ONLY YOU » STEVE ROGERS [EDITING]

30 /| room to fail

thirty

*•.*

a few days later

"IT WAS A MISTAKE," Geneva murmured, closing the door to Steve's room, resting her back against it.

"It was my mistake," he said, putting his head in his hands, the bed sinking where he sat. "It was so obviously a bomb vest that there was no way it should've slipped my notice."

Geneva blinked. "Don't do that."

"Don't do that." He repeated her words, but they almost sounded like a question when she heard them spill from his lips. "People died. I think I'm within my rights to blame myself because we should've been more careful. You were right, we should've clocked him before he even got in the city."

Geneva rubbed at her forehead. "I don't care about being right about things I can't change. I'm just tired of witnessing the same mistakes over and over again. I'm tired of us making the same mistakes." Especially when these mistakes affected people outside herself.  She wasn't sure she could do it anymore.

"What do you want me to say, Geneva?"

What did she want him to say?

"You can say whatever you want, Steve, just not that it's your mistake," she said with exasperation. "I need you to stop with the lone soldier act—trying to shoulder all the blame when things go wrong."

He breathed deeply. "I hardly know any other way." Steve looked at her head on. "The bomb vest—he had it for me," he muttered. His eyes were red, but she could see no tears against his cheeks. "If I had just taken a second—"

"Don't do that."

They studied each other for a second.

"People died," he said again, rage and sadness still swimming in his blue orbs. "And they're gonna want justice."

"Well, they deserve justice," she murmured.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a second and ran his hand through his short hair. "At least we can agree on that."

After seeing the damage they caused and visiting the various memorials of incidents they were involved in, including the Sokovian memorial, Geneva's faith in the job lessened and lessened. In that moment, it was nearly nonexistent.

The bout of silence lasted a few more minutes, and she moved to take a seat next to him, her shoulder touching his from where she sat. Her will to argue had deflated. "On the jet, you said Rumlow mentioned Bucky?"

"He remembered me," Steve said quietly. "And I knew he did but hearing it—" He stopped abruptly, taking a shaky breath. There was a long pause before he spoke again. "They tortured him because of it."

"I'm sorry."

He leaned on her then, throwing his head back, eyes locked on the ceiling. "You shouldn't be."

"And yet..." she trailed off. She couldn't help but to be sorry.

He shook his head, leaning away. "I need—I need to think."

She understood that as him needing time alone. Geneva stared at the neat stack of vinyls on his dresser and was certain she knew which was on top. She didn't check, though, leaving quickly after he kissed her cheek.

She welcomed the silence as she walked through the compound. By the time she got to her room—the room she hardly ever slept in—she knew that by the end of the year, she was leaving this job, with or without Steve Rogers.