Sketches

~ 7~

~*Picking up Memories Part1*~

There was a scribble, quite detailed, if you count that Steve didn't have much clear memories about that particular time. He actually had been very happy that no one was paying much attention to him and let him catch his breath after he couldn't pick a time for his damned life when to stand down.

At that time he was all too happy to let all the attention pass over to Tony.

On the page there was Tony with messy hair, a black eye and a forming bruise on the same cheek, and cocky toothy shit-eating grin breaking his already split lips.

"…overcompensating"

Adams' head jerked to the back as if he had been slapped. Hard. His eyes flared and he huffed like the wounded bull smelling fear. The only thing that the bulky captain of the football team reacted like this to anyone who dared to challenge his – well, anything.

And he was jumpy like hell especially since that morning hence the rumour had spread that his girlfriend dumped him. For the very cocky bastard standing a few feet away. With his back to the deadly menace of six feet of muscle and meat and minimal aggression filter.

"What did you just say?" Adams bellowed and took a threatening step towards the brunet. Forgetting about poor Steve on the ground.

"It's not nice eavesdropping, you know, big guy"

The brunet only spared a glance over his shoulder and he fucking winked at him, then with a shit-eating grin turned back to the crowd that surely only had just gathered around them – smelling trouble and blood, like vultures, and the boy dropped back into his casual conversation mode as if he had been entertaining a circle of friends.

"I tell you, it is a sign of absolute incompetence, beating up all those poor bastards who don't really stand a chance protecting themselves. Though isn't it more pathetic-"

"HEY, JERK, I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

"And I hear you, so turn down the volume, will you? As I was saying, no wonder Taylor picked me –"

"HOW DARE YOU-"Adams grabbed the brunet by the shoulder, spun him around and raising his fist to break his nose no doubt, but the boy slipped out of his grip like a fish.

"It's very rude interrupting someone in the middle of his rant"

He only took a step away to get some – mockingly small - distance between Adams and himself, sparing a cautious glance to his back to check if no member of the football team was behind him – Steve already liked the guy, even if he didn't favour the arrogant air that radiated from him. He had balls, no one could argue that.

Okay, maybe he was plain idiot, but that was a matter of details.

"And just to finish, what you so sweetly interrupted" words were flowing from that mouth in a pearly line "It's quite pathetic way to compensate, if you can't even finish off a scrawny kid"

"I'm gonna rip out your tongue, you bastard if you don't shut up!"

"Just be careful with that" There was an even dirtier grin and a malicious glint in those dark eyes "Don't be embarrassed when you realize my tongue is bigger than your dick" and he stick out his tongue, that actually wasn't that long.

The uproar of laughter rocked the hallway. And it only reached higher volume as Adams missed the first blow, as the brunet ducked to avoid the swing of the thick arm. But that was as far as his luck reached. The next moment he was tackled to the ground, all air knocked out of his lungs with a pained huff. Adams towered over him, keeping the struggling teen firm to the ground with his knees, and used the handsome face as a punch-bag.

When a teacher finally emerged from his long-lasting and don't-ever-dare-to-interrupt-it's-sacred coffee break, with the caretaker in his tow the brunet was still on the floor, his face covered in bruises.

From the irritated look the teacher gave the teens it was obvious that Adams will get away with blaming everything on the other. It was quite how things went around here. No one made a move to help the other up. The crowd stepped back, but were still snickering and whispering among themselves.

Just how the crowd worked – Steve thought bitterly, and was disgusted with himself, that he couldn't get himself to go up to the guy who actually saved him a trip to the nurse and a tons of worried looks from his mother. He was no better. When he finally made up his mind, the other already climbed to his feet and spit the blood into the trashcan nearby.

"Move your sorry ass, Tony" Steve heard the old caretaker grumble. "You have work to do"

"Goin'" the brunet – Tony – muttered back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, not even bothering to touch the tender skin around his eye (he must have been familiar with such bruises, and considering that snarky biting mouth? Steve wouldn't be too surprised).

"Just gimme back my fucking screwdriver, old man!"

But despite his easy tone, his eyes were dark. And not just because of the bruise. That glint of adrenaline was gone. They looked – dark.

Steve hated the knot it left in his stomach. Damn his artist eye's addiction to eyes… it was about to hurt him.

Those were Steve's actual first memories of Tony.

He was sure Tony didn't remember him from that day, he was quite dizzy himself. But from that time on, he occasionally glimpsed Tony with different girls on his arm. Always a different one. And his eyes never gleamed with any pride or satisfaction. The edge of his lips quirked up into a sneer nearly all the times, but that was it.

These quick glances of sights resulted in a few doodles of Tony with those girls. But while Tony was quite detailed in all of them – Steve liked fiddling with Tony's messy hair or the folds of his jeans and shirts – the girls' were never. Their clothes were some fun to draw for a while, but they never had a face. He would bet his head Tony didn't remember them either so why should he?

Steve rummaged through all the papers on his desk in panic. Then he spread the search process to the whole room again.

He tore it out. He remembered clearly that he had torn it out!

He didn't even know where the idea had come from.

It was innocent. Like pure and childish and like your first ever crush. A small tender kiss. Steve remembered a dizzy sense of pride and a goofy smile stretching his face. The sketch was really good, he had to give it to himself with a small pat on the shoulder, but he couldn't have left it in his sketchbook! Or goodness help him lying somewhere around his room!

Just a small kiss. Chaste. Happy. Delighted. Without any future sense of sorrow, bitterness or cynicism.

And his present mind altered the faces, the features – slightly readjusting them so that he could make a picture of the present from a six-year-old blurry dream. He wasn't small and skinny anymore, and Tony had his goatee and those small wrinkles around his eyes when he smiled as he pulled back after giving sketch-Steve a chaste kiss on the cheek, the tip of his nose, who cared? He had to find that scribble!

There was something disturbing about Tony in his red shirt and bridges. Or high places. Steve had this strange – not really instinct, but a feeling coming from very deep, somewhere unknown, that Steve would gladly overlook, and just live without it, because the feelings coming from that dark ugly place claimed it their goal of existence to make Steve's life miserable.

Because there was this thing of Tony's painfully vivid red shirt and that dark, greyish pale shade of his eyes. And high places. Where he could dangle his feet in thin air. Where Steve's stomach would crunch. Because it would be so easy to fall…

And then there were those very rare, but even more horrific moments when Tony was still. Not moving, not tinkering, not tapping, not babbling. He couldn't even catch that glimpse in his eyes that meant he was trying to select one from the crazy race of his thoughts.

"Isn't it frightening?" Steve asked once when Tony settled on the edge of the bridge and had been staring into the wild greyness of the river below for long moments.

"Hmm?" Tony barely tilted his head in question. As if not wanting to break the spell of height.

"It's so high. And just the thought that if you fall…"

"You could fly"

"But then you'd fall"

"That's the whole point"

"I mean, you'll have to land"

There was no snarky remark of 'You can't really land in a river'. And it was also disturbing on a level, Steve couldn't explain.

"But you wouldn't really feel it. I mean, you'd break your neck, and just die, and it won't hurt landing, you won't be conscious for it long enough"

Steve didn't find it in himself to argue with that.

There was a small shadow in the corner of Tony's lips. Steve wouldn't dare to call it the edge of a smile. Not of a joyful or a humorous one. But it wasn't even cold for a sneer or a smirk. And it wasn't the shadow of thinning lips into a hard line either.

It was something of Tony from six years back. And Steve always remembered that small shadow when he thought about flying. It burned his mind even if he wasn't so fascinated with the topic of flying.

"Why does it attract you so much?" he asked all of a sudden. And neither of them actually realized the silence that embraced them. Despite the cars driving over the bridge. But no one cared for two teens at the railing.

"I can't really explain, my Captain" Tony took up the habit of calling Steve captain for some reason. "At least not sounding cheesy as fuck. And that sucks." He sounded more like Tony, but only in wording. The voice was still low, mesmerized. "And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you"

"Pardon?" Steve stared at him in confusion. That seemed like some quote, but what was its relevance…

"Nietzsche" Tony finally tore his eyes from the flow of cold metallic grey and blue, and quirked a crooked smile at Steve, the future signs of small wrinkles in the corner of his eyes showing. "Homework, big guy, look it up. The guy, though egotistic as hell with all the other philosophers, said some let's-call-it-smart-because-I'm-in-a-good-mood-tod ay things"

Steve actually looked up this quote later. But only after a crater-sized hole was torn in his life. He never would have thought, a small man, like Tony could leave such a huge gaping hole in his wake. So one day, when Steve was grateful for every little memory that connected him to Tony, thanks for the Internet he did his homework. Even if he hadn't had anyone to report to.

There was one more sentence before the one Tony quoted. Tony skipped it. Whether he didn't want to share or didn't find it interesting enough "to spare precious memory-space for", Steve didn't know.

But it added up to Steve's unease. Had he decided to start studying psychology, he'd have already overanalyzed why Tony uttered that quote in the first place.

But he wasn't.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

And there was nothing he could wash away the gut-wrenching feeling that this revelation left in him.

TBC

A/N: Sorry, I seem to be unable to keep to my promises, but this chapter was about to get too long, so I had to pick it apart into two again. But don't worry, I already have half of the next done. I just have to study for tomorrow's exam. Cross your fingers for me, and let's hope I can present you a next chapter soon :)

I love this Nietzsche quote. You can use your analyst skills to guess why, and why I wanted to insert it ineo this fic so much ;)