𝒀𝒖𝒂𝒏𝒇𝒆𝒏 | 𝙏𝙤𝙣𝙮 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙠

Chapter 2

As Tony lies wounded in the desert, his thoughts drift to Iliana. Her laughter, her stern yet caring voice, her refusal to be anything less than honest with him—all of it floods his mind. He grips his chest, feeling the shrapnel lodged there, and struggles to stay conscious.

"Iliana," he whispers, his vision blurring, his last words as he is engulfed by darkness.

Back in the States, Iliana sits at her desk, staring at the screen of her laptop but not really seeing it. She feels a strange sense of unease, a tugging in her heart that she can't explain. She brushes it off, focusing on the editing her editor recommended. When the picture of her and Tony—her smiling while signing a book that Tony held with a smug grin on his face—falls down, the glass shatters.

This felt awfully ominous to Iliana. She hurriedly places the picture in a new frame and hangs it again on the wall. She feels uneasy and agitated... she is concerned for Tony. Something doesn't feel right, and she hopes for the sake of her sanity for his safe return. She can't lose someone again, not again.

· · ─────── ·🦋· ─────── · ·

Iliana had just sent the edited document to her agent for printing. When she works, she puts her phone on do not disturb mode. Her heart jumps when she sees 13 missed calls from Rhodey. She hurriedly calls him back.

He picks up after a few rings.

"Is everything alright?" she asks, hoping for Tony to be safe, but this time, fate is not on her side.

"Iliana," he pauses, hesitating, "Tony has gone missing."

"What?" she asks, disbelief and fear gripping her. "How can he go missing? He was surrounded by soldiers!"

"We're trying to find him—"

"Then try harder!" she snaps at him, then immediately regrets it. "Sorry—I—"

"It's okay, I'm trying—we will find him," Rhodey assures her before disconnecting the call.

Iliana throws her phone at the nearby wall, shattering the screen on impact. Anger boils inside her, threatening to explode. She doesn't know why she is so angry. Iliana has never been good at dealing with her grief; her pain and sorrows always turn into rage. A harmful, explosive rage that can ruin anything in her path.

And the last time she unleashed this rage, she killed over 30 people, who were by no means innocent. They were monsters, and that night, she knew she was equally a monster.

After all, you have to become a monster to kill a monster.

She was a sinner hiding in priest's robes.

· · ─────── ·🦋· ─────── · ·

In her apartment, Iliana's emotions swell to a breaking point. She clenches her fists, her whole body trembling. The scream that builds within her is a force of nature, an eruption of all the fear, frustration, and sorrow she has been holding back.

When she finally lets it out, the sound is deafening. Windows shatter all around her, the force of her sonokinesis—her ability to control sound waves—blasting through the room. The glass splinters and sprays outward, shards raining down. Her scream is so powerful that it reverberates through the building, shaking the windows violently on the floors above and below her apartment.

The raw energy of her scream leaves her throat dry and raw, as if she has scraped it with sandpaper. Her breath comes in ragged gasps, her chest heaving. The walls around her seem to hum with the aftershocks of her power. If she had screamed any louder, she might have shattered every window in the entire building.