A Love Like No Other

Chapter seventeen

Natasha POV:

Two weeks had passed and Steve was still barely talking to me.
I only got greetings and a few words here and there when needed.

He stopped spending more than ten minutes in the same room as me when he didn't have to.
Our missions became more and more awkward. The lack of communication even almost got us killed by a bomb. We had never been so out of sync.

I tried my best to give him the time and space he asked for but it was so hard. I quickly started missing him, missing sharing pancakes for breakfast, training together early in the morning and our little banters.

But it actually got worst a few days later, on a friday afternoon, when I ran into him in a coffee shop.
I saw him sitting at a table in the back of the shop but what really caught my attention was the fact that he wasn't alone.
He was talking to a rather tall brunette, wearing a red jacket. Her back was facing me so I couldn't see her face at first.

However, what I did see was her hand resting on Steve's forearm.
I tried convincing myself that it meant nothing. Tried and failed.

But then they got up from their seats and she took him in a hug. I could see the movements of her arms, rubbing his back and all I could think of was how much I wished I hadn't stopped for coffee.

Soon after, Steve started looking around the shop and his eyes ended up meeting mine.
No head movement, no facial expression, no wave. We did nothing to acknowledge each other's presence, beside starring at each other.

I guess the woman with him eventually noticed his shift of attention because she then turned around and following Steve's gaze, ended up looking at me too.

I broke the eye contact with Steve to look at her and a part of me started wishing I didn't do that either because if I didn't look at her, I wouldn't have seen how attractive she actually was. I wouldn't have realised that she probably was not just one of Steve's friends because I had never seen her before.

Those thoughts and the images of the hug they shared made me feel that pain in my chest again. The same throbbing pain that coursed trough my body three weeks ago. It felt like someone was pushing a stick in my opened wound. It hurt. Seeing him with her hurt, a lot. So I ran.

I turned around, completely forgetting about the coffee I had just ordered and rushed to the doors.

I was pretty sure I heard Steve call after me but I didn't care. I just wanted to get as far away as possible from that place.

When I got to the tower, I headed straight for my room and that's were I spent the rest of the day.

The next three days, Steve and I didn't see each other at all, which was exactly what I wanted since I started avoiding him too.

I didn't want to see him because I knew that if I did, I would snap at him and I couldn't let that happen. Why? Because even if every cell in my body was mad at him after seeing him with someone else, I actually had no right to be. I rejected him. I lied about my feelings.

Yes, I did it because I wanted him to have someone better than me in his life, but I was still responsible for him not knowing that I actually did love him the way he wanted me to. And that woman could have been that better person I thought he deserved.

Hiding my feelings and emotions was second nature for me but jealousy had always been a particularly difficult one to handle. And that time, it was somehow even harder.
Therefore I couldn't take the risk to face him.

Unfortunately, being part of the same superheroes team, in a world that's constantly being threatened by evil did not exactly allow me to stay away from him for long.

That's how we found ourselves in the same car, driving towards our next mission's location in complete silence.

At least, it was a group mission so it wasn't just the two of us and I thought that maybe this time, things wouldn't get out of hands because of our misunderstandings.

I was wrong.

*

"What the hell were you thinking Romanoff?!" said Tony.

"Yeah Nat, Steve's last order was clear. Why didn't you follow it?" added Clint.

I didn't answer. I shrugged and avoided meeting their eyes.
They waited for an answer and when they realised I wasn't gonna give them one, they turned their attention to Steve.

"And what about you Rogers? Couldn't you ask Natasha for help on that first attack instead of me? You know she's much more efficient with guns" asked Sam.

"You were closer" answered Steve, starring at the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

"No, he was not" argued Wanda.

"Whatever's going on between the two of you, you better sort things out and quickly. You're making our missions harder than they already are and none of us is ready to end up badly injured or worse because of that" said Tony, looking at the both of us, before storming out of the room.

Soon after his departure, I left the room too and headed to my bedroom without a word.

I knew Steve and I really messed up and that we eventually would have to do something about it but it could wait. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone, especially not him.

Sam POV :

Soon enough, Wanda and I were the only ones left in the room.

I turned to her and said : "We have to do something. I didn't want to intervene but it has to stop. Today's mission could have ended very badly"

"Yeah, I know. I wanted to let them solve their issues alone too but we definitely have to help them figure it out somehow now"

"They must communicate. They've been avoiding each other for weeks."

"Yes. We have to force them to talk."

"But how? In the dictionary, next to the definition of stubborn you could find a picture of Natasha." I said, laughing quietly.

Wanda chuckled and added : "And Steve isn't exactly a stranger to stubbornness either"

"We would have to lure them and lock them up for them to actually stay in the same room for more than five minutes"

Wanda suddenly looked away from the wall she had been staring at to face me and raised both her eyebrows.

"Well, we could make that work actually" she said, with a smirk.

"What do you have in mind?"

———

Hi guys! It's been a while...
I've been busy with school but I'm finally done.

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