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"- her daughters. It's my turn to share a tent with Monty, but the Howlies aren't a team-"
He clicks off the TV, and sits with his head in his hands. He fucked up. He royally fucked up. Two weeks into a bright new world, and he’s already ruined it for himself.
His press conference was everywhere. He underestimated how much the media mattered now, he should have listened to Pepper more. He should have spent one god damn moment thinking and none of this would have happened.
He had stayed holed up in his Shield apartment since the news broke out. His own sad face was everywhere he looked. He left the house once to go to the Smithsonian, and he was too terrified to look up whether anyone had found out about it online.
And like the stupid chump he was, all he could think about is what the Howlies are going to say. Are saying. Would have said.
“Jesus, Rogers. Barnes was right about you getting dropped on the head, huh?”
Maybe. Probably.
“You got to the future? Do they have those flying cars you kept talking about?”
No. Yes. Their cars don’t fly, their people do. Stark has a kid. He’s older than all of us.
"Comment diable es-tu arrivé là?”
Magic. Science. Or maybe just a punishment.
“Future, izzit? Make us proud out there, bud.”
How?
“Stevie? You ok?”
No.
He drags his sweaty hands over his face and tries to breathe. He’s not going to cry again. For the second time today, he opens the box sitting on his coffee table beside the discarded remote. It’s the only thing in the apartment that can hold his attention for more than a few seconds before he spirals again.
Steve pulls the box into his lap, holding the flaps down to stare inside. The Smithsonian folks were nice. As nice as one could be while returning stolen items to a dead man.
They weren’t stolen, they thought he was dead, somebody had to go through his stuff, they couldn’t just leave it there, that doesn’t make sense, it wasn’t stolen-
Steve forced out another breath, and picked out his ‘hidden’ sketchbook, as his first art teacher used to say.
“You need a place to put all the crap practise drawings. Keep a nice book to show the family to, but this one’s just for scribbles.”
Was she dead too? Steve couldn’t remember her first name, just Ms. Pillsbury, but she had been in her forties in ‘39, there’s no way-
Breath.
It hurt that his hidden sketchbook was put on display. It was meant just for him, to practise awkward poses for the first time, to draw and redraw eyebrows ‘till they looked good enough to put on his picture of Dum Dum’s face. Dernier laughed, said the ugly ones would have suited him better, and got whacked over the head for it.
Maybe a year into the fighting, the ‘hidden’ sketchbook became more than just a nickname. He squirrelled away in his tent, in damp, dark corners to fill the crumpled pages with dreams. Hidden dreams, ones he didn’t want to speak about around the campfire as the others did. These ones were just for him.
Well. Not anymore, they weren’t.
Nothing was for him anymore. Not after the clip about Monty’s chocolate ration spread like wildfire.
He flipped through the book, the pages naturally falling to where one had been ripped out. Four pages in, he ripped out a sketch to give to Bucky of a trench cat they’d found. Sixteen pages in, a missing page for where he’d drawn his old self, given it to Jim when he asked. Said he’d keep it, show it to his kids one day if Steve ever got too dramatic with his war stories. Knock him down a peg, he said, smiling ear to ear at the tiny Rogers on the page.
Did he ever show them?
He kept flipping, kept counting.
Thirty-one pages in, the page had been ripped out by accident, an air siren jolting him into pulling the edge of the page out. It hadn’t been great anyways, he was practising drawing hands, he thinks.
Ten pages filled just with poses. The first ones were awful. Did people see those ones? What did they think? It was hidden for a reason.
Forty-four pages in, his heart stops. He hadn’t noticed last time, but he’s sure.
Steve flips back to the beginning, scans every page as the fucking tears come back. The entire sketchbook, half filled, and a page was missing. He hadn’t taken it out. He hadn’t shown anyone. He had every intent to keep that image hidden ‘till the day he died, the last time he cried over it when it was created months ago.
Years ago. Decades ago. He would take that image to the grave with him before he let someone see.
Would have.
He pulled out his cellphone. If tears fell down while it dialled, no one was here anyways.
”Hello! This is a surprise, Captain Rogers.”
He swallowed thickly, trying to clear his throat.
”Captain Rogers? Are you there, Captain?”
”My hidden-” Steve cut himself off, started again. “The red sketchbook I retrieved from you. A page. It’s. It’s missing.”
“Oh. The book? Well, yes. Pages were taken to scan, you can just look on the website, they’re there.”
How much does one need to go through, before their heart gives up from grief? Not even the serum could make it impenetrable, because Steve can feel his breaking.
“Is that all? Did you need something else from the museum? We can find a time that’s-”
Steve had already jabbed the little red button, and opened the website before he even tried to take another breath.
He paused, thought for a horrifying moment, then opened a new ‘window’. He typed, and dreaded.
Captain America V-Day
And there it was. Front fucking page. The screen blurred, Steve had to blink before realizing it was his eyes, not the screen.
He traced the edges of the image on the screen. He didn’t know it was possible to physically hurt from missing paper under thumb but he did. That page, the picture, that dream was his.
The beautiful, impossible dream. Dream Steve sat with the Howlies. Dream Steve smiled in his seat at the table.
Dream Steve, big and broad, in an officer's uniform, held up his newest medal to his mother.
And now Dream Steve’s smile, his laugh, the shading around his hair, the swoop of his mother's dress, was for the entire world.
Steve grabbed the remote, and clicked on the TV again. Who cared?
”jarring to many Americans to see a man they looked up to act in such a mann-”
He hates the internet.