Work Text:
Blood of My Blood
When Tony Stark kills Steve Rogers — with his own shield in a dirty hit to the chest after knocking him flat on his back with a set of very specifically aimed repulsor blasts, because he’s a coward who knows full well he can’t win without cheating — he fully expects to wake up in heaven, justified and vindicated, even martyred, in his righteousness. Why else would Tony kill him, if not to stop the world from realizing that Steve was right?
So seeing an unending stretch of color that looks unnervingly like blood is jarring. And very unexpected.
Hearing a feminine throat clearing behind him makes him jerk around, eyes wide in both bewilderment and residual confusion. He knows that voice, but for the life of him, can’t quite remember why. A strong feeling of nostalgia rises in his chest, which only feeds his confusion, and he’s wracking his brain as he turns, trying to remember who the voice belongs to.
Partway through his turn, he gets a look at his arm.
And freezes, horror rushing through him.
Instead of a lean, strong forearm and big, powerful hands, he sees the skinny digits and stick limbs that used to be his body, in those awful days where he was Useless Stevie, Sickly Stevie, Target-of-Every-Bully-in-Town Stevie.
Never Good Enough Stevie.
Dizziness washes over him and he staggers, unable to believe that God would be so cruel as to make him suffer heaven in his useless old body, especially after all the good he’d done as Captain America, all the lives he’d saved and the corruption he’d stopped.
“Steven Grant Rogers! You will look at me right this instant or so help me, I’ll take a wooden spoon to your behind the way I should have done when you were a child!” an achingly familiar voice snaps. Muscle memory makes Steve pivot to face the speaker before his mind can finish processing.
And there, in the radiance of youth, strength, and understated beauty she’d never been allowed to truly enjoy in life, is Sarah Rogers.
His mother.
And she is furious.
But Steve has no chance to process this, much less greet her with joy and a hug that will finally feel right, with him enfolding her in his strong arms instead of her supporting her sickly, weak, useless son because he’s too unsteady on his feet after one of his constant coughing fits.
(he's forgotten that his arms are no longer strong, and neither is he)
“What in the name of all that’s holy is wrong with you?!” she thunders, eyes blazing with a light that makes him cringe instinctively, even as he mentally reels, trying to understand why she’s shouting at him. “I know I wasn’t around nearly enough, but I also know that I taught you right from wrong. Respect was a lost cause from the minute you realized that you were never going to be big or strong, but I’ve been trying for almost a century to figure out why you think it’s okay to lie to people, steal from them, use them, bully them, betray them, murder or hurt them if they don’t agree with you . . . and I can’t. I can’t understand why my own son turned into someone the Red Skull and Adolph Hitler would proudly claim as a contemporary.”
Her voice drops to a choked whisper on her last words and they make Steve stagger back so hard, he trips over his own feet and lands painfully on his butt on ground that is unexpectedly squishy, staring at his enraged, heartbroken mother in absolute horror and even deeper confusion.
Lying? Stealing? Betraying? Bullying?! Murdering?!
His mind literally cannot process any of this, though he doesn’t get the chance to express it.
“I am so ashamed to be your mother, it actually hurts,” she snarls, sorrow vanishing in the heat of her anger. “Your father can’t bring himself to speak to you, because you were so young when he died that he had nothing to do with raising you — but also because he’s so disgusted at what you became that he willingly gave up his only chance to see you. He . . . I . . . what is wrong with you?!” she whisper-shrieks, advancing on him in a way that makes him scuttle back out of pure instinct; he knows from his childhood that a firm spanking with a wooden spoon is in his future if he doesn’t stay out her reach, and most of his brain is gibbering with an old, primal fear.
But not all.
Indignation swells up and he stops trying to get away, forcing himself to stand instead, glaring at her with anger threaded with hurt and backed by resentment. She’d never understood his frustration at being so small and sickly and useless as a child, and she’d certainly never offered any sympathy. How dare she judge him now, when she knows nothing of what he’s been forced to endure and overcome?
“Do you have the slightest idea why we’re surrounded by blood, Steve?” his mother demands before he can organize his thoughts and defend himself.
Just like Tony used to do.
. . . wait, blood?
Remembering his initial impression of his surroundings, Steve takes another look and . . . well, yes, it does like disturbingly like blood . . . and he’s calf-deep in it. Now that she’s called his attention to it, the taste and smell are also starting to overwhelm even his now-weak senses.
“This, Steven, is the blood of every single innocent you have harmed,” Sarah snarls, beautiful features twisted with — no, that can’t be hate. She’s his mother! She loves him!
Wait.
“Innocents? I haven’t hurt any innocent people!” Steve objects weakly, breathless in his shock at such a ridiculous, mean accusation. The very idea is absurd! He’s Captain America! He’s the symbol of justice and righteousness, so it’s impossible for him to have hurt innocent people, and just as impossible for his beloved mother to make such a hateful accusation.
Could — could this be a trick? Could it be that he isn’t talking to his mother, but some kind of demon? Or maybe an alien; he knows that Loki can change his form.
“Don’t bother, Ma Sarah,” a painfully familiar voice sneers . . . and Steve freezes.
It can’t be.
It’s not possible.
Bucky isn’t dead.
He can’t be. Steve will not allow it.
If Tony cowardly murdered him after killing Steve because he was throwing one of his petulant tantrums, Steve will force himself back to life and kill Tony — with his bare hands this time.
“He’s incapable of seeing any of his actions for what they really are, never mind himself,” Bucky continues, his familiar voice filled with an unfamiliar disgust and vicious contempt that rattles Steve even more than seeing his long-dead mother in this place. “He honestly thinks that he’s never wrong and everything he wants and does is righteous and good. It won’t even register with him that the reason I’m here is because he killed the last vestiges of Bucky in that bunker. Hell, he’s probably still blaming Stark for everything.”
This bitter, hateful observation hits Steve hard and fast, not least because Bucky — his Bucky — has just accused Steve of killing him, and he staggers back several steps, hands flailing uselessly in an attempt to defend himself against . . . he doesn’t even know. Bucky, his best friend ‘til the end of the line, would never hurt him or stand against him, and neither would his mother. Steve would stake his life on that.
And yet . . . here they are. Accusing him of horrible things and blaming him for things he hasn’t done and telling him he’s wrong — and suddenly, the Howling Commandoes are there. His first team. His real team.
But none of them say a word to Steve, though they don’t need to. Every single man wears the same expression of contempt and disgust, looks that are so out of place and unnatural on a group of men who had followed him and had given their lives for each other — including him. Then, as if their cold silence isn’t enough, they turn their backs to him as one unit, completely shutting him out and denying him. Without so much as a word, they are accusing Steve of murdering them, too, and . . . no, this isn’t right. It can’t be.
More and more, Steve is certain this is a cruel trick perpetuated by Loki or maybe some new villain Tony foolishly allied himself with as a way to get his revenge on Steve, because Steve is a good man. His family and friends wouldn’t betray him like this.
They wouldn’t.
A deep sigh cuts into his thoughts and his head jerks up, eyes wide as his mother gives him another cold, disapproving look. Her eyes are full of scorn and disappointment and seeing it makes something twinge deep in Steve’s stomach.
Because he is intimately familiar with Sarah’s disappointed expression; he’d seen it nearly every day of his adolescent years, the disappointment she suffered from having a weak, useless son, until she got too sick to really pay him any attention, at least. And then she died and he was left alone to fight the bullies and desperately try to claim his place in the Army so he could prove he was a man, that he was good enough to join them and battle the world’s evil.
That he wasn’t useless and worthless.
“You’re right, Jimmy,” she sighs, turning away from her son and pulling an involuntary whimper of loss from him, something that manages to make its way past the knot of fear and resentment and confusion in his throat — and is utterly ignored by Sarah and Bucky. “He’s always been arrogant and disrespectful, from the minute he learned to talk, but even in my worst nightmares, I never imagined this. Thank heaven I died before he destroyed our family’s memory and legacy. And thank God he never had children,” she finishes, venom dripping from every word.
The sheer cruelty hits Steve like a punch to the throat and he reels back again, vaguely aware he’s gasping, “No! Nononono!” as he desperately flails, both mentally and physically, to find some balance in this place that must surely be hell.
Even though it can’t be. Steve is good. He’s righteous. He’s Captain America.
He’s earned the right to go to heaven and he won’t accept anything else.
“Indeed,” another painfully-familiar voice sighs and Steve reels back when Abraham Erskine steps in to the blood-soaked field, his face drawn tight with . . . that can’t be disappointment. It can’t be. He chose Steve because he’s a good man, the only one who was worthy of the chance to become great (good becomes great). Isn’t his survival proof of that? An evil man would have died during the process. But Steve didn’t. He survived. He thrived. And then he saved the world.
“His actions and lack of remorse have murdered my memory as vell. Hence my presence in zhis place,” the gentle scientist continues, sounding so bitter that Steve can’t keep from flinching. No — no, this isn’t right. It isn’t real. He isn’t being bullied and falsely accused by his mother and his best friend and the only other man who ever saw something worthy in him when he was scrawny and weak and useless. This is all a figment of his imagination.
Then Erskine turns his attention to Steve and the look on his face is so terrible, it takes all his strength to keep from falling to his knees. “I varned you zhat bad became vorse, but in your arrogance and your hubris, instead of heeding zhe varning, you deluded yourself zhat you had no ‘bad’ at all, no flaws, and had in fact become zhe embodiment of moral perfection.”
Icy silence descends after that vicious pronouncement, one Steve doesn’t have the slightest idea how to break, but then the doctor continues and shatters his world again.
“Still, I suppose it’s not right to make you shoulder all zhe blame. My judgment was badly compromised after Schmidt, so I overlooked all zhe red flags you should have triggered because I vanted to believe zhat you were vhat you portrayed yourself to be: a morally upstanding man who vouldn’t abuse your power because you knew too well vhat it was like to have it used against you.”
A slow shake of Erskine’s head is accompanied by slumped shoulders and a deep sigh. “I should have listened to Philips; zhe man was a superb judge of character and he varned us all zhat choosing you vould end badly. But you played zhe part so vell that I let myself be fooled. So bad became vorse. You destroyed my name, my legacy, and my life’s vork in zhe name of being ‘right’. And zhe death and destruction you’ve so blithely caused in my name is incalculable.”
. . . no. No, that’s not right. Steve is — he’s a good person! He’s a good man who became great and saved the world, sacrificing everything to do it. And when he was given another chance, he saved the world again. And again. He stopped Loki, he destroyed HYDRA, he killed ULTRON, he defended Bucky and the world against Tony Stark and the corrupt governments who just wanted to use him as their personal attack dog.
He’s a hero, dammit! He will not be looked down on like this, especially not by men who are long dead and know nothing about his life or the awful future he’s been trapped in through no fault of his own and his struggle to find his place in this new world.
“Typical arrogant fool,” another voice jeers. This one is also known to Steve and he feels himself pale as he pivots to face the newcomer, slips, and falls to his knees in the deep pool of red liquid. His hands are coated with it and the impact splashes several drops on his face as well . . . but his move to wipe it away stops when that same voice hisses, “That’s more like it. The Betrayer, the Murderer, the Deceiver, finally covered in the blood of his victims. Tell me, Steve, did you even register my death? Or was the lure of the past the only thing your extremely limited number of brain cells could process?”
The shock of seeing and hearing Howard Stark is all Steve can think about for several minutes, during which time a woman who is striking but not one of Howard’s usual beauties appears next to him. Her face is vaguely familiar, but Steve is too stunned at seeing Howard to pay her much mind.
And then his old friend’s cruel, ugly barb about his intelligence finally sinks in and Steve sees red.
He has lived a good life, one that was moral and right and in the service of the people, and after he was unjustly executed by a man he had called ‘friend’, a man who had sold him out and betrayed him, instead of receiving his reward and going to heaven, he is stranded in this blood-soaked purgatory and tormented by the people who are supposed to love and support him?
Once again, he’s rudely interrupted before he can rally enough to actually talk. “No, that’s giving you too much credit,” Howard snaps, face contorted with rage. “You positively reveled in having something over Tony, something to use against him because you think my son is a bully who didn’t worship you the way you deserved, so you had to keep him under your boot. For his own good, of course. And since his money was all blood money, he owed it to you to do something good with it — or he just owed it to you. Right?”
Taking his own shield full in the chest hadn’t hurt this much and Steve can’t do anything but gape in horrified, agonizing disbelief, though he can’t deny those bitter assertions.
“Now, Howard, you know his Neanderthal brain can’t handle that many big words. And he certainly can’t handle the knowledge that he might be wrong about something,” the unknown woman chides, laying her hand on his arm. Steve might as well not exist for all the attention the woman shows him, which bothers him.
Her words earn a nod of agreement and some grumbling from Howard before he turns to Bucky, a genuine smile splitting his lips.
“How are you, Sergeant?” he asks, sounding positively jovial, and Steve’s jaw drops — and then Bucky grins just as widely in response and the pair shake hands and exchange what sounds like sincere pleasantries, with Howard introducing the woman as his wife, Maria, who blushes prettily when Bucky gives her that carefree, appreciative smile of old before he sighs and his face darkens.
He throws an angry scowl at Steve, then says to Howard, “Well, I’m not too thrilled that my supposed ‘best friend’ murdered my memory, but you know how that feels and it’s not like he’s gonna listen to what we said, so let’s get out of here. There are several thousand people waiting for their chance and, frankly, we all have better things to do. You’ve been promising us a flying car since ’44 and now you’ll finally have the chance to make it work.”
Erskine perks up from where he’d been commiserating quietly with Sarah and turns a stony glare on Steve before pivoting to face Howard and asking, “May I accompany you? I heard a little about zhis flying car around zhe base, but never anything specific.”
“Of course,” Howard replies without hesitation.
And they just . . . disappear.
Howard, the Maria woman, Erskine.
The Howlies.
Bucky.
His mother.
None of them says another word to Steve or even gives him another look. They just abandon him in this blood-soaked purgatory after hurling vicious, ugly lies and accusations at him and never once letting him explain or defend himself.
He’s just worked himself into a good rant about bullies — because someone has to be listening — when his surroundings . . . ripple . . . and suddenly, he is completely enclosed by a sea of people: young adults, teenagers, people on canes and walkers and wheelchairs, children, babies, even — he has to swallow down bile when he realizes that he sees several figures that look like a baby but aren’t quite right, like they’d been born early or were malformed, maybe. He even spots several dogs and cats and horses and a few other animals. All of them are injured in some way, ranging from deep bruising to gaping chest wounds and amputated limbs.
And every single individual is howling for his blood.
Literally.
Wait.
Not all of them. His now-useless hearing manages to pick up the pitiful sounds of small, childish voices mournfully crying, and the blind despair in them is . . . jarring. He doesn’t know what to think, how to react, because this isn’t real and he isn’t a murderer, he didn’t kill these people.
He didn’t.
He’s so caught up in his denial that the butterfly touch on his left arm has him spinning to face his attacker, his body instinctively falling into a fighting stance that collapses even as it forms because his useless body and worthless lungs can’t support him. As he staggers in an effort to keep his balance, the mob jeers in vicious glee at his obvious trouble and his jaw tightens at the mockery.
He will not be disrespected, no matter what people think he did or didn’t do. He is Captain America, and he will be treated as such.
“How come you didn’t think I should be born?”
The voice is tiny, a child’s, and that uncertain, plaintive question stops him in his tracks, if only for a few seconds. A sharp turn of his head shows him a tiny, tiny baby, one who can’t possibly have been born yet, lying on its — no, his — back and looking up at him . . . only there is something horribly wrong. His whole body looks . . . crumpled, almost, or maybe crushed, and the sight brings bile to Steve’s throat. No child should look like it’s been in a warzone, especially not a helpless babe.
But it’s the unwavering accusation in those newborn blue eyes that makes him falter.
“Why didn’t I deserve the chance to live?”
Silence falls, complete and terrifying.
Steve has no answer.
Then the mob roars, rallying to the call of their youngest and most helpless. And in the few seconds he has before it reaches him, Steve hears his mother and Bucky and Howard and Erskine and the Howlies all sneer, “Unworthy,” in eerie harmony. Despite everything that’s happened since he arrived here, that final rejection shatters the broken foundation he’s been teetering on and he isn’t able to recover his balance or his composure.
Not that it would have made a difference.
Steve doesn’t even have the chance to blink, much less process the horrifying truth that every one of the people surrounding him is someone who genuinely believes that he specifically hurt or killed them before the mob swarms him and he is overpowered immediately. Unlike his mother and Bucky and Howard and Erskine, these people have no interest in talking, not even to bully him or accuse him of things he hasn’t done. They couldn’t care less about his reasons or knowing why their deaths were necessary and justified because he was protecting Bucky and fighting corruption.
Thousands of people surround him and they are united in their goal of destroying Steve Rogers.
There is no mercy, not even a hint of reprieve, though he wastes a lot of energy trying and failing to shout them down so he can explain. They are brutally ruthless and spare him nothing, and his world quickly becomes a vortex of blood-soaked pain and bloodier accusations. He puts up a valiant fight, but it’s all for nothing and the last thing he sees before his body is forced under the sea of blood he’s trapped in and his vision goes red, then black, is . . . himself.
Except . . . it’s not sickly, scrawny Stevie. It’s Captain America: tall, strong, powerful, good, and righteous.
But there’s something very wrong, because instead of coming down to rescue him, the hero is glaring so hard at Steve, it actually hurts. His features are twisted with rage and contempt and his eyes are blazing with disappointment.
As the mob claws him to pieces, screaming their innocence and loss and howling his guilt and reveling in his pain, Captain America doesn’t lift a finger to help him. He just stands there, arms crossed and now looking grimly satisfied as the man who made him possible is torn apart by all the people who think Steve unjustly killed and hurt them.
The betrayal of his own self is Steve’s breaking point and he stops fighting, unable to reconcile his beliefs about himself with the brutal reality even he can no longer deny, but just before he succumbs, he sees the most astonishing sight.
Tony Stark is now standing at Captain America’s side, tall and proud and clearly welcome. They are so obviously equals that it physically aches to finally begin to realize what he’d thrown away and seeing their solidarity, united in the cause of witnessing the ultimate destruction of their murderer, shatters something deep in Steve’s heart. It should be him standing in righteous judgment, and instead he has been judged and found wanting and there is no rescue for him, no final reprieve.
But the man standing shoulder to shoulder with Captain America isn’t the Tony Stark he knows, the man who mocked him and bullied him and disrespected him and overshadowed him at every turn and tore his family apart and ruined everything Steve had managed to build in this future he despises and finally executed him.
And it isn’t the man that Steve betrayed and devastated and abandoned long before Siberia.
It’s a billion times worse. This is the Tony Stark that Steve would have been worthy to have as a teammate and friend, had he truly been worthy of being Captain America.
Steve Rogers’ final vision is the approving but sorrow-filled face of his first murder, the man he should have been, and the widespread arms beckoning him to his final punishment and the cold, mocking, satisfied smile of the last man he murdered.
And then all he knows is the agony of the flames of justice.
~~~
fin