Normally, hearing disappointment in Karolina's voice would break her heart, would make her want to fix everything that was wrong. Right now, it caused a new type of emotional distress within her, one that she couldn't understand or place, or... Then came the next words which were basically telling her to get the fuck out, and.... It put her in a sort of shock. First Karolina wants her to talk about things, and then she tries, and Karolina basically just doesn't reply to half of what she says - even though in the reality of the situation America had completely failed to make it a conversation ultimately as she hadn't a fucking clue how to talk about these sorts of things - and then, then when she tries to avoid getting more upset her partner gets disappointed and then basically...
"The fuck?" There was clear confusion, and lingering irritation in her voice. It would take a moment for that shock to fade, and in that moment of America pausing, then turning to look at her partner, Karolina had already seemed to make up her mind at exactly how this night was going to go, dropped her spoon, gotten up and walked off.
What.............
...... The........
............. Fuck.
America would stand there for a moment, dumbstruck. Suddenly, she felt their relationship had been shock-putted back three years and.... It just left her standing there, dumbfounded... Her emotions struggling between hurt, confused, angry, worried, and.... Honestly, the tank didn't even know what.
In the past, how this would have gone, was America would allow Karolina's reaction to piss her off more. Prompting her to storm out in a huff, and fly off to some rooftop somewhere so that she could be pissed off for a good long time until she could stop seeing red. Then she'd start replaying the situation in her head, thinking over what had happened, what she'd said, what Karolina said, and what she might have done wrong. By the time she'd come back in the past the other woman would have - probably - come out of the bathroom, calmed herself down too - most of the time - and they'd apologize to each other. If they'd talk about what had really caused the issue or not was always a gamble. It seemed like most of the time they were both just happy to put whatever the problem was behind them with as little revisiting the unpleasant parts as possible.... Which largely lead to a lot of avoiding shit.
Now?
She was just confused.
America would shift. Letting her jaw tighten as she remained still where she was for several minutes, letting her mind tick over what was going on inside of her, what their interaction had caused, and allowing a fight about how she should react rage on inside her mind.
Clearly, something had gone awry in America's attempts to open up to her partner more..... Which had caused Karolina to feel like she needed to walk away, and.... There was a low sigh, and the tank's eyes narrowed. Another minute would pass as she tried to figure out what the fuck was going on. Yet, no answers arose right now... Which was annoying. Moving over the bruiser picked up Karolina's plate, covered it, and stuck it in the microwave in hopes that that would help keep it warm.
With that done, she'd pad stiffly over to the bathroom door, as she still ached. America didn't even bother trying the handle. If Karolina had kicked America out, and walked in there, the tank likely wasn't welcome in the room... Swallowing her pride America paused, then knocked lightly against the door. A brief beat would pass before the tank started speaking through the door with a clear apologetic desire for understanding.
"Where'd I go wrong?" The number of times America had actually, verbally, asked this question in their relationship could be totaled on a person's fingers and toes....Perhaps, after all this time and hardship, a statement Karolina had made a year and a half ago about them was right... Maybe even more so now than before... With time and age you learned, and with everything she'd gone through recently, America had - finally - done some growing up too.