#mmtswift

“My only one”

Leila being Steve’s rock after he wakes up

“My smoking gun”

A smoking gun is a metaphor for indisputable evidence of a crime. Steve’s always had misgivings about Leila, deep down, but he was able to ignore it until now. 

“My eclipsed sun”

Eclipsed as in Steve will never be able to see her the same way again. 

“This has broken me down”

I’ve written a lot (posted and unposted) about how their falling out impacts Leila but I don’t talk as much about how it impacts Steve. He’s pretty devastated; Leila, like I said, was his rock, his constant since he came out of the ice, and more recently was making him feel like maybe he could even move on and have some kind of life in the 21st century. Now their relationship is gone, and that with it. 

“My twisted knife

My sleepless night”

I don’t have anything to say about these lyrics they just vibe hard

“My winless fight”

Their fight in CSW and how neither of them really won, both of them walked away having lost something. 

“This has frozen my ground”

The word “frozen” has obvious implications for Steve. Leila and his falling out makes him feel frozen again, like he can’t move on. 

However, this line also works really well for Leila. Partly because “frozen” is a very good metaphor for her general demeanor during their fight, but also because frozen ground prohibits plant growth. She was starting to grow and change with her friendship with Steve and become less guarded. Now she’s more guarded than she was before. 

“Stood on the cliffside screaming ‘give me a reason’”

Steve begging Leila to give him a reason to forgive her, and her refusing to do so. 

“Your faithless love’s the only hoax I believe in.”

The word “faithless” here is interesting applied to Steve’s affection for her. Leila sees him as not having any faith in her, not bothering to hear her side of things (he asks, but he’s angry when he does, and she assumes he’s already made up his mind about her.) Still, looking back, she believes that he did care about her, which just makes it hurt more. 

“My best laid plan”

I think Steve was planning on telling Leila he had feelings for her before they fell apart. 

“Your sleight of hand”

I think also Steve feels deceived by her, that she showed him one side to her and now he’s not even sure if that was real. 

“My barren land

I am ash from your fire”

This goes back to what I said about Leila in the frozen ground line. She liked how she felt with Steve, although it scared her, too--she liked feeling alive again, like she was growing. Now that’s gone and she feels stagnant and barren and part of her blames him. 

“You know I left a part of me back in New York”

On Steve’s side, he left a part of himself back in 1940s New York. On Leila’s side, she left a part of herself in New York after the move to DC. But the “you know” is important; they know each other well enough to know those parts of each other. Or thought they did. 

“You knew the hero died, so what’s the movie for?” The hero being their relationship. (Ties into the meta for exile: “I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending.”) What was the point of getting close if it ends like this?

(You could even argue that the hero is both of them from each other’s perspective. Leila sees him as a model hero in a way she could never be, and she knows she broke his heart, metaphorically killing him; Steve sees Leila as a hero in the normal way but also in a personal way, someone who he was able to attach to when he had nothing, and now that image of her has died.)

“You knew it still hurts underneath my scars, from when they pulled me apart”

Both of them and their trauma. Steve might not know exactly what Leila’s been through but he’s seen her trauma itself on display and he knows she’s been through the ringer (although he could never imagine how bad it was until she tells him.)

“You knew the password, so I let you in the door”

Both of them letting themselves get close to each other and letting down their guard

“You knew you won so what’s the point of keeping score?”

I think this is them settling into their mutual animosity but also being exhausted by it and wanting it to be over. 

“You knew it still hurts underneath my scars

From when they pulled me apart

But what you did was just as dark”

This line is especially troubling from Leila’s POV as it directly compares Steve’s rejection to her past traumas. Leila has a lot of conflicting feelings about Steve--on the one hand, she feels like he thinks he’s too good for her. On the other hand, she thinks he is too good for her, and she hates him for it. 

But ultimately there is a part of her that groups him in with Johnny and David as “people who made me think they cared about me and then rejected me.” After all, there’s still a part of her that thinks she deserves what they did to her, too. 

“My only one”

Leila letting Steve get close to her in a way she didn’t with anyone else. 

“My kingdom come undone”

Leila’s kingdom being all of the walls and guards she built up over time, and her sense of self, her evil queen persona--all of it undone by her feelings for Steve. 

“My broken drum”

“You and I walk a fragile line

I have known it all this time

But I never thought I’d live to see it break”

Steve knowing that Leila’s always kept him at arm’s length (or tried to) but still being shocked at how they fell apart so quickly.

“It’s getting dark, and it’s all too quiet, and I can’t trust anything now”

Steve being genuinely devastated by their falling out. I talked here about how Leila was more than a friend, she was his anchor to the modern world, and without her he feels very lost.

“And it’s coming over you like it’s all a big mistake”

Steve can tell Leila regrets it somehow (regrets what she did to Alex? Or regrets getting close to Steve in the first place?) but he's so stunned he can't grab onto it

“Oh, losing my breath

Won’t see you again”

He will see her again, but not in the same light.

“Something’s made your eyes go cold”

This could refer both to when Leila dissociates and almost kills Alex, and also when she turns icy and refuses to talk to him when they fight.

"Come on, come on, don't leave me like this"

He feels very alone and ungrounded without her.

"I thought I had you figured out"

Lmao bitch u thought

"Somethings gone terribly wrong

You're all I wanted"

Again, it's this devastation.

"Can't breathe whenever you're gone"

Again, Leila was his anchor and he feels lost in the modern world without her.

"Can't turn back now, I'm haunted"

He tries to move on from what they had, but he can't--especially when they’re still working together.

"Stood there and watched you walk away from everything we had"

This is Leila's POV. From her side, Steve is the one who rejected her.

"But I still mean every word I say to you"

This is a reach but: despite lying to him and pretending she doesn't care about anyone or anything, she means it because she's trying to believe her own lies.

"He will try to take away my pain

And he just might make me smile

But the whole time I'm wishing he was you, instead"

Rumlow

"Holding my breath, won't see you again"

Leila will still see him but she won't see him as in, being close to him like she was. (Also her avoiding him.)

"Something keeps me holding onto nothing"

Despite their estrangement there's still a connection between them...only people who care about each other could be that mad at each other.

"Come on, come on, don't leave me like this"

During the fight itself, Leila internally begging him not to leave her and to give her a chance to explain.

"I thought I had you figured out"

Leila thought she knew that Steve would never understand her, she didn't realize how much hope she was holding onto.

"Something's gone terribly wrong, won't finish what you started"

The way that they had this budding romance and it was very suddenly cut off.

"Can't breathe whenever you're gone"

Leila takes his rejection and sudden absence in her life hard.

"Can't turn back now, I'm haunted"

Leila wishing she could just let go and pretend it never happened and she never wanted him but it's too late to go back

"I know you're not gone

You can't be gone, no"

Secretly, way, way deep down, Steve hopes that eventually he'll make peace with Leila and they can at least be friends again; he's desperate for a reason to believe in her again.

“I can see you standing, honey

With his arms around your body

Laughing but the joke’s not funny at all”

Leila flirting with Rumlow to annoy Steve

“And it took you five whole minutes

To pack us up and leave me with it”

Steve feeling like Leila just threw away everything they had and didn’t even care

“I think I’ve seen this film before

And I didn’t like the ending”

Leila connecting Steve’s rejection to her past relationships. She’s seen this happen before, she should’ve known how it would play out. 

“You’re not my homeland anymore

So what am I defending now?”

So after coming out of the ice, Leila kind of becomes a constant for Steve; she’s the one who recruits him for the Avengers, and then for SHIELD, most of his SHIELD missions involve working with her, and she sort of becomes his touchstone, his anchor to the present, without really trying. Then they fall apart in Tokyo and suddenly he has nothing to ground him. 

(“So what am I defending” could refer to Steve losing faith in SHIELD due to losing faith in Leila; the two are intrinsically intertwined in his mind.)

“You were my town, now I’m in exile seeing you out”

Again, Steve feeling very out of place now that he doesn’t have Leila to anchor him

“I can see you staring, honey

Like he’s just your understudy

Like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me”

Steve won’t admit how jealous he is of Rumlow, to Leila or to himself, but he is and it’s in his eyes. 

“Second, third and hundredth chances”

On Steve’s side: he feels like looking back he always had misgivings about Leila deep down but ignored them and kept giving her chances to earn his trust, but she never did

On Leila’s side: She feels like she had tons of chances to push him away, to keep him at arm’s length, but she didn’t take them and she should’ve. 

“Balancing on breaking branches”

Related to the above, their relationship has always had that underlying tension and was always bound to snap in some way

“Those eyes add insult to injury”

Leila looking into Steve’s eyes when he’s confronting her and seeing so much distrust that she can’t even think of coming clean to him about why she did what she did (even before she finds out he was reporting on her to Fury.)

“I’m not your problem anymore

So who am I offending?”

Leila putting her walls back up and being a dick again because she’s not bothering to be open with Steve anymore

“I think I’ve seen this film before

So I’m leaving out the side door”

Same as earlier where she connects their falling out to her previous relationships, but this time with an element of prevention. She’s not going to stay and try to defend herself to someone who (she thinks) doesn’t care, when it’s never worked before, and she’s not going to stay attached to him and let it get as bad as it did with Johnny or David.

“All this time, we walked a very thin line”

Going back to how there’s always been an underlying tension in the relationship that was bound to snap. 

“You didn’t even hear me out”

Both of them feel this way about their fight in Tokyo, but Leila especially feels like Steve just turned on her at the drop of a dime and didn’t care enough to get her side of things. 

“You never gave a warning sign (I gave so many signs)” Steve feeling like this side to Leila came out of nowhere bc he ignored the red flags and tried to believe the best of her, vs Leila saying that she gave him tons of signs that this side to her existed and he should’ve known. 

(This might be part of why she allowed herself to get close to him; she thought he was seeing the signs and intentionally choosing to be close to her anyway). 

“I never learned to read your mind (you never learned to read my mind)”