I Thought You Were Different: Part 5

Souls

Let's send him into hell screaming, Tony.

Just as you had before, with this same nightmare destroying an otherwise peaceful sleep at the bedsides of your children, you bolted up and into full wakefulness, your breaths gasping Steve's name; only this time, he wasn't next to you to answer. Squeezing your eyes tighter to clear away the same tears that had blurred your vision once again, you tried to compose yourself and convince your own mind that it was a dream no matter how real it felt. You could hear a voice at your side, but it wasn't Steve's, and it gave you no comfort; his was the only one you wanted to hear, but it kept on, trying to drag you back into consciousness and reality with a growing intensity and urgency.

"(Y/N), you must open your eyes," Stephen urged. "Keeping yourself in that space will only make it easier for them to control you."

"I can't."

"You must. (Y/N), listen to me. What you're seeing isn't a dream. It's a future being fed into your mind through Anthony and what they're telling him. It's meant to terrify you into compliance."

"It's working," you whispered, turning your head away, only to have him grab your chin forcefully and turn you back.

"Open your eyes now, (Y/N), or I will open them for you."

It wasn't that you didn't want to do as you were told, because staying in that hell definitely wasn't a choice you made willingly. The pull was so strong that when you tried to act, something halted you, holding you there to see the fate of everyone you loved that scared you to your core, and as Stephen said, made you want to beg and promise anything to make it stop. In that flash of realization of what you were feeling, you knew, for the first time, the terrors that were being fed into your children to control them. It rapidly enraged you and shoved the fear down into obscurity, your eyes opening to face the sorcerer with a renewed purpose and animalistic need to protect them.

"(Y/N)," he began cautiously, "is that you?" He took a precautionary step back, his hands raised and poised to protect himself if need be. "Say something."

"Tell me how to stop this," you answered quietly, but with an icy conviction. "Tell me what I have to do to keep them away from my kids. You have to know."

"I can only make assumptions. Best guesses are all I have," Stephen shrugged in relief at your presence, but his disappointment in himself was obvious in his motions. "I'm trying to make sense of this as much as you are, but I do know this, (Y/N)," he paused, again forcing you to look his way, "we will figure this out, and we will find a way."

"Or die trying, right?" you added regretfully, looking away again. It was almost more painful to look at your three now as they slept, even if forced into the rest; they looked peaceful, unencumbered and content. At their gentle age, this was so much to burden them with, and you worried that if you all made it through this, how much damage would be done? What would the horrors that plagued them now do to the people that they would grow to become? Even if given your full attention and best efforts to help, there were no guarantees and no promises to the kind of future that would be left for them, and it gutted you to know that you would fail them so completely.

Stephen could feel the shift in you, even without seeing the emotions as they played out in your expression. He wasn't exactly your friend, he wasn't your teammate, and certainly not your protector, but he still felt a nagging responsibility to you and your trio by virtue of his unique ability if nothing else. But there was only so much that even he could do, and only so much that he could protect you from, and the reality of it all was sobering.

"If that is how it has to be, (Y/N), then yes."

~~~

After the long day, evening and night of training, the team was exhausted to say the least. Sure, they had routine workouts and Steve kept them at peak performance with regular sparring sessions, but this was on another level; he had them working harder and almost frantically to get to speed with each other's equipment and skills. Despite the hectic pace, none of them questioned him, because they all knew what was at stake, or at least they had a vague understanding of it.