Hello! This is my first time writing in quite a while, because of my exam period. I decided to write something new to ease me back into it. I hope to continue this, provided the readers don't find it awful. This is also my first time writing a story about The Avengers, and I should stress, I HAVE NOT READ THE COMIC BOOKS. I would like to, honestly, but I haven't had much time recently... So yeah, this is a purely movie based story, though I've done some research about the characters and have tried to keep them in character.
Lord, I'm rather nervous about this. This hasn't been beta'd, either, and as I'm British, I may not have used the right language. Please, if you notice anything that's out of place, could you inform me? Thank you. I seem to be listing a lot of flaws in this before I've even begun, and I'm hoping that you're not put off. I hope you like this, because I do so want to continue it. This will eventually become a Steve/Tony fic, if I do, though with heavy undercurrents of past Steve/Peggy. I hope you enjoy the prologue!
Throughout his life, Steve Rogers had been constantly underestimated. It had started from the very moment of his birth- born prematurely, severely underweight and barely able to breathe by himself; they'd told his mother he was a gonner. No one expected him to last the night. His surprise recovery had been considered miraculous, but it left him plagued with medical issues all through his childhood, his asthma in particular proving a constant curse.
Kids soon learned that the easiest person to chase was the one who could barely breathe. Steve didn't have friends when he was younger; he couldn't keep up with the games they played, preferring to read books or draw pictures to football or baseball. Bullying had been a natural side effect- after all, he was so very vulnerable to attacks. If this hadn't made him enough of a target, his morals goaded the bullies further. He wouldn't hesitate to try and help someone who was in a fight- he'd been on the receiving end of a bully's punch too many times in his life to let it slide when he saw it.
No one ever thanked Steve for helping them out. Despite his good intentions, back up from Steve in an altercation usually resulted in further beatings for them both. He was never terribly effective anyway, needless to say. The wounds he earned, the bruises he gained, they went without recognition- except in one case. James Barnes wasn't always a figure of strength and masculinity- as a preadolescent youth, he'd been almost as small and weak as Steve himself. There's a certain connection between orphans- a feeling of neglect, a quiet air of sadness and loss that only they could register. Bucky had extended his hand and pulled the battered, broken Steve from the ground, beginning a lifelong friendship between them.
Adolescence had perhaps been the most painful period of Steve's life before the war. A number of confusing new feelings arose in him, further complicating his unhappy life. Whilst his peers adjusted and changed, gaining new height and strength as they grew older, Steve more or less stayed put. A few extra inches were all he could hope for, still woefully below average height, skinny as ever. His new preoccupation with the opposite sex remained unsuccessful. None of the girls he knew liked him, and even if they had, he had no idea how to talk to them. These feelings became ones of shame, that he ought not to have, not someone so unlikely (in his mind) to ever feel loved by a woman.
Steve found distraction by other means. He wasn't a natural academic, but he worked hard enough to achieve pretty good grades. Drawing had always been his passion, however. Art school was a dream come true. He felt truly appreciated as an artist, and though he still felt inadequate in many senses, he was happy.
It was in the early months of 1936, when the Rhineland became remilitarised, when Steve became truly worried about the state of affairs abroad. Sure, he'd made sure to keep up with the news in Europe before, but as he grew closer to eighteen years of age, he really began to realise the potential damage of the Third Reich. Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Regime epitomised everything Steve detested- bigotry, terror and oppression. It repulsed him, and the horror he felt in his heart at the thought of Germany's current regime only increased as years passed. When war broke out in Europe, he was angered that America was not involved. Isolationism could only get them so far. Whilst the vast majority of the American public objected to involvement in Europe, Steve felt that aiding the Western allies was simply not enough.
When Pearl Harbour was attacked, Steve was adamant that he could be of use in the army. It wasn't about the escape or the violence or the girls, not for him. He had a duty to lay down his life, and he was under no illusions that he would come back. Skinny little fellas like him could only survive for so long in a war zone. It didn't change a thing- everyone was under the same obligation, no matter what hand they'd been dealt in life. He just hadn't been very lucky, is all. What didn't occur to him, what never even crossed his mind, was the idea that they might turn him down. When they did in fact decide that Steve, 23 from Brooklyn was unfit to serve, he didn't understand. Yet again, he felt rejected. Belittled. Undervalued. Granted, he wasn't much, but he was something.
After they'd thawed him out, they'd kept him isolated from the rest of the world for a time. It was all part of a period of acclimatization, he was told, before he could start his readjustment training. He wasn't all too bothered about leaving, anyway. The brief glimpses he'd seen of this new world had not felt too appealing. The therapy had been due to start very soon, but Loki's invasion meant that it'd had to be postponed. At that stage, they were rather more concerned with Steve doing the old super-soldier routine than whether he could settle into the 21st century.
His time with the Avengers initiative had been strange, rushed and downright dangerous. SHIELD was a very dark and mysterious organisation, closed off from the world in a way that Steve didn't much like. A group that large and that secret had to have something horrible to hide. It wasn't that he didn't like Fury- he reminded him of Colonel Phillips, in a strange sort of a way- but he got the distinct feeling that Fury had a great deal more power than one man ought to, particularly one who was unelected. Phil Coulson was similar- he seemed very inoffensive upon first glance, like a friendly neighbour, but Steve knew full well that Phil could kill a man without breaking a sweat. Could have. Steve didn't enjoy talking about Phil any more. He didn't feel he'd earned the right, especially considering how enthusiastic Coulson had been upon meeting him.
If the SHIELD agents had been somewhat intimidating, that was nothing to his fellow Avengers. Two of them were of course in the pay of SHIELD- the master assassins Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff. Clint was a man of few words, rarely speaking unless spoken to, and he reminded Steve of the brooding, older guys he saw smoking outside of his school back when he was younger. Natasha… Well, she was pretty incredible in every sense- cunning, intelligent, beautiful and deadly. She reminded Steve of Peggy. Steve avoided thinking about Natasha for that reason.
The others were downright bizarre. Clint and Natasha, though brilliant, were similar to people he'd met in his own time. The three other men who fought alongside Steve were so ridiculously implausible to him, he often questioned whether any of this was even real. He'd grown up in an era where man had not yet stepped foot on the moon, so learning of the existence of other realms- other realms that were more advanced than Earth, he ought to add- was bizarre. Thor was archaic in his speech, but in all other senses, very well caught up. Steve liked Thor a great deal, actually, but then again, there were very few people who didn't. Bruce Banner was another likeable figure- well, most of the time. It was strange to think of this mild mannered scientist having a destructive alter ego. Most of the time, Bruce kept himself to himself. That or spend time talking to the only other genius on the team.
And yes, that brought him to the final member of the Avengers Initiative. If Steve had asked to see the personification of the materialism that the 21st century thrived on, he would have been brought Tony Stark. Flash, brash and with a ton of cash, Tony's abrasive attitude grated on Steve's nerves from the very moment they met. Everything about them seemed to conflict- if Steve were a gentle stroll, Tony was a sprint. If Steve was a foxtrot, Tony was a tango. Yet he found himself weirdly at ease around Stark. There were no pretences with Tony- what you saw was what you got. And he had to admit, the man was pretty funny.
Working with his new colleagues had been a huge task, and when it was over, Steve wasn't sure what to do. After Loki had been captured, he and Fury had made a deal. Fury allowed him three days after Loki was taken back to Asgard, one week in which he was able to do whatever the hell he wanted. Then he would return to Stark Tower, in order to undergo the rest of his rehabilitation. And after that… Steve didn't know what. Would he go back home? Would he live the rest of his life waiting for a call from SHIELD?
First, Steve went back to Brooklyn. The place was busier than he remembered, for obvious reasons. Steve had matured during the Depression, after the previous decadence of the 20s- he was used to stark contrasts in wealth. He saw the gaps between the rich and the poor everywhere. Even turning a corner could take you from a safe neighbourhood to a dangerous one. Brooklyn, even all of New York, even all of America was divided by prosperity, or lack of it. Steve considered the continuing poverty something shameful. He then considered his old USO tour, and which states he'd most liked, but there simply wasn't time to visit them all. And what would he find there? No, there was only one place he needed to go.
Planes had advanced so much since the 40s. He'd refused a private flight to London, wanting to see how commercial air travel had progressed. There had been the issue of Steve's newfound fame to contend with, but he'd learned that he could blend in very easily when people didn't expect him to be there. No one thought that Steve Rogers- no, no one thought Captain America would be flying economy to London in the early hours of the morning. He found the flight enjoyable. He was seated next to an elderly British woman, who delighted in telling him about her grandchildren and how her husband had been in the Navy during World War Two. She'd told Steve he was a 'very nice young man', and to settle down quickly with a nice girl. That brought back painful memories of Peggy, but then again, so did most things these days. At the end, in those last days, she had meant everything to him, was the only window to a future worth having. What remained now?
So there he stood. It had been raining before he arrived, though it had stopped now, the grass remaining wet and springy under his feet. Peggy's grave was simple, just how he'd imagined it. Just her name, rank and the words 'Courage, Honour, Loyalty, Sacrifice'. Steve wondered if she had ever married again… The grave was well maintained, but there were no mentions of a family in her file. It had pained him so much to leave her, but how must it have felt to her?
"So, um," Steve began, not sure what to say. "I- I brought flowers." He brandished the bouquet he was holding. "I didn't know which ones you'd like. You didn't seem the type to like flowers, to be honest. You'd laugh if you could see me like this, wouldn't you? So, I- I got you some cigarettes too. Much more your style." He laid them both against the headstone, fingers brushing the marble almost reverently. "It feels strange to think you're not with me, Peggy. I want this to be the other way around. But maybe that's unfair to you. Maybe looking for the easy option isn't what I should be doing." He felt his voice catch in his throat. "I want to say sorry for some of the things I did. Like kissing- well, she kissed me. But I should have stopped her. And- more than that, I want to say sorry for the things I didn't do." He was unaware of when he had started crying, but that was how he found himself. "For wasting so much time being stupid and cautious and god damn ridiculous over you when I should have been telling you… telling you how perfect you were. No, not perfect. But so much more than I ever deserved." There were things he wished to say, emotions he wanted to express but didn't know how. "I… I just wanted you to know that. Because I'm not sure if who I was and who I'm going to be are going to be all that similar, and you deserved to hear it from the old Steve… because the new Steve might not be able to." He touched the top of the headstone briefly. "Thank you…" he whispered. "Thank you for everything."