avengance

PART ONE.

the gathering

The light peeks through the curtains in my room as my eyes slowly open. I roll over, expecting to see the person who sneaks into my room almost every night now and refuses to leave until I basically drag him out of bed. However, when I look over, the space next to me is empty, though I know he was in bed earlier. Confused, I sit up and stretch, my shoulders cracking a little as I move them around. I stand and put on the slippers Steve gave me last Christmas –they were his favorite brand when he was growing up, and he insisted that he would find me a pair even though the company went out of business over 40 years ago– and my light blue oversized pants wrap themselves around my ankles as I begin to walk. I make my way to the door and as I approach they slide open automatically.

"Good morning, Aveline," F.R.I.D.A.Y. says through the speaker outside my room softly, complementing the gentle sunlight shining through the large windows in the facility.

My slippers squeak as I walk toward the kitchen through the empty hallways. I yawn and finally enter the kitchen, where I normally find at least a few other teammates in the morning. I don't often eat breakfast myself, but it's always nice to spend time peacefully with the other Avengers.

As I enter the room, I see only one person in the room, and it's exactly who I'm looking for: Pietro. He doesn't notice as I walk in, so I take to leaning against the door frame, a small smile resting on my lips as I watch him make breakfast. My right hand drifts to my left wrist and I begin mindlessly playing with the small bracelet Pietro gave me for our one-month anniversary, my fingers finding their way to the personalized charm– one that works as a lock pick should I ever be in a tough situation. Pietro knows about my underlying anxiety about being stuck in a locked room, so not only does the bracelet hold sentimental meaning but it holds a purpose as well. I begin to lose my focus and drift in my thoughts, and before I can react a small gust of wind brushes by me and I'm trapped in a hold. I gasp, but laugh as I realize that it's just Pietro. "Good morning, love," he says gently into my ear, his voice low.

"Good morning," I respond, still laughing some from the surprise of his embrace.

Just when I think I'm calmed down, Pietro grabs tight around my waist and he takes off, speeding me around the kitchen. He comes to a stop and I'm thrown into a chair, laughing as I shake off the nausea attempting to overcome me.

I look up to see Pietro making a second breakfast, the first one sitting in front of the seat next to mine. I begin to open my mouth to protest but Pietro appears in the seat next to me, sliding the meal in front of me. "Thanks love, but you know I don't eat breakfast."

"Well, being that I've already made it, and the fact that you didn't eat dinner last night as you were busy in the lab with Tony and you're probably pretty hungry," Pietro says, and I look away sheepishly as a mischievous grin grows on his face. "You thought I wouldn't catch that, hmm? So I think you should eat some breakfast." Pietro laughs lightly. When I look down at my food with hesitance, Pietro dramatically sighs before speaking again. "Please, just for me? It'll make me feel better, Wanda always says my cooking is terrible." I know this is a lie as Wanda tolerates even Vision's cooking, but I let him feel like he's won.

"Alright, but only because I don't want to hurt your feelings," I joke.

I pick up the fork and scoop a bite of eggs, which I notice don't have cheese– I'm somewhat lactose intolerant, a small detail Pietro remembered. I taste the food and prepare to pretend that I like it, but I'm surprised to find that the food is delicious. Pietro laughs a little at my side as I quickly eat my food.

"Seems like you like it after all. Or maybe you're hungry enough to choke down anything." He laughs, and I laugh with him.

"It's delicious, Piet. I don't even think Wanda could say anything bad about this one."

"That's refreshing to hear."

He stands, and I look over to see his plate completely gone. I'm not a slow eater and I'm only halfway done. I must look surprised, because Pietro laughs before he starts to clean up.

"What can I say, I'm fast," he says quietly, turning the tap on to wash his dishes. I still tend to hand wash the dishes out of habit from my childhood, and though I know Pietro would be perfectly happy putting the dishes in the dishwasher like everyone else, he hand washes the dishes with me when we eat together. It may be a small detail, but it's one that means a lot to me.

I continue eating in the comfortable silence between Pietro and I. When I'm about three-quarters of the way through my breakfast I suddenly lose my appetite, my head feeling light. My stomach clenches and I rock back into my chair, the legs squeaking against the floor, which makes Pietro turn his attention to me.

"Ave, you alright?" He asks, putting down the halfway washed dish before coming my way.

He wipes his hands down on the front of his pants as he walks up to me. I nod as he places a hand on my arm, his skin still a bit damp, but he doesn't look convinced. "Hey, you can talk to me. What's wrong?"

I take a deep breath before responding. "Nothing, just feeling a little strange. I'm sure it'll pass." I hardly get the words out before my body throws me backward and my mind flashes, showing me small fragments of nightmarish thoughts. I shake my head violently, trying to rid the images, but they only become clearer. I feel tears slip from my eyes and vaguely hear Pietro's voice shout something as I finally slip into the chilling world created by my own mind.

~~~

When I'm able to see again, I'm greeted with images and voices too real to be made up.

It begins in a place so beautiful I'd have thought it had to be Asgard, but my senses know better than to think it was a sanctuary. I look around, attempting to pick out faces, sounds, even just clothing to remember anyone by, but everyone around me is dressed in too similar attire for me to pick any certain one out. The faces blur when I try to place them, leaving me strictly to my own thoughts. This isn't my first time being trapped in a nightmare, but it's the first time I haven't been able to pick anything out. Why can't I pick anything out?

Finally, a siren blares, and everyone around me rushes in, creating a feeling of vertigo as I follow myself toward the center. I watch as my body trips and falls only to be yanked back up again by someone with long, black curled hair, the tips of it melting to pink. I try to place her but fail to, though I know I've seen someone like her before. She shouts something to me as she runs off, but just like everything else around me, I'm unable to make out what she says. I continue running only to trip once more, but this time instead of getting back up, I'm placed in another image. I gasp at the solace, but find that my relief is misplaced.

I'm placed on top of a body, my arms cradling it as it takes its last breath. My eyes widen, and though I'm able to see where I am and find distinct landmarks, I can't figure out who lays in my arms. My hands are blood-stained and woven through the man's brown hair, and I feel tears streak my face as a grief-stricken scream comes from behind me. My right side throbs with a pain I had never felt before, making me gasp out of reflex. I crouch over the body and release a sob as my mind flips to the next scene.

I'm seated next to the girl with the pink hair once again, though this time she seems anything but friendly. She looks at me coldly before speaking, her voice coming out pained but stern. 

"You might not know it yet, but alliances just drag you down. I'm not interested," I hear her say as she stands and walks off, and I feel my throat get thick as I try to talk.

"Wait," I finally manage out, "I know where your friend is." My voice sounds raw and comes out quiet and scratchy, but she hears and turns. My hands shake as I force out one last sentence, my mind already threatening to show another nightmare. 

"I know what happened to him." 

I finally let go and let my mind show the next scene, but not before I get a clear view at the girl. She has green skin and is taller than me, and sports the same outfit I saw at the beginning of the vision. Her hair is indeed black and pink, and sheathed across her back are two long swords, both looking like they were not from Earth. My mind attempts to connect who she is, but I stop thinking about her completely as the next scene plays.

The moon is shining brightly as I walk through a small grassy area, the place covered in what look to be bodies. My heart aches for reasons I've yet to discover, and I feel myself fall to my knees. 

"No," I croak, my eyes filling with tears. "No, no!" Rage takes over and I stand abruptly before I begin to run across the area, tears flooding my sight as I try to look at each faceless body I pass. 

"He wasn't supposed to die, it was supposed to be me! You hear that?! Me!" 

I continue running, but just like at the beginning of my vision, I trip and fall, but stay down this time. I look behind me at the ruins, and scream for help, though somehow I know I won't receive it. I look back at my hands and hear myself whisper once more as tears escape my eyes when I close them.

"It was supposed to be me."

I expect to open my eyes to another scene, but I open my eyes to darkness. No sound, no light, just darkness. My mind begins to divulge in what I just saw, playing and replaying each worst-case scenario that comes with each vision. I'm still try to figure out the visions when I hear a faint voice in the back of my head. "Aveline," it calls, and I try to follow it. I begin to feel myself shake, but I'm not shaking– it's someone else shaking me.

"Aveline!"

I gasp and force open my eyes to the harsh light of the kitchen, where more people than just Pietro have found their way to. "Oh, thank God," Pietro says as he crushes me in a hug, and I take the second to look at who's around me. I quickly pick out Steve holding the back of his neck out of stress, then Bucky, who's trying to calm him down. To their left, Tony and Natasha look on from afar but still with worry. I try to look around more but I let myself fall into Pietro's hug instead, and I faintly notice Wanda to the right of me place a hand on my back and whisper, "You'll be okay." 

I take a deep breath then release from Pietro's embrace, looking around in confusion. "Was that what I think it was?"

Dr. Strange is the first to speak up. "Compared to your previous blackouts, this was much worse, but yes. If what you've ever experienced before is any tell, you just had a vision. Only this time, it was much longer, and you," he pauses, taking a shaky breath, his eyes doing everything they can to not meet mine. "You were trying to talk to us. You kept saying things we couldn't understand. Someone wrote them down."

"I did." I watch as Peter Parker steps forward.

"Why is he here?" I ask quietly, the worry on my face obviously showing through. The rest of the Avengers shift awkwardly and Tony puts an arm on Peter's arm, but Peter politely removes it.

"It's fine, Mr. Stark," he says to Tony before turning to me. "I'm supposed to be going on a mission later today, so I came last night so I wasn't stressed on time this morning. Plus, I'm a good note taker. Props of still being in high-school, I guess." He gives me a small smile when saying this, which releases some of the tension in my chest, but not all of it. He looks down at the small notebook in his hands, the outside decorated in planets and constellations.

"The first thing you said was, "Wait." Then you said,"I know where your friend is. I know what happened to him." Does any of that ring a bell?"

The recent memories flood back as I relive what I just saw. "I remember it all." I say, my eyes pointed toward the ground. The room stays silent and Pietro takes my hand.

I look up to him, and with a gentle voice he asks, "Can you tell us what happened?"

I slightly nod my head and take a deep breath. Before I talk, Pietro squeezes my hand in reassurance. You're not going anywhere this time, he says without words. You're staying right here. I've got you.

"It began with a lot of people in a large circle. I tried my hardest the entire time but I couldn't pick out faces– it was as if they were blurred, but nothing else was. Everyone was dressed in the same black uniform of sorts, making it even harder to try to differentiate the people. A loud siren rang out, and everyone ran for the center. There was something there, maybe supplies, but I wasn't paying attention. I got about halfway before I tripped and fell, and a girl helped me back up. She was the only one I could pick out, but I could only pick her out at the end. She had green skin and black and pink hair; I recognized her, but couldn't connect where I knew her from. She was taller than me, and by the end of it carried two swords on her back."

"Gamora," Thor speaks up from the back. He stands from his place and walks slowly around the gathered group. "The fiercest woman in the galaxy. We met once, and she is not one to be messed with. The fact that she helped you is a good sign. We at least have her on our side."

"How did you meet her? Would I have known her from anywhere? I felt like I knew her," I ask, my curiosity taking over.

"She is a part of the Guardians of the Galaxy, as the man who seemed to be the leader called themselves. I do not believe the two of you have met, but there is a chance you have run into her if you were outside Midgard at some point."

I think about this for a moment, but come up with nothing. There have been times I've been outside Earth, but none of which do I remember meeting her. I decide to put the thought on hold and continue explaining the vision. "After she pulled me up, she shouted something to me, but I couldn't pick it out. We both continued to run our separate ways after that, and when I was almost at the center I fell again, but this time she wasn't there to pick me up and the vision changed.

"The next image I was cradling a body in my arms. I could feel the tears on my cheeks– I could feel the pain in my side and the ache in my chest. It felt so... so real. I began to wonder if I was dreaming at all, or if the nightmare was reality. I couldn't tell who I was holding but it was someone important to me, which means any of you, really. Whoever it was, he had brown hair, and my hands were in his hair. They were– on my hands was–" I stop, unable to get the words out.

"Maybe you need a break. This is a lot for you to go through," Tony suggests, but I shut it down instantly.

"No. I need to tell what happened." I take a deep breath, then try to continue my description as steadily and quickly as possible, tears pricking my eyes. "My hands were covered in blood. I don't know who's. The body in my arms stopped breathing, and I heard someone behind my scream, but not like they were attacked. Like they realized that whoever was in my arms had just died. It was someone they cared about. It was someone I cared about too. I could feel it.

"The vision changed again and I was talking with Gamora, if Thor is correct in his assumptions. That's when I started being able to talk and hear. Gamora was sitting next to me. I remember what she said– "You might not know it yet, but alliances just drag you down. I'm not interested." She walked off after that. That's when I called out. Those are the first two things on your notes."

Peter looks down at the notepad with a pale face, then scratches the back of his neck nervously. "Wait," he reads out again. "I know where your friend is. I know what happened to him."

"Except, the problem is I don't. I don't know what happened to him, or what happened to the dead body I held in my arms, or what happened in the next vision I saw." I run my hands through my hair and grab onto it out of anger, before letting go and letting my head hang down. The room stays silent once again, and for a moment it feels as if I'm the only one there, but I know that's not true. "There was one last vision," I say quietly after a few moments. "Peter, do you have any more notes?"

I see him nod out of the corner of my eye. "Ar–are you sure you want me to read these?" He asks nervously. I nod back to him, knowing that everything in the book was most likely heard by everyone in this room anyway, and he takes a small breath. ""No, no, no! He wasn't supposed to die, it was supposed to be me! You hear that?! Me!" After you said that, you stopped talking for a little while and slumped down and everyone got really worried, but then you said out of nowhere, "It was supposed to be me." Then it took us around five minutes to wake you up." Peter avoids eye contact with me while he reads this out, his voice staying quiet, as if he was reading something he shouldn't have been. I nod my head, then close my eyes as I start filling in the context.

"It was nighttime. There were no lights on, but the moon was so bright it felt like there were. I opened my eyes to a small, grassy field. Only, instead of there just being grass in front of me, there were bodies. And not just random bodies. I couldn't figure out who was who, but I knew, I could feel it, the bodies were yours. All of you. Something had happened and I managed to make it out alive while the rest of you died. I don't know why I said what I said, or what or who it relates to. After all of that happened, I closed my eyes and it stayed dark. Instead of opening up another nightmare, I was locked in with my own thoughts, which almost felt worse. The only reason I found my way out was because I heard someone calling to me, but it sounded far away."

"That was me," Pietro says, his eyes never leaving the table and his face scrunched up in concentration. Everyone takes a moment to let the words sink in, and when no one says anything for a few moments, I speak up again.

"Sorry I couldn't be of more help. I don't know why I couldn't pick out faces, but it definitely just makes things worse for us."

"That's not true," Steve says from where he's standing across the room. "Your vision could've very well just saved our lives, Aveline. We just need to figure out how to, well, deal with it, I suppose."

He attempts to offer a friendly smile from his position leaning on the door frame, just as I was not too long ago. It's strange to think that just this morning I was joking around with Pietro, and now we have this to try and comprehend.

"What if it's not even true? There have been a lot of times when my visions have been wrong," I say, my eyes starting to involuntarily well up with tears. I push them back, but not before Pietro sees and makes eye contact with me. He goes to say something to me, but Steve speaks up before him.

"But there have also been many times they've been right. You're still learning to use your power, it's okay if you mess up here and there. But just because you made a mistake doesn't mean that you'll always make a mistake. You have to trust your ability, Aveline. Even if this is just a false alarm, at least we'll be prepared should it happen, right?"

I take a moment to think through his argument and finally agree, nodding slightly. Pietro stands and places a hand on my arm, ushering me to stand. 

"Come on, let's get you some fresh air," he says, guiding me out of the room.

We walk for a minute or two across the compound, where Pietro takes me onto the small balcony that extends off the side of my room. We both sit, and I finally take a deep breath, my muscles and mind relaxing. After a few minutes my breathing calms, and I look up to Pietro, who's already looking at me. His eyes soften when I meet his gaze, and he bites his lower lip for a moment before speaking. 

"Are you okay? I know you're not a stranger to the blackouts and you're going to say you're fine, but are you actually? You know you can always talk to me."

"I know I can, thanks Piet. And though you're not going to believe me, I'm okay." When I say this, Pietro gives me an overly dramatic suspicious look, which brings a laugh out of me. 

"Really, I swear I am, it's just... a lot to take in, you know? I watched people I knew but couldn't see die, and I don't know which one of the Avengers it is. So much happened, yet I know so little. It just... the more I think about it, the less it makes sense. That's all." I look out across the facility, watching the birds fly across the horizon as the day begins to reach its peak.

"Yeah, that does make sense. I can't imagine what it was like for you to go through that, but do know if you ever need to talk about it, I'm always here, okay?"

"Okay. Thanks, love."

"Anytime."

We sit in silence for a few more minutes before a series of crashes from inside makes the both of us jump, and before I can even suggest for us to check out the noise, Pietro's already ran the both of us inside to where the rest of the Avengers were residing. No one's in the room anymore, and I look to Pietro with confusion. Despite Pietro's super speed, we're both just a little too late: Pietro's face changes to fear in a split second, and he opens his mouth to shout but before he can I'm shot in the right side with what looks like a tranquilizer, but hurts much, much more. I double over in pain, falling to the ground as my vision quickly darkens. I watch as Pietro shouts my name and tries to pick me up and run away, but he's hit with the same bullet as me. He yells out in pain, and I watch as he falls over me as my vision finally turns to black.