Broken Hearts Club

Chapter 25

Waking up to the smell of brewing coffee, Natasha put on her jacket and went to the kitchen only to find Wanda and Visz chatting with no signs of Steve.

"Good morning," she greeted and the couple did the same, "where's Steve?"

Wanda looked around as if she just noticed Steve was missing and made a questioning look at Visz who shrugged his shoulder, "In the shower?"

Natasha checked the shower to find it empty and went back to the kitchen to take her cup of coffee before taking her phone to call him.

The ring kept going on and on and on but he didn't pick up. She gets that he's a grown man, it'd be impossible for him to get kidnapped or lost. He can take care of himself, she knows. But she just gets this unsettling feeling in her stomach, can't help but think of things she knew wouldn't happen to Steve.

She tried again. This time, he answered.

"Hey," he said.

"Where are you?!" she can't help but sound a little mad.

"I- uh, I'm meeting a friend."

"Who?"

"You don't know her," he lied, hoping she can't hear the sound of his racing heart through the phone.

"Oh, it's a her?" she cringed on how she sounded accusing but she can't help it, "Why don't you bring your friend here and let's have breakfast together, Wanda's cooking."

"She ate breakfast already," he lied once again.

Natasha hummed in reply, "Get back soon, alright?"

###

Why was he agreeing to this? He knew this was bad idea, he felt terrible for lying to Nat. He didn't mean to, he just can't bring himself to tell her the truth. Truthfully, he's afraid Nat would feel hurt or betrayed – hurt and betrayed – if she knows the truth. He didn't want this, all he wants was for the both of them to move on. Peggy was his past, Steve was her past, she should've just get over it and move on. He should've rejected this and move on.

Steve felt the guilt clenching his heart when he saw the look on Peggy's face the other day. True, she left him for another country, but he's the one who has truly left. He knows how it felt like to be left, he understands how she felt because he's been through that phase with Sharon.

Steve just felt this might be the right thing to do, to pay for his mistakes. To at least make her forget the feeling of being left. He knows forgiving is the easy part, forgetting is just near impossible. He just hopes he could at least make her happy through this, not because he still loves her, only because he felt guilty.

"I can't stay for long," he told her as they sat on a café 10 minutes walk away from his apartment.

"I know," she said, sipping her cup of tea, "Dum dum called me last week," she started.

Dum Dum was his buddy during high school. He was that one guy who actually befriend Steve even when he was a scrawny boy. He moved away for university and they never actually talked again.

"Said, he was getting married-"she said and he gasped, he actually gasped. Sam didn't seem like the settling down type.

"- to Sally," she continued and Steve tried to contain his laughter. Failing miserably, he laughed hard, really hard he tipped his head backward, his right hand on his left chest as he continue to laugh, Peggy laughed along too.

"Sally? The one he used to call nerd, right? The one with crazy hair, glasses and braces?" He said between laughs.

"Yea, Sally June. She actually takes martial arts class since freshman year," she said.

"No shit, she does?!" He said, he can't believe it. He thought Sally would be the target for bullies, now he knows why the kids don't dare to call her names face-to-face.

"I told him he shouldn't have called her names, look at them now," he joked as he reminisced his high school days, "What about Sam? Did he contact you?"

"Oh yes, he did. He asked where you were but I didn't have your phone number at the time."

"Where is he now?"

"In the army," and he gasped again, he missed out so much on their friends life.

"He always seemed like an army guy," he said,"like that one time he pranked Tyler for smoking in the toilet."

"With that soldier voice," she continued.

"He went, 'This is Sergeant James assigned by Principal Coulson to train kids like you with discipline, if you don't stop smoking in that toilet, son, I will drag your ass out of the toilet myself understood?!'" He said, mimicking how Sam said it in such a military way.

"Tyler went around the school saying there's a secret soldier hiding around in the school to catch students who were problematic," she recalled.

"He sounded like a madman," Steve added.

"He deserved it," she said in agreement.

Just like that he was carried away in a long conversation on the memories of their times in high school. He felt like he needed to know how their friends were doing, especially since these days he didn't know how to contact them and didn't exactly had the time to and Peggy had the answer to his questions.

"Can we meet again?" Peggy asked as Steve realized he had 2 missed calls from Nat.

He was hesitant for a minute, but he noticed that this conversation didn't go anywhere beyond the line of friendship, so he thought, where's the harm? He hadn't had the time to talk to a friend lately, she seemed like a good friend to talk to.

"Sure, I'll text you," Steve said before leaving.

###

He is most of the time calm and composed; when he saw a man, his hair a dark shade of blond, ruffling Natasha's hair and pulled her in an embrace on the couch, he saw red. He left her for what, 2 hours and now there's a man at their apartment!

"What the hell," he mumbled under his breathe.

"What the hell is this?!" He announced, this time loudly, stomping towards the couch and both Natasha and the man looked back at him.

"Natasha, who's this?" His voice low and dangerous, tugging at her hands and bringing her to stand up next to him before standing in front of her as if in a protective stance, glaring at the man in front of him.

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Whoop! 2 updates in a week, how bow dah?

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