Steve always needed a fight. It hid under his skin. Flaring up like a rash. An itch that he could never quite scratch. He needed a war. Ultron was right. Steve had always know. He was a fighter, his mother had so, and he doubted she knew how right she was.
When he was young and weak, he had illnesses to fight. Then the serum came and stopped the illnesses that used to drag him to death’s door. He didn’t have to fight to keep his heart beating and to steal weak breathes.
Then the war. Fighting to stay alive, to keep your head up and to keep crawling through the mud. Fighting hydra. There were battles to pick, fights to stop the itching under his skin. To satisfy the deep twisting part of Steve.
I don’t trust a guy without a dark side.
Then Bucky fell. The itch turned into a fire that burned heavy in his chest. Bucky was the one to pull him from the fights, pull him back to the edge. Bucky was a weight he could tie his heart to. Bucky had taken his bloody knuckles years ago and clutched them in his hands.
“Steve I don’t know what this urge is you’ve got to pick fights, to get yourself beaten up, to prove yourself. Steve look at me. You can’t let it take you over completely. Promise me Steve!”
Steve had muttered a promise in reply through a bloody lip.
Without Bucky, he could feel himself slipping.
Then the plane went down. The ice could not freeze the burning itch for fights; to feel the chemical rush, to feel strength or death.
He woke up. Tired. The dark desire for fights had fallen asleep in him, but it was waking up. He tried to find himself in the 21st Century. He tried to find a version of him without the itch. He tried to find a version of him without Bucky. He couldn’t.
Then New York.
Then missions.
There were always fights because the human race was as scrappy as him.
Then Hydra.
Then Ultron.
Steve was picking his fights, he was choosing all of them.
Bucky was alive, and Steve would fight for him. Against whatever. Against whoever. Because without Bucky, he would slip. Steve didn’t want to see what would happen if this itch ever consumed him.