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“Hey, c’mon, don’t talk back to me like that.”
“I can if I want to!”
“Kiddo, I’m not gonna let—”
Petulantly, Peter hissed out, “I hate you.”
Steve threw a look to his son, eyes wide in disbelief. “Peter Benjamin!”
“I hate you!” he screeched. Peter shoved away from Steve, smacking away his arms when he tried to reach for him. “I wish you died instead of Dad!”
The moment those words left Peter’s mouth, Steve felt a knife stab into his heart and twist mercilessly. He could only stare open-mouthed and in shock as his son ran out, leaving him alone in the kitchen. Or so he thought. From the corner of his eye, Steve spotted Natasha standing at the threshold of the entrance connecting to the living room. He tried to swallow down the shame that was bubbling up from his stomach.
There was a look of pity that flashed over Natasha’s face before she schooled her expression. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly, setting down bags of groceries on the kitchen counter.
“Yeah. Um. Peter and I just had an argument over—”
“No, Steve. Are you okay?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but no sounds came out. So many things were going through his head, multiple trains of thought that were slowly derailing. Two months had passed since Tony had lost his life; since they had laid him to rest six feet under. It was two months of trying to keep his world from further falling apart, and it wasn’t really working in his favor.
So, no. No, he wasn’t okay.
Natasha pursed her lips before letting out a heavy sigh. She walked up to him, reaching out to grasp his wrist, and tugged him forward. “Come with me.”
“What are you—”
“We are getting some air.”
Steve followed Natasha out to the terrace, almost dragging his feet as they went. The warmth of the sunlight hit his skin once they made their way outside, and he avoided looking in the redhead’s direction for as long as he could. She stepped up to the railing and looked down into the veins of the city beneath them.
It was quiet up there, nothing but the sounds of the winds and the very slight echoes of the honking cars from below. He took a moment to gather his thoughts before revealing, “I don’t even remember why we got mad at each other.” With a pinched frown tugging on his mouth, Steve exhaled through his nose as he observed beyond the skyline. “Pete got impatient with me, and I got impatient with him, and we just — I dunno — came to a head.”
“It happens,” Natasha told him plainly, no judgment lingering in her tone.
Steve groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose, “But it shouldn’t have.”
“Life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, Rogers. You and I know the world doesn’t work like that. Especially after what you two went through.” She looked at him then, a firm line to her lips. “What do think you need to do?"
“I don’t know what to do, is the problem.” A pause. Steve turned around, looking up to the skies. They seemed empty without the red and gold streak that was a near constant whenever Tony used to fly around New York. The glass windows of Avengers Tower could have blended into the blue if he squinted. “I just want to crawl into bed and stay there until—”
“Oh, please,” Natasha scoffed lightly. “Do you think avoiding your feelings will magically solve your issues? Since when’s that worked out for you, huh? You’ve been suppressing so much since Tony died.”
“That’s… that’s not true.”
She raised a perfectly sculpted brow, looking Steve directly in the eyes. “Listen. What you need to do is separate yourself from the boulder sitting on your chest, Steve, because it's going to crush you if you let it.”
Steve pressed his lips together, feeling a pressure build behind his eyes that he tried to fight. Tears formed anyway, and his voice cracked as he confessed, “I don’t know how.”
Sympathy fell over Natasha’s eyes. “Well, we’re out here. No Peter, no responsibilities, no one but me and you.” Steve let out an unconvinced Nat, but abruptly shut up when she shushed him. “You’re angry, I know you are,” Natasha prodded. “So tell me why you’re angry.”
“This is ridiculous. I’m not humoring—”
“Steve, tell me why you’re angry!” Natasha yelled suddenly, giving him a hard look.
He inhaled a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. The tears threatening to pool over were warm. Steve’s heart ached. “Okay, I’m fucking angry!”
“Why?!”
“Because he left me!”
And there it was. The truth. The painful truth that he’d refused to say out loud even to himself. He missed his husband, so much that he felt it aching in his bones. Steve lost his composure entirely, feeling the walls he built up start to crumble around him. A single tear slipped down his cheek, and it wasn’t long until more of them started coming freely.
He let out in a broken sob, “Tony left me, and I have to do this all by myself, and it’s not fair.”
Natasha nodded slowly, moving closer to him and placing a gentle hand on his forearm. “That’s right. And why’s it not fair?”
Steve sniffed, using the back of his hand to wipe the wetness off his face. “Because…” His mouth trembled as he answered Natasha, the corners turning down. “God, we finally had it. W-we were together, and we’d figured out what our relationship was supposed to be.” He choked on a sob, continuing his attempt to get rid of any evidence of the waterworks on his face. “We were a team. I finally found what I wanted in life with him, and I just — everyone expects the Man with a Plan to have one, but I don’t.”
Natasha remained quiet, caressing his arm comfortingly as he kept crying. The words kept tumbling out of Steve’s lips, despite his wavering voice and shaking sobs.
“I just… I waited so long. So long to find someone like him, to get married, to-to have a kid like Peter, and for what? Why couldn’t we have had more time? I thought — hey, seventy years in the future wouldn’t be so bad because I would have Tony by my side for the next seventy, but…” Steve staggered a bit before falling to his knees, burying his face in his hands. A louder sob fell from his lips. “We had the rest of our lives together, Nat, we had things planned out… and now I have to make a new plan on my own.”
“You have Peter,” Natasha said, kneeling down beside him and pulling him into an embrace. Steve leaned into her side, his throat feeling raw from his cries. She started to rub soothing circles over his shoulders, grounding and steady. “The kid has you too. He needs you as much as you need him, Cap.”
Steve and Natasha stayed out on the terrace for a while, the air around them silent except for the sobs stuttering in Steve’s chest. When Steve eventually pulled himself together, Natasha leaned back and cupped his face between her hands, looking him dead in the eye as she thumbed away the last streaks of wetness on his face. “You’re a good father, Steve,” she expressed, smiling slightly.
He sniffed, managing a small, broken smile of his own. Clearing his throat, Steve couldn’t help but to laugh at himself. “Thanks, Nat. I needed that.”
“Oh, I know you did,” she teased, ruffling the front of his hair in jest. “Now pull on your big boy pants and make up with your son.”
They reentered the tower, Natasha to put away the groceries and Steve to go find where Peter had run off to. He spent a few minutes searching the game room and other parts of the penthouse when he couldn’t find the kid in his room, only to be surprised to see Peter in the master bedroom. Peter was crying into one of Tony’s old ratty t-shirts, hugging a pillow to his chest. God, the sight could have broken Steve’s heart to pieces.
Steve took slow, careful steps as he approached the bed, brows furrowing together. “Oh, Pete…”
His head of brown hair whipped up at the sound of Steve’s voice, and reddened eyes immediately found Steve’s gaze. Peter whined high in his throat, sobbing, scrambling from the mattress and practically jumping into his dad’s arms.
“I’m sor-sorry, Papa,” Peter hiccupped into his neck. Steve hugged his son tightly, feeling him shaking in his embrace. “I didn’t mean to sa-say what I did. I-I don’t want you to d-die. I just — I just miss Daddy a lot.”
“I’m sorry we fought too. I forgive you, kiddo.” Steve’s eyes watered again, and he let out a trembling breath, moving to sit on the edge of the mattress with Peter in his arms. He pressed a kiss to his son’s temple, just holding him for a moment. “I miss him too, Pete, so much,” Steve whispered against his skin. “It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”
“You promise?” his son mumbled into his shirt, voice sounding small.
“I promise.” Steve brushed his son’s hair back, smiling when he finally saw his eyes. He began wiping the tears and snot from Peter’s face with the front of his shirt. “What did Daddy used to say, huh? What are we?”
Peter sniffed, settling himself on Steve’s lap. He wiped at his eyes, muttered a low, “We’re a team.”
“You bet we are. You and me now, kiddo.” He met Peter’s gaze, brown eyes so much like the carbon copies of Tony’s own that it sent a bittersweet pang through his heart.
They were going to be okay. They just had to be.
