The Flame (Avengers Fanfiction)

Bonus: Cheating

Four Years Ago

I laid in bed, eyes wide open. I was in immense pain. I suddenly thought that maybe I should have waited at the hospital for the miscarriage to fully finish. I didn't want to be there anymore, so Steve had brought me home. Then he yelled at me and left. So now I was laying on our bed, on top of a towel. The bed was wet-I don't know who had cleaned the blood-or maybe it was even more blood.

I cried out in pain, holding onto my stomach. It shot through the numbness and I gripped the towel.

Steve should be here-someone should be here.

-

"Well maybe if you listened to me when I told you that you working and still doing missions was a bad idea, this wouldn't be happening." Steve tells me suddenly as he picks up the bloody towel from the bed. I had just walked out of the bathroom, a fresh pair of pajamas on me. I didn't know how to respond, so I didn't. Tears fill my eyes again. He just glances at me and carries the bloody towel out of the room.

I don't lay on the bed. Instead, I make my way to Benny's room. I carefully shut the door behind me and walk over to the rocking chair. I just needed to be alone and obviously Steve doesn't want me around him. So here I was going to stay until he leaves again.

-

"No, Rogers. Obviously you can't take care of her." I could hear my brother's hushed voice outside of the the little room I was sitting in. Tony was worried that I wasn't doing good and that I wasn't eating so he had insisted that I be taken for a psych evaluation at a psych ward. Steve wasn't at home and Tony didn't think I could watch and take care of Benny. Not when I was like this.

"Peyton, do you feel like you need to be here?" The doctor in front of me asks. I know Tony wants me to be here, wants me to get better.

"I just want to feel better. I-I am afraid that I won't be able to take of my son due to the-the-" I trail off, my voice very soft. The doctor nods as she jots down a few notes. I blink and a tear rolls down my cheek.

"Do you feel like you're going to hurt yourself?" She asks and I glance out the door window. I can hear her put down the pen. She calls out, "Peyton, do you feel like you're going to hurt yourself?"

"I-I don't know. I don't feel anything." I respond, the words feeling foreign on my tongue.

-

Two weeks had passed and I was waiting for someone to pick me up at the hospital I was in. Steve was supposed to get me, a nurse had informed me, he is probably just running late. I had just smiled and nodded, waiting for my husband. An hour went by. Then two. Two turned into five, five into eight. By that time, I told the nurses to contact Tony, since Steve obviously wasn't going to show up. My brother had arrived an hour later.

"He never fucking called to say that he wasn't available? Unbelievable." Tony grumbles in the car, driving me back to his house upstate. I just picked at the hospital bracelet around my wrist. Tony glances at me.

"I'm sorry, Pey. I'm so sorry."

-

Steve had started coming home later. He would silently open and shut the door. Every time he wound walk in, the scent of some perfume that smelled familiar would practically waft off of him. I didn't want to believe that all of the thoughts that filled my mind, so I would just lay there. He'd immediately go shower. Sometimes I would have to get up to soothe a crying Benny, feeding him, changing his diaper, soothe him back to sleep. When I'd come back, Steve wouldn't say a word to me. He wouldn't roll over, wouldn't wrap his arms around me anymore.