Red Assassin ~ Pietro Maximoff x OC

t w e n t y t h r e e ~ the darkest night

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Content Warning: In this chapter, there will be specific descriptions of things from Kat's past as well as mentions of substance abuse, self-harm, mental health, and suicide. If any of these things are a trigger for you, please do not read this part.
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"Tell me about the night of the bombing," Jordan says.

The night of the bombing. I haven't given that night any proper thought in years. Sometimes, I dream about it. But I don't talk about it. I don't think about it. I don't dwell on it.

"Mama was making my favorite for dinner," I begin, my voice scratchy and shaky. "I spent part of the day at the park with Wanda and Pietro. They had to go home, so I played Perfection with Anton. It was my favorite game."

The board pops up, clicking in my ears.

Anton giggles at my failure.

Mama calls our names.

"Then Daddy came home...and he gave me a birthday gift." I pull the locket out of my shirt. "I haven't taken it off since that night. That's where everything went wrong."

The first shell lands. The entire wall is gone, and the wall where the front door is has cracks spiderwebbing through the drywall.

The second shell lands, taking Daddy, and I scream. The apartment is dark, not a sliver of moonlight penetrating the blackness, but I can still see the outlines of the rubble; bits of shrapnel, the remnants of the kitchen table, shards of glass from the windows, and the splinters of the wall bookshelf.

Mama shoves me and Anton back, but Anton grabs onto her.

The third shell hits, and they're gone. It blows me back to Wanda and Pietro's. I land with a thud, a metallic taste spreading through my mouth and pain in the rest of my body.

They grab my hands to calm me down. It's the only warmth I feel, the only place I have any feeling at all. My whole body is taken over by numbness.

We watch in absolute silence as another shell sits in the rubble, three feet from our faces. Wanda's favorite episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show is playing on the TV. A chalky feeling coats my throat, but I don't dare cough.

"I know it's hard," Jordan coaxes. "Take your time."

My throat feels just as it did that night. "Um...then the shells came. The second one took Daddy. The third one took Mama and Anton. It blew me over to Wanda and Pietro's." I might as well have just swallowed a handful of dust, my throat feels so dry. "We were trapped for two days. I...I'd never been more scared in my life. No food, no water. I couldn't even close my eyes to sleep."

It's all happening again in my mind. I replay everything. The screams. The explosions. The scratchy sounds of the Duck Van Dyke Show. The ringing in my ears above the pure silence.

I can't do this anymore. I can't. Jordan keeps trying to talk to me, trying to get me to say one more word. I don't. I spend the rest of the hour sitting in silence until Steve comes to pick me up.

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"What about the Red Room? What was that like?" Jordan asks.

Terrifying. "On the outside, it was the St. Anthony's Academy For Girls. It looked like another prep school." I feel a familiar stabbing pain in my stomach—the kind that came from being hungry and overworked all the time. "It was...maybe two weeks after my parents and brother died. I was on the streets, just trying to survive, when they picked me up. I, um, I passed out from fighting them, and I woke up in the school, chained to a bed. Nat was there when I woke up. She was undercover."