Stars and leather jackets

Broken like me

              It had been three days so far, of that I was certain. No one had been able to get me to talk. Wanda and Spark had been begging me to inside my head, but I always refused. I hadn't been like this since the battle of New York and this was slightly worse. I had barricaded myself in the room Clint had given me and had refused to move. Steve hadn't left my side the entire time and I was thankful for it. He kept whispering that he loved me and that I wasn't a monster. Why did he have to lie? Those who kill innocents are monsters and no one loves a monster. Finally one day, he left for a few hours and when he came back he seemed a little bit happier. 

           "Thalia, I want you to talk to someone." 

             "Clint already tried to talk to me." I whispered hoarsely. Clint had thought that since he'd been under the scepter's influence at one point, that he would be able to relate to me. It just wasn't the same. He hadn't killed people or destroyed an entire city in the span of 5 minutes. Spark had so she wasn't really shaken up. 

             "It's not Clint." Steve suddenly said. I turned to face him with a confused look on my face. 

              "Who is it?" I asked quietly. Someone walked inside and my jaw dropped. 

            "Hi, Thalia right?" the smiling face of Bucky Barnes asked. 

              "You found him?!" I exclaimed looking at Steve in shock. He gave me a sheepish grin and nodded. 

                "I couldn't risk compromising his location and having HYDRA or SHIELD go after him." I made an "oh" face and gave a small wave at Bucky. He grinned and walked to sit down next to me. "I'll leave you two to it." Steve said giving Bucky a meaningful look before walking out of the room.

                  "So," Bucky asked after a moment of awkward silence "Steve says that you're taking the scepter incident pretty hard." 

                   "I killed people." I said shortly "Yet people are acting like I'm the same person and that everything's just unicorns shooting rainbows out of their asses." Bucky chuckled and gave me a sideways glance. 

                   "Did Steve tell you why he brought me in to talk to you?" 

                   "Knowing him, probably for some Hallmark reason involving hugs and singing Kumbaya." 

                   "He brought me in because HYDRA used me to kill hundreds of innocent people while I was brainwashed. Sound familiar at all?" I bit my lip at this. I knew that Bucky had been captured by HYDRA and that Steve had found out he was alive during the whole DC incident. However I didn't know, that Bucky was forced to kill people. 

               "I'm not sure what to say in this situation." I muttered. 

              "What would you want people to say to you?" he asked patiently. I thought a moment before blurting out 

               "I wouldn't even want them to talk to me. It feels too fake, like they're trying so hard to convince themselves that you're not a monster that you end up thinking you're even more of a monster than you thought." I felt tears slowly roll down my face and I angrily brushed them away. "God, I need to get a grip." I mumbled. Bucky gently turned me towards him so I was looking him in the eye. 

                "No, you don't. That's the problem. You're trying so hard to reset yourself and piece everything back together that you're ignoring the real problem. When you kill someone, and you did, everything changes. So instead of trying to go back to who you were before, you need to change into the person you are now. That's why Spark's able to shrug it off. Every time she kills, she constantly readjusts so that she doesn't focus on what she did. I think you should do the same." 

                "How?" I asked in frustration "How am I supposed to become a whole new person?" 

                "Well what I did is I did the one thing that the old me would never have done. Something so against my old morals that I would be someone completely new. Do you have anything like that?" A light switched on in my head and I grinned. 

                "Grab Steve," I said as I bolted off the bed to get dressed "We're taking a field trip."

               "I regret this so much." 

             "Should I remind you that this was your idea?" 

            "No Steve, I think I can do that myself." I looked apprehensively at the sign of the building in front of us. Electric tattoo. The me before this would have been screaming in fear at the needles and protesting about how tattoos were a waste of money just so you could have a tiny symbol on your body. It was a perfect thing for new me to do. Bucky stopped me before I could walk in and said 

              "You don't have to do this. I'm sure we could think of other ways to create a new you."                      "Too late. I'm committed." Bucky chuckled at the look Steve made as I dragged the two of them inside.

               "This hurts a lot less than I thought it would." I said thoughtfully as the tattoo needle grazed over my wrist. 

                 "I'm not so sure about that." Steve muttered as he pried my hand off his and wrapped it around Bucky's metal one. I giggled as he rubbed his bruised hand from where I had been squeezing it in a death grip. He glared playfully at me and stuck his tongue out. I gasped and put my hand over my chest in mock offense. 

               "You two are adorable together." Bucky said with a laugh as he watched the two of us. "Is this why everyone was making heart eyes at the two of you when we left?" I smirked at Steve's bright red face as he nodded. 

               "Done." the tattoo artist announce happily. I looked with a smile at the words permanently etched onto my skin. Keep moving forward. 

            "Pretty good message." Bucky said, grinning. I couldn't get the happy expression off my face and Steve noticed. 

              "Imagine," he said "all I had to do was take you to get a tattoo and you would smile." 

              "Shut up Rogers." I said with a smirk as he helped me out of the chair. Ten minutes later we were heading back to Clint's farm in a beat up old truck we had used to get to a small town that was miles away from the safe house. One disadvantage, it was two seats. Bucky had volunteered to drive, so I got to sit in Steve's lap the whole drive. 

           "It's getting late." Steve muttered as I put my head on his shoulder. "You should get some sleep." I nodded silently and curled up against him. 

             "Thanks both of you." I whispered as I fell asleep "It was a good day."