Stay ➣Romanogers

Chapter 2: Happy

Nat can't stop thinking about his eyes.

Steve's eyes.

They're beautiful.

They are like the sky to her. Vast and depth less, so deeply blue. Open. She feels like she could have lost herself in them completely, like they were calling to her they were that powerful. It's been so long since she's let herself really see anyone else, at least anything beyond a cursory examination to mark the person as friendly or dangerous. That's what her life is like now. Friend or danger.

He's not either of those things. She doesn't know what he is. That frightens her but not quite as much as it intrigues her. And she can't stop thinking about that, not that or the shape of his face with his strong, commanding jawline and his plush lower lip and long eyelashes or the muscles beneath the shirt he was wearing or the perfect proportion of his broad shoulders to his tapered waist or the light layer of his beard with its golden highlights. She can't get her mind off it. It's not just his eyes that are beautiful. He's beautiful, although she's always been pretty good at reading people (well, she has to admit now that that's not entirely true. She's failed before, and she's failed big time). There's something... She doesn't want to say off about him because "off" implies wrong, and that's not fair. But there's definitely something more to him. The way he carries himself seems weird to her, like calm purpose and confidence and poise but it's all distorted. He limps. He hides it well, but she saw it. And there are scars on that perfect body. Again, they were pretty well covered, but she spotted them, hints of discolored and marred skin on his arms and shoulders under his shirt. On his thighs, peeking out from under his shorts. Damage he's clearly ashamed of. Damage all over him.

And damage in his eyes. They're beautiful but broken. She's realizing that more and more as she thinks about it, about them, about him. She's a good liar, a great actress. She's got a talent for it. He doesn't. It was all over his body language, a war between tension and desperation, between dread and over-eagerness. Like he wanted something but had no idea how to get it and ended up convincing himself it's for the best that it didn't come to fruition anyway. It's... flattering. And, again, kind of frightening. She has no cause to think that his behavior was because of her; for all she knows of him, which is the sum total of a minute or two during which she spent more time than she should have drinking in the sights, he's normally that awkward and stressed. She lets herself think it's because of her anyway. She does and permits herself a smug smile over it, lets herself indulge in daydreaming about him and his gorgeous eyes and perfect body just a little, because her new neighbor Steve Rogers is ridiculously hot and she hasn't felt anything like this in what seems like a lifetime.

It is, really. A whole lifetime ago.

Liho's watching her from the window by the dinette as she unpacks her dishes. The cat's basking in the evening light, squinting yellow eyes lazily but not without what Nat thinks is a touch of admonishment. "What?" she says, pausing halfway between the counter and the cupboard to glare. "You're bad. So bad." Liho blinks like she knows and doesn't care and can't be bothered to even keep her eyes open. "What were you thinking? Huh? You ought to know better."

They both ought to know better.

But Liho just closes her eyes all the way and stretches in her warm sunbeam. Nat shakes her head and goes back to unpacking. The plates could stand to be replaced. They're old, some of them chipped. Some of the glasses she's lined up on the counter don't match either, lonely members of different sets that have been forced together into a weird amalgamation. She thinks for a moment that maybe it'd be nice to go with Daisy like the other girl suggested earlier. Daisy was perpetually sunny, endlessly optimistic, and always trying to get Nat to do things like that. Buy new dishes. Get a new lamp. Find some different clothes. Nat never feels quite right doing it, like settling into her life as it is now to the point where buying new things is just too comfortable. Comfort isn't something she knows how to handle anymore.