hold on to your heart

“What about the others?” I ask Tony as we hurry through the halls. “Shouldn’t they know, too?”

My very skin seems to hum with anticipation. I’ve waited almost ten years to know who I was, and now, I’m finally going to figure it out. I’ll have a birthday, parents, and a real name. At last.

He keeps his eyes ahead, doing his best to ignore me as always. There’s a slight break in his expression, a flicker of something similar to remorse. “They already do.”

Some of the wind leaves my sails at his words. The thought of everyone else knowing my past before I did races through my head, and my heart contorts. It seems unfair. It seems wrong. 

“Oh.” My lips part with the small word, fragile in sound and disappointed in nature. 

I watch his jaw tense in what seems like regret. But it could just as easily be annoyance. “This way,” he says, directing me down the stairs. I know the way to his lab, of course. I’ve been there before, and he knows that. I wonder if he just wants to fill the silence with something other than the sound of betrayal.

When we reach his lab, it's in shambles. If Stark’s brain could somehow be made into a room, this is how I would imagine it would look. The onslaught of information tugs at my momentum, slowing me down as I gape at the space around us. I peer around the room, trying my best to take in everything there is. Stark pushes onwards, fussing over something on a tabletop to my right as if I’m not even there.

Desks are covered in stacks of papers and various mechanical trinkets. Holograms are flickering all over the room, running dozens of different images. Camera footage, scans of documents, photos of people. As I look closer, my eyes begin to register what’s in front of me. 

One of the videos that rolls above a desk to my left seems to be replaying some sort of human experiment. A young boy is strapped to a chair, bound by his wrists and ankles, while nurses in white lab coats fuss over him. Needles are plunged into his arms. Leads are stuck to his chest, transmitting vitals to a large monitor. Men in suits watch the horrifying display through a glass window. But the part that catches my eye is the look on the boy’s face. Though the footage is grainy and busy with movement, the fear in his irises is unmistakable. 

I tear my eyes towards something else. Another rendered image, this time showing some kind of document. The article is from what appears to be an ancient reading. The characters are from a language I don’t recognize, but the words are picked up and deciphered by a holographic translator. A version of the reading is projected into the air beside, scrawled in glowing blue English. I skim through, stopping at a word that captures my attention— power. I read the surrounding material.

The wearer of this trinket shall have the power of the gods bestowed upon him. But heed this warning: those who have infinite power also possess infinite weakness.

My eyes flick over to the same part in the ancient text. Beside the words is a hastily sketched image of a ring.

My ring.

I pull in a deep breath. I knew what I was walking into. I shouldn’t be surprised at the connection, and yet, it feels strange to look around and take in this mess of evidence, knowing it all leads back to me in some way.

I force my attention to a different part of the lab. In the back corner, photographs litter the walls and air in both real and holographically rendered forms. They don't seem like anything special or discerning. The first one I notice is projected above a particularly messy desk. It depicts a warehouse, with rusty metal walls and broken windows. The entire building is worse for wear and covered in an aura of abandonment. The sky above is cloudy and dark. The street in front is cracked and desolate, marked with pools of rain the that falls in a relentless sheet. Beside is a photo of what I can only assume is one of the warehouse’s rooms. It’s barren and cast in shadows. The only sign that there was ever anyone there is the chair in the middle of the space, coated in dust. Leather straps hang from the armrests and footholds. Behind is a large window that looks into a small room.

My brow furrows with recognition, and I glance back to the camera footage of the boy and the nurses.

It’s the same room.

A blatant connection, and it still feels like I’m missing something. Who is this boy? Why is that room so important?

I study a different photo. This one is real, pinned to the wall. The colors are washed out and faded, the edges curling with age. It shows a girl and a boy who seem to be in their early teens. By the look of their clothes and the styles of their hair, I’d guess that the picture was taken sometime in the eighties. There’s another copy of the photo tacked to the wall beside. It’s a clearer quality, and the colors are true. 

They make a cute couple. The boy has sandy blond hair and brown eyes. His skin holds a deep tan from a lifetime in the sun. He’s hugging her from behind, and joyful smiles are plastered on both of their faces. I graze over his features, but there’s something about hers that demands my attention.

Her skin is fair and her hair is an earthy tone, somewhere between dark chocolate and darker coffee. Her eyes are a particularly unique shade, and something about them sets my nerves on fire. A bright blend of brown and green. A perfect hazel.

Just like mine.

“Your mother.”

I physically flinch at the sound of Stark’s voice. I had been so engrossed in the photo that I had forgotten where I was. I glance over, watching his body language, searching his eyes for any sign of a lie. But I only find the truth.

My mother.

Lips spread wide in a careless smile. Eyes bright with the glow of youth. Her photograph radiates happiness and comfort. In her, I see everything I’ve never been, the person I wish I was.

I see myself, if the world had been kinder. Would I look that carefree if this woman had stayed in my life? Would I share in her joy if she had been there to protect that ten year old girl from the years that ruined her?

“Is she alive?” It’s all I can manage to ask. It feels like the most important question, though I’m bitterly sure that I know the answer.

“No.” Stark finds his place beside me, gazing at my mother as I do. “She died the day you were born.”

Part of my soul feels crippled by that. “What was her name?”

“Julia Clark,” he answers.

There’s a pain in my chest, not anything like the one that marks my power or the sting of betrayal that still simmers on my heart. The pain of loss is sharper. Grief is not so different from the burn of a blade. I can feel myself grieving for a woman I never knew: the woman who brought me into this world and left it on the same day. 

Did Julia have plans for her life? Had she wanted to be there for me, but time wasn’t on her side?

I wish I had known her. I wish she was there. I bet she did, too, but fate was against her. Maybe we have that in common.

“Is he my father?” I ask, gesturing towards the blond boy who holds her in the picture.

I see Stark shift beside me. “It’s possible,” he says. “Nobody knows. Your mother wasn’t with anyone when you were born. She kept the pregnancy a secret, as far as I can tell.”

His revelations remind me that he’s been digging around in my life, uncovering my past. He knows who I am, and apparently, everyone else knows, too. “Tell me everything,” I demand.

He nods, as if he knows that it’s time. “Take a seat.” He waves towards a set of chairs that face each other. I lower into one, and he perches across from me. His arms cross in a stance that seems more nervous than guarded. “Julia Clark was born in Houston on April third, nineteen seventy-five.”

That made her twenty-seven or twenty-eight when she died. I nearly shiver. That’s young. Too young.

“Her parents were Matthew and Rebecca Clark,” Stark continues. “Matthew died of a heart attack when Julia was five. Rebecca still lives in Texas.”

My hands grip the armrests. I have a grandmother.

“Julia was a singer.” Stark watches me as he speaks, as if trying to gauge how I’m handling this. “She was part of a jazz band called The Brass Knuckles. They toured all over America. They weren't superstars or anything, but they had a niche of very dedicated fans. In the jazz community, your mother was a celebrity.”

A talented, young musician with an entire career ahead of her. Would she have sang to me as she rocked me to sleep if she had lived? 

“She went off the grid the year before you were born. No one in her band or her hometown knew she was pregnant.” He hesitates as if he’s dreading his next words. “They found her body on the seventeenth of December, two-thousand and three.”

My birthday. The day my mother died. 

Today is November twenty-eighth. In less than three weeks, I’ll be twenty.

But right now, I feel like a child. A helpless baby who needs her mother.

“How did she–” My voice is shaky and thick with emotion, but I’m glad that he understands what I meant to ask.

“They found her with a cesarean wound.”

During childbirth, then. My life is what ended hers.

“But the autopsy determined she had died before the c-section took place,” Stark finishes.

Confusion knits my brow. “What happened?” I ask.

He points toward the photograph of the warehouse with the rusted panels and rain soaked street. “They found her in that building.”

A million questions rush through me. The boy in the chair, the warehouse, my mother…how is it all connected?

“It was a Hydra lab,” he explains, “in some small town called Wimberley in Texas.”

I know of Hydra through their many public schemes and attempts to commit treachery. Steve has spent most of his life fighting against the seemingly unstoppable organization. Hydra is what made him go into the ice in the first place.

But I can’t imagine why my mother would be at one of their sites when she died.

“We infiltrated the lab a few years ago and discovered they had been conducting human experiments there for more than twenty years. They were attempting to create a superhuman weapon, just like they tried with Wanda and her brother.”

I knew Wanda’s history with Hydra. Her and her brother, Pietro, had been exposed to the mind stone, and it gave them their powers. Did the same thing happen to my mother? Is that why I’m like this?

“Nearly twenty years ago, the power stone was on Earth. We don’t know how. We never even knew it was here. But somehow, Hydra got their hands on it. The day you were born, they were performing their first experiment with the stone on a young boy.” Stark’s cheeks look a shade paler than usual. “His name was Damian Cole.”

I swallow. “Was?”

“He didn’t survive the experiment. When they released the stone from its containment vessel and attempted to expose him to its energy, an explosion occurred.”

I remember my own explosion. The way it ripped through the air and rattled the building. Wanda using all of her strength just to contain its fury.

“There were no survivors.” Stark levels me with his gaze. “Except you.”

I shake my head. “How is that possible?”

He leans forward in his chair. “When we took over the lab, it had been rebuilt. They had gone on conducting tests as if nothing had gone wrong. You would never know what happened there.” He dips his head. “But we were able to recover surveillance footage going all the way back to the nineties. We saw what happened that day.”

Stark taps a few places on the table, and the video feed I had seen earlier blinks to life in the air between us. Damian Cole, strapped to a chair while nurses poke and prod him and mysterious men watch it happen. The footage is moving quicker than before, but Stark slows it down once the nurses leave the room. At that point, Damian is alone. He looks no older than twelve, and even with the vintage quality, I can see his chest heaving with anxious breaths.

The men watch as a robotic arm descends from the ceiling, holding a metallic sphere with strange designs etched on its surface. A fissure runs through the center, and then the two halves of the sphere are spinning in opposite directions. The canister breaks apart, and despite the images being filtered through a camera, I’m nearly blinded by the intense purple light that emerges.

It takes over the screen for a few seconds, blocking everything from view. The hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention, and suddenly, a blood curdling scream echoes out from the projection.

It twists my stomach into knots. As the camera adjusts and the light dies down, I can start to see Damian again, but I wish I couldn’t.

He’s convulsing, writhing around in his restraints in some sort of seizure. His head smacks against the chair with audible cracks. His mouth is wide in that horrifying scream. It’s a terrible sight.

His fearful cries start to form words. At first, just unrecognizable gibberish. And then—

“KILL ME!”

I glance at Stark, but his face is devoid of emotion. He watches the playback avidly, almost routinely. I wonder how many times he’s watched Damian suffer in the pursuit of knowing what happened that day.

Damian begs for death again. He pleads for the end. It’s almost too much for me to bear.

And then all at once, a violet explosion destroys the room. The feed switches to the hallway outside, and I watch in shock as the energy and flames race into the building. The footage jumps around, showing the entire building being quickly consumed by power.

It jumps to a frame that appears to be close to the exit. It’s brighter in this room, but more run down. It looks abandoned, lacking any Hydra officers or equipment. I can see the grass outside of a window. A woman is curled up in a corner, taking labored breaths. Her back is turned to the camera, but I can see her dark hair falling across her white t-shirt. At the sound of the explosion, she perks up, looking towards the noise. Her face comes into view, and I hold my breath.

Earthy hair and fair skin. As she props herself up on her elbows to peer towards the source of the detonation, I can see the roundness of her belly. She holds her stomach in what I imagine is an unconsciously protective gesture for a pregnant woman.

I can’t quite see through the grainy quality of the video, but I know if I could, I would see her blinking with hazel eyes that reflect my own.

I watch as the camera begins to shake, the explosion drawing near. My teeth clench anxiously as the room is torn apart by the power stone, and my mother is lost to the damage.

The footage fizzles into static, and then shuts off into darkness. There’s a tense silence filled with hurt and horror.

“I’m sorry, Violet,” Stark finally says. “I wish the truth was better.”

I let my shoulders relax, trying to rid myself of the feelings that want to consume me. “So do I,” I mutter. What happened to my mother was terrible. What happened to Damian was even worse. But I knew there was a possibility that my life began in shambles and ruins, and still, there was nothing I wanted more than the truth. I can’t let myself be wrecked by it.

The feed clicks back on, but this time, we’re viewing the warehouse from the outside. The time stamp reveals that we’ve been transported an hour into the future. This camera is perched on a building across the street, watching the warehouse burn from a hundred feet away. At first, the footage shows nothing but damage and fire. Smoke billows towards the clouds as the rusted Hydra lab is eaten away by the aftermath of the explosion.

Then something moves across the screen. Barely more than a shadow amongst the wreckage, but my eyes cling to it. The figure is human, wrapped in dark rags and a cloak. I watch it jump through a wall of flames, arms wrapped around something small as it runs towards the camera and away from the lab.

Like a ghost fleeing the scene of a massacre.

The figure approaches, face covered entirely by fabric, aside from a set of green eyes that peek up at the camera. They turn away, trying to shield the object in their grasp from view. But they aren’t quite fast enough, and before they disappear from the gaze of the camera, I catch sight of the thing they try to hide.

A baby, covered in blood and mouth wide in a fierce cry. Tiny fists grip the figure’s cloak as if holding onto a lifeline. The carrier holds the child tenderly, despite the flickers of lilac energy that cling to the baby’s skin.

Power hugs the child’s form, swimming between fingers and burning like purple flames. When the baby finally opens its eyes, its irises glow an unnatural violet hue.

“Is that me?” I ask, though I already know the answer.

Stark nods. “The building across from the Hydra lab is a hospital now. I had to wager a hefty bribe to get my hands on this footage,” he explains. “But that’s all of it. Everything we know about your mother and your birth.” He draws a circle on the surface of his desk, and the feed rewinds. He pauses it and zooms in, capturing the moment that caught the briefest look at the figure’s face. Jade eyes and ivory skin, every other distinguishable feature hidden beneath a make-shift mask. “As far as we can tell, this person went into the lab after the explosion and delivered you. You survived the blast. By some miracle, the power stone didn't kill you. It gave you your abilities.”

A million questions flash across my mind. Who is the person that delivered me? Where did they take me after I was born? What happened in the next ten years that was stolen from me?

A part of me goes numb. I was born this way. I came into the world with purple power already coursing through my veins. If that’s true, then I’ve never truly known peace. I never had a shot at normalcy. I had always hoped that the first ten years of my life were perfect, and then some kind of fluke came along and set me on the wrong path.

But I was born dangerous. I’m a monster by nature.

“You’ve been busy,” I say, looking around at the mountains of evidence he’s collected. All this time, I assumed he was hiding in his lab to avoid me. But it’s clear to me now; he’s been hard at work. Everything he’s dug up and bribed for has led him back to the day of my birth. In two weeks, he’s managed to give me a mother, a grandmother, and a birthday.

And suddenly, it doesn’t matter that he locked me in a cage and banished me to training. I don’t care that he told the others before he told me. I know now, and I’m not going to stop until every moment of my life has been unraveled. I won’t rest until I know every piece of who I am.

“Other than this video, there’s no evidence of you existing. No hospital records, birth certificate…” Stark trails off, shaking his head. “I wish I had more to tell you.”

I lean forward, setting my face with sincerity. “We’ll find the rest. Together.”

He nods tightly. “Then we’d better get to work.”

***

Two hours later, we’ve made a plan.

In the morning, we’ll take Stark’s private jet to Houston to visit Rebecca Clark. My grandmother. Of all the known people from my past, she might just be the only one who could shed some light on who I am.

Steve and Natasha are coming, too. Peter begged to tag along, but Stark insisted that he stay home and attend his classes. Besides, it seems smarter to bring a smaller group. I can’t imagine Mrs. Clark being very receptive to a whole squad of superheroes showing up on her doorstep. Three internationally famous Avengers and her long lost granddaughter is already pushing it.

The others are too busy, anyways. Bruce is flying to the University of Oxford to give a speech on nuclear physics, one of the seven areas in which he’s earned a PhD. Thor and Captain Marvel are off-planet dealing with their own extraterrestrial threats. Clint and Scott are with their families for the holidays. 

Wanda and Bucky may have wanted to join, but it’s probably best that the two of them aren't seen in public. Their track records aren't exactly squeaky clean.

So in less than twenty-four hours, the four of us will be in Texas. And I’ll be meeting possibly the only family that I have left.

***

It’s midnight, and I’m on the last chapter of Pride and Prejudice.

I hadn’t believed Peter when he told me I’d love it. After all, it seemed like a horribly insufferable romantic period piece. And to be fair, it totally is. The first five chapters were murderous, and I had vowed to toss it in the trash and pretend I’d lost it. 

And then suddenly, I had a birthday. I watched my mother die. My entire history was being written at last, and everything was changing.

Tomorrow, I fly to Houston to meet my grandmother. I’ll have Tony, Steve, and Nat by my side, of course, but their presence does little to calm the raging ocean of nerves in my belly.

I needed a distraction. So, I gave Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy another try. For about twenty minutes, I seriously regretted my decision. But there’s an elegance to it, and now, despite my best efforts, I can’t put it down. 

With the Gardiners they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them.

The End

I release a pleased sigh, letting the book fall closed for the last time, and letting my head sink into my pillow. I’m a little bogged down by the knowing that Peter’s going to make me write some sort of essay based on this novel, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to weasel myself out of that one.

My eyes close, and even though my lamp is still on, I can feel sleep tugging me into the darkness. 

A noise pulls me in the opposite direction. A faint click, followed by a descending whir. My eyes open, and my room is dark. My lamp is turned off, despite me never flipping the switch. 

I look over to my alarm clock. The face is empty, no numbers shown. 

Confused, I sit up and try the switch on my lamp. I flicker it on and off, but the bulb stays dark. I press the buttons along the front of my alarm clock, with no response. 

No power.

Something about that feels off. Wrong.

Power outages weren’t an uncommon occurrence when I was sleeping in abandoned buildings and alleyways. But at the Avenger’s compound, where the entire grounds are controlled by Stark’s intricate electronic systems, I’d imagine power outages are about as rare as a blue moon.

Stark will handle it, my mind whispers. Go back to bed. 

And while it’s true that my eyes are heavy and my joints ache with fatigue, a part of me feels unsettled. 

I tap the screen of my cell phone, expecting it to come to life. But it stays dark, just like everything else. 

A new sound seeps through my partially opened bedroom door. At first, just static to my exhausted ears. And then, careful footsteps and light breaths. Nothing discerningly suspicious, but the warnings in my mind are relentless. 

My heart skips a beat when I hear a voice I don’t recognize. “Hold.” The word is barely spoken, more like a breath, but it’s there.

Fear drags me out of bed. I rush to the door silently, flattening my back against the wall directly beside. My ribs nearly vibrate with the rapid beating of my heart. I keep my breaths slow, quiet. My ears strain to pick up any noises.

I hear gentle clatter, as if it’s a struggle to keep it that way. Soft, metallic clangs and fabric rubbing together. Shuffling and rattling, as if a militia is marching past my room. The muted cacophony halts outside my door.

“Delta. Romeo. With me,” that same hushed voice mutters. “Beta, Whiskey, and Echo, you take the west wing.” It’s a male voice, deep and husky. There’s a calmness to his tone that makes me shiver, and a sharpness that reminds me of a blade. “Tango, Kilo, and Sierra, you’ve got the north. The rest of you are heading south.” I instantly know that the eerie tranquility of his voice is not one that I will easily forget.

There’s murmurs of agreement, too many to count. By my best guess and the way he listed off codenames, there’s twelve people outside my door.

“Search every room,” he instructs. “Find her. Kill anyone who gets in your way.”

I hold a hand over my mouth to contain myself. Terror burns across my skin like fire.

A dozen killers, out to find someone in the compound.

“Move out.” The footsteps carry on, moving past my room.

Something possesses me to follow. It’s barely a thought, more of an instinct. I open my door carefully, biting my lip anxiously. I’m noiseless as I step into the hall. The air feels colder out here, and I shudder. My feet are bare, and there’s only a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top to keep me warm. My hair is loose in its waves over my shoulders.

I’m not prepared to do anything other than sleep. And yet, I know that if I just get back into my bed, something horrible will happen. Maybe to me, and maybe to the others in the compound. I might be okay with my own life hanging in the balance, but I won’t risk theirs. There are too many people that I’ve come to care about sleeping inside of these walls. 

I start down the hall, following the faint footsteps. I cling to the walls for the most cover, slipping through the shadows. I can see them up ahead, and even though the sight makes me want to curl into a ball on the ground, I push forward.

They’re dressed in combat gear, ready for a fight. Their uniforms are entirely black, complete with bullet proof vests, belts of tactical gear, riot shields, helmets, and an artillery of guns. Each soldier carries a semi-automatic rifle, but they all have several other handguns and weapons strapped to their bodies.

There are no words or insignias printed on their clothes. No indication of who they are or what they want.

The only clue I have is that they’re looking for a woman in the compound.

I’m not oblivious to the fact that it could be me, but I think accepting that at this point would be foolish. I’m nobody compared to the likes of Wanda or Natasha, and my identity is a secret. They’re likely here for someone else, and I can’t let them have her.

They’re approaching an intersection in the hallways. We’re near the center of the compound, and I know enough of the layout and their plan to realize that they’re about to split off into their respective directions, searching the building and killing anyone who’s not their target.

I think of all the people I’ve come to know here, and how close they all are to danger. Peter’s room is less than fifty feet down the east hall. Natasha’s is straight ahead. 

I remember the moment I stopped the weights from crashing into Wanda and I. There wasn’t enough time to split my attention and cover multiple areas at the same time. The only thing I could do was create a shield that would protect from every danger at once. 

And I think now, with a dozen armed soldiers about to massacre my friends, there’s only one way to protect them all.

“Hey!” I shout. The soldiers spin around, guns drawn towards me. There’s a strange feeling of contempt that comes over me, knowing that even if I get gunned down, I will have protected everyone else. “Over here!”

A moment of hesitation as they all look towards one of their own. A soldier much taller than the rest, with a red helmet instead of a black one. The front of his vest reads ALPHA. His head tilts as he watches me, and I swear I can see his smile through his mask. “Collect the target,” he announces. 

The contempt dissolves into a sickly dread. And despite the fact that I’m saving my friends, I can’t help but think that I’ve made a horrible mistake. 

I’m the one they were looking for.

I don’t know why, but it’s clear— they came here for me. They were going to kill everyone in this compound, just to get to me.

And by calling their attention my way, I’ve pretty much handed myself over. To who or for what purpose, I don't know. But I’m fairly certain that I don't want to find out.

I need to get out of here. I may have put myself directly into the line of fire, but I don’t have to bring everyone down with me. I can still protect the others.

I turn on my heels, breaking into a sprint down the hall. It’s a straight shot to the outside doors. If I can make it into the woods, I might have a chance.

If every other piece of technology in the compound has been disarmed, maybe my force field has been, too. 

At least, that’s what I’m hoping.

“Get her!” the man commands. 

I push myself into high gear, desperately beelining for the exit. If there was time, I might have thought of a better plan. But it’s too late for me now. I need to draw them as far away from the compound as possible. 

A shot goes off behind me. I cry out in alarm, knowing I’m as out in the open as I can be. There’s no cover until I hit the trees. 

“Don’t shoot,” a voice hisses behind me. “We need her alive.”

I burst through the outside doors, sucking in the fresh winter air. There’s an immediate rigidity in my muscles as they rebel against the cold, but there’s no time to stop. 

And the knowledge that they can’t kill me, for whatever reason, helps me keep going. I might actually make it out of this alive.

I reach the end of the pavement, only slowing down marginally as I’m weighed down by the fear of running into an invisible wall. But I fly straight onto the snowy grass, and I know that I’m free.

Under different circumstances, I might be ecstatic. But right now, I’d go back into my invisible cage in a heartbeat if it meant I would be safe.

My feet burn for the first few strides through the snow, but I force them to move faster, still striving for the cover of the forest. This winter has been cruel, and it’s especially lethal tonight. Despite the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I can feel the wicked bite of the wind. My only hope is that I’ll numb to the feeling quickly.

The moon is full, and for that, I’m equal parts grateful and horrified. On one hand, that glowing rock in the sky is lighting my path perfectly, showing me where to go. On the other hand, it’s going to erase almost all hope of hiding in the shadows.

The footsteps are close behind me. Too close.

“Come on,” I breathe, urging myself to move faster. Pleading with my legs to carry me far enough away to spare the others. Out here in the snow, barefoot and trembling with a dozen armed men in pursuit, things aren’t looking great for me. 

Maybe it was stupid to do the heroic thing. Maybe I was a fool to think I could handle this on my own. I live in a compound full of superheros, and I’m out here alone.

I break the tree line, feeling immediate relief. Not because I think I’m safe, but because the forest gives me a chance. I’m quick, and I know how to hide. I’ve been doing it for years, even under the light of a full moon.

“Split off!” someone shouts, and I recognize the Alpha’s burly voice. It feels like sandpaper against my ears. 

The footsteps, which have remained collected in a single group up until this point, break off into separate teams. They branch off to the left and right, with a few still behind. A twig snaps underneath my foot, and maybe it’s the adrenaline wearing off, but for the first time, I feel the pain of the woods beneath me.

But I can’t slow down. I’m sure the soles of my feet are cut and bleeding, but if that’s the only price I have to pay to escape, I’ll gladly pay it. 

I will escape. I’ll make it back to the compound, and tomorrow, I’ll train with Wanda and study with Peter as always.

Unfortunately, the trees have other plans. I barely notice the branch through the shadows cast by the moon until the bark is inches from my face. It catches my forehead, and my momentum leading into the crash pushes me onto my back. I land hard, sticks scraping at my bare shoulders. Pain bristles across my head, and warmth rises to my skin.

A gasp flutters from my lips, but I have enough sense to launch back to my feet. I spare a glance behind me, realizing just how much time I’ve lost by falling. The soldiers are close enough that I can see the color of their eyes.

I spring forward, but a body appears in front of me, severing my path. It’s joined by two others— one of the groups who split off to the right has cornered me.

The man closest to me is tall and built, with eyes like ebony. I turn quickly, but he grabs me, wrapping his irresistibly strong arms around my arms and waist, lifting me off of the ground.

I shout, using the tree that took me down as a backboard. I kick against the trunk, pushing the man off balance. We both crash to the ground, which is better than before, but still not where I want to be.

Fighting off an attacker is about getting away. Bucky’s words come back to me, from the first time I trained with him. You don’t have anything to prove. If you have the advantage of an offensive position, you should already be running.

I twist around on top of the man, swinging with fervor towards his cheek. I land a hit, and I know it hurts him by the way it hurts me. His eyes look slightly dazed, and taking advantage of that, I leap to my feet, ready to run.

Another pair of arms closes around me from behind. I kick again, but I’m surrounded by a third of their group now, and they’ve all watched how I took down their friend. The man holding me squeezes tighter, tight enough to force the air out of my lungs, and one of the others grabs my legs, halting my movements.

This isn’t good, my mind points out. I should’ve grabbed a weapon from the Training Room, first. A gun would really come in handy right now. Even a knife would be better than nothing.

I yell, outraged, and a gloved hand covers my mouth.

“We’ve got her!” one of them yells. 

Something occurs to me, the realization hitting me like a train. I don’t need a weapon.

I am a weapon.

Clear your mind. It’s Wanda’s words this time. You and your power are one. It will do whatever you want it to do. Remember that.

I close my eyes, ridding myself of all of the fear, even though there’s enough to fill a stadium. I draw a full breath, or as full as I can manage with arms locked around me and fingers clamped over my lips. Right now, there’s nothing I want more than to be free. I allow my power to enact my will, doing whatever it must to make that happen. Even if I lose control. Even if I kill every one of them. 

I remember the explosion, how it nearly destroyed the compound. It scared me then, because I didn’t want to hurt the others in the room. But now, all I want is to cause some damage.

When I open my eyes, the world is dripping in a lavender glow.

An explosive force erupts from my skin, throwing energy outwards and sending my captors toppling over. A wave of blinding light races from my chest and into the trees, fluttering the leaves and cracking against their trunks. I’m pulled from my kidnapper’s grasp, and somehow, I land on my feet. My body is swimming in purple wisps of power, and the surrounding forest is lit by my flickering glow.

I see them on the ground, some of them moving, some of them not. The ones who are conscious struggle to regain their footing, but I throw another blast that keeps them down. 

Shouts come from behind me. I whirl around, seeing the other eight men streamlining towards me. I can feel the power growing, begging me to let it release on them. It wants me to destroy them all.

If you have the advantage of an offensive position, you should already be running.

His words are enough to pull me back to myself. I could kill them all right now, but that would leave a mark on my conscience that I don’t think I’m ready for yet. Instead, I let the light simmer out, and sprint away.

I can’t go back towards the compound. I can’t lead them there. I know that the woods stretch miles in every direction, but I also know that if I keep heading the way I am, eventually, I’ll reach the city. The buildings and the people will provide me with cover that I desperately need. 

“Get up, you idiots!” an angry voice yells. “Get up and get her!”

I keep my legs moving, but quickly look behind. The four that I took down are getting up, pulled to their feet by their comrades. Soon, there will be a dozen men on my tail again—

My stomach turns upside down as the world disappears beneath me.

A nearly vertical hill lays in front of me, and I’ve just run right off the cliff. I stumble, my feet leaving the ground in a sickening way. I try to catch myself, but it’s nearly impossible. I fall into a roll, tumbling down the hill.

Sticks and rocks clash against my body painfully on the way down. I cover my head protectively, holding my breath as I plummet to what I imagine is going to be a collection of scratches and bruises.

My skull cracks against something solid, and the world snaps off into darkness.

***

Tony felt sick.

It was a sensation that he knew well, and not from his many years of partying too hard and downing too much liquor. No, this nausea was different. More potent than the rejection of alcohol. Less willing to subside with a gulp of bismuth.

This particular breed of illness came on when Tony was feeling especially stressed. He had first felt it in a certain cave that he preferred not to think about. Of course, at the time, he wasn’t in the best of conditions. He had figured that the abdominal upset had something to do with the gaping hole and explosive fragments in his chest. In reality, being faced with near death had awakened something inside of him. A level of anguish he had never even been close to feeling during his years of making all the wrong choices before.

True fear made Tony feel sick. And he was truly scared now.

“Tony, I need you with us.” Steve’s altruism and effortless determination was usually irritating, but Tony welcomed the steadiness his old friend provided. The captain’s blue irises were lit by a familiar light, set ablaze by the confidence Steve always gained during a crisis.

Tony broke away from his thoughts. His friend was right– the team needed him. Now was not the time to shut down or crawl into that dark corner of his mind that he always longed to go at times like these. It was tempting to retreat there, since he knew flipping that switch and pulling away made it so much harder for the unpleasant feelings to find him.

Tony didn't enjoy feeling anything unpleasant. Unfortunately, that was how he spent most of his days. Feeling an onslaught of emotions that behaved like a rollercoaster and felt like a slap. At this moment, Tony could name about a hundred not-pleasing things he was feeling. But none of them mattered, because he knew that what she was feeling was worse.

“I heard her.” His words sounded small and unsure, two adjectives that no one had ever used to describe him. He cleared his throat and continued. “After the power went out, I went down to my lab to try to fix it. That’s when I heard her shout.”

“What did she say?” Natasha’s eyes were tinged with the slightest of red, making Tony wonder if she was holding back tears. It made something inside of him shrivel. He knew how much she cared for the kid. The problem was that Tony did, too. He just had a shitty way of showing it.

He remembered the sound of her voice, the first shout’s translation lost to his ears. The noise had alerted him, because although he had missed the words she’d spoken, he hadn’t missed the tone. It was frantic. Fearful.

It had moved him back up the stairs, where he’d been perfectly positioned to hear her second shout from across the compound. It was silent in the Avenger’s base, and the halls had carried her voice to him. 

“Over here,” Tony recalled. “She said something else before that, but I didn’t hear.”

“Over here,” Steve muttered, and Tony could almost see the gears turning in his brain. “A warning?” he suggested. “Could she have been trying to warn us about something in the compound?”

A fragile silence hung in the room as the others thought over his suggestion. Tony tried to picture Violet calling for help, alerting the others to something near her. It seemed out of character. Tony knew her well enough to know that her last instinct was to call for help. She would've put up quite a fight before needing anyone else, and yet, there was no evidence of a struggle in the compound.

The whole team had been hastily gathered in the common room once they had discovered Violet was missing, and Tony could see the remnants of sleep still clinging to many of their weary faces. Bucky had darkened circles that rivaled Tony’s own, and Peter’s hair was sticking up in places and matted in others. 

But the boy's disheveled appearance couldn’t compare to the restlessness in his eyes. Peter and Violet were friends, Tony knew that much for sure. He also knew Peter’s tendency to self-blame when someone he cared about was endangered, so he could only imagine the tornado of hurt going on in the boy’s head.

Tony was once again struck by that pang in his chest that reminded him that he cared, too. It hurt worse than a bullet wound, and Tony had received his fair share of those over the years. 

The kid was missing. The one he had spent most of his time pushing away and tormenting, but still never managed to shake. It all seemed ridiculous now, the way he had treated her. It had hurt him to keep a distance, but Tony had feared letting someone else into his heart. Pepper already occupied enough of that space, and just loving her as much as he did regularly made him wake up screaming from the thought of something bad happening to her.

Then there was Peter, who he pulled away from a semi-normal life and into a world of chaos and danger, all for his own gain. Tony remembered the way it had felt when the boy had crumbled to dust in his arms. He never wanted to feel that way again.

Tony knew she had the potential to weasel into that place in his chest from the minute she stumbled onto the compound. She was just a scared kid who had been wronged by the world. Each time they crossed paths after that, Tony seemed to notice pieces of himself in her. In the ferocity of her eyes and the confidence in her stance. She knew who she was, even if her real name had been lost.

When he saw the ring on her finger, his first thought was the need to protect her from it. She should never have been pulled into this world. And everything that followed was an extension of that need. He had tried to keep her safe, even if his methods were in the typically unbearable Stark fashion. The supplies in her bag, sending Peter to watch over her, the force field, the cell, the training…

All of it had been his attempt to shield her from the things he wished he had kept Peter away from. She deserved better than this life, and Tony had wanted to give her a chance.

He thought if he kept Violet at an arm’s length, he could protect her from his world of insanity. But he should’ve known that bringing her here would eventually seal her fate. No one leaves this life unscathed.

When they had learned the true extent of her power, Tony had felt ill then, too. He could tell that she was excited, and maybe a little bit proud. Tony wished he could share in her joy, but he knew all too well the kind of life she would have because of her power. From that moment on, Tony knew she would never again have a chance at the life she wanted. He knew better than anyone the price that power demands. He had been paying it for years. 

“A distraction.” 

Bucky’s words pulled Tony away from the edge of a canyon of self-loathing. The others looked up to him, waiting for an explanation.

Bucky crossed his arms. “Maybe the danger was already in the compound. Maybe she was trying to draw it away.”

“No,” Tony argued, mostly because he didn’t want to think about what that would mean for Violet.

“Think about it, Tony. The power outage, no sign of a struggle…” Bucky studied the floor, his eyes darkened. “I don’t like the thought of it anymore than you do. But if something was already inside and Violet knew, she would’ve led it away. She would have protected us.”

Tony’s stomach turned over, not because Bucky’s words shocked him, but because he had thought about it. He just hadn't wanted to accept it. 

Violet was short-tempered and closed off, but she was also loyal. Tony could see that much when she was willing to go to war for a ring she knew nothing about. He could see how much she’d grown to care for the team during her time at the compound. If there was any sort of danger, he knew her first instinct would have been to protect the others, even if it meant endangering herself.

“East exit,” Tony said abruptly, suddenly accepting the likely truth and acutely aware of the time they were wasting. “It’s closest to her room.”

The group mobilized quickly, following Tony down the hall. The journey was quick with adrenaline and fear pushing them forward. When he bursted through the door, Tony barely felt the sickly cold wind.

Because despite the fresh blizzard, the snow was disturbed. Footprints marked their way into the woods, the light of the full moon giving the trail a ghastly light.

The kid was missing. The kid who, despite his best efforts, Tony had come to care for. She was alone in the forest with danger at her heels, and as Tony tried to summon some bravery for her sake, he felt himself falling short. Because although she deserved him at his best, he couldn't help feeling that Violet’s grim fate was entirely his fault.