Take Me back to the Start | B. Barnes

| End of the Line |

"Hey, come on. Get up." A short pause follows before the voice turns into a teasing tone. "Wakey, wakey, sunshine... Okay, this is getting ridiculous. C'mon, popsicle, move your ass."

"Let me sleep, Tony." I mumble and pull the blanket over my head, my face buried into the pillow. He just entered my room without asking and has been annoying me for a while now. Worst is that he's not the first one who tries to get me up and out of the room, Clint and Natasha already did. Now they're luckily on a mission.

"No, I won't. It's early evening and you haven't left this room for three days now since Thor left. I thought you wanted to find Barnes?"

"Did FRIDAY find anything?" I lift my face and look up, showing a little interest and he shakes his head.

"No signs. He's known as a ghost story for a reason, that guy knows how to hide." Tony admits with a respectful, almost impressed tone and I bury my face into the pillow again, holing up back into the uncomfortably huge bed. "Oh, c'mon, get up, you can't spend the rest of your life in your bed- "

"I'm tired, okay?!" I sit up and interrupt him harshly, half glaring at him as my voice becomes petulant. His eyes slightly widen in astonishment and stare at me while I just lay back down, my back facing him. "I'm tired, Tony. Give me a break."

I only hear distant steps, then the thunk of the door. I'm left with the upcoming silence which strangely feels torturing and appeasing at the same time. Inhaling deeply, I close my eyes as they are filled with tears. The insomnia still stops me from sleeping at night and my eyes burn, I don't need to look in the mirror to know how red they are.

"What am I doing..." I whisper, questioning myself and holding the old necklace in my hand. I hate to feel that miserable, it's really pathetic, but I just keep seeing these blue eyes of Pietro in my mind, staring at me before he falls dead to the ground. It leaves a deadly emptiness in my chest, a hollow loneliness I don't know how to get rid of.

God, what have I done? I slowly open my eyes and my hand is placed on the pillow right next to my face, my fingers creating a little voltage. Of what use are my powers when I can't save anyone? The electricity vanishes and my eyelids feel heavy again, yet I manage to stare at the ceiling, the blank, ridiculous ceiling. I feel lost in the wave of pain, it's like I'm slowly drowning. I'm drowning in an endless ocean and no one can save me because everyone else who has tried died. And I don't have the strength to swim, to reach the surface of the water and save myself.

My time is standing still, yet the world keeps spinning without me. There's no desire for happiness or peace, I just want it to end. And I'm scared that this feeling may never go away, that it'll stick in my bones. I only want to close my eyes and never open them again, my wish to simply disappear grows with each second and it tears my heart apart. I'm hurting and I don't know how to stop. How the hell do I stop this? I need the pain to be gone, otherwise I will lose my mind.

The door flies open but I don't even bother to turn, not really caring about who is here now. Judging by the sound of the calm steps, I already assume it's Steve. He sits down next to me, his weight slightly drags down his side of the bed. "Hey."

"Steve, I can't do this." My voice is breaking and weak, my lips pressed together to swallow the tears. "Not anymore."

"Eve..." I don't need to look at him to know how sympathetic and painful his glance is.

"I know I'm supposed to be strong, I know I'm supposed to be fighting." My breath is flat and I continue staring at the blank ceiling. "But... I don't have the strength for that. I look at you, Tony and Wanda and all I see is... how I ruined your lives. I should have never accepted the legacy of my mother, I should've never become Voltricty."