"Hey kiddo."

After taking my prescribed pills, I pretty much passed out immediately due to the lack of sleep and the overall exhaustion of the past few days. I could lay in bed and not move for hours, though the sheer weight of the heaviness of my brain is enough to make me feel as though I've been training all day. Dr Greene told me that a panic attack takes up about as much energy as running a marathon. I'm not sure how accurate that is, but I wouldn't be surprised if the statement was true. I cannot count the sheer number of times I have fallen unconscious from anxiety just due to the lack of energy in my body.

"Come in," I groan as I sit up. My whole body aches, and my vision seems as though I am looking at the world through fish-eye lenses.

As my eyes scan across my bedroom, I suddenly remember my previous outburst and jump up to inspect the left wall for any cracks. There it stands; loud and proud. Right in the centre of the wall and awfully disguised and covered by storage boxes. Surprisingly, there's a moment where perhaps I'm not absolutely torn apart by the move, and maybe I'm slightly thankful that we're relocating. Though this goes as soon as it came, and I'm back to the usual irritation and upset.

Dad slowly swings the door open and slides into my room before taking a seat at the foot of my bed. His voice is soft and gentle, which I don't think is positive given the reasoning behind his visit. He's here to call me out and punish me for my outburst against Pepper, and I'm beginning to think rightly so. "Pepper tells me you had a little spat. She didn't tell me what it was about, but she was pretty distraught. Mentioned something about Shakespeare and therapy."

I resist from rolling my eyes, and drop down onto my bed. I busy myself with tracing over the lace on my comforter, while I attempt to piece together some sort of answer or apology. "I didn't mean to upset her, I swear. I'm just so sick of being treated as if I'm made of glass."

"You know, we're not trying to make you feel shitty or anything, we really are just worried." He pulls me into a side hug, and I let my head rest on his shoulder. "And for the record, of course you're not made of glass; you're my daughter— the world's Strongest Avenger."

I giggle gently as I sniffle and stifle the tears threatening. Dad turns to his left and hands me a hardback book— the notebook I had left in my office in the tower. I flip open the front cover and trace my finger over the cursive writing and block penmanship of the rest of the old team, while tears hit painfully against the pages and completely alter my vision. It's the sort of hurt where you're unable to sob or scream out— you just feel it, absolutely everywhere. And it's almost paralysing.

From Wanda's cursive looped handwriting to Bruce's untidy and almost illegible scrawl, my heart continues to shatter until it feels as if I truly am Death in its most accurate form. Death doesn't have to mean the literal loss and passing of a person— it can be interpreted in the ending of a vicious cycle, moving on, saying goodbye...

I wipe at the tears tracking down my cheeks and remain staring intensely at the different colours of ink scrubbed across the lined paper. Dad plants a soft kiss on the top of my head and slips out of room; he knows I need to be by myself for a while, though also keeping in mind that I should never be alone.

1 NEW TEXT MESSAGE: NED

ned
Hey... u still alive? you've not
sent a meme in a while and I'm
kinda worried about you lol

ned
Are u avoiding peter???????
He told me what happened

I debate on whether or not to talk to Ned— unsure if it would make things even more complicated in my messy mind or if having an outside opinion would make me feel any better. It's times like these when I wish Wanda and Nat were here.

I toss my phone away from me, needing to cleanse myself of the stress and toxicity. My chest feels about to explode, as if my lungs are inflating and expanding and putting a stain on my ribcage. I'm sure if I listen closely, I'll be able to hear the sounds of my bones cracking. Like twigs snapping during fall when the air is crisp and harsh yet simultaneously comforting.

I swing my legs across my bed and pull open my bedroom door, quietly making my way down the hall and out through the building so that no one notices nor stops me. I pull my sleeves down over my palms, not expecting the temperature to be as low and as bitter as it is, while I make my way over to the small forest near the facility.

When I get to the heart of the wood, I settle myself and take a deep breath. Maybe if I learn how to control this, then I'll manage to control whatever the hell is going on inside of me— why I feel so angry all of the time, though so empty. Like a can of soda that has been shaken vigorously and bubbled up and exploded out of the can. That's exactly me. Practically a grenade ready to explode.

I close my eyes and reach out my palm, singling out a winding tree branch shaking in the increasing breeze. Placing my utmost concentration on the branch, my head begins to pound, and I'm almost positive the veins in my forehead are about ready to burst and paint the wood in sticky red. And... nothing happens.

There's no gut-wrenching crack as the branch snaps and falls to the ground. No sharp and brutal wind picking up and whipping the leaves from the tree, falling discarded at my feet. Nothing. Nothing happens. Am I broken? Am I broken, again?

I take a deep breath and try again; concentrating so intensely until the throbbing in my head becomes too blinding to withstand. Nothing.

The thing that terrifies me most is knowing that I have no idea or any story of grip on how powerful these abilities are— never knowing if they'll decide to come out and help save lives in the most vital situations or if countless deaths with be on my hands. Never knowing if I'll accidentally send the lightbulbs and electronics haywire again or if I'll manage to get through another day with causing some sort of catastrophic incident.

Now I'm beginning to come to the realisation that on some repressed level, I'm even more terrified of never having that option for the abilities to suddenly kick in and help save a life. On some repressed level, I have been so desperately searching for some sort of silver-lining in the trauma— needing to find a reason for why it happened and why I had been put through so much and been expected to deal with it like some sort of lab rat or experiment. I had been diminished and reduced down to nothing more than a number and a test result. Having to experience hell on earth for so many consecutive years at a time from such a young age, without never having a reason why or some sort of positive outcome feels worthless. Being stripped now of my abilities after the years spent locked in an isolation room awaiting to be tested on once again, seems like a cruel blow from the universe. All I wanted was a silver-lining— albeit a confusing and down-right chaotic one— but a silver-lining all the same. Does my identity truly define me without it? Do I recognise myself? Should I be happy without it?

I sit with my back against a tree trunk as I struggle to expel the overwhelming pain in my head. Has it truly been for nothing at all?

—

Walking the streets of Manhattan, I feel cold. I feel lonely. I feel completely and utterly disappointed. The everlasting leaden feeling remains in my stomach— though I am just glad that I've forced myself out of the compound and am surrounding myself with people. It makes me feel more regular; more normal.

One day I will wake up and I will be able to say that I am okay with all honestly, but for now, I don't really feel like fighting.

I stop at the corner next to the bookstore and light up a cigarette in hopes that it will warm me up, while swearing to myself that this will be my absolute last smoke as the pack is beginning to run low and I know it'll be near impossible to get another without Pepper or Happy finding out. As I exhale the smoke from my lungs— a familiar voice drawls from my right.

"You know that's bad for you?"

Her curls sway slightly in the breeze; each tendril intertwining within each other and almost mimicking crashing waves of the ocean rippling out onto sand. For once, her hair isn't pulled back into a bun or pinned out of her face, aside from her side-bangs, instead it falls lightly around her cheekbones and down past her collarbones and frames her perfect bone structure impeccably. She is sculpted like one of those ancient statues of Greek gods.

Her battered and beaten black denim jacket sports several pin badges and patches— ranging from the lesbian pride flag to the Nirvana logo. The scuffed Converse on her feet have doodles and smudged ink scrawled across the white parts of the soles, which is unsurprising. Michelle Jones could never be the same as anyone else.

I turn to face her, "Thanks, MJ. I had no idea."

She grins at the sarcasm in my tone, "You're practically giving your money to blood-sucking billion-dollar companies to ensure an early death."

"My dad is Tony Stark." I watch as she chuckles and pulls her hair back into a ponytail to secure the curls from blowing into her eyes. "And besides, I didn't buy them."

"What? You mean you stole them?"

"No. I mean, not these." I fiddle with the carton in my hand and trace my thumb over the bold letters— Smoking kills. I lift the cigarette back up to my lips and inspect the lipstick prints left on the filter upon pulling it away.

"Implying you've stolen something else?" She raises her eyebrows in suspicion yet interest.

"What? Just because my Dad is rich it doesn't mean I can't hate big 'blood-sucking' companies. Because I really fucking do. Eat the rich, right?"

"You do realise that includes you?"

"Technically not my money, and regardless, I still hate Stark Industries. It's definitely not something I'm proud to be associated with."

As we continue talking, we begin drifting down the street until we're walking side-by-side and engrossed within each other. I had already some initial idea on how much MJ and I had in common, but it is slightly unnerving to discover just how similar we are. It's almost as if meeting myself in another body.

In response to me bringing up my essay for The Picture of Dorian Gray, MJ asks me if I enjoyed my short time spent at Midtown High, and if I'm planning on ever returning due to my absence over the past few days. Truthfully, the idea of going back to school after the rumours leaked about my relation to Tony Stark never even crossed my mind. It was a no-brainer— Midtown Tech would never see me again. I hadn't discussed it with Tony yet, though I have yet to be unsuccessful in getting my own way with him; I suppose the internal guilt from being unaware of my existence for the first thirteen years of my life is too much for him to bare.

I explain that Midtown hadn't been the way I had expected, and I no longer see the point in sticking around since word has gotten out about my true identity. Of course, leaving out the part regarding my 'mission' of being sent to the school by my father to keep watch on Peter Parker. I might not like the boy, but I would never throw him under the bus like that.

We continue on, MJ attempting to give me some sort of a pep-talk or motivational speech on why becoming a high-school dropout would ruin me. She skips over the fact that I have a private tutor— and mostly tackles the main thing— being able to kick Flash Thompson's ass for telling everyone that I am a Stark.

"Imagine walking through the door and marching up to Flash, all badass and powerful. Bonnie, he'd totally shit himself, he'd probably run screaming. Oh God, come on! You've gotta come back." She chuckles as she explains her theory, which makes it all the more tempting.

"And besides," she continues, "I mean, I know that Emily Davison didn't throw herself in front of a horse for you to go to homecoming, but I think going would be such a power move. I asked Betty to go with me yesterday and she said yes, but I hope she's not expecting for us to go on stage and wear those stupid plastic crowns as 'Homecoming Queens.' I think I'd rather die. Please come, I mean, you don't even need a date or anything, just go with Ned or something."

"Ned? What? Why would I go with Ned?"

"I mean as friends. I would've said Peter and Ned, but he asked Liz."

"Peter asked Liz?" I say, my voice cracking slightly.

"Yeah," MJ replies, "finally. He's terrible at keeping secrets, everyone and their dad knew that he had a huge crush on her."

My breath catches in my throat. My mind turns blank; my stomach swirling and flipping over onto itself as I struggle to figure out why. I try to put it down to the topic of discussion being Midtown and my resistance to going back, but a tiny voice in the back of my mind and the vicious aching in my chest suggests otherwise. Am I supposed to congratulate Peter on finally confessing his feelings for Liz? Am I supposed to completely forget our moment shared in his apartment, as well as the other near-lip-lockings we had scraped during the past few months?

MJ continues on while I shake the spiralling thoughts of Peter Parker from my head, talking about how her mom dragged her through the mall last night in search of a dress for her to wear to homecoming, and is trying to show her support by suggesting a rainbow gown or a brightly-coloured dress. Somehow, I cannot imagine MJ prancing around the school gymnasium in a bright pink princess ball gown, though I'm sure she'd manage to pull it off.

A few months after I had moved in with Tony and had officially become a member of the Avengers family, he had announced a party at the Tower for some sort of business deal or some other boring billionaire bullshit that I hadn't cared about enough to educate myself on. Initially, I had not planned on attending, though my father had taken this as the best time to announce my arrival into the family and into the busy world.

He had arranged for one of his assistants to find me a dress or to see about getting one specially designed for the event— much to my refrain. No sparkles, no colours, no frills and layers; I wanted to be unnoticed amongst the drunks. The building was secure with guards making sure that no paparazzi pictures of me could be snapped and plastered across the trashy pages of celeb gossip magazines on the night of the party, and had been that way since my arrival. The world could know me without actually getting to know me— it was our theory.

Pepper suggested to Tony that it would be 'great for bonding' if she would be the one to arrange the outfits for the event— taking me shopping to the expensive stores on the higher-class part of town and down all of the designer shops on Fifth Avenue. When Mom was still alive and I had lived with her, we would often walk down Fifth and she'd coo over the latest trends promoted in the vast glass window displays and she'd walk into the stores pretending as if she belonged. Of course, we could hardly even afford to pay the bills, never mind Chanel sunglasses and Gucci handbags, though she had always liked to pick out her favourite apparel and accessories and plan to buy them sometime in future. Clearly, her plans had fallen through.

At first, I had hated Pepper for trying so hard. I'd despised the smothering and the questions and the affection and the way she had accepted me into her life as if she had always expected me to turn up one day and had prepared for my arrival. It was clear that she was trying to take on the role of my mother, and though it wasn't with malicious intent, I had despised her all the same. Part of me knew that she had only cared and had only wanted me to feel the absolute happiest I could be, but given the recent events of my mother's death and the trauma leading up to my departure from Killian's experimentations, how could I?

I'd let her drag me around the stores and suggest countless expensive dresses sold by extortionate designers, all the same variety of pink and blue shades partnered with sink or lace overlays. Meticulous beading threaded among the seams and stitched line patterns. I just wanted everything to be okay for once.

"So, how did you find out that Peter asked Liz? I mean, like, did he tell you or...?" I hate myself for asking, but the curiosity just slips off my tongue and is thrown into the space between us.

"Actually, I heard him talking to Ned about it in Chemistry. But Ned looked kinda, I don't know. Like his brow was all furrowed and whatever." MJ replies, before stopping on the sidewalk and trailing over to a tattoo shop to gawk over the tattoo displays in the window.

The shop sign reads 'Punk Rocky Tattoo and Piercing Emporium.' While MJ stares at the intricate portrait designs and points at her favourite, my eyes are drawn to the photographs and diagrams of the various piercings they have to offer.

"You know, I've always wanted to pierce my nose, but my Dad never let me. Said it could pose risk for further injury or whatever. I mean, I get what he meant, but I've always wanted a little ring in the side of my nose."

"Well, then do it." MJ offers.

"Seriously?"

"Yes, seriously. Are you really gonna let him define you? Whether you have a piercing in your nose or not has absolutely no effect on him whatsoever, you should just do it."

I deliberate over it for a moment. "Okay. Let's do it."