Chapter Text
Soldier Boy had never cared what people thought of him. That was the lie. The biggest lie. The one he’d been telling himself for nearly a century.
The truth was much uglier. He cared too much. Always had. His father had cared. The military had cared. Vought had cared. The public had cared. Everyone always expected something. Strength. Perfection. Invincibility. The great Soldier Boy. America’s favorite hero.
And Ben spent decades pretending to be him.
Then he met you.
You worked at a tiny bookstore tucked between a laundromat and a flower shop. The kind of place nobody noticed. The kind of place Soldier Boy would’ve walked past a hundred times without seeing. Except one rainy evening, he did.
You weren’t looking at him. That was the first strange thing. Most people did. Most people stared. Asked for photos. Whispered. Pointed. You didn’t. You were balancing a stack of books while arguing with an elderly customer about late fees.
Soldier Boy stood frozen outside the window. Watching.
The customer eventually left. You sighed. Dropped into a chair. And buried your face in your hands.
For some reason, that made him smile.
Because it looked real. Not rehearsed. Not performed. Just human.
The next day he came back. And the next. And the next.
Eventually you noticed. Of course you did. A six-foot-plus superhuman lurking around the same bookstore every afternoon wasn’t exactly subtle.
“You gonna buy something?” You asked.
Soldier Boy glanced up from a book he’d been holding upside down.
“…Maybe.”
You laughed. Actually laughed. And for some reason that felt better than every cheer he’d ever received from a stadium crowd.
After that, talking to you became easy. Dangerously easy.
He learned your favorite author. Your favorite coffee. The movies you secretly cried during. The way you tucked your hair behind your ear when you were concentrating.
And slowly… He started looking forward to seeing you.
Which was a problem.
Because Soldier Boy didn’t do attachment.
Attachment got people killed. Attachment made you weak. Attachment made you care.
Yet every day he found himself returning.
One afternoon, you were sitting together in the bookstore after closing. Rain tapped softly against the windows. The city glowed beyond the glass.
You looked over at him. Smiled. And asked the question that ruined everything.
“What were you like before all this?”
Soldier Boy froze.
Before all this.
Before the fame. Before Vought. Before the legend. Before the posters. Before the lies.
Ben.
Nobody asked about Ben. They asked about Soldier Boy. The costume. The shield. The myth.
You wanted the man underneath.
And suddenly he felt exposed.
Like sunlight touching a vampire.
His stomach twisted.
Because what if you saw him? Really saw him?
The angry parts. The selfish parts. The ugly parts. The insecure little boy who spent his entire life trying to earn approval from people who never gave it.
What if you realized he wasn’t worth loving?
“Ben?”
Your voice pulled him back.
He forced a grin. The same grin he’d worn for decades.
The mask.
“Sweetheart, you don’t wanna hear about that guy.”
You frowned.
“Why not?”
Because he hated that guy.
Because that guy wasn’t enough.
Because Soldier Boy only existed because Ben wasn’t worth keeping.
But he couldn’t say that.
So he shrugged.
“Trust me.”
You stared at him for a long moment. Then quietly said:
“I think I’d like him.”
Everything stopped.
The rain. The city. The noise in his head.
All of it.
You think you’d like him.
Not Soldier Boy. Not the hero. Not the celebrity. Not the legend.
Ben.
The man nobody had ever chosen.
The man nobody had ever wanted.
For the first time in years, Soldier Boy didn’t know what to say.
And that terrified him.
Because fighting enemies was easy. Explosions were easy. War was easy.
This?
Sitting across from a woman who might actually care about him?
Impossible.
That night he couldn’t sleep.
He sat alone in his apartment overlooking the city. Watching lights flicker in distant windows.
Thinking about you.
About the way you smiled. The way you looked at him. The way you never seemed impressed by Soldier Boy.
Only interested.
Interested in Ben.
The thought scared him more than any battle ever had.
Because suddenly he understood something.
He didn’t want you to love Soldier Boy.
He wanted you to love the man underneath.
And for someone like him… That was far more frightening.
Because if you rejected Soldier Boy, he’d survive. He always had.
But if you rejected Ben?
The lonely little boy still trapped inside the legend?
That might finally break him.
And sitting alone in the dark, Soldier Boy found himself wondering something he’d never dared ask before. Something small. Something vulnerable. Something painfully human.
Would you ever love someone like me?