and there was tears
The pain is accompanied by a purple glow.
A faint haze of color that shifts between indigo and scarlet, always coming back to rest in its natural state of violet. It exists in the corners of my mind and the hollows of my bones, painting my reality and dousing the world in its hue. It’s a soft burn, but there’s a violence in its light that wraps me in agony.
Not a bystander of the pain, but the source.
And although I can’t explain it, and my fractured mind could never begin to understand it, I can feel the power like we are one in the same. Like each burst of light and every explosion of energy are moving in time with the neurons firing in my brain. With each heartbeat, I can feel a connection.
And it terrifies me.
The room has been tousled and rearranged like someone tipped the whole compound upside down. Couches are flung across the floor. Craters have formed in the walls like giant fists punched through. Mazes of cracks run through the screens of the televisions.
I take in the space like I’m detached from my body, watching from above. Maybe it’s my brain protecting me from the horror of what is actually happening. Or maybe I need an escape from the staggering agony that’s ripping through me.
My eyes trail down, trying to decipher whether or not I’m really here.
The floor is much closer than it should be, and it takes me a moment to realize I’m on my knees. My clothes are fluttering as if moved by a violent wind. There are various holes that seem as though they’ve been burned into my shirt, their edges smoking and eating at the fabric with orange embers.
But my clothes are not the concerning part. What worries me is what I see through the smoldering holes. The sight of my body sends me into a vortex of terror.
As I watch, the veins under my skin glow purple, the color brightening as my heart beats. My arms and legs are tinged in the shine, as if I’m a giant purple glow stick. The light protrudes from my skin, drawing furious lines in the air that ripple outwards in angry bursts of power.
The destruction around me continues, the room torn apart by this strange energy that somehow comes from within.
The power runs through me and uses my skin like fuel. I am a beacon of energy— a continuous explosion that cannot be controlled.
But it is being controlled. Not by me, but by something else. I feel it being restricted. As I gaze upon the tattered room that was once so cozy and inviting, I realize the damage should be much worse.
And then I see her. Wanda Maximoff, who sat so silently and observed me so closely, is standing in front of me. Her arms are outstretched, and a light—not unlike the one invading me—streams from her outstretched palms. Her power is crimson and warm, and it surrounds the lilac intruder in a spherical barrier. She’s containing this power with her own, stopping this anomaly from destroying the compound. She winces and strains to encapsulate the explosion, her eyes shifted from their natural brown to a blood red.
Behind her, I see movement. People. Bruce, Steve, Natasha, Spider-man, and Stark are gathered behind, covered by their own field of red protection.
And all at once, the filter that’s over my brain, protecting me from the present, slips away. Reality hits me like a transport truck.
The pain seeps back into my bones and I feel it, all of it, in the split second it takes for me to come back to this world.
It’s the kind of torment I know I’ll never forget. The kind of suffering I’m positive will terrorize me in every waking moment for the rest of my days. Like every nerve and vessel in my body has been lit on fire. I can’t see through the pain. I can’t breathe.
Oh god. I can’t breathe.
Someone’s screaming. I think it might be me. And I’m trying to stop, because with each cry, I can feel the power growing. I can see Wanda fighting to keep it contained.
But there’s a ferocity to this agony, and I know it will last forever. Tears wet my cheeks and sweat beads across my forehead. I find myself focusing on the little things—the beating of my heart, the strenuous expanding of my lungs.
I can’t breathe.
There’s something in my field of vision. Not Wanda or the purple monstrosity, but closer. Smaller.
The ring.
It’s floating in front of me, the band and stone decorated with flickering wisps of maroon.
The ring I threw away. The broken promise that I abandoned.
The ring lowers, controlled by some unseen force. Through harsh gasps of misery, my sluggish eyes flicker up to Wanda. One of her arms remains outstretched, and the other is pointed towards me, drawing shapes in the air. Where her finger moves, the ring follows.
It moves towards my hand, and I let it slide back onto my finger.
With my next breath, the lavender atrocity collapses. All of the rampant energy that was struggling to escape into the room comes crashing back towards me. My vision whites out for a moment, and the torture peaks. I cry out weakly, falling onto my hands and knees, and—
Silence. Blessed, beautiful silence. The cacophony of shouts and explosions shuts off like a light switch. I can feel the ring on my finger, and it’s presence seems to weigh me down. It feels heavy, in a way that I welcome.
Darkness simmers at the edges of my vision. My ears start ringing, my breaths slow down. My mind begs to fall into unconsciousness, and I don’t resist.
***
The first thing I register is the throbbing in my head. Rhythmic, like a drum, as if a tiny creature is beating on the inside of my skull. It feels as though my brain has been microwaved, and with every passing moment, I can feel the sensation crawling throughout my body as my senses slowly work their way back.
I focus hard on the world around me. Though my eyes remain stubbornly closed and my ears don’t appear to be in working order yet, I can feel the pain. And if I can feel the pain, that means I’m still alive.
I’m not quite sure where I am or why I feel this way, but I can sense that death was close. I’m reminded of the time I was hit by a car while running from an angry grocery store manager.
When was that? Four years ago? Five?
I remember the feeling as if I can feel it now. How the bones in my leg shattered and I could feel every part. The way the bumper connected with my chest and pulled the air from my lungs.
I had been close to death then. It was only because of the doctor who witnessed the crash that I lived.
But this time, I can’t quite piece together the series of events that led me here. The time before this feels murky and obscured, like I’m trying to see it through a foggy window.
And it’s almost nice, I realize, to not remember. I can’t form a single coherent thought, and I know that should worry me. But in this moment, I’m almost relieved to have an empty mind.
I can feel more than the pain now. There’s something soft laid over me, shrouding me in warmth. My fingertips twitch against it, grazing across the wooly fabric. A blanket.
Beneath my head is something soft and plush. A pillow.
I’m in a bed.
This is nice, my careless mind muses. It really is comfortable. The mattress beneath me cradles my form perfectly. My hands move slowly, my palms smoothing across the sheets.
I move to twist my ring around my finger, a habitual waking routine I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember. I feel it against my fingertips, the metal strong and cool. The stone is turned to the inside of my finger, and I gently twist it back. I trace across the inscription as I’ve done every morning for the past—
A pang of remembrance shoots through my chest, and I shudder.
The ring.
Through fractured memories and half-formed thoughts, a horrifying image races to the forefront of my mind.
Wanda Maximoff, with her arms stretched out towards me, fighting a violent purple explosion that threatens to consume me.
Pieces fall into place like a puzzle arranging itself. Flashes of memories flicker through my mind, and in a moment, my peaceful, thoughtless brain becomes a tornado of panic and confusion.
Adrenaline bursts into my veins. I jolt forward, flying out of the bed and stumbling onto the ground beside. I trip onto a strangely soft floor, its texture similar to that of a gym mat. My heart is hammering and my breaths are rapid. My eyes are open and swarming my surroundings.
I’m in a small room, large enough to fit the bed I was in and not much more. The walls, floor and ceiling are all made of padding in a deep shade of indigo, except for the wall in front of me, which is made of a single panel of glass. There are no doors or handles. No way out.
This is a prison cell.
Outside, I can see a hallway leading to a solid steel door. But between me and the door is Tony Stark.
He had been sitting on a chair, but he’s on his feet now. He reaches out to something on the wall outside my room— some sort of panel of buttons. He hits a large red one, and suddenly, I hear a crackling voice emerging from the ceiling above.
“Kid, calm down. Everything is going to be fine.”
Through my wheezing breaths and the incessant pounding of my heart in my ears, I somehow manage to feel a powerful burst of anger. I rise from my quivering place on the floor, facing the glass. “What the hell is this?” My voice is much more strained and rough than usual.
“We had to, Violet. We didn’t have a choice.” His voice feels like fire against my ear drums. The way it emerges from the ceiling reminds me that he’s out there, and I’m in here.
“Why am I in here?” There’s a crack in my voice as I feel betrayal run through me like a physical blow. This whole thing was a trap. He snatched me from the street and locked me behind a forcefield. He tried to gain my trust with false stories of infinity stones and Asgardian kings, using that trust to lock me in here.
He studies me for a moment, and I can only imagine the lies he’s concocting in that self-righteous head of his. “The explosion,” he starts. “It was too powerful. Wanda could hardly contain it.”
“Yeah, I know,” I snap. “I was there. It almost killed me.”
His eyes drop to the floor before settling back on mine. “Yeah, it did.” If I didn’t know better, I’d almost mistake the emotion in his voice for empathy.
I slap my hand against the glass, and I don’t miss the way he flinches ever so slightly. “So why am I in here?”
He hesitates, and something in the air shifts. My skin prickles with an unmistakable feeling of apprehension. “Violet.” His voice is low. “The explosion was you.”
A nauseating mixture of confusion, fear, and fury crackles through me like an electric shock. There’s a sudden dryness in my mouth, an immediate ache in my chest. “What?” The word is small and timid, lacking all of the anger and treachery my voice held moments before.
“You caused the explosion.”
And even as he’s saying it, I already know it’s true. My brain fights to deny it, but his words stab into me like a blade.
You caused the explosion.
Even though my trust in Stark is as fragile as a flower, I know he’s not lying about this. My mind has made the destruction into an external force that nearly caused my demise. My battered heart wanted to believe that the lilac horrors that happened in that room were caused by something else. I needed to believe that the purple glow under my skin wasn’t mine.
I couldn’t accept it. I don’t want to accept it.
But the memory isn’t whole. The parts I allowed myself to remember paint a picture full of holes and tears. The parts I wanted to forget, the parts my brain wanted to protect me from, are much more horrifying than the idea of a foreign power nearly killing me.
I felt the connection. Like my soul had been weaved with this power, hopelessly entangled with its will. Like the very beating of my heart was what fuelled its actions.
Not a bystander of the pain, but the source.
I let out a choked breath, releasing a small sound between a gasp and a sob. “How?” I ask him, not possessing the energy to care about how my lip quivers as I do.
His brow furrows with a touch of sympathy. “We’re not sure,” he answers. “But we’re going to find out.”
“Is everyone okay?” The words rush out of me instinctively.
He nods. “Everyone’s fine. Wanda made sure of that.”
No one was hurt. I didn’t hurt anyone. That small piece of information is enough to keep me breathing, but there’s a plethora of other fears that threaten to suffocate me.
There’s a stab of pain in my ribs, like my breaths are pulling acid into my lungs. I step back slowly, feeling the wall appear against my spine. My knees curl into my chest as I slide down to the ground, wrapping shaky arms around my legs. “It was me,” I mutter, trying to not hyperventilate as I think of all the connotations those words bring.
I caused the explosion. I was the explosion.
Stark pulls his chair closer, sitting directly in front of the glass, as close as he can be to me. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “I’m going to figure this out,” he promises. “I just need time.”
“And until you do, I have to stay in here, right?” I try not to sound bitter. After all, I can’t blame him. I’m a breathing bomb. No one knows what I’m capable of. Not even me.
“It’s a containment chamber,” he explains. “It was designed to hold someone very powerful.”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He brushes off my question quickly. “All that matters is that as long as you’re in here, there won’t be any more explosions.”
I know he means it as a reassurance. But as his words move through this wall of feelings that surrounds me, they sound more sinister. Like he believes it was intentional. Like he wouldn’t trust me outside of this cage.
Maybe he wouldn’t.
My hands run shakily through my hair, resting at the base of my skull. Despite my best efforts, I can feel the sting of tears in my eyes. “I didn’t mean to,” I breathe, my voice barely audible.
I know he hears it by the way his expression darkens with pain. “I know, kid.” He lets the hurt taint his eyes for a moment more before shaking it away, as if he has to pull himself back from the feeling. He clears his throat. “The ring doesn’t have the power stone inside,” he says. “It never did. It was only ever there to contain what’s inside of you.” He stands. “I’m going to find out what that is.”
“How?” I ask.
“By doing what I do best,” he replies. “Tinkering.” He moves his chair away from the glass and back against the wall. “Are you hungry?” he asks. “Do you need anything?”
The question is almost comical. He’s just dropped the biggest, most horrifying bomb of knowledge onto me, and is about to leave me alone in a prison so I can’t hurt anyone. I need about a million things right now, and none of them are food.
I need to be out of this cell. I need to move to a remote corner of the earth where I can never be a danger to anyone again. I probably need therapy.
I need to go back ten years so I can stop myself from ever being swept up into this world.
Stark can only give me one of those things. “Don’t leave me here,” I beg. “Please. I’ll keep the ring on. I won’t do it again.” My voice is desperate, my words rushed.
That shade of grief plays across his features again. He studies the floor. “I’ll be back. I’ll bring you something to eat,” is all he says. Then he’s walking away, leaving me alone.
“Hey.” I spring to my feet, rushing to the glass. My panicked breaths form foggy outbursts on the window. “I won’t do it again. Please.” My palm presses against the barrier. “I promise. You can trust me.”
But he doesn’t turn around, and his feet carry on. His hand grips the door handle, and the thought of being left alone in this room, with nothing but my racing thoughts and the knowledge that I’m a monster, is too much to bear. “Stark!” I shout, but there’s no indication that he’s even hearing me. The door is opening, and he’s disappearing.
And my mind is breaking. “Stark!” I pound against the glass, my fingers curled into a tight fist. I can barely feel the pain on my knuckles, its magnitude dwarfed by the ache in my chest. “Let me out!”
The door is closed. He’s gone.
I yell curses after him, continuing to assault the glass. My blows sound harsh, but they do little to the window that separates me from the rest of the world. The sorrow is burning away, rapidly replaced by rage.
I’m angry at him for locking me up. I’m angry at myself for deserving it.
I’m angry at the green-eyed woman who knew what I was, and sent me into the world alone.
I turn away from the glass. There’s too much feeling inside. Enough to consume me, as I can already feel it doing. I can’t bear it. I can’t contain it.
I rip the mattress away from the bed frame, flinging it towards the wall. The blankets and pillows crumple to the ground as the mattress topples over. The bed frame is next, launching across the tiny room and satisfying a small portion of the fire inside of me as it clatters against the glass in a noisy collision.
But then there’s nothing left to destroy, and still so much emotion raging in me. It’s like a tidal wave crashing over me, drowning me over and over, no matter how hard I kick towards the surface.
My knees give out. I cave in, curling against the wall with my head in my hands. Labored breaths rip through me, tearing me apart. I shrivel into the corner, striving to make myself as small as possible. Maybe if I keep getting smaller, I’ll eventually just disappear.
I want to disappear.
I bite my lip so hard it hurts, trying and failing to hold back the ocean that wants to consume me. Out of habit, I twist my ring around my finger.
The tears come hot and fast, burning like poison. They do little to ease the pain, their only comfort being a release of the growing lump that had been resting in my throat.
I don’t know when it happens, but at some point amidst the sobbing and hyperventilating, I slip into a fitful sleep.