Meant to Be

“Take your time, Charlotte.”

Chick let out another frustrated groan, hitting the bed railing with a closed fist, hunching over to catch her breath.

“It’s going to take time,” Dr. Wright added.

“How am I going to make this thing move if I can’t feel it?” Chick growled.

Dr. Wright, a physical therapist, and a tech specialist surrounded her. The physical therapist had been trying her best to help Chick balance. She bitterly refused to hold onto the silver walker in front of her. The bright green tennis balls on the bottom of the legs slid softly on the polished floor when Chick tried to dramatically push it away. She was insulted that they offered it to her at all.

“It will take time,” the doctor repeated.

Chick was on her tenth attempt of trying to walk forward- taking merely two steps forward. Her left leg worked fine, but her right leg dragged and tripped her clumsily. It would scrape across the floor and Chick would have to heave it along with her as she would fall into the physical therapist’s arms. It was an extra weight that she was completely unused to. She had imagined that it would take her a few moments to start walking- how can anyone forget how to walk?

Between attempts to walk, the physical therapist would stretch the metal leg, lifting it up and down and bending it at the knee back and forth. It looked impressive and made her more antsy to work it on her own.

After taking another deep breath, Chick hauled herself up onto both legs. She threw her right hip forward, trying to force the joints in the leg to work for her. The tech specialist observed from a distance, taking notes on a clipboard.

“How’s the strength in the leg and wrist extensions?” Chick tried to keep the metal leg from slipping out from underneath her, tightening her core and squaring her hips.

“Super,” she grunted, bringing her hips back to try and control the leg again. It stiffly came back to her body and she was able to let out the breath that she’d been holding. She balanced awkwardly, but refused to sit back down. She looked at the walker out of the corner of her eye, squinting angrily. “Honestly not my main concern right now, bud.”

“They don’t hurt- or, I mean…” Chick rolled her eyes at him. “Do you sense that there is a difference in your muscular torsion?” She wrinkled her nose looking at her wrists.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” she responded. She took a step forward on her left leg this time, dragging the right leg along after. She did her best to pick it up so that it didn’t scrape along the floor, but she was unsuccessful. When she pulled it towards her left leg, it caught on her ankle and it made her knee buckle. She fell to the floor in a heap onto her left shin. The metal leg was stretched out behind her, a useless, dead weight. She tried to get out of this position as quickly as she could because she knew that if she could have felt it, she would be in pain. Her right leg was bent underneath her and the shift of weight was nearly forcing her to fall forward onto her face.

The door to her room slid open and Chick scrambled to get back up. When it was clear that she wouldn’t be able to do it on her own, the physical therapist leaned down and lifted her up.

“Looks like I’m right on time,” she heard a deep voice interject between the squeaks of metal and Chick’s frustrated groans.

“Go away,” Chick yelled, her voice deep and angry. She used her free hands to try and cover herself with her thin bathrobe, pulling at areas that had ridden up in her struggle. “Little busy here, Rogers.” She fell backwards onto the bed, grabbing the blanket and pulling it over her legs.

“It’s probably a good idea to take a break, Charlotte,” Dr. Wright said gently.

“No-”

“Ms. Abbott, you need to take a break,” the physical therapist interrupted. Chick took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, closing her eyes and dragging her hand down her face.

“Fine, whatever.” Before they got too far, Chick stopped them. “Wait, take this goddamn thing, will you?” she asked, pointing to the walker. “I don’t want it anywhere near my room.” Dr. Wright smiled kindly and carried it off without a word. The three left her and Steve alone in the room.

“I just tripped a little. I’m almost back to walking again.” Chick felt defensive and embarrassed that he had seen her in such a vulnerable position. She still hadn’t looked at him- she was staring down at the blanket that covered her metal leg and ugly scars.

“I’m happy to hear it,” Steve said, pretending not to see right through her. “I know you said you’d have a busy morning so I wanted to just see if you wanted to talk, and maybe watch a movie?” Chick scrunched her eyes and finally looked up at him.

He was holding a DVD case in one hand. Chick looked at the design on the front cover and saw cartoonish drawings of two men and movie monsters.

“You found it?” Chick asked, unable to hide her shock and awe. “On a DVD?” Steve smiled charmingly.

“I pulled some strings.” He walked to the side of the room, tucking the DVD under his arm to reach for a wheelchair, which was folded and leaning against the wall. Chick watched him anxiously, realizing the truth- he knew that she couldn’t walk.

“My dad had it on a bootleg VHS tape. I haven’t seen it in… years,” she sighed, feeling the pain of nostalgia. Steve unfolded the wheelchair and parked it in front of Chick.

“You better bring those blankets,” Steve said. “It’s always too cold in movie theaters.” Chick furrowed her brows, holding tightly onto the blankets as she stood up and hopped on one leg into the chair.

“Where are we going?” she asked cautiously.

“Tony has a movie theater in the next wing.” Chick flinched at his name.

“Of course he does.” She huddled into the chair, tucking the blankets around her. Steve started to wheel her off. “Wait-” Chick pointed her thumb behind her, motioning him to wheel her back towards the bed. She reached out and grabbed two pillows from the head of her bed.

Steve smiled, feeling a wave of relief rush over him. He had thought for sure that she was going to grab the morphine drip to bring along. Part of the reason he wanted to get her out of the room was so she wouldn’t have access to the morphine. He had asked a nurse to clear any pain medications from the room by the time they came back. Steve even hoped that watching a movie she loved might be a sem-sufficient replacement for the painkillers.

Chick nodded and waved Steve on. He rolled her out of the room and Chick got a glance of the hospital for the first time since she went into surgery. The only view she had seen of the halls was from a horizontal position on a gurney, or what she had seen from her bed.

The halls were a warm beige, accented with nature photographs, lit by yellow ceiling lights. The few nurses and doctors that staffed Stark’s hospital all walked quickly through the halls, but there were no other patients. In fact, she had not seen another patient in the hallway from her bed since she’d arrived.

“So where’s your boyfriend, Captain?” Chick asked dryly, looking straight ahead down the hall. She heard Steve give her a short, pandering laugh.

“Bucky was admitted this morning. He’s in his own room.” Chick rolled her eyes.

“Great for him.” Steve frowned, watching the back of Chick’s head and hoping she might turn around. She didn’t.

The two remained silent until they reached the theater in the next wing over.

“Here we are,” Steve said passively. He tapped a button on the wall and the door opened for him. Chick pulled the blankets up to her chest, glumly staring at the floor ahead of her. She felt a twinge of guilt for being sharp, but tried to shake it off with another defensive eye roll.

The theater was the size of her apartment with four rows of comfy armchairs in front of a tall, wide, white screen. A large, black projector hung from the ceiling. Steve wheeled Chick down the aisle and parked her next to one of the arm chairs in the center of the room. Chick threw the pillows onto the chair but held the blankets around her tightly, afraid that Steve might see any of her exposed skin, and climbed out of the chair slowly. She was thankful when Steve didn’t try to help her. She gripped onto the armchair and slid in less than gracefully.

“Thanks, Cap,” she said quietly. He leaned against the chair in front of her, staring at her softly. She acknowledged his clear blue eyes and full lips, and followed the lines of wear in his tanned skin. The low lighting of the room made her vision crisp and cast shadows around his eyes and underneath the stray hairs that framed his face.

“You know, you can call me Steve.” Chick felt another pang of guilt and tried not to let it show. She shrugged her shoulders.

“Doesn’t mean I want to.” Steve let out a breathy laugh through his nose.

“I guess if you call me by my first name, it’s harder to keep me at a distance, huh?” he said glibly. She narrowed her gaze at him.

“Don’t do that,” she scolded. “You don’t get to analyze me.” She tightened her grip on her blanket. “Why do you need me to like you?” Steve frowned, crossing his arms.

“Why do you need me to be the bad guy?” Chick shook her head at him.

“I’m here with you, aren’t I? Isn’t that good enough?”

“Not when you keep blaming me for things that I have no control over.” Chick slapped her hands onto the arms of the chair, pushing herself forward.

“You took my leg,” she shouted pointedly.

“HYDRA took your leg,” he replied. “Not me, not Bucky- it was HYDRA’s fault.”

“Bucky left me for dead!”

“He wasn’t Bucky back then.”

“Bucky, the Winter Soldier- they’re the same person, Steve.”

“You don’t know him, you have no idea who he is.”

“And I never will because no one will ever let me near him!” Steve furrowed his eyebrows, hardening his jaw. He was silent for a moment, thinking.

He supposed that she was right.

“When he gets out of surgery… can you wait until then?” Chick loosened her grip on the arms of the chair, softening her expression.

“Really?”

“If it really means that much to you, then yeah… Okay.” Chick didn’t know what to say. “I know you’re in pain-”

“That counts as analyzing,” she responded bluntly.

“But, he’s in pain, too,” Steve continued. “And, he feels guilty enough going through this procedure.” Chick sat back in her chair.

“I get it.” Steve nodded, beginning to smile slyly.

“You called me Steve.” Chick gave him a sarcastic smile.

“Yeah, do you know how to put the movie on or do you need a chaperone?”

“I think I can manage.”

Steve headed to the other side of the room with the movie, to a DVD player and sound system. Chick watched him, frowning when she felt her heart flutter. She wrapped the blanket around her tighter, pushing her face down into one of her pillows.

Oh no.