He brought the plane down.
So where is he now? He stands on a hill layered with rust red grass that reeks of brittle iron and water-logged scrap. As far as he can see the grass runs to the horizon and a sky gone pale with heat. And he blinks – darkness beyond the ken of men in a world made of creeping ice that devours – and gasping he… There is a road that runs into the distance. "We're not in Kansas anymore." A laugh – a sob, he wishes he could have taken Peggy to the pictures. Wishes he and Bucky could tease her about a cartoon short or how pretty she must fix up.
There is a road that runs to the horizon and he walks it because there is nothing else to do. And the sky is pale, but no sun shines from it – and maybe the light he sees comes from the road. A road paved with smooth bone bleached white. Smooth white bone that gradually becomes smooth yellow bone edging into reddish-brown. He stops and sits by the road, but it's too late to ignore the rotting wrecks just a little ways further. He tries to remember the words, "Hail Mary full of Grace…"
That he cannot is more than a failure, because he might be in hell. Except – he doesn't deserve that does he? He brought the plane down. He saved the soldiers when he came for Bucky. He fought Hydra and Red Skull. He-he brought the plane down when Howard could have saved him. And he did that because he let Bucky fall. He let Bucky fall. The sun does not set. There is no sun. Mother Mary will not hear him here and he deserves it. He deserves it all – he let Bucky fall.
The rotting wrecks break under his black boots (and when did he change clothes) becoming a foul smelling paste that slowly seeps through the leather to soak his socks and feet. It is still better than the dazed moans that come from broken horrors, or the broken weeping from those only a bit better. "Please don't tread on me." "Please mister!" "Please! Please you're tearing my hair out!" "Please mister my mouth!" "Please mister, dig us out!" "Dig us out!" "Dig us out!"
And he should, right? But what would that help? He can't save them, he can't even save himself. They're never getting out of here. They don't deserve to. So he tries stepping around them instead, and once he tries to walk along the grass instead only to discover the red blades are as sharp as their name. He has no choice but to stomp across tattered scalps as their owners scream or try to bite him with snapping froth wreathed jaws. He finds himself taking pleasure in kicking some of the more desperate ones, until he comes across those that beg with faces and scalps on just beginning to tear and bruise. Not that it matters – there is nothing he can do.
Finally when he thinks he prefers the idea of mutilating himself in the rust-color grass that now stands knee-high he reaches the parkway of a great mansion. A last kick of one heel to a vicious mouth and then he is standing before a grand set of doors pushing them open with no real effort. And there stands a room like something out of Alice in Wonderland. A floor of marble as red as a beating heart shines up at him and for a moment he fears stepping on it least he sink away into an endless lake of blood. Bucky would be ashamed of him for his cowardice and so Steve takes one and then another step.
His steps are muffled and for a moment he stills terrified of the quiet. He's never been claustrophobic but the blinding white of the walls and ceiling feel like they're crushing him. Desperately he casts his eyes around looking for an anchor – the walls are set with lapis and ebony and on them hang pictures so realistic they might be photos or windows opening onto a different world. One picture shows a group of people with their backs against each other as they fight off what look like robots. Another is his shield streaked with blood – and it's so well done he can practically smell the iron.
He's walking again letting the pictures lead him along. He stops to study what has to be New York City, but the skyline is strange and the buildings are too tall. Oh, but there is Lady Liberty holding her torch high as fire pours down from the sky. He feels like he can feel the heat, feels like he can hear the screaming. He just – he walks because there is nothing else to do. He walks faster and still he catches the full import of the picture – a faceless woman with a screaming face pressing from inside. He just wants to go home, putting the plane down was suppose to be the end.
A sound like a chuckle – Steve whirls around cornflower blue eyes shot wide. The sound behind him of grinding stone is a warning he can just barely find in himself to heed. A statue – it is a beautiful statue, so heartbreakingly beautiful and perfect that it repels him. It could be an angel or an alien or a mirror – it has his face, but the weight of an unbearable knowledge fills its eyes. He hates, but something stays his hand. It's not fear. It really isn't. It doesn't matter he has reached the foot of a grand staircase like something out of Hollywood. Going to touch the banister he pulls back.
There is a cloudy liquid that smells of salt running down the rail – and he can't find it in him to touch it. Instead he takes one step and then another up the carpeted stairs and the carpet is as red as the marble floor below. Panic beats in his breast or should but he feels numb – numb enough that he can just barely entertain the idea… That he is perhaps trapped in a dying dream or maybe he is already dead. Could he be in purgatory lingering between heaven and hell – the space of a second, the breadth of eternity and he remembers how it feels to drown in a world gone dark where the cold is vicious biting creature.
At last he reaches the top, and it is probably just his imagination that the air is thinner here. The ceiling is a mess of grey and periwinkle blue like a brewing storm. The carpet is a dark ruby red and at least an inch thicker than before. Honestly the decadence is rather sickening, but that makes it all the easier to notice the simple wooden door half-way down the hall. And a voice that sound like the colonel warns him that such an obvious thing is also a very suspicious thing. But Peggy would say that it's better than nothing and she's right. Besides what has he got left to lose?
It feels like he's forgetting something, because he ought to know this door as well as he does his hand. Although that's not very well considering he's barely had a handful of months to look himself over since the Doc's science experiment. He's procrastinating. So he turns the knob shocked by how warm it is - and how organic like holding a neck bone just pulled from a pig. And the reveal of what's behind it is a bit of a letdown.
It's just an office, Howard's office, looking so different from the man it barely contains. Howard… Howard is a showman all flash and slight-of-hand but his office is just plain wood and a mess of paper, blueprints, and scattered mechanical bits. Except it's not. The room is eerily clean and mostly empty except for a large desk of ivory and cinnabar and the man behind it. The man greatly resembles Howard, but has a pointed goatee and short, cropped, gelled hair and vulnerable brown eyes gleaming with mischief. And before him sits a fat ledger bound in leather and edged in gold flake tied closed with a braid of hair – hair now gold, now red, now black as night. There is something wrong with this imperfect copy of Howard.
Maybe it's that he sits so still content to observe and be observed. Perhaps it's that he wears a suit composed of silk and soft bleeding skin all held together with a slick thread made of sinew. Or it could be his hands stained so heavily with red they appeared gloved in tar. The man smiles and that shouldn't be reassuring, but the smile he gives is like a child's – open, innocent, and freely given. And then he speaks and all the reassurance vanishes like water into desert sands. "How are you Steve? I can see by your shoes that you've had a hard time of it. How about a seat? Take a load off."
His voice is jovial and kind, but his words raise Steve's hackles as they clattered out of his mouth like spilling rice. It's hard to understand one word in every ten they come so fast. "So, you might be wondering what the hell this is all about. Fuck knows I would - or maybe not. I mean hello? Genius! Either way Rock of Ages you've found your way into the kingdom, MY kingdom and now you have a couple of choices to be made. You can either lay down your sword or you can take up my banner. I should warn you that doing the latter will most definitely end badly for everyone. What? Too much? Fine, take a break capsicle."
Steve wakes up to a world of extremes populated by the terrors of a child's unformed mind. A world of shadows twining about each other all teeth and plate sized eyes and impossible proportions. A world cloaked by darkness so total it has an actual weight, a heaviness that slowly squeezes the humanity from Roger's bones like a press wringing wine from grapes. He might scream – he would scream if he could breathe but there is no air; only the steady mindless malice of the sea filling his lungs and stomach.
He should be dead, but horribly his lungs expand and contract as his eyes all but turn themselves inside out trying to find something. The smallest particle of light, the faintest memory of starlight – a germ from which to grow psychedelic landscapes of pink elephants and polka-dotted crocodiles; because anything is better than this inescapable darkness. This mind-breaking void where a salty rime grows slowly over his twitching skin with a bitter, chuckling pain that devours his stubborn flesh leaving nothing behind it. Surely, surely it would be better to die than to linger like this? It must be – it should be.
"Still with us Cap?" And he sits at a table set with a fairytale feast and this man – this thing that doesn't quite understand what it means to be a man. "It's okay van Wrinkle – I get it. It really doesn't seem fair you got one Tom Hank film and not another. I mean you safely grounded the plane, but apparently nobody bothered to come save you Ryan. Can I call you private? Fuck knows the Captain title isn't exactly real if you know what I mean." The roast sitting at pride of place is bleeding, and maggots writhe in and out of the other dishes. A roach as big as his palm flutters from one dish to another with a noxious buzzing – and the Man with the Goatee laughs.
"Honestly, caparrino I would have thought you'd be a little less prissy. Not like you come from money or anything – not like you haven't had to do some things to get by. You and mommy and dear dear Bucky. And he comes choking on the skinny cock bruising the back of his throat. And he should be sleeping, but instead he watches his mother's hips bounce on top of one man while her head bobs below the waist of another. The dinner is pristine aside from the buzzing flies and the near mummified corpses filling seats that cost more than most people will make in a lifetime. "Imagine if your mother had just fucking swallowed Rogers. What a hero she would have been."
It's not even a reflex – he has a silver tray in his hand (like a Frisbee or a Shield) and then the waves wash over and somehow it triggers the memory of the nuns and their dark habits of black dyed wool. It feels better to drown than to play whatever game that monster wants – the choking misery will soon enough be as dear as a childhood friend. And unlike Bucky he won't let it go – won't let it fall away. There is nothing but time, all the time in the world.
They are back in the office as the Man with the Goatee continues to speak in puzzles and riddles each line a story in and of its self. On and on he drones saying exactly nothing – who cares about his house, his treasures, his skills – but it's impossible to get a word in edgewise and maybe it's just as well because it's hands are absolutely filthy. "Am I boring you Old Man? Or have you gone completely senile? Not like you were an especially bright light before or anything."
The ledger is open and the Man does not look pleased. "You are a menace. Oh, I know you don't understand. That you can't possibly see what any of this means. Can't see the value of life lies in its weakness or that there are far worse things in life than simply dying. It's cause you're stupid – willfully so. And you won't even see the burning forest for the gasoline you're pouring all over it, and you won't understand how badly you've fucked up until everything you've ever loved is scattered about you in pieces." And those vulnerable eyes are spark with anger even as they shed tears that hiss as they burn their way down a handsome face aged by who knows what worries.
"You self-righteous prick – the only thing that matters to you is what sucks your dick and everything else is just worthless collateral damage." And Steve wants to speak to defend himself, but he's too busy watching the office melt into a single clear cell surrounded by darkness and the rush of the sea. Something in the surrounding gloom scrabbles about on far too many legs as something else drags nails? claws? against the glass-like material. "Do you hear your works Rogers? Because the damning thing is that you are not superhuman now, but that you are far less than human – a thing inimical to life."
He can't breathe and that should be ridiculous. The project fixed everything so why does it feel like his chest is caving in from injury by an unseen pair of hands? Something laughs from the darkness as a dragging sound begins. Laughter and the Man with the Goatee is aging rapidly as one eye swells shut and his chest is cleaved open with violence Steven has never encountered in his life. The room dims as his air quality drops due to the black ichor reeking of low tide that bubbles up like tar from the Goatee Man's injuries. And then suddenly the Man's body kneels hands raised in supplication as His head rolls to a stop at Steven's feet.
And Steve is alone in the dark with the creeping, floating nightmares of an uncaring god… or perhaps an actively malicious one – ones. Time stretches out like a thread of spittle and blood connecting a broken mouth to a raised fist. The image fills his head until he can't help but scream and his eyes open to see a tunnel that leads to a door. He's dry and warm and why won't it end? That's the question. That's the million dollar question. Nothing good will come of moving from this spot and opening that damn door. But at this point what else can he do? And, of course, the door slams shut behind him. Of course, there is a voice that comes from everywhere and nowhere in a language that might as well be gibberish that nonetheless draws forth a chill in his spirit that rakes through his bones. Each cell feels as though it were being carefully blended by a pain composed of a million cuts, a pain so complete and lasting that he can't even scream.
He can't scream. He can't think. He can't move. There is only the moment, and the next moment, and the next moment and then there is the man of before though he wears no suit only rags. And even those rags must once have been a well-appointed suit so finely do they frame his chest and its mess of scar tissue. Faintly is the idea of a broken man, but it cannot climb over the barrier of a pointless unyielding torment. Still there is the idea because of the contusions that mark the Man's arms along with his bruised face and how sickly he looks. The kind of sick born of being heartbreakingly tired, of being utterly shattered as a person – and the Goatee Man has eyes so full of grief and sorrow it should make any man weep, but it leaves Steven cold as he hates this creature like few others.
"You just can't give up can you Rogers? Just lie down and finally die." The Man's voice is a ghost of the one he had before, the dried husk of a voice that had been vibrant if evil. He walks around picking at thin air as though looking at pictures and the more he does so the more upset he seems to be. "Do you know what it's like to be a child not worth a ransom? My father… my father said that men like us are made of iron, but iron rusts and grows brittle and breaks. I'm tired Cap. I'm tired of being the child who could never please, the child surrounded by adult predators, the child whose every moment is a picture somewhere for people to philosophize over." And he makes as though to grab something before hurling it – and suddenly, surprisingly the sound of broken glass fills the air.
"I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired! Tired of the damn parasites, of being a man who can do nothing right, and who is blamed for every wrong. I'm tired of never being able to trust anyone because everyone is a traitor waiting to happen with mouths and eyes full of lies lies lies! I'm tired of being told not to waste my life – while everyone else digs my grave and impatiently waits for me to dive in. I'm tired damn it! Maybe you can do this all day but I fucking can't!" It's strange because Steven should feel something, but the words are only so much noise. And the parson would say no man is given more than he can carry, but the thing clawing at his shirt with withered fingers is not a man. So obviously he deserves his heartache and his burden. Honestly, he should fucking choke on it.
His derision must show on his face, because the broken creature howls with rage. "What will it take to leave here?" And that is apparently the correct question as the creature begins pulling its hair with a face contorted by fear and rage. Like Rumpleslitskin after being confronted by his name the little thing jumps and whirls frantically as it begins to rant spewing forth equations and riddles and throwing more invisible objects. Only now they become visible after being broken. A miniature city complete with castle and knights of shiny armor. A framed picture of a smiling black boy. A broken puppet that croons "the-ther-e ar-r-re no strin~ngs on m-m-meee". Finally the thing is in his face one eye sporting a beauty of a black eye.
"What will it take? What will it take? What will it take? You monstrous bastard… If you had any decency you'd finish it. I'm right here – just fucking end it. Curse your worthless pantheon and fucking die." It kneels arms open and eyes entreating, but this is not how Steve plans to go. So instead he allows the time to drag onward and he continues to stand there arms folded. (When did the pain stop? Why?) They stay in their places a frozen tableau until what feels like a minute pass eternity, and then the creature stands like Atlas shrugging the world from his shoulders. The look of loathing on his face would probably kill a lesser man, but Steve has never backed down. Not even when the thing's red stained fingers brush against his head and then inside to draw out something like a moth fluttering, something like a ribbon tattered sadly.
It, the Man, laughs sadly as he crushes whatever that was into a fine translucent paste. "Big man standing there judging – take away your accountability and what are you left with? Huh? Such a fucking hero you are." And the Man's words are less than nothing because it's like Steve has been freed from chains he didn't even know he had. It feels like he could do anything without the slightest doubt or fear. "Not even that worked. If only they would let you die down here beneath the ice…monstrous child." The space of a blink and the Man is gone and instead of that sweet relief there is a strange gnawing inside Steve's head like his mind is obsessively tonguing the socket of a missing tooth.
A blink and the space between one heartbeat and the next has him sitting at an empty table in a dusty hall. Someone walks behind him, but he knows as well as he knows his name that turning around will only lead to his end. The sound of walking stops, "How soft your traitorous heart. See how it tears. You'll never leave here. You'll only dream with a gut full of stone, your cradle sweet invasive flesh." He nearly turns then because that's Erskine's voice but the sound of steel meeting flesh keeps him still. A groan and then the sound of spilling liquid on a wooden floor followed by the smell of low tide and rot. A blink and the space between the memory of doing and the action as done – the air is warm and smells of Mrs. Tyler's bread. He's home in that one room apartment from his childhood.
Except he's not because it has the look of the two-room shack he and Bucky shared. It is both and neither and he's not sure why he's disappointed. He knows that he put the plane down in the ice. Besides which the look of his current hands against the wood of the table is jarring. He wouldn't fit as he is now in the places of his past. Too big and too – too different. Getting up with a sigh he shuffles to the nearest window. He isn't especially surprised to see Peggy and some mousey looking man with a cane laughing as leaves rain down around them. It isn't fair. He put the plane down in the ice. He saved everyone. Why – He just wants to rest. And the window looks out onto nothing as the sound of Peggy moaning another man's name echoes through the suite. He just wants to die.
Instead he finds a kitchen full of knives that blunt against his skin; a kitchen full of flames that refuse to burn him. He can't die and he isn't drowning in his grief. He is suffocating – trying to breathe pass the pressure expanding in his chest. A pressure composed of pain and desperation and a directionless rage… It's hard to remember why he's here and why he cares about leaving. He finds himself crawling because he can't remember how to walk and the floor is a sheet of glass over a void that reeks of salt and putrefaction. A void that screams for his soul trying it's best to break the glass between them and rake its claws across his weeping face. The howls of the damned seems like they surround him and he wants to run, but – He sits in the living room and Dum-Dum looks down at him the lantern he holds making his face a puzzle of shadows.
He should be pleased to see someone he knows here, but this isn't Heaven and only demons walk this place. This one studies him from behind Dum-Dum's face before kneeling to stare into his eyes. "You want to die. I understand and really it's for the best. You'd only waste your life." And two strong hands close tight around Steven's neck strangling him. He could let it happen. He could just stop, but Steven has always fought and he won't stop now. "Why won't you give way?" That's the million dollar question. That's the showstopper right there, but – "I could do this all day." There is a movement in the shadows.
A man with a spine as straight as a bamboo rod and silver hair steps from the shadows with eyes full of disgust and a strange sort of pity. Unhurried he marches up and takes Dum-Dum by the arm before vanishing. The room plunges into a darkness that is wet and warm and closed like a womb. There is the smell of smoke and ice and salt and then water rushes down his throat. He could stand this – could stand drowning again if it would stay warm, but the warmth drains away leaving a cold so vicious it has to be alive. No natural force should feel so malevolent.
Perhaps he sleeps, because when he wakes up he sits near his mother. The sun is setting and he remembers being nine the first time this happened. He was nine with messy blond hair in his eyes and ears like jug handles. It was the last summer before she started getting sick. Maybe she had already known even then and that's why she wanted him to have some good memories while there was time to build them. She's singing and it's been so long since he heard her voice. So long and he prays to just be left here. Her hand guides his head into her lap and she smells of Peggy's perfume and its Peggy's voice humming to him. He feels safe…
So, of course, it doesn't last. He wakes up in a limbo surrounded by staring faces with hideously familiar outfits – HYDRA. And blinking he realizes he recognizes all of them, because he has killed them and if he can kill them once then surely he can do so again. "Enough." Like fog before the sun they dissipate still staring in silent judgment as though they had any right to. Not when there stands Bucky with storm gray wings and snow white skin. Or at least there stands something beautiful wearing Bucky's skin like a thousand dollar coat. It ain't him tho' cause Bucky ain't never had such a terrible look of amusement in his eyes – and he ain't never had steel gray eyes either.
"Walk with me boy, there is much to discuss." So he walks with the thing pretending to be his best friend as they pass by monsters and things from a fever dream. Two such creatures couple to the amusement of the others – they have the bodies of apes and wolves with the eyes of men. "Do they please you?" The false angel has a smile that could end wars, but his eyes are pits lined with spikes. "Are they not just something else to kill – and don't you love the feeling of godhood?" He and Bucky aren't gods, but the angel only laughs – "Minor godhood, like the one who comes next. Seek his blessing but be aware that he is deceitful and actively spiteful."
It has his laugh, it has Bucky's laugh. All the better to taunt him with as the façade melts away to reveal something – He can't focus on it too concerned with the sloughing skin and the muscle rotting away into a brownish-green soup from which bones gleam covered in melted fat. 'It wasn't him.' That's true… Bucky isn't here and he never was. That doesn't make it any easier to watch the mess spawn a writhing mass of maggots that disappear into the green, green grass. "Look me in the eyes boy." It could be a man, but it is too thin and its face is nothing you'd find outside of a saint's medallion. It has that look of somehow being mild and patience while also being somber and judging. It has eyes like glass, like a prism and every shade of the rainbow lies in them. It has skin that begs to be touch as it glows with a soft light. Whatever it is the thing is beautiful, but – he lies under the waves with eels that have human faces twining through his abdomen as the tattered strands of his intestine dance from their movement.
Creatures more nightmare than flesh dig at his face exposing a grim fleshless smile and the edges of his cheekbones. Something like a knife made sentient begins burrowing into his right eye with a ferocious energy. Something similar is darting about tugging away the flesh from his hanging jaw as some purplish thing snaps up the bloated mess that was his wiggling tongue. It can't be real, because even as he watches he is here on a grassy hill where the breeze smells of lilac and clover. It isn't real, but the pain is. His knees threaten to buckle even as he knows with everything in him that he can't fall.
Falling means he will never rise to his feet again, but surely anything is better than this pain. Anything is better than watching as something thin with a bottom jaw longer than it's' body attacks his groin. A squeal as it saws away at his tender balls and quiescent dick filling the water with clouds of blood and seed. The thing is now silver like steel and now red like a skint corpse with eyes that flicker between colors like a lightning storm in double time. It smiles gently and promises it will end his suffering if he will simply kneel.
"Come on Winter Soldier. What is the point of forever searching for another fight? Lay down your arms and finally rest. Kneel." And suddenly it's like the scales have fallen from his eyes, because this thing isn't beautiful. It's just another bully trying to sell him smug lies, and he will never grovel to a damn bully. Instead he spits in its face and is backhanded to the quaking ground for his troubles. "Infidel, what is wrong with you?!" "Better question – why the hell would you hurt someone like this?"
It looks down at him from where it floats a cancerous, vile mockery of a man with eyes that hold an infinite contempt. "You are a primitive race given to evil acts. It has been said that you are little more than a virus capable only of destruction… And you the "ultimate" man are the very best example of that. I could tell you every sin there has ever been, but it would only slide off your back because you don't care. In your pitiful mind there are only bullies and victims and you – the Conquering Hero." It smiles and for a moment it could be the minor god it pretended to be earlier. "Perhaps the one good thing you will ever do is to burn the contagion that is your species from the universe. Take my Blessing and may you choke on it."
There is the sound – like every building ever built falling, like an entire country crumpling, like a million explosions or a massive bridge collapsing. There is a sound of untold destruction and a light brighter than the sun (and briefly a vision of futuristic white room where he might have rested) and then he is alone on a hill at sunrise. The memory of fingers in his hair is fading, but the knowledge that the effects of his actions are now multiplied lingers. A hand raised in anger will strike down armies; a hand extended in aid will uplift a thousand. It's too big, the responsibility is worse than being taken apart – he can't carry it.
"You know Cap that you don't have to. Just stay in the deep with me. Just stay asleep; there isn't anything up there for you anymore. Nothing but suffering for you and everyone else. Sleep." He sleeps and the waves roll over him like clouds before the sun. He could stay like this forever, but he promised someone somewhere that he would be there. That they would be together until the end of the line… and they haven't reached the end just yet. Each breath is a misery, but he takes another and then another as he sits before a fire in a room that smells of low tide and meat left to rot beneath a noon day sun in summer.
"Such interesting creatures you humans are. Yet I have to wonder if you could ever have been anything else suckled as you are on the founding stones of a universe you barely comprehend. If I promised you I would drag his bones down here to lie with yours would you promise to sleep?" Steve coughs up something with too many legs and mouths where its eyes should be. "So stubborn." He shivers in an empty room as steps sound somewhere in the dark. Wondering closer and then further and then right the fuck behind him!
There is a knife in his hands – Steven thinks he remembers where he got it, something to do with stones and space or time or power. And the Man of Iron disappears into a hole in the sky. A laugh and a side-step into a turn into the knife buried hilt deep in someone who could be the Colonel if he were forty years younger with snow white hair and eyes a solid black. "Well that seems rude. Honestly Slick you know better than that. Besides those kinds of reflexes ain't exactly fair." And isn't that just a laugh? Some demon or another wearing the face of someone so important to him while lecturing him on being fair, "So what? Life isn't fucking fair. Otherwise why the hell am I here?"
Clapping from behind him has Steven tense, "Congrats on realizing that private. I'd salute you, but you'd have to look at me first. Go on, ain't gonna bite probably." The doppelganger he still has a knife buried in smiles before leaning forward to whisper something about collateral damage and then dropping something heavy in his pocket. "Close your eyes kid." It's the tension of a moment and then time pinpoints to the reflexes and reactions. Steve knows that if he fails or misses that will spell his end.
Sweat runs down his face and his hands are treacherous from the sick mixture of blood and sweat on them. "You know kid I didn't have a clue why the hell Erskine was so stuck on you. And now? I still don't get the attraction. A couple of hundred pounds more muscle and a punch that could dent a tank, but you are still weak in all the wrong places." They're both panting and his father's pocket knife is buried to the hilt in yet another too young imitation of the Colonel. The smirk on its face sets his teeth on edge from how spot on it is.
"I make you mad boy? Good, the world isn't fair but it could be a sight fairer… if people would stop being so damn hypocritical. I despise a hypocrite Private Rogers – try not to further disappoint me." A drop of sweat makes him blink only to end up ankle deep in water tepid water holding a clean if battered knife he lost on a playground years ago. Tommy Huntsman and his buck-toothed friend Harvey Baker… fuck he hadn't thought of them in years.
Sliding the blade through his belt so that his hands are free Steve starts wading. The water has gone from tepid to icy making him clumsy and his attitude sullen. The scent of rust fills the air of the maze of hallways he wanders. No great shock considering the hallways are made of metal that has begun to rust. It's gradual enough at first that he is actually surprised to notice that the water is up to his knees. Panic begins to claw at the edges of his mind as the water quickly climbs up to his hips. A bizarre giggle as he realizes that it's impossible to run now even as he continues to try slogging ahead. "Impossible." The water is dark and under its surface he is fast losing all the feeling in his legs.
There comes the fear that something is waiting to pull him under, but – his head snaps around to follow the sound of a slamming door. The door is glazed with ice and frost and only just beyond his reach. The hallway is too narrow to swim, but the water is half-way up his chest making walking a near impossibility. Still he struggles onward and has just reached it when the water finally closes over his head. One breath and then another as he continues to breathe even under the water. There is the momentary idea of little being impossible considering what he has already endured, but it doesn't last pass his wonder at the room being the door.
Every set of rooms he has ever had could fit inside here, but it's not the size that makes him wonder. Or rather the sheer scale comes in second to the floor to ceiling windows where glowering thunderheads sweep by. How would that even work if he is at the bottom of the sea in a room filled with water? A room with a floor like a chessboard and a ceiling like a checkerboard and what he at first takes for a child-sized doll. But dolls don't weep and the girl with her floating black hair certainly weeps with stifled sobs that sound in time to the blinking of the collar around her neck.
There is something wrapped in linen that she holds like her last lifeline. He should feel some measure of kindness for her, but all he can think is, "Why would anyone long for this?" Her eyes snap open as her face turns cruel and the bundle in her arms moves to reveal the head of boy who might be her brother considering the resemblance. He smirks – and they are pressed against the far wall waiting to die. Their mother has finally stopped screaming and their grandfather's hand no longer digs at the floor. It continues to twitch however as the rats have their fill of the corpses buried under the bomb. Little Wanda does not move, but she continues to breathe with eyes wide as saucers and fixed on the word blazed into the bomb, "Stark". His pants are soaked where she has released her bladder, but it makes no difference. He long ago pissed himself and can only weep silently in shame. They are going to die here and he is too much of a coward to try to save them.
Sometimes they hear people moving around, but neither of them calls out because doing so means leaving and who will take care of them? Wanda continues to stare ahead like a beautiful doll and his leg aches from where it was hurt in the crash. Some yellow and foul smelling is coming from it, but he worries more about Wanda because she is barely breathing in his arms and if she dies too he will go crazy like Old Mrs. Noira. He tries to think and he wonders what "Stark" means and why this had to happen. He promises himself that if they survive this he will make whoever did this pay a thousand times over even if it kills him. Even if it means burning down the world they will have vengeance, "I promise little sister. I promise."
He opens his eyes because that is all he can do and he stands in front of a throne made of gold and blood stained bone in a room that could have been molded out of some gargantuan creature. The Man with the Goatee sits there wearing a crown of rubies set in gold upon his brow. "Why are you torturing me?" The Man leans his head upon one hand and grins, "I'm not – I'm only the enemy you make me. It's said we make our own demons and nowhere is that more true than you. Brave little man… so ready to fight – you could never stop searching for the next war, and because of that the world will burn as a pyre to your own unending narcissism."
And here the Man stands from his throne walking down to meet Steve with a million watt smile. "It's not surprising is it? What more could be expected from a cripple meant to die? What greater sympathy could you have than for yourself? What greater notice of the world or measure of empathy could exist outside your own needs?" Standing in front of Steve he is obviously much shorter and all around smaller. His eyes shine with tears and mirth, "You know you've been asking the wrong questions? What you should have been asking is how the hell do you get out of here? And the answer is that you don't – not if you care about any living soul besides your own."
Finding himself kneeling Steve can only grunt as something is laid across his shoulders. "You are now our avatar and now you will only ever be a harbinger of destruction and suffering." Frozen in place by an unseen power all of Steve's shouts are locked behind his clenched teeth. The bare feet in front of him turn and walk back to the throne and he finds that at least he can lift his head. "You know… it probably doesn't matter much to you, but I'm not really your enemy here. I could give you cities. I could give you all the people you miss. I could drag your precious Bucky down here for you – and all you have to do is rest your head and let the waters wash the flesh off your bones." The Man turns around and he looks nothing like Howard now.
He looks old and small and tired with bags under his eyes so dark they could be bruises. The crown on his brow looks cheap now like painted tin and penny jar beads. "Take a good look capsicle. Take a damn good look at the man behind the curtain, because when you're done I'm going to need an answer. Do you stay here or are you gonna follow the path? Not that it matters in the end, because all paths will eventually curve back to this throne." And here he doesn't look like a man at all, "All paths lead back and when yours does you worthless little cunt I will wear your skin like a cloak and your skull shall be the cup I drink from."
The answer is so easy it might have birthed its self – "Fuck you." The King of the Depths smiles and then waves to a door that opens onto a path of tendrils composed of the most glorious hues. And they sing a song of peace – the peace of the grave, the peace of surrender, the peace found in frenzy as the blood sprays and the flesh yields to force. If this were to be the remainder of his life he could be content. Even with the walls made of skulls both human and otherwise that tell him what a miserable creature he is to be so selfish and not just die. Their words have no force bouncing off a heart grown hard with time – and how long has he been playing these games?
"You are a miserable creature, you all are – worthless and mewling and begging to die. None of you are anymore than an ant under the boot, a worm trapped under the rays of the sun, a slug bubbling in a bucket of salt." The tall near skeletal creature continues to stalk him raving about something as its foot long horns near bend it double from their weight. The path reaches a sudden end before a yawning abyss and he suddenly finds himself lifted and thrown as the creature cackles manically.
The darkness seems almost to reach up toward him before enveloping him like a warm bath after a long day. The lack of light is beyond anything he's ever encountered. Not even that time he and the Commandos had to clamber through a cave system blind in the rain with the water seeming to rise an inch a minute. 'Aren't you afraid kid?' The voice is all encompassing as it sounds inside his head as well as outside. It sounds strong, but sad as though it carries a great weight. If he had to put a face to it … it would be the voice he had imagined his father talking to him with. If he could be bothered he would be angry that he couldn't even keep that from this place.
It's easier just to shrug and drift in the dark. 'Silent treatment, huh? Alright. You sure you don't wanna go home?' Of course he wants to go home, but there is no way he has a home left to go home to. Besides which there are all the warnings, if he goes home now he might destroy it and that would be worse then never seeing it again. "No." For a time it is quiet and then dimly comes the awareness that something is grinding away the core of his being. Memories and ideas and wishes are falling away into dust and if he can't get in front of this destruction he will be wiped away. 'Would that be so bad kiddo? Be a hero son. Let it go.'
How many times has someone told him to let it go? As if that has ever worked with him…he opens his eyes the merest of cracks to world blurred beyond recognition. "There's a spike on the graph! Is he coming around?" The voice is that of an older man, but the excitement in it makes him sound like a child. "It could mean that, but sir you have to understand that the chance of a full recovery is basically impossible. He was down there a long time… Honestly it's beyond amazing that he's this well preserve as it is." The second voice doesn't sound exactly happy about that. "There it is again! I think he's coming around." "I need to call in my supervisor. Could you get a hold of Director Fury?"Footsteps and then a whooshing sound. "Jesus Christ. There is no way this is gonna end well."
He sits on a hill with his father as they watch a tornado tear apart a town. Flying monkeys ook and ahh around them in startling Technicolor. "Alright kid. This can go one of two ways- either you play the hero or you end up being the villain. Now me? I believe in you, but the others are pretty sure you're gonna bring down the end." His father turns to look at him with empty eye sockets that weep black ichors. Even with that he is still a remarkably handsome man with hair like honey and skin that glows with health. His smile brings to mind Bucky and it seems impossible that Steven had never noticed before.
One heavy hand combs through his hair with a heartbreaking gentleness. "Prove them wrong son. Make them all eat their words. I know you can do it, but you have to remember one thing: The easiest path is seldom the right one, but a path you make difficult will never end well. We make our own demons Steve. Be careful." Long arms tug him into a tight hug against a broad chest that smells of the starch his mother used and memory box she used to hug at night. "I love you Steve. Make me proud." He doesn't want to leave but the edges of the real world are bleeding through. "I've always been so proud of you punk. If only you knew how much." An announcer says something about a summer miracle.
He brought the plane down. So where the hell is he now? He lays on a mattress that is entirely too soft wondering why his skin feels too small. Opening his eyes for the umpteenth time since he should have died he sees a room that feels like a stage set. Everything is picture perfect, but doesn't look the least bit functional. "Oh, you're awake." The nurse would never pass muster. Mostly because she smells wrong. Everything smells wrong and he has heard this game before. Him and Bucky had caught it thanks to a couple of late night shifts on Bucky's part. He tells her and almost smiles at the look of panic on her face.
The walk out becomes a run as guards crawl out of the woodworks. He can smell the way outside and finds himself exiting into the skyline is strange and the buildings are too tall into an almost alien world. It's New York City, but it's not the one he knows and he can feel himself starting to panic, but he isn't sure why. Cars filled with men in black suits surround him. A bald Negro man in a long black trench coat with a pirate's eye patch steps out of one. He says something, but it doesn't matter because All paths lead back and when yours does you worthless little cunt I will wear your skin like a cloak. "What do you say Captain Rogers?" Prove them wrong son. "Where do I sign?"