Author's Note: Steve was always my favorite Avenger but I think imagining him as a father is making me love him even more.
Hero
Chapter 2
The drive to Jerry's house took around 30 minutes and for the first time in a very long while, Steve had to consciously remind himself not to grip the steering wheel of the car too tightly, had to remind himself to stay in control.
Remaining in control of himself, his own strength, was something that had become second nature to him but then it had also been a long time since he had felt quite this angry. Donna's story, her tears, had lashed at every instinct he had, brought back too many memories of his own early years when he had been the target of bullies, of those who watched for and took advantage of any sign of weakness. The fear–no, the helplessness–in her voice had resonated and stung because Steve still remembered, even after all these years, how it had felt to be physically helpless. He had hated it. And he would never wish that sensation on anyone, let alone a woman. And to have it be her own fiancé, a man who had or should have been the one to protect her, inflicting that pain made it even worse.
Steve managed not to grit his teeth. He hated bullies of any stripe and he thought those who hurt women and children were the worst of them all.
He would have to stay in control, could not use even a small fraction of his strength, he reminded himself again. Confronting this Jerry, brute that he was, would be the first time in a very long time that he would be going up against a civilian, a normal human being–albeit a terrible example of humanity–without any combat training or enhanced abilities, and he would need to remember that. He didn't want to kill the man.
He remembered the first weeks and months after the success of Project Rebirth, those early days on the USO circuit. He might not have enjoyed those months on the USO tour but in hindsight, he could acknowledge that one benefit, at least at first, of going on that tour was that it had given him plenty of time to adjust to the new body the serum had given him, adjust to his newfound strength and abilities, so he could figure out how to function in that body when the stakes were lower.
It had taken him weeks. Steve had never needed to learn any sort of restraint, control, over his own body. Instead, he'd always been used to having to fight and exert himself for everything thanks to his own body's tendency to fail him when he needed it, his lack of height meaning he couldn't reach for things that were within easy reach of all other men, his lungs failing to work properly when one of his asthmatic fits hit him, his physical weakness so that even when he threw a punch, it had all the impact of being struck by a feather. And then after the serum, he had abruptly found that not only did he not have to struggle anymore for such things, no longer needed to fear an asthmatic attack, he had to be careful of his own strength.
He had tried to open newspapers and ended up ripping them apart instead. He had held onto silverware too tightly and ended up with forks and knives that were bent out of shape due to his grip. He had broken glassware by setting them down too carelessly.
More seriously, in the first USO performance when he'd been told just to "make the punch look real" and the performer playing Hitler would fall down, he hadn't been trying, had honestly thought he had just given the fake Hitler a light tap—but he'd knocked the performer down for real and given him quite a black eye and a bloody nose to boot. The audience had, fortunately, not realized and the curtain had come down so no one beyond the other performers, the backstage crew, had known. But Steve had been horrified and guilt-stricken and flatly refused to pretend to knock out any more fake-Hitlers for the next week of performances. Steve knew that he had been lucky that the performer–Johnny McLaren–had proven to be a good-humored, easygoing sort who had, once he had been helped to his feet and had his bloody nose staunched, laughed off Steve's apology, saying that as the youngest of four brothers, his own brothers had subjected him to worse. Even so, Steve had willingly given Johnny half the salary the USO had given Steve for the performances he was in during the time that Johnny was unable to go on stage due to the black eye and had bought Johnny a couple rounds of drinks afterwards until Johnny had protested and insisted they were even. Steve had still felt guilty but he had, finally, accepted Johnny's assurance.
And Steve had spent every spare minute he had in the next weeks learning to control his own body. He hadn't tried to test the limits of what he could do, at least not yet, had focused on learning how to control himself so he could get through normal tasks without breaking things or hurting anyone. He could not continue to be the proverbial bull in a china shop, bumbling around and causing unintentional chaos. With the help of a number of mannequins, he had trained himself to know exactly how much effort he needed to use for one of the pretend punches for the performances–which was none at all–and then slowly increased the effort he used until he'd knocked the head of a mannequin right off and sent the now-mutilated head flying across a room, at which point he had stopped. It had been something of a shock to realize that even that, knocking the block off a mannequin and cracking the mannequin's wooden head, hadn't needed much effort at all. He remembered staring down at his hands, not for the first time in those early weeks, with a strange combination of awe and apprehension as it occurred to him all over again just how much strength he now had. The sort of super-human strength he hadn't even known was possible.
And Steve had better understood too just why Dr. Erskine had chosen him, remembered what Dr. Erskine had said. A weak man knows the value of strength and knows compassion. Steve had known bullies all his life and he rather shuddered to imagine what a bully would do if possessed of such strength. Those who lived by the tenet that might makes right, if given any additional strength, let alone super-human strength, would use it for their own ends, use it to hurt anyone around them, anyone who got in their way or irritated them. Having such strength, knowing that he could, if he chose, easily kill a man with his bare hands and likely do much worse than that, had almost terrified Steve and for the first time, he had almost regretted ever volunteering for Dr. Erskine's experiment.
But the memory of Dr. Erskine had stopped him from wishing such a thing. Dr. Erskine had chosen him for a reason and Steve had too much respect for Dr. Erskine's memory to doubt that Dr. Erskine had his reasons, good reasons. And he had remembered, too, the words of the beautiful woman who had told him, "if it could work only once, he'd be proud it was you." The only woman who had really seen him from the beginning, who had seen him as someone worthy of respect, who had believed somehow that he was the right person to receive the serum. And somehow, even then, the memory of her belief in him had helped.
It was odd to be remembering that time now, what felt like a lifetime, several lifetimes even, ago. A time when he and Peggy had barely known each other and he hadn't really expected to ever see her again. He had loved Peggy for so many years now, in two different centuries, that it felt as if he'd loved her his entire life. It was strange to think about a time when he had not yet loved her, when he hadn't yet realized that she was the one woman for him.
He had reached the town where Jerry lived and he pushed aside the memories, focused on where he was going because, although he had briefly consulted the paper map that was kept in the car before leaving the house, he wasn't familiar with the specific neighborhood. But he found Jerry's house without any difficulty.
Steve lingered in the car for a few moments, studying his hands on the steering wheel and again reminding himself to remain controlled. He might hate what Jerry had done–abusing a woman and his fiancée at that–but Steve was not, refused to be, the kind of person who inflicted gratuitous violence on anyone and he was well aware that thanks to Dr. Erskine's serum and Steve's years of being Captain America, he could easily overpower any untrained civilian. He briefly lifted a hand to touch the lump in his jacket's inner pocket that was his compass, his mind easily supplying a mental picture of Peggy holding Sarah. His family, his life.
He held to the mental image, let it ground him, as he knocked on Jerry's door.
The man who answered the door was good-looking enough with a sort of superficial charm that Steve guessed would hold an appeal for many women but Steve had been dealing with bullies for too much of his life not to note the subtle signs in the set of the man's shoulders, his stance, the way he all but swaggered. He had to tamp down another flare of anger as he realized that Jerry was a large man for the time, broad-shouldered and bulky. Steve had never quite understood why it was that so many bullies were usually large men, as if their natural advantages only made them crave more power, want to dominate others.
The man's eyes narrowed a little on Steve, taking in Steve's advantages of height and breadth. "Who are you?" he demanded without even a pretense of courtesy. Steve noted the way Jerry all but puffed out his chest to appear larger, a small but telling reaction to project strength.
"Who I am doesn't matter. I'm here with a message from Donna," Steve answered, retrieving Donna's engagement ring from his pocket and not quite slapping it into the hand Jerry automatically held out at his gesture.
Jerry blinked down at the ring, as if wondering where it came from, before he looked up and now Steve saw the flare of anger, the darkening of his expression. "She's jilting me?! And you–coming here like this–has she been seeing you on the side all the time she's been swearing she loved me–why, that little whore! I'll get her for this! I'll show her that she can't humiliate me like this!"
"No, you won't," Steve stated flatly, not bothering to respond to Jerry's accusation. "You aren't ever going to contact Donna again. You won't try to see her or call her or hassle her in any w–"
"You–how dare you come here to my house and tell me what to do with my woman! Why, I oughtta–" Jerry's fist swung out as he spoke.
Steve knocked his arm aside, stepping in to hit Jerry with just enough force to split the man's lip–as he had done to Donna–and then followed it up with a quick punch, hard enough that he knew it would leave a sizable black eye.
Jerry blinked and staggered back before taking another swing and this time, Steve used a little more force, knocking Jerry down. Before the man could react, Steve bent, grabbing the man's collar and shoving him up against the wall in a chokehold with his feet dangling a few inches off the floor. Jerry's eyes widened, flared with sudden apprehension, as his hands came up to claw at Steve's hand at his throat.
"You–what–" he struggled to gasp.
"I'll tell you this just one more time. Donna doesn't want to see you. So you aren't to go near her. You aren't to see her or call her or write to her or send anyone else to talk to her. Don't even mention her name. In fact, you should pretend you never even met her." He paused and shook Jerry almost casually, tightening his grip on the man's throat just a fraction.
"Please… don't hurt me," Jerry wheezed.
"Just stay away from Donna and I won't have to. Understood?"
Jerry nodded frantically, his hands still clawing ineffectually at Steve's gripping his collar.
Steve let the man dangle for another moment, to emphasize the sensation of physical helplessness, before he dropped Jerry onto the floor none too gently. He eyed Jerry's sprawled, supine figure for a moment, not bothering to hide his contempt, and then turned and walked out, closing the front door firmly behind him.
Back in the car, Steve looked down at his hands, noted the very faint reddening of his knuckles, the slight scratch marks left by Jerry's clawing hands. Thanks to the serum and his healing abilities, he expected that the reddening of his knuckles would be gone in the time it took to drive home, the small scratches might last until tomorrow morning but they too would be gone by then. And again, not a trace would be left of his first use of violence in some years.
Just as there was no outwardly visible trace of any of the many battles and, yes, injuries, he had received over the course of his years as Captain America. Shortly after he had first returned to Peggy, when he had spent some of his newfound free time reading in a way he had never had a chance to read before when he had just been Steve Rogers, he had come across the novel, The Portrait of Dorian Gray, and one thing that had lingered in his mind was that idea of a portrait that showed the signs of the various evil deeds that Dorian Gray committed while his physical self remained forever young and beautiful. Steve's own accelerated healing was not the same, he knew, but he had wondered what a similar portrait or replica of himself that might actually show the physical and even the emotional wounds he had received in the course of his years would look like, how scarred and battered that body would look.
He remembered thinking, during his Captain America years, that the downside to the accelerated healing was that because his physical injuries always healed so quickly, it was all too easy for those around him to assume that he got through every battle unscathed, not just physically but emotionally. He could understand it and at times, he had even been glad of it because he had never wanted pity. It had, in some ways, made it easier for people not to be concerned about him because even if they had been, he knew himself too well to think that he would have confided in them. He was too used to dealing with things on his own for that.
But sometimes, in the hardest times, he had wondered how it might have been easier if he could have, at least sometimes, used physical infirmity and recovery time in order to recoup his emotional reserves. He just got so very tired of fighting, of always having to be on his guard, prepared for the next mission, the next enemy. And then he had reproached himself for the selfish thoughts. He was Captain America for a reason, had been given the serum for a reason, and having such super strength and resilience was not just a responsibility but a privilege, one he should appreciate, or so he told himself.
But it had been a struggle, the weight of being Captain America a burden that seemed to only grow with every year. It was a burden he knew the other Avengers had felt too; God knows he had seen enough of how Tony and Nat and Wanda had been haunted by guilt and regret over the years to know that. Sam had been right when he had spoken about the common problems suffered by veterans, the lingering guilt and regret. Steve had done what he could to try to alleviate those burdens for his friends, his first instinct always to help and look out for others.
But Steve himself had been alone with his own burdens. Sam was the one who had probably come closest to understanding but there had been limits on what Sam could understand. He hadn't known enough about Steve's life and yes, Steve could admit too that he hadn't told Sam enough about his life to allow Sam to know more. Steve was not someone who confided in people easily. In his life, there had really only been one person in whom he had somehow always felt able to confide–Peggy. That had been true almost from the moment he'd met her and it had still, somehow, been true even in all his years in the future and it had never changed. Peggy had always been able to see past the image of the perfect hero to the real man, just as she had seen past his scrawny former self to see the real him. But he had lost Peggy and he had told himself there was no point in dwelling on what he had lost, what he did not have, because he didn't have a choice.
Steve blinked and pushed the thoughts aside, returning to the present, his present. Those days were over now. He'd been given a choice, a chance, for a different life and he had taken it. He had found Peggy again, had found the peaceful life he had dreamed of for so many years–more, he had a home, a family. The home he had always dreamed of and had believed he would never be able to have, with the woman he had always loved. And this time, when he looked down at his hands, his eyes focused on his unmarked left hand that wore his wedding ring.
A spark of warmth kindled inside him at the thought of Peggy and Sarah, as always, and he started the car and turned to return home. Home, the place where he belonged, with the two people he loved most in the world.
The drive home did not take as long as the drive to Jerry's house had but even so, by the time he arrived back home, it was well after 9 o'clock at night and he knew that Sarah would by now have long ago exhausted her ploys for another bedtime story and would be sleeping soundly in her bed. Tonight was the first time in Sarah's short life that he had not been there to put her to bed, he thought with a small pang.
When he let himself into his home, he was not surprised to see Peggy coming out to meet him, followed a little more hesitantly by Donna.
"You're back," Peggy greeted him unnecessarily. She glanced back at Donna. "You see, I told you my husband can take care of himself."
He recognized the almost imperceptible thread of amusement in her voice at having to assure someone of his–Captain America's–safety in going up against a regular civilian and for once avoided meeting Peggy's eyes in case his own answering flicker of amusement would show. He reached out and briefly grasped Peggy's hand but addressed Donna. "I spoke to Jerry and returned your ring and he won't be contacting you again."
Donna nodded. "Thank you," she said softly. "Was he very angry?"
"He was upset," he temporized. He wasn't about to get into the accusations or threats Jerry had made. "But in the end, he agreed to leave you alone. And if he forgets and tries to contact you, just tell Peggy and I can go talk to him again," he added. He thought that Jerry had been sufficiently cowed to keep his distance from Donna and more, Steve hoped, at least think twice before inflicting violence on any woman again but Steve wasn't sure how much faith he had in a bully's ability to change his stripes.
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Carter," Donna said again, looking brighter than she had since she'd arrived that evening in spite of her tear-stained cheeks.
"It was no trouble," Steve demurred and to change the subject, turned to Peggy. "Is Sarah asleep?"
Peggy gave him one of her faintly arch looks that told him she knew he was trying to duck out from Donna's gratitude. "One might think you don't trust me to put our own daughter to bed."
As usual, he met and matched her light tones. "I'm not that silly. I learned a long time ago never to question your abilities."
Donna made a soft sound and Peggy turned back to her, becoming her usual brisk self. "Now that you know everything's all right, why don't we get you settled in the guest room for the night?"
So saying, she turned to usher Donna up the stairs and Donna left after bobbing her head at Steve rather awkwardly. Steve left Peggy to her task of getting Donna settled and retreated into the kitchen to finish cleaning up after their dinner since the task had been interrupted by Donna's arrival. And reflected as he occasionally did on how the world would gape and, yes, mock if they ever learned that Captain America performed such domestic, household tasks, let alone learned to gain a certain amount of satisfaction in them. But then, he supposed it was understandable. It was too easy to take such seemingly simple things as a home and a stable life for granted if you'd never been without them.
But if his years as Captain America had taught him anything, it was to know the value of stability, of home and family. All that he now had and all he never wanted to lose.
And as he still often did, he thought about Tony, remembered the family life Tony had managed to make for himself in the years after Thanos's Snap. He remembered the last time he had seen Tony with his little Morgan when he and Nat and Scott had gone to visit Tony with Scott's suggestion about how to reverse Thanos's Snap, remembered the way Tony had cradled his daughter against his chest and told her that he was saved. Steve understood now in a way he had not then just how Tony must have felt. He knew the feeling, was conscious of it when he himself held Sarah in his arms, when he tucked her into bed–the sensation that his small, precious daughter really could–and had–saved him. Saved him, redeemed him, from his past, all that he had suffered until that point.
He sighed, feeling the sharp tug of grief over Tony's memory. He remembered Tony telling him that Steve would find that simple life, a home, stability, one day. Steve hadn't believed Tony–after all, he had already understood that for him, the only home he really wanted would be with Peggy and he had lost her–but now, not for the first time, Steve found himself thinking, You were right after all, Tony. I did get there one day.
And he could hear Tony's voice saying, told you so.
He thought about Tony, about Clint, and wished, not for the first time, that he could have talked to them about what their experiences of being a father had been like. He had never asked them that, partly from a lack of opportunity since they had usually been preoccupied with the latest threat, but mostly because he had not wanted to know at the time. He'd been so certain that such a life, being a husband and father, was simply not possible for him.
But now that he was a father himself, he wished that he could talk to his friends about their experiences. It was, had been, such an incredible, overwhelming thing, becoming a father and he would have liked to have been able to talk about it with his friends.
He'd returned here to the past for love but he had also found his purpose in a way he hadn't expected, had not known enough to expect. There were times he could almost laugh at himself but he was convinced it was true, that being a father was his vocation. Serving as Captain America had been his duty and had given his life purpose for so many years but it had not brought him joy, had not truly fulfilled him. But then he had held Sarah in his arms for the first time and it was as if he had understood why he was alive, what he was meant for. He was meant to shepherd this miraculous little creature to adulthood, to guide her and protect her and care for her.
Steve took a last sweeping glance of the kitchen and decided he had done enough. It was time he went upstairs and checked on his daughter.
~To be continued…~