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He internally winces through all of his horrendous flirting, but especially when the two girls still turn him down and walk off with disgusted looks on their faces. As much as he wants to blame the hat, and he very well could, he knows the truth, and lying to himself about it would only make it worse.
But the real kicker is when they walk away, and standing behind them is Nancy Wheeler.
Steve nearly swallows his tongue the moment their eyes meet and his hands fumble on the edge of the counter, his heart hammering away in his chest.
Nancy smiles at him, looking up through her lashes, “I don’t remember you being so bad when you turned that charm on me.”
He can’t help but smile back, even though it hurts on the inside, “No?”
“Maybe it’s the hat,” Nancy responds, scrutinizing his work clothes, “Maybe if you remove it-”
Steve leans on the counter, staring back at her, “Yeah? And why are you so interested in helping me out? See something you like?” he flirts easily, “Wanna get a better look?”
The girls that he’d been trying to flirt with before both stare, eyes wide and mouths open, Robin nearly dropping her marker from her spot at the window.
Nancy lifts a brow at him, “That’s more like it. Where was this guy a minute ago?”
“Please,” he rolls his eyes, “It’s easy with you,” Steve says before he realizes that he shouldn’t. She’s not his, she hasn’t been his for over nine months now, and he’s flirting with someone already taken.
“Is it?” she asks, and Steve takes that moment to really look at her, at her dress, her whole look.
God, she’s still the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen in his life.
Steve feels his mouth go dry, his knees start to tremble a little and he shakes his head, “Not really. You okay? What are you doing here? Don’t you have, like… some awesome job to get to on a day like this?”
The next smile she shows him is forced, and though they haven’t even been around one another more than a handful of times in the last months, he’d know it anywhere.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?” he asks, the smile dropping from his face just as hers does.
She leans in a little over the register, “Is there any chance we can talk?”
Steve’s brows rise, “Uh, yeah, totally,” he looks back to Robin and takes off his hat, tossing it towards her, “I’m taking my break.”
“Uh, right, okay,” she says, putting down her board with her half drawn line on the ‘Loser’ side and taking his place at the register as he walks around the counter.
Steve motions ahead for Nancy to take a seat at one of the booths, “This okay?”
“Yeah, this is-” Nancy takes a seat, letting out a heavy breath, “This works.”
Steve takes a seat after her, resting his elbows on the surface of the table and watching her. They aren’t really that close and they haven’t been for a while, but he feels bad for her. Whatever’s going on, clearly she’s upset. So, as strange as it is to do, he reaches out to cover her hand with his to show his support, “What’s going on, Nancy? You’re starting to freak me out.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, this time smiling something real, something genuine, and he can see the tears glistening in her eyes when they meet his, “I don’t mean to. I… I just… I’m an idiot, and I feel like I’ve messed up something and I can’t fix it and I don’t know what to do.”
He feels a little queasy, sure he knows where this conversation is headed, only he doesn’t know why she’d come to him of all people to talk about her romance problems, “First of all, you’re not an idiot. That’s the exact last thing you are. And second, I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think it is, whatever it is, it’ll be okay.”
She chuckles wetly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, “I don’t know. When I mess up, I really seem to mess up… royally.”
“If you’re talking about me, that wasn’t your fault.”
“It was!” Nancy raises her voice a little, not too much to gain the attention of others, but definitely enough to let him know that she means it, “I was… stupid, and so self-absorbed, and I wasn’t thinking about you, about what I was doing to you.”
Steve swallows tightly, his heart racing.
“God,” her hands come up to frame her face, pushing her hair back, “And I broke up with Jonathan-”
“What?”
“-I thought I was doing the right thing, the thing I wanted, but I don’t even know what I wanted,” Nancy looks at him helplessly, “I’m so sorry, Steve.”
Steve stares back at her, feeling just as helpless, not knowing what to say or do. He doesn’t really understand what he’s hearing.
Nancy drops her hand to rub either shoulders under her palms, “I know I hurt you, I know it wasn’t fair, and I know this isn’t… this probably isn’t fair either, but I don’t know what else to do. I waited so, so long, and I wasted so much time because I was too scared to come back.”
His brows furrow, trying to make sense of her words.
“I wasn’t scared of you, well-” she shrugs, “Maybe I was. Scared of you… scared of you being mad at me, scared of you not being mad at me. Scared of you moving on. Of you not wanting to see me. And why would you? You don’t owe me anything. I-” Nancy curls in on herself a little more, “I don’t know if any of this even matters, for all I know, it’s too late, so why bother? But I had to try.”
Steve blinks, once, twice, a few times, because he still can’t really make heads or tails of anything she’s saying. It’s nice to hear her apologize, but he never asked for it, let alone ever expected her to do it at all.
“She’s really pretty,” Nancy says when he doesn’t respond, and she looks away, his eyes following her to where Robin is, standing at the register and helping Erica with her ice cream, “I don’t know if you’re with her, or just…” her eyes move to the other girls, “Enjoying the single life again and I’m-…” she finally looks back down to her hands, then up to him through her lashes, “Or if you’d even want this after everything.”
“Wait,” Steve lifts a hand finally, squinting at her, “What are you saying? Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
Nancy’s cheeks flush, “I don’t know, am I?”
“I don’t know.”
She bites her bottom lip, lifts her jaw a little in that defiant way she does, “Would you want it, if I was?”
“I-” Steve stops himself from immediately saying ‘yes’, reminding himself that she’s the reason they broke up in the first place, that there’s a reason why they’re not together anymore. And while he knows how bad he was as her boyfriend, he also knows that she was part of the problem. After all, she doesn’t love him.
So why would she come back?
“I don’t know,” he finally settles on, then can’t help but add: “Yes?”
She looks hopefully up at him, more unshed tears filling her eyes, “Of course I… I understand if you want to start slow.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Steve says, blinking rapidly, his eyes looking around before locking on Nancy and he leans in against the table, “You are saying what I think you’re saying.”
Nancy starts to look nervous, like she’s worried he’ll say ‘no’, she actually looks worried that he would turn her down. Really? That’s… kind of a nice change of pace.
Steve continues so she doesn’t have to, “What about Jonathan?”
“I broke up with Jonathan.”
“I know, you said that already, but-” Steve wets his lips, glancing away because he hates that he has to ask, but he has to be sure. Especially when he’s not sure how much he can really trust her, “Christ, you’ve been dating him for the last 9 months. You love him. That’s not nothing. And he loves you, I’m not blind. You really think he’d just leave it at that without trying to get you back?”
Nancy considers his words, her lips pinching in a few different ways before she drops her shoulders and rests her arms on the table, “It doesn’t matter what he wants. It doesn’t work if one of us isn’t interested.”
Woah… what?
“I don’t think I ever loved him. I think maybe I was… in love with the idea of being in love,” she looks up at him, “And there was this guy-”
“Guy?”
“This older guy,” she explains, “When me and Jonathan were working on the stuff with Barb, we stayed at this guy’s house, and he kept… I don’t know how to explain it - he was so persistent, and he was an adult, and he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. He kept talking about how me and Jonathan had something important, ‘shared trauma’, and that I wasn’t in love with you.”
“Well?” Steve shrugs, a little uncomfortable thinking of her staying with some adult that was pushing her to be with another man, but it was almost a year ago, and he’s not her boyfriend, so it’s not really his business, now is it? Still, he can’t help feeling like he needs to leave the mall, get in his car, hunt this man down, and beat the shit out of him, “Was he right?”
“No!” Nancy whisper shouts, sounding defensive, “I-I thought he was at the time, but I was so… I wasn’t thinking about that, about any of it. I was thinking about Barb. And I was still upset about the stuff with you and me, and I was scared. So I listened to him because I didn’t know what else to do. Jonathan was there, and all I could think about was that shared trauma-... and, and he acted like he knew me - knew us, knew you and me, knew Jonathan and me. And I didn’t know if he was right or wrong. I didn’t want to be alone.”
Steve nods as he listens, letting her get it all out as she starts crying and he can only watch it for maybe a handful of seconds before he moves over to her side, sliding in beside her and pulling her into his arms.
She doesn’t even fight, leaning into him willingly and clutching onto his work shirt as she cries.
He’s seen her upset a couple times before, especially after all the stuff with Barb, but never once had he actually gotten to hold her like this, no matter how many times he imagined it. Nancy didn’t normally like letting him get close if she could help it.
Nancy’s already small frame feels even smaller like this, shaking against him like a leaf, and he rubs her back to try and calm her down.
She finally stops and looks up at him, eyes puffy and red, cheeks still wet from her tears, “You shouldn’t be comforting me,” she says sadly, “Not after what I did to you.”
“Doesn’t sound to me like you were put in a good position either,” he defends her, reaching up to comb her hair back from her face before he leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead.
He feels her lean into it and he stays, then pulls back to look into her eyes again.
“I still love you,” he says after a beat, “I don’t think I’m… ready to just jump back into everything and… be like how we were. But I’d like to give it a chance.”
“Friends?” Nancy asks, sounding hopeful.
Steve smiles wide and nods in agreement, “Friends,” he says, wiping another tear away from her face, “So about the work stuff-”
“Oh god, don’t even get me started,” Nancy cuts him off, groaning and hiding her face in her hands, “It’s so stupid. It’s so stupid. I don’t even know where to start, I feel like if I did, you’d be here all week.”
Steve shrugs, “I mean, I’ve got time.”
Nancy throws a smile his way and Steve feels his heart melt.
Yeah, of course he still loves her. And as hard as it’s going to be to just be friends with her for now, he needs it. And if they’re going to make this work, it deserves the time it’s going to take to rebuild trust between them.