wrecked_egg | IC Voicemail:

"I'm supposed to watch her back. I'm supposed to keep her from getting killed." And to him, that definitely doesn't just start when she gets home. It started the second he swore it to her. "It's not my business who she spends time with - but it is my business when they hurt her. I swore an oath to protect her." Fat lot of good he's done, doing that.

"Then if you're doing it for him, it's even more important that you do it for him," Steve says. Yeah, maybe he's pleased she genuinely wants to help people. But if that's the case, and he believes her... it makes stepping in and being that authority all the more vital. "You won't help him by being too soft. You won't help him by letting him get in his own way, either. Why does he care what you get out of it?"

The oath part again kind of makes her want to say something, but this isn't about her and what she thinks Steve should maybe do or think about. Once, maybe, she'd let herself get sidetracked, but not now. Especially not when she can focus on the second part, which she does have an answer for. "The same reason he killed Yara, I think," she says, and a little quieter becomes even more. "Because he does care, and I think that scares him a lot. It scared me for a really long time, and he's had even longer to think about it. When you care, people can hurt you even more. They know how to hurt you. So you hurt them first." She says the words like she knows intimately, like she's lived them. Because she has, and she's still paying for that, and will be for a very long time to come.

"The people you care about will always hurt you," Steve says softly. He kind of figures that's not a lesson Shiro or Ardyn need to learn. It's just a fact. He just... can't fathom hurting them back, not when the thing you want is the opposite of that. But what he would do - has done - is not the issue here, either. This is about helping Ardyn. And how handling this right could do that.

"How did you learn to do something else?"

There are two kinds of people, she thinks. She's been both of them, still is, in a way. There's the person who'll do anything to keep from being hurt, even if it means hurting others first, and the person who would rather be hurt themselves, take that pain rather than share it with others. You have to learn how to balance. She thinks for a while about Steve's question, glancing over in the living room to check in on Bucky and Kuro and Goosifer.

"It...took a while. To learn that there were people who would love me, no matter what I was, or what I'd done. And longer to learn that loving someone doesn't mean you have to agree with them, or that them loving you doesn't mean they can't be mad at you. It took time. And people who didn't let me have what I wanted, to be alone. I don't know if that's going to work for Ardyn, but he's been like this for a long time. It's gonna take a while. But I can't force him to make that choice to let people love him. You can't ever force that."

"I'm not asking him to change overnight," Steve concedes. "But I am asking you to at least... try something, and stick with it. Maybe what worked for you will work for him, and that's why you're his warden. Or maybe you're his warden because you'll be willing to try something else if that doesn't work. I don't know," he blows out a breath, "but I just - I need to know you won't forget or belittle what he did. You need to talk to him. Make sure he knows you know what happened. Make sure he knows it's on your mind."

Maybe that's all she does, and... he can't force her to do more. But sweeping it under the rug seems like the absolute worst thing anyone can do. It's akin to complacency, in his mind.

"I won't." There's a certainty in her tone, a feeling that for the first time in a very long time, she and Steve are on the same page. "Even if death doesn't last, that doesn't make it right. The pain is still real. All the feelings--being afraid--that's still real, too. I think when that stops mattering, it's--worse." So she will talk to him. It may take a while to find the words, but she will.

"I'll message Yara too. So she can have a say in what happens. I won't let Ardyn die for her, but she should get to say her part."

"I think so, too," he says quietly, looking mollified; almost grateful. Death and pain have to mean something, because when they mean nothing, that's when you've truly lost everything.

"He shouldn't die for her," he adds, because she's right on that count, too. "Neither of them deserves that." Even though he knows there's a part of Yara that wants him dead, even if it would get her demoted. And even though there's a part of Steve that wants him dead, too. That part is savage and angry and petty and he can't let it be the part that Yara or Bucky sees. It's the part he's pretty sure Sam was worried about. It's the part he has to be better than.

"But they both deserve for this situation to mean something. That's all I'm asking."

So, "Thank you. For letting me talk to you."

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