Just Steve

T H I R T Y - S E V E N

He could still hear the echoes of that day ringing through the living room and into the hallway. Like you said, I'm off the hook, right? He exhaled. No need to pretend that I give a shit anymore.  He exhaled again. The words of that day still bothered him even now, but it was the silence that haunted him. It was his silence that he carried with him. She had given him the chance to take it back and he refused. In time the words could be erased, scratched from memory and forgotten but the silence, that refusal to fight for the survival of their friendship would be there forever. He knew (Y/n) well enough to know that. In every silence she would hear his quiet.

"I'm not going over there, Nat. She won't want to see me."

"Can you blame her?" She asked dryly. 

Peter's head hung low, staring at the dirt on the top of his sneakers. He heard her take a few steps closer, before she continued to speak. 

"Ready for some tough love?" 

"Do I have a choice?" He sighed. The last month nobody had talked to him about (Y/n) but apparently Nat was now ready to lift the embargo. Peter did his best to prepare for whatever long overdue scolding was about to come his way.

"So she left. Big deal. Maybe you have a right to be angry with her maybe not but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. She's not the one that ended the friendship, you are."

Peter sucked in sharply, the sharp shovel of her accusation digging at his heart. Nat reached a hand out, placing it on his shoulder as he glanced to the side, staring at the wall just to the side of (Y/n)'s old bedroom.

"Best friends don't grow on trees. You were extremely lucky to have found one. And for you to throw one away that the universe tossed at your feet would be the most ungrateful act and the greatest disservice to you and to her. Imagine if something happened to her tomorrow and those were the last words you ever said to her. Could you live with yourself knowing that was how you left things?"  

He bit the inside of his cheek hard, too emotionally numb to feel any of the physical pain. He was still angry about the way (Y/n) had left after the fiasco with the contract. He had begged her not to go and she still had. But he was angry with himself too. Angry for saying things he hadn't truly meant, angry for not saying the right things when he had a chance, and most of all angry for allowing himself to take so much for granted when he had always known better. There was something else going on here that he didn't quite understand and he needed to figure it out before it was too late and she'd be done with him for good. If she wasn't already. Turning his head back to look at Nat, she removed her hand from her shoulder, shaking her head slightly.

"Get your head out of your ass and out the door and go make things right."

She left then, leaving Peter standing once again alone in the hallway with nothing but a pit in his stomach, an address, and a choice to make.

_____________

Steve was sitting at a decadent wooden dining table. A crystal chandelier hung on the ceiling above and large cabinets lined either wall filled with what he could only guess was thousands of dollars worth of Fine China. 

Flashbacks from his last trip here were running through his mind, threatening to send him running out the door he had so hesitantly entered. But he had good reasons for being here, and those reasons, that purpose, kept him glued to the seat. 

At the other end of the table, one of the most intimidating people he had ever come to know was studying him with cold eyes, her fingers drilling lazily into the table one by one. Steve sat there uncomfortably concentrating on the details of the rose petal covered wall paper, swallowing harshly.