What happened next only came in patches of memory for Delilah, due to a liberal and thankfully heavy application of pain meds. There had been lawyers with her at some point, she didn't really know, but she remembered the arguing and Fury attempting to question her. She assumed that did not go well since she was still here and he was not. Too many names and faces in her mind to piece together any kind of narrative, so she decided that sleep was an infinitely better task than trying to think right then.
When she woke up again and felt a little more herself, at least a little more cogent and together, the room was dimly lit and very quiet. A sound caught her ear, a faint snore, a mouse farting, something. Opening her eyes was too much work, so she called out, "Mama?" Her speech was slurred, but she figured that would wear off as she woke up.
A giant hand engulfed hers, imparting a warmth and comfort she'd come to associate with one person. She cracked an eye open and was greeted with the most amazing smile she would never feel worthy of. "Hi there, Sleeping Beauty."
Her smile was slow and her laugh was little more than a huff, but after the day she'd had, it was impressive she could manage humor at all. "I think you're in the wrong room, Cap."
His response was to perch on the side of the bed. "Hush," he murmured against the skin of her forehead as he kissed her. When he pulled back, he looked her directly in the eye. "Hiya dollface."
Delilah licked her lips, drawing his attention for a moment before they returned to pin her in place. "Hi back."
Steve stole a quick kiss before moving back to the chair at her bedside. "Good to have you back among the land of the living."
"Was there a question?" She'd been wounded, but certainly not enough to accomplish what cancer and her own body had failed to do on several occasions.
He held his fingers a scant inch apart. "Little bit."
She wrinkled her nose and shook her head as she grinned at him. "Trust me, I'm sustained by caffeine and pure spite. There was no question."
With a wry grin dancing across his lips, he pressed a kiss her knuckles. "You and Tony have that in common, I think. Probably for the same reasons, if I had to guess."
"Likely." Delilah nodded slowly, feeling every motion like her brain was in a jar of water and sloshing about still. "How bad was it?"
He hung his head and stared at their joined hands as he heaved a sigh. "They said the bullet missed the femoral artery which is good. Your wound was, uh," he breathed in through his nose like he was working up to something unpleasant. "It was, um… they said it was cauterized from when you flared. They had to cut you open to get the bullet out and take care of the wound, then sew you back up."
"Not unexpected." The tiredness that hovered at the edge of her consciousness advanced, giving her voice a dreamy quality. "At least I have good pain medicine and antibiotics." She burrowed a little deeper into the bed and he pulled the blankets up a bit higher on her. "How's my mama? Can I see her?"
Cap winced at the mention of her mom, but Delilah was too far gone to decipher the meaning of his face. "Unfortunately, this is the prison wing of SHIELD medical, so visitors are generally prohibited." When her face fell, he followed up with, "Hey, she's okay, she's at the tower. When I left, Tony was, well…"
"Please don't let Tony corrupt my mother."
"Oh no, if anything, she's spoiling us in baked goods. I'm not sure she understands how unforgiving spandex can be." His lips twitched at her snorted giggle. "Anyway, she says it helps her keep her mind off of the situation." He took her shrug and rueful grin as confirmation. "She knows you're okay and you'll see her as soon as you can."
Delilah nodded, her mind slowly drifting away from her on the fog of pain medicine. A moment later, she sat up and looked at him, clinging to lucidity like a life raft. "If I'm in the prison wing and not supposed to have visitors, how are you here?"
Steve shrugged and gave her a wry grin. "What're they gonna say? I'm Captain America." He then kissed her palm and slipped her hand under the blankets before tucking her in.
She purred and nodded in agreement, feeling her mind drift away again. "Fair enough."
To call the debrief 'contentious' would have been charitable, but by the time Steve and the rest of the Avengers adjourned to the tower, he was fuming. Fury was content to hang the entire day's proceedings around Delilah's neck and drown her with it.
After Nat helped Bruce up to his room and Thor retired to his suite, the three remaining members converged on the kitchen while Steve continued his rant.
"It's not right, Tony," he growled as he marched over to the fridge and yanked out a bottle of water. "She doesn't deserve this and you know it."
"I know, and we're going to let the bastard have his day today. Tomorrow my lawyers will be filing so many injunctions he won't be able to get into his office for the paperwork. We will make him bleed ink." He grabbed an orange out of the bowl of fresh fruit and used his thumbnail to slit the skin to yank off the peel in chunks. "This is what I pay them for, Cap. They're good at it."
"They better be," Steve warned ominously. He was so riled up, the moment he twisted off the cap, the bottle collapsed in his fist. "Shit!"
"Language, Cap," Clint scolded as he grabbed a dishrag from the sink and began to clean up the mess. "Might wanna keep it down. Meredith's asleep." He nodded toward the hall that led to the guest rooms where Delilah had stayed with her mother.
"Sorry," he grumbled, feeling like swearing even more after that, along with a solid desire to break things. He stalked into the guest area, and found Meredith curled up on the couch with a blanket, and his heart just broke for her.
Steve checked her pillow and grabbed another blanket from the room and draped it across her before heading back out to the kitchen. When he got back, he found Clint reclining on the couch scrolling through his phone and Tony sitting in one of the side chairs, reading a tablet and eating his orange slices.
He looked up as Steve stomped over to the fridge to grab another bottle of water. "We're doing everything we can, Cap. You know that, right?"
"And yet it's not enough," Steve snapped. He felt helpless, and there was nothing that pissed him off more than the idea that he couldn't change a situation or nothing he could to do combat an injustice. The boiling rage he felt wasn't subsiding, so he knew what he needed to do. "I… I gotta go. I'll be in the gym."
"Sirs," Jarvis interjected just as Steve made it to the elevator to head up to his room. "It would appear we have a situation." All three men snapped to in unison. After the day they'd had, 'situation' was the very last word any of them want to hear.
"Jay, be a dear and clarify that, would you?" Tony's upbeat tone belied his barely restrained scowl. Steve was by his side in an instant looking just this side of feral with wide eyes and hands fisted at his sides.
Instead of answering verbally, a holographic television screen appeared in front of them playing the late night news. "... in the anonymous video just released, it shows Miss Ford being forcibly dragged away and being assaulted immediately prior to the incident. This security footage directly refutes the agency's claims-"
"Jarvis, please mute it," Steve commanded and looked from Tony to Clint and back. "What did you do?"
Clint's hands were up immediately. "Not me, Cap." He turned on his heel and headed over to the elevator without a backwards glance. "My name's Paul and that shit's 'tween y'all." The elevator stopped long enough for Clint to join Phil, who looked like he'd spent the better part of the day on a rotisserie, and head up to their apartment.
"And then there was one," Steve murmured darkly, his attention now firmly on the man headed over to the bar. "What did you do, Stark?"
"Bold of you to assume I'd do something like that." Tony waved a hand dismissively as he grabbed a crystal tumbler and his go-to scotch.
"'Something like that'," he repeated, watching his friend carefully dole out out ice cubes before pouring out two fingers of amber peace and quiet.
He stared down into the eddy in his glass as he swirled it idly. "Oh, you know, searched all the security footage of the day you met Delilah at the bar, both the interior and the exterior, along with some obscure posted cell phone footage and made sure it ended up in the hands of some people in desperate need of an Emmy. That kind of thing."
"Right." Steve smiled tightly. "Because all of that is well beyond your skill set." He put his hand over the mouth of the glass and held it to the bar, bringing Tony's dark eyes to his. There were so many things he wanted to know, but the most pressing of which jumped to his lips first. "Why?"
Eyes narrowed, yanked his glass back from Cap and defiantly took a sip. "Always disparaging. I swear to God. A lesser man would take it personally." He came around the bar and faced the room as he drank, taking in any view that didn't include a glowering Captain America. "Fury isn't going to stop. The lawyers, the Constitution, he's just going to do what he feels like, manipulate whoever he needs to, just to have his way. But there's one thing he can't control."
They both watched the footage play on repeat as Jarvis cycled through news channels, both local and national. And then there was Twitter.
"The public will run him over before he has a chance to know he should cross the street." He waved a hand to dismiss the screen before turning to face Steve. "He takes ownership of this whole debacle by keeping her in custody. This paints MRA and SHIELD in a bad light, and only one of them can back away gracefully. Think of it as a second front, Cap."
A wry smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "I seem to recall that working well last time."
Delilah woke to the smell of leather and bay rum and the light scratch of a pen on a piece of newsprint. One eye opened just a slit and revealed Nick Fury in the chair by her bedside looking expertly put together in a black leather coat, grey silk button down shirt, and dark jeans. He was chewing on a pen cap and working on a newspaper crossword puzzle, paying her no attention at all. She shut her eye again, determined to wait him out.
"What's a seven letter word for 'vigilante'?" He didn't look up at her and continued filling in letters in pen.
A part of her wanted to continue to pretend to be asleep, but she knew he wouldn't be fooled by that. "You know I'm on heavy-duty narcotics, right?" She made a point of sounding bored, the slurred quality of her words helping set the tone.
"Doesn't mean you can't help me." She could hear the smile in his voice and his friendly tone just pissed her all the way off.
"Why on earth would I want to? I'm too high for crossword puzzles and if you're out of minions, that ain't my problem. I let my lackey license expire last year," she snapped, finally turning her head in his direction.
"Because you are a good person." The look in his eye was almost sincere and if she'd had more energy, she'd have punched him in the mouth. With her cane.
"One that you're planning to put in jail for being a murderer in the event I don't along with your harebrained scheme. Right," she bit out before closing her eyes and adjusting her blankets. "Go away. I'm not supposed to talk to you without counsel present."
"Fine then, just listen. I want you to join the Avengers."
Her dark eyes snapped open as she goggled at the unhinged man sitting at her bedside. "I'm sorry, you want what now?"
Fury looked at her like she might have a bit of head trauma. "I want you to join the…" he trailed off. "Son of a bitch," there was the sound of scribbling again and then he slapped the pen down on the paper triumphantly. "I want you to join the Avengers."
Unsure as to what his game was, she eyed him suspiciously. "The fuck would you want that for? I'm a cripple." She gestured down at her bandaged leg for emphasis.
A shadow of a smile passed over his lips. "Only part time."
His swift dismissal of her current physical state gave her pause. He truly appeared to be serious and that was both frightening and incredibly galling. "You know, you have an impressive depth of cruelty to you."
"Cruelty?" He cocked his head as he looked at her curiously. "I just offered you the deal of a lifetime."
"At the point of a sword," she reminded him. Good Cop routine aside, she knew the stakes and wouldn't be dissuaded by feigned niceties this late in the game.
His indifference to her concerns was telegraphed through a quick flip of his wrist. "Doesn't make the offer any less legitimate. A lot of people would kill for this chance."
The scent of blood filled her nose as her blood pressure spiked. After closing her eyes she focused on her breathing, then the blemishless expanse of white that was the ceiling, slowly feeling the pounding in her eyes and ears subside. "You don't think," she began softly, trying to convey all her thoughts as carefully and diligently as possible, so as to prevent him from having an opening. "You think I wouldn't love that? Love being an Avenger?" Another deep breath, this time exhaled slowly through her teeth. "Here's the problem, though. Aside from being a cripple, which is a rather large problem all on its own.
She shifted in the bed to face him more fully. "I got shot today. I'm in this hospital bed because I got shot today. There are also several people in beds here because me getting shot today almost resulted in me nuking an entire military installation. And those are the ones that lived. You already have one member of your team whose power is only barely controlled. Why in the hell would you possibly want two?" He blinked at her instead of answering, so she continued. "I am too dangerous to put with other people, and the fact you can't-or won't-see that scares the hell out of me and only reaffirms why I don't want to work for you."
The way the Director looked at her was clinical, like she was an ongoing science experiment and he should have been taking notes. "Your restraint is impressive." He cleared his throat and started again leaning toward her with his elbows braced on his knees. "Beyond impressive, it's superhuman. In the last few days, you've gone out of your way not to engage a power that would have quickly ended situations in your favor. You chose the hard path because it was the right thing to do, and that's what I want."
His doggedness was more than a little unsettling. She licked her lips and repeated her mantra. "I'm not a weapon and I'm not for sale. I don't know how much clearer I can be."
"Your country needs you."
The very sentence made her recoil in scorn. "My country needs a fuck lot more than a monster for hire."
His eyebrow rose as his lips twitched. "Is that how you see the Avengers or yourself?"
"Watch your fucking tone," she growled, a low warning that befit the fact that it was miracle the bedsheets weren't smoking. It was hard not to look at him like he was both incredibly dumb and the Devil himself. "Not all of them are like me, so to answer your question, no. To both." She closed her eyes and focused on calling back her annoyance before she let her irritation start making decisions for her. "I'm aware of what I am and the damage I can do, and I am not putting that in the hands of anyone else. Just not going to happen. Be peaceful with it, come to terms, because I'm done with this conversation."
The Director slapped his knees and pushed to his feet. "Miss Ford, Delilah, you've got this all wrong, I-"
Fury's rejoinder was cut off by the door bursting open and a quite sunny looking Tony Stark waltzing through like he owned the very air they were breathing. He was schlubby casual in a t-shirt and a pair of jeans that would likely pay two months of rent at her apartment, and in his hands was a long, thin light blue floral box. "Well, isn't this cozy."
"We're having a conversation, Stark. Wait outside." Fury shifted from 'Good Cop' to 'Potentially Dangerous Asshole' with alarming ease.
"And without counsel present, shame on you, Cyclops." His eyes danced with merriment as he looked between the two of them. He came over and kissed her cheek. "Good to see you, sweetheart." His normally frenetic demeanor seemed positively electric today and he looked like he was keeping back a surprise that was eating its way through him. "So you told her, right?"
Delilah was instantly on her guard. "Told me what?"
At the Director's sullen silence, his big eyes widened further and he looked like the most diabolical sprite she'd ever seen. He gasped theatrically as he slid the long box across the foot of her hospital bed by her feet. It seemed unusually heavy for the size. "You didn't tell her!"
"Tell me what?" she asked again, even more agitated than when she was fighting with Fury.
"We were just having a conversation," Fury repeated, sounding very put upon.
"Tony, for fuck's sake!" She grabbed his arm as he stalked past her, giving him no option but to slow down and explain or drag her from the bed.
Eyes never leaving the Director's, he pulled out his phone and slipped it into her hands. "Just press play. It's worth it." Delilah wasn't quite sure she could trust Tony, but the way he looked in that moment, like he was here to defend her to the death if necessary, had her pressing play and hoping for the best.
Her voice filled the room as a video played of her singing 'Your Heart Is As Black As Night' from the piano bench began to play, shot from the front row. It was from the night she met Steve, and the memory coaxed an involuntary smile from her. Then the talking head from the news came on over the footage of her in the alley the moment the goon hit her in the face and she flared, and after that protests outside of MRA headquarters and SHIELD.
"What… what am I looking at, exactly?"
He watched over her shoulder for a moment before grinning at the Director. "Plays beautifully, doesn't it? Sexy working woman, woman of color even, a citizen, beautiful voice, chasing her dreams, harassed for no reason, no warrant, physically disabled and assaulted by the very institutions designed to protect the public. Punished and vilified for protecting herself. Movie of the week stuff right there. Compelling narrative. Writes itself, really." Tony took his phone back and stuffed it into his pants pocket with a smug grin. "To answer your question, that, my dear, is Nick Fury's phone blowing up with calls for additional congressional oversight in 3… 2… 1…" On cue Fury's phone chirped in his pocket. Tony flashed her a wink. "I really am just that good."
The Director pulled out his phone to silence it and put it away again. "So what is it you expect to happen now?" The phone chirped again from inside his coat at least twice more before he withdrew it and silenced it, though he didn't hang up on whomever was calling.
"You're gonna want to answer that." Tony perched on the side of her bed between her and Fury and laced his hands in his lap. "We'll talk about what I want when you get back." He shooed him into the hallway before turning to her. "Hey there, Delilah."
"Hot Pocket, that joke's more tired than I am, and I'm on narcotics." She snickered, then sighed, feeling like she could finally breathe for the first time in a while. "So what brings you by?"
His grin was infectious. "I made you something." He reached behind him and grabbed the long box and pressed it into her hands.
In the light blue box, wrapped in green paper was a new cane to replace the one that had been damaged by her last flashover. "HP MK-II, huh?" Right there, stenciled in red and gold glitter on the black powder-coated shaft, it was gloriously gaudy and perfect. She quickly got it out and set it up so that she could use it the next time she got out of bed. "Thank you." Fanciful and ridiculous as he was, Tony Stark's cane was a lot of the reason she wasn't in the custody of HYDRA.
"Now, I know it seemed excessive at the time, but you have to agree, the grappling hook was a surprisingly big success." His devilish grin made her nervous as he picked her cane up and showed her the hidden buttons so much like the ones before. "Let's talk about options."
Steve had never been so happy to see anyone in his whole life. While Tony and his lawyers distracted Fury, he spirited Delilah back to the safety of the tower. He'd left her mother and Bruce in a bruising game of backgammon that was just this side of full-contact with Clint and Nat refereeing. It was strange to him how normal this all seemed now.
He was sitting on the floor of the spare room, back against the wall outside of the bathroom with his arms around his knees, listening to her belt out jazz and blues standards while she took a shower. He'd introduced her to Jarvis and the AI's infinite music collection and it was a match made in heaven. Now he rested his head against the wall, eyes closed, listening to her 'air out her pipes' as she'd called it. It was the most peaceful he'd felt in days.
"You know they make these things called chairs. Marvelous inventions, or so I'm led to understand."
Tony's comment from above him brought a smile to his lips as much as the sound did to his soul. He'd heard his friend come in, but was content to bask in the peacefulness a bit longer. "I'm aware."
"All right then." He felt the air change as Tony slid his back down the wall to take a seat next to him, amused at the idea of them just hanging out on the floor. They sat silently together as she shifted from 'Blues in the Night' to 'Summertime'. "God, I could listen to that all day."
"Right?" Steve agreed. "First time I heard it I felt like the ground shifted beneath me." He sighed. "It's like an echo of my life before, but warmer, closer…" He sighed, bouncing his head gently off the wall in a half-assed rhythm. "She feels like... "
"Home," Tony supplied softly. "Reminds me of music my mother would listen to late at night when Howard was… off being Howard." His voice died and Steve opened his eyes and took in his friend's closed eyes and melancholy expression. "I loved to hear her sing."
Tony Stark didn't talk about his family much, so Steve felt privileged he'd even brought it up. "I'm sorry I never got to meet her."
His smile was soft, matching his distant gaze as his mind gave itself over to memory. "Me too."
The men were startled by the bathroom door popping open next to them. Apparently they missed her turning off the water and killing the music. A wet, wide-eyed Delilah emerged into the room wrapped from chest to below her shins in a fuzzy navy blue towel, looking at them askance. "Something I can do for you, boys?"
Stark gave her his most winning smile as he shyly waved. "Hey there, Hot Stuff."
She rolled her eyes as she clicked her tongue at him and clutched her towel tighter to her chest. "Hi, Tony." Turning her attention to Steve, she took in his dancing blue eyes and accompanying smirk. "Was there a floor show I missed or something?"
He held up a hand, his face a mask of innocence personified, all big eyes and slightly flushed cheeks. "Hey, I'm just here in case you needed help because of your gunshot wound."
Tony's eyes narrowed as he side-eyed his friend with pursed lips. "Oh, we're doing that?" He turned his attention to Delilah who was kinda sorta inching toward the bedroom to grab her clothes. "He was out here enjoying the free show listening to you sing."
Steve pointed to his buddy immediately, clearly not content to hang alone. "He was too. Whole reason he sat down."
Before they had a chance to really get to arguing, she held up her own free hand and hitched up the knot in her towel sarong again. "I'm too wet for this."
She turned on her heel and limped into the bedroom with Tony calling behind her, "That's what she said!" as the door closed behind her. She sank onto the bed, just feeling the quiet absorb into her pores. The room was dark, the curtains drawn over the windows, and it felt safe. For the first time in days, she actually felt safe, normal. The kind of normal she'd strived for before all this happened. Before she'd met Steve.
Such a stark demarcation point, really. Life before Steve, getting up in the afternoon, going to work, doing three sets with the band, then going home to do it some more. She practiced during the day, she recorded when she had the money, but life as a musician in a popular club was about getting by, mostly, and being happy with that. The night she'd met him, she'd only meant to meet a cute guy, not become a wanted murderer, or a semi-sorta prisoner in a tower, and unwilling candidate for the Avengers.
Additionally, on the list of semi-sorta things, her situation with Steve, Captain America himself. It was one thing to lust after the idea of him, this avatar that some people held up as the pinnacle of hotness, and let's face it, he was in fact blisteringly hot. It was something else entirely getting to call him by his first name, and have him sit with you in your hospital room, and snuggle up with him on the couch, and kiss him so deeply your subconscious was still smoldering at the mere memory, and, and and…
Delilah blew out a deep, shuddering breath as she got unsteadily to her feet and wandered over to her suitcase. At least whomever packed knew to get comfy clothes. She grabbed some yoga pants and a deep teal tunic before heading back to perch on the edge of the bed. Her leg was beginning to bother her even more than normal, the wound a deep burning ache in the muscle in addition to her body's usual litany of complaints.
Steve was so perfect, in so many ways, it was hard for her to sort him out in her mind. She could not imagine what he saw when he looked at her. It wasn't a question of worth, but in so many ways, she was just lacking. Her body was a barely finished assemblage of part time science experiments, that worked on occasion and was scarred for the effort. Her heart hadn't really allowed for the possibility of anything beyond the most casual of encounters since college, with the exceptions being notable, and flagrant, failures. Nothing in her life was prepared to accept any kind of change in a relationship sense.
And yet, when she answered the soft knock at her door after she dressed, she stepped back to allow him to enter her area.
He ducked his head to look her in the eye, peering at her closely. "You feeling okay? It's dark in here."
Looking around like she hadn't been there for the previous ten minutes, Delilah cringed. "Yeah, sorry, wasn't thinking about that. Jarvis, lights please." She took a seat on the foot of the bed, immediately noticing all the things she'd hadn't done or picked up yet.
"May I?" He pointed to the spot next to her and sat when she nodded. "Better than the hospital, right?" Steve bumped against her shoulder with his as he gave her a sly smile.
"Much," she agreed. "It was just this side of what I imagine prison to be. Guess I'll be finding out soon enough."
He clicked his tongue at her and wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders, pulling her over to kiss the top of her head. "Eh, don't give up yet. We're still working on that end of things. Have hope."
Delilah sighed glumly. "Maybe. Maybe I deal in reality and allow for the occasional, but doubtful, surprise."
"That too. Are you tired?"
She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling everything in her life pressing down on her all at once. "In my soul," she answered.
"C'mon." It took a moment but they rearranged themselves with him sitting up against the headboard and her curled up with her head on his shoulder and her hand in the middle of his chest.
She felt herself drifting off to sleep again, a common occurrence when they were in this position, but this time she fought against it. "You don't have to stay, you know."
"Why wouldn't I?" He sounded baffled as he covered her hand with his own.
She was quiet for a moment as she organized the words in her head. "I know you feel obligated, but you really shouldn't. We've been kind of doing this whole thing between us in fast forward and kinda skipped past the bit where we really get to know each other." It wasn't that she wanted to push him away, so much as she didn't understand him. His everpresent kindness-goodness-rubbed her raw emotionally. After everything that happened, maybe she didn't deserve to be comforted by him, and Delilah had no idea why Steve couldn't see that.
"Yeah," he acknowledged. "No reason we can't get to that now, though."
"Maybe," she allowed. "Maybe what we're thinking of as attraction is just misplaced emotions over this whole situation."
"Misplaced emotions." He said the words like they were vile epithets.
Delilah withdrew her hand from under his and folded her arm close to her body, not quite moving away from him but definitely more self-protective. "You know, hypothetically, it could be my gratitude this is all over for now and my mother is safe, maybe my hero worship, or your compulsion to look after the weak, maybe you just like the way I sing. I don't know." She felt like the words kept coming long after she really wanted to shut up. "Like I said, hypothetically."
Steve got quiet for a while, a long while she just lay there in his arms. Part of her wanted to know what he was thinking, and part of her was afraid of the answers. She hadn't meant to say anything at all, and definitely not air out the deepest anxieties in her psyche. To be fair, she blamed the Norco.
He'd shifted next to her and she could tell he was staring at her as he spoke. "So hypothetically, you know my mind, huh?"
"Nah, just some thoughts I'd been having. You're wonderful, and I'm afraid." Jesus Christ, could one thought remain silently in her head? Just one? Dammit.
"Of?"
She tucked her chin to her chest, resolved to speak her mind but really, really hating every second of it. "You. Me. You deserve better and I don't have it in me to be your regret."
His deep sigh accompanied a growl in his chest, but he didn't let go of her. At least not for a couple minutes, and then he situated her with some pillows and swung his legs off the side of the bed. "Sit tight, I'm gonna send Clint in to check your stitches." He patted her thigh softly a couple times
"Clint? Why?" She didn't know much about the guy, but her mom said he was sweet, still. At the very least she figured he would ask Natasha or Bruce.
"Nat's over at SHIELD and Clint's the one with the most experience treating GSW's." Steve looked at her over his shoulder from the doorway with a sad smile. "Sorry. For everything." As if he had anything to apologize for. Great, she'd managed to hurt Captain America's feelings.
His last words before softly shutting the door behind him held the weight of a hammer. Her mind throbbed as she replayed their words over and over. Why did she have to say anything? Why couldn't she just have enjoyed the moment? For once, the pain in her heart equalled the pain in the rest of her person.