Avengers Imagines

With Him - Steve Rogers

Warning: not all endings are happy endings.

He just sat there. He sat on that bench talking to Sam acting like nothing was wrong. Like he didn't leave everyone. Like he wasn't hurting me.

He was no longer the same, he was older. He was wrinkled and grey, but I knew it was him the moment I saw him sitting there. None of us moved. We stood there staring at his back. Sam eventually gained the courage and stepped forward.

"Cap?"

His voice came out softer and more fragile then I had ever heard him, "Hi Sam."

He shifted in his seat, no longer looking at the lake in front of him. As soon as he turned, his smirk was visible to all of us. Even though he was older, it was clearly the face of the man I fell in love with all those years ago. The man who held me in his arms each and every night, whispering in my ear. The man who kissed me with so much passion. The man who said he loved me. 

I stood there for what seemed like hours, but was really only a few minutes. I watched as Sam picked up the shield. I watched as they shook hands, Steve placing his left hand on top of their conjoined ones.

A small gold light reflected off their conjoined hands. realizing what that light was, I felt my heart shatter. The light had reflected off a simple gold ring wrapped around his forth finger. 

He left me. He chose her after promising he would be with me no matter what. 

"You wanna tell me about her?"

He let go of Sam's hand and turned back to the lake, "no. No I don't think I will."

I hadn't noticed that I was crying or that my legs had given out until I was clinging to Bucky's tear stained jacket with his arms holding me up. 

I clung onto him, desperately trying to stay silent. Steve didn't know I was there. He didn't see me, and I wanted to keep it that way. I didn't want him to see how much he hurt me. I knew how happy he was and I didn't want to get in his way.

He had lived the life he always wanted, with the girl he could never get over. Nothing I could do would ever change that. But in that moment my world fell apart. Everything we had gone through over the last ten years together amounted to nothing. Every conversation we shared, every night spend cuddling until we fell asleep, every date, every kiss, every time we made love... it all meant nothing to him. 

The man I had devoted my life to didn't want me anymore. 

With that realization, I wiped my tear stained face and pulled myself from Bucky's grasp. Standing up, I took one more look at the man who I thought would be with me, and left. 

For the next few weeks, I cried. Every night I cried in the bed Steve and I once shared. I cried over my dead best friend, I cried over my dead father figure, and I cried over the man who said he loved me. 

Then I started drinking and partying. Every night I would go out and get myself plastered, only to bring home whoever would sleep with me. I numbed the pain as much as I could. Bucky and Sam tried to stop me. They tried to help me through the pain, tried to talk to me about him, to talk to him, but I wouldn't have it. I shut them up in every way possible. 

After a year I had calmed down. I wasn't happy, and I sure as hell wasn't over him, but I wasn't destroying myself as often. I moved out of the tower, getting a small apartment in New York. The few remaining Avengers visited me occasionally, but I no longer worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. I got a simpler job working in a library. It wasn't glamorous, but it payed the bills and kept me busy. 

I stayed there for another year, enjoying the simple life as much as I could. Every once and a while I would slip back into my bad habits. Sometimes it lasted as much as a month, sometimes only a few hours. Sometimes they would be so bad that I couldn't get out of bed. I would just lay there and cry until I passed out.