So. I know those of you who read my other stories, from this account or the other, are probably furious. I apologize. The truth is- although I don't think I've lied- the way I write stories, I need to bounce between them, going back and forth so I don't go off onto a weird tangent on a story out of boredom. Therefore I actually have about thirteen stories currently. Most ranging from twenty-thousand to fifty-thousand words. I know that sounds ludicrous. This is a new one. I have been needing to do this, and will probably make this into a series of oneshots, all connected. I will tell you guys if they're seperate. I doubt they will be. This will be something pretty AU. Only the first Avengers movie has happened- and there's something very different. No one knows Steve's name- Steve Rogers. They also greatly underestimate him. Yeah. I went there. This is going to be pretty Steve-centric, and yeah. Steve's a pretty little BAMF, too. Even if he doesn't realize it himself. Poor guy's kind of down in the dumps. Now, I want to make something clear. I'll repeat some things, too. STEVE-CENTRIC MOSTLY, STEVE IS KIND OF BAMF MAYBE ALTHOUGH HE'S A MODEST LITTLE SHIT, AND NO HE DOES NOT HAVE MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES, HE'S JUST ACTING MOST OF THE TIME, AND WHEN HE'S ACTING LIKE CAPTAIN AMERICA IT DESCRIBES HIM AS SUCH. THIS WILL BE EXPLAINED IN THIS CHAPTER. Okay. Thank you. I really hope you guys like it. I hate to be that person- but somehow this made me cry a little. Perhaps it was this and the thought of more Steve angst. I find that's very easy to do. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH. By the way, how to do linebreak? I don't know how. Thanks.\
Sometimes he wakes up, and he can almost feel the shock waves, hear the screaming. Smell the blood in coppery mists wafting over the battlefield that's just outside his tent. But then he hears a robotic voice asking if he needs assistance, as his heart rate has gone up, and feels the soft, warm blankets and knows that he's not in the war.
He'll get up, get dressed, shave, everything. Then run like the time he did after that good doctor was shot and he was chasing after the first HYDRA operative he had properly met. These times when he runs, though, he isn't chasing after anyone but his own shadow. And no one suicides- except perhaps him. He doesn't die. Not on the outside. Just returns to the tower.
Sometimes Tony's there, in the mornings. With black rings around his eyes and looking pale, voice somewhat raspy. He would think Tony was sick, but he knew by now Tony was just not sleeping again. He, as always, urged Tony to put the coffee down and get some sleep. Once in awhile Tony listened. This was one of those times. That was fine. That way, he was only called 'Cap' and 'Spangles' and 'Cap-sicle' a few times. He doesn't hate Tony. He doesn't think he can hate anyone. Ever since the ice, he doesn't think he can feel like that. He's still feeling like he hasn't defrosted yet.
It's funny how they don't call him by name- no one does. If he didn't know any better, it was like they didn't know his real name. It was possible. He didn't mind much. It told him what he was for, here, and that was to fight. Soldier on. Here, he was Captain America. In this time, that was who he was. There was no one called Steve Rogers. That man had been forgotten. He had died with the rest of his generation and fellow troops, sacrificing himself to the cause like all the others. Surely Steve Rogers would be less numb than the imitation he felt he was today.
The only times he felt like Steve Rogers anymore was in the dreams, and in the- he had asked JARVIS, one day, keeping it confidential, pleading for the AI to keep the question even from Tony. To his surprise, the computer had. He knew it, too, because he was sure that if any of them heard about what he had asked, he would be off the team instantly. He had asked about shell shock. It was called PTSD now. Why were there so many acronyms in his life? There sure hadn't been that many when he was Steve Rogers and everything was so much more simple and happy. Apparently he had shell shock. It made sense. When he awoke sometimes, he wasn't smelling blood or hearing the thorns, but feeling shockwaves, seeing flashes. Shells. And every time for some reason he was a little shocked by them.
He couldn't let anyone know. They didn't even know his name. Or what he was really like.
"Now, Steve," He remembered a Commando saying. "All of you, listen up, but you especially, Steve."
They had known his name back then. To them, he wasn't merely Captain America, he was something better. He was Steve Rogers, a man who would easily choose death if it would save his friends. Someone who was loyal and kind and not afraid to stand up to the big guys if it meant the little guys could find their way. Who went to the end of the line and farther.
"If an ally captures you, and demands you work for them- and you have pretty much no choice but to- only let them see the side they want to. You, Steve, show them the essential Captain America. Don't really joke, don't smile really, just do as they ask and don't let a hint of your real self peek out. Show them the soldier that commands, not the nice guy that asks. It'll work. Then, just find a way back to us. We'll find each other, don't worry."
He was following that advice to the letter. They didn't even know his name. Or perhaps Captain America was his name now, and someone called Steve Rogers had truly been left behind, and all that was left was the solemn, order following soldier of a patriotic hero from the past. It was hard at first not to be like Steve Rogers. Not to slip up- but at the same time it was so easy. He followed his old companion's advice. His old team's advice. Howling Commandos. That was a team. This… while it had its good sides, it wasn't. It wasn't his team.
"You're such a stick in the mud, Spangles," Tony had groaned. He had cast a snide look at him before shooting, "The angst isn't going to get you free passes much longer, Cap."
He didn't want free passes. He wanted to… go home. He had realized too late he had said that last part out loud, and Tony had been hanging back and frowning at him, this time not in anger but… curiosity, he was sure. There was nothing else Tony would feel towards him. He had passed it off as saying that it was a poem he read. Tony had reminded him of it. Tony had scoffed but fell for it.
Because Captain America wasn't a jokester. And perhaps they thought he couldn't lie. He had acted that way a few times- and while Steve Rogers disliked lying, Captain America did what had to be done, as long as his superiors didn't mind it.
The man had lingered for a moment longer, though. Simply watching as Captain America, in civvies, had sat down to simply sit and stare at nothing. Then Tony had left, mumbling something under his breath. He hadn't looked back, and Captain America wasn't looking to watch. The others had come back to the tower soon after. They had been giving him the normal glances. They sort of trusted him. He wasn't trying to get them to. It wasn't his orders to make them like him, nor was it in his commando's instructions. They followed his orders in battle. They trusted him that much. He supposed they trusted him. He had seen all the moments when he could have killed them, and there were many. Even for Natasha.
They trusted the 'Good Soldier'. It wasn't like Steve Rogers hadn't been that. That was in fact who Steve Rogers had been, only Steve Rogers had been so much more, too- and could have been even more than that. But the 'Good Soldier' was all Captain America was.
Sometimes he'd stare, instead of at nothing, at the drawer where he had placed the pistol. It was a beaut. From the war, too. His. Bucky had given it to him as a gift. It was funny how the others in this time somehow believed he could handle no other weapon than himself or his shield. They hadn't even tried to make him learn any other. If he had been Steve Rogers, he would have laid in wait, letting them believe until a precise moment. Surprise them again and again on all the different weapons he knew how to use or could figure out easily, or just do a gory show of them all at once in the middle of a fight where he could afford to goof off. He wasn't sure which- Steve Rogers wouldn't have been sure which.
Captain America always pulled his punches somewhat. Steve Rogers would've also done that- most of the time. He would have slipped into anger or desperation during battles more and gone all out, despite the gory mess his full strength could create. A punch to the ribs could shunt the spine out of the body somewhat, the spindly bones protecting the lungs and heart eagerly caving inwards with horrible cracks and creaks and piercing their vulnerable victims in the split second before the body flew and blood splurted. No one in this time had seen that.
He was Captain America, and he did not allow himself to feel like that was acceptable for others to see, even if he killed anyways and his normal style was actually more painful for his victims anyways. Steve Rogers had always been slightly appeased from his guilt by that, when he didn't pull his punches. Captain America knew that the carnage was not what the people in this time and place wanted to see. So he put that with Steve Rogers, back in the ice, and always pulled his punches.
He didn't do that with his words. Those came out sharp and cutting and saying things Steve Rogers would have gotten mad at him for saying. Steve Rogers would have gotten along with Tony. Everybody in this time, really. There were few Steve Rogers couldn't get along with. At least on the good side. Even Fury was someone Steve could've had a soft spot for. Steve Rogers could have beat them all in the prank war that swept the tower only a few weeks ago. Instead, Captain America had scowled and scolded and avoided them all until it was over. He hated it- but Captain America didn't hate. Captain America wasn't much like Steve Rogers- but at the same time, they were almost twins.
It was as if Steve Rogers was the body, the little guy who had the real smarts and the quirks and the happiness, and Captain America was the cold, unyielding shield protecting him. But Captain America couldn't protect Steve Rogers, and the latter was mentally in ice. In the dreams, he could be Steve again- and his teammates, his friends, had found him. And they were happy again. He was free then, even in the war. Because to him, the war had been the most he had lived- and it still was. He longed for the dreams. For his friends to find him like they had promised long ago, when they had told him to act like Captain America. He knew they would. He loved the dreams. The nightmare was waking up. Because Captain America felt cold. Steve Rogers felt warm. Steve Rogers was who he was, and Captain America was a mask he knew he would probably never get to discard. They would find him.
His Howling Commandos always found each other.
They would find him, and he would be happy again, Steve Rogers running with his men, with his gun and military uniform amidst the explosions and bullets, smiling because he figured he might as well have a pretty corpse, and damn if that joke Bucky had said earlier wasn't still hilarious and still in the back of his head as he leaped over barbed wire.
Then he would wake up, and his smile would be gone.
Captain America didn't smile.
Steve Rogers cried tears of ice where no one could see him.
His team lay still in the earth, and he would never be found.
They always found each other.
Right?