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browngirlTitle: Ruby's Rose
Fandom: Captain America: The First Avenger, AU
Rating: R with warnings.
Pairing: eventual Bucky/Peggy/Steve
Summary: Steve finds he's made a friend.
Content Advisory: AU. Prostitution, including coercion. Period-typical bigotry. A racial slur. Discussion of depression. Dubious consent. Eventual happy ending. Pre-serum Steve Rogers. Original characters, including original characters of color.
All Thanks To: Stoatsandwich for the 4F AU of amazingness and wonder.
Disclaimer: This fanwork has been created for pleasure only and not for profit.
A/N: 'Ruby' was created by Thefilthiestpiglet (you'll need an AO3 account to see that) and named by Stoatsandwich. Sometimes one just has to write the story in one's heart, and this is that story for me.
Steve wakes up chipper and whistles through washing up, and even the thought of medical inspection doesn't dent his good mood too much. The night before there was a good-smelling private, tall and hazel-eyed, who smiled at Steve and kissed him and made sure he got off too; he knows he shouldn't enjoy this job so much, but as he shaves he can still feel the warm ghost of a goodbye kiss on his cheek, as he waits for his examination he hums a cheerful song with a forgotten name and lets himself daydream about soulful hazel eyes and how to draw secret smiles. Mae looks at him sideways, her mouth quirked with amusement, and Steve shrugs and keeps humming. For once he feels good. He intends to enjoy it.
The doctor's door opens and Ruby comes out, eyes downcast, blue bathrobe wrapped tight around her shoulders. Steve smiles and Mae waves, but Ruby just trudges by like she's under a private raincloud. Steve trades a worried glance with Mae, but then she's called in, and he hears her giggle twice from behind the closed door.
He finds out why when it's his turn: there's a new doctor, who tells cheerfully appalling jokes and smiles over the top of his glasses and doesn't demand a blow job afterwards. Steve pulls his pants back on with his dignity and smile both mostly intact, shakes the doctor's hand firmly, and heads back to the dormitory.
Halfway there he hears a muffled repeating noise. He pauses, turning his good ear towards the sound. It's not a happy noise. He's in a corridor, a blank wall on one side, two closets on the other. Steve presses his ear to each closet door and there's someone crying behind the second one, soft muffled sobs. "Hello?" he calls quietly, once and again and a third time; the sobs hitch into silence, then resume, more muffled and ragged than before.
Steve takes a breath, thinks a moment. Then he twists the doorknob.
Behind four brooms Ruby is curled against the wall, her bathrobe pressed to her face, her shoulders and cloud of dark curls shaking. Steve shuts the door -- he's small enough to fit -- pushes the brooms aside and pauses in the darkness. She's obviously hiding, maybe he should'n't've barged in --
-- she grabs his hand tight, and he grips hers, leans against the door and stands there with her as she cries.
Eventually she snuffles to a stop. "Steve, thanks," she mutters damply between coughs. "Thanks. Beg pardon, I didn't…"
Her voice trails off, and Steve shrugs and pushes words into the silence. "It's okay," he says as lightly as he can. "Bad news?" he asks, and instantly scolds himself for prying.
"Yeah, ain't got nothing but the blues." She pulls her hand away and pushes herself up the wall. "Nother week of this, Jesus help me." Standing she's Steve's height, maybe a bit taller, and now their faces are close enough for him to realize he's shut himself into a closet with a girl, how that might look if they're caught.
Ignoring his burning cheeks with long practice, Steve shifts around to press his good ear to the door. After a few moments of silence he opens it and ushers Ruby out, catching a glimpse of her sore red eyes before she looks down. "No problem," he says, because what's he supposed to say to his fellow auxiliary after finding her crying in a closet? He pats her elbow and she smiles and turns away, leaving him feeling useless as he watches her walk away, hoping he did some good.
*****
A few hours later Ruby joins Mae, Cal, and Steve as they're finishing up their game of bridge, though she just sits beside them instead of taking a hand. They play to the drumbeat of Manny tossing his baseball at the ceiling as he lies on his bunk, and Mae and Steve pretty much let Cal win, since he's on shift tonight. They all laugh at Cal's little happy dance, and can't help echoing his smile as he checks his braided hair and flounces out of the room as if dandified for a night on the town. Mae heads across the room to lie down, but Ruby stays sitting beside Steve, and reaches to touch his hand.
"How are you?" he asks, not sure if he hopes she's come to thank him again or if he hopes she really hasn't.
She shrugs. "I'll keep. I came to ask, why're you so sweet?" Steve glances at her and she's looking down again. "You could've walked on by."
"You were crying," is all Steve can reply. Ruby looks up at him, her eyes still red, but when she smiles they shine. She gets up, and for the second time that day Steve watches her walk away.
* **** *
After that Steve finds he's made a friend. He and Ruby talk sometimes, about particularly not-horrible men from their shifts, about their homes, about what little of London they've gotten to see. She tells him about her town in Georgia, its grassy paths and broad trees hung with Spanish moss, and smiles at his attempts to draw what she describes. He tells her about the tall buildings and crowded streets of Brooklyn, the shining skyscrapers of Manhattan, and her eyes go round as she listens.
In August she declares the dormitory stuffy and leaves the window open, letting the rain in, and he doesn't bother mentioning his soaked book to her. She finds him some days later mournfully placing it in the rubbish bin and exclaims over it with lively dismay; he smiles in relief to see her so animated, and she tells him she owes him one.
The next day Steve wakes up feeling choked, a stiffness in his chest. He coughs his way through getting ready for the evening, sits down on his bed and realizes the room's spinning around him, thinks swimmingly of asking for an asthma cigarette and lies down instead. By the time he's late for shift he's curled in a struggling ball, wrestling scraps of air down his rigid airways. Private Kelly comes in and Steve distantly hears him shouting, feels Kelly's hand shaking his shoulder far outside the all-important fight to breathe.
"He can't get up," Ruby cries somewhere above Steve's dizzy head. "He can't fuck no one if he can't get no air." Kelly's nearer but his voice is just a buzz in Steve's roaring ears. "Like a lady? I ain't been no lady since Uncle Sam whored me out. Those soldier boys need a fuck so bad, I'll do Steve's shift. Fuck fuck fuck. Said it and I'll do it." If Steve could do anything but wheeze he'd grin at her defiant voice. If he could breathe he'd thank her. He curls into his blankets and concentrates on getting some air.
When he can finally get up the next day, Steve drags himself out of bed and finds Ruby in hers, curled up tight around her pillow, dried tear-tracks flaking off her dark cheek. He sits beside her, leaning against the wall, and waits for her to wake up, so the first thing she sees is him smiling at her, so he can start her day by telling her, "Thank you."
She blinks at him, her eyes still red, but she also smiles back.
But later that day, after she misses lunch and supper, when Steve finds her she's still sitting on her bed, listlessly pulling a comb through handfuls of her fluffy hair, humming a tune he recognizes from somewhere he can't remember. " 'Gather with the saints at the river,' " she sings, her voice sonorous as deep running water, " 'That flows by the throne of God.' "
"Ruby," Steve asks cautiously. They'll be late soon, and he doubts Kelly will have any more mercy tonight.
"There's a river, right, Steve?" She puts down her comb, pushing her hair back from her face. "A river in London?"
"The Thames," he agrees, thinking of how he came this far and he still hasn't even seen it.
"That's what a boy said last night," she says, softly, dreamily, "there's a river." As she stands up she starts humming again. They make their shift, and Steve spends half of it staring at the poster before him, his breath huffing out in the tempo of each man who fucks him, worrying about Ruby singing about the river.
* **** *
Ruby sings, and combs her hair, and grows more withdrawn. Steve draws her as a mermaid on a rock and she barely smiles at the picture, but he can see the effort even that takes her. Mae leaves, a couple of new girls arrive, Cal tries to convince Steve to wear lipstick, and Steve and Ruby chat when she's talking at all.
One day he finds her crying on her bed, and when he sits beside her she jerks away, when she looks up she's angry. "Do you know," she tells him, her normally sweet voice harsh, "I been called 'nigger' here more times than in my whole life before?" Steve can't say anything to that, as Ruby curls up tighter, gripping her pillow in both hands. He starts to get up and she reaches out, sobbing out, "sorry, sorry, Steve, sorry," and he tries to make soothing noises and sits with her till she subsides to quiet, till it's time for his shift.
Steve tacks up the mermaid drawing above Ruby's bed. When she sees it she makes a tiny noise and comes across the room to him, and when he turns to say something self-depriciating she wraps both arms around him and pulls him into a tight soft hug. Meanwhile, Catherine sees the drawing and squeals, "oh! Steve you artist! Draw me! Draw me as a princess!"
So he draws everyone, starting with Catherine as a princess and Cal as a smiling fairy, Manny as a baseball player and Pauline as a movie star, and that keeps him busy for awhile. One Friday as Steve sits by the window, working on Maria as a nun in the time before their shift, Ruby sits beside him and asks, "Steve, why you here when you can draw like that?"
Steve smiles ruefully. "The war effort already has all the artists they need, they said."
"How did you even end up here?" she asks. "What'd you do?"
"What did I do?" Steve finishes shading the shadowed side of the wimple. "I volunteered to serve my country."
Ruby laughs. Stung, Steve looks up at her, but any smart remark dies on his lips at the terrible look on her face. "You volunteered?" she echoes. "For this? A policeman drove up by me and asked me out, I said no and he arrested me for soliciting. I was a good girl, I only ever went with one boy and here I am now." Steve lays his pencil down before he drops it, and listens to Ruby as she stares at the sky, pulling her bathrobe tight with clenched fists. "Down at the sherriff's there was a man from the Army, said he'd keep me from a trial and clear my record if I signed up. So I did. Told my Mama I'd be helping nurses." Her laugh is harsh. "I wrote my Sheldon, though, told him the truth, let him go. What would he want with a girl done over by half the soldiers and sailors in Europe?"
"What anyone would want with a woman who bravely did her duty and more," Steve says, bursting out of him, "who endured and served faithfully till the war was won?" Ruby stares at him, tears rolling down her face. "He'd want a heroine of the war. Anyone would and know they were lucky. I'm sure your fella wants you back. Did he write you?"
Ruby shrugs. "Not yet." She looks down, away from Steve. "Mama did, says his Mama says she got no telegram, so he's not dead, maybe, I hope. I don't know." She shakes her head. "I can't. I just, I think of the river, how the song tells of it, washing away all sin."
Steve is increasingly convinced a river's the last thing Ruby needs. "You should come to Confession," is all he can offer. "Have the priest absolve you, he'll tell you you're clean."
She shakes her head. "Go back to my Mama a Catholic?" she asks, but she looks up as she says it, and she doesn't quite smile but the tightness fades from around her wet eyes.
"She'll be glad to have you back, True Church or not," Steve says, smiling as earnestly as he can, and now Ruby does smile, and wipe her eyes.
"What about yours?" she asks, which he should have expected, and it's his turn to look away, down at his half-done sketch of Maria in her pure-hearted faith. He thinks of Maria reminding him of the priest's words, that they're blameless as the soldiers who kill in war in the cause of good; he remembers that benediction, and imagining his Ma's agreement.
"When my Ma sees me again she'll scold me for dying," he says lightly, and Ruby sucks in a shocked breath. "It's okay. I'm okay. I'm sure she'll be proud of me as long as I do my best."
"She sure will," Ruby confirms, and squeezes Steve's hand.
*****
Steve starts his evening's shift with high hopes and ends it by getting arrested for punching a corporal. When he's returned to the dormitory the next day, no one will look at him in his disgrace except Ruby, who stands up from her bed and walks over, lifts a hand and then carefully doesn't touch him, which he sadly appreciates. "You okay, honey?"
"I'm okay, Ruby," Steve mumbles, sore and rumpled and acutely conscious of his split lip, his bruised ribs, the angry dents Captain Wahlberg's fingers left in his arm.
"What's gonna happen?" she asks, and all Steve can do is shrug, almost too worn out to worry.
What happens is that Captain Wahlberg assigns him the punishment duty available. Night by night Steve staggers back to the dormitory after eight solid hours of servicing soldiers, his hands too raw to hold a pencil, his ass too sore to sit in a hard chair; he cleans himself up, slumps facedown on his bed, and barely manages to summon the energy to trade a tired smile with Ruby before taking refuge in dreamless sleep. He almost forgets to worry about anyone but himself until the morning he hears Ruby humming the hymn about the river, and looks over at her, wrapped in her bathrobe. It goes further around her now, she looks like she's lost weight. Her cheeks used to be full rather than hollow, the shadows have deepened under her eyes.
It's Tuesday, Steve's day off, a bright fall day. Ruby doesn't have it off this week, making up for the days she couldn't work. Steve sits up and makes a decision, dresses carefully after his examination, and goes to find someone who can chaperone him.
He winds up with Private Kelly, who looks him over in a way Steve doesn't want to recognize. "You owe me, Rogers," he says, and Steve sighs inside. "Taking time outta my busy schedule just to guard your virtue while you take a stroll."
Steve looks sidelong back at Kelly. "You're the soul of graciousness," is all he lets himself say, watches where he's going and finds the florist's he saw some weeks ago. There he picks out a little potted plant with spindly stems and one full pink rose two inches across, asks the kindly broad-faced lady at the till for clear directions on its care, writes "Ruby" on the pot with a grease pencil, and cradles it in his arms the whole way back to the pro station.
Kelly is kind enough to wait while Steve puts the pot and note on a chair and tugs that over beside Ruby's bed. Done arranging it just so, a little winded, Steve looks up, Kelly crooks a finger at him, and there's no one else in the dormitory.
Kelly steers him to the same closet where Steve found Ruby crying those few long months ago, Steve notes absently as he kneels between the brooms and sucks Kelly's dick. At least it tastes perfectly ordinary, since Steve can't see to examine it. Kelly groans over him and calls him a 'good girl' and Steve does not bite; after Kelly finally comes, while Steve is fastening his pants for him, he pets Steve's hair and says, "You ever want out after curfew, baby, anytime at all, you let me know. Cheap at twice the price, right?"
Steve swallows hard, trying to clear his sticky slick throat, and says, "You should put yourself down in my service log. Proper record keeping is important."
Kelly just laughs and opens the closet door.
On the other hand, when Steve next sees Ruby she's smiling wider than he's ever seen, setting the potted rose on the windowsill while all the girls off duty coo over it. Even Manny's set down his baseball to come take a look. " 'While the dew is still on the roses…' " she sings as she turns to Steve and takes his hands in hers. "Thank you," she tells him, her dark eyes shining, and he's never felt more like he's doing good than he does in this moment.
He needs that thought in the next week. The nights are busier than ever, not least with an influx of grim-faced soldiers straight from the front who leave the pro girls and boys bruised and sore. Each night Steve runs his hand over his aching scalp to check if his hair's still there after dozens of hands have yanked on it. But each morning he sees Ruby check on her little plant, brushing her fingers across the tiny leaves and one unfurling bud, watering it from a drinking glass, humming over it with sunlight on her face. She's gone quiet again but she smiles at Steve and she doesn't sing about the river anymore, and he'll take it as he lies on his face and waits for sleep.
The morning when Sergeant Van Winkle asks for a volunteer, Steve puts up his hand and holds it high as Van Winkle nods and scribbles his name down. He holds it up until he sees Ruby's eyes shift to him, and then his arm falls back down to his side.
The girls coo over him as he packs his few belongings, Manny shakes his hand and Cal kisses him on the forehead. Steve doesn't see Ruby, he worries he won't, until the crowd around him parts and she opens her arms and hugs him one more time. "Take care, Steve," she tells him. "You are a blessing."
Steve blushes hard. "Thank you, Ruby. You take care too. And of the rose, um, too. As well." He might try to fumble out a better goodbye but Private Ritchie clears his throat by the door and Steve looks over, ready to go find out his new mission.
*****
[Twelve years later]
Steve Rogers is pissed as Hell. There's a country to protect, a world to guard, and SHIELD is worried about the bus boycotts? He spends the entire drive ranting about the waste of time and resources and how SHIELD should send some operatives to help the civil rights movement, Steve would be more than happy to go. Bucky just drives and smiles as Steve slashes the air with angry hands and complains bitterly about the stupidity of today's meeting, about dragging some perfectly nice people from their lives and work just to defend their fight for freedom to the government that should be helping them gain it.
Bucky just grins like a Cheshire cat and lets Steve keep at it until he collapses against the elevator wall to catch his breath. Then Bucky straightens Steve's tie with big capable hands and steals a kiss which Steve breathlessly gives, before the elevator doors open, they prop Steve back up on his feet, and they walk into their meeting.
Steve recognizes her hair first, a puff of little black curls pinned back with gleaming shell combs. He recognizes her smile next, though he only saw it so bright once, he steps forward as she leaps from her chair, throwing her arms wide. "Steve!" Ruby shouts, and Steve doesn't even waste breath, he just runs forward and hugs her with all his strength as she squeezes him as more strongly and softly than ever.
Soon enough, though, voices start to call, "Steve?" and "Honey?" and "Ruby, who's your friend?" and Steve has to pull his cheek off Ruby's shoulder, she has to unwind her arms from behind his back, but they can't quite let go of each other yet, they turn with arms around each other's waists to face everyone arranged along both sides of the long table.
"I served with her," Steve says at the same moment as Ruby's "This man saved my life." Steve stares in surprise, and she smiles at him and turns back to the room. "Sheldon, honey," she addresses a tall man with a shaven head and a bright smile, "This is Steve who I told you about." She glances at Steve, and he nods: he makes no secret of how he served in the war, how he met Bucky. "We were Prophylactic Auxiliaries together, and every single day of it I wanted to die." Now Steve blushes, to hear Ruby say plainly what he secretly worried about. "But this young man talked to me, he drew art of me, he bought me a flower in a pot. I had to take care of it, so I couldn't die, and it took me through the war, took me back to you." Sheldon's smile is blinding and Steve's face is burning, as Ruby lifts her chin and addresses the entire room. "And if this White man could be my friend, could help me when I needed it most, SHIELD can see fit to help us in our fight for justice, or at least stay out of our way."
At the head of the table, Peggy smiles wide. Beside her, Thompson, who insisted on this meeting in the first place, opens his stupid mouth and Peggy smoothly grabs his chin and squeezes it shut again. "I believe that's all we need to hear," she announces. "We'll be in touch about how best we can help. Meeting adjourned."
The entire room breaks into applause, and Ruby pulls Steve into another tight hug. Sheldon gets up, very tall, and wraps his arms around them both. "Thank you," he tells the top of Steve's head, and Steve just hangs on and nods into Ruby's shoulder. Most of the room's occupants file out past them, but Bucky pulls out chairs for Steve, Peggy, and himself, the two of them flanking Steve as he and Ruby finally let go of each other so they can sit. As Steve sits across from Ruby, Sheldon lays his hand on both of theirs. "Thank you, Mr. Rogers," Sheldon tells him again, and Steve shakes his head.
"No, no, call me Steve, and this is Bucky --"
"Barnes, of the Howling Commandoes," Peggy puts in, because she can, "and I'm Peggy, and I have never seen so much time saved so decisively."
"Thank Steve," Ruby says, squeezing Steve's hands. "Sheldon, tell him about the letters?"
"By the grace of God," Sheldon says, and Steve listens, smiling so wide his cheeks ache sweetly, "in the field hospital I got two letters from my girl the same day, a goodbye that almost killed me in my bed, and another note taking it all back, telling me about her friend and her potted plant and that she would see me again." They look at each other, raptly, joyfully, and Steve sets his other hand on Peggy's, leaning subtly against Bucky, too happy for words.
"Come visit us," Ruby says, and everyone looks at Steve. "Come see our two little girls, our lovely house, I've planted it all around in roses. Come down to Georgia when you can."
"Let me just get my sketchbook," Steve answers, because what else would he say, "and I'll be there."
Fandom: Captain America: The First Avenger, AU
Rating: R with warnings.
Pairing: eventual Bucky/Peggy/Steve
Summary: Steve finds he's made a friend.
Content Advisory: AU. Prostitution, including coercion. Period-typical bigotry. A racial slur. Discussion of depression. Dubious consent. Eventual happy ending. Pre-serum Steve Rogers. Original characters, including original characters of color.
All Thanks To: Stoatsandwich for the 4F AU of amazingness and wonder.
Disclaimer: This fanwork has been created for pleasure only and not for profit.
A/N: 'Ruby' was created by Thefilthiestpiglet (you'll need an AO3 account to see that) and named by Stoatsandwich. Sometimes one just has to write the story in one's heart, and this is that story for me.
Steve wakes up chipper and whistles through washing up, and even the thought of medical inspection doesn't dent his good mood too much. The night before there was a good-smelling private, tall and hazel-eyed, who smiled at Steve and kissed him and made sure he got off too; he knows he shouldn't enjoy this job so much, but as he shaves he can still feel the warm ghost of a goodbye kiss on his cheek, as he waits for his examination he hums a cheerful song with a forgotten name and lets himself daydream about soulful hazel eyes and how to draw secret smiles. Mae looks at him sideways, her mouth quirked with amusement, and Steve shrugs and keeps humming. For once he feels good. He intends to enjoy it.
The doctor's door opens and Ruby comes out, eyes downcast, blue bathrobe wrapped tight around her shoulders. Steve smiles and Mae waves, but Ruby just trudges by like she's under a private raincloud. Steve trades a worried glance with Mae, but then she's called in, and he hears her giggle twice from behind the closed door.
He finds out why when it's his turn: there's a new doctor, who tells cheerfully appalling jokes and smiles over the top of his glasses and doesn't demand a blow job afterwards. Steve pulls his pants back on with his dignity and smile both mostly intact, shakes the doctor's hand firmly, and heads back to the dormitory.
Halfway there he hears a muffled repeating noise. He pauses, turning his good ear towards the sound. It's not a happy noise. He's in a corridor, a blank wall on one side, two closets on the other. Steve presses his ear to each closet door and there's someone crying behind the second one, soft muffled sobs. "Hello?" he calls quietly, once and again and a third time; the sobs hitch into silence, then resume, more muffled and ragged than before.
Steve takes a breath, thinks a moment. Then he twists the doorknob.
Behind four brooms Ruby is curled against the wall, her bathrobe pressed to her face, her shoulders and cloud of dark curls shaking. Steve shuts the door -- he's small enough to fit -- pushes the brooms aside and pauses in the darkness. She's obviously hiding, maybe he should'n't've barged in --
-- she grabs his hand tight, and he grips hers, leans against the door and stands there with her as she cries.
Eventually she snuffles to a stop. "Steve, thanks," she mutters damply between coughs. "Thanks. Beg pardon, I didn't…"
Her voice trails off, and Steve shrugs and pushes words into the silence. "It's okay," he says as lightly as he can. "Bad news?" he asks, and instantly scolds himself for prying.
"Yeah, ain't got nothing but the blues." She pulls her hand away and pushes herself up the wall. "Nother week of this, Jesus help me." Standing she's Steve's height, maybe a bit taller, and now their faces are close enough for him to realize he's shut himself into a closet with a girl, how that might look if they're caught.
Ignoring his burning cheeks with long practice, Steve shifts around to press his good ear to the door. After a few moments of silence he opens it and ushers Ruby out, catching a glimpse of her sore red eyes before she looks down. "No problem," he says, because what's he supposed to say to his fellow auxiliary after finding her crying in a closet? He pats her elbow and she smiles and turns away, leaving him feeling useless as he watches her walk away, hoping he did some good.
A few hours later Ruby joins Mae, Cal, and Steve as they're finishing up their game of bridge, though she just sits beside them instead of taking a hand. They play to the drumbeat of Manny tossing his baseball at the ceiling as he lies on his bunk, and Mae and Steve pretty much let Cal win, since he's on shift tonight. They all laugh at Cal's little happy dance, and can't help echoing his smile as he checks his braided hair and flounces out of the room as if dandified for a night on the town. Mae heads across the room to lie down, but Ruby stays sitting beside Steve, and reaches to touch his hand.
"How are you?" he asks, not sure if he hopes she's come to thank him again or if he hopes she really hasn't.
She shrugs. "I'll keep. I came to ask, why're you so sweet?" Steve glances at her and she's looking down again. "You could've walked on by."
"You were crying," is all Steve can reply. Ruby looks up at him, her eyes still red, but when she smiles they shine. She gets up, and for the second time that day Steve watches her walk away.
After that Steve finds he's made a friend. He and Ruby talk sometimes, about particularly not-horrible men from their shifts, about their homes, about what little of London they've gotten to see. She tells him about her town in Georgia, its grassy paths and broad trees hung with Spanish moss, and smiles at his attempts to draw what she describes. He tells her about the tall buildings and crowded streets of Brooklyn, the shining skyscrapers of Manhattan, and her eyes go round as she listens.
In August she declares the dormitory stuffy and leaves the window open, letting the rain in, and he doesn't bother mentioning his soaked book to her. She finds him some days later mournfully placing it in the rubbish bin and exclaims over it with lively dismay; he smiles in relief to see her so animated, and she tells him she owes him one.
The next day Steve wakes up feeling choked, a stiffness in his chest. He coughs his way through getting ready for the evening, sits down on his bed and realizes the room's spinning around him, thinks swimmingly of asking for an asthma cigarette and lies down instead. By the time he's late for shift he's curled in a struggling ball, wrestling scraps of air down his rigid airways. Private Kelly comes in and Steve distantly hears him shouting, feels Kelly's hand shaking his shoulder far outside the all-important fight to breathe.
"He can't get up," Ruby cries somewhere above Steve's dizzy head. "He can't fuck no one if he can't get no air." Kelly's nearer but his voice is just a buzz in Steve's roaring ears. "Like a lady? I ain't been no lady since Uncle Sam whored me out. Those soldier boys need a fuck so bad, I'll do Steve's shift. Fuck fuck fuck. Said it and I'll do it." If Steve could do anything but wheeze he'd grin at her defiant voice. If he could breathe he'd thank her. He curls into his blankets and concentrates on getting some air.
When he can finally get up the next day, Steve drags himself out of bed and finds Ruby in hers, curled up tight around her pillow, dried tear-tracks flaking off her dark cheek. He sits beside her, leaning against the wall, and waits for her to wake up, so the first thing she sees is him smiling at her, so he can start her day by telling her, "Thank you."
She blinks at him, her eyes still red, but she also smiles back.
But later that day, after she misses lunch and supper, when Steve finds her she's still sitting on her bed, listlessly pulling a comb through handfuls of her fluffy hair, humming a tune he recognizes from somewhere he can't remember. " 'Gather with the saints at the river,' " she sings, her voice sonorous as deep running water, " 'That flows by the throne of God.' "
"Ruby," Steve asks cautiously. They'll be late soon, and he doubts Kelly will have any more mercy tonight.
"There's a river, right, Steve?" She puts down her comb, pushing her hair back from her face. "A river in London?"
"The Thames," he agrees, thinking of how he came this far and he still hasn't even seen it.
"That's what a boy said last night," she says, softly, dreamily, "there's a river." As she stands up she starts humming again. They make their shift, and Steve spends half of it staring at the poster before him, his breath huffing out in the tempo of each man who fucks him, worrying about Ruby singing about the river.
Ruby sings, and combs her hair, and grows more withdrawn. Steve draws her as a mermaid on a rock and she barely smiles at the picture, but he can see the effort even that takes her. Mae leaves, a couple of new girls arrive, Cal tries to convince Steve to wear lipstick, and Steve and Ruby chat when she's talking at all.
One day he finds her crying on her bed, and when he sits beside her she jerks away, when she looks up she's angry. "Do you know," she tells him, her normally sweet voice harsh, "I been called 'nigger' here more times than in my whole life before?" Steve can't say anything to that, as Ruby curls up tighter, gripping her pillow in both hands. He starts to get up and she reaches out, sobbing out, "sorry, sorry, Steve, sorry," and he tries to make soothing noises and sits with her till she subsides to quiet, till it's time for his shift.
Steve tacks up the mermaid drawing above Ruby's bed. When she sees it she makes a tiny noise and comes across the room to him, and when he turns to say something self-depriciating she wraps both arms around him and pulls him into a tight soft hug. Meanwhile, Catherine sees the drawing and squeals, "oh! Steve you artist! Draw me! Draw me as a princess!"
So he draws everyone, starting with Catherine as a princess and Cal as a smiling fairy, Manny as a baseball player and Pauline as a movie star, and that keeps him busy for awhile. One Friday as Steve sits by the window, working on Maria as a nun in the time before their shift, Ruby sits beside him and asks, "Steve, why you here when you can draw like that?"
Steve smiles ruefully. "The war effort already has all the artists they need, they said."
"How did you even end up here?" she asks. "What'd you do?"
"What did I do?" Steve finishes shading the shadowed side of the wimple. "I volunteered to serve my country."
Ruby laughs. Stung, Steve looks up at her, but any smart remark dies on his lips at the terrible look on her face. "You volunteered?" she echoes. "For this? A policeman drove up by me and asked me out, I said no and he arrested me for soliciting. I was a good girl, I only ever went with one boy and here I am now." Steve lays his pencil down before he drops it, and listens to Ruby as she stares at the sky, pulling her bathrobe tight with clenched fists. "Down at the sherriff's there was a man from the Army, said he'd keep me from a trial and clear my record if I signed up. So I did. Told my Mama I'd be helping nurses." Her laugh is harsh. "I wrote my Sheldon, though, told him the truth, let him go. What would he want with a girl done over by half the soldiers and sailors in Europe?"
"What anyone would want with a woman who bravely did her duty and more," Steve says, bursting out of him, "who endured and served faithfully till the war was won?" Ruby stares at him, tears rolling down her face. "He'd want a heroine of the war. Anyone would and know they were lucky. I'm sure your fella wants you back. Did he write you?"
Ruby shrugs. "Not yet." She looks down, away from Steve. "Mama did, says his Mama says she got no telegram, so he's not dead, maybe, I hope. I don't know." She shakes her head. "I can't. I just, I think of the river, how the song tells of it, washing away all sin."
Steve is increasingly convinced a river's the last thing Ruby needs. "You should come to Confession," is all he can offer. "Have the priest absolve you, he'll tell you you're clean."
She shakes her head. "Go back to my Mama a Catholic?" she asks, but she looks up as she says it, and she doesn't quite smile but the tightness fades from around her wet eyes.
"She'll be glad to have you back, True Church or not," Steve says, smiling as earnestly as he can, and now Ruby does smile, and wipe her eyes.
"What about yours?" she asks, which he should have expected, and it's his turn to look away, down at his half-done sketch of Maria in her pure-hearted faith. He thinks of Maria reminding him of the priest's words, that they're blameless as the soldiers who kill in war in the cause of good; he remembers that benediction, and imagining his Ma's agreement.
"When my Ma sees me again she'll scold me for dying," he says lightly, and Ruby sucks in a shocked breath. "It's okay. I'm okay. I'm sure she'll be proud of me as long as I do my best."
"She sure will," Ruby confirms, and squeezes Steve's hand.
Steve starts his evening's shift with high hopes and ends it by getting arrested for punching a corporal. When he's returned to the dormitory the next day, no one will look at him in his disgrace except Ruby, who stands up from her bed and walks over, lifts a hand and then carefully doesn't touch him, which he sadly appreciates. "You okay, honey?"
"I'm okay, Ruby," Steve mumbles, sore and rumpled and acutely conscious of his split lip, his bruised ribs, the angry dents Captain Wahlberg's fingers left in his arm.
"What's gonna happen?" she asks, and all Steve can do is shrug, almost too worn out to worry.
What happens is that Captain Wahlberg assigns him the punishment duty available. Night by night Steve staggers back to the dormitory after eight solid hours of servicing soldiers, his hands too raw to hold a pencil, his ass too sore to sit in a hard chair; he cleans himself up, slumps facedown on his bed, and barely manages to summon the energy to trade a tired smile with Ruby before taking refuge in dreamless sleep. He almost forgets to worry about anyone but himself until the morning he hears Ruby humming the hymn about the river, and looks over at her, wrapped in her bathrobe. It goes further around her now, she looks like she's lost weight. Her cheeks used to be full rather than hollow, the shadows have deepened under her eyes.
It's Tuesday, Steve's day off, a bright fall day. Ruby doesn't have it off this week, making up for the days she couldn't work. Steve sits up and makes a decision, dresses carefully after his examination, and goes to find someone who can chaperone him.
He winds up with Private Kelly, who looks him over in a way Steve doesn't want to recognize. "You owe me, Rogers," he says, and Steve sighs inside. "Taking time outta my busy schedule just to guard your virtue while you take a stroll."
Steve looks sidelong back at Kelly. "You're the soul of graciousness," is all he lets himself say, watches where he's going and finds the florist's he saw some weeks ago. There he picks out a little potted plant with spindly stems and one full pink rose two inches across, asks the kindly broad-faced lady at the till for clear directions on its care, writes "Ruby" on the pot with a grease pencil, and cradles it in his arms the whole way back to the pro station.
Kelly is kind enough to wait while Steve puts the pot and note on a chair and tugs that over beside Ruby's bed. Done arranging it just so, a little winded, Steve looks up, Kelly crooks a finger at him, and there's no one else in the dormitory.
Kelly steers him to the same closet where Steve found Ruby crying those few long months ago, Steve notes absently as he kneels between the brooms and sucks Kelly's dick. At least it tastes perfectly ordinary, since Steve can't see to examine it. Kelly groans over him and calls him a 'good girl' and Steve does not bite; after Kelly finally comes, while Steve is fastening his pants for him, he pets Steve's hair and says, "You ever want out after curfew, baby, anytime at all, you let me know. Cheap at twice the price, right?"
Steve swallows hard, trying to clear his sticky slick throat, and says, "You should put yourself down in my service log. Proper record keeping is important."
Kelly just laughs and opens the closet door.
On the other hand, when Steve next sees Ruby she's smiling wider than he's ever seen, setting the potted rose on the windowsill while all the girls off duty coo over it. Even Manny's set down his baseball to come take a look. " 'While the dew is still on the roses…' " she sings as she turns to Steve and takes his hands in hers. "Thank you," she tells him, her dark eyes shining, and he's never felt more like he's doing good than he does in this moment.
He needs that thought in the next week. The nights are busier than ever, not least with an influx of grim-faced soldiers straight from the front who leave the pro girls and boys bruised and sore. Each night Steve runs his hand over his aching scalp to check if his hair's still there after dozens of hands have yanked on it. But each morning he sees Ruby check on her little plant, brushing her fingers across the tiny leaves and one unfurling bud, watering it from a drinking glass, humming over it with sunlight on her face. She's gone quiet again but she smiles at Steve and she doesn't sing about the river anymore, and he'll take it as he lies on his face and waits for sleep.
The morning when Sergeant Van Winkle asks for a volunteer, Steve puts up his hand and holds it high as Van Winkle nods and scribbles his name down. He holds it up until he sees Ruby's eyes shift to him, and then his arm falls back down to his side.
The girls coo over him as he packs his few belongings, Manny shakes his hand and Cal kisses him on the forehead. Steve doesn't see Ruby, he worries he won't, until the crowd around him parts and she opens her arms and hugs him one more time. "Take care, Steve," she tells him. "You are a blessing."
Steve blushes hard. "Thank you, Ruby. You take care too. And of the rose, um, too. As well." He might try to fumble out a better goodbye but Private Ritchie clears his throat by the door and Steve looks over, ready to go find out his new mission.
[Twelve years later]
Steve Rogers is pissed as Hell. There's a country to protect, a world to guard, and SHIELD is worried about the bus boycotts? He spends the entire drive ranting about the waste of time and resources and how SHIELD should send some operatives to help the civil rights movement, Steve would be more than happy to go. Bucky just drives and smiles as Steve slashes the air with angry hands and complains bitterly about the stupidity of today's meeting, about dragging some perfectly nice people from their lives and work just to defend their fight for freedom to the government that should be helping them gain it.
Bucky just grins like a Cheshire cat and lets Steve keep at it until he collapses against the elevator wall to catch his breath. Then Bucky straightens Steve's tie with big capable hands and steals a kiss which Steve breathlessly gives, before the elevator doors open, they prop Steve back up on his feet, and they walk into their meeting.
Steve recognizes her hair first, a puff of little black curls pinned back with gleaming shell combs. He recognizes her smile next, though he only saw it so bright once, he steps forward as she leaps from her chair, throwing her arms wide. "Steve!" Ruby shouts, and Steve doesn't even waste breath, he just runs forward and hugs her with all his strength as she squeezes him as more strongly and softly than ever.
Soon enough, though, voices start to call, "Steve?" and "Honey?" and "Ruby, who's your friend?" and Steve has to pull his cheek off Ruby's shoulder, she has to unwind her arms from behind his back, but they can't quite let go of each other yet, they turn with arms around each other's waists to face everyone arranged along both sides of the long table.
"I served with her," Steve says at the same moment as Ruby's "This man saved my life." Steve stares in surprise, and she smiles at him and turns back to the room. "Sheldon, honey," she addresses a tall man with a shaven head and a bright smile, "This is Steve who I told you about." She glances at Steve, and he nods: he makes no secret of how he served in the war, how he met Bucky. "We were Prophylactic Auxiliaries together, and every single day of it I wanted to die." Now Steve blushes, to hear Ruby say plainly what he secretly worried about. "But this young man talked to me, he drew art of me, he bought me a flower in a pot. I had to take care of it, so I couldn't die, and it took me through the war, took me back to you." Sheldon's smile is blinding and Steve's face is burning, as Ruby lifts her chin and addresses the entire room. "And if this White man could be my friend, could help me when I needed it most, SHIELD can see fit to help us in our fight for justice, or at least stay out of our way."
At the head of the table, Peggy smiles wide. Beside her, Thompson, who insisted on this meeting in the first place, opens his stupid mouth and Peggy smoothly grabs his chin and squeezes it shut again. "I believe that's all we need to hear," she announces. "We'll be in touch about how best we can help. Meeting adjourned."
The entire room breaks into applause, and Ruby pulls Steve into another tight hug. Sheldon gets up, very tall, and wraps his arms around them both. "Thank you," he tells the top of Steve's head, and Steve just hangs on and nods into Ruby's shoulder. Most of the room's occupants file out past them, but Bucky pulls out chairs for Steve, Peggy, and himself, the two of them flanking Steve as he and Ruby finally let go of each other so they can sit. As Steve sits across from Ruby, Sheldon lays his hand on both of theirs. "Thank you, Mr. Rogers," Sheldon tells him again, and Steve shakes his head.
"No, no, call me Steve, and this is Bucky --"
"Barnes, of the Howling Commandoes," Peggy puts in, because she can, "and I'm Peggy, and I have never seen so much time saved so decisively."
"Thank Steve," Ruby says, squeezing Steve's hands. "Sheldon, tell him about the letters?"
"By the grace of God," Sheldon says, and Steve listens, smiling so wide his cheeks ache sweetly, "in the field hospital I got two letters from my girl the same day, a goodbye that almost killed me in my bed, and another note taking it all back, telling me about her friend and her potted plant and that she would see me again." They look at each other, raptly, joyfully, and Steve sets his other hand on Peggy's, leaning subtly against Bucky, too happy for words.
"Come visit us," Ruby says, and everyone looks at Steve. "Come see our two little girls, our lovely house, I've planted it all around in roses. Come down to Georgia when you can."
"Let me just get my sketchbook," Steve answers, because what else would he say, "and I'll be there."
