Stay ➣Romanogers

Chapter 9 : Broken

The sound of her phone vibrating wakes Nat.  She jolts out of a dreamless, restless sleep, rolling over and nearly crushing Liho as she fumbles for the device on her bedside table.  Blearily she reads the time.  4:03 am.  And the caller ID.

Steve.

Worry immediately jolts her, and she snaps away from the last vestiges of sleep, sitting up and staring wide-eyed at her phone.  Why would he be calling now?  It’s the dead of night.  She listens a moment, the phone vibrating in her hands, and tries to hear if he’s okay, if he’s there through the shared wall.  If he had another nightmare or something.  He’s been quiet since they broke up, and she’s tried not to let that bother her.  She knows she hurt him.  She knows it, but she’s too scared to make it right.  Start by answering the phone.

She hesitates, though, haunted by the shadows of her bedroom and the fear that’s plagued her almost continually since Clint’s text a couple weeks ago.  On top of that, she’s utterly terrified of what Steve wants to say to her.  A few long seconds drag away, and the call goes to voicemail.

Closing her eyes, she drops her phone in her lap to bury her face in her hands.  You’re such a fucking coward.  She keeps telling herself she did what she did to keep Steve safe.  He needs to be safe, safe from her past, from the hell that’s chasing her.  And it’s not just that.  She’s not strong enough to deal with his issues on top of her own.  She keeps rationalizing it that way, twisting the situation around until she’s certain breaking up with him was the only choice.  The best choice.  For his own good.  But that’s a lie, and she knows it, and she’s still so frightened.  She’s frightened of how sick he is, of how much she wants him despite that, of what being with someone that broken means.  She’s terrified of what he would have thought if he got closer her and found out the truth.  He won’t now.  It was self-defense as well as protecting him.  No.  Selfish.  These last couple weeks since his birthday, she’s hated herself more and more for not being better than her fears and insecurities.  Maybe he’s calling her to finally tell her off.  She deserves it.  She deserves every bit of his hate.

But she’s not strong enough to face it.  So she shudders through her relief that she didn’t answer.  The disappointment is almost as strong.  She should have.  She should have the guts to own up to what she did to him.  Instead she’s been ignoring it, ignoring him, ignoring everything.  Going through the last few days with complete detachment, operating on goddamn autopilot.  And people have noticed because she can’t seem to manage her normal poise, not by a longshot.  They’ve asked.  Daisy and May and Peter.  She finally told Clint she broke up with Steve a couple days ago, and he was the only one who was happy about it.  “You need to be ready to run, and you can’t with be with a complication like that.  It’s better that it happens now."

Bullshit.

She’s barely holding back her tears when the phone jolts to life again in her lap.  Anxiety is like a knot in her abdomen.  It’s Steve again.  Calling to yell at her, to call her the terrible things she deserves to be called, to vent his anger and frustration that she threw him out like he meant nothing to her.  That’s why he’s calling.

Maybe, though…  She doesn’t hesitate this time – I owe him this – before swiping her thumb across the screen and raising the phone to her ear.  “Hello?”

“Natalie?”

She doesn’t recognize the voice, and suddenly all her trepidation and hesitation is gone, replaced by sharp, sharp fear.  “Who is this?”