"A Second American Hero... Well that's a coincidence. What happens now? You just gonna drop her at Rogers' doorstep?"
( steve rogers & oc - deborah murphy)
( post the avengers ➙ avengers: endgame )
*on hiatus
They looked at each other for too long a time to have any other conclusion. A sickening reminder of how they had once looked at one another too long to be just friends. A terrifying moment in time and space that they wished the gunfire and smoke in their minds wasn't the real and very threatening type from the Hydra forces at the other end of the forest.
"The Avengers. Did they think I wouldn't know what they're actually doing here?"
It was rhetorical, yet the answer screamed in Steve's ears. Amid the fire, behind the shield of trees, in between the gasps of fresh air, Debbie and Steve shared a moment more bare than they had ever experienced before; in that neither of them knew what to do next to make the other feel right.
For the first time in meeting one another, they were both left wondering which part of themselves they had actually let be seen by the only person they had attempted to get close to. It had all been deep conversations about the proverbial and flirting that neither of them were particularly good at, but they had persevered. Why? Because they did, in fact, love one another—on some gentle, fragile plane of existence that was the most precious, coveted thing that could shatter at any moment. They were too scared to grab at the shards for fear that when they began bleeding they would never stop.
Debbie did not look disappointed at the revelations, Steve deduced.
Steve did not look surprised, Debbie surmised.
Whether it was the sights of a home, the congregation of a party or the closeness of the time travellers, they knew something was going to happen that they didn't particularly want to happen.
They did not share a kiss.
They were sharing more than that. They shared the urge pulling at their shoulders to wrap each other close enough that, somehow, they would create a black hole in between them and slip away from the situation, from the organisation, from the world.
As long as Debbie had her questions unanswered, there was no way she could think to attempt anything of the sort.
They were learning about themselves, still.
That was why Debbie left, for the reason that was staring her in the face; she could not tell Steve that she loved him without admitting it to herself first.
