Thaw

5.3K 192 16
                                    

Steve hadn't had the guts to visit her again

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

Steve hadn't had the guts to visit her again. He shouldn't have gone to that hospital room in the first place, so why would he go back? She clearly had no idea who he was and it was best if it stayed that way for as long as possible. He knew she'd find out eventually when one of his (hopefully) successful missions would end up with his face plastered all over the news. 

The man out of time was afraid his presence would have a negative emotional effect on the girl, that just by being there long enough he would trigger a memory inside her to remind her of what had happened to her. According to her doctors, she couldn't remember those four days. Steve thought it was probably for the best. He'd seen enough people fucked up by their own traumas to know sometimes it was easier to just forget. 

He hadn't told any of the Avengers about going to see her and decided he wouldn't. He didn't need any of them to lecture him about it. 

Janie was still closely monitored by doctors and psychiatrists around the clock, even though she refused to speak to them about what (if anything) she recalled. She hadn't seen the familiar stranger since that night and almost a week later, she still couldn't shake the thought of him from her mind.

"You know that holding everything in isn't going to help you, right?" Dr. Johnson - her temporary psychiatrist - told her as he did his daily visit.

"No shit," Janie told him, "I just think people like you are full of what makes the grass grow green so I don't see the point in discussing things with you."

"And what would that be?" Johnson wondered.

"Horse shit." She crossed her arms and looked away, waiting until the man himself finally got up and left for the second time that day. 

She didn't want to talk to some stupid psychiatrist about her problems. She wanted to heal up and get the hell out of this place as quickly as possible. She didn't need to discuss her issues with a psychiatrist, much less one getting paid big bucks to force people to open up about shit they didn't want to talk about.

Just as she was beginning to think she'd seen the last of the blonde stranger, a knock on her door shook her thoughts from the television screen above her bed. For a split second, Janie thought Dr. Johnson was back for more mental torture.

"You have a visitor, Janie." Miranda, her nurse said. 

She liked Miranda. She was a small, stocky lady in her late 50s who wouldn't take shit from anyone. Her heart was in the right place.

Janie's breath hitched in her throat when that familiar blonde hair and those soft blue eyes came walking through the door, carrying another bundle of flowers under his right arm. He wore a thin jacket over his white t-shirt this time, but even through the extra layer of fabric, his muscles bulged, pulling the nylon taut over his arms. 

"You're back," Janie sighed, "and there are more flowers."

"Yes ma'am," Steve said awkwardly as he watched the door close behind him, "of course."

FROSTBITE | S. Rogers/B. Barnes (FINISHED)Where stories live. Discover now