Siberia | S. Rogers

twenty-two

.22 | Party's Over

Steve turned out to catch on more quickly than she had anticipated.

It was as if he were reading her thoughts as they flowed in tandem on the dance floor. They were lost in their own little world and soon the onlookers got swallowed up by the conversation that continued between them.

She soon forgot about everyone else in the room and time seemed to stop for only them.

He took gentle care with her.

She felt his hands slightly quiver near the beginning when they had first started,  but as they got moving his grip shifted to something more grounded and stable.

It had made two of them because Merida's knees had threatened to buckle the moment he first touched her, but she had swallowed back the odd sensations and kept a calm composure.

Merida secretly relished the time she spent on the dance floor with Steve.

There was a moment when she actually prayed that the music wouldn't stop and that this moment would forever last.

It was such a contrast from her time at the circus and with Killian. She knew she would probably have to stop comparing that part of her life to Steve and the Avengers' hospitality, but it was still too fresh and raw. She was still too entangled with the memory of the darkness that Killian had brought to her life.

And yet here with Steve, it was different.

The beast within purred in cozy contentment.

Here she felt light on her feet, a trembling in her veins that wasn't from fear but from the sheer amount of energy that magnetized her to Steve. She took a small sneaking glimpse of his aura; it was an array of swirling red and pink. The burning sensation in her cheeks that followed made her look down at their feet as they moved on the dancefloor.

She hadn't wanted him to see the crimson that stained her cheeks; she was still a little shy and unsure. It was all new to her and she was still jumping through hoops with her self-worth and the trauma that was still evident in the depths of her eyes.

Merida was about to comment on his ability to pick up quickly with dancing, but the lights in the banquet room dimmed slightly and the large flat screens that were stationed on all the walls no longer had the banquet information and rolling banner at the bottom.

Each screen morphed into a black and white fuzziness before a picture started to come through. She felt the breath knocked out of her as a ghastly face appeared right in front of the screen; their eyes were so close to the screen, the face not fully showing, but it didn't take Merida more than a second to recognize those crazed eyes.

Killian.

"Steve..." She breathed in pure horror as her body impulsively crumpled at the mere sight of her tormentor. Her insides flipped and her heart took off like a runaway train.