Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 63

Chapter 63

"I'm fine!" Bernice protested. "Please stop poking at me!"

"It's for your own good." Steve hovered around her like an overprotective attack dog. "Who knows what those bastards did to you while you were drugged. Bruce?"

"It looks like they pumped enough Rohypnol into her system to drug a horse." Bruce Banner examined the preliminary results of a toxicology screen confirming the substance on the night stand and whatever had Bernice so disoriented were one and the same drug. "But it should have no lasting effects."

"Rohypnol? What is that, anyways?" Steve asked. "A sedative?"

"It's a date rape drug." Bruce interpreted the perplexed look that came across Steve's face. He glanced at Bernice before elaborating. "Date rape is when you don't want to take a chance the girl will say no, so you drug her so she's too disoriented to fend you off."

"But why would you want to…" Steve saw the dark shadow which crossed Bernice's face. He had found her tied to a … oh! God! No! Mike hadn't…

"Bernice?" Steve heart raced. "Did he…."

Bernice looked towards the wall in shame, tears welling into her dark eyes. Even as she spoke the words, he knew she was lying. "I don't remember."

It took a minute for the horrid realization to reach his brain. He had always been an even-tempered man, but there were some limits even he could be pushed to. Especially when it came to somebody hurting the woman he loved.

Bag. Punching bag. There was a reason he kept punching bags in every corner of his gym. The super-soldier serum had jacked up his testosterone levels to those of a far more aggressive man. Only his deep sense of morality and a lifetime of experience seeking non-violent means of resolving disputes helped him keep the increased aggression caused by the serum in check. It was why the serum had brought out the worst in Red Skull.

When aggression started to override his self-control, Steve had a simple solution. Go find something harmless to punch. But the only thing Steve wanted to punch right now was Mike…

"I'm going to kill him!"

Bruce Banner's face was pure sympathy. "Steve … this isn't the way."

"Isn't it?" Steve turned his back so Bernice wouldn't see his look of rage. Gasping for breath, he tried to get the emotion under control. Bernice needed him to be supportive. She needed him to love her whether or not Mike had raped her while she had been unconscious. It wasn't her fault she had been taken. It was his!

The rage rumbled deep within his chest like the growl of a rabid wolf. He lifted his fists to his temples, trying to keep the emotion from erupting. It felt as though his brain were about to pop a gasket. His entire body began to shudder.

"Steve." Bruce pointed to a metal storage cabinet that contained nothing but supplies. "There. Smash." Banner knew better than anyone a thing or two about uncontrollable rage.

"Gyaarh!" Steve punched the cabinet so hard the doors collapsed inward on the first punch, the second one flattening it to the wall. It wasn't enough! He didn't want Bernice to see him like this. He stormed out of the room, running smack into the broad wall of Thor's chest.

"Get out of my way!"

"This is not the way, Commander Rogers," Thor said. "Your beloved needs your reassurances. Not your rage."

On a logical level, he knew Thor was right. Bernice needed him to hold her hand and tell her he loved her no matter what had been done to her. Perhaps forced sex was no big deal to someone from 2012. But to him, who had waited until he was married to make love to a woman, the thought of Bernice being tied to a bed and drugged was doubly offensive. They had violated her! They had violated the woman he loved in the most offensive, deeply intimate way possible. And they had done it to hurt him!