Work Text:
There were many different kinds of pain. Fractures, dislocations, lacerations, bruises. Toothaches, backaches, headaches, bellyaches. Searing, numbing, scraping, stabbing, twisting, gnawing pain. Some pain came with stories. Others came from nowhere.
This was a nowhere kind of pain.
Steve Rogers sat before a window, watching the world play far below him.
It was a nice fall day. The city was a land with few trees, but the longer shadows proved that winter was coming soon. The days would get shorter; the nights would get more restless. It was a choice to sit on the wrong side of the window when the days of play were so limited.
On an intellectual level, Steve knew that it would be nice to sit at a café without a jacket and enjoy the sounds of others around him. It would be nice to take a walk through the park and look at the changing leaves. It would be nice to be anywhere except the little window to the rest of the world, watching it all happen without him.
But Steve Rogers was in pain. Not the sort of pain he wanted sunshine near. Not the sort of pain that enjoyed short walks or fresh air, that relished any change in altitude except for maybe lying under the covers and hoping it went away soon.
His pain was a miserable sort of pain. One that locked doors and planted itself in front of the window. It made him wonder if there was not something deeply wrong with him, that he could feel such a discomfort. It filled all the space inside him until Steve could not think of anything but the pain. There was no room in his head for other thoughts.
Steve looked out the window and wondered why on Earth he had been visited by this particular pain. Why, of all the people scuttling around, he had been overlooked. He had done a lot of good. He could prove it, on the days when he was able to think beyond the pain filling all the spaces inside of him. Surely, he deserved to be out-and-about, going about his day. Maybe picking apples or sketching something nice while he sipped a cup of coffee. He deserved nice things, too.
Right?
The pain was loud. Like a full marching band that paraded across his existence, robbing his sleep and interrupting the quietest hours of his day. At first, he felt like he could wait for it to pass. But as the hours ticked by, he wondered when it was going to be done. It was fine to listen to it for a while, but he wanted to cross the road eventually. He had other things to do.
But the pain was insistent.
Sitting by the window, Steve hoped the day would be over soon. Tomorrow would be better.
People survived in pain like his. He just needed to work harder for what he wanted. Like digging a hole in the rain. It did not matter if he got nowhere with it, if it would not be better to wait until the storm had passed—because the storm did not pass.
It just rained and rained and rained, even though the sky was clear and blue.
Steve thought about getting up, knowing that it was late enough for hunger to dampen his mood, but it seemed like a lot of effort to find food. And would it taste good, when all he could think of was the pain? He suspected it would not. So, Steve sat with his hunger instead.
He wanted to crave a good meal—the comfort of others enjoying their own meals, the pleasantries of conversation with someone he loved, the food, melodic, wonderful—but he could not bring himself to shelve the pain, ignore it.
Steve let the thought fade away. It was not worth investing his hope in. He would not ruin the experience of eating while he was so distracted and unwell.
No, he would wait. The pain would pass. That was how it should be.
As darkness fell and Steve did not move, a new feeling crept over him. It was more than pain, the constant, indistinguishable, hard-to-rate pain that maligned him: it was sadness, too. A profound feeling of loss. He had sat here while the world was out there, and the good day was gone, and now it was dark out. Oh, the city was lively at night, too, but it was also sleepy. For many, the day was done, and it was time to reward themselves by going home and enjoying time alone.
Steve had spent the entire day not enjoying his time alone. How dreadful to think about the long hours ahead. Steve thought about climbing into bed and willing himself unconscious—then, at least, he would not have to consciously deal with the pain. Like a dream, maybe his subconscious mind could take care of it. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Steve sat by the window, feeling absolutely awful. Halloween was just around the corner. That was a nice thought. There were feelings attached to Halloween that he should like. The novelty of it, the celebration of it, how people made do with what they had to have a little fun. He missed those days, of having a little fun together.
It would be nice to recapture that feeling. Steve knew he had to try to even hope to succeed, but the effort seemed exhausting. Pain was exhausting. Steve could fight through it, but fighting for joy seemed like a dreadfully counterproductive enterprise. Would he even enjoy such a hard-won victory?
The door opened. Steve had feelings about it, but he kept his gaze on the window. Confronting people was exhausting. Interacting, dealing, pretending he was all right, all of it required a lot of effort. In his own solitary space, Steve could afford a bit of private melancholy. He deserved as much, after all he had been through. Didn’t he?
Tony walked over, draping his arms around Steve’s neck loosely and resting his chin on top of Steve’s head. “Hi,” Tony said. “You wanna grab a bite to eat?”
Steve thought, No, and held his silence. He could lie, knee-jerk his way through questions. With Tony, it was different—sometimes, Steve still knee-jerked his way through questions, but most of the time, he tried to be honest. It seemed like a lot to say the words: Truthfully, I don’t want anything.
It was nothing against Tony or food or the concept of being joyful. It was the pain speaking, loud and all the way to the corners of his cold fingertips and gnawing stomach. “I haven’t felt like myself today,” Steve settled on, which was far more revealing but also a signal, a way of communicating.
It’s more than yes; it’s more than no.
Tony kissed the top of his head, squeezed him loosely. “I try to completely reform myself twice a week, minimum,” he said, agreeable, jesting. It reminded Steve of the tone one would use with a hospital patient, assuring them that they would get through it. He sighed a little, unintentional, and Tony added, “It’s not for everyone. Or you. Huh, big guy?”
Steve shook his head, because no, it certainly was not. And Tony knew pain, knew what it was like to struggle with it, to settle scores with it, offering chips to it like a devilish game of poker. Take this. And this. Please, leave the rest of me be. The pain was never satisfied, yet it was all he could do to manage it—feed, appease, hope. Feed, appease, hope.
He felt hopeless even trying to explain it. “Sometimes,” he said, bringing up a hand, brushing Tony’s forearm gently, the first human contact all day, “sometimes, I . . . I don’t feel right, Tony,” he said, his voice solemn, lacking any fear or anger or even sadness. There was only a sense of profound weariness, of wanting and wanting and wanting so much to want again, only to find pain in its way. A noisy, messy cloud. Maybe it was just static.
“I know,” Tony said, and he did, that was the beautiful and tragic thing. He did know. He knew, not only from his own experiences with pain, but from their conversations, from those quiet moments just like this, where the pain wanted to be heard.
See me. Hear me. Know I exist.
It was not a living thing, but its insistence on persistence, its refusal to die easily, was like a living thing. It wanted to be known. It was a parasite, consuming its host. And Steve Rogers, for all his strength, was no immortal, no super-man.
He was vulnerable to pain that came from nowhere.
Sighing, he squeezed Tony’s arm and said, “I want to,” and did not mean, I want to do it. He meant, I want to want it. Tony nodded, anyway, releasing him and stepping back, waiting. He could still stay—he could, and Tony would not even look at him with incredulity, asking:
Why don’t you get up?
Because I am in pain.
I don’t see any wound.
It’s not that kind of pain.
Breathing in, Steve let the weight of Tony’s support—of I trust you, I love you, I’ll leave you if you say the word—infuse him. Tony was strong. Steve was, too. They both knew there was no pain that Steve could not withstand. Steve had spent most of his life fighting one form or another, courting it, experiencing the world in all its great and terrible splendor.
It was a different challenge, a longer and quieter pain, but Steve was stronger than it, too. He was capable of feeling it and gripping the sides of the chair for a moment, bracing himself, before standing. It was slower, more arduous than it should have been. If he had wanted to source the pain, he may have blamed gravity, but he knew that was not it, either. It was inside him, not the Earth. Steve prevailed over it.
Each step was a task, a tremendous exertion, but Tony was there, Tony wanted him to succeed, to make it through, and he did.
They sat and ate at a restaurant with the whole gang, because Clint invited himself and then it was easy to bribe Nat and drag Bruce, and Steve did not have to talk nearly as much with the others around. He could focus more on the dishes themselves, savoring their flavor, savoring the distraction, the salvation of a day that had felt truly lost.
He was still in pain, but it felt much easier to bear, surrounded by his family. It was something he felt stronger against as his hunger receded. The restaurant was warm and aromatic, and he enjoyed shutting out the ambient noise and doodling on a napkin with one of Tony’s fancy pens while Clint argued with Tony about Han Solo’s role in the Star Trek trilogy.
It was not a trilogy, Steve knew, but he enjoyed that, too, enjoyed their enthusiasm for fantasy, things that did not affect their lives beyond the lively conversations they had. He even let Natasha have a bite of his dessert in exchange for a bite of hers, and then Clint complained loudly about favoritism while Natasha said that he had made his choices, which happened to be identical to Steve, or Steve was certain he would have insisted on sharing, too.
Steve liked his family—liked that Tony knew how to take them places where they would not have cameras lingering around them, liked that Bruce was stable and quiet for most of the meal, occasionally catching his eye and offering a smile, like he was glad to see him.
And maybe they were, Steve mused, as he allowed Tony to swap their plates, his golden band a perennial reminder that he had first dibs on any dessert trades with Steve. Maybe they were.
Sometimes, it was very hard to see through the pain. Sometimes, it was not so hard.
It will be okay, Steve thought, savoring the delicate and almost light taste of the lemon cream pie Tony had chosen. One day, it will be easy again.
Even when it was hard, it was better, not to be alone with it.