To All Those Brave and Lovely

To Actually Moving On

Things aren't back to normal, exactly, because she still can't walk up the stairs without needing to sit down and take a break, but they are getting better.

"I told you,"  Bucky says, because he's an asshole, but Nora knows that he's right. He was right about a lot of things, like the pills, and learning to lean on her friends when she's having a bad day or that doing things like sleeping in the closet was a type of behavior that just enables her bad thoughts.  "I told you things would get better."

"Yeah,"  Nora says, but better isn't back to normal.  Better isn't even good, if she were to judge it against how her life was before she got kidnapped, but it was something.  "But it needs some work."

She and Peter hang out all the time now.  That's one of the things she decided she needed to work on, patching things up with him, and he was happy to comply.  Peter was like one of those golden retriever puppies, always pleased to just tag along wherever you go, so long as they're included.

They have a conversation about their feelings like they were adults drawing up divorce papers or signing a lease on an apartment, sitting across the table with cups of tea in front of them.  It was like they thought if they were any closer together, they might not be able to handle it.  

"What you said, on those messages-,"  Nora starts, but Peter interrupted.

"You listened to those?"  He blurted out, and then closed his eyes like he was internally scolding himself.  "I thought you were deleting them."

"Yes, I listened.  I listened a lot, actually."  She glared at him then, because not only did she not want to talk about things like this, it also wasn't the point.  "But you said something about the things we told each other at prom.  How that didn't have to be a thing.  And I think that would be better."

"Oh."  He looked put out, like a puppy that had been sent out to stand in the rain and was now standing at the back door waiting for you to let it in.  That stung, a bit, to know that all she seems to be doing lately is hurting him, but she can't help it.  "I mean, yea, of course."

"That's not to say that I don't still feel that way about you, at least a little."  She was tripping out her words, but they still kept fumbling out of her, trying to figure out how to explain that she loved him so much and she knew that he liked her but that maybe that wasn't the best thing for either of them, right now.  About how if they give it time and space and still feel that way, then they could start it up then, without all this pain and uncertainty building a wall between them.  Because there would be a wall, and when it finally fell to pieces, so would they.  "Because I do, and I want to do this, but I think it would be best if we decided to wait."

"And then what?"  He had his arms crossed and wouldn't look at her, and more than anything she wanted him to understand that this was not a rejection.  "We revaluate?"

"Yes."  She latched onto that, relieved, even though she was pretty sure that he was mostly being sarcastic.  "A few weeks from now, we talk, we decide then.  Not now.  There's a bunch of things we have to worry about now, but dating isn't one of them."

"Okay." He gives her a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, but she also thinks that he looks a little relieved, too.  "We revaluate."

They're picking up how they started, taking trips around the city together.  Sometimes they ride the subway all afternoon, and sometimes they settle down into odd corners to the library and make fun of old poetry.  Sometimes they wander and do food challenges to see if they could eat five pound burgers or giant pizzas (Peter wins, Nora doesn't) and other times they go shopping for odd pieces of artwork.  But other times, when one of them gets dragged down by all the stuff in their head, they end up just sitting on opposite sides of the room, watching crappy day time television and trying to talk the other into eating.