Love Like Ghost

i did something bad

I can feel the flames on my skin
Crimson red paint on my lips
If a man talks shit, then I owe him nothing
I don't regret it one bit, 'cause he had it coming

~

TW/ violence, Nik is a douchebag

She handed me the dress; long and satin and blue with a slit up the right thigh. She set the shoes on the ground straightening up to look at me. "I left some makeup in here if you want to use it." Sympathetic eyes looked at mine no doubt mentioning me to cover up the circles and bags under my eyes. I didn't say anything just running my hand along the dress.

It had been months since we had went to that house, months since I had avenged Evie. But not the last. Every other day it seemed Nik was sending me to take someone else out for him. The blood ran heavy from my hands.

Charlotte stood there half expecting me to respond to her. Her excuse of acting falling short completely letting the lie she had told herself fall even shorter. She had cared, all those years ago in the hospital, she had cared. She wanted a friend, she needed a friend, and there I was ripe for the taking. Lost, unremarkable; a stray for her.

She put up a good front when Nik or Zemo were around. Hiding behind quick insults, unsettling glares, and an ever ending attitude towards me.

An act.

I saw it in her eyes, even now, how she felt sorry for me. I would even go as far to say she felt guilty for what happened, whats happening to me. But never to she heed my warning to leave, never listening to the threat upon her life I inflicted.

I turned away from her beginning to undress hearing her silently leave the room without another breath. I slipped the dress over my head, strapped the heels to my feet, and sat down to do my makeup.

And when everything was done I slid a gun into the holster around my thigh.

~

"Beautiful isn't it?"

My eyes were fixated forward, but they flashed up to take in the painting he was referring to. His body slid next to mine like a looming snake, circling its prey before it snapped its venomous jaws around its neck. Wrapping its body tight, suffocating the victim, leaving it to suffer; scared, alone, dying.

I moved my view downward at the golden frame holding the painting. It wasn't beautiful...it was sad, lonely. But then perhaps it was beautifully sad. Tragic. It wasn't much, just a few colors splattered across the canvas soft swirling of dark pigments.

I saw him. It was why I couldn't look at it, but couldn't move away.

He was in there mixed together in the blues and blacks. I could see his face somehow within it all staring back at me disappointed, ashamed. My lips parted eyes darting further downward, "I gifted it a few years back for an auction held here. Lovely to see it again." Nik came around two hands coming up around my shoulders finger grazing the base of my bare neck like fangs digging into my flesh. "What do you see, kitten?" His head came closer to me. "You haven't moved from this spot for the past half hour, so tell me."

I picked my head up again staring my grief in the face once more. "Why does it matter?"

"Because your pain brings me joy." I whipped around at him as he laughed. "Seeing you crumble at the mere mention of your winter soldier is fascinating." I brushed past him walking back down the long hallway. "Kotenok."

My body stilled as he dragged out the last syllable in a soft, condescending tune.

Nik chucked humming to himself as he walked towards me, too much bouncing in his movements. "It's been years." His presence lurked behind me words licking my skin like poison. "Why are you still so unwilling to let him go?" My nails dug into my palm. "You were so young," Hands ran down the length of my arms choking me with their touch. "So naive." I bit down on the skin behind my lip as his chest trapped my back within it. "How were you to know that was love?"