Re: [Outside Vade: Atticus/Steve]
Personal and societal weren't as different as one might think. There was some division, of course, but, the way people were shaped by time and circumstance, it wasn't as clear-cut as Atticus seemed to think. Not to Steve's mind anyway. And, to be fair to Janus' proclivity for running from his problems, Steve, even when he had been young, actually young, had never been that kind of person.—Either way, Atticus didn't answer Steve's question, so he left it for now. It wasn't achingly important to him to discuss at the moment. If anything, he felt he'd been giving a lot of his time to dissecting and attempting to understand Janus, and he could use a break.
He wasn't actually in the mood to discuss psychology either, or philosophy. He smiled at Atticus' lazy grin, but he didn't pursue the topic. He nodded when Atticus laid out the sort of questionable decision making that happened in the heat of war and he looked up from his hands around his bottle when Atticus said he hadn't been a kid for a long time. Steve's smile was dry. "That's the point. The things I felt or didn't feel, or that I wanted or didn't want—they aren't applicable here. Peggy, she's not applicable. Every inch of the situation was different. So, while I understand you want me to frame what I want with my relationship with Peggy, I don't think it'd actually make anything clearer."
Atticus said that Steve was with him, and Steve felt a little ridiculous and dramatic. "I'm glad," was what he said. That was enough on the topic. "When are you coming home? Do you not want to?"