Feathers

Steve’s Ma used to tell him of the angels of the Lord when he was young. Of Michael, Gabriel and the fallen Lucifer, to name only a few. She told him of their giant white wings, blessed they were with holy divinity. He always thought they must look magnificent, their giant white plumes resplendent.

A man with giant wings was surely a marvellous, almost euphoric sight to behold.

Standing here, shirtless and clammy in front of a murky mirror, with two giant wings of his own splayed limply behind him, all he feels is horror. 

Steve is not an angel of the lord. So he must be some sort of monster, unnatural and perverse. A weak imitation of God’s angels, a cruel mockery. Not born from a divine image but the result of a man made serum, injected into his body in a burning crescendo of agony. It runs through his veins now, a foreign chemical diluting his blood.

God surely will not look kindly upon him now, if he ever did. This is surely blasphemy, to pretend to be something he is not. To impersonate that which is divine. It must be a sin in the eyes of the lord, and he shall surely be punished for it. 

_________

Nobody told Steve this would happen, nobody even hinted at it. Now the only man who may have given him any answers is lying cold on the laboratory floor, fatal bullet wounds in his still chest. 

Steve pursued the doctor’s killer, an oversized trench coat thrown haphazardly over his wings in an attempt to conceal them, but the man died by cyanide before he could get any answers. Steve returned to the lab and quietly slipped into the bathroom, body buzzing and mind reeling.  

The wings are a heavy weight at his back, his shoulder blades still pulsing with the pain of their rapid growth. His back had torn open while still in the vita ray chamber, the unholy masses spilling out from underneath his flesh. Steve hadn’t noticed too much at the time, his whole body consumed with the searing agony of his transformation, but the blood that dripped in rivulets down his back was evidence enough. 

The wings are huge, the feathers a glittering gold like the rising sun, shining an almost iridescent blue when caught by the light at certain angles. Flecks of what looks like pure gold speckle the feathers, glimmering and gleaming when illuminated.

On anyone else, on an actual angel, he would say they were beautiful. Perhaps even exquisite.

But on Steve? On him he can’t help but feel they are almost grotesque. 

They are a physical manifestation of his own greed, born of pain. His greed for better health, for a body worth fighting in a war. He rejected what God gave him, and now he has been branded with these foreign appendages to forever leave him an outcast, an alien among men.

Looking at the wings now, they look an almost sickly yellow under the fluorescent lights of the bathroom. Steve’s own skin looks sallow and pale from shock, clammy from the exertion of running and the stress of his transformation. His eyes are red rimmed from the tears that gather there. The tears that beg to be shed for his damned soul. 

Steve’s hulking, muscular form is almost unrecognisable as his own body, his face the only thing familiar to him now. Broad shoulders taper into a narrow waist, lean muscle adorning his entire body, chiselled as if he were made from marble. He feels such raw power thrumming through his veins, an untapped pool of strength lying just beneath the surface. It’s dizzying in and of itself, even without the added complication of the wings. 

The strength is intoxicating, it’s all he ever wanted. This is what it feels like to be healthy, to be free from chronic pain and sickness. But there is a new pain now, a deep unsettling ache in his shoulder blades, a heavy weight straining at his back. Everything comes with a price. 

It would seem that Bucky didn’t take all the stupid with him after all, when he left a mere few months ago (it feels like a lifetime). No, he must have left his fair share behind, because lord knows Steve has really fucked up. 

_________

Steve keeps his wings hidden while he’s on tour. Nobody knows about them, apart from the people who were in the room when project rebirth finally came to fruition, all of whom are sworn to secrecy. 

They are tightly compressed at all times in a custom made back brace, especially designed for him by Howard Stark. It’s dreadfully uncomfortable and the thick leather straps rub welts into the sensitive flesh of his wings, friction burns tearing off the delicate feathers. But it is a necessary evil, the only way to assure the wings stay hidden beneath his clothes.

The only hint the wings even exist are the small white wings depicted on the cowl of his Captain America costume. Steve’s not sure who’s idea that was, probably somebody’s feeble attempt at an inside joke. He likes to think he can find the humour in it, the thrill of hiding in plain sight, when he’s not worrying over his condemned soul.

Look, Steve’s not overly religious, not like his Ma was. He’s not a bible thumper or a puritan. Sure, he went to church every Sunday with his Ma, a habit that petered off after she died, but most of the time he just doesn’t really think about it. Besides, he hasn’t exactly lived his life according to the Ten Commandments. 

But when one is raised with religious teachings as fact, and then proceeds to sprout a pair of spontaneous wings, courtesy of a mysterious drug, well, he thinks it’s only natural to spiral into an existential crisis of biblical proportions. 

Either that, or he’s just very dramatic. 

Bucky would probably say it’s the latter. As a matter of fact, Bucky would probably chew him out for getting mixed up with all this whacky science experiment bullshit in the first place, before insisting his wings were the swellest thing this side of the Hudson. Bucky’s always loved science fiction. 

To be fair, Steve’s calmed down a lot since he first stepped out of the vita ray chamber and discovered two huge golden wings dragging limply behind him. He still fears for his mortal soul, but that’s sort of on the back burner for now. 

At the moment he’s more concerned with finally getting to go overseas. Well, not to fight, unfortunately, but he’s going to Italy to do a show. It’s suppose to boost morale or something like that, although he has a sneaking suspicion the soldiers aren’t going to appreciate a guy in tights lecturing them on war bonds. They’re sure to love the girls, though. 

Who knows, maybe he’ll see Bucky. Although at this point he can only hope and pray that will be the case, or that Bucky is even alive at all. 

It’s best not to think like that though, or he’ll quite literally drive himself crazy with worry, the ever present snake of anxiety constricting further around his chest. 

Steve still prays for him, though. Even if he’s convinced no one’s listening to his prayers anymore, he still prays for Bucky every night.

__________

When Steve finally finds Bucky, delirious and weak, strapped to a metal table in Zola’s lab, he knows God isn’t real. 

Because if he were, he surely wouldn’t allow this. For as good a man as Bucky to be tortured and violated in this way. For Bucky to be mutilated and tormented by wicked men who think it’s okay to treat people like commodities. It makes Steve’s blood boil and his heart break, to see that pale face and those haunted eyes. 

Where was God when Bucky was strapped to that table, being tortured and exploited?

Not to mention the countless daily atrocities committed in the name of war. The suffering and the death, the blood soaked battlefields. The young lives cut down, for no other reason then a few powerful men playing God and following their own agendas, sending boys off to catch bullets in turbid fields on foreign soil. 

Then there’s the unholy sight of Schmidt, his red raw face evil personified. A devil amongst men. 

Steve’s serum did it’s best to turn him into a mocking caricature of an angel, but Schmidt’s turned him into some sort of demon. His red raw complexion bestial and demonic. 

Bucky’s muttered, ‘you don’t have one of those, do you?’ Strikes Steve deep. Because no, he doesn’t look like that, but he does have something. 

Maybe Schmidt’s right, maybe they really have left humanity behind. They’ve transgressed too far, they’ve sacrificed their humanity to become beings of unimaginable strength and beastly nature. 

Surely if God were real he would strike them down, obliterate that which upsets the natural order of the world.

So Steve knows now, with an absolute certainty, that God is not real. Either that, or he has forsaken them all. 

It’s a relief in a way, knowing he will not be individually condemned beyond the general condemnation of life at war. His soul will not be sent to hell, to burn and be tortured at lucifer’s mercy. But that relief is short lived, when he knows no one is watching out for him, for any of them. They are alone in this, no divine hand to intervene and stop the carnage. There is no moral scale to uphold, only a chaotic free for all.

It makes him fight harder, because if God is not going to help them, then fuck it, he’ll fight for all the innocents himself. 

___________

The wings are a constant aching pressure on Steve’s back. They’re always in the brace, even when he sleeps, and consequently have not cultivated enough muscle to hold themselves up properly. 

They sit atrophying in the brace, heavy and unyielding in their desire to be acknowledged. A constant aching strain. Steve hates them. They’re a reminder of how different he is, how unnatural, some part of him now animal. 

They scare him, to be honest. Steve thinks perhaps that’s why he hates them. He doesn’t know what they mean, what to do with them. They hurt all the time, but if he lets them hang loose he can’t wear a shirt, and everyone will see what a freak he is. 

An aberrant monster.

It’s difficult to keep them hidden when travelling with the Howling Commandos and going on missions. When they set up camp Steve can never bathe with them in the rivers and streams they find, instead having to sneak off and wash after dark. He can never share a tent with any of them, even Bucky, lest they catch sight of a wayward feather. It isolates him from them, his secret a heavy burden sat upon his weary chest. 

Steve thinks Bucky suspects something, but he hasn’t asked. Steve catches him staring sometimes, though. He knows Bucky catches sight of the winces he sometimes can’t hide when his wings twinge painfully in their brace. 

Bucky sits with him one night by the fire, the rest of the Howlers asleep in their tents, and muses on how much Steve has physically changed. Steve can’t help but cringe internally at the iceberg nature of the topic. So much hidden beneath the surface that Bucky doesn’t know, that Steve carries alone. 

“Still catches me off guard sometimes, seeing you like this,” Bucky muses with a rueful little smile, the orange glow of the fire dancing across the planes of his face. 

Steve huffs a little laugh, “you and me both, pal.”

Bucky turns to look at him, intuitive eyes searching Steve’s face. “Must be weird for you,” he prompts.

“You have no idea,” Steve sighs, shaking his head slightly and turning towards the fire. He watches the flames lick up into the night sky and tries not to feel the wings pressing ponderously against his back. They twitch and he stifles a grimace. 

“Are you okay, Steve?” Bucky says suddenly, his voice gentle and imploring. Steve jerks up to look at him again, eyes wide.

“Of course Buck, I’m fine. Why?” Steve asks, his heart suddenly thumping. His wings throb in time with his pulse, the friction burns - well, burning. 

“I dunno, I just worry ‘bout you is all,” Bucky shrugs, “I just figure it’s gotta take a toll on a guy, a change like that.” Steve nods along numbly and Bucky chews his lip contemplatively before adding, “Besides Stevie, I know when you’re in pain and trying to hide it.”

Steve’s breath hitches for a moment and he gawks at Bucky. 

Shit, shit, shit. 

He can’t know, he can’t.

“I- I don’t know what you mean-”

“C’mon Steve, I’ve known you your whole life. I know when something’s up,” Bucky says insistently, turning a hard look on Steve, before he must catch Steve’s panicked expression and his eyes soften. “You can tell me Steve, please tell me. Whatever it is. Are you in pain?” Bucky asks, his eyes wide and earnest. 

“Bucky I’m not-”

“But I know you are Steve, I know you,” Bucky insists. Steve deflates and looks away again, feeling raw and exposed, fissures of panic striking through him. 

Bucky sighs, “Look, I know you’re Captain America now and all that bullshit, but you’re still a person. You don’t have to be strong all the time, hell Steve, you never have.” Bucky reaches out a warm hand and grips Steve’s shoulder, just above where his right wing sits constrained and throbbing. 

Steve turns to look at him, at his earnest storm grey eyes reflecting orange in the fire light. Bucky’s looked so tortured recently, so haunted. He tries to hide it, but Steve knows he’s plagued by whatever Zola did to him on that godforsaken table. Steve’s tried to help him, tried to get him to talk about it but he won’t budge, always says he’s fine.  

It’s the most frustrating thing, and it breaks Steve’s heart everytime. He feels like he’s failing Bucky all the time, he wants to help him but he doesn’t know how. If only Bucky would talk to him. 

It strikes Steve that that must be how he is making Bucky feel right now, and perhaps how he’s repeatedly made Bucky feel all throughout their lives. It feels like another failing on his part and it makes his heart ache. 

The tortured look is in Bucky’s eyes now, the helplessness. Steve suddenly feels the urge to tell Bucky everything, to rip the brace off and lay himself bare in front of his best friend. He wants to expel all his sin, purge all of his wrongness and weep into Bucky’s shoulder, confess how scared he is. 

But Steve can’t. He can’t add to Bucky’s load, can’t burden himself on Bucky like that. His wrongness is his own weight to carry, he won’t drag Bucky down with him. Won’t shackle his problems to Bucky’s ankles and throw him into the roiling river. It kills him, but he can’t give Bucky what he wants.

He doesn’t want Bucky to know he’s a monster.

Steve dredges up and claws on his mask of stoicism, locking his own pain and fear behind a wall of strength and neutrality. Bucky’s face drops miserably like he can physically feel Steve pulling away, and it stabs through Steve’s heart like a rusty old knife. 

“Thanks Buck, but I’m okay. I…” he hesitates, before he swallows around the lump in his throat and grits his teeth, “I promise.”

Bucky stares at him a moment longer before drawing his hand back and turning away, shaking his head ruefully. Bucky lets out a long suffering sigh, “whatever you say, Cap.”

And just like that both of their walls are back up. The moment passes and Steve feels regret start clawing at his gut, but he won’t let it consume him, he pushes it down deep. Just another emotional boulder on the pile. 

They continue on as normal after that. Steve and Bucky banter and bicker as usual, but they both feel the yawning space between them, filled with the things left unsaid. 

Steve’s painful secret stays hidden, and he keeps telling himself it’s better that way, forcing himself to ignore the tearing in his heart and his feathers. 

Except, of course, the truth comes out anyways.

Shit goes side ways in a spectacular fashion and Steve’s agonisingly kept secret unravels before them all. Laying him completely bare, quivering before them as he awaits judgement like a sinner at the pearly gates.