DESTRUCTION.
( chapter one. )

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Edited 12/26/2015 @5:27 PM
Edited 08/05/2016 @5:07 AM
Edited 12/01/2017 @1:58 PM

  THE COOL SENSATION OF THE wall against Andrea's back was soothing as her eyes stared blankly ahead of her. She felt empty and cold, as if everything inside of her had been taken out and replaced with ice.

Her brain, however, wasn't as frozen as the rest of her was. Instead, it was running at a hundred miles per hour, jumping from thought to thought. It left her confused.

  After the tears had subsided, there was nothing left. Not a single inclination as to what she should do. Every part of her longed to find Bucky, but each call made to the number in her phone had lead to not even a god damn voicemail.

Andrea wanted nothing more than to be able to say that she could be there for him, because he'd once been there for her.

She only wished that there were some way she could make Bucky understand. But, he was afraid─ and not just of hurting her, but of hurting anyone that might get caught in the crossfire. In all the empty spaces HYDRA had emptied out, there were vast and unknown terrors to be unleashed.

  And there was nothing the Jones woman could relate to more than the fear of losing control.

  Andy would've liked to that say she knew all this simply because she knew Bucky. But, the truth was that she didn't. Not anymore. The reason behind her intricate knowledge didn't lay in their shared past, but in their concerns instead─ because it was these same fears that made Andrea want to run as well.

Not just from the destruction HYDRA had created, but also from the friends who so desperately wanted to be let back in.

  However, unlike Andy, who knew how to─ somewhat─ tame her demons, Bucky was less capable of quieting the screaming in his head. Andrea knew how to anchor down her memories and silence them until they seemed almost nonexistent. But, the Barnes man never had that luxury.

  The Jones woman wanted to show him that there were more things to celebrate than there were to mourn. If he'd just give her the chance, Andrea knew she could help him.

Not that she really knew how to help herself.

  What a joke.

  She felt her fingers curl into fists, the pain in her chest seeming to intensify the more she thought about it. She wanted to scream─ to cry and destroy something. It would do nothing, Andy knew that. But, at the very least, it might have eased the pain.

  Tears began sliding down Andrea's face, one by one. She felt all of her frustrations fall from her shoulder as her body shook with sobs. Andy buried her head in her arms, knees tucked tight against her chest.

  With the pressure came the feeling that she was being suffocated— and she felt relieved by it all; curled up on the floor as the grief took hold of her.

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  She awoke the next morning to someone violently pounding on the door of her apartment.

  The flimsy piece of wood shook in place as they knocked, and Andrea did nothing for a moment. She hoped the visitor would give up and leave. But, if the vicious pounding was of any indication, it was clear that they weren't going anywhere— at least, not anytime soon.

  Andy let out a sigh. She rose slowly from the floor, irritated by the rude awakening. After stretching, the woman finally made her way towards the entrance. Her movements were slow, almost sluggish as she shuffled along the floor, taking her time as she slid the lock out of place.

  Andrea didn't bother to peering through the peep-hole, knowing already who it would be. She watched in mild surprise as Steve passed the threshold quickly. He closed the door behind him before turning to her with an expression of pure annoyance.

Andy rolled her eyes.

  She turned away, only to stop as Steve reached out and caught her wrist. She looked at him, eyebrow raised lazily as she snatched her hand back and headed towards the kitchen.

"You've been avoiding me." Steve stated, following after her.

  "I've been avoiding everyone," Andrea dead-panned as she turned her back to him. She flicked the switch on the coffee machine. The air was silent between them for a while after that.

However, the silence didn't bother Andy in the slightest. Not like it used to. She never liked the quiet because it made her uncomfortable. But, nowadays, it was all she wanted; the peace and the relaxation that came with it all.

  Though, it was clear that Steve didn't share the same sentiment.

  "You need to stop shutting yourself away from everyone," he spoke gently. His tone was concerned, but his gaze burned into Andrea's back.

She felt her teeth grind together as she struggled to keep from saying something snappy. It wasn't that easy. Andy couldn't just pretend like it didn't happen, she couldn't let things to go back to the way they were.

  It wasn't the same.

"Who said I was shutting myself away?" She replied, struggling to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  Steve stared at her for a long moment, not saying anything as he studied her tense back and how her fingers clutched the edge of the counter so hard that her knuckles began to turn white. He knew she was annoyed with him, he just didn't understand why.

All he wanted to do was help, but she kept shoving him out. It'd been weeks since he'd last spoke to his best friend and he missed her.

"Don't, Andrea. Don't act like you don't know what you're doing. I know it hurts, but you're not the only one in pain," Steve began. "He was my best friend too, you weren't the only one it destroyed."

  His words left Andrea wincing. She shut her eyes tightly, feeling them sting with unshed tears as she gripped the edge of the counter even harder. He still didn't understand.

"He wasn't the love of your life though, was he? You weren't the one who had every—" her voice broke, "—every chance to save him but didn't. You have no idea how painful that kind of guilt is."

  "So no, it didn't just destroy me. It didn't just hurt. There are no words to describe how broken I am," Andy said, speaking with such a vicious desire to rip this hurt out of her. She was sure Steve could hear it.

  She shook her head, "So, don't think for a moment that what we feel is the same, because it isn't. The pain you feel doesn't even come close to the absolute hell I go through everyday."

  Her grip on the counter loosened and Andrea finally turned to face Steve. His expression was one of pure heartbreak and somehow, Andy's hell seemed to burn brighter. He rose from his chair and the two stood in deafening silence.

  They did nothing but stare at each other, unsure of what to say or do.

  Finally, Steve let his gaze fell to the floor. "Maybe you're right, but that doesn't mean you have to go through this alone." He rapped his knuckles against the table, and she could see he was struggling to repress his anger.

  "And it sure as hell doesn't mean you get to shut me out and leave me feeling like I did something wrong, like I couldn't help you. Like I wasn't worth giving a goddamn call just to tell me you were okay." Steve's voice rose with every word, but she didn't wince.

  When he was finished, the Rogers man couldn't meet her eyes, chest heaving in frustration. He hadn't meant to become annoyed, but talking with Andy only seemed to get harder.

  Andrea said nothing, simply because there was nothing left for her to say. She would have argued if she could have, but she knew he was right. He didn't deserve this. What he deserved was so much more than a friend who did nothing but push him away.

  She just didn't know how to reach out anymore. She didn't know if she was ready to fully confront what it was that she felt. The abyss hoarding everything inside her.

  Andrea's hands shook as she clenched them back into fists, desperately racking her mind for something— anything to say.

  Were there any words to explain why she was this way? And how did she do so without letting go of all her pent up emotions? How did she do this without hurting him?

  Then, something in Andrea snapped, and her next words came spilling out with no way to stop them.

  "No, I didn't call because 'I thought you weren't worth it.'" Andy laughed, as though the words were the funniest thing she'd ever heard. But, the sound was so empty that she choked on it.

  "I didn't call because I thought you deserved more. I shut you out because," the Jones woman paused, pressing a hand to her lips as she forced back tears.

  "I couldn't stand the thought of pretending to be happy when I'm not," she whispered, meeting Steve's gaze with the tears she'd been trying so hard to hold back flowing freely down her face. Her fingers continued shaking and any ounce of control she had failed her.

  "I wouldn't be here if I thought I deserved more than you. I wouldn't be here if I didn't care about you, Andy." Steve's voice was gentle as he ventured closer.

  "No one's asking you to pretend, but we want to help," he said.

  But there's nothing you can do, Andy thought to herself. She stared over at Steve and all the fight seemed to leave her. He closed the short distance between them as he wrapped Andrea in his arms.

  It made everything hurt all over again.

  "Please, promise me you won't shut me out again," Steve whispered as the two embraced.

Andy smiled sadly. "I promise," she replied, biting down on her tongue for the lie she knew she knew she was telling him. The taste of iron was a sickening on her tongue.

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  As the days came and went, Andrea found herself opening up to Steve's presence. Their conversations felt less tense and more relaxed as time passed slowly. It was calming, in a sense, and it took her mind off the pain she was so used to dealing with on her own.

  However, that didn't mean it was gone completely. It still woke her up in the middle of the night, feeling as if someone had lit her on fire and poured salt in her wounds.

  Steve wasn't unaware of this either, because he was often the one who would shake Andrea awake. Her throat would be raw by the time she was lucid enough to stop screaming. But, he would hold her and tell her it was okay, that she was safe and he would never let anything hurt her.

  It was the kind of care Andrea didn't know she needed until she'd let Steve back in.

  Finally, when a full month had passed, the Jones woman began seeing her friends again. She sparred with Natasha and Clint when they could spare the time, and attended press conferences when Tony deemed her presence necessary. They were glad to see that she was doing better and Andy found that the more she got back into routine, the easier breathing felt.

  That was when she decided that change was necessary. Like turning a new leaf, Natasha had joked. Though, much to Andy's embarrassment, that was exactly what she had planned

  And as cheesy as the idea sounded, Andrea went to a hair salon.

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  The brunette stared at herself in the mirror, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she toyed with her new hair. Her fingers tugged gently on the ends of her shoulder-length look and Andy found herself falling in love. She turned to look up at the stylist, thanking her kindly before she paid and made her exit.

  Andrea grinned to herself as she left the salon, only to frown once she saw that it was raining. She took out the umbrella from her bag, lifting it over her head to shield from the droplets of water. There was no way in hell she was ruining her curls, not after the $150 she had just spent.

  Once she was ready, Andy turned to walk away from the building, only to stop as she found herself bumping into a firm chest.

  Andrea stumbled back from the unexpected force, almost losing her footing as she went. Luckily, however, someone caught her arm, steadying her before she could fall. The brunette breathed a sigh of relief and looked up.

  There was a smile on her face as she opened her mouth to apologize— but, everything suddenly seemed to stop as she found herself staring into a pair of familiar, summer-blue eyes.

  They watched her with wariness and panic and the sight of them left Andy feeling like she couldn't breath. Her hand gripped his arm, which she had grabbed during her near fall.

  "Bucky?"