Saw someone mention how Steve tends to get defensive when he's anxious and it stuck with me, so here's my take on the "Steve breaks a dish and has a panic attack about it" trope
cw: descriptions of nonstandard panic attack, implied/referenced child abuse
The distinct sound of shattering porcelain is followed by a vehemently hissed, “shit,” and then silence.
“Steve?” Eddie calls from the couch into the kitchen. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Steve calls back, but his voice sounds tight in the way it does when something definitely isn’t okay.
Eddie pushes himself up and moves to the doorway, looking in to see what the trouble is. The kitchen of the house he and Wayne had been “gifted” by the government isn’t exactly huge, and he has a straight line of sight to where Steve is standing by the sink, eyes squeezed shut as he pinches the bridge of his nose, and to the red and white shards of porcelain on the floor by his feet.
“Hey,” Eddie says, but Steve doesn’t look up; if anything, his posture only gets tenser. “You’re not cut or anything, are you?”
“No,” Steve says, and his tone is still a little off, but he doesn’t sound like he’s lying.
“What was that, anyway?” Eddie asks.
Finally, Steve takes a deep breath in and opens his eyes, looking down at the mess on the laminate. “Mug.”
As soon as he says it, Eddie recognizes the colors for what the design must have been. “Shit, the Campbell’s one?”
Steve doesn’t say a word, just gives one sharp nod.
Eddie sucks a hiss of breath in through his teeth. “Shit,” he says again. “That was Wayne’s favorite.”