Ready Set Breathe (A Steve Rogers Destruction Story)

22 Truth

Here’s a fun fact: it’s impossible to un-love someone. Not in an instant. Not in a day. Sometimes, not for two whole years.

By extension, it’s impossible undo the domino effect it starts in you, that selfless love for someone else. Sharon was realizing this by degrees and she wasn’t happy with it. She did not like caring for Steve Rogers, for feeling the hurt in her heart when he looked at her with pleading eyes and said, I’m sorry.

And what else was she supposed to do? She wanted to find someone who had more to offer her than apologies. She owed it to herself.

But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. It sat in her mind and refused to budge, just kept playing before her eyes over and over and over. But she had come to a conclusion, even before she walked out of his door. It was simple. Steve didn’t love her and she wasn’t good enough for him.

There it was. The bare, honest truth. The truth that she’d never wanted to face before. Sharon did not live up to the calibre of a man like Steve, she wasn’t on his level of solid goodness and humanity. And it hurt, that knowledge, for maybe an hour, before she decided that she was going to do something about it because Sharon Carter was many things and a moper was not one of them. Steve deserved someone like him, someone who was honest and good and, quite frankly, inspiring, and if she wasn’t that good, then she would be.

And in the end, she decided, it wouldn’t matter whether Steve accepted her or not because regardless, she wanted to be someone Steve would be proud of. She wanted to be that kind of person because with or without Steve’s love, that kind of person was worth being and she was doing this for herself.