A/N: One-shot. I own nothing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

He noticed her sometimes, for no other reason than the fact that she was always there. She was young, couldn't have been more than sixteen-years-old, and even though he was dulled mentally to the point where he didn't think about her, a stirring part of him recognized what she was, which was why he avoided her gaze every time he came across her. He looked away from her even as she watched him.

And follow him her gaze did. She had the most curious eyes, light blue with a dark black ring on the outsides that smoked to gray on the inside. Eyes that startled him. He'd only looked her full-on in the face one time and he'd looked away almost immediately, feeling very out of turn. Her gaze cut him to the core, the darkness of it and yet the innocence of it.

She leaned against the wall, pouting and painted, and he wished she would go away. The nights were hot and sweaty because the fleabag motel in the middle of nowhere where he was staying was too cheap to afford air conditioning. He lay shirtless on his bed all night long, metal arm thrown across his eyes until he felt droplets of sweat form between the union of flesh and metal and slowly roll down his temples. A chipped fan spun lazily on the ceiling, pale white flakes of peeling paint slowly raining down on him and a neon green cactus sign flickered weakly outside his window, illuminating nothing and warning away wholesome people. A single streetlamp stood outside his window, nauseatingly orange, spilling down onto the dusty ground underneath. Flies swam around it in dizzying swarms and he could hear the thump thump thump of the bass on some local punk's car when he closed his eyes. He could feel it vibrating through his room, vibrating through his pulse.

The corridor outside his room was painted a vomitous shade of sea-foam with acid pink pills painted onto it. Navy blue shag carpet with orange flecks spread across the floor. The remnants of another era he'd been cheated of, though if this mixture of bile was any indication of what it had been like, he couldn't help but dully feel like he had somehow dodged a bullet. She leaned against the wall and her hair was long and stringy, light brown with dyed green edges. She was small and pale, a sickly green-alabaster shade with violet cheeks and glittering blue eyes, and she wore strange dresses that didn't become her at all. Tonight she wore a deep purple crushed velvet dress with a short hemline and cheap silver rhinestones sloppily stitched on. She looked like a giant bruise and it hurt his eyes to look at her.

"Got a smoke?"

It was the first time she had ever spoken to him and he paused with his hand on his doorknob. His head was bent, his baseball cap shadowing his face, and his mouth was parted slightly. He felt dull and stupid, the air throbbing like the painful ache behind a splotchy red bruise, but no one had spoken to him casually in he didn't know how long. It took him a moment to understand what she was asking.

"Are you stupid?" Her voice was low-pitched and raspy but he could hear the childish, girly lilt behind it. A child hiding behind a façade in an attempt at bravery for reasons he didn't like to think about. An acrid taste filled his mouth. "Why you wearin' gloves?" she continued. "Did you hide the body in your room?" She laughed to herself and broke off coughing and he vanished into his room, wishing she would take her bruised face far away from him.

He didn't know where he was or what he was doing here. He was hiding from the world and from himself until he felt like he could face the world again. He was like a pale, sickly child, milk-blue veins distended, scrabbling into a corner and flinching at the sunlight. The outside blinded him, as did interactions with most people. Murmured words between the fat man who manned the concierge desk and always smelled like ketchup, smoke, and desperado didn't count. A mumbled word to the security guard at the Smithsonian Museum didn't apply. But this girl—this girl spoke and it made him tilt. He wasn't used to being spoken to, to being looked at. He had been smoke and shadows for so long, the darkest part of the moon, that having people notice him made him feel sick. He didn't know where to go from here. Who to speak to. There was one person—

Blue eyes like the girl but where hers were stained with the destruction of innocence, his had been full of such open honesty and sincerity that he had wanted to open his mouth and scream and scream and scream. And scream he did, like a frightened child, wildly clinging to him and slamming his fist into his face, soft crackling noises popping in his ears as his vision danced and blood ran down the man's face. That man. That man, he could speak to, he could visit…if he dared.

Because he knew the truth, deep down, and the truth was an ugly bile yellow. It wasn't dark. It was bright and hot and sticky, blinding him with the truth, stuffing his mouth and throat with the realization of things he wished to god he'd never realized. That he wasn't the robot he thought he was, that he'd done things he never should have done. Regret. Regret and bitterness and rage, they all tasted like bitter berries. The fruit of knowledge. Because once you know—

You can't go back.

He nearly tripped over her legs this night, which was saying something, since he was always on alert in ways that bordered on darkly humorous—he noticed everything and yet several things didn't always register in his childlike thoughts, at times. She was sitting against the wall, her pale legs stretched out in front of her, pale as a white lotus and blooming with just as many bruises. She wore no shoes and chipped, glittery pink polish on her toes winked at the corners of his eyes. He stumbled and she giggled, though the sound wasn't happy. He should have hurried into his room like he always did but for some reason, he stopped in front of his door and stood there, head bowed again. He wanted to look at her, to shake her violently and demand to know what was wrong with her but he couldn't stand looking at her. She terrified him.

"Why are you always so silent?" she asked. "You don't look at me like all the other men look at me."

She couldn't have been a day over sixteen. Nay, a day over fifteen. His pulse gave a violent jump.

"I guess it doesn't matter anyway." Her voice faded off into a feathery sigh and he slowly turned to look at her. Her head was tilted, propped slightly on one shoulder, and greasy brown hair fell into her eyes. Her strange blue eyes had glittery black eye makeup smeared around them in a raccoon-ish fashion and her lips were pale pink with dark red between the cracks. Bloody. She'd chewed them and they looked dried. He could see dark tracks running up and down her inner forearms, dark pink, and he felt suddenly so exhausted. She wore a terrible key lime green dress today in a plastic material that shone like a cheap oil spill in the bad lighting.

"Hey, bitch!" A man stumbled down the hall. He shifted to view him, his shoulders hunching slightly. The man was large, pink-faced like a sweaty pig, and had light blond bristly hair. The same color as…the other man's, except different in all the ways as well. This man wore navy blue and red-checkered flannel and stained workman jeans and everything about him looked leathery and worn and stained, his teeth a nicotine-stained yellow. The man smelled of smoke and hard liquor and his steps were clumsy but they took up space. He'd noticed that men were often that way—taking up too much space, as if to show the women around them how insignificant the women were. It made him vaguely watchful of how he walked. He watched as the girl twirled a strand of hair around her finger. She was biting her lip—a drop of blood trickled down her pale chin, gleaming for a second—and acting blasé but he could smell the fear radiating off of her.

"Get up, you little slut," the man slurred, grabbing her thin forearm and yanking her up. "Where y'been? I been looking a—all over for you." His words came out thick, unintelligible, an unmistakable hint of anger in them.

"I was just waitin' here, Hank," the girl was murmuring.

"Waitin' here? For who? For this—this freak?" The man pointed to him.

"No, not for hi—"

The man slapped the girl. Her head snapped to the side with a cracking sound and he could see her face for a second. She was staring in his direction. She looked shocked, an angry red handprint on her pale, pink-dusted cheek, her eyes wide and white and frozen, mouth in a perfect O—and then he saw the angry glaze in her eyes and the way she smiled softly at him. She was used to this. She turned back to the man and they began arguing in low voices, the man insisting that he didn't pay her "good, decent money" only for her to hide out from him all the time and not give him what he deserved. He had to be at least forty. She couldn't have been…more than…

Fifteen.

He heard their words as though he was underwater, his heartbeat slowly thudding loudly in his ears. Their voices were echo-y, splashing around in his brain, and he was drowning in the moment of the slap. Her head cracking to the side. His head snapping to the side.

But I knew him.

He moved as if in a dream, as if in autopilot. The shiny silver, mechanical monster inside of him took control and he ripped off his glove to show the man exactly what he was going to be burying inside his mouth. And that's exactly what he did, grabbing him by the collar and slamming him against the wall and slamming his metal fist into the man's face again—and again—and again—and again—and again—

Blood. So much blood. The man's bloody face blurred in his vision, the man's choked gurgling cries fading to a dull roar as he was thrown back into the moment with the winds whipping past him, gray smoke making it hard to see, shrieking groans of glass and metal crashing to earth—

So finish it. Because I'm with you till the end of line.

So…finish…it. He punched the man again and again until the man was finished and then he threw him on the ground, leaving a shiny scarlet smear against the pink pill on the wall. The man collapsed and he could see that his face was caved in. Someone else would have to deal with taking out the trash. He wiped the blood and splintered bits of bone on his gleaming hand on his muddy brown shirt and slowly turned to face the child. To her credit, she hadn't screamed, had only leaped back, the blood draining out of her face. But when he faced her, she gave him a small smile and he realized it was supposed to be a seductive smile, terrible on the face of someone so young. She was trying to seduce him—to thank him in the only way she could, the only way she knew how, and he felt sick. He wanted to kill her but he wanted to kill himself first. He grabbed the front of her dress and yanked her forward and for the first time her blue eyes widened with fear. He looked down at her, almost nose to nose, and he could see the bloodshot red veins in her eyes. Could smell the smoke and sweet decay that was her perfume and the sweat that was her body.

"Find a different job," he growled. "Stop doing this to yourself." He threw her back and she hit the wall, small face wide with shock.

He turned and disappeared into his room, slamming and locking the door shut behind him. He had little to no belongings so he grabbed his things and shattered the window, escaping into the dark air. The sky was black with little to no stars lighting his way but a flickering day-glo blue sign against a violent purple backdrop showed an arrow pointing to the way of town and he stood, bathed in the orange glow of the streetlamp, looking at the building he'd just slipped out of. Red dirt. Dirty peach walls. Stucco roof with pieces missing. It was time to leave this place. He didn't know where he'd be going from here but there were no answers to be found here, this much was certain.

Only hopelessness and unhappy endings.