I Love You, Man

Explosions

I don't know why, but I really like writing terrible Steve...very, very bad Steve. Bad language words.

The sound of Steve heavily dropping his keys onto the living room table alerted you to his arrival long before he said anything, which wasn't normal for him. He would usually find too much humor in trying to sneak up on you with a kiss on your neck or a playful tickle of your ribs to make you jump and earn your vengeance, but today he had no playfulness, no greeting that carried a smile in his voice; just the unceremonious crash and scratch of a slide over metal.

"Honey? You're home early," you tried, keeping your tone as light as possible. "I thought you two would be out all day?"

"Yeah, that didn't pan out. Called it early."

You watched him drop onto the couch with as much lack of care to a landing as his keys had survived, his body looking smaller and exhausted, not unlike a return from one of his worst missions. He had been in battle, but not the kind to which he had grown accustomed; this was personal and devastating, and you had to get to the bottom of it before you lost his attention. "How'd it go?"

Nothing. Just a quiet groan and hands that covered his eyes in frustration. All it did was frustrate you along with him. "Steve? What's wrong?"

"Why didn't you tell me that you and Talia had an argument? I hear it was epic."

"What?" you asked. "Why would he bring that up? That was forever ago, between us and I'm over it."

"(Y/N), they split up about a month ago."

"Shut up, are you serious?! Because of that?!" you gasped, crossing the room quickly to join him, but his posture wasn't at all inviting as he sat straighter in response so you held back. "I called her out on being an idiot and delusional but he's never minded that about her before, obviously."

"It wasn't...well not...not exactly that," Steve stammered, trying to calm his nerves. "There's more to it than that."

"Steve, tell me what's going on. You look like you're going to puke all over the room."

"I'm trying to, (Y/N), I just don't know how...where to start. It's..." he paused, taking a deep breath that did nothing to calm him, "...okay. Do you remember when I started the support group after the snap? You suggested that Talia join in because she was struggling so much with Chris being gone."

"Yeah, of course I remember."

"Well, she really was a mess when she started with us, but she did the work and things started to get better. You two were going out more again, and she seemed like she could maybe be happy, or at least was on the way to it. She stopped going to group and only contacted me if she needed help through a rough patch."

"Alright, so you were nice to her and giving her extra attention so she took it as something more?"

"That's what your fight was about, right? That's what Chris said, anyway." You gave him a nod in tacit agreement, so he continued; or at least he tried to. His posture was so unusual for him and you couldn't place why. The man looked as if he had lost a foot in height and his color was off. Even the air that filled the room around you had grown colder. If you didn't know better you'd think he was getting sick. He would barely look at you, and when he did it was a glance that didn't actually meet your gaze at all. Something was very wrong. "Could you..." he coughed quietly to clear his nerves, "could you maybe...sit down?"

"No," you answered cautiously, "I think I'm gonna stand. You're acting really weird, and you look like a little kid confessing before finding out what your punishment will be." When his only reply was continued silence and staring at his hands while he wrung them, your body felt a weight suddenly begin to crush it. "What did you do, Steve?"