Something of Tomorrow

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

i've learned of many pains and woes from these years of my own life
but why is it that i'm still aching inside?
- Glow, English lyrics by кran

Growing up, Steve wasn't quite sure what to think of about his blank wrist. His mother, Sarah, had a name on her wrist - his father, Joseph Rogers - and Bucky had a name on his wrist when Steve met him, but there was no name on his.

"There will be a name there one day," his mother told him when he asked. "Everyone has someone out there for them; they're just not always born at the same time as you."

Steve thought about that, but it wasn't exactly true. Bucky's mom didn't have a name on her wrist and neither did the nice lady who lived three apartments down from them. The only difference between them was that Bucky's mom had gotten married to a man who never said anything about the name on his wrist and the nice lady, Miss Johnson, hadn't.

"Just because they don't have a name on their wrist doesn't mean that there isn't someone waiting for them."

Steve was five and thought that his mother had the answers to everything.

- - -

When Steve was eleven, the stock market crashed. That was when his life started to fall apart.

Steve classified his life as Before and After. There was life Before where things might not have been easy, but that was a time when he was happy, when his mother smiled and his father was a little bit distant but a steady constant in his life. After, there were shouting matches in the night and his father came home smelling of smoke and cheap whiskey; his mother would be in the kitchen in the morning with bruises.

He knew better than to ask.

When things got really bad, when his father was yelling and throwing bottles, and his mother was working, Steve stayed with Bucky. Things weren't good with Bucky, but at least his parents weren't yelling at each other and at least Mrs. Barnes never stood in the kitchen with blank eyes and bruises on her arms.

He could hear his parents yelling at each other through the thin walls of the apartment. He wanted to cover his ears with the pillow on Bucky's bed, but Bucky was there beside him turning up the radio and that was enough.

Mrs. Barnes gave him a sympathetic look when he had to leave in the evenings.

"If you ever need anything," she said, her voice soft and her eyes imploring. "You know you always have a place here, Steve."

"I know." He tried to smile but his cheeks hurt too much.

She nodded, not looking convinced, and ruffled his hair, "You should get home, your mother will be worried about you."

She never mentioned his father.

- - -

His father never laid hands on him, but Steve knew he was the focus of most of the arguments. If they weren't arguing about his health, how expensive it was to treat him, then he was yelling about how worthless Steve was. He tried not to let it show how much the words hurt him.

"You're perfect the way you are," Sarah said. She ruffled his hair at him and smiled, but it looked painful and wrong; her cheek was swelled up and an ugly shade of blue-black. "Don't listen to anything he says about you."

Sarah kissed his forehead before tucking him into bed and leaving the room.

Steve lay there for several long hours, staring at the ceiling. His father had fallen asleep on the couch, drunk, and smelling strongly of liquor. Steve had long since gotten used to the smell.