide from.

It'd be no use, anyway; sometimes he thinks Rumlow can smell it on him, blood in the water.

“Alright, then.”

He aims a perfunctory jab at the bag and lets it swing back to catch it mid-air, brand-new vinyl creaking under his fingers, and considers ignoring the man altogether. He's not feeling generous with his words tonight. “Alright what?”

When he turns back around Rumlow’s ditching his holstered gun on the bench. Steve didn't even notice he was armed. “You said you got some energy to burn – so let’s go a few rounds.”

“I’m good, thanks.”

“Come on,” and it’s his voice in the end, if he’s being honest with himself, that makes Steve fold; the cajoling tone and those long, tightly rolled vowels that curl and hook into the sheltered space behind his ribs. “C’mon, man, it’s been a while. I could stand to let off some steam, too.”

Come on, do it for me, Bucky had said in dozens of different iterations over the years and then only once after when it had meant something, only once when he was really asking, back up against the hard bark of the tree with his hands dangling between his legs like a man who had no more use for them. You gotta promise me, Steve, he’d tried, low and worn thin, and Steve didn’t, couldn’t find the words to that wouldn’t be a complete lie and a betrayal. Instead he’d leaned harder into his side, hand at the back of his neck, and wanted and wanted and wished like hell, not for the first time, that he could drain the misery and exhaustion out of Bucky’s body at every point of contact.

Come on, Rumlow says, and Steve goes, Pavlovian.

He rewraps his hands in silence, waits for the other man to tape up before he steps into the ring.

“Y’know, it could’ve been worse,” he says, circling Steve, tone casual, “No casualties is better than what we get most days. So you might as well stop with all this self-flagellation bullshit, Cap. It’s no good.”

“You wanna keep talking,” Steve goads him because it’s worked in the past, because it really has been a long day, “or do you wanna fight?”

They start off slow, Rumlow testing the waters and Steve pulling his punches by habit by now. He manages to land a few hits that don’t really scratch the surface, doesn’t pull back in time to avoid Rumlow’s hook. His blood rushes at the first, second, third collision, zings up his spine and sharpens everything out, bright Technicolor; it’s good, doesn’t even hurt, he’d almost forgotten –

It gets real brutal real quick, after that.

“C’mon. What, you gettin’ bored already?” Rumlow says the third time he gets past his guard, an edge of something mean and frustrated in it. He strikes out again just to skirt off Steve’s belated block, more provocation than actual intent. “Jesus, you fallin' asleep on me? Fight the fuck back, old man.”

“Look who’s talkin’,” Steve gets out, putting distance between them. “Ain’t you supposed to be passed out drunk on eggnog in Staten Island right now?”

“You ever stop running your mouth? No wonder you were the neighborhood punching bag, kid.”

“I weighed a 100 pounds soaking wet, I had to compensate. What’s your excuse?”

He’s slow this time, too. Rumlow’s not someone who signals. The kick to the plexus sends Steve stumbling back and something pops, loud. He coughs once, twice; shakes it off.

“Aw, there he is. You’re alright,” Rumlow says, deceptively sweet, dismissive. “You’re just fine. Come on, Cap. You gonna quit being a pussy or what?"

Here’s the thing: he’s not sure he likes Rumlow all that much, really, can’t read him all the way to be able to say for sure; isn't sure that he wants to. They don’t know each other, not in a way that counts – it’s only been a handful of times that they’ve even worked on the same team in the time Steve’s been in DC, even less they've gotten to have anything that counts as a real conversation outside the single locker room incident, but he’s been leading men long enough that he can pick up on the patterns. He can see the way Rumlow commands respect among STRIKE, knows the type, besides: collected and confident and purposeful, committed to the cause to the point of failure. Violent, too, sure, shooting for the head when Steve’d still be asking questions; a little too rough around the edges, sometimes, yes, but so what – Steve’s seen his fair share of that. Steve’s lived it, felt it on his own skin, inside and out, been in it for three whole years. So what. He’s not about to run away screaming.

It isn’t even the first time they’ve done this, beaten the shit out of each other after hours in the deserted facility. It’s not the first time he’s seeing Rumlow in this light, eyes dark and focused; liking it a little too much, maybe, liking riling Steve up and drawing blood. A natural progression to all the things about him Steve maybe didn't want to notice and all the things that had his full attention since the second they met.

It’s fine – Steve figures, this body can take it. It’s what it was made for, anyway. Steve figures better here than out there, and out there Rumlow’s all brutal efficiency and casual competence and Steve trusts him to have his back, get the job done, which is the only part that matters. Steve trusts him, is the thing, and that carries more weight likeability ever could.

Rumlow’s fist connects with his jaw and he feels it rattle up into his teeth, the dull pain like a live current through his body, whiting everything else out: you awake, Steve? You awake yet? Is it enough, to still be able to bleed?

So sure, maybe it’s the violence that gets him. Maybe it’s that Rumlow fights just dirty enough and doesn’t pull his punches with Steve, grins at him sharp when he spits blood from his busted lip and squares back up. Maybe it’s just that he’s not afraid to touch him or look at him wrong. Everyone else seems to be.

He blinks sweat out of his eyes and creeps in close, lands a few swings in quick succession that have Rumlow easing off, head snapping to the side.

“Yeah. That’s it, there you go. C’mon,” he laughs, pushes damp hair out of his face in a well-worn afterthought of a move, and Steve –

Steve has to remind himself, is the thing. Every goddamn day of the week he has to keep reminding himself of where he is. Eventually, he thinks, it might stick – but God, he’s sick and tired of it.

They don’t even look alike. For one, Rumlow’s much older than Bucky ever got to be. Has the scars and the experience and the too-mean edge to his voice to prove it.

But in the end, when he's got Steve face down on the floor, breath hot down his neck, it turns out it doesn't really matter all that much.

He bucks anyway, if for no other reason just to prove a point to himself, just to feel his bones grind together. You're still moving, you're still just going forward, heart pumping like it's gonna burst with it. Rumlow twists his arm further up his back, grip iron tight. “I said stay down.”

“Yeah, fuck you,” Steve pants into the mat. “Pretty sure this ain’t within kickboxing rules.”

“Pretty sure there was no talk of rules in the first place. I keep tellin’ you, don’t I, you gotta get that or else people’ll think you’ve gone soft. Someone might take advantage.”

“You ever quit talkin’ shit?” Steve throws back at him.

“Nah.” Rumlow shifts, the weight of him heavy and hot, too close. Steve can’t catch his breath. Rumlow’s knee is still pressing into his back and he can already feel a bruise spreading at the bottom of his ribs that’ll be gone in the morning. He doesn’t even feel it all that much. He never even – “See, I don’t think you’d want that.”

Steve could break the hold with ease. He could throw Rumlow off and still walk away with most of his dignity intact. Steve could do a lot of things.

He’s fucking tired, is the thing. He’s in his body and buzzing hard out of his head and it hurts, Christ, it hurts so bad, has for such a long time now, and it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter one bit.

Keep moving, keep moving. Maybe he doesn't want to. Maybe it's alright if it's not him, anyway; a river of trouble, cross currents, carrying him along.

It’s just easier, in the end, to trust someone on his team. That’s all there is to it. It's easier, it is, it's getting there at least, Steve keeps telling himself as he lets Rumlow take him apart in more ways than one.

Eventually, he thinks, he might even believe it.

He meets Sam Wilson on a humid day in late May when the sun's barely made its way up, the sky an overripe color and all of his bruises already healing or healed or tucked neatly all the way back under the surface. Like many things with him these days, it starts off as muscle memory; then a shot in the dark, then relief when it works.

It still takes all of his willpower not to physically retreat when he's hit with the familiar, tired refrain:

You must miss the good old days, huh?

But then Sam cuts straight through the middle of it: Sam calls his bluff, quick as hell but with kind, serious eyes and an outstreched hand, and by the time the sleek black car rolls up to the curb with a roar Steve's got another title in his little book of the future and a chest that feels slightly lighter than it did when he jolted awake at 3 in the morning.

Romanoff pulls them back out onto the street without a word, and he doesn't even mind the knowing look she casts his way all that much. Just looks out the open window, the spring air whipping past as the speedometer ticks up 40, 50, 60, and thinks about whether the farmer's market will be open when they get back in: having some fruit in that goddamned fruit bowl might be nice for a change.

(epilogue)

When all is said and done, he thinks he really should have seen it coming. There was no talk of rules, and it's Steve's own damn fault for not listening. When the dust settles and the Potomac still reeks of a gasoline fire, when Steve's switched back onto battlefield efficiency despite the nightmares creeping into his subconscious with a vengance, it really shouldn't feel personal.

Except for the memory of Rumlow's slick grin in the too-bright, too-close space of the elevator, except for the phantom feeling that he can still sometimes smell scorched skin on his stomach; except for the way Bucky's horrified expression is burnt into the backs of Steve's eyelids like a brand, like a scar that won't heal fully.

Except that it's nothing but personal, in all the ways that matter.

Sam looks at him in question when he pauses in the middle of breakfast, eyes glued to the closest thing that passes for a modern TV in a roadside diner in Bumfuck, Iowa. Hospital breakout, the breaking news states, three dead, seven injured, dangerous fugitive on the loose. Be advised. Do not engage. Do not engage.

Yeah. Too fucking late for that now, isn't it.

"You alright?"

That's a loaded question, he thinks. I'm not sure what that really means and I don't know if I have for a while, he thinks.

You awake, Steve? You awake? You see it yet?

"Fine," he says, and digs back into the cold, gummy pancakes. "You think they got any blueberries in this place?"

Sam's face cracks into a smile, dubious and slow and then all at once. Sure, if you say so. Sure, I see what you're doing, but I'll trust your lead. Prop me up, I've got you right back. "Man, I don't think they even have hot water, but. Gimme five minutes and a Captain America name drop, I'm sure we can figure something out."

#this got very long jesus christ #I overthought it so now I'm just hoping it fits the event and the prompts??? anyway #so unbeta'd. my apologies and also enjoy! I hope!#catws10 #catws anniversary #steve rogers #brock rumlow #natasha romanoff #don't wanna tag sam because he only shows up for a blink of an eye but. he shows up and also I love him<3 #idk if it’s actually an M rating but. just to be safe #cw: violence #(but only barely)#gaslighting #by sheer virtue of the bastard involved #stevebucky #steve rogers/brock rumlow #I don't know the tag for that and I kind of don't want to know #this was really interesting and challenging and ultimately very painful to write ngl #my fic

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quarantineddreamer · 1 year

Text

if you can, hold on

Whumptober Day 8

This prompt just so happened to be the perfect excuse to (finally) finish a one-shot I had been writing that was inspired by this beautiful piece of art. So @ninsletamain, my friend, this one is for you <3 — Read below or on on AO3 (where you can also check out the rest of the incredible RC Whumptober ‘23 collection!)

At first, Jyn couldn’t hear him over the screaming in her ears–could barely see him through blurred vision and the motes of dust and ash still thick in the air around them.

But she could feel his hands, locked onto her arms, desperately shaking her, calling her back.

She blinked, slowly remembering. “Cassian,” she coughed, clearing her lungs of smoke as best she could. They’d been ambushed, nearly home free, but then… The beep of a grenade activated in a trooper’s gloved hand. Her eyes had widened at the cruel, red flash arcing towards them. She’d been shoved to the ground, something, someone heavy landing atop her, covering her body just before the world had erupted around them.

The piercing note in her head was fading into the background, allowing other sounds to slip through. Like the rumble of a nearby tree collapsing, the crack of smoldering fire, and the words tumbling from Cassian’s lips as she slowly sat up, “Are you hurt?”

Something seemed wrong in his voice, broken and raw, and lacking all the steady, commanding qualities she had come to associate it with. Jyn reached up and squeezed his arm in reassurance. When she tried to catch his eyes with her own, she found he was otherwise occupied, sinking to his knees beside her and scanning her body for injury.

“I’m okay,” she said, squeezing his bicep again when he still hadn’t looked up. “Cassian, I’m fine.”

She sat up and checked the area around them, searching for a flash of white, listening for the snap of twigs under Imperial boots, but it appeared they’d been assumed dead–or else something else had drawn their pursuers attention away. At least for now…

Her focus shifted back to Cassian, surprised he wasn’t urging her back on her feet and into motion.

She found him clutching at her shirt, fingers trembling and clumsy as they dropped from her shoulders and passed over her abdomen. For the first time, she noticed the strain on his face, how pale he appeared. Her muscles tensed at the disturbing hiccup of his breath catching, “Jyn…”

She followed his horrified stare to the red stain blooming across her midriff and saturating her shirt. Against her skin was the familiar, sticky heat of blood, yet strangely she felt no pain beyond a dull ache singing in her bones.

She lifted her head to meet Cassian’s horrified gaze, “I don’t unders–” Her heart gave a sharp stutter, as though a shard of glass had breached the walls of her chest. It wasn’t the kind of pain she’d been expecting, and for a second, she struggled to find a way to breathe through it.

His eyes, normally so sharp and bright, seemed to be losing grasp of her face, flickering in and out like dying embers. Blood continued to drip onto her stomach, burning with every drop.

She watched as his hands found the long gash in his side, his expression shifting from confusion to relief as truth slowly found its way to him through delirium.

“No, no, no, no–Cassian!” Jyn cried out, catching him against her chest as he collapsed, lowering him onto her lap.

“Jyn?” His voice was barely more than a whisper.

“I’ve got you, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay…” She worked as quickly as she could, unwrapping her scarf from around her neck and looping it tightly across his torso–cursing as her shaky hands fumbled with the knot. Even after, the wound continued to weep at an alarming rate. Where the hell is bacta when you need it…

“Jyn, I–” He was blinking heavily, eyes closing longer and longer each time.

“Cassian, you have to stay awake,” she hissed, pressing a quick hand to the side of his face. “Look at me. Stay. Awake.”

He gave her a glazed, but unblinking stare in acknowledgement.

“Good. Now. Where’s the comm?” she demanded. “Where’d the comm go?” Backup, we need backup. The ship, K2. Someone. Anyone. Their rendezvous time, the extraction point, were all useless details to her now. If Cassian wasn’t making it to the ship, then neither was she. There has to be another way…

“Jyn…I need to tell you something…”

“Later,” she huffed. When we’re safe. She began digging determinedly into his jacket pocket to emphasize her point. Her hands quieted when something warm brushed her cheek. Cassian… She gently covered his hand with her own, holding the back of it in place against her face.

The last time he had touched her like this–tender and soft in a way that made her chest ache with something overwhelming and fierce–had been on Scarif. To feel it again now sent an irrational flash of anger surging through her.

What do you think you’re doing? she wanted to scream at him, because this wasn’t how it was supposed to go, and she should have known better than to waste time with cowardice. After Scarif, she should have known; they both should have. What were we waiting for?

“When they come back you’ll be outnumbered,” Cassian said quietly, studying her face as he ran his knuckles across her cheek–chasing away a tear she hadn’t realized was there.

She ducked her head, checked the tightness of her makeshift bandage, and avoided his gaze. “So?” Don’t say it, don’t you dare say it.

“So,” he murmured, reaching up to gently sweep a stray hair away from her face, “you have to go…”

“And leave you behind?” She shot him a quick, defiant glare. “Like hell I do.”

But Cassian only shook his head, offered her a small, sad smile while his thumb made slow, soothing passes up and down her damp cheek. “Stubborn…”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Beautiful…” he added, ignoring her comment.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood,” she replied shortly, fighting to keep her voice steady. Not now. Not like this.

There was a look in his eyes she wanted to run from. Speaking of something she wasn’t ready to hear; refused to hear. It was the same look he’d had in his eyes in the elevator on Scarif. Only then, she’d understood, had shared the feeling with him–that sharp and sudden wash of realization, regret, and acceptance hitting all at once.

It felt like a betrayal for him to be feeling that again, without her.

His hand found the back of her neck, fingers tacky with blood lacing through her hair. His breathing was ragged, “Jyn, listen…please, just, listen.”

The desperation in his voice slammed into her, stole the air from her lungs, and left a hard, painful lump at the back of her throat. He sounded scared. Cassian never sounded scared.

It made her scared too. Scared, and empty of words that might offer either of them comfort. Empty of words of any kind, filled instead with a cold, numbing dread…

She drew closer to him, bending down until she could feel his breath against her lips–could feel the moment it caught when her fingers curled over his chest–the warmth of it sending a jolt like lightning down her spine, igniting fire in her blood.

She wanted to kiss him. More than ever, she wanted to press her lips to his, so that even if the rest of the world burned around them, they would at least have this to bring with them…

But if she kissed him now, it would feel like goodbye, and she couldn’t let him think–not even for a moment–that that was all it was; if she kissed him–when she kissed him–she wanted it to be a welcoming, the beginning of something, not the end.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “No. No.” She placed her hands against the sides of his face, lowered her forehead to his, tips of their noses brushing. “We’re not doing this. You can’t do this. You can’t give up before–” she swallowed the anguish clawing at her throat, ignored the burn of tears cutting lines down her cheeks. “We’ve got to give this a real chance, alright? So that means you have to stay alive. You have to.” She leaned away so she could see his face, make sure he heard her. “You got that, Captain?”

His expression was shadowed with something that went beyond exhaustion, but there was a warmth to his eyes as he looked at her that contradicted the cool, clammy feel of his skin. Whatever he had wanted to say to her, to tell her, it was still there, etched in his voice like stone, “I’m with you. But promise me…when they come back, promise me you’ll–”

“You know I won’t,” she cut in. “I’m not going anywhere–not without you. So give it up.”

There was a distance to his gaze, growing stronger with each passing moment. The black tide he’d been fighting all this time, come to pull him under. When his chin tilted towards his chest, Jyn knew it was more out of fading strength than actual agreement, but she decided to take it as a sign of comfort nonetheless.

“Okay,” she sighed, nodding–as though the motion could give all her wishful commands more authority, more power.

Cassian’s fingers wrapped around her wrist, before his eyes drifted shut.

This time she knew there was no waking him. “Okay,” she repeated softly to herself, studying the faint rise and fall of his chest, her own body feeling suddenly very heavy. “You get a little rest and I’ll go find us a way out of here.”

The smoldering wreckage around her seemed to whisper of imminent failure, but she shut the sound out. Narrowed her focus on the muted rhythm of Cassian’s heartbeat beneath her fingertips.

She tried not to think about how much time he might (or might not) have left. Tried not to think about how his life was now dependent upon her–about how little control she truly had relative to that massive responsibility.

She’d learned long ago that the mathematics of the universe were hardly fair. A kinder world would offer balance, would ensure that the probability of Cassian surviving was based solely on her efforts.

In that world she dreamed of, his survival was a certainty.

But she did not live in that world, and she never had. In this world, she would give all she had to save his life, but she knew–the same as she had when she was bleeding on the beaches of Scarif, watching the horizon turn to flames–that it still might not be enough.

Everything, anything, all the sacrifice in the world and still, it could all be for nothing.

And if he didn’t make it, it would be.

“I’ll be right back,” Jyn murmured, glancing down to check on Cassian. He was still breathing. As long as he was breathing she would keep fighting. “Remember what I told you…”

Stay alive, just, stay alive…

#whumptober 2023 #rebelcaptain fanfic #rebelcaptain whumptober #rebelcaptain #jyn x cassian #b writes #ahhh I am joining the chaos/pain and everyone has been so amazing so far I’m ngl I’m a little intimidated but hope you enjoy 🫶

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