My Dark Side
A/N: After watching Avengers: Age of Ultron, I was very intrigued that Steve could even possess darkness to his character. I mean, he's Captain America for crying out loud! (Language, I know). But he's still a human being. So I thought about it for a long time and this is what I came up with. Trigger warnings for bullying violence.
The sour odor of trash filled his nose as he stared at the pavement with a swollen eye. A rat scurried by just out sight but he knew it was there. They always were. Steve picked himself up from the concrete one more time with a groan, wiping his bloody nose and aching jaw on a threadbare sleeve. Barnes would yell at him for making the stain on the cuff. At this point, all his shirts had faded brown bloodstains on them. The metallic tang of blood was on his tongue. A shiner would be around his eye come morning. Bucky would be asking what trouble he'd gotten himself into this time and his answer would be plain and simple: he was just walking home from high school.
Rogers found his books, scattered about him and some pages torn. Luckily his sketchbook made it through this time unscathed. His teachers would scold him again tomorrow for losing his homework and damaging textbooks. A visit to the principal's office or even banishment to the corner of the room for a few hours was not out of the question. Funny, they never seemed to worry about his absences from illness, his rail thin body or the bruises that were being caused by the class pets.
Gathering his things, he tucked them under the less sore of his two arms and began to limp home, knowing he'd have to ask Bucky to sew that new hole in the knee of his pants.
A few blocks down, a tiny desperate motion caught his eye in an alleyway similar to the one he just left. Steve stopped. His keen eyes saw a body lying on the ground, but it was too short to be one of the bums that frequented these parts. Drawing closer, he heard a low moan and the body moved like someone was hurt.
"You ok?" Rogers said tentatively, ready to run if it was a bum. They had a nasty habit of robing people sometimes and Steve already had lost enough today.
The person on the ground rolled over and a young face Steve recognized turned skyward. It was Robbie Petrino from his class, lip bloodied and a cut over his left eye that oozed blood down the side of his face. He too would have shiners on both eyes come morning. The only difference between him and Steve was Robbie was on the top of the food chain in school. Steve was unfazed that someone else had kicked Robbie's ass. He always was a bit of a showboat.
A look of fear crept into Robbie's eyes when he recognized Rogers, "Hey… dontcha tell nobody I got beat, ya' hear!" Blood blended together with his spit as he begged, running down his chin in a thin stream. Steve guessed casually he had some loose teeth in his mouth.
Narrowing his eyes feeling callous, Steve growled, "You and who's army gonna stop me?"
"If everybody finds out then- " Robbie pleaded seeing his popularity in the neighborhood hanging on by the tenuous thread of Steve's mercy.
"Then what?" Steve took a confident step forward seeing his enemy on the ground, venom in his voice, "You afraid everybody'd think you're like me?"
Petrino swallowed nervously, barely nodding his head, his brown eyes the size of dinner plates.
Steve glanced a quick left and right, entering the alley, dropping his books on the ground. Rogers approached the prone boy, a ferocious glint in his eye. Petrino held his guts with both arms like he'd been pounded good, "Look here you piece of crap, you ain't better than no one! You think just 'cause I'm skinny that you can kick my ass any time you want. Well how's that feel, Robbie? How's that feel to be on the hard ground, blood in your mouth?"
Robbie didn't answer. He was too terrified at the look of wrath on Steve's face.
Rogers's vision hazed red in absolute rage. He'd had enough. A cruel smile laced its way across his face in a grimace of vengeance as sparks flew from his eyes as his hands balled into fists.
First, it was a kick to Robbie's ribs making him whine in pain to stop, followed by another and another until Rogers could hear his blood singing in his ears. Petrino gasped for breath, his voice tiny because he couldn't inhale. "How's that feel Robbie?!" Steve raged with each kick.
Then he took aim at Petrino's face with his fists, pounding him in the head, over and over and over till blood flew from his knuckles with the back swing. A tiny whimpering sound came from Robbie as he tried to shield his head from the blows of the skinny, sick boy he used to whip almost daily.
Emotional electricity surged through Rogers like liquid lightening. Steve felt overwhelmingly powerful landing blows anywhere on Robbie's body. His soul delighted in every single sound of pain and suffering he heard. This was power. The darkness enveloped him with promises of retribution to all who had hurt him in the past. This was what it was like to be on top for once. This was….
"STEVE STOP IT!" Bucky's voice cut through the crimson haze enveloping Roger's brain. Grabbing Steve's wrist mid strike, Barnes spun him round on his heel as Rogers was about to land another blow on Petrino.
In his frenzy, Steve cocked back and slugged Bucky in the chin not realizing who it was. The taller teen staggered back a step, a look of more shock than hurt on his face that his best friend actually punched him. Barnes raised a hand to his chin where a red smear of Petrino's blood from Steve's' knuckles colored his face. A dark look came over Bucky's eyes as he said in a low, disappointed tone, "Your mamma raised you better."
Steve blinked like a deer in headlights, suddenly realizing it was Bucky and not another bully. Looking around, wide eyed, the realization of what he had done suddenly crashed down on him like a ton of bricks. The vision of his mother's face, disapproving, appeared inside his head, making him feel worse. Dropping to his knees beside the badly bloodied Robbie, Steve curled up into a ball and wretched.
"Steve. It's ok. C'mon. He'll be alright." Barnes said, glancing around for cops and wiping the blood off his chin. "Really. You don't hit that hard. He'll be fine."
Steve said nothing but let the empty, useless sensation of what he had done wash over him like waves crashing upon land. He heard Robbie weeping softly through his swollen face. The darkness receded from his mind leaving him feeling hollow and broken like the prickle of ground glass pressing onto his skin.
"Rogers! C'mon! Petrino will be fine. You all can kick each others asses another day. Let's go!" Bucky grabbed Steve roughly by the shoulder and yanked him upright and out of the alley, his school books tucked under his other arm.
Rogers looked back over his shoulder at the fallen boy and realized that his moment of getting even didn't make him a better man. It diminished his spirit.
Rogers woke with a start on the living room floor in Barton's house. The summer darkness was warm and comforting with the feeling of a home and love. His breath rose and fell rapidly as his heart hammered in his chest. Beads of sweat tickled his hairline.
"I don't trust anyone without a dark side." Tony's voice sarcastically echoed in Steve's head as he tried to swallow, his throat sandpaper dry. Rogers realized Stark lay just a few feet over on the floor near Banner. Both Avengers slept on without an apparent care in the world.
Dr. Erskine's words echoed from the past, "Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength and knows compassion."
With a heavy sigh, Steve rolled over and thought back to Erskine's wisdom and his failing that day with Robbie Petrino. Bucky was right; his momma raised him to be a better man than that. Only he and Rogers and Robbie knew what happened and none spoke of it again. The darkness won that day but Steve vowed to keep it locked away deep.
Staring into the night, Cap tried to push the memory down that he felt creeping up again. It was a failing he had to deal with privately and it was harder without Bucky around. "Maybe you just haven't seen it yet." Rogers had replied to Tony, the knife-edge of his temper taken out on log he ripped in half. Tony looked as astonished as Robbie had that day, but Stark was better at recovering his composure.
Dozing, his mind wandered through a wonderscape of the twenty first century mashed up with days of the past. Battles, explosions, good men dying and Chitauri aliens, Loki's face all mixed and mashed together swirling and reforming into new places and times like a psychedelic kaleidoscope.
The train came and Barnes fell. At the base, after Zola had been secured and the mission was complete, he went to the stockade. Steve entered a holding cell of Hydra officers and soldiers. The darkness came again and when it was all over, Phillips almost had Cap court-martialed. A few graves were dug for the POW's. Reports were written and redacted. Phillips made phone calls and an Army psychologist examined the super soldier for signs of shell shock. Everyone treaded a bit lighter around Cap that day and then a few after that too.
Steve went to have a drink in a bar, where Peggy found him, feeling sorry he had not only lost Bucky but also dishonored his memory. "Your mamma raised you better." whispered in Barnes's voice as he swilled the whiskey that he couldn't get drunk on.
He couldn't tell her. Steve desperately wanted to tell someone about his secret darkness when he was so angry the world turned to blood and he could commit murder. But he couldn't. He didn't. The darkness was returned again to the pit of Rogers' being, hopefully never to see the light of day again.
Steve sat up from his dozing sleep, feeling like he was going to vomit. The steady breathing from Banner and Stark was not comforting. The house was quiet, but not in an eerie way. Getting up, Steve decided to use the restroom. For a big man, he moved quietly until that errant toy was underfoot. Cussing to himself, he hopped one foot to the bathroom.
Flicking on the light, he saw an old man looking at him, blue eyes tired and blood shot. Splashing some water on his face didn't help. Now he was a wet old looking man. The darkness was not in his eyes. When Tony stirred that pot, Steve clamped the lid on tight. Howard apparently didn't tell his son everything about the super soldier. With a heavy sigh, he reflected on Erskine's words, "Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing: that you will stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man." Hanging his head to stare at the porcelain sink, Cap felt the strain of guilt like a vise on his neck like it would break in two.
Erskine didn't see it. He never saw that dark side and believed Steve was that 'good man' till his last breath. Steve felt like a cheap fraud.
Stark hasn't seen it. But he was suspecting and infinitely irritating.
Cap looked up into the mirror. A flicker, a shard of it was there, lurking, waiting.
Maybe if he was careful, Steve could keep the world from seeing his dark side.