Ever since she was a teen obsessed with Evanescence, Carina already knew who she wanted to be. She didn’t want to live past thirty. She wanted to be the woman introduced with a montage at the beginning of films, the ones who died young and stayed young, forever haunting the narrative.
She knew what she had to do. She had a mental list. First, she had to be ethereal. She played nice, nice enough for people to only say nice things about her when she passed.
“ What a shame. She was such a kind woman .”
“ They always take the good ones first .”
On top of the act, she had to make sure that she maintained a mysterious persona, one that she would unravel only when she met the perfect victim.
That was when Peter Maximoff joined the roll.
He wasn’t the perfect man for the role, per se. The ideal man was miserable and lonely. If not one of those two, at least someone calm with a touch of melancholy. To make it easier, she really just wanted a man with no life so she could be the center of their being, which would make the loss of her even more devastating.
Peter did not fit any of her criteria. He seemed like the kind of person who could live by himself. Peter did not need her. He was chill, but he was not calm. He was antsy. He always had to move, and he was always fast. Carina couldn’t tell if he would take life with a stride or speed-run through it. She would be forgotten, and she definitely wouldn’t be immortalized by his memory, considering that his mind seemed to zoom through matters as quick as he went through convenience store shelves.
Her efforts would be in vain, and her life plan would be in ashes, just like her corpse.
Carina didn’t want to admit that it was also mostly because she couldn’t bring herself to do it to Peter.
Peter was like the light, not because he was light-speed fast, but because he was already plaguing the darkest corners of Carina’s mind with his brightness. He made her hesitate, and the way his eyes shone whenever they landed on her actually made her think twice about the cruelty of her plans. It made her realize the monster that she was going to be, like a fox in sheep's clothing.
She didn’t want Peter’s light to fade. She wanted him to keep shining. Before she knew it, Peter was the person she had wanted to be in the beginning. He had a dazzling montage in her mind every time she thought of him, and he haunted every little thing she did. She imagined his dimple on every person who smiled at her. She remembered him whenever she felt the breeze. She remembered his touch every time she felt the wind on her skin.
She couldn’t. Not to Peter, at least. She had misjudged. Her feelings were a plight to her legacy. She shouldn’t have allowed their closeness to escalate.
Carina was leaning against the bark of a tree with her arms crossed. She watched the man plaguing her mind on crutches. Peter was clearly in awe of his father, and just like Storm, she wondered when he would finally tell the poor man that he still had family left.
She removed her weight from the trunk and casually made her way towards Peter, making the boy whip his head towards her with an excited grin. Good to know he still had super speed in some places . She returned his elated expression with a smile while pulling out a box of his favorite sweets from behind her, a small note with the lettering ' get well soon' on top.
“Maybe we can actually get to watching those movies now.”
Peter grinned that boyish grin—the original dimple she imagined on every face that smiled at her—on his pretty face as he replied with a mischievous, “Maybe.”
After a few days, the mansion was up and running again. Everyone was busy catching up, even Carina. She was busy running about the city to purchase new things for her room. She never got to stop and sit to watch those movies with Peter, which was ironic, considering she was the one who really wanted it in the first place. Now that Peter was forced to basically sit and rest, Carina was the one who couldn’t.
The city was buzzing. The sound sent a pleasant hum through her head. She loved the busyness in the metro as much as she loved the peace and quiet in the mountains. It was the one time when her legacy was off her mind, and all she thought about was the later, when she got back home. X-Mansion; that was home now, along with dozens of mutants... and Peter. She smiled. Later, she would be putting the snacks in her pantry, inviting Peter over to finally watch those damned movies, then...
The screeching of tires and a piercing honk.
Carina knew just how tragic death could be. She knew that there was a chance her fate would end in disaster and that her plans for her legacy would end up in flames.
The people who haunted the narrative were like ghosts with unfinished business because their lives had been cut short when they shouldn’t have been. Carina wanted a peaceful end, one where she would just close her eyes with a smile because “ all’s well that ends well. ” But at the same time, she knew the chances of a gruesome death.
She didn’t want it to end like this. She wasn’t supposed to go out like this—paralyzed, exposed, like a deer caught in headlights. But deer had sturdy bodies built to endure a hit. Carina was not as strong as a deer. And no deer was strong in front of a six-wheeler.