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Before and Very Before

Summary:

Steve gets beaten up in alleys a lot, but sometimes, there are more things in alleys than just bullies. And sometimes, that's a good thing.

Notes:

Sometimes, I go a little stream of consciousness. I'd been thinking about Steve knowing some Latin (not fluent, but some, yes, that is absolutely my headcanon), and then Vatican II, and then (since this was in the context of writing THC on HBO) wittering to Henry about how TERRIBLE that was...

And then I went to this place. And was encouraged to stay there. (I'm one of those little wraithy creatures Ursula the Sea Witch keeps in her cave; I basically live off of kelp, kudos, coffee, and comments.)

Chapter 1: Very Before

Notes:

TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter is in three parts; the third of them contains a POV character description of child sexual abuse. It creeped me the fuck out writing it, so if that's a trigger of yours, stop reading at, "The third time he meets him..."

I normally don't do trigger warnings for the simple reason that I'm absolute pants at spotting them, but this one even a clod like me could see this one coming.

Chapter Text


The first time he meets him, he doesn't remember.  

Steve is seven, and has gotten into a fight with the another boy from his street.  It's dark; they were playing baseball, but then Louis had lost the ball.  They started to scold him, make fun of him, and Steve remembers stepping right up to Vinny and asking, "What, like you ain't ever lost a ball?"  He'd been about to suggest looking for it in the morning, when it's light out, when any of them can see, but he wasn't given the chance.  

Vinny picks him up by the shirt - and, really, Steve is small for his age, but not that small, as he'll tell anybody who'll listen; but Vinny's got four years on him, and likes to show off - and drags him to the side, into an alleyway.  The first punch really doesn't hurt that much, but Steve is too young and too inexperienced to pretend that it does.  The second one hurts a lot more, catching him right on the chin, and Steve's head knocks back into the bricks so hard that he sees stars.  

"Don't you do that!" Vinny is saying, and Steve thinks, What shouldn't I do, be reasonable?  Vinny punches him again, in the chest this time, but it doesn't hurt as much as his face.

"Don't you ever!"  A kick to the shin sends Steve hopping on one foot.

"Don't you do that, don't you make me look bad in front of her!"  Vinny shoves him, and on one foot, he can't fight it, toppling over.  

"Hard to make you look bad in front of a girl, when you do such a great job on your own," Steve mutters, and maybe Vinny hears him.  Vinny is just aiming a kick at his ribs when he freezes, looking up.  It takes Steve a moment - his hearing is not the best - but then he hears it, too.

Something is growling.  

It's a low, steady growl, the kind a dog makes when it means business.  It's deep, like the big German dogs they keep around the sausage house to keep people from sneaking in and stealing the sausages.  And it's angry.  

"Nuts," Vinny mutters, and he turns away from Steve, fleeing the alley.  Steve gulps, and picks himself off, brushing at the dirt which has marked his pants and the arm of his shirt, hoping he's not about to get eaten by one of those big German hounds.  

"Are you alright?" asks a voice, and Steve looks up.  

The man is pale, with creamy skin, pretty gold hair, and light-colored eyes, although there's no way he can tell what color they are in the reflected light from the streetlamps.  Besides, Steve's heard he's not so good at seeing colors, anyway.  He'd kind of like to see colors good for this man, though; there's something about him that makes Steve want to do all kinds of things, and he draws his spine straight so the strange man can't see how much Steve is hurting.  "I'm fine," he says.  The dog, he notices, has stopped growling.

"Good lad," the man murmurs, and it makes Steve feel warm inside, being a lad instead of a boy, but also (mostly) the way the man had said it.

The man goes to his knees beside Steve - Steve winces a little for the man's nice clean pants, and what was he doing in this part of town, anyway, wearing pants like that? - and checks him over, like Ma checking over the neighborhood women who come to her because they can't afford a doctor.  Steve knows he's fine, because even four years older than him, Vinny just ain't that impressive, but when the man swipes a hand over the back of Steve's head, there is a little blood there.  

"Here," the man says, turning him around, and then - Weird.  He presses a kiss to the back of Steve's head, just the way his Ma would.  Well, Steve thinks, maybe the man's got kids.  Then, though, Steve would have swore he felt the man lick him, real fast like Steve wasn't supposed to notice, and Steve tries to pull away.

After a second, the man lets him.  

"You'll have a scab on the back of your head," the man says briskly.  "It's just a scrape, nothing serious; but I suspect your mother will notice?" And that's weird, too, because the man seems to be asking a question with that.

"Yeah, she will," Steve agrees with him.  "She's real picky about things like that."  Plus, Steve will have to explain what happened to his clothes, and can't you ever just keep things clean, Steven Grant Rogers?

The man relaxes, like Steve has answered his question even though Steve knows he can't have done.  He puts his hand on Steve's shoulders and looks into Steve's eyes.  "It's time to go home, now," he says, and his voice is deeper than before, a trace of an accent like Maisie Scott's dad has.  "Go straight there, and don't get into any more fights tonight."  

Steve almost feels like he's falling asleep, leaning forward into the man's arms, and everything in him wants to do just what the man says.  Except...  "I can't," he explains, feeling real bad about it and pulling back out of the man's arms again.

The man lets him go right away, this time.  He's staring at Steve, and his face is surprised, but somehow Steve gets the impression the man is more than surprised, he is shocked, just shocked, that Steve has said no to him.  Well, maybe if you weren't so pushy, folk'd say no to you more often! he thinks, giving the man a glare.

"Why not?" asks the man, in a voice that says, oh, this had better be good.

Steve lifts his chin.  "I heard growling," he tells him.  "Vinny and I both did, it's why Vinny left.  Someone's got to tell the police a dog got out."

The man starts laughing.  

"It could be really dangerous!" Steve insists, feeling foolish because the man is laughing at him, and angry because he feels foolish.  

"Child," the man says, wheezing.  He drops a heavy hand on Steve's shoulder again - Steve shrugs at it, but he doesn't budge - and looks Steve in the eye.  "Child, if I promise - give you my word, on the soul of my father, dead these many years - that I will ensure that the beast attacks no one else this night, will you please - please - go home and let  your mother take care of you?"  

Steve swallows, but that's a pretty serious vow.  "All right," he allows.  

"Go," the man orders, and Steve finds himself turning around before the word has finished echoing in the alley.  As he leaves, he hears the man muttering to himself; it sounds like, "And so I am taught to chain my beast."  

Steve could be wrong, though.  His hearing's not that great.


The second time he meets him he really only sees him, and he doesn't remember this one, either.  

Steve and his mother are at church, listening to a reading from the book of Matthew.  Steve wonders sometimes about Matthew, ever since he noticed that where Luke talked about shepherd's boys being told by angels that the child was born, Matthew talked about Wise Men, who figured it out on their own.  Sometimes Steve thinks that if Jesus came today, Luke would be in Brooklyn with them, and Matthew would be in Manhattan; but other times, Steve thinks it's pretty cool that while Luke's people are depending on Grace, Matthew's are being worthy enough to earn it.  

Matthew's alright tonight, talking about helping other people out when they're down, Steve recons, if he's understanding the passage correctly.  Maybe he hasn't, though; Steve's not the most devout kid ever.

It's an evening service, because his Ma has been working long hours at the hospital, and they can't get to the ones during the day.  Ma's been asking Mrs. Barnes watch Steve while she's at work, and Steve thinks that's just fine, because Bucky's about the best friend a guy can have.  

The night time services don't have homilies, so Steve's restless in his seat.  He knows they don't have long to go before Communion, and that's his favorite part of the whole service.  

(He'd told Father Nico that, and the Father had looked at him oddly.  "Well," he'd said, "If you're going to have a favorite part, I suppose that's a good one to pick.")

So now, Steve is jittery, twisting about in his seat, probably embarrassing his mother.  But it means he's looking at the door when the man slips in.  

Steve doesn't recognize him; it's been two years since the fight with Vinny (God rest his soul; Vinny died of the Whooping Cough last year.)  He can't hear what the man says, either, not from this far away, but he sure says something, because Sister Agatha has gotten in his way like crazy and is blocking him from stepping further into the church.

Steve likes Sister Agatha, who has a gentle smile for him most of the time (and when she doesn't, he deserves it.)  She's the head of orphanage that runs out of the church, and people say she loves it.  Sometimes, Steve wonders if she might not be doing God's work more than Father Nico is, but then, like now, he crosses himself, just in case he's wrong.  

Sister Agatha is pretty famous around the neighborhood for once taking off the veil of her habit, because there was a boy in front of her with a torn up arm from the factory, and she didn't have another cloth to hand.  So it's a pretty big surprise to see her practically hissing at the strange, pale man, trying to keep him out of the church.

As Steve watches, the man spreads his hands, a universal gesture meaning look, I'm harmless.  Sister Agatha tilts her head, though, and Steve can just imagine the look on her face:  skeptical, no-nonsense.  

The man gestures downward at himself, and for the first time, Steve notices that he doesn't look good.  His clothes are dirty and torn, like he's been in a fight, and there's one dark spot on his left calf which might be blood.  The man's hair is ruffled, too, and there's a bruise forming on his jaw, almost invisible because the man's standing half in shadows.  He holds his hands out, palms up; please, he is saying.

Sister Agatha's back and shoulders tense, and Steve thinks she might be afraid right now.  

The man shakes his head, tired, and looks up into her eyes.  Steve can't see his eye color from here, but he thinks it must be something pale.  He reaches out, briefly brushing Sister Agatha's cheek, but she knocks his hand away, furious. 

They both look around the church, one nonchalantly, the other worried, and Steve thinks maybe no one was supposed to see that thing with the cheek.  He doesn't see why not; Father Nico does that to him and the other boys all the time.  But the man is bowing his head, like he's done something wrong and is sorry about it, so maybe Steve really wasn't supposed to see it.  

Sister Agatha catches his eye and glares fit to scold the devil, and Steve turns around in his seat again, feeling guilty.  The next time he checks over his shoulder, both the man and Sister Agatha are gone.


The third time he meets him, he doesn't remember, either, but he does remember the consequences.  

Steve's mother is gone, locked away in a sanitarium for the TB, and Steve is living in the orphanage with Sister Agatha all the time now.  Sister Agatha is pretty great, and Bucky stops by all the time to hang out because telling his mother he's going to the church is pretty much never going to get him in trouble, and if Steve's Ma were here, everything would be great.  But she's not, and she's dying, and Steve's miserable.  He knows he's not being fair - not to Sister Agatha, who is nothing but kind even when he's an angry little bobcat of a person, and not to Bucky, who has been endlessly patient with Steve's megrims - but he can't help it.  He's lonely, and hurting, and the older boys pick on him all the time.

And Father Nico's being weird.  

Steve doesn't want to tell Bucky or Sister Agatha about that, because he has the feeling he'll get in trouble if anyone ever finds out.  But it's queer, and Steve doesn't know how to handle it, and he's had enough experiences with bullies by now to know that if he doesn't react somehow, things will only get worse.  

It started out small, and, Steve knows now, long before he came to the orphanage.  Used to be, Father Nico would touch his cheek, and when he came to the orphanage, he started ruffling his hair, too.  That seemed pretty normal to Steve, so he didn't mind it.  But then, two months ago, Father Nico ran his hand down Steve's neck, and that wasn't normal.  Steve wasn't sure what that was.  

If it had been anyone else, Steve thinks miserably, he might have told someone then.  Bucky, at least.  But Father Nico is the last person who should be doing something strange or wrong, and, Steve had reasoned, that probably meant he was wrong for objecting.  So he kept his mouth shut.

He wishes now he hadn't done that, because a week later, the hand hadn't stopped at his neck, reaching down to twist one of Steve's nipples through his shirt.  Steve hadn't said anything, shocked out of words, and also because, even though it had hurt a little, it had also felt kind of good.  He wasn't sure what to do with that feeling, and he'd left as soon as possible.  

Father Nico hadn't stopped, kept touching him in weird places:  weird places on Steve, and weird places in the church.  And he's been pushing Steve further and further, just like the bullies do.  A month ago, he'd grabbed Steve's butt, like Steve was a dame and Father Nico wasn't a priest.  Two weeks ago, he'd rubbed Steve's johnson, which had felt so confusing that Steve actually ran away, hiding in the upper rafters of the church which were too small for Father Nico to edge out on.  

But then last week, he'd done it again, and when Steve went to run away again, the door was locked, so he'd had to stand there as Father Nico rubbed at him for what felt like hours, even though really it was only five minutes.  When he was done, he'd opened the door to let Steve out and Steve had been shaking.  "Go on and play now, son," Father Nico had said, pleased with him.  "I hear your friend Bucky is here to see you."  

And then this week, Father Nico hadn't done anything.  It'd been driving Steve nuts, because he knew, he knew the pattern bullies had, and it didn't go backwards.  No, Father Nico was pressing forward, and it'd been hanging over Steve like that sword in the story, and he was even jumpier and grumpier than normal 'cause he kept waiting for it to fall.  

And just now, it had, and Steve had felt a little relieved, a little grateful just to know what was up.  Father Nico had grabbed him by the neck, looking at him with great satisfaction, telling him that he's coming along nicely (coming along in what? Steve wants to ask, but doesn't), and telling Steve to come by his office tomorrow afternoon, because he has a surprise for him.  "You'll like it," he promises, and Steve's not sure he believes him, but he says, "Uh, sure," because what else can he do?  After Father Nico leaves, Steve swipes at his neck where he'd held him, because it's awfully wet.  

Then he'd gone to Sister Agatha's office, because she has this huge closet in there, one that locks.  She has the only key, but Bucky and Steve've been learning to pick locks, and Steve can get this one most of the time.  There's nothing ever even in the closet, just some really thick blankets, and Steve's been hiding in there pretty often since Father Nico started being so strange.  He's about to do it again, taking out the little kit that he keeps with his wallet (just a coiled wire and a couple of hairpins), when the door opens and a man steps out.  

The man looks familiar, and makes Steve think of incense, so he's probably someone Steve's met in the church, but he can't really place him.

He also looks furious, and he picks Steve up - not that much harder than when Vinny did it, God rest his soul - and charges across Sister Agatha's office, pinning him to the wall with a forearm across his chest.  Steve gasps, because it's frightening and his asthma is starting to act up.

"What do you think you are doing," snarls the man, and Steve has a moment to wonder at his accent, which is weird, it's all over the place, American and British and German and half a dozen things all at once.  Then the question penetrates Steve's brain and he moans.  

The man gives him a little shake, and Steve admits, "Hiding," in the voice of a boy who knows he's just lost his best cubby hole.  

The man pauses at his answer, though.  For the first time, he stops glaring at Steve and really looks at him, at the snot on his face and the darns in his clothes, and the misery in his expression.  And probably also at his build, because that's something that no one seems able to miss, with Steve.

The man steps back, setting Steve down on his feet.  He puts his hands in his pockets as if to signal harmlessness, but Steve isn't fooled, because his throat still hurts.  "Well," says the man, "it's a good spot for it, as that's what I've just finished doing in there, too."  

Steve doesn't say anything, because this has been a pretty bad week and the last ten minutes have been the worst part of it.  

The man tilts his head, as if he's listening to something Steve can't hear (which, to be fair, he might be), then offers Steve his hand.  "Come on, then," he says, and his voice is amused now.  "I'll let you wrap up in my blanket."

Steve gives the man a suspicious look, because he's learned about touching other men, now, but the stranger seems to be genuine in his willingness to let Steve hide in his closet, so Steve brushes past him and heads for it.  He's still got his lock picking set, so it's not like the man can lock him in.

The man makes another of his lightning-quick mood swings, though, as Steve passes by him.  "What's that on your neck?" he snaps, and for a moment, Steve is so scared he can't even remember.  

"Oh," he says when he finally does.  "That's just...  Father Nico likes to grab people by the back of the neck, and his hands were wet today."  It's a weird thing for a stranger to be concerned with, though, and Steve starts to brush at the moisture still lingering there.  

"Don't," snaps the man, and Steve draws back.  

He softens, and pulls out a handkerchief.  There's a little pitcher of water that Sister Agatha keeps by the window, and the man edges over to that, pouring a little on the hankie.  He waves it.  "Here," he says, "Just let me..." 

Steve nods, cautiously, and bends his head forward so that the stranger can reach the back of his neck.  The man's touch is gentle, almost apologetic except that Steve doesn't think this guy apologizes, much.  He's quick about it, cleaning off the liquid on the back of Steve's neck with the hankie and then blotting it dry with his sleeve.  When he's done, he kneels in front of Steve, taking his hands and wiping his fingers off, too, where they had gotten wet swiping at it.  

When he's done, then man looks up at Steve, and says, "Now.  Let's get you into that wardrobe."  He smiles, gentle again.  His eyes are hazel, green and brown together in the candlelight.  "The blue blanket, I find, is the most comfortable."  

Steve's not sure what to do with this, but he goes and sits in the wardrobe, comfortably cushioned on the green blanket, with his knees loose and comfortable near his chest.  The man starts to close him in, then hesitates, and takes something out of his pocket.  "Here's my key," he tells Steve, holding it up.  

Steve stares at him and doesn't take it.  "I thought Sister Agatha had the only key to this," he says suspiciously.  

When the man smiles, his teeth are very white, and it makes Steve's heart pound uncomfortably.  "Sister Agatha has the only other key," he says. "You can give this one to Sister Agatha when you leave."  He drops it in Steve's lap, and starts to close the door.  "Tell her Henry gave it to you."

Steve deliberately doesn't go to see Father Nico the next day, planning to pretend he forgot.  But Father Nico never asks, because he disappears that night, and no one ever sees him again.


The fourth time he meets him, he remembers every second.