Stars and leather jackets

The new and the old

    "Steve I'm bored!" Steve chuckled as he came and sat down on the bed next to me.

"Well lucky for you, the doctor says you can start moving around today. Minimal activity though. If you get hurt again I don't know what I'm going to do with you."

"Lock me in a padded room for the rest of my life?"

"Probably." I giggled as he crawled to lay down beside me. I snuggled up into his chest and closed my eyes as he wrapped an arm protectively around me. We stayed like that for a while, neither one of us saying anything just laying there in silence. Until the phone rang.

"I got it." I muttered, reaching across Steve to grab my phone. T'challa had upgraded it so that it was impossible to trace. Which was good because it was Spark calling me.

"Hello Thalia."

"Hello backstabbing bitch, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Where are you?"

"Oh I'm sorry hell must be freezing over, why would I tell you anything?!"

"Thalia, listen to me!" Spark snapped "SHIELD wants to run tests on me and keep me isolated."

"Whatever for? It can't be because of your winning personality." Spark growled menacingly into the phone.

"Listen bitch," she said venomously "I was in your head for over five years. There are things I know about you that even you don't know. You may have told everyone you're fine but we both know differently. Tell me Thalia, has that depression been getting better since Bruce and Tony "cured it"? Or did you finally crack and I'm interrupting the writing of your suicide note?" I bit my lip and desperately tried not to cry.

"I don't care if you think you know me." I whispered "I don't care if you rot in isolation. You made your decision on whose team you were on the second you tried to fry my brain."

"Thalia," she pleaded "it wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be happy for once."
"Well," I said quietly "You should know better than anyone, bitches don't get happy endings." I hung up the phone and screamed in frustration as I threw it across the room.

"Thalia?" Steve asked anxiously "Talk to me, what's wrong?"

"I have to tell you something." I whispered. That's how everything came out. I confessed to Steve how the stuff Ultron injected into me hadn't gone away. The cure Tony and Bruce had made had helped, but eventually, it stopped working. When Ross had tortured me it just made everything worse. "I'm sorry." I whispered tearfully to Steve. "I wanted to tell you, I just couldn't."

"Why not?" he asked, his voice breaking "We've always been there for each other, what would make this any different?"

"The fact that some days I wake up wanting to put a bullet in my brain!" I cried "The fact that I thought if I told you, you would treat me like I was broken."

"Thalia I love you!" he said loudly "I have loved you since we first met and nothing is going to change that. But I can't keep helping you if you don't talk to me."

"What if I can't Steve?!" I yelled "What if I'm too scared that I'm going to be left alone, in the darkness with no one beside me, again?" Steve stared at me intensely for a minute before grabbing me and pulling me into a hug.

"You are never going to be alone." he whispered "I promised you that I was always going to be there for you and I meant it. But you have to put some faith in me that I'm not going to walk out the second you have a problem."

"Thank you." I finally whispered as he held me close.

"For what?" he asked quietly.

"For just being here. For not leaving when most people have."

"Where else would I be?" he kissed me softly as he ran his hands through my hair "My whole life is right here. With you and Bucky and knowing that I'm the happiest I ever will be."

"I think I am too."