Chapter Text
When Steve was younger, he was sick. Sicker than he is now, although others (Sam, Bucky, Peggy, and any number of his other friends) might disagree. But for a good while, he was on steroids, and that’s what Steve thinks started everything. The drugs were worse than the frequent asthma attacks. They were worse than his body deciding to attack him every now and again and land him in hospital.
He still has the pictures from back then, when he was a kid. Couldn’t bear to throw away anything that had him and his ma together. She’d look so sunny with her bright smiles (to reassure him, even until the end) but then there’d be him. Bloated and swollen, skin tight, red and unable to cope with the weight he gained. He was on and off steroids for years and while he knows he doesn’t look like that now, he can still remember how awful he looked. He remembers how sick the drugs made him feel until nausea and vomiting and being hungry all the time seemed like part of normal life. That’s stayed with him.
When Peggy first saw the pictures, she burst out laughing. ‘You look like Humpty Dumpty!’ she’d said, laughing through tears. Steve had smiled grimly and closed the photo album. He hadn’t had a response. But Peggy wasn’t laughing the first time she found him passed out in the kitchen, weak, exhausted and with nothing in his fridge. She was the one speechless that time.
Now when he goes to hospital, it’s not because of the asthma or the inflammation. It’s not for scoliosis or his hearing or sinusitis. It’s for anaemia. His heart. His bones. It’s for things he did to himself by himself. His life, his fault.