i think im gonna try to squeeze in this chapter and another one to tie it all together, or if i have to, possibly a third one :)
———
I hadn't managed to get a single lick of sleep the night before. The moments with Wanda and the last words she said before I dashed out of her room ended any hope of getting some rest, as they were played on a loop.
I'm sorry... I'm sorry...
They weighed over me, my heart especially, bringing out emotions I had spent a good bit of time burying. Even when I'm the one who had caused these emotions to be evoked, one would think they wouldn't affect me, that these feelings wouldn't cause me to feel... I feel a lot. It isn't so, because those two words were enough to obliterate three and a half years of my life, three and a half years of running away, three and a half years of forgetting. Or attempting to.
I begin to wonder if coming back was a good idea anymore. As the days drag on, it becomes exceedingly clear to me who it was better for and who it wasn't.
———
The metallic taste of blood in my mouth is familiar. Hell, I welcome the sting behind it. Knocked down to the floor, my blurry vision somehow focuses on Steve's apologetic face lingering over me. Steve, my sparring partner, always looked smug when he kicked my ass in the ring, but today he knew I wasn't myself. My guard was down, which made it way to easy for Steve to chuck his hard elbow into my jaw. The reason of my distraction? A story Steve was telling my before each vicious blow landed on me: about Wanda and some new psychiatrist.
I could hear my heart shatter as he told me, in great detail, how devastated she was when she returned from Rome... she wouldn't talk to anyone— even Nat had a hard time getting a rise out of her— she wouldn't get out of her bed, not to train, not to eat, not to go on missions or anything. Nightmares were as loud and as constant as the rain in Rome. Steve said it felt like before all over again.
After months of work, it ended being Natasha who had convinced (more like dragged her, from what I had heard) Wanda to leave the tower and scheduled an appointment with the new psychiatrist: Charlotte.
At first, she would only go to the first sessions because Nat had practically threatened her to but, little by little, that wasn't necessary. Wanda started showing up for meals, engaging in small talk, smiling at jokes, got a haircut. Even if the nightmares came in rapid succession, her whole demeanor changed. When Wanda felt she was good enough and engaged in missions again, Charlotte assigned her to a fellow colleague as she thought their relationship had escalated farther than doctor/patient. That's when Steve knocked me off my feet.
"You said they weren't together." I spit some blood up on the mat, ignoring his extended hand and returning to the starting position after wiping the sweat from my forehead.
He stares at me with his signature 'I'm over your bullshit' face, rolling his eyes, taking an about face to exit the ring. He began walking as I yelled after him, "Hey! Where the fuck are you going, Rogers? I'm not done with you." I threw my arms up in exasperation.
"Yeah, but I'm done with you, bud. You know how much I enjoy winning as much as the next person, but not like this. You're being too reckless." Steve eyed me over his shoulder as he passed the boxes for box jumps and sits on one of them. "Now, don't be a bitch and sit there like the Victoria's Secret look-a-like you are if you wanna keep talking." His hand patted a spot next to him and eventually, over my groveling did I stomp my way and take the offer.
"So?" There. My displeasure was out in the open.
"They're not... together, together," he uses a calm voice to answer, grabbing one of the bottles I left at the spot and keeping the other for himself. I kept mine secure in my hand as I watched his large gulps. "But they've been attached at the hip ever since," he continues, resting the bottle between his legs. "I think she's become a support system of some kind for her. She even grew closer to all of us, even going as far asking for a relocation to SHIELD to keep hanging out and avoid professional problems if she had to treat one of us."
