Chapter Text
Is anybody ever really happy in high school?
Steve wonders to himself he leans forward over the sink, pinching his nose tightly to try and stop the bleeding. His top lip has gone numb. In the grubby mirror above, he can see the puffy yellow beginnings of a black eye, the throb coalescing into a sharp pain on his cheekbone where the skin is broken. Man, he looks awful. Secretly he thinks it’s kinda cool, although his mom will definitely not share that view. Only a few weeks into the fall semester and this is already the second time.
Sure, most people seem to have an easier ride of it than he does. But are they happy? Do Paige Lorraine and her gang of preening airheads really feel as great about themselves as their Instagram feeds make out? Does Bruce Banner, the school genius, secretly wish he could be cool as well as smart? Would Brock fucking Rumlow really be such an irredeemable asshole if he was truly contented, deep in his soul?
Actually, fuck that guy. He’s the main reason Sarah Rogers loses so much sleep.
With his free hand, Steve runs the cold water to try and take the sting out of his knuckles. It doesn’t really work, but at least the drops of blood spattered around the sink swirl away down the drain.
He’s just prodding gingerly at his lip when something catches his eye in the mirror - a flash of red shirt at the door behind him. Shit! Someone’s coming in. Steve hunkers down over the sink and hopes the interloper will ignore him, but instead of going over to piss, or heading into the stall, the mystery feet come to a stop right in the middle of the bathroom.
Fuck.
“Hey.”
Steve’s stomach drops through the floor. Oh, God, how can this be happening? There’s no mistaking that voice – it’s him. James Barnes. As in the quarterback of the school football team, James Barnes. As in, Brock Rumlow’s bosom fucking buddy, who, not five minutes earlier, had stood there by the dumpsters while his teammate threw his fist at Steve’s eye socket. As in—
Why? He’s been punched on two separate occasions today, and it’s still only lunchtime. Isn’t that enough? Can’t these guys just take a break?
Right now Steve would dearly love to disintegrate into a pile of dust. Since that’s not gonna happen, he screws his eyes shut and takes a deep breath, before shutting off the faucet and standing as straight as he can, back turned, nose clamped between his fingers.
“The fuck do you wad?”
The tough talk falls flat - it comes out all nasal and stupid-sounding. Barnes doesn’t laugh, though. In the mirror, Steve can see him hunched over with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the floor. Hardly threatening demeanour.
“Look, man,” he mumbles. “I just came to say… I’m sorry.”
“What?”
Steve whirls around, letting go of his nose, and fixes Barnes with a scowl. Barnes’s eyes widen in horror when he sees Steve’s face.
“Oh, shit.”
He reaches into the stall and grabs fistfuls of toilet paper, shoving them in Steve’s direction. He knows he looks like shit – he can still taste blood in his mouth, and there are a few drops on his Hold Steady shirt where his nose is starting to trickle again.
“Oh my God. Are you OK?”
“I’m fine.”
“God. I’m so sorry. Rumlow’s such a fucking asshole.”
“Yep.”
Jeez, what a guy. Even his best friends are prepared to badmouth him.
Barnes tears off another handful of paper and holds it under the cold water, then holds it out to Steve, who snatches it out of his hand like a petulant child. This is so humiliating. Thank God his face is fucked up enough that Barnes won’t be able to notice how hard his cheeks are blazing.
He turns back to the mirror and dabs the wet tissue at the broken skin along his cheekbone, wincing in pain. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Barnes watching him. That… that face is all pale and creased with concern.
“No, look. Lemme. You gotta…”
He comes closer and takes the wadded tissue back. Steve doesn’t resist. What is he…? Oh, God, he’s actually going to…
Steve has a sudden, vivid flashback to the time he got put on really strong medication for a persistent chest infection and it made his heart all jittery. He’s rooted to the spot and his breathing goes all weird as Barnes reaches down and presses the makeshift poultice firmly against his aching face. The coldness of it makes him gasp.
“Hurts, huh?” Barnes says, in a soft voice.
“Ya think?” Steve retorts, on reflex. Maybe he slightly regrets the sharpness of his tone. Whatever.
Barnes rolls his eyes. Soon the initial sting subsides, and a cool, soothing effect takes over. Steve holds the pad still himself so that Barnes will back off and give him some space to get his head around what the fuck is happening.
It’s too fucking weird. Maybe he got concussed and is hallucinating this whole thing. It definitely seems like Chester Phillips High School Quarterback James Barnes is leaning against the bathroom tiles and talking to him.
“Are you gonna tell anyone?”
“God. I’m not a snitch.”
“He could get kicked out of school for this.”
Truly, from the flat tone of Barnes’s voice, Steve can’t tell whether the thinks this would be a good or a bad thing. Doesn’t matter, though. They both know it’s not gonna happen. He shrugs.
Barnes reaches out again and lifts the pad away from Steve’s cheek so he can peer closely at the damage. Steve’s chest does something weird, kind of like panicking.
“This is awful,” Barnes says. “I didn’t think he would actually—”
“He’s usually a little more subtle,” Steve replies. “Most of the time he hits me in places that don’t show.”
Barnes looks horrified. “Well, I guess you really got to him this time,” he says.
Steve can’t help it: a huge grin spreads across his face, even though his cheeks are aching.
“Yeah,” he says.
There’s a moment where Barnes grins back, and their eyes meet, and Steve feels even more disoriented that he did after getting punched. What is it that makes Barnes’s face so fascinating, like some beautiful accident of nature? Nobody would ever punch a face like that.
“It’s just— D’you have to piss him off so much?” Barnes asks. “Are you trying to, like, prove something? I mean, do you like getting your ass kicked?”
“Hey, I don’t start it!” Steve snaps, residual anger still floating in his system. “I’m just not gonna let him treat people like shit. And you shouldn’t either! S’fucking… wrong!”
Barnes pauses. He opens his mouth, then closes it again and looks away. Steve hastily resumes scowling.
“You gotta ice that,” Barnes says, waving his hand towards Steve’s face.
“Sure, lemme go to the school kitchens with blood on my shirt.”
Barnes straightens up and gives Steve a rueful, beautiful smile. He’s nearly a head taller than Steve and a lot stronger, although that’s not difficult. Some people really are blessed with all the good genes and others are not.
“I think it’s really cool that you stand up to him. You’re like, the only one who does.”
Something fizzes in the bottom of Steve’s stomach. He wonders if he might be about to throw up.
“Someone’s gotta,” he mutters. “Can’t let the assholes win.”
Barnes doesn’t reply, but Steve can feel his eyes on him. The atmosphere in the bathroom suddenly feels overwhelmingly awkward. He stands up straight, returning Barnes’s gaze.
Barnes’s eyes widen. “OK,” he says, hurriedly, “I gotta go.”
Steve just nods, dumbly, and watches him leave. As Barnes reaches the door, he turns again.
“Hey, Rogers.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry for… Sorry he called you, y’know. A fag.”
Steve’s gut twists. He narrows his eyes at Barnes, this good-looking, straight-A sports star, right at the top of the high school food chain. Why is he specifically apologising for that? Right, of course. Because to some people, gay is the worst thing you can call someone. The worst thing you can be. Blood pumps in his ears and something in him snaps.
“Why?” he asks, folding his arms across his chest. “He’s right.”
The second it’s out Steve can’t believe he said it. His words were meant to sting, or at least provoke a little revulsion in Barnes, and show that despite today’s weird episode, he’s just another Rumlow thug. But it doesn’t quite work. Barnes just raises both eyebrows and blinks.
“OK,” he says. And then he’s gone.
What the fuck…?
Steve returns to the sink and splashes water in his face. It’s a good few minutes before the adrenaline subsides, but eventually, he pulls himself upright and looks back at his reflection again. Lank blond hair falls across his face, half-covering one of his blue eyes. Water clings to his eyelashes in droplets. His skin is blotchy, there’s still blood caked around one nostril and the side of his eye is starting to bruise in earnest. God, he really looks like shit. Gently, he brings his fingers up to the tender spot below his eye where Barnes pressed down with a wad of wet toilet paper.
What just happened? Did he really just come out for only the second time? To James Barnes???
Shit. Talk about a dumb move. Rumlow’s never gonna leave him alone after this.
*
“Steve.”
Steve comes round with a start, blinking at Mr Erskine in confusion. He’s been staring at his painting for God knows how long, so deep in thought that he hasn’t heard the bell, or the other students packing up around him.
Wow, maybe he got hit harder than he thought.
“Just… wait behind for a moment, please.”
Steve gives him a curt nod, and scowls to himself. The last thing he needs is to get into more trouble when he should be heading home. He packs up slowly and loiters by Erskine’s desk, waiting for everybody else to disappear.
If only he could get to the bottom of whatever the hell happened in the boys’ bathroom at lunch. When James fucking Barnes appeared, like a penitent angel, and spoke to him, used his name, and soothed his sore eye. Steve can’t stop replaying the whole scene from start to finish, alternately cringing and glowing. It’s the weirdest fucking thing ever.
Eventually the room empties, and Erskine turns to Steve, pushing his glasses up his nose. He’s not exactly smiling, but his eyes are as warm and kindly as they have been since freshman year. For a moment or two they eyeball each other: Erskine all friendly and approachable, and Steve countering with a defiant stare.
“Is everything alright?” Erskine asks, finally, tapping the skin below his own left eye.
“Oh. Yeah.” Steve’s face still aches, but he’d already forgotten how it looks. He cleaned himself up pretty good and turned his shirt inside out, but the bruising probably looks even worse by now. “I, um. I was walking past a ball game. Bad luck I guess.”
Erskine nods, then strokes his chin.
“Yes, you do seem to suffer from bad luck. I should tell you, if your fortunes don’t improve, the school will investigate.”
His soft German lilt has a calming effect, whether Steve wants to calm down or not. He looks at his shoes, suddenly embarrassed by the teacher’s kindness. The last thing he wants is to be the centre of an investigation. Maybe he should be more careful.
“It has been a while since we talked,” Erskine goes on. “Things are OK at home?”
“Fine,” Steve answers, a little too quickly.
Erskine gives him a long look.
“Alright,” he says. “Well. I have been meaning to ask you about your work.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Steve bites back. Anxiety starts to twist at his insides. He just needs something to go right for a change. Out of everything, he’s probably worked hardest of all on his artwork this semester, and he’s sure he’s turned everything in on time.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Erskine replies, in that calm, almost amused voice. “It’s good.”
Steve’s frown deepens. “Oh,” he says, flatly.
“Everything you have produced this year has been good,” Erskine goes on. “However. The problem, I think, is… that you are better than good.”
“I… oh,” said Steve, again, wrongfooted half way through his sentence. “I mean, I’m doing my—"
“Landscapes, figures, still-lives, all good, good, good.” Erskine says, waving a hand in circles. “But. I am not seeing you in them. For some time now.”
Now Steve is completely lost.
“What, you want me to do some self-portraits?”
Erskine smiles.
“In a manner of speaking,” he says. “Come and look.”
He beckons Steve over to his laptop and brings up a folder containing images of Steve’s work. As he double-clicks on it, Steve’s stomach turns over. There’s a series of sketches of his mother, drawn during better times. He remembers paying careful attention to each line on her face, trying to capture her spirit as well as her looks.
“Look,” Erskine says. “These portraits you made last year are so honest. This is beautiful work, Steve. And what happened to the artist who made this piece?”
He pauses on Steve’s one and only experiment with abstraction: a mess of dark, angry, black lines, red flecks and murky green splodges, and a large, blank space in the corner where he scratched his initials, SGR. It stirs something so acute in Steve that he can barely look at it.
He clenches his teeth. “I didn’t wanna go that way,” he says.
“Then don’t,” Erskine replies. “But do you see what I mean? Even a year ago, there was so much more of you in the pictures. I just wondered what happened.”
Steve doesn’t answer, because he knows exactly what happened. He thinks about his sketch books at home and almost wants to laugh.
Erskine closes the computer and leans back in his chair.
“Why am I asking you this?” he says. “I suppose I am wondering, what do you want? Are you still thinking about art school?”
In Erskine’s accent it sounds like ‘sinking about art school’, which sounds about right to Steve. He fixes his gaze on the wall behind Erskine.
“I dunno,” he says. “My mom thinks I should aim to major in, like, accounting, or politics, or, y’know, something that might actually help me earn a living.”
“Ah,” Erskine nods. “Well. There’s living, and there’s living. It’s your choice, of course. I’m sure you have great aptitude for accounting. But I would be letting you down if I didn’t tell you that you have great potential in art. In fact, I think you could be scholarship material.”
Steve blinks. “Really?”
“Yes. I think so.”
Steve blinks again. Studying art had been a dream he’d slowly let go of over the last year. Honestly, he hasn’t been thinking seriously about college at all lately. It seems so impossible to see beyond the end of the year, even.
He wonders if James Barnes is gonna go to college.
“If you want to,” Erskine goes on. “If you have the passion. And I think you do. You are… angrier now than you used to be, I think.”
Steve blinks. “I dunno,” he says. “I mean, it would be great. Part of me would love that. But I… I want to… look, it sounds dumb.”
Erskine raises a sceptical eyebrow and waits for Steve to elaborate.
“I want to make a difference in the world. Be part of positive change, you know?”
Erskine nods.
“And you think art does not do that.”
Steve frowns, realising he maybe not have thought the assumption through.
“I… well, I mean, not like activism. Or advocacy. Or, like teaching, I guess.”
Erskine gives him a benevolent look, like someone who has had this conversation before.
“If art is not a subversive force, then why do oppressors hate it, or try to control it?” he says. “Why did Hitler burn the paintings of my grandfather’s peers? Why did he murder artists or send them into exile?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like that now,” Steve argues.
“Hmm. In the USA, perhaps not so much,” Erskine says. “But you don’t have to risk your life to have an impact. Art can inspire, inform, interrogate, comfort. It can help society talk about difficult things it would rather avoid. It can be very powerful. But it must tell the truth.”
Steve is momentarily lost for words. There’s a weird sort of excitement in his chest, something he hasn’t felt in a long time.
“And,” Erskine continues, peering over the top of his funny round glasses. “Even more than that, it is a way for the artist to make sense of himself.”
It’s kind of embarrassing, but Steve’s arms are prickling with goosebumps. Maybe there is hope for a way through the shitstorm after all. He pauses for a while, then shifts his bag on his shoulder and looks Erskine straight in the eye.
“So what do you want me to do?” he asks.
The teacher smiles broadly back at him, his eyes dancing with mischief.
“Throw away the photos for a while,” he says. “Draw from direct observation. Real life. Paint what you feel.”
“I’m not sure the school wants to see that,” Steve says, with a wry smile. It gets a chuckle out of Erskine.
“I’m not asking you to be a model student,” he replies. “I’m asking you to let yourself be what you are.” He jabs a finger at Steve’s chest. “A. Good. Artist.”
*
It’s pretty dark when Steve finally gets out of school. No headphones for the walk home – his head is buzzing loudly with the day’s encounters, and he needs to tune into it. James Barnes and Erskine have really got under his skin.
It’s true, what Erskine said, and Steve knows it. While he has been working his ass off on his painting technique, he’s taken himself right out of the picture. He’s sucked the feelings out of his artwork and thrown them all into facing off with people like fucking Brock Rumlow.
Why’s that? What’s he feeling that’s so unpaintable? It’s uncomfortable to think about it, but he’s gonna have to if he’s serious about trying for art school.
So yeah, he’s angry. He always has been. Why wouldn’t he be? He’s small and sickly and he lives in a world that shits on anybody who doesn’t have the good luck to be born privileged. But something’s changed in the past year. His anger has intensified to the point where it keeps getting him into trouble, and he doesn’t really want to think about why.
Tell the truth, Erskine had said. Well, Steve Rogers doesn’t back down from challenges.
A chilly breeze makes him shiver and his breath rattles in his chest. It’s only mid-September, but it’s getting cold early in New York this year. The sky between the buildings looks grey and dreary as fall sets in. The city keeps moving around him, distant and uncaring, while Steve listens to his gut, and hears what he already knew deep down: he’s scared.
Immediately he starts arguing. So what? He’s been scared before, and he’s never given in to it. Yeah, Rumlow is pretty intimidating, and getting punched hurts like hell, but Steve can take it. He’s keeping it together. He’s being brave, right? Calling out Rumlow every time he picks on somebody is the opposite of cowardly. It’s taking a stand.
But his gut answers back. There’s more to this, isn’t there?
Steve keeps walking, head down. Looks like it might start to rain and his jacket is definitely not waterproof.
It’s never long before his thoughts circle back to James Barnes. James Barnes. Even the sound of his name sets off a chemical reaction in Steve. What the fuck was that weird dream sequence in the school bathroom? It loops around his head like a dumb viral video. Obsessing over Barnes is not new, but he still can’t believe they have actually talked. And everything about it was just…
Are you, like, trying to prove something? Barnes had said. Is that it? OK, maybe, yeah. Maybe he wants to prove that even a scrawny weirdo like him can do something important. And it is important, not to let hateful shit happen without doing something about it.
Is he handling it the right way? Possibly not. The school’s not gonna do shit about Rumlow, but people like Erskine are starting to notice, and he doesn’t want anyone nosing around and asking him questions. Maybe he should try to cool it a little, quit stirring up so much trouble.
Ha. Like that would just magically make everything OK.
His footsteps have slowed the closer he’s gotten to his apartment building, and now he’s almost at a standstill, dawdling on the sidewalk. If he looks, he can see his apartment window from here.
Come on, Steve.
He looks. The window’s dark.
Steve stares queasily for a moment. He takes a few more slow steps, then sits down on a low wall outside his building. Usually he fights this feeling off, but today it creeps coldly over him until he can’t ignore it anymore and he admits to himself that he’s not just scared, he’s terrified. Not just by Brock Rumlow. He’s frightened of who he is, and of what might happen to him.
Paint what you feel, Erskine said. He rubs at his knees and takes a few long, shaky breaths, waiting for the fear to peak so it can subside again. Fuck. Is this what he’s gotta do? No wonder he hasn’t been painting this shit.
But… imagine spending four years studying art. He’s not gonna just, like, let all his bullshit, or Rumlow, or anything else get in the way of that. He’s gonna get to the bottom of it.
Tell the truth, Erskine said. So what’s the truth? Steve stares down at his hands. Even if he could push aside the James Barnes issue, which he certainly cannot, he there is still a world of discomfort to wade through.
The truth is… that Brock Rumlow is a fucking bully who needs to be challenged.
Like, duh. Try again.
The truth is that you can’t wait for other people to do the right thing. You have to do it yourself.
And the rest. Come on.
OK.
The truth is that it’s easier to get in Rumlow’s face and get knocked on his ass ten times out of ten than face up to his shitty fucking reality. At least it’s pain he can choose.
So there it is.
Steve exhales. On the next breath, he raises his head and squares his shoulders. Brock Rumlow might think he’s weak, but that’s a fucking joke. He knows what he’s got to do. Time to face facts.
The apartment is quiet when he gets up the stairs, and it’s just as dark as it seemed from the street. Shit. He’s way later home than he intended.
He drops his bag next to the door.
“Mom?”
No answer. Her shoes and coat are there, though, so she must be asleep. Steve wanders through to the kitchen and makes two sandwiches: one for himself, and one for Sarah, in case she wakes up. Then he does his homework and, gets out his paints, and begins.
*
He’s gonna need the big brush for this. It doesn’t have to be any good, it just has to be. Just has to be something he can work with.
Steve thinks about the old piece Erskine showed him, the one he did in class the day after they got the news. It’s a start, but it’s kinda childish. The black is too obvious.
He mixes a dark, bruised purple and starts from there. The brush flies fast and careless, dipping and mixing, conjuring up a raging orange and an aggressive, shameless pink. There’s a murky green that feels right, and the odd dash of Chester Phillips High School football red.
In his head he goes back to Brock Rumlow, and lets his mind wander from there. The brush follows, frustration and powerlessness rolling out of him in harsh, messy lines and contrasting shapes. There’s gonna be too much for one canvas but that’s OK, he can always do more.
Before he knows it, he’s covered more than half of the canvas. A blank space yawns off to the side, glaring and sterile, ignoring the chaos around it. Right in the middle is where Steve daubs his initials.
Then he starts another.