Baby Barton

Chapter 119 Chloe Barton

Deciding that it's best to get you out of the compound, Steve takes you for a bite to eat. He didn't expect you to eat much, but confining yourself to the four walls of your room wasn't healthy.
He wanted nothing more than to wrap his big arms around you, pull you tight into his chest and tell you that everything was going to be alright.
He just wished he knew that. Steve was angry at Tony for just sitting idly by and watching Ross berate you. Tony knew as much as any one how much that this was not your fault, but he sat in silence. Why?

Watching you pick around your ramen Steve leans in, brushing some of your hair away from your face and behind your ear, "Are you okay?" He whispered.
You could hear it in his voice, the worry.
He thought you were headed for a relapse. It terrified him. It terrified you.
"I've been better." You glance around the house restaurant, has anyone noticed you both yet?
Your face had been plastered across television screens and on every phone on earth, "when do you think they'll come to a decision?"
Ross was in talks with big licks to decide your fate. Community service, prison sentence or worse, The Raft.
"Chloe, there wont be a decision about whats happens to you, I'm taking the fall for this. I've told Ross that." He snaps abruptly.
Slamming your fists down on the table, you turn to him.
"You have to be out of your fucking mind. You can't take the rap for this. You didn't do it, it was me!"

"Chloe, I'm not letting you go down for this. You won't change my mind." He looks you dead in the eye, his face settled stubbornly into certainty.
This only angered you more, "No! You can't stop me." He gritted.

The frustration in your core breeds anger. He isn't listening to you.
Why?
You get that he is scared for you. But you killed those people and for that you have to be punished.
Putting your defeated head in your hands for a moment of relief, you feel Steve's hand on your back.
"We could run." He whispers, "hide out some place."

Tears run through the spaces between your fingers, "Steve, I'm not doing that. Please just understand that I need to pay for what I've done. For me. I need it," you look up at him, "for me." Tapping the side of your head.

His lip curls, you can see clearly that he is trying to hold back his own tears.
"Well Chloe," he gets to his feet, throwing down his napkin, "I'm not going to sit here and listen to you talk like this."

Panic releases through your body, you don't trust that he wont do something incredibly stupid. Another thing you'd have to be crippled with guilt over.
"Oh? So where are you going to go, huh? Whats your plan?"

He turns slowly, "I'm gonna get you out of this."

Fuck.
You cant let him do anything stupid.

***
"I wondered how long it would be before you came to me for help." Tony heaves a long sigh.
The dark circles around his eyes a dead giveaway to his sleepless night.
He was feeling the burden of this too. And that was another serving of guilt added onto your plate.
The last thing you wanted was for someone else to be implicated by your reckless actions. Especially Tony.
Steve
Tony
80 families in Lagos
"Please don't." Your voice barely a whisper as you slump defeatedly into a chair.
Tonys mouth corners into a smile, he reaches across the table for your hand, "It won't be easy, but I'll be able to talk Ross around—"
Snapping your hand back you slam it down on the table. The slap of the wood echoes around the room.
"No! Tony...I...I..." brushing away tears you clear your throat of a crackle, "I don't want to get out of this."
Your watery eyes lock into the chestnut brown of his, he'll understand. He will.
He has too.
Tony pinches the bridge of his nose, "Chloe, they'll crucify you."
"It's what I deserve."
There was no dispute. Tony just stared solemnly back at you. The slow rise and fall of his chest as he saw you give up on your new life. He knew you were tired of fighting. Tired of the endless uphill battle. The guilt of lives lost weighing heavy of your shoulders. And he could see it, plain as day.

Dropping Tonys gaze you whimper, "I need to accept the consequences for my actions."

Tony rises from his seat circling around the table he reaches for you, pulling you into him tenderly.
"They weren't your actions. HYDRA are solely at fault here Chloe.  There are other ways to repent for—"
You pull away from his embrace, "No, don't try and force rationalisation onto this."

"Chloe, why are you so eager to give up?"

You chew on your lip, "I'm not giving up." Giving up would be the easy way out, giving up would be allowing Steve to take the blame because realistically the good he does would out weigh this. Giving up would be letting Tony buy your way out of the blame.
Accepting responsibility was the hard way, the right way. 
"I'm growing up." You sob.

Tony nods, "But you're not to blame."

You agree with a twitch of your eyebrows. You may not have made the bomb, but your unknowingly detonated it.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" He asks one last time.

"The guilt I have Tony, it's crushing me. Like I'm one deep breath from disintegrating."
A stream of fat tears tumble down your cheeks.
Tonys eyes fill too.
"Chloe." He huffs out sympathetically.

You both sit in silence for a few moments, exchanging glances between sobs.

Tony sighs heavily, "Okay. If its what you want, I'll help. It'll be the raft, but I'll make sure they have everything you need."
You know he means therapy. And although your reluctance to it was always the butt of the jokes, you know you need it.

"I still think it's a mistake." He pulls out his cell.

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A/N:
I cannot wait to find out how Steve reacts.
Vote please ♥️