Chapter Text
1931
Pa is sick in bed all through the bitter winter. He doesn’t get up much, which means he can’t drink. He smokes though, when he isn’t sleeping or moaning about his burns.
He isn’t an easy patient. He can’t hit Steve or Ma like this, but he has other ways of making their lives miserable. He has Ma practically run off her feet when she’s home, calling for food, or water, or complaining about an itchy bandage. He needs her to adjust the blanket, open the window, it’s too stuffy, close the window, it’s too cold—What are you doin’, tryin’ to kill me?
Ma always presses her lips flat but doesn’t say anything when she goes to help him.
Ma already has enough on her hands, working every day, making food, and doing the laundry—extra now, because of Pa. It’s Steve’s fault. His fault Pa got so mad that day and Ma had to throw the soup at him. It’s his fault, so he puts himself in charge of taking care of Pa whenever he’s home.
He doesn’t stay away anymore, his only relief when he goes to school.
Pa knows it’s his fault too. He doesn’t hold back, hissing spiteful, hateful things when Steve is changing his bedding, or helping him to the toilet in the hall. Pa purposely spills his broth to give Ma more work to do and he stares at Steve with a hard look as she mops him up and changes his bandages yet again.
“The cloth’s too cold, Sarah! Are you tryin’ to make me catch my death?!”
Steve grits his teeth and bears it.
Some days he’s worse at it than others. Pa catches a cold mid-February, and grows too weak to manage the steps down the hall to the toilet. Instead, he has to submit to the indignity of a bedpan.
That is the worst part of every day. Pa is humiliated and furious and Steve tries not to let his distaste show. He knows Pa can sense it, even if he keeps his face blank, and Pa makes up for it with raspy, cutting remarks.
“Don’t look at me like that, boy. You think you’re better than this? You, with your lungs that aren’t worth the air they breathe?” Pa pants hard while he shifts around for Steve to do his work, but he doesn’t stop his insults. “We both know it’s only a matter of time before you’re– hah, lying here too, burdening all the rest of us. Don’t expect me to clean up after ya. You’ll die how you deserve. As cold and friendless as you were born.”
Steve yanks the blankets back up to cover Pa. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t be cleanin’ up after you either,” he snaps. “Since you’re useless as a father.”
“What!” Pa roars, but he can’t follow as Steve snatches up the bedpan and leaves to empty it in the hall toilet. He can hear Pa shouting after him the whole way, only cutting off when he breaks into wracking coughs.
When Steve comes back and snaps on the kitchen tap to clean the foul bedpan, Ma is standing pale and worn beside a wash basin of laundry. The mangle squeaks with every turn as she feeds a shirt through. Pa still hasn’t stopped yelling.
Ma sighs. “Why do you– Why must you provoke him?”
Steve has to press his tongue hard against his teeth to keep from exploding. He knows she didn’t hear what Pa said to him. He knows she just wants what little peace they can get in this house.
But it still hurts.
Pa’s cold develops into pneumonia. He doesn’t yell as much because he’s too fevered and breathless to do much besides moan. Steve can tell Ma is worried, but he can’t bring himself to feel much beyond numb resignation.
There’s no medication they can give him besides a little aspirin for the pain. By the end of February, there’s little doubt the end is near. When Pa takes his last, rattling breath, Ma weeps beside him. Steve stands in the doorway behind her and feels nothing.
The funeral is soon afterwards. Steve decides he hates winter, standing in the frozen graveyard with icy wind whipping his face. He had to borrow Bucky’s black coat for the funeral. Ma stands beside him with a black shawl pulled tight around her shoulders, her eyes still red.
It’s his fault. This is his fault.
There’s a small crowd huddled in the cold, people they know from church mostly.
Mrs. Rochester clasps his mittened hand tight in hers after the service. “Oh, you poor child,” she warbles, like he’s six years old and not almost thirteen. “You miss your father dearly, don’t you.”
Mrs. Rochester lives in the apartment below theirs in the tenement. She bangs on the roof sometimes with her broom when the fighting gets too loud. Pa is– was usually in a rage after that, ranting about busybodies meddling with how he runs his home.
Ma always held him back when he was like that, and the only Pa Mrs. Rochester ever met was the one who smiled bashfully when he came later to apologise to her for the noise.
You miss your father dearly, don’t you.
What a rude thing to say at a funeral, Steve thinks, staring dispassionately at her.
“No,” he tells her flatly. “I don’t.”
Ma’s hand lands on his shoulder, her fingers digging in reproachfully. “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Rochester,” she says.
Steve doesn’t say anything.
2017
Steve gasps, staring open-mouthed at the kid in front of him. “P– Peter?!”
His hands come up to clutch Peter's shoulders, his whole world tilting on its axis. Everything he thought he knew is suddenly upended. It's too much to even process besides one thing.
"You're Spider-Man?!"
Peter sniffs and wipes his face, wincing when he brushes his bruise. "Yeah," he says wetly. "That's how I got the bruise, not from anything else. I promise. I'm okay. You don't have to worry about me like that."
Peter lets out a shuddering breath, staring up at him anxiously, hands wringing together.
Steve stares back at him, his mind a whirlwind. He doesn't know what to think about what he just learned. He doesn't know how he feels about what he just admitted to Peter about his father either.
One thing he does know is it's past midnight, and they are on a freezing rooftop in the wind.
Steve takes a deep breath. "Let's go inside," he says, not missing the relief on Peter's face. "We'll talk more there."
They end up in the common room, sitting at the table where they've spent hours putting lego together. Steve grabbed a new ice pack for Peter's face, and he fixed them some warm drinks to hold onto. Tea for Steve and hot chocolate for Peter.
"So," Steve breaks the silence, trying to get his thoughts in order. "You got hurt while patrolling?"
Peter nods miserably. "The guy had some wacky shockwave weapon—I've been encountering more weird weapons lately—and he managed to hit me in the face with it. Messed up my suit, though I didn't get hurt more than this." He gestures at his face.
"And… Tony knows you’re Spider-Man. That's probably why he gave you the internship in the first place. So you can work on Spider-Man stuff."
Peter nods, putting down his ice pack to wrap his hands around his mug. "He promised he wouldn't tell anyone I was Spider-Man. My aunt doesn't know. I don't want her to be in danger because of me."
Steve folds his lips down tight as he looks at Peter. Part of him riots at the idea that Peter is the one putting himself in danger every night. He's just a kid. Part of him wants to go give Tony a piece of his mind for helping Peter.
But another part of him understands. What would he have done at Peter's age if he had powers like that? He was already defending people in the streets without powers. He might have been helpless at home, but he could do things to stop bullies outside of it. Even if he came out of it bruised more often than not, there was nothing his mother or Bucky could do to stop him.
His instincts still try to tell him that Peter could be doing the same thing for the same reasons as him, but he remembers something else, a conversation he had with him a few months ago.
It was when Peter was talking about his uncle Ben. I knew he’d want me to do what I could. Stand up for the little guy.
Spider-Man talked about the little guy too.
Another memory tugs at Steve, one that's almost too painful to allow. It was only a few years after his father died when Sarah fell ill. That period was fraught with all the pain and grief his father's death didn't have.
Before she died, Sarah called him to her and left him with some final parting words.
Now you listen to me, Steve Rogers, and you listen good. People are gonna spend your whole life taking one look at your body and telling you what you can't do. But you can do anything you dream of. You're going to have to fight for it. They can't see you like I do. That chest holds a heart ten times its size.
He wonders if maybe he and Peter are still fighting for the same reasons, just different ones than he first assumed.
He rubs a hand over his face. He feels unmoored. He spent so many months worrying and trying not to think about what those worries actually were. It feels unnerving and too good to be true that Peter could really not be in the danger he thought he was.
He might have an explanation for the bruises, but he needs to be sure.
"When we first met, you seemed nervous about eating enough, or too much. Why was that?"
Peter blushes and stares into his mug. "I was worried you'd notice my enhanced metabolism," he mumbles shamefaced. "I was trying really really hard to be normal."
Steve coughs around a laugh. He's pretty sure Peter could have eaten three times the amount that he did and Steve wouldn't have paused to wonder about it.
"And when you panicked every time you seemed to flinch or catch something?"
Peter sighs and picks up his ice pack again, looking ruefully at Steve when he presses it to his eye.
"I have enhanced reaction times and… this, sort of sixth-sense when something bad might happen. I was worried I was being too obvious when I moved too fast or… you know, stuff like that."
Steve rubs his chin, trying to think back. "I don't know if I would have noticed," he admits. Whether because jumping to the conclusion that a random teenager he knows is Spider-Man is not his first step, or because he was too blinded by his own issues to see what was really going on.
Peter being Spider-Man explains a lot. His jumpiness and anxiety was due to a secret, just not the one Steve suspected.
"Is your aunt really out of town tonight?"
Peter stifles a yawn and sips groggily at his hot chocolate. "Yeah. I heal pretty quick, more enhanced stuff. So I'm hoping this bruise will be gone by the time I see her, or else I have to come up with a better excuse."
Peter yawns again and Steve decides they've had enough conversation for one night.
"You should take one of the guest rooms," he reminds Peter. "Tony will work on your suit and we can see how your eye is healing tomorrow."
Peter nods and stands up, before lingering at the table, ice pack in hand.
"Are you…” He shifts on his feet. “...mad that I didn't tell you before?" Peter bites his lip and plows on in a flurry of words. "I thought about it a lot. I hate lying. And I really like hanging out with you on roofs, and it felt nice to kind of have a superhero buddy but I didn't know how to tell you and I didn't want things to change."
Steve is still feeling a lot, still plenty of conflicting emotions, but this isn’t Peter’s fault.
He meets Peter's eyes gently. "No," he says truthfully. "I understand why you did it. And… I liked our time on rooftops too."
Peter grins in relief, before grimacing and icing his eye again. "I'll talk to you later, ‘kay?"
Steve nods as Peter makes his way to the elevator. Right before he leaves, one last question comes to him.
"What about the backpacks?" he calls. "Why'd’you keep losing them?"
"Oh." Peter laughs self-consciously. "I keep my regular clothes in them when I'm out patrolling. Turns out webbing them to the walls of alleys isn't a foolproof way of keeping them from being stolen."
The elevator dings and Steve shakes his head, smiling to himself as he reaches again for his tea. He still has the taste of cigarette smoke in his mouth, but he can almost ignore it over the taste of citrus and chamomile.
oOo
Some things change, while other things stay the same.
Tony comes to Steve a day or so later, after Peter leaves with only the faintest discolouration of his eye. He must have told Tony that Steve knows his vigilante identity.
Tony finds him in the common room, a sketch book propped up on one knee, the attempt of a sketch of his mother on the open page. Steve has been thinking of his ma a lot these days.
Tony shifts uneasily from foot to foot, a greasy rag in his hands that he twists and winds around his fingers.
"I didn't mean to make you so upset," he starts finally, the cloth twisted around his finger making it go white. "I was… I was also worried when Peter came in like that. I didn't think it was nothing. But I know Peter was trying to keep his identity secret, and I knew he'd be upset if you thought his aunt was hurting him."
Steve can tell Peter loves his aunt, and he trusts that more now. Peter worked hard to keep his aunt safe, not even revealing his identity to his closest allies unless he had to. The fact that he risked showing Steve is touching in a way he can’t quite put into words.
"I understand," he tells Tony, even if it might take a while for the pain he felt at being dismissed—no matter how reasonably—to fully go away.
Tony sighs and runs a hand through his spiked up hair. "Honestly. Not a day goes by without that kid giving me a heart-attack. You don't know how many nights I stay up trying to think of ways to keep his suit flexible but protect him as much as possible. It doesn't help that he throws himself off buildings all the time…"
Tony's words trail off in an irate grumble and Steve grins because he can hear the fondness behind it.
"Well, it's good to know he had someone looking out for him," Steve says. Tony meets his eyes.
"Yup." He gives a mini salute. "Welcome to the club."
Peter and Ned still come to do lego every week. Steve can see Peter is cautious the first session after the emotional reveal, not quite sure where he stands.
Steve has prepared more fast-food than usual, now that he knows Peter's metabolism is actually enhanced.
Ned crows happily at the spread. Steve smiles at the reaction and he can see Peter relaxing a little too. "Eat as much as you want," Steve tells them, meeting Peter's eye meaningfully.
Peter nods, and he does.
Later, Steve receives a text from the number saved as Spider-Man in his phone.
Helped this lady and she gave me a free churro!
Attached is a photo of Peter on a fire escape, mask up to his nose as he grins at the camera, a crispy churro held up next to his face.
A smile splits Steve’s face and he types back, Score! We should get some the next time we end up on a roof together. ...maybe when it’s warmer though.
oOo
It isn't until March, when the weather has warmed up a little, if only temporarily, that Steve goes to visit his mother's grave.
The grave is overgrown and neglected. They couldn’t afford a very big headstone, so it’s easy to miss the small square set into the ground.
Joseph Rogers – Father, Husband, Soldier 1897 – 1931
Sarah Rogers – Mother, Wife, Nurse 1898 – 1935
Steve brought a blanket and he lays it down to keep the half-thawed ground from soaking into his knees. He has warm gloves on, making it easy to clear away the encroaching grass and dead leaves that have accumulated around the grave.
He cleans Joseph’s side the same as Sarah’s, because he knows she would have wanted him to. He only lays a bouquet on her side of the headstone though. There’s only so far he’s willing to go.
Tucked in with the lilacs laid on her grave, Steve added his folded up drawing of her. He sits for a while in silence, cross-legged on his quilt, a little hand-warmer pouch in his pocket for when his hands start getting cold.
Finally, he starts talking.
“I’m sorry it’s been so long, Ma.” He clears his throat. “It’s been hard—” He sighs. “It’s been hard.” He falls silent again, one hand in his pocket, turning the hand-warmer round and round.
“I don’t think I realised how hard it was for me, or... or why it was so hard for me ‘till recently.” He glances at Joe’s side, before looking back at his mother’s.
“After Pa died... I tried to put it all behind me. I tried not to think about any of it. And I think... my feelings about you got all tangled up in that. And I didn’t want to think about that either. So I just didn’t.”
Steve heaves a sigh. “I’ve been thinkin’ about it a lot more now.” He bites his lip, pulling the hand-warmer out of his pocket and flipping it between his fingers.
“Things were really bad at home. I know you knew that, and I know you didn’t know how bad either. I didn’t want to resent you, but... I think I did a little. And I think that’s why I tried not to think about any of it.”
After the rather explosive collapse of all of Steve’s assumptions about Peter, he was forced to take a step back and examine why he projected so heavily on the boy. Sure, there were definite signs of something not quite right going on, but there’s a reason he fixated so hard on the possibility of abuse. A reason he refused to admit that to himself for so long.
“I know you did your best.” Steve has to clear his throat again. “And I love you for that. You protected me as many times as you could. But I... I still felt like a burden, because you had to do that. And you weren’t an angel, you couldn’t do all that without breaking sometimes. It wasn’t your fault.”
He knows if he were to tell some people about his childhood, they might instantly blame Sarah for not leaving his father. He doesn’t though. Part of him was a little afraid he might, but no one else had lived the same life as they did. They don’t know, even if they think they do, how hard it would have been for Sarah to leave Joe.
She did what she could in the circumstances they had. Even if it wasn’t enough.
That part was really hard for him to accept. It took a lot of thinking and many weeks of being angry with himself for it. In the end, it was easiest to finally let it settle, like the many other difficult rocks of truth he’d been forced to acknowledge.
I know you tried. It wasn’t enough. But it’s been long enough, I’m okay.
“Did you know most parents don’t hit their kids nowadays?” Steve switches tracks, pinching the corner of his hand-warmer. “It’s kind of crazy when you consider how some people useta not even think what Pa did was abuse.”
Some people definitely would have, but there used to be a lot more grey area when it came to appropriate levels of force when it came to discipline. Nowadays, there’s people who would label the smacks Sarah gave as abuse. Something he first became aware of during his research into teenage-hood.
“I was kind of messed up about that too,” he admits. “I didn’t even know it.”
He thought that all his complicated feelings were because of reminders of Joseph. He did not like that some of it was old hurt about Sarah.
“I actually don’t care that much about the hitting,” Steve tells her. “It really was different than Pa’s.” That, and the occasional smacks of correction disappeared the older Steve became and the more likely his father was to reach for a belt. Sarah knew her son didn’t need to be hit more to behave. She could tell the difference too.
Steve sighs again. “I think... what was hardest for me, was feeling like I was a burden to you. Feeling like I was causing problems for you with Pa. And even though I knew you were doing your best I was still—” His voice chokes off.
“I was still angry,” he finishes, eyes misting up. “And that was hard.”
He rubs his eyes and pulls in a breath. “I wish I’d been able to talk to you about this back then, after Pa died,” he says, voice pained. “I don’t think I ever would’ve been able to, but I wonder... if that would have changed things.”
Maybe if he had been able to talk to Sarah about this before. Maybe the pit of hurt and resentment he kept hidden away inside himself wouldn’t have exploded so spectacularly when he thought Peter was going through the same thing.
On the other hand, he still stands by most of what he did. Peter may not have been abused, but it’s important that someone checked. Just because nothing needed to be done doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth making sure.
Besides, Peter is still at risk. Albeit from sources Steve never would have considered. Now that he knows, he can be there if Peter ever truly needs it.
Steve breathes out, letting go of a weight he only recently became aware of. He lays a hand down on his mother’s grave. “I’ll come visit you again. Sooner this time, I promise.”
oOo
His prediction comes true. A few months later, while Tony is away organising the million things necessary for the next venture of the Avengers—moving upstate to a better compound with state-of-the-art training and security features—Steve gets a frantic call from Peter.
“I need your help,” he rattles off. “Those weird weapons I was talking about? I figured out where they came from. But the boss guy, he figured out who I am. He’s the dad of my homecoming date and he already threatened me and Mr. Stark is gone and there’s a plane of stuff he’s goin’ after and I don’t know what to do.”
Steve is already halfway in his suit. “Don’t worry,” he says into his earpiece as he slots his shield onto his back. “I’m coming. You won’t be alone, we’ll handle this.”
It’s a messy, dangerous battle and Steve’s heart pumps wildly throughout, terrified for Peter and half-convinced Tony should have never made his suit in the first place.
But Peter is a lot like him, and Steve knows, no matter what they do, Spider-Man will still be out on the streets, protecting the little guy. Fancy suit or no fancy suit.
At least this way, he and Tony can do their best to watch his back in situations like this. When he truly needs it.
Later, with the Vulture webbed up and Tony’s plane of tech safe—as safe as a thoroughly crashed airplane can be—Steve leans back-to-back with an exhausted Spider-Man. Red and blue police lights flash in the distance, slowly getting closer.
“We should get out of here,” he says, knowing dealing with law enforcement is a little dicey for Spider-Man, even if he is endorsed by the Avengers.
“Yeah.” Peter heaves himself up and holds out a hand to Steve. Steve can see his smile through the large tear in the bottom half of his mask. “Churros?”
Steve grabs his hand. “Churros.”
The End