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The weight is crushing him, cracking his ribs and stealing his breath and his first thought is: “Not again.” Not again- the theme song of the tragedy that is the life of Steve Rogers, Captain America, who had once been called Stevie by the few people he treasured. “Not again,” he thinks, because the weight haunts his nightmares and has him wake up screaming, “Not again, please, oh god, not again.” He expects the cold to set in then, for the water to start filling his lungs. There are tears burning in his eyes and he grasps, as he has done in dreams now so many times, for his shield, only to find he cannot move.
That is right, he is already crushed, already the ice- there is no ice. Steve takes a breath and his rips scream and his mouth fills with dust. Not even in his strangest nightmares had there been dust in his dreams about the plane called Valkery, the clear Arctic water crushing in, the blue ice becoming his tomb. He blinks and the world around him shifts. He is- it is 2014 and the world has changed. He remembers now. It is 2014 and they had been fighting. There are screams in the distance and Steve coughs. Pain shoots through is breast, his legs. There is no part of him that doesn’t hurt. He knows that feeling too.
It is 2014. He is out of the ice. The world has moved on. He knows that. He cannot forget.
In his ear a com crackles to life, its smooth tone so different from the static that had accompanied his childhood, the slight rasp of record players and radios and communication devices. There is no static, in a world occupied by Tony Stark. “Capsicle!” His voice is cheery, but he has learned to recognize the tightness there, the adrenalin-filled fear and exhilaration of the fight. “Capsicle this is not the time for a break. Albeit I am sure the great Captain America does not ever need a break.” He laughs at his own statement, even though Steve fails to understand what the joke is. His ribs burn. “Capsicle? We need you doing your job.”
His eyes burn. The weight is crushing him still as he takes stock of his surroundings. The memory of the moments before is still hazy, still overlapping with nightmares and times long gone. He cannot shake his head. He cannot move. He is crushed. Crushed beneath a building, he remembers that now. He almost wants to laugh and he doesn’t know why. Even breathing hurts like this.
“Activate,” he whispers, and for the first time he is glad for the technological advances that Stark brings to the team. He could not have lifted his arm to tap the com, which crackles to life now. “Tony?” He hates the way his voice cracks slightly, the way pain pulls it and warps it. He sounds so small like this and Steve Rogers is very familiar with feeling small. Only that neither Mama nor Bucky are here too hold his hand, as he winces and whimpers through the fever dream.
Sometimes all of this feels like a dream, a nightmare brought by the fever. Any moment now he will wake up in the small cot next to the fireplace where he and his Mama sleep, Bucky sitting on the stained rug at his side. Any minute he will wake up and Mama will still be alive and Bucky will still have wild fires in his eyes and his days will still be counted. Most times he would prefer his days being counted instead of this world in which everything is foreign and strange, in which the world seems to collapse in itself any minute.
“There you are Cap! Had a nice nap?” He grits his teeth. By god it hurts. “What is the situation?” It’s murder robots today, because it is always murder robots, or aliens or vigilantes gone rouge. He is to understand that it wasn’t like that in the years he was under and he wishes he could have woken sooner. Or maybe not at all. Maybe it was fate that brought him here. It has her handwriting all over it. That he must awake at the beginning of another age of chaos and death and pain. Or maybe he brings the bad luck. Who knows? Maybe if he’d find an end the world could find peace.
He knows he should not think these thoughts, that the nuns at school would strike him for doing so. He tells no one and goes to bed praying for a miracle, praying in every language he knows, on his knees and hands folded, reciting anthems and rhymes in the language of the green and open land his mother came from. She missed it for a lifetime, he knows. He doesn’t have the time to visit it, even though he thinks he would like too.
“A bunch of civilians trapped; we are getting them out. Natasha is on scene and Clint and me cover air, but we’d need some heavy lifting and Big guy is busy.” Heavy lifting. He needs that too. There are black spots dancing in his vision. The pain is almost as bad as the time he got injected with the serum, a constant stabbing and tearing ache as his body gets slowly crushed and knits itself back together. He knows he can survive this. He survived the ice. He just- he needs to get out. He can feel the tears on his cheeks. He needs to get out.
Muscles strain as Captain America tries to lift the debris that has pinned him down. They tear and rip and it is a familiar pain. Yet he has to remind himself, to not make a sound. Something has stabbed through his leg and as it shifts, he cannot keep himself from crying out, his vision momentarily fading to white. “Capsicle?” Tony sounds impatient. “Sorry,” he gasps. “Sorry, I can’t.”
There is a pause. “The building falling down has trapped these people Cap. You sure you can’t make it to the party?” He bites his lips. There is still so much dust. His body screams. He wants to curl up and cry. He wants to die. “I am pinned. You need to help me,” admitting it feels like defeat. He knows he cannot fuck up. He has not been able to do that ever since he became the Captain, but especially not here. Not in this new century which sees him as a hero, a figure of strength. “We cannot do that,” Tony decides. “I am sure you can hold on.”
“I can’t!” he wants to scream. “I can’t.” He stays silent. “Of course. The civilians first. These robots better hope I will not get up again.” He breathes and his body revolts. There is blood in his mouth and blood in his lungs. Nothing the serum can’t fix. He forgets to deactivate the com buzzing in his ears as his world fades to black and to white and back to dusty grey. Tears are still running done his cheeks. He wants his mum. He is twenty-six and has spent about three times as long on this earth. There is blood in his mouth. He always has blood in his mouth. It seems to be his destiny.
When he was sixteen some boys dragged him into an alleyway and beat him up for being a “Fairy.” He always found it interesting, how such a beautiful word could have such an ugly meaning. It was neither the first nor the last time he was beat up. Sometimes it was because of his big mouth and his foolishness, as Bucky called it, sometimes it was because someone took offence to him. Sometimes it was the police, because Steve had been born with revolution in his blood, swinging his fist and calling. They arrested him at worker protests and queer clubs and suffragette marches too. Stevie had a tendency to get in trouble and in the end, it led him to the place that had killed his dad.
The battlefield was brutal and his new body was too. He was unique. Special. He threw himself on grenades and into burning buildings and yet he never wavered, no matter how much blood there was. Stevie did not give up. And then Bucky fell and it all- it all- It faded.
It was 2014 and a building was crushing him and his mouth was full of blood and he asked himself when it would be over.
“I miss you Buck.” He did. It was a hollow ache, filled with nights full of tears and sweaty nightmares that felt like the fever dreams of his childhood. Just that there was no one to sit on his bedside like Bucky had. Bucky had always been there. Just not anymore and now they didn’t even call him by his name. “What?” the voice was strange. It reminded him a little of Howard. “Miss you Buck. M’sorry.” He cried now. Why did he cry? Crying hurt. His chest burned; his mouth filled with a metallic twang. Had they beaten him up again?
There was something, he was sure that he should be sorry for. He had done something wrong; he knew that- what. “Watcha talking about Cap?” The voice was silk smooth, a little raspy at the ends. A woman’s voice. Not Peggy. “Hurts,” he whispered and there was a weight on his chest, ice maybe? Why ice? It was crushing him slowly. “I can’t,” he gasped and then screamed when fire exploded across his body. There were tears. Tyler Jones said boys did not cry. Bucky said that Tyler was full of shit and a good for nothing and that he should not listen to him. He held him, when he cried, wrapping his body around Steve, calling him Stevie and kissing the top of his head. They couldn’t do that anymore, because he was too big now.
Screaming. Tracks crashing. The world fading to Black.
“Cap? Captain?” The women’s voice again. “M’not-” he gasps, when pain shoots through him again. “M’not Cap.” He hasn’t been he thinks, for a long time. Maybe not since Bucky died. Maybe not since he woke up in this century and no one knew his name. “Okay?” The woman’s voice is soft. He knows her- he- Natasha. It is 2014. It is 2014 and it hurts. “Who are you then?” Natasha is always so calm. Distanced. Professional. But she is good at understanding. Or at seeming like she does. He sobs. It hurts. He can hear people talking in the distance, screaming orders to each other. “M’Steve.” The world shifts around him, spins. There is still blood in his mouth and for the first time he finds himself questioning if he will survive this.
Someone curses over the com. “Steve,” Natasha is so calm. She always is. He stares at the grey concrete above him. He is sweating. He is cold. His breath is shallow. He doesn’t want to drown again. He cannot drown. Not on land. “It is broken. This body.” It has always been broken, he thinks. He thought he could fix it. Sometimes he wishes he never had. “Maybe this will kill me?” He laughs and then he cries. “It is not a good way to die.” Above him debris shifts. “I want to go. I don’t like this.” There is talking in the coms, but he cannot hear anymore. “No one knows me. I miss Buck.” A crack of light. “I miss him.”