trouble (trouble)

𝐇𝐎𝐖  𝐖𝐀𝐒  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄  𝐒𝐎  𝐅𝐀𝐑  

(tw death, illness)

steve rogers was born small and scrappy, the only son of sarah and joseph rogers -- an underpaid, overworked mother and a father who did the best he could, but who spent more time nursing a bottle than caring for his family. joseph died first, when steve was young, and sarah had little to give him but love and courage and faith, honor and duty and humility. do no harm, but take no shit. always, always stand up for what’s right.

then sarah died, when steve was barely eighteen, barely out of high school, and there was nothing but bucky, his childhood best friend, his brother. then bucky enlisted; steve tried, but, even though he’d hit a late-stage growth spurt and outgrown most of his childhood ailments, he was still considered medically unfit and turned away.

so he went to art school instead, taking out mountains of student loans he was sure he’d never pay off. artists didn’t make money, but he wasn’t good for much of anything else. now, he pays the bills as a commercial artist, with comics and advertisements and graphic design, teaching classes and shopping around a little of his own original work on the side. it ain’t much, but it’s honest work. the fact that he’s dating tony stark, too, doesn’t hurt.

( in some sort of grudge match, he’s spent the years since his failed enlistment getting needlessly fit, determined to prove the army wrong. his dad told him to always get back up ; he’s getting back up. he’s probably... in much better shape than is reasonably possible for a half-starving artist with a history of asthma, but hey. we don’t question it. the early-morning runs keep him sane. )

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓  𝐖𝐀𝐒  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓  𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄  𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓  ?

(tw body horror, death)

there’s a machine in the middle of a room, ringed by men in suits and lab coats. there are consoles, old and rudimentary, but they’re somehow also beyond cutting-edge. an observation deck, a blueish haze, a woman with dark curls and red lips. and him, strapped into that metal cocoon. it’s dark, so dark, then it’s glowing and hissing and burning and it hurts -- it hurts -- is it too late to back out -- oh, god, he’s dying -- and every bone in his body is breaking and reforming and every muscle is expanding and he’s screaming but he can’t scream because his body is remaking itself from the inside out and it goes on for forever and no time at all and then --

it stops.

the top lifts, and the room is much smaller. the woman is much shorter. a man with a white coat and a thick german accent is grinning, and then he’s dead. and then it isn’t a celebration, it’s a tragedy. and then steve is no longer the first of an army but the last of his kind. he can’t make out the details, but he knows it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

𝐇𝐎𝐖  𝐀𝐑𝐄  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘  𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆  𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑  𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓  𝐅𝐄𝐖  𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 ?

oh, buddy. superheroes? aliens? really? how the hell was he captain america? (what the hell was captain america?) and why does he see his friends dying?

there’s so much good in them--a sense of purpose and identity he’s never had in aurora, the muscle memory of incredible strength. but there’s also the bad. there’s the pain (physical and emotional) and the hiding and the parade of lost friends and loves and the carrying the world on his (artificially very broad) shoulders. there’s no time there to just be steve, to just sit with a mug of tea and his sketchbook. but there’s no captain america here, either.

𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐄 ?

𝐇𝐎𝐖  𝐖𝐀𝐒  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄  𝐒𝐎  𝐅𝐀𝐑  ?

lorelai leigh ( rory ) gilmore was born to lorelai victoria ( lorelai ) gilmore, a runaway sixteen year old hopped up on pain meds, who decided to name her child after herself in a fit of feminist self-reclamation. that’s what she always said, anyway. lorelai came from money, but rory wasn’t born into it. she was born into a lovely little shed in the back of a little local inn, just her and her young mother against the world. she wouldn’t have had it any other way.

as she grew up, her mother more best friend than authority figure, lorelai worked her way through school, worked her way up at the inn, found them a house and a home and a community that came together to raise a shy, bookish, too-smart-for-her-own-good toddler. there was talk, sometimes, of the gilmores, and the life her mother had run from--and, fleetingly, contact with her father, a well-to-do kid with nothing but charm, who’d never had to deal with consequences a day in his life. but, for the most part, it was just the lorelais. it was all rory ever needed.

( she wouldn’t realize until she was much older how hard her mom had worked, how much they’d struggled, how many sacrifices she’d made so her daughter could keep filling her drawers with books and her head with dreams. )

lorelai wanted more for rory. rory wanted more for rory, too, but she wouldn’t admit it. she’d talk about being a pulitzer-winning journalist, of going to the best colleges in the country, of circling the globe breaking the Next Big Story, and then she’d go to the same little diner and drink the same burnt coffee and make the same small talk with her neighbors. she was admitted to a very good private school, but there was no way to make the money work--lorelai would rather die than ask her parents, she said. for all intents and purposes with them, she was already dead.

so rory graduated public school, then secured herself a full scholarship to the local university’s honors college. it wasn’t quite what her mom had dreamed for her ( it wasn’t quite what she’d dreamed for herself ) , but it was good enough. she graduated college top of her class, with a job lined up reporting on a political campaign. she chased it, which led to fractionally bigger things, modest success, no pulitzers, then back to a full-time gig at the newspaper back exactly where she’d grown up. of course she had. things always came full circle with the gilmores, didn’t they?

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓  𝐖𝐀𝐒  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓  𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄  𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓  ?

she’s in... jail? why is she in jail? why are they telling her she stole a yacht? oh, god, did she steal a yacht? she stole a yacht. there’s a boy with dirty blond hair and a crooked smile and a voice dripping with money beside her, like he thought this was a good idea, or he knew it was a bad idea but he didn’t stop her. she wants her mom ; she never , ever wants her mom to know about this. this is their turning point. this is where it falls apart. this is her rock bottom, but there’s no way she doesn’t keep sliding. there’s an older man hovering on the edges, a man with the blond boy’s nose and mouth, but the set of his jaw is harder, his eyes colder. he’s told her she’ll be nothing. she feels like she’ll be nothing. she is nothing.

𝐇𝐎𝐖  𝐀𝐑𝐄  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘  𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆  𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑  𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓  𝐅𝐄𝐖  𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒  ?

she’s confused, and she’s, honestly, a little sad and angry. her life is all she’s known, and it’s been so comfortable, so normal, made so much sense. but there’s a version out there, she’s seeing, who lived more. who lived better, maybe. who had more family. who knew her grandparents, who had adventures, who could have been something else entirely. and lorelai kept it from her. she thinks. she’s not sure. it’s all a little hazy.

𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐄 ?

𝐇𝐎𝐖  𝐖𝐀𝐒  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄  𝐒𝐎  𝐅𝐀𝐑  ?

(this is horribly long i’m sorry) (tw death, illness, implied domestic abuse)

They called him a troubled kid. A loser. A mess up. A failure. No attention span, a problem child, poor grades, nothing but backtalk. Whatever the opposite of “a pleasure to have in class” was. They didn’t see how hard Percy was trying. They didn’t see him playing catchup from the moment he was born.

Percy never knew his father--he never even knew who his father was. From day one, it was was just him and his mother, Sally, a young high school dropout. (Her parents had been killed in a plane crash when she was young, and she lost her dreams of a writing degree with her uncle, proof that the worst things happened to the best people.) Sally didn’t have much, but she gave everything she had to being a good mother to Percy. And she was--the best mother Percy could possibly have asked for, giving and patient and funny and kind and honest (except when it came to his dad; that was off limits).

And then she married Gabe Ugliano, who was as awful as Sally was good, but he did give them something resembling stability. A little bit. For a while.

Percy wasn’t exactly conducive to stability--he was kicked out of every school he tried, draining Sally’s savings and Gabe’s patience. Sometime around school three, when he was eight or so, he was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, but the labels didn’t do anything for the trail of inexplicable bad luck that followed him wherever he went. No matter what he did, no matter his intention, despite the fact that he never--never--meant to do anyone any harm, things blew up in Percy’s face. Sometimes literally. He was a good kid, really, but they only ever saw him as trouble. And he was running out of last resorts.

Halfway through middle school, all at once, Sally got sick, Gabe croaked, Percy got kicked out of another school, and someone granted him a full ride to a boarding school that would have him. (Rumors were maybe--maybe--his dad had something to do with it, whoever he was, but there’s no proof of that.) At long last, school stuck. For the first time, Percy had friends, did okay enough in his classes, made his way through with hope for a future.

Sally remarried--a good man this time, a high school teacher. Percy, against all odds, graduated high school (as captain of the swim team, at that!), and enrolled in college (Sally will insist she always believed in him, but she was surprised by that one, too). He’s still gods-awful at school, but he’s doing his best. He has no idea what he’s majoring in, if he’ll even scrape by at all. He’s still on the swim team, he’s drawn to the seaside, he spends his days wondering if he’ll ever catch a break; if he’ll ever be able to prove himself. Percy knows he was meant to do something--he just doesn’t know what.

𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓  𝐖𝐀𝐒  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒  𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓  𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄  𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓  ?

he’s underwater. he can breathe, or he thinks he can--he knows he should be able to. but this water is different, darker, deeper. it is subsuming him and suffocating him, and he feels himself washing away in pieces. the current swallows him up, and he is forgetting who he is, where he is, why he is. it’s dark, so dark. his body is boiling, feverish, burning up, but the water itself isn’t all that hot. he wants to scream. the only sound he can make is a muffled choke. there are monsters in his periphery, the detritus of lives, the lost echoes of souls. but, from the small of his back, he feels a tug. he sees a blonde girl on a dock. he sees-- he sees-- 

nothing. it’s so dark.

he can’t breathe.

𝐇𝐎𝐖  𝐀𝐑𝐄  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘  𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆  𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇  𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐈𝐑  𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓  𝐅𝐄𝐖  𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 ?

confused. a little bit afraid. and, somehow, hopeful? there’s been something missing his whole life, and, there, just out of reach--there it is. percy knows he’s good at something. he knows he has a purpose. he feels stronger around water and always has a pen on him, no matter how hard he tries to lose it. he just has to figure out what it all means.

𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐄 ?