Steve Rogers is on your left. (notmyfuture) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-10-22 22:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, steve rogers (captain america), verity |
Who: Steve Rogers and Verity
When: Early October
Where: Verity’s place
What: A visit/Steve is a friend.
Rating/Warning: Low/None.
Status: Complete.
Verity wasn’t in a great place. She’d messed things up in her life, royally, and was obsessing over it. She was also told that she couldn’t lift anything, had to stay in bed whenever possible, and wasn’t allowed to leave the house except for doctor’s visits. This was near torture.
Not to mention she’d just gotten a huge shipment from her mother and friends of clothes, toys, and some small furniture to put up in the baby’s nursery. She had no idea how she was supposed to get this all done--all the clothes put away, the toys sorted, the furniture assembled--when she wasn’t allowed to leave her bed!
Steve had seen Verity’s post on the net, and so it wasn’t really a surprise that he’d move around some his appointments so he could go check on her. Along the way he stopped to buy cupcakes and flowers. He wanted to do what he could to lift her spirits, after all.
When he got to her place, he let himself in and peered around. “Verity? It’s Steve - the door wasn’t locked so I came in.”
And Steve would find her in the living room. She was surrounded by tiny clothes on tiny clothes hangers, diapers and wipes, toys, and some other odds and ends that came out of several very large packages. One about the size of a refrigerator box sat at the end of the sofa, opened and spilling over onto the living room floor.
And Verity was sitting up, hair a bit of a mess, rubbing one of her eyes. There was a pile of baby clothes that spilled from her tummy onto the floor at her feet as she moved. “Hmm?”
It was, strangely enough, worse than Steve had imagined. Just looking at Verity made him exhausted. He set down the flowers and cupcakes, walking over to her and trying not to look a bit agog at the baby clothes disaster. “Hey. I came to see how you are.”
“Oh… Steve… hi.” Verity said, going pink. She really hoped that she didn’t have an imprint from the sofa on the side of her face where she’d been sleeping hard. Of course, she did. “Wow, thank you. I mean… come in. I mean… Oh, Jeez, let me clear you some space.” She moved to climb up out of the sofa and clear the chair nearby.
“Hey - Hey, no, it’s no worries. You just sit back down. I can move my own stuff around.” Steve gave her a smile and motioned for her to sit, then neatly cleared some space for himself. “I brought some cupcakes for you. Maple bacon is in there, I made sure.”
Verity settled back down onto the sofa and instinctively lifted both hands to smooth down her hair. She’d been snoozing when he came in, and she really hoped she hadn’t drooled all over the place. Even though she’d sort of come to the understanding that Steve wasn’t interested in anything more than friendship with her, she still wanted to look her best. It was hard when she was so … pregnant. And conflicted, emotional, devastated, et cetera.
“What? Really?” She broke into a blush and a grin. “That’s so sweet of you, Steve. Thank you. We should have one together. Just like old time’s sake.”
“You know, I don’t really actually eat cupcakes with anyone else? Unless it’s a party or something. It feels weird to do it if we’re not eating them together.” Steve laughed. He carefully untied the ribbon on the box and set it aside, then handed Verity the coveted maple bacon cupcake.
“I got the strangest ones they had. I figured it might fit in the with the whole pregnancy thing?” He blushed a bit, looking embarrassed to have admitted that.
“Ooooh. Well, I suppose that’s true.” Verity grinned as she accepted the cupcake. “I don’t think I did much cupcake eating before I started having weird cravings.” And the grin brightened and spread, taking over her whole face. It was nice to grin naturally and genuinely for a change. After everything that’d happened with Charlie and Roland, she hadn’t done much grinning.
“You figured really well.” She said, then started in on her cupcake.
He looked pleased by that, and he picked up his own cupcake - salted caramel - to start eating. “So.” Steve glanced around as he chewed, careful not get icing on himself or anything else. “Do you need a hand with any of this? Or anything?”
“I… I dunno. I suppose we could move it all into the nursery.” She could finish hanging things sitting on the rocking chair in there. Finish sorting through the toys and blankets and whatnot. “...I haven’t thought too much about it. I… I’ve had a lot of weird stuff happen lately.” She picked a piece of bacon off the frosting of her cupcake and munched on it.
He frowned a bit. He knew that Verity had been having ups and downs regarding the baby thing, but he’d never really seen her be anything but fun and bubbly. He got up from the chair and sat nearby on the couch.
“Is everything all right? You can tell me, you know. If there’s anything I can do to help you, I will.”
Verity felt a wave of emotion hit her. The hormones amplified everything. Her nose was burning, her eyes starting to water. She swallowed her bite and then gave a little sigh. “No, not really. I really made a mess of things.” The thought that she was going to lose two people she cared about very much was painful in her chest.
Steve wasn’t sure what to do. All he knew was that his friend was not all right, and he needed to do something about it. Carefully, he put his arms around her and held her in a gentle hug. “All right. But if you ever need me, I’m right here.”
Verity was more than willing to let him hug her. She was thankful for the contact. In fact, she leaned her head against his chest and cuddled close for a moment, finding that his hug was very, very comforting. Verity was a physical kind of person, and the contact helped. A lot. She gave a little sigh, a couple of teardrops falling down her cheeks and landing on his shirt.
“...I really like this guy. I think I blew it completely.”
“Hey, now.” He stroked her hair a bit, letting her cry if she needed to. Steve hated seeing his friends in any sort of distress, and it didn’t help that Verity was already in an emotional state because of … Well. Everything. “What happened? It can’t be as bad as you think.”
Verity closed her eyes and gave a sniff. She really didn’t want to cry, but she was doing it so much lately it couldn’t really be helped. It was really sweet of him to be so supportive. “...it’s really terrible. I was…seeing someone. A purely physical relationship,” saying it out loud to Steve made her go a little pink. “And then I met someone else who I started to go out with on dates. And I told him that we should … I don’t know exactly what I said. Slow down? Because I was seeing someone else, right? And I wanted to figure out who I wanted to be with more, rather than… anyway, turns out both guys are roommates--I had no idea--and I spent the night with the first guy and the second guy caught me there.”
He winced a bit. That did sound pretty rough, especially because he knew Verity - or at least they were good enough friends at this point that he had an idea the sort of person she was - and he could see that being terrible for her. Of course, it’d be terrible for the guys, too, but that wasn’t really the point.
“It’s not like you lied to him, right? Or the other one? And, hey, if neither of them said they wanted something exclusive, then what does it matter? Heck, they ought to be fighting for your honour, a girl like you. You’re great, you know that? And people aren’t perfect, but you’re great. He should be able to see that, or he doesn’t deserve you.”
Verity shook her head in response to his question. She hadn’t lied to either of them, unless lying through omission counted. She could have been more up front with both of them. But that would have depressed the flow of things, the natural ebb and tide of relationships. Translation? She assumed that telling Charlie up front about her friends with benefits relationship with Roland would have scared him off. And telling Roland about it would have… well, probably wouldn’t have changed anything.
And then she blushed and laughed. “You’re really sweet, Steve, but I’m no catch. I’m…” damaged goods “...second hand.” She said, motioning down toward the huge baby bump. Seriously, she looked like she was smuggling a watermelon under her shirt.
“You are. You totally are!” He gave Verity a Look. “There’s nothing about you that’s not to like. Everything’s going to be fine, all right? This whole thing will work itself out, and you’ll get your happily ever after. I promise.”
Verity gave another little laugh, a couple more tears spilling down her cheeks. She lifted her hand and wiped at them with her sleeve. “You’re so sweet. You’re so good to me. I don’t deserve such a good friend. You’re probably not right, but you’re sweet. After all of this.. I don’t know if I believe in happy endings anymore.”
Steve tightened the hug a little, more than happy to let her cry it out if she needed to. Sometimes people just needed to be reminded that they had someone on their side. “Things are just … All over the place for you right now. And that’s understandable. I mean, you’re about to have a baby. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. Everything will sort out in time.” He gave her a smile. “If you want, I can order something in and I’ll help you sort out this avalanche of baby things.”
Verity was absolutely comforted by the tightness of the hug. Had anyone ever told Steve Rogers that he gave amazing hugs? Because he did. Amazing hugs. A part of her never wanted it to end. A few more tears came out, though she wasn’t sobbing. Actually she gave a little chuckle. “Let’s just hope that I’ve got the patience to wait it out.” And then she sat up a bit and wiped at her face again. “Oh, God, I’d love that. I need so much help.”
“Then it’s help I’m glad to give.” He sat up, too, and closed up the cupcake box before putting it in a safer spot. “All right. Where do we begin?”