fsb | DUPLICITY

❰ steve is taking a half day from work. he's in too terrible a mood to be anybody's husband, and he doesn't want to be there on a good day anyway, so he just... needs to be home. he also doesn't want to hear about whatever two years he missed over text in the pecs employee bathroom, so yeah. half day.

he arrives at the apartment and immediately makes for the kitchen, following the scent of coffee and the quiet sounds of natasha pouring two cups. ❱

I'd tell you how I take it, but...

❰ as if natasha doesn't know exactly how steve takes his coffee... and whatever else he takes, probably, she's observant like that. ❱

[ she offers him a half-smile in response. black, two sugars. he's always liked it simple — in fact, the sugar, she knows, is a luxury of the modern age in his view. he didn't fuss much with that back when he was growing up in brooklyn, certainly not on the front. sugar cost money they couldn't always spare, he'd told her.

before she hands his mug to him, however —

natasha approaches on soft feet and wraps even softer arms around his broad ribs and shoulders. ]

❰ it takes a moment for steve to respond to the embrace — he and natasha don't really do that, her entrance to duplicity notwithstanding. up until recently they weren't all that close — it was only in sam's house, watching natasha dry her hair and reconsider her entire life since defecting, that steve finally found the person buried underneath the various skins natasha wore. he likes that person, he thinks, the hug isn't unwelcome. just unexpected.

eventually, one of his arms comes up to wrap around natasha's waist, hugging her back. ❱

That bad, huh?

❰ his performance on the network, how he looks right now, whatever she wants to fill in that implied blank. ❱

[ she steps back out of their warm little circle only to press the mug into his hands, a wry tilt to her head. ]

You've always been... zealous. Something about this place has you dialing it up a couple notches too far.

[ natasha gravitates back toward the kitchen table, not sitting quite yet. she leans her hip against one edge, bending her nose toward the freshly poured coffee in her grip, taking in the scent and the familiarity offered there, the warmth. any little semblance of normalcy to cling to. ]

"Something?"

❰ try everything. steve accepts the mug easily, gratefully holding it to his lips and taking a sip. it's still hot, burns his tongue on the way down, but the pain is barely an itch before it's gone, tastebuds reforming good as new. it hits steve, suddenly, that there is no cell in his body, anymore, that hasn't remade itself. he is not who he was, down to a cellular level. there's something sad about that, he thinks, and stares into his mug like it holds answers for him. ❱

Bucky liked it here. He didn't say, but I knew he did. He felt safe. And now...

❰ now that's been ruined. the only thing this place had going for it was ruined, and steve wants out. ❱

I know that hurts for you. To see him suffer.

[ her mug goes down on the table with a soft, decisive clink. ]

But you have to think bigger than trying to stand between him and every threat, now. We don't have fire exits, here.

[ she folds her arms over her chest, pins him with a hard stare. listen to her, steve. ]

We need to act like we're in this for the long haul. For all we know, we might be.
There are some bridges you can't afford to burn for him, or for yourself.

Mmm.

❰ it's not that steve isn't listening. he hears natasha loud and clear. it's just that he's so fucking tired of tiptoeing around the bullshit of this place, of packing everything he feels into a box and shoving it into a corner because if he doesn't there will be trouble. he doesn't want to hear from somebody else all the restraint he needs to show, the injustices he needs to let slide. he's sick of letting things slide.

so he changes the subject. ❱

You were going to tell me about what I missed?

Edited 2019-01-11 13:57 (UTC)

[ mmm, indeed. she'll table it for now, but he won't be able to keep this pattern up for much longer. not if he doesn't want to create a bigger knot to untangle for himself, for bucky, for all of them later. she knows he'll come around... he just needs time.

speaking of — time, and how easily it slips through your fingers. how it plays tricks on you, when you're not there to hold it. ]

Where do you want to start?

❰ this is why natasha is his favourite. ❱

Last I remember from DC, I was falling into the Potomac. I passed out underwater and woke up here.

❰ what happened after that? what happened to bucky? he'd dropped the shield, did he get it back? how was the world dealing with finding out that shield was hydra all along? ❱

DUPLICITY — inbox.

»»» action; whatever day hank's post goes up, time is an illusion

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject