✯⋆ ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴏɴᴏʀ ᴏꜰ ᴡʜᴏ ⋆✯

✯ 🄲HⒶᑭ𝑻ǝ🆁 🄽𝐈ᶰẸ✯

I found the car with ease.

No police were chasing me. By some wild miracle I was still alive. I decided it would be best to ponder my existence whenever it was a more opportune time; and now was not that time.

Just as the old woman described it, there was a car on the 3rd level, a tarp thrown over it, concealing its appearance.

Clutching my duffle, I approached the mysterious vehicle.

Move faster.

I grabbed the brown tarp, and tore it off dramatically, unveiling something I wasn't expecting.

An artifact of 1990s suburban dreams. A Silver, shiny, Chevy Silverado.

Relief rushed over me. I feared it would be an expensive, nicer car. It would've hurt to put a beautiful car in danger.

Which is why I didn't take my Dad's pride and joy, Lola. A red sports car he had worked on with his Dad when he was a kid. It was also loaded with extra spy gadgets, which reminded me that SHIELD probably put their grimy hands on that too.

I've always been told by people who've survived near death experiences that it changes the way you look at life. And the first time, it did. After a while, it just became "normal" to nearly die on the job. But this time it was different.

I accepted it, then unaccepted it.

The idea I would've seen him as a failure shook me to my core. And the willingness at first felt like true freedom.

Maybe I should think of what I'll do after this is all over. Go to jail? Run away? Forever? Fake my death and start over?

Out of a group of people, I was always the one who was the most prepared. I knew what to say, I knew what needed to happen and I knew how to make it happen. But right now, I'm feeling unprepared as ever, at the worst possible time.

The real curveball wasn't the decoy transport van, it was the fact that I didn't know why the police weren't chasing me, or why I was even alive.

Maybe I'm a ghost.

The pain in my thigh and throughout my whole body confirmed I was definitely not a ghost.

I could take the pain though. Due to whatever gave me my enhanced strength, pain was something it also covered, additionally healing my wounds in an amazingly short amount of time. But I still scared pretty bad, worse than most people.

Sometimes I wonder what real physical pain feels like. This was just an ache. What does a bullet feel like to regular people? How does it feel to be weak? To be the one protected instead of protecting?

I stuck the key into the transmission and put the car into drive, my hand instinctively going to my globe necklace, rubbing the chipped paint on the cold silver.

The apartment was half way burnt, and firefighters had already put out most of the flames. The fully risen sun cast a similar fiery hot glow through the buildings, into waves of heat on the pavement.

I sat in the exit of the parking garage, watching the people mourn over the loss of their homes.

It was my fault. I should've slowed down instead of being so mindlessly reckless.

But I couldn't look back now. I needed to focus. Focus on a plan. I still had my bag, which meant I still had the beeper.

Pressing the pedal, I drove towards Virginia. The sun was high in the sky, the day was only just beginning.