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Steve smiles politely, baring his pearly white teeth as if he came straight from some Hollywood movie, and people around him shiver, directing their gaze at anything and anyone but him. His beautiful golden hair shine, and it always seems like he’s surrounded by a halo of light, but nobody can stand his presence even if he does nothing but mind his own business in a huge college library that can fit a hundred of other students.
Steve Rogers has no friends. Nobody sits close to him in the cafeteria when he’s having lunch. Nobody starts a conversation with him willingly. People do their best to ignore him, but Steve makes it incredibly hard with his bright smiles and constant attempts to make a small talk. His sole presence in a room draws everyone’s attention - he’s so huge and tall you have to raise your head to look him into the eyes, and it feels like he takes more space than the biggest guy in school. He wears crimson wool sweaters with a neat shirt beneath, its collar so white you think one day it will blind you; his pants are always a classic - you don’t think you’ve ever seen him in jeans or anything else any guy his age wears. Sometimes you see him holding a black rosary in his palm, but as soon as somebody looks Steve puts it back into the pocket of his pants.
He’s strange, people tell you. There’s something unnerving about him, something creepy, something that makes everyone avert their eyes when Steve speaks to them. He looks like America’s golden boy, but nobody’s buying it.
Did he do anything, you ask, and girls shake their heads, looking behind them to ensure Steve isn’t walking by.
No, no, he didn’t, but one day he surely will, that’s what they say, convinced he’s a future serial killer or something. You don’t understand it, but every time Steve looks at you your hands get cold for no reason, and you start shivering just like all of them.
You try guessing if there’s something inherently wrong with the guy, studying him secretly from afar, yet you see nothing alarming in his behavior: Steve is a diligent student with excellent grades, a strong athlete, and a member of college’s animal protection organization. You don’t think you’ve ever heard him swear or do something to hurt others. Steve couldn't have been nicer, and if it were for any other guy, he’d probably be some social butterfly or teachers’ favorite, but not Steve.
You don’t get it, honestly. However, every time he talks to you you can’t help but turn your eyes away just like all of them, unable to hold his stare. Why? Why, why, why does Steve seems so scary while being so perfect? What in him makes you want to run when he speaks? He never tries to touch other people on purpose, but if he did, you’re afraid you could throw up.
It seems like it doesn’t really affect Steve as he has long grown accustomed to everyone acting strange around him. He has the same courteous smile on his face day after day, unfazed by people’s hostility, and keeps his polite demeanor, knowing he did nothing wrong. Steve knows he’s good at anything he does: you could see him looking proud every time a professor announced him being the best in your class. Sometimes you question whether it’s his excellence that keeps people away. Well, maybe it’s alright, you think. Maybe Steve is ok with the way things are. At least nobody bothers him like those poor guys from a science club. Maybe it’s even something he does intentionally because somewhere deep inside he doesn’t like all those who surround him.
But you don’t think it’s true when you see his cheerful expression dropping: today you were splitting in teams for a group project, and while Steve was a great student, nobody was willing to join him. Again.
It’s just a mere second before he regains control of himself, but for a second you see Steve is hurting. The rejection pains him. He’s so tired of being alone, longing for just a decent interaction with somebody, that he can no longer keep up this façade.
But it only lasts a second. Then he gives the two guys one of polite smiles of his and comes back to his desk.
When you turn back to your teammates Lily and Ellie, both of them give you a look. Don’t. Steve isn’t welcomed here. Nobody wants him close. People barely tolerate his mere presence, and nobody needs your intervention.
When you do your part of the project at night, the thought still hurts you.
The next day you look at Steve with pity. He sits in the cafeteria all by himself, eating his salad as if he were an aristocrat, but you can see through him - he’s so lonely it’s ridiculous you once thought he was perfectly alright.
The next time you have to do the project with someone, you timidly come to his desk yourself with twenty pairs of eyes watching you with horror: you say you’d love to work with him, and a girl behind you gasps. You’re out of your mind, that’s what everybody think, but you don’t care, watching Steve breaking into a big smile, a true smile this time as he nearly jumps with excitement, telling you he’d be happy to work with you, too, and you can see he barely keeps himself from touching you, unwilling to scare you off. He’s so delighted you laugh a little, too, and everyone decide you’re just out of your mind. Girls even talk to you after that lesson, trying to convince you to stop, frightening you with their theories what Steve could do to you when you two will study in the library, but you wave off their concerns. He isn’t bad. There’s something unnerving to him, true, but it’s most likely not Steve’s fault. You’re willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
He texts you the same evening, and you realize he’s already half through the project when you didn’t even read the outline properly. Woah, can he be so good or is he just too excited to work with someone? You have no idea, but you’re a little nervous Steve will think you’re dumb, so you decide to meet with him in the library tomorrow. You do it right after your classes end - you’re a little wary of him, so you want to be surrounded by people just in case he starts behaving weird.
Steve doesn’t. He’s the sweetest cinnamon roll you’ve ever met, patient and kind, willing to explain you something for three times in a row if you still don’t get it, and you see that it doesn’t irritate him. You find it odd Steve seems such a great guy all of a sudden when everyone dread meeting him in a corridor, but he gives you no reason to worry about. You decide to meet him in the library again at the end of the week.
You don’t know what to think when he’s there, shining like a bright light at the sight of you. Steve holds a cup of coffee and a bag with what seems like honey buns from that cute but crazy expensive bakery right in front of your college. Getting jealous, you lick your lips: you are a pastries addict, but today your lunch was going to consist of a broccoli soup and a salad.
When the both of you sit, each with your own paper coffee cup, Steve flips through the pages of a book, searching for something while you just sit there and try not to think of that deliciously smelling bag with buns. Shit, it’s getting really hard to concentrate.
“Why aren’t you taking any?” He wonders, and you lower you gaze, embarrassed.
“No, Steve, they’re yours.” You say as your face grows hot when Steve looks directly at you. Strangely, he doesn’t seem scary or repulsive to you anymore, but you’re still a little nervous around him.
He chuckles, but there’s nothing intimidating in the way he watches you with that boyish green. “Please, take some. I’ve bought them for you.”
You’re taken aback by a sudden revelation: why would he buy them for you? You didn’t ask him to, and you were far from having that type of relationships when he would just bring you something without a reason. Besides, that bakery is hella expensive and you don’t want anything as fancy as those honey buns on your first day studying together with Steve. It’s... awkward. You’re a little ashamed despite the fact it’s not your fault.
But when you try to tell him you just can’t take these, you see how Steve watches you, a silent plea in his eyes, and then you realize it’s not about pastries at all. It’s a social conformity. He asks you to be his friend - probably his only friend at school - and he has no idea how to do it without saying it out loud. Sure, he definitely saw you buying some buns in the cafeteria from time to time and got this idea, hoping to make you like him a little more.
Poor Steve.
“Thank you,” you mumble, abashed, “I’ll help myself then.”
Rogers lights up like a Christmas tree.
__________________
The project that was planned to be done in three weeks is finished in three days. You even think that Steve was holding back the entire time, able to do everything by himself in a matter of hours but eager to finally have a partner he could talk to. Sometimes he’s a bit awkward, yet otherwise a pretty decent guy. You’re in awe of his extensive knowledge and problem-solving skills as much as his manners and courtesy: how come you’re the only one who managed to see all this? Sure, there is something uneasy in the way he looks at things - or even in the air around him - but it’s not like Steve is intentionally creeping you out. He’s just different from the rest of you.
Others don’t think so: when Lily sees you eating a donut Steve brought you, she drags you out in the corridor when he doesn’t see and almost yells at you, telling you he has most likely drugged that piece of pastry, and something terrible will happen to you. You look at her as if she has gone crazy: drugged a donut? Is she serious? You roll your eyes in irritation, trying to calm her down. Nobody would do anything like that, especially Steve. You still don’t get it why everybody thinks he’s some mad serial killer who murders kids at night.
“I don’t like him.” Your mother tells you when Steve gets you back to your house: you have been studying in the part together, preparing for the midterms, and then he offered to walk you home like a gentlemen he was.
“Mom, come on.” You sigh, tired. Nobody likes him, neither your classmates nor her. “It’s the first time you see Steve.”
“I don’t like him!” She exclaims as if it will change something, and you huff and puff in irritation, trying to get her off your back. “Trust me, I have a bad feeling about this guy.”
You stop listening, knowing she will keep going on and on about how he reeks of bad energy and that you have to stay away from him. It’s ridiculous. When your mothers finally stops, you think you will keep hanging out with Steve just to piss everyone off because they’re all fucking unfair to him for no reason. He’s out there doing nothing to hurt anyone and just minding his own business, but people keep treating him as if he were a literal demon. Why starting a damn witch hunt against someone as innocent as Steve Rogers?
The more you spend time with him, the more you think they don’t deserve someone as good as him. He’s a true gentleman with the kindest of hearts - he never swears in your presence and treats you as if you are a queen, holding the door open and even pulling out a chair for you, every time making you feel deeply embarrassed with his kind gestures; despite the fact that Steve is honestly smarter than you, he never brags about his knowledge and is always willing to share. In the end, he’s just a very pleasant guy, a little shy and sometimes odd, but still a very nice person. And you can see how much he treasures the time he spends with you, his one and only friend he can talk to - Steve tells you that himself, blushing furiously and avoiding looking you into the eyes. He’s too sweet.
When you learn about his other side for the first time, you two sit close to each other in the library again as you enjoy the feeling of his soft wool sweater you touch with your shoulder occasionally, turning Steve’s cheeks pink. You are doing the next project for Economics together - actually, you should be working in the groups of four, but your teacher let it slide since it’s so rare Rogers isn’t doing everything all by himself. You discuss the scope of the project together when Jake shows off with the two of his friends, wearing a cheeky green. He’s in your Math class, and he’s just a stupid bully you’ve grown to avoid as months pass buy. You have met guys like him many times, and you would certainly meet them in the future again.
“Not that I expect too much of you, but you could at least choose a decent guy to hang out with.” He gives you a smirk, and then his eyes move to Steve sitting next to you, his smile quickly dropping. “See? I bet he dismembers old ladies in the city park at night.”
“Aren’t you a little too old for this, Jake?” You wave him off, both annoyed by his behavior and worried he has just offended Steve, the latter troubling you far more. “Leave us alone, please.”
Of course, he has something to say to you, something nasty, but the look Steve sends him makes the guy shiver along with his two hulking buddies, and they hurry to leave without sparing you another word. It’s the first time it happens, you mutter, knowing it takes a more heated discussion to force Jake to leave. It’s certainly the effect Steve has on people that did the job.
“Does he bother you?” The guy asks you softly, but you can see a worried expression on his face and smile to him, rubbing his shoulder to ease the tension.
“Nah, forget about him. Jake’s thick as a plank. I can’t even get offended by his rambling.”
Steve doesn’t think so, you can see it in his face when he suddenly stands up from his place and apologizes to you for leaving, promising to come back in a minute or two. You have a bad feeling about it, you think as you watch him go - Rogers isn’t your average nerd skinny as a rail, but Jake is with his boys, and three of them could beat Steve to death. When you want to get up and run after him, all of a sudden you feel like you’re glued to your seat. You just can’t get up no matter what. All you can do is to sit there and wait until your legs will move again.
Steve really comes back in a couple of minutes just like he promised, and he smiles brightly when he sees your horrified expression. You’re worried sick, but he tells you he’s perfectly alright, hiding his right arm behind his back. He just talked some sense in those guys, he says, and you almost tear up at the sight of his bruised knuckles, immediately giving him a hug. Poor Steve, he doesn’t deserve getting involved with those sponge-heads, you tell him.
You aren’t sure who is the victim here, though, when the next day you learn Steve has almost destroyed Jake’s nose with those hammer hand of his, and the guy was going to head to surgeon once he got out of the hospital. It’s the first time Rogers resorted to violence, and it becomes #1 topic in college with everyone staring at the two of you when they think you don’t see. You’re uncomfortable with it, but you can’t complain - Steve only did it for you. He wanted to be your knight in shining armor, protecting you against bullies, and you can’t blame him for it. It’s just that uneasy feeling eating you up: everyone says how Jake suffers as if he lost half of his face. Is it really that bad or they all just use this against Steve to make him look even more evil in everybody’s eyes? You hope it’s the latter.
As the days go by, Steve being as sweet and gentlemanly as prior to the incident, you gradually forget about it, convinced he thought you were being threatened. He doesn’t like violence, you know it. He’s just not the type.
He’s the one who values knowledge and plans to get a Masters one day. He’s the one who will eventually take over his father’s business despite his relationships with him. He’s the one who always does things right even when people around him treat Steve like a villain.
Steve isn’t a guy who enjoys violence and beats people for fun. You repeat it in your mind when you see him nearly crashing an arm of a man who dared to slap your ass in a park at night when you two were taking a stroll.
“You’re a good guy.” You tell him as you weep, hiding your face as you press your forehead to Steve’s chest, feeling the soft woolen sweater getting wet with your tears.
Steve hugs you as if you’re made from a fragile glass, his arms on your back while he strokes it gently, repeating after you that he’s good. He hates hurting people, he swears he does, and you believe him. It’s not in his nature. Steve only wants to protect you from all those creeps who can’t behave in your presence. When you two get back to your house, he gives you a small kiss on the cheek, blushing, and promises to never get violent again.
He’s scared you will leave him, you know. Steve is afraid of being left all by himself, getting back where he started, and he needs you.
You need him, too, you decide while trying to forget the night when that man was crying and screaming, and cursing, pleading Steve to let him go while he just smiled at him, man’s fist getting crushed in his stony palm, bones breaking with a nasty, disgusting sound. Steve just doesn’t understand how strong he is compared to people around him. He wouldn’t do it if he knew how much pain he brings others, you think. Because it’s impossible your gentle, caring, softhearted Steve Rogers who goes to church every Sunday and never swears in a woman’s presence would do this to someone on purpose, regardless of his reasons.
Sometimes it feels like there are two of them, two Steves, one of whom is bringing you chocolate cookies he has baked himself just to make your day a little bit better, and the other one who looks feral once some guy stares at you for longer than three seconds. It’s like his face changes, its features becoming sharp pinched, unnatural, unpleasant, and you swear it’s harder to breathe when the second Steve is there with you, gripping your hand so hard it starts to hurt. You don’t understand what happens, and you can’t explain why it feels like somebody takes the place of your beloved friend, ripping out whatever is inside of Steve to get into his body instead. The thought scares you.
“I just want to protect you.” He says with a guilty expression, lowering his gaze. “You’re the only one I care about. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
You try to explain that nothing had ever happened to you - except that time when you fell down the stares in front of the most popular guy in high school - but Steve doesn’t seem to believe it as if he can see the future.
When Lily and the other girls in class start openly ignoring you, whispering something about you behind your back, you get why Steve’s worried. Maybe there is truth to his words. Of course, it doesn’t mean he needs to resort to violence again, and you talk to him until he promises he would do nothing unless you’re really in danger.
The semester flew by. When you realize you have already passed your exams, Steve finally welcomes you into his home, letting you meet his father about whom he never talks much. You get why once you see a grim gray-haired man who looks older than he is, wearing somewhat fake expression of indifference, but you see the way he watches Steve, his own son, warily like some wild animal. He looks at him the way your classmates do.
“It’s alright.” Your dearest friend says, smiling bitterly and gesturing to a portrait of his beautiful mother who you learn is in an asylum now. “He still expects me to develop the same mental condition she had since it’s hereditary. I can’t blame him.”
You suddenly think that this is exactly why people are treating him like a future serial killer, probably aware of his mother’s state. This is also most definitely a reason why Steve’s father is so religious, forcing Steve to go to church every week and pray: when there’s no cure for a disease, people always turn to God. That’s why Steve tries to fit in so hard. That’s why he’s good at absolutely anything he does, hoping people will accept him even knowing the truth about his family.
“I go through a thorough medical examination every year.” Steve says the next second, and you see he’s scared you will treat him differently after learning about his past. “I have no signs of developing that state. All my doctors say I won’t develop it at all since I have long passed the age when the first symptoms show up. It’s just... father’s traumatized. He doesn’t believe them.”
“I do.” You smile at Steve, taking him by the hand: you still think about that time when he broke a man’s hand, but you believe it has nothing to do with it, especially since after that Steve has not even once did anything that scared you.
Then there’s that halo of light surrounding him again when he wears a smile a mile wide on his handsome face. He gives you a brief kiss on the cheek like a 13 year old boy.
You keep growing closer despite your mother’s protests and strong disapproval of people surrounding you two. You don’t care as long as Steve whispers you words of love so quietly you can barely hear him, his face of tomato red shade and eyes directed somewhere at his shiny black shoes because he absolutely can’t look you in the face when he tries to say he loves you. You don’t mind, embracing your huge guy and hiding your face in his chest when you hug him, enjoying the warmth of his body. It’s funny how things escalated so fast in a such short time period, but you love him, you really do. There’s nothing you don’t like about Steve Rogers, a guy who yearns for any kind of affection but absolutely can’t make friends with anyone; a guy who dresses like a Harvard student and behaves like a gentleman from Jane Austin’s novel; a guy who attends church every Sunday morning and hides a black rosary in a pocket of his pants despite not really sharing every religious belief of his father. You have long forgotten other student’s attempts to warn you against Rogers - people are still scared of him as if he were a Satan himself.
You love and pity him until the night when you learn the truth.
It’s Saturday, and you have spent the whole day with Steve again, walking in the city park and sitting in a cozy little cafe with a cup of coffee. You convince him you can walk home alone, hoping to spend half an hour listening to music, and leave Steve before turning your back to him. It’s not even that late, something around eight o’clock: it’s getting dark pretty early though, and Steve watches you walk away until you disappear somewhere in the alley. You aren’t worried since you know these streets well, and this area has always been safe as long as you remembered.
Not today, though, as you suddenly see a silhouette of a man with something that looks like a knife in his right hand. He closes the distance between the two of you pretty fast, and you barely have time to scream when he tells you to give him your bag and start stripping, his knife already at your throat.
He tells you not to make a sound, but you still scream when you hear a disgusting crunching noise pervading the air, man’s neck snapping like a twig and his head falling to his shoulder at an unnatural angle, his eyes rolling back into his skull as he dies instantly right in front of you, his body falling to the ground with a deafening boom. You didn’t do anything, didn’t even move a finger, but the man lays on the cemented ground in front of you, dead, and you can’t say a word, staring at him and shaking like a leaf.
Steve stands in a couple of meters from you, his eyes so dark you can’t see the white portion inside them, but you aren’t sure you would even if his face were lit up by street lights: he has two long, spiral horns sticking out of his head, and they don’t disappear even when you rub your eyes furiously and shake your head, unable to believe it.
He tells you something, tries to calm you down, but even his voice sounds different, deep and chilling, and you can’t stand it, you can’t stand a horrifying creature trying to get close to you, so you ran as if your life depends on it, leaving the dead man lie on the ground with his neck snapped like a twig.
That’s why everyone was filled with dread when he was around. That’s why his mother is in an asylum, knowing she gave birth to a creature like him. That’s why his father looks at him like at a wild animal and constantly prays, forcing him to bring a rosary with him wherever he goes in hopes it will stop him from hurting people.
Steve screams something to you, and you think you can hear the flipping of two enormous gaunt wings before you feel clawed hangs clenching your shoulder.
You should have listened to all those who tried warning you against him so many times.