Burn With Me: A Captain America FanFic-Chap 34

Chapter 34

     Later that night I slid in to bed, still in my grey tank top and Slytherin pants. Steve and I’d had a nice night of watching movies and silently hanging out. I’d cooked dinner despite his adamant wishes that he do it instead. We’d compromised, with both of us agreeing that I’d cook tonight and he could cook tomorrow after he’d gotten better acquainted with the kitchen. It was kind of nice to just hang out with him, with minimal talking, minimal sexual tension, and absolutely no soul-baring moments. I could do without those moments. I was starting to grow as a person. Yuck. I’d once overheard Barton saying that you wanted to be a better person when you were around Steve. He was right.

     I felt like I owed it to Steve, and for the perhaps the first time in my life, to myself, to become a better person, one who wasn’t filled with self-loathing and completely skewed morals. I’d always be fucked up in some capacity, but I no longer wanted to be that person that hated themselves, or that kept everyone at arm’s length because they didn’t want to get hurt again. I wanted to let someone in. I wanted them to know the real me. The nerd, the book addict, the spitfire, the vulnerable woman, and the hard ass all deserved to have someone truly care about them again. I deserved to be cared for, and Steve had shown me that. Hell, he did care for me, despite my weird humor and mean streak. He’d seen pieces of me that I hid from everyone. That terrified the hell out of me, but it also felt nice. Especially since he hadn’t run away screaming and he seemed to legitimately care about me. And I, somewhat begrudgingly since I was still fighting my emotions, cared about him.

     I sighed at my thoughts of personal growth and potential romance, staring at the ceiling as I waited for sleep to come. I still couldn’t completely believe that I’d starting giving up so quickly when it came to being attracted to Steve, but it seemed like a necessary evil. Well, not evil, but at least a nuisance. Either way, I didn’t want to admit how I felt, but it needed to happen in order to keep us both safe.

     Ugh, here we went again on the merry-go-round of never ending bullshit. Why couldn’t I just let this go and stop thinking about it all the time? I was starting to feel like whatever he and I had between us was consuming me and changing me in to one of those annoying people who only lived for their relationships. I did not want to be one of those people. I had to put a stop to these ceaseless thoughts before they completely obliterated who I really was. I’d never gotten lost in a relationship before, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to start now. In silent resignation, I told myself that I would never go through this stupid, useless cycle again. I was done. Now it remained to be seen if I’d stay done.

     Darkness swiftly enveloped me after my self-scolding, and I soon found myself back in my apartment, sitting on black and red cushions with my legs propped in Steve’s lap. A book with a blurred title was in one hand while his other hand rested on my shins. Looking down, I found that I had a book of my own. I took in our bodies, how comfortable we both were simply sitting there in silence enjoying each other’s company. A thought zinged through my mind, spreading a glowing warmth through my body. This felt, it seemed, like domestic bliss, like we could and would do this for the next sixty years without getting bored of each other. My left hand slipped over the open pages of my book, and I saw that it was devoid of any rings, wedding, engagement, or otherwise.

     To my surprise, a flash of disappoint tightened my gut. We felt so right together that it seemed wrong to not be at least engaged. But then again, you didn’t need a ring or a marriage to prove how much you loved someone. Feeling better, I looked up to take in the delectable sight of Steve sitting on our couch, absent mindedly stroking my leg with his thumb.

     Steve suddenly looked up at me, catching my eye with a smile that made my heart pound. It was one of his boyish smiles, the ones that made him look as if he’d never seen a day of sorrow. He obviously had, but when he was with me, those days didn’t seem to matter as much. Ring or not, we were lucky to have each other, and we knew it.

     Closing my book around my finger, I leaned forward to press my lips against his, my hand sliding through the back of his soft hair. When I broke away, he smiled down at me, slightly confused but ever so happy.

     “I love you,” I said.

     Confusion flashed a bit brighter for a split second before vanishing completely under a loving grin that wrinkled the skin at the corner of his eyes.

     “I love you, too,” he said.

     He leaned forward, his eyes on my lips, and I reached to meet him. Suddenly, he stopped, his body stiffening as he glanced toward the apartment door. I turned just as the jamb splintered and exploded through the room. Shattered bits of wood rained down on my floor. Steve was on his feet before I could so much as blink, the warmth of his skin gone to leave my fingers feeling like ice. Or maybe they felt like ice because the animated corpse of Katie sauntered through the door, her head still a horrifying ruin of blood, dirt, and ripped flesh. Hatred and anger blazed in her dark, cloudy eyes, and the gun in her hand pointed itself right at Steve.

     Time slowed down, painful in how much of it I seemed to have to react, to hurl Steve out of the way. But really, I had none. I was helpless as I watched Katie’s finger tightened around the trigger, squeezing it until an explosion flashed at the end of the barrel. The bullet cut through the air, seemingly to creep across the oxygen atoms around it, and a scream bubbled in my throat. Panic grabbed a hold of my heart and blood pumped so hard through my veins that I could hear the dull roar of it in my ears. It was happening again. I’d allowed him in and now I was going to lose him just like I’d lost Katie. Everyone I got too close to died. This was why I kept people at arm’s length. It was all my fault. If I hadn’t let him in, if I hadn’t loved him, this wouldn’t be happening. He would have been safe!

     My lips parted as I turned my head, an agonizingly slow blink closing my eyes as I moved. I opened them just in time to watch the bullet part skin and ease his head back. The world sped up, moving normally again as his entire body jerked and fell limp. As he toppled to the floor, a fine red mist seasoning the air, the building scream burst from my throat.

     I catapulted upright, the cry from my nightmare transferring in to reality to bounce off of the walls and hit my ears with a stab of pain. A cold sweat covered my body. Hair stuck to my face with an annoying tickle. My wide eyes darted around the room as if they were making sure I was in reality. As an extra measure of reality testing, I flung myself back on my bed and slapped a hand against the headboard. My fingers stung, ensuring me that I was no longer dreaming, and a groan trembled my lips.

     “Seriously?” I muttered.

     I was already over these nightmares. Especially now that they were incorporating Steve in to them. Flashbacks from hell were one thing; giving me something I apparently wanted and then violently snatching it away was another. And that was another thing. Why did my subconscious deem it acceptable to put me with Steve and let me unconditionally love him, then realize my biggest fears by almost literally shoving them in my face? I was being a dick to myself at this point. If I didn’t fear a concussion, I’d go hit my head against the wall until I passed out, just so I didn’t have to deal with this nightmare bullshit anymore.

     The door swung open and I shot up again, my hand jerking from the headboard to instantly pull the gun from the holster I’d hung up. My thumb touched the safety just as I realized that the massive, shadowed body coming through the doorway was my very worried charge. Steve stopped moving the moment he realized a pistol was pointed at his head. A memory of the dream flitted through me, the image of Steve hitting the floor searing itself in to the backs of my eyes. It took everything I had to not throw the gun across the room. Instead, I dropped both it and my hand into my lap.

     “Sorry,” I said, my voice quite awake for someone who’d just woken up. Then again, I had woken up from a nightmare, so it wasn’t exactly surprising. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

     “I can tell,” Steve said.

     Now that he wasn’t at the business end of a nine millimeter, he seemed to think he was safe enough to sit on the right edge of the bed. Propping one leg on the mattress, he leaned forward to turn on the table lamp, blinding me for a half-second. I squinted at him through the harsh yellow light.

     “What happened?”

     I liked that he hadn’t asked if I was okay. People, including me, just loved to ask that when others were clearly going through some shit. But not Steve. He was smart. I rubbed a hand over my face to loosen the sticky strands of hair and sighed.

     “Another nightmare. Nothing special. Just your run of the mill bullshit. I’m fine,” I replied. I was also a massive fucking liar, but he really didn’t need to know that right now. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

     “I was already awake,” he said, brushing off my apology. “You don’t sound fine.”

     Dammit, I shouldn’t be lying to him, even if it did make me feel better to not have to share my feelings. Fuck feelings, man. Life would be so much easier without them.

     I winced to let him know just how hard this was for me and said, “I’m not, but I don’t want to talk about it. Why were you awake?”

     Steve gave me a small, appreciative smile. Good. He knew how difficult that had been. And clearly, I wasn’t fooling him with the subject change, even though anyone with a peanut for a brain wouldn’t be fooled after I’d said I didn’t want to talk about my personal horror movie. Knowing why I was deflecting the conversation, he graciously obliged me.

     “Nightmares,” he said almost apologetically.

     I immediately straightened. Worry laced through me at his admission. Suddenly, I had a new understanding of how he felt whenever I woke him up with my nightmares. It didn’t seem right that such a good person should have to go through that special hell. Shifting my body so I could sit closer to him, my legs crossed under the covers and I shifted the gun so it didn’t dig into my thigh.

     “Are you okay?” I asked. See? I just had to ask that stupid question.

     “I’m alright,” he replied. “They just make it difficult to sleep sometimes.”

     Seeing as it was him saying it, I took it to be the truth. The man was more honest than Abe Lincoln. If he lied, something was severely wrong with the world. However, something was wrong with the world anyway if one of the nicest men in human history had to deal with a non-stop stream of crap. It only solidified just how much the gods weren’t with us. Thor didn’t count.

     “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, a new softness coming to my voice.

     “I guess one of us has to talk about our nightmares, right?” he said with an almost inaudible sigh, one corner of his mouth pulling in to a smirk.

     “Not necessarily,” I mumbled. Quickly, I added, “But if you want to, I’m all ears.”

     “It’s okay,” he said. His hand lifted from where it rested on the bed as if he were going to touch me, but he thought better of it. For a moment, I ached for that reassuring touch, and I let the feeling seep in to my bones before releasing it to the universe. I was getting better at this acceptance thing. “Sometimes I dream about the war. I can see the faces of everyone I killed and of everyone I lost. What’s worse, sometimes I dream about not fighting anyone and I just feel…useless.”

     His blue eyes seemed to absorb the lamp light, becoming brighter despite the sorrow that swam in them. His gaze was so heavy that it made me uncomfortable to be under it and I fought to not squirm or look away. Instead, I rested a hand on his knee, mercifully making him look down. My reprieve was short lived as he flicked his eyes back up to me, appreciation seeming to make them glow. I pushed the thought that he was beautiful, as men could definitely be beautiful, from my mind and gave him a gentle, sympathetic look.

     “You will never be useless,” I said. “You’re amazing. And I know this is an old hat argument, but you can do whatever you want. You’re not just physically strong. You’re mentally strong and incredibly smart. A mind like yours can do anything. If I have to prove that to you every second we spend together, then I’ll do it, because you should never have to feel that way about yourself ever again.”

     This time it was my eyes that bore in to his. Something behind his eyes shifted and he looked at the floor before I could tell what he was thinking. I let him have his moment, knowing how hard it could be to let someone see how truly vulnerable you were, giving his arm a gentle squeeze before I let my hand fall in to my lap. We sat in silence for a few seconds, me waiting for him to say something while he studied the patterns in the wood.

     After what seemed like way too long of a time, he looked up at me and said, “You should take your own advice.”

     “Which part?”

     “That you shouldn’t feel the way you do,” he replied. Oh. “I know how you feel about Katie. I felt the same way about Bucky. You did everything you could to save her.”

     “Except kill those commie bastards before they killed her,” I frowned.

     “You were following orders. You didn’t know what they were going to do,” he said.

     “It doesn’t matter. I never should have agreed to trying to negotiate with them. You know, we tell the public we don’t negotiate with terrorists, but we do. We try to be diplomatic about it all, and in the end going along with that sugar-coated peace crap is what got Katie killed,” I said bitterly.

     “How do you know they wouldn’t have killed her immediately if you’d opened fire on them? Or started tearing them apart? You know it doesn’t take much strength or time to pull a trigger and, with the guns they had, they wouldn’t have had to aim to kill her,” he reasoned. “There was nothing you could have done.”

     I could have not joined S.H.I.E.L.D., but I didn’t say that out loud. In my soul, I knew that I would have always joined S.H.I.E.L.D., that I would have always wanted to do something so much bigger than myself. Even knowing that Katie might die, that Hydra had infested the agency, and that I would constantly put myself in danger, I would always sign that slip of paper agreeing to be an employee.

     I looked at my hands in my lap, watching them grasp and twist around each other over the shadow of a black pistol. That one, simple scene described who I was; a twisted, indecisive, emotionally susceptible  person that always veered toward violence and fighting. Flicking one nail over the other with a little snap of sound, I sighed.

“You’re right,” I said, unable to look him in the eye. “But it’s really difficult to let go. And since it’s in the same vein as all of this, I guess I should tell you about my dream.

 “Don’t feel obligated to-“

“Too late,” I all but scoffed. “I already feel obligated, and it’s okay. You shared your nightmare. The least I can do is share mine. Besides, you have to put up with my crazy ass, so you should know what’s going on in my head.”

     Managing a watered-down smile, I flicked my eyes up to him just long enough to see the worry and mild surprise etched in his features. I brought my gaze back down to my hands, suddenly finding the gentle curve of my nails to be incredibly interesting. Yeah, I didn’t want to look him in the eyes for this next part. It was just too weird.

     “I dreamed that Katie shot you in the head,” I said. “Yesterday wreaked havoc on my brain, apparently.”

     “You’re still worried that I might get hurt?” he asked.

     “Of course,” I replied with a shrug. “I’d be an idiot if I weren’t worried. But it’s more than that. I hate admitting it, but I do care about you, probably more than I’ve cared about anyone for a long time, and I don’t want you to get hurt. But my brain is a dick and likes to show me exactly what I don’t want to see.”

     “Or it’s showing you the worst-case scenario so you don’t have to worry so much,” he offered.

     “No, my brain knows how it works and it knows that I automatically take the worst-case scenario and obsess over it. In either case, it’s a special brand of torture.”

     A large hand entered my field of vision, wrapping around my fingers to still their incessant motion. My skin tingled where we touched and my brain turned to mush, narrowing its scope to only focus on pale skin and warmth. My eyes lifted as Steve spoke and my mind expanded to drink in the sensations that were Captain America.

     “I’m not going to get hurt,” he insisted, leaning forward a bit to give his point more power. “I’m not going to get shot or killed. I promise.”

     “You can’t pr-“

     “I promise,” he said more adamantly. His hand squeezed around mine, firm in its resolution. “I would never put either of us through that. You can stop torturing yourself, because I’m not going to die on you. Okay?”

     Feeling like a small child, I nodded my understanding with wide eyes. I blinked a couple of times to ruin my own image of three-year-old Dani sitting on the bed looking for comfort, and swallowed.

     “Thank you,” I said.

     A smile, soft and sincere, graced Steve’s face as he said, “You’re welcome. Thank you.”

     “Anytime.” I gave him a smile in return before grasping his hand in mine.

     He stood, not making even a hint of loosening his grip as he cupped my cheek with his free hand and bent himself down to kiss my forehead. He hesitated on his way back up, seemingly trying to decide if he would also kiss my lips. My hand tightened around his, anticipation singing through me with the possibility of it all. Apparently, he took the sudden stiffness as tension and discomfort rather than for what it was and straightened to his full height before releasing my hands. He gave me another smile as he headed for the door, and my heart sank a little as I realized I wanted him to stay.

     I was almost too busy beating myself up for being so needy to hear him say, “Get some sleep.”

     With that, he walked in to the hallway, closing the door behind him. I was alone again, in my quiet room without the weight of his body on the bed, and I felt the loss in my soul. The horrifying realization dawned on me that I didn’t just care about him. I was falling in love with him, and I was so screwed.