Denial
"Hey Steve, how you doing?" Natasha asked as she walked into Steve's room. Steve was sitting up in his bed, reading this mornings newspapers, looking as healthy as any other day. She sat down on the chair next to his bed, crossing her legs and placing her arms on her legs, crossed at the wrist.
"Hey Nat." Steve smiled what Natasha liked to class as Steve's 'Big BIG smile'. She had a pet name for all of Steve's facial expressions, although the majority of them were smiles.
"How are you feeling? Any headaches, strange sensations, nightmares?"
"Nope, nope and none I'm not used to. I'm just sick of seeing this damn room." Steve looked at her in a way that showed he wanted her to understand. She did. Oh boy, she did. She'd seen enough hospital rooms to last her a lifetime.
"You should be allowed out soon. Have the doctors discussed with you when you'll be discharged?"
"They said they were doing final check-ups on me, as soon as the results come back I can go." Steve stretched while yawning. "I can't wait to get back into the gym, feel like I'm wasting my time in here."
Natasha smiled at Steve's restless attitude. "I wanted to talk to you, without Stark hovering over you to hear what I've got to say. I'm sure I'd receive some remark about showing emotions for once."
Steve smiled back at her, fully understanding that underneath her cold exterior, Natasha had emotions just like everybody else, and was even willing to talk about them with you, as long as she felt like she could. Steve didn't know the only two people Natasha showed her emotions to were him and Clint.
"Do you remember my reaction to the ballet film we watched a few months ago, The Red Shoes?" Natasha asked him.
Steve paused, taken aback by the topic of conversation. He nodded stiffly, "Of course."
"I never, verbally, thanked you for… Helping me-"
"Nat, don't thank me for that, it was nothing."
"It might seem like nothing to you, but it meant everything to me. I've never, experienced, anything like that before." Natasha was talking slowly, deliberating over her words before she spoke. "I'm not sure what came over me, I just felt… Shaken."
Steve spoke softly. "Nat, you didn't do anything wrong. You were sat there, not moving, frozen. It was my fault for touching you."
"You tried to hug me and I had you in a choke within a heartbeat. If Clint hadn't of stopped me…"
"But he did, and that's all that matters." Steve's voice was earnest. "All you did was cry. It's okay to cry, there's nothing wrong with that."
Natasha shook her head at him. "But I didn't know that then. I've always been collected and then I felt uncontrollable. I lost control of myself and that is the one thing you should always have control of." She looked down at Steve's hand and placed hers over it. "I told you that night that all those feelings had been building up inside of me, and I've always learnt to supress them. You were the person that told me I could cry, that letting out your emotions isn't weak. It doesn't sound like a lot Steve, but you helped in more ways than you can imagine."
Steve looked at her, smiling slightly. "I didn't think being a friend deserved such gratitude."
"You can be friends with someone without ever really being there for them. You're more than that Steve, you helped in a way nobody else has before, I can't ever thank you enough for that."
Steve squeezed her hand, "Anytime."
Natasha leant forward, kissing Steve's forehead. "Thank you." She whispered, before heading towards the door.
Steve barely had time to think about that before Clint walked in. "Is Nat okay? She looked upset."
"She's fine, we were just talking." Steve said as he motioned towards the chair, offering it to Steve. Clint ignored it, and sat on the end of Steve's bed.
"Where you talking about…?" Clint left the sentence open but Steve knew what he was talking about.
"Yeah. She hasn't brought it up before, I was a bit surprised." Steve admitted.
"You helped her a lot, you know that?"
"I think that was the point she was making."
"You might not believe it, but the difference in her since you talked to her, it's… I can't think of the right word to say. They all sound like how she was before was wrong." Clint frowned slightly, trying to think of the right word. After a few seconds he shrugged. "You helped her and made her into a more comfortable person, with other and with herself."
"She wasn't comfortable before?" Steve asked, surprised.
"I don't know exactly what she says or how she acts with you when you're in private, but she doesn't say or act like that with anybody else. I can tell, when she comes away from you after you two have had one of your mother's meetings, she's happy."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Steve inquired.
"She feels like she can be herself around you. She feels like that with me, but with you it's in a different way."
"What do you mean?"
"I think she feels the way I do around you. We're both comfortable around each other, but at the end of the day we're both still spies. We're both taught to analyse everything. We know when something's wrong and we push until we figure out what. That's why the missions are good, they give us time away from each other. I love her to bits, but sometimes you need that. You can't help how you are.
"Around you, we can be ourselves without worrying about what you're thinking about it. I know I can come to you with any problem I've got. If one of us were upset, we could sit with you for hours, and you wouldn't push us into talking about it. You would ask what's wrong, but only once. You don't push, and that's what pulls us to you."
Steve looked down at his hands. "I don't know what to say. I don't do anything for any reason, I just be me."
Clint chuckled slightly. "I'm saying you're a good person Steve, and I won't ever let you forget that." Clint stood up, meaning to leave. Just before he opened the door, Steve spoke.
"Thank you."
"You kidding me? Thank you."
With two spies now come and gone, both leaving behind strange conversations, Steve was thinking everything through. He was thinking so hard he didn't hear Bruce come in.
"Ah, Steve? Do you mind if I sit here, for two minutes?" Bruce asked humbly.
"No, course not." Steve smiled at Bruce as he sat down. "Are you here to give me a pep talk as well?"
Bruce smiled back at Steve. "I didn't know we'd all been part of the same brainwave."
"It's fine, I'm only finding it slightly embarrassing." Steve joked, subconsciously rubbing his arm as he did so.
"How are you finding adapting from the coma?" Bruce asked, finding the idea fascinating to investigate.
"Doctor Hastings told me there were several side effects that could take place, but I've experienced none of them. I even remember waking up clearly, which I don't understand." Steve's tone changed at the end, capturing Bruce's interest more.
"Why don't you understand it?"
"With the serum, my body is 'the peak of human perfection', but not my brain. I understand that my body can adapt quickly, what I don't get is why my brain's adapted so quickly."
"I wouldn't worry about it Steve. There are cases where the patient has had no effects from the coma, just like you. It's not something that shouts out as being wrong, just something that's rare."
Steve bit his lip, looking down.
"You have another question?" Bruce asked tentatively.
"I think, I'm not sure though, it's probably just me imagining things or a dream I had-"
"Steve? What is it?"
"It was just Tony's voice, talking to me, telling me… Things that needed to be said but I wouldn't let him before."
Bruce looked down at his joined hands before looking back up. "From the amount of times Tony was in here, and going by how you two were acting before this, I think what you heard was actually Tony. Sometimes things slip through, that's definitely not strange. It's likely that when your drugs began to wear off, you heard what was being spoken to you."
Steve thought about it momentarily before nodding his head. "Thank you."
"What for?"
"Piece of mind."
Bruce laughed. "The amount of times you've given me piece of mind after the other guy's come out, I still owe you a couple hundred talks."
"I didn't want to ask the doctor, I felt silly." Steve admitted, blushing softly.
"I'm going to take that as a compliment." Bruce dipped his head forward slightly before standing up. "If there's ever anything else you want to ask me about, you're always welcome to, Steve."
"Thank you, I appreciate that." Steve smiled, for what felt like the 100th time that day.
"I've got chocolate and coffee! I'm calling dibs on the coffee." Tony announced as he walked into Steve's room. He took in the serious look on Steve and Bruce's face, and began to panic. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, Tony. Everything's fine." Steve patted the bed, indicating Tony to sit there. "What chocolate have you brought?"
"White, of course, your favourite."
"Have I ever told you how much I love you?" Steve asked whilst plucking the chocolate out of Tony's hand.
"Many times. So often I get sick of hearing it." Tony smiled at Steve, the corners of his eyes crinkling in the process. "Want some coffee, Bruce?"
"No thank you, I was just leaving. I'm going to go talk to the doctor about different brain reactions." Bruce looked at Steve, smiling slightly, to which Steve smiled back. Tony didn't realise this interaction, he was downing the coffee.
"Tony, what have I told you about drinking hot coffee?" Steve asked as he tapped the coffee cup.
"Alright mom." He lowered the coffee cup enough to stick his tongue out at Steve. "I'm sorry I'm late, Pepper made me go to a meeting and wouldn't let me hold it in here again."
"You held a meeting in here?" Steve began laughing at the thought.
"Video phone, obviously." Tony cocked his head to the side, winking. "So, how you feeling?"
Steve thought about what everybody had said to him today, trying to figure out what was the best way to summarise how he felt about it all. "I feel happy, content even. I feel at home."
"Jeez, you feel at home in this place? We need to get you out of here right away." Tony smirked before he turned serious. "You really feel like that? You don't feel… Misplaced, anymore? Literally feeling like 'The Man Out Of Time'?" Tony frowned, unsure that he wanted to hear Steve's reply.
Steve took Tony's hand in his, bringing it to his mouth to kiss it. He looked at Tony, before saying slowly "I feel like I belong."
Tony smiled at him for a moment, before the smile slipped slightly. "I never understood, why my dad hated me so much-"
"I've told you before, if I knew your dad when he had you, when he treated you like that-"
"That's the thing, if you would have been there, he wouldn't have. You've said before, the way I've spoken about him is completely different to the man you knew. My dad, after he lost you, he changed. He lost you so he tried to turn me into you."
Steve frowned at him. "He shouldn't have done that."
"We're not going into what he should or shouldn't have done, we'll be here all night. That's not my point. My point is, after he lost you, he turned into an ass. That's what I didn't get before, but I do now, I see that."
"You understand that? What made you understand how he could treat you how he did and become such a different person?"
"The thought of losing you. I thought you'd gone forever, that I'd lost you just like he did, and for a few days, I understood how he spent all his life looking for you, or moulding me into the shape that only you filled. Nobody could ever replace you."
Steve looked at him, looking into his eyes for something he couldn't find. "You think this is just me, that only I could get that type of response."
"Yes."
"No. You're wrong, Tony. You're so wrong it frustrates me. You're one of us, more than a teammate, a friend, whatever word you want to use, you're more than that Tony. You make us all work and you hold us together, all the little things you do, you have a different relationship with us all that only you could have with every individual. So stop thinking you're dispensable. You're the exact opposite Tony, you just don't see it."
