dear maria, count me in | 🖋
Steve + “you always push people away. i just thought you’d never do it to me”
A/n: This can be read as a prequel to this drabble if you're so inclined
Warning: mentions of somewhat graphic violence
killer
Steve finds you on the balcony of the room T’Challa always puts the gang up in on visits like this. You’re straddling one of the bars of the railing, legs dangling out over Birini Zana, your hands at your side. You’d been in the same position the last time he checked in on you three hours ago.
“I brought you some dinner,” he says, holding out the plate he brought.
You don’t say anything, don’t even move. Steve’s heart clenches painfully in his chest. He makes his way across the balcony to your side, carefully moving to sit at your side, the plate between you.
“I don’t really know what it is but it’s really good.”
You nod, so minute even Steve’s enhanced eyesight could miss it. You don’t move to face him or to take the food. Steve’s fingers twitch uselessly at his side. He runs a hand through his hair to hide it. His chest aches.
“C’mon, sweetheart. Talk to me.”
He watches the line of your neck bob, your red-rimmed eyes staring off, a thousand yards away from him. When you do finally say something, your voice is barely there.
“Do you still want me?”
Steve’s muscles tense at the question, almost a flinch. He sighs like Atlas.
“I love you,” he says.
You nod. Steve watches the tension build in the line of your back.
“Are you kicking me off the team?”
His eyes widen. “Christ, Y/n. Do you really think I’d abandon you after you went rogue for me?” He studies your profile and, finding you to be quite serious, he adds, “I still want you on my team.”
“Just not in your bed,” you say, like it’s a fact. “Not anymore.”
Steve’s jaw clicks. His hands curl into fists in his lap.
“What do you want me to say, Y/n? That watching you slice a man’s neck open today doesn’t change anything between us?”
His gut rolls at the memory, the victorious smile on your face, the dark blood staining your hands.
Your eyes flick over to his face, only for a moment. They’re back on the skyline before Steve can figure out what you saw there.
“He had a gun trained on you.”
“He-” Steve cuts himself off, realizing that his voice has gotten far too loud. He takes a steadying breath, training his focus back on what he came here for: you. “Please eat something?”
You don’t move again. Silence lingers.
“I told Natasha this would happen,” you sound like you’re talking about the weather. “She said I could learn but I knew I would never be like you, not when it counted.”
Steve’s voice goes hard. “Don’t do that. Don’t act like I’m too lily-livered to understand what needs to be done when it’s life or death, or that I’d ever judge you for it.”
Steve’s breathing is heavy. You turn your head slowly towards him, a brow aloft. There is nothing behind your eyes. “Are you not?”
Steve is suddenly filled with the uncharacteristic urge to throttle you. His hands tear through his hair, nostrils flaring.
“I am not judging you,” he lies. You don’t dignify that with a response. Steve huffs, shakes his head.
“You always do this, you always push people away, Y/n!” He pulls both hands up to run them through his long hair, huffing. You don’t move. Steve sighs like Atlas again, shaking his head.
“I just thought you’d never do it to me.”
He pushes himself up from the floor of the balcony, squeezing every emotion he has between his shoulder blades as he stalks over to the door. He’s almost back inside when he turns over his shoulder.
“Please, sweetheart, eat the food.”
You don’t move. He sighs again, stepping inside and pushing the glass door to the balcony shut.
You wait until you’re sure Steve’s out of earshot before you bring your palms up against your mouth to muffle the sobs that start to break through. You don’t wait long enough.
Steve sits on the other side of the bedroom door, using his super hearing to listen to the muffled sobs you’re trying so hard to hide from him. He buries his face in his hands and cries too.