Tony sent out a total of three missiles before it made traction, breaking the invisible barrier that your caretaker never bothered overly enhancing because what the authorities couldn't see, they couldn't attack. He didn't know you had been sending a message through your brainwaves to someone else's – then again, he never thought you'd have a connection with people outside of the house. He was wrong and him and The Butcher would pay for it.
You were suddenly out in the open, the house completely destroyed, burning to ashes on the ground, and only two survivors were left, Brenda's body finished convulsing on the floor as the chains on you fell to the ground, melting away before they touched landed.
Then you felt it.
The surge of power flowing through your veins and while your caretaker had his own that he had perfected in his decades of nothing but solitude and science, he was still no match for you right now. You could feel it in your bones.
You grabbed him roughly by the neck in one hand, his hands clawing at you to no avail, and you dragged him across the fire, ambers, and charred wood, out into the road as Natasha and Tony hurried to land the helicopter nearby.
"Don't..." He begged and you ignored him completely, your ears ringing a bit, before you threw him into the middle of the street, luckily not noticing that the neighbors had already parted for school and work.
You moved to straddle his middle, gripping his neck tighter as he kicked his legs out, scratching at your bruised and cut up arms, but all you saw was red as he whimpered out pleas for his life, apologies tumbling in slurs from his lips.
Your expression hardened as you gritted out, "You killed Sam."
In that instant, his eyes met yours, knowing what was going to happen, and knowing he didn't have a chance in hell of convincing you otherwise.
Tony and Natasha were running towards you as soon as they had landed, seeing you about fifty meters away, soaked in your own blood and Brenda's, as you forced down the man who had done nothing but bring pain and suffering into your life.
They just didn't expect your free hand, the one not squeezing the life out of the monster underneath you, to press flat against his chest, right over his heart, going to stop it cold, but then your hand was suddenly sinking into his skin with the massive amounts of heat radiating from it, melting whatever it touched as the man tried to scream out in pain, but those screams were silenced with your other hand on his throat. Then, in a blur of rage, you ripped out the man's heart from beneath his ribcage and threw it off to the side of the road.
You distantly heard shouts of your name getting louder and then Tony gagging, puking on the side of the street. Then a pair of hands were clutching your arms from behind, pulling you off the now very dead man laying lifeless with his blank eyes staring up at the sky in horror because you had been above him – your eyes the last thing he saw as he took his last breath.
There's blood splattered all over your clothes and skin, you can taste the copper in your mouth as your eyes adjusted, your body and mind slowly calming down as the adrenaline wears off. Cooling to near normal temperatures. There's pain, on nearly every inch of your skin from the torture you endured before you fought back, but there's a sense of relief running through you too, and you think this is what freedom feels like.
You beat the monster in your nightmares.
You killed the thing that controlled you all your life.
You felt like you could finally think for yourself. Completely.
Tears slipped down your cheeks as you kneeled across from Natasha, away from the body, and she held your upper arms, trying to get you to focus on her, but once she noticed you crying, she embraced you without hesitation. You reeked of death, and you were covered in blood, but she didn't seem to care, only hugging you closer as you sobbed into her shoulder. The emotion in you running so high.
They were the first two people you killed when you weren't under the influence of the medication, it was purely a power surge flowing through you after they had been sedating them with a drug intoxication from the air you breathed. It wasn't like the medicine they'd have you take; it was just so you couldn't fight them back because they knew you wanted out. You were no longer going to obey easily, and they had prepared for this day. They just didn't prepare for your friends or the idea that you'd fight back with something besides your abilities. But you did and at the same time, you broke through the barrier they put up between your mind and access to your power, just a crack in the foundation, so it was enough to send a message out to Tony.
You knew the day would come where you had to kill without being under the influence – you had travelled in the middle of the night from New York to Ohio with the sole purpose of ending the same two lives you took this morning – but you didn't see yourself being this...barbaric.
And you truly didn't see yourself not feeling an ounce of guilt about it.
Natasha helped you up, leading you away from the scene as the house burned down over to the side, and Tony was trying to call someone, but then he froze as the arm you had away from Natasha shot out behind you, your fingers splaying out in a quick motion. He watched as the body and separated muscle scattered on the street went up in a dark grey flame so powerful it took less than a minute to make its victims disappear from the ground entirely.
By the time she got you into the helicopter, sitting you down in the back seat and thankfully, it was a roomy one where she could kneel in front of you, you were shaking. Buzzing with the energy and power settling inside you and you were sweating profusely, blinking slowly as you tried to focus your attention.
She noticed, immediately leaving your line of sight to dig into her duffel that was off to the side, and then returning to open your clenched fists, putting a stick in your palm and closing your fingers around it. You opened your palm to stare at the piece of old, dead wood in your hands, looking back to her in question.
"The flowers died forever ago," She explained, tracing over something on it, but all you could focus on was the light brush of her fingertips on the inside of her hand, "But you carved a few depictions of them into it. I think you had been making a wand."
The corner of your lips twitched, staring down at the old piece of nearly crumbling wood, and you didn't even notice that you weren't shaking anymore, your heart rate settling down.
"It's been over twenty years," She continued, a light laugh around her words, "Kept it in shape best I could. You gave it to me the same day I gave you that book. Guess we're both a bit sentimental."
Tears welled up in your eyes, gingerly playing with the wand in your hand, and then you perked up when the helicopter moved because Tony had started it up to leave this place, but Natasha was quick to pull your attention back to her as she moved to sit next to you, buckling up before she helped you with yours.
She put an arm around your shoulders, and you leaned closer, resting your head on her shoulder.
"I told you one day everything would be okay," She started again when you three were probably half way back to New York, "And you skipped ahead a few steps," Her voice wasn't disgusted or full of fear like you had expected the moment you knew she saw you take that man's life like you did, but it was calming and still had some fond in it that she probably didn't even notice, "But I think that day is sooner than you think now."
