OUR LIFETIME « Pietro Maximoff

21 /| then the future

*•.*[chapter twenty-one]

THE EARLIEST MEMORY SHE HAD WAS ONE OF her parents. Their faces were hard to decipher, but always smiling. She also remembered sunsets fading against a violet horizon and snow clinging to her cheeks.

Things get hazy after that. Smiles become sneers, seething with greed. People become monsters, in every sense of the word. She must do the same, but she runs to the farthest ends of her world.

Then she's alone, her tears freezing in the wind. She prays for freedom and something answers. That was the last time she saw Vormir—the last time her powers were just powers.

The years blur together after that. People hear whispers of her powers and the stone she supposedly stole them from, but they do not understand. It has been so long that she can hardly remember where exactly the stone rests, so she draws a map on a parchment she finds in the wastes of some odd planet.

Whispers turn into shouts as one male begins to terrorize the galaxy, all the while searching for her. It takes decades for him to find her and when he does, he uses her for years. When he realizes the truth of her past, she is strung up in chains and drained of her energy.

He promised torture, and killing, but she had nothing to lose, and he wouldn't do it anyway. He'd spoken of his desire to free the universe from the brink of extinction, and he needed that damned stone. He had believed so deeply in his self-imposed duty that she knew there was no way out from there.

She remembered the brown of her skin, marred with dark blood and exactly the same as the day she'd left her home planet.

She remembered the green of the young girl's skin, the red of her billowing hair, the hatred in her eyes as she snuck past the man who'd claimed to be her father.

She remembered the girl sinking a knife into her heart, and her soul bleeding out from the pits of her chest. The stone had shown mercy on her, despite the fact that she'd broken their deal. She was never meant to force her soul back to it, but out of desperation, she'd done it anyway.

It stole her memories and sent her to Earth where her body had awaited her, but it was not the same. She was a child again, and though she did not know it yet, this was the stone's way of further punishing her.

Yes, she'd broken their deal, but she'd also done something infinitely worse. Like a fool, she'd given up its location, and for that, it couldn't forgive her.

°°°

"I found your map," a voice whispered in her ear, drawing her from unconscious.

She blinked up at the young girl who's green skin shone under the harsh lights of the ship. She looked to be barely on the brink of adolescence. She was obviously of the planet Zen-Whoberi, so why was she here?

It was common knowledge that Thanos had taken his infamous ideals and shoved them onto the planet, killing half of all its people. The entire galaxy feared that their planet would be next on the Titan's growing list, but it would seem that the male was tired of the tediousness of it all. The stones would grant him that one killing blow to sweep out half of all life in the universe, and he wanted it so badly that she could taste his well hidden desperation in the air.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yeah?" The girl leaned in, whispering once more. "It leads to Vormir."

She froze, then narrowed her eyes at the girl. "What is your name child?"

"I don't owe you anything," the girl said, her chin lifted stubbornly.