in which you come to terms with steve leaving you to be with peggy ...
Your heart has never felt so heavy yet empty at the same time. Like a stone was weighing down your chest, but there was also an unfulfilled void taking over you...spreading. Destroying. Your body was already acting on its own, salty tears leaking down your face and onto your quivering chin distastefully.
But no sound escaped from you- not a single sob or even a whimper of sorrow. You knew better. You were stronger than this. Willing yourself to stand up, shaky legs threatening to collapse, you took one small step back from the vanity. Your shaky hand letting go of the object it currently held and let it fall back onto the wooden top, resonating a small but deafening clank of metal and wood.
The compass remained opened in front of you, as if it was taunting you in some way, and you made yourself look away. Too afraid to let out the strangled sob that wanted to escape. You knew deep down that this would happen, that he would find her. They always seemed to find each other in this big and cruel world...his world. A world that didn't include you. Peggy Carter had once again won over not only Captain America, but Steve Rogers.
Your Steve Rogers...or so you thought.
You just wish that he would have prepared you for this. Prepared you for your heart to be broken, but that's impossible. You can't mend a broken heart back together if a piece of it is missing. And if Steve Rogers leaves you like you knew he will, he'll be taking a piece of your heart with him.
As if the world was acting against you as much as it seemed to be, loud footsteps made its way into the small bedroom before ceasing in the doorway abruptly. Your throat clenched shut and chest tightened as you awaited his voice to confront you. You could hear him let out a breathy exhale in the silence but that was all it was.
Silence.
He didn't utter a word much to your dismay and solace, because frankly he didn't know what to say. Instead you slowly turned to face him, glistening eyes meeting his and you watched as pain shot into his sapphire orbs as he finally got a look at your face. You felt anger rise in your throat, because he didn't get to feel pain. Not when you were the one being left behind.
"Were you going to tell me?" You finally manage out and you've never sounded more broken. Your voice wavered making it go a few octaves quieter, chin quivering as you spoke and eyes filling with newly made tears. "Or were you just going to leave me. Keep me waiting for you to come back when really you weren't."
"I-"
"You told Bucky didn't you. Was he happy? Happy that his best friend was the one leaving this time instead of the other way around, but willingly of course." You spat out and you watched as Steve's nostrils flared and a frown made itself present on his face. You waited a few seconds for him to say something, anything but it never came. "What about Sam? The one guy that actually kept you going when you thought everyone didn't care about Steve Rogers, only Captain America... What about me?"
You watched as tears began to build in his eyes, outlining his irises in the most beautifully deceitful way. He took a step towards you but you mimicked his actions, taking a step of your own away from him knowing immediately that you'll crumble under his warm and comforting touch.
"You don't understand."
Those words hit you harder than he intended, making you squeeze your eyes shut which in turn made the other tears fall from the brim of your eyes and onto your flushed cheeks shamefully.
"Your right." You say and find yourself looking into his eyes with your own painful ones piercing him with how much hurt he has and will cause you. "I don't understand. I don't get why your willing to leave your family. The people that accepted you as Steve and not Cap, who loved you, cared for you, and were there for you since you came out of the ice. Your choosing her over your family. A woman you knew for a short period of time in your life. Whereabouts you knew us for years.
I don't understand what life you think you can have with someone who is your past, who you watched get buried while I was there by your side the whole time. Someone who already lived their life and now here you are trying to corrupt their lifetime just because of your own selfish desires. I don't understand why you can't accept the fact that she was never yours to have. And most of all I don't understand why I can't accept that your not mine to have either and you'll always choose her over me. Her over Sam, Bucky, Bruce, Wanda, and even Tony if he were still here but he's not! He's dead and he's gone! A-and soon enough you'll be gone too!"
You felt your knees hit the floor and your legs crumbled beneath you as you broke down right in front of the man you gave your whole heart to- the man who you loved unconditionally. You didn't even faze as he wrapped himself around you as if he could take your pain away, but it was no use. You were drowning in your own tears as you clawed against his chest, attempting to anchor yourself to him but your heart only grew heavier and heavier as you cried.
"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry (Y/N)." He whispered into your ear beneath his own tears as he kissed your hairline and began rocking you back and forth against him. "I love you- you know that."
"You don't love me the way I love you." You spoke shakily into his chest. "If you did you would stay here. Stay with me."
Steve didn't say anything. But you knew there was nothing to say as you were right. It was simply unrequited and there was no changing that. You couldn't make him love you if he didn't, especially if he didn't want to. Steve was truly and utterly a man out of time.
"What I do understand is that you'll be happy." You finally let out, and your head rises from his chest. He looks just as broken as you and you felt almost hopeful that this hurt him in a way, that leaving you hurt him. You hoped you were right. "You'll finally get the life you wanted for yourself the second you came out of the ice. You'll have Peggy and then a family and soon enough you'll grow old together just like you wanted. So that's enough to give me the strength to let you go."
Instead of responding, Steve acted. Within seconds his lips were against yours in a kiss that sparked something in your body like a flame. Want- that's the only word to describe it. The want you felt as you kissed him just as passionately was building like a fire in you. It felt so perfect, your salty kiss and lips mingled together in the most heart wrenching kiss imaginable. You realized that this was goodbye.
Pulling away, your puffy lips immediately ached for his against yours again but he wasn't yours anymore. He kept his eyes closed, not willing himself to look into your eyes because he knew if he did he would be pulled right back into you. He knew his plan would be broken to shambles if he looked into your eyes filled with want and need and love. He couldn't. So, he leaned his forehead against yours before standing up abruptly. You watched as he left the room almost too quickly and that's when you broke down once more.
Sobs made itself from your throat as you cried into nothing, your sobs echoing in the small room and surely out into the house for Steve to hear. Picking up the closest thing you could, which so happened to be a chair, you threw it across the room against the wall causing it to bounce off into pieces of wood and onto the floor in a heap.
You flinched away from the deafening noise, but your sobs only grew louder. Soon enough Wanda and Pepper came stumbling into the room to see what all the commotion was about and found you. A shattered image of yourself as you sobbed your heart out. You cried the whole night, them never leaving your side.
In the morning as Steve, Sam, and Bucky bid their goodbyes to each other, Bruce preparing the machine, Steve felt an ache in his stomach as he awaited for you to come. To say goodbye to him. He thought that you would be fine by the morning, thought he would see your beautiful smile and hear your cherry laugh once more as he cracked one of his stupid jokes to you but you never showed.
Bruce had to scold Steve into getting ready to step onto the platform, and after insisting to wait longer and Bucky telling him that you weren't coming- he finally stepped onto the platform. So as Steve did the familiar routine and felt himself be transported into a different time period, he felt as if his heart was missing something. Felt a void taking over and just then did he realize that he left a piece of his heart there with you.