A Love Like No Other

Chapter fifteen

Steve POV:

I woke up very early the next morning, at around 5 a.m.
I definitely hadn't gotten enough sleep and tried to fall asleep again, in vain.
I sighed, threw my legs off the bed and sat at the edge.
As soon as I got up and remembered the events of last night, a wave of feelings hit me.
First, it was joy : Natasha and I kissed and it was the best kiss ever.
Then, frustration because we didn't get the chance to talk about it.
The frustration was quickly followed by excitement as the possibility of finally being with the most amazing woman I knew occurred to me.
However, the last and probably strongest feeling I was going through was anxiety. I was anxious regarding the fact that I had to confess my feelings to Nat, not completely sure she would reciprocate them.
I was not only afraid of being rejected but also and mostly scared of loosing one of my closest friends, my partner, if it went wrong.

I slowly got up and started getting ready for a much needed training session.
Since we all went to bed pretty late, there was no way anyone would be up this early, not even Nat, which was exactly what I wanted : the possibility to be alone with my thoughts, punching all those feelings away.

After a good hour spent throwing punches at bunching bags, my head was finally clear of most of the things that had been dancing around it since I woke up.
However, no matter how hard I tried to get her out too, a certain redhead was stuck in there, making my apprehension at the idea of facing her grow worse every minute that passed.

After taking a long and relaxing shower, I headed down to the dining room.
Most people were already there, eating breakfast. I wasn't really hungry though, so I didn't bother sitting down to eat with the others and just greeted everyone. When my eyes, which hadn't stopped looking for the redhead since I arrived, never landed on her I realised that Nat was not there. I asked my teammates if they had seen her but none of them gave me a positive answer. It appeared no one had seen her since yesterday night.
I exchanged a few words with some of them before heading out to look for her.

After checking the training room, I made my way up to her room.

At every new lever passed by the elevator, I could feel my heartbeat strengthening and getting faster, my palms sweatier.

When the elevator's doors opened to our floor, I let out a huge sigh and slowly started walking towards her room.

I stayed in front of the door for like five minutes, fighting for my legs not to make me turn around.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and finally found the courage to knock on the white door.

A few seconds later, I saw the door handle move and the door slowly opened.

"Hey" I breathed out, my eyes immediately looking for her green ones.

"Hi" she quietly let out, almost in a whisper.

The tension between the two of us was palpable.

After about thirty seconds spent having some sort of a staring contest, she moved away from the door and I got in, closing the door behind me.

"So, Steve why are you here ?" Nat asked, standing a few steps away from me.
I could tell by her facial expression that she was well aware of the reason of my presence.

"You know exactly why I am here." I said, resisting the will to roll my eyes at her.

"No, I don't" she said quietly, avoiding my gaze.

Why was she pretending not to know ? Denying it would only make things worse.

"Natasha, we kissed." I started, making a short pause, before adding "We need to talk about it. Avoiding the elephant in the room is not gonna get us anywhere"

"We've kissed before."

"The kiss we shared during that mission was nothing compared to what happened yesterday. Stop acting like you think otherwise."

After a few seconds, I heard her sigh and she finally let her eyes meet mine.

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know. At least, listen to me ?" I asked her and she just nodded.

I took one step closer to her and started talking :
"First, let me just say that that kiss was... it was magical" I said, quickly looking at her lips. "It wasn't just a kiss for me Natasha. It meant a lot"

I stared at her face, looking for a sign. Something to give me the strength to keep going on with my confession and the small genuine smile that appeared on her face did the trick.

"I've been willing to tell you this for a while now but never found the courage to. The super soldier that I am would rather jump in the middle of a war rather than say what I'm about to tell you" I added, laughing nervously.
"Anyway. Last week's attack made me realise that there was no time to waste because tomorrow might never come and yesterday confirmed to me that I know what I want, what I've always wanted."
I stopped once again to look at her closely.
She was still smiling but she had watery eyes. Her face showed mixed emotions, the most obvious ones being both happiness and sadness at the same time. The latter concerned me a bit but it was too late to stop now. I had to finish. I had to tell her. It was now or never and I was certainly not going for the never.
I took in a deep breath and opened my mouth to let out the final few words of my declaration.
"I want you Natasha. I... I love you"

I don't know what kind of reaction I was expecting from her but turning around to make me face her back was not one of them.
I was confused and kinda disappointed.
I guess a part of me was hoping for another outcome, like for her to jump in my arms and kiss me, before telling me that she loved me too.

Then I saw her shoulders shaking slowly.
Was she crying ?

———
Hey hey hey !

As always, I hope you liked chapter :)
If you did, don't hesitate to vote and share your thoughts in the comments!

I haven't really said it before but I'm also opened to advice regarding my writing and presentation ( like paragraphs, the way I write the dialogues, vocabulary, Idk ).
And even what you'd like to see happen, so maybe I can try and add some of your ideas in the story here and there :)

See you in the comments!
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