Im Gnawing On The Bars Of My Enclosure - Blog Posts

❝ it never does, ❞ he said. he had been here before. the emptiness, the obsessive need to set the world right, to avenge himself and all those he'd been forced to hurt, forced to kill. but there was no setting it right, no making things the way they had been before. there was just this : the dissatisfaction of a trigger pulled and that hollow nothing only growing wider.

he ached at seeing that same emptiness reflected back at him. wished he could take it all into himself, unburden her of the injustice and wipe her slate clean again. but that was only his ego talking. tell me it gets easier, the words dug the knife deeper. no sooner had she said it, kara tried quickly to deflect it. cover up the moment of vulnerability with the carefully trained operative leaping from one objective to the other.

bucky stopped her, gloved hand raised to keep her where she was. standing over a body, standing in front of possibly the only man left who could understand what she was going through. ❝ but it does get easier, ❞ he said, expression hard as he tried to reach out, tried to be more than the ghost hydra had made of him. ❝ but not like this. stopping people like him, it's easy . . . but it's not enough. we need to . . . help people. make it so their faces are clearer than the ones we hurt. ❞

the weight in her hands was gone,  but it hadn’t left her.  the cold press of metal had burned itself into her skin,  into her bones,  just another ghost among the many she carried.  the body slumped against the wall wasn’t the first,  wouldn’t be the last,   &  yet — for a fleeting second — she had let herself believe this one might mean something.  that this act might carve out a sliver of silence in the relentless noise of her mind.  but there was no quiet.  just the same gnawing emptiness.  ❝it should have felt like justice, ❞ she murmured,  voice devoid of triumph.  ❝but it doesn’t feel like anything at all. ❞

she exhaled,  slow  &  measured,  as if she could breathe the moment away.  the tremor in her fingers betrayed her,  though not from fear.  fear had been stripped from her long ago,  torn out  &  rewritten into something colder.  something sharp.   &  yet,  as her gaze flickered to bucky’s outstretched hand,  to the space where the gun had been,  she felt the weight of his silence.  heavy.  understanding.  like he had already seen the road she was walking  &  knew exactly where it led.  ❝tell me it gets easier,❞ she said,  though she already knew the answer.   

but she wasn’t ready to acknowledge that.  not yet.  instead,  she let her hands fall to her sides,  fingers curling into fists as she looked away.  the blood on the concrete would dry.  the body would be removed.   &  she would keep moving forward because there was no other choice.  ❝let’s go, ❞ she said finally,  voice quiet,  resolute.  ❝before i start thinking about it too much. ❞