You & I

Chapter 3

He could hear the rapid beating of his heart, thrumming in his ears. His eyes widened in shock and disbelief as he behold the person standing in front of him. This could be a dream, this has been his dream, but he could tell this is reality from how hard his heart is beating and how hard his lungs are breathing.

She isn't an illusion. She's here.

"Hey," she said casually, as if they had seen each other during the days of the course of the last 2 years. As if it's alright to just show up in the middle of the night in his quarters. Her tone smooth as always, as if she was all fine and right, as if she had not been dead.

His heart clenched with a pang, at the same time beating hard knowing that she's here, alive. At that very moment, Steve never been so conflicted whether or not to hit a person, he's pretty sure she can tell he's pissed. With his mouth gaped open and his brows furrowed and his body tense, his whole body is all in offense mode.

"Two damn years and all you say is 'hey?'" Steve fumed, his voice low and shaky.

"You do remember emotions isn't my forte, right?" She said, stepping into the light and his heart raced at the familiar sight. The emerald green orbs, that smirk that lingered on the corner of her mouth, except her hair wasn't red. It was blonde, like his.

This time he didn't hesitate, he lunged himself forward and throw his arm across her face in a punch strong enough to take down a guy, not expecting to take a blow she was completely defenseless as she fell unconscious to the floor. She'll survive though, that's for sure.

--

Why does everything needs to be complicated? When he's finally trying to move on, to finally establish a relationship with Sharon after a year of grieving his loss, she suddenly appeared, from the dead. He knows everything sounds crazy, but when you're a man in a star spangled tights and spandex fighting aliens for a living, everything is crazy.

But then it's not that crazy when he come to think of it because she never was dead, was she? She's been alive the last 2 years and she didn't even bother to speak to him, to reach out to him, to tell him that she's there for him. Yet, she let him grieve and mourn year long. He wonders if she's watched him through all his pain and perhaps just laugh at him. He feels pathetic at the thought, he felt like he's being fooled.

Did he even mean something to her in the first place? He wonder.

Did she look at him the same way he looks at her? He thought.

Did she love him like he thought she did? He desperately need to know.

He knows that if she does, she'd show up earlier. She wouldn't have left him thinking that he's lost her forever.

"Well.. I deserved that," she groaned as she rubbed her cheek where his fist had been, slowly sitting up on his bed where he put her. He didn't want the others to have a heart attack seeing their long gone friend on the ground and finding out he's the one putting her there.

"I was there, I saw you. Your heart stopped," he  said, his voice firm with his back facing her.

"Tetrodetoxin B. Slows heart rate to one beat per minute, Bruce used it to stop him from hulking out-" she explained and he turned his body quickly to face her.

"Bruce knew? All this time?" He said, his voice rough and demanding, not the gentle Steve she used to know.

She kept quiet and he shook his head and buried his palms in his eyes.

"Who else?"

"Fury, Hill, Coulson."

Turns out Fury knows, this mission of 'confirming Natasha's appearance' is a total bluff and so he figured Fury is implicitly trying to command him on a different mission. She is here, alive, Fury knows. Why send Steve on a mission to find an alleged appearance of Natasha Romanoff when he knows she's alive?

He looked up at her and shook his head, his eyes stared at her intently as he said, "Did I ever mean something to you, Romanoff?" She inwardly cringed at the use of her last name.

She stayed silent.

"I spent the last two years grieving, thinking that the person I loved so much, died," he said, " Did you love me before? Was there a slightest thing of a feeling for me?"

She looked away from his eyes, afraid that she'll drown in it once more.

"Tell me, Natasha," he demanded.

She nodded to a picture frame on his bedside desk, a picture of him and Sharon at one of Tony's many extravagant galas, grinning widely for the camera, "You have someone else now, it doesn't matter."

He got up and tossed the frame inside a drawer beneath it, "It does matter, Natasha!"

She stared back at him, her eyes challenging his, "What we had was a temporary fling. Nothing more."

And there goes a knife on his heart, stabbing him in the worst ways possible.

Trying to get his breathing right, he sucked in a deep breath and let it all out again. His eyes fell to the floor from where he was staring at hers, "Then why are you here?" he managed to pull a string of sentence, although his chest felt heavy like a load of weights were on top of it and his fingers tremble in disappointment and devastation her words brought to him.

"I need your help," she said and he laughed. His hand went to his hair and he laughed once more.

"Is that all I am to you? The person you could always ask help from?" his words are shaky, like he forced them all out.

"Look, Steve. I'm sorry I didn't show up, I'm sorry I made you hurt. I did what I had to keep you away from another of my mess," he snorted,"Steve, I need your help in this one. I can't survive this one alone. One last request from me. After all this is done, you can hate me all you want and you can continue whatever you have with Sharon."

"Please," she said after he was silent for more than what seemed like a minute.

He nodded with a sigh.

"Suit up, we leave as soon as you're ready," she said as she stood up and walked away. Her body stiffened on the spot when he felt his hands on her arm, and a second later he pulled her close into a hug. Burying his face into her now blonde hair, for a second relieved that he finally gets to have this moment he waited for so long. She was passive to his action, with her hands kept stiffly on her sides.

"I missed you," he said quickly before vigorously pulling away to suit up.

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Ey, how was that? I hoped you guys liked it! Don't forget to vote and comment, I love reading your comments!

And also the person who had a story uncannily similar to mine, which I mentioned in an author's note, still has not reach out to me regarding the matter and I am (still) very pissed. I think some of you might've read this said story and I hope whoever the author of that said story reach out to me soon :)

Anyways, enjoy!

much love. xx