I Thought You Were Different: Part 6

Numb

Once the service had finished and the guests went home, it was time to put Tony to rest. You, Steve, and your three children joined Pepper, asking that everyone else make their way home so that this final moment could be kept as private as possible. Vision had made the kind offer to stay and guard a perimeter around the area to ensure that reporters and gawkers were kept clear, and from the looks of it as you arrived, he was doing a remarkable job. There was no one to be seen in any direction from where you stood.

The air held a chill, and the sky had begun to darken with a haze of dusk, as if the world around you knew just how tired you were; as if it knew that you were barely holding yourself up under your own strength. You had spent hours of the last few days in bed, keeping life away, and your body knew it. It was addicting to feel nothing, and every muscle in your body was begging you to take a hit just to be numb for a little bit longer.

Steve, in comparison, was struggling with a different problem; his muscles were filled with energy and ached for a release of the tension that had built up to the point of pain that stifled his movement like the arthritis he had felt when the serum began to fail. He wasn't worried that this what was happening again. He knew it was merely his anxiety, but he couldn't shake away the sensation in his shoulder where Tony's casket had rested as he carried him here. Steve worried that the feeling might never abate, but then as he considered it, he began to fear that it would.

He started to worry that he would forget.

"Hey," you whispered, breaking his concentration, "you okay?"

"Hmm? Oh...yeah, doll, I'm fine," he smiled weakly. As if he had somehow forgotten where he was and what his responsibilities were, he looked at you wide-eyed, almost apologetically for letting his mind wander away from you. "Are you? Anything you need me to do? Do you need to sit down? You look a little worn out."

"No, I can make it. Don't worry about me, Steve. We're all in this, remember?"

"I remember. But I'm not about to pretend that this isn't the hardest on you, and you shouldn't either. I can be strong for you, honey. Let me."

"What did you say?" you asked, shocked at his choice in wording.

"That I can be strong for you? Why?"

"That's what Dad said to me in his letter," you answered softly, your voice trembling from both nerves and the cold filling your lungs. "He said to let you be strong for me and that I can let go."

"He was right."

"Pfft, what did he know? You saw what happened when I did," you argued, "I destroyed our room in the ten minutes it took you to talk to Nick. I snapped and I barely remember what I did. No...I think it's best that I keep things to myself for now. I think it's safer for everyone."

Steve didn't feel like this was the place to argue about it, but he definitely wasn't about to let this go so easily. As he filed that memory away, he watched along with the other five of you as the cemetery workers finished packing down the final mounds of fresh earth, smoothing out the surface so that fresh grass could be planted in it the next morning. Each man then gave him a subtle salute as they walked away, leaving you all in silence and uncertainty as to how life was supposed to go on from here.

"I'm going into the city to take care of some things at HQ," Pepper announced quietly. "I think I'll probably stay down there for a few days before I come back to the compound to clear out some of my things."

"Pep, you don't have to move out," you insisted, "this is still your family. We want you to stay...unless you don't want to?"

"It's not that I don't want to. I don't know if I can, (Y/N)."