Why couldnât she have become beautiful, like Steve? He was broken but Howard had fixed him. The same serum that created Captain America, that fixed Steve and made him whole, made him what he wanted to be, gave the demons within her life and a corporeal form. It wasnât right. It wasnât fair.
Red lipstick. It was a bolder shade than sheâd ever picked before, and it showed on her thick lips. She stared at herself in the mirror. The meticulously applied eyeliner, the filled in brows, the concealer that covered the inconsistencies in her skintone. It wouldâve been a beautiful picture â if she had been a beautiful person.
She pulled a curl down over her forehead, tried to imagine if her hair was longer. Maybe it would cover the thickness of her neck. But nothing could hide the obviously masculine features of her face â the square jaw, the heavy brow, the chronic five oâclock shadow that foundation could never cover up. She would never be beautiful. She was an abomination.
And Pepper was so kind to let her do this when she was in town â to let her go through her makeup, to let her have her hour of privacy sitting at Tonyâs expensive vanity in the top floor of the tower, brushing powder across her eyelids with cautious care and precision. And it felt good to do that. The process was good. Sitting in a velvet robe with legs cleanly shaven, the smell of lavender bath oil still lingering on her skin, an array of color before her. It was just... when it was done...
When it was done she was left staring at the mirror with a tremor on the side of her face as she tried to suck it up, tried not to cry and ruin all of her hard work. But it was so â fuck ! It was so fucking frustrating . All of her life she knew, she knew there was something deeply wrong with her, deeply flawed. And she tried to push it down and push it down and push it down but it just never stayed in itâs place.
Oh the irony, the horrible cruelty that she was cursed to be forever tied to the horrendous display of masculinity that lived inside of her. That piece of her she couldnât stand, that piece of her that consumed her nightmares, that took this already male form and twisted into something larger than life, something that couldnât be hidden away or ignored. She had never truly accepted herself for what she was until he was born â but since he was born she was unable to live within her own body any more.
{Continue on AO3 or FF.net}
