Juliet
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I didn't respond to him, I didn't think I could, I just kept slowly wiping the blood away from his hand.
It wasn't a lot, it was just small specs, but it was a lot to him, too much. And I hated that it effected me the way it had.
"I can do this you know." He muttered.
"I know." I whispered back.
I couldn't look at him now, whatever nerve my body had worked up to make him follow me up the stairs, to start whatever it is I was currently doing, it had dissipated as quickly as it had come on.
But I was trapped, weighted in place with some unknown feeling inside that told me I had to help, that made me understand nobody else but myself had noticed what was happening.
I took an unsteady breath as I realised his right hand was clean, there was nothing more for me to wipe away.
I'd started and I had to finish.
I let his hand go, quickly rinsing the wash cloth in the sink, and turned back towards him.
He didn't move his left hand and I made no move to grab it, but when I finally looked at him, he was staring down at me still, the same confused and conflicted look as before.
"You can't-." He started, voice as raw as I was feeling inside.
"Just give me your hand." I sighed, holding my hand out for him to place his hand into.
I saw the reluctance in his eyes, the outright fear, and I knew where that fear stemmed, and it was rejection.
He thought I would recoil at the feel of that hand, cold metal in my hand, the same cold metal I'd felt wrapped around my throat, my arms, my waist, numerous times before, all the while struggling to get away from it.
He closed his eyes as he finally put his hand into mine.
I didn't recoil, I didn't flinch, I didn't react.
I just moved the wash cloth slowly and rhythmically over the hand as I had done his right.
Something inside me screamed, clawed at my bones and my blood to shrink back, to back away and defend myself, but I pushed it back, and reminded myself, as I had done downstairs, he was a good person, he had good inside of him. As violently as I had been rejecting that since I found out he was in New York, I couldn't keep that belief there, inside of me.
I was too tired and beaten down from everything else I was trying to forget, trying so hard to never think about, I didn't have enough energy left inside myself to keep this at bay, to keep thinking he was The Winter Solider still.
Not while logic was screaming at me, the evidence right in front of my face, I couldn't keep pretending I didn't know he had changed.
I gasped slightly at the realisation as it hit me.
I noticed his movements as he looked at me, questions swimming in his eyes.
"I'm sorry." I whispered. "For what I said in the gym yesterday, I know-." I gulped back tears. "I know there wasn't anything you could have done that day." The words felt like poison as I said them.
He looked more shocked than I felt, but he reigned it back quickly, nodding in acknowledgment.
"I'm sorry, for- for everything I did." He seemed like he meant it, but for some reason his apology sparked rage inside of me.
I wasn't sure why, I couldn't explain it to myself, but I pushed his hand back, throwing the wash cloth into the sink behind him.
"You had to ruin it." I spat as I backed away from him, smashing my elbow into his bathroom door in my rush to get away from him.
