These are the Hands of Fate - Steve Rogers x OC

Seven: I'd Go Back in Time and Change It But I Can't

May 5, 2020

Maggie didn't run late.

As a rule, the woman was typically, at least, five minutes ahead of her schedule at all times. It was a habit from her younger days; if she kept her appointments running smoothly like a well-oiled machine, then she didn't have to delve too deeply into the mess that her life had become.

It always seemed that Murphy's Law prevailed in her life; anything that could go wrong, would go wrong. The night before, she'd forgotten to tell Steve that she had an early meeting so when her alarm failed, he'd been none the wiser as she slept restlessly in the bed that he'd risen from earlier. In fact, he'd roused even before his own alarm when he heard her murmuring in her sleep.

In their months together, he'd quickly discovered that the diminutive brunette had a habit of talking in her sleep. A quirk that she was deeply embarrassed about, he'd found it endearing when he teased her the first time that he'd heard her muffled, sleepy voice speaking into the pillow that was pressed against her face, creasing lines into her soft skin as she laid there.

While her somnial utterances were usually only bits of sentences or random words, Steve had been unable to hide his sleep-addled confusion when he awoke to her addressing someone that wasn't in the room. In the blue twilight that peeked through her blinds, he'd seen her contorted face as she whispered into the quietness that had enveloped them.

Steve wasn't an insecure man; at least, he wasn't anymore, not since he was much younger. He prided himself on being steadfast and level-headed but when another man's name had fallen from his sleeping girlfriend's lips, he couldn't help but wonder if his relationship was somehow in jeopardy.

Watching from the barstool as she hurried around the kitchen, Steve's mouth was pressed into a tight line. His brow furrowed as he agonized over the name she'd said, again and again. He hated himself for having these intrusive thoughts; some other man's lips on her's, her murmuring the same sweet nothings that she spoke to him, to someone else instead.

As her lips landed on the corner of his mouth in a hasty goodbye kiss as she prepared to leave, he finally found the nerve to ask what had been bothering him since the sun began to rise in the morning sky. Catching her hand, his voice stayed even as he quietly asked, meeting her inquisitive eyes, "Are you cheating on me?"

"What!?" Maggie stood up straighter, hiking her bag higher over her shoulder as she looked at him with wide, incredulous eyes. It was as if she was unsure that she'd heard him correctly. She almost wanted to laugh at the outlandish question.

'Was this his idea of a joke?'

The pained look in his eye told her that it wasn't.

Hesitating, Steve took a deep breath and braced himself as he stepped off the edge of the diving board, asking the question that he'd quietly been dreading the answer to all morning, "Who's Nick?"

Her face fell and it suddenly felt as though she'd been struck as the air rushed from her lungs. Maggie's voice was just a breath of a whisper when she asked, needing to be absolutely certain that she'd heard him correctly, "What?"

She'd never said that name to Steve.

As it was, she was almost certain that she hadn't said that name aloud in the past eight years. As hard, and as unhealthy, as it had been, Maggie had tried to force herself to forget him. How had Steve known about Nick? The only person left in her life that once knew him was Poppy but it wasn't a topic her friend would approach in casual conversation.

"You were mumbling in your sleep last night."

'Shit.'

The lines beneath his clear blue eyes somehow looked deeper under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the kitchen, making his always handsome face look utterly exhausted as he continued cautiously, "You kept saying you were sorry."