C.H.A.S.M. [MARVEL FANFICTION] ✓completed

7

Where I go stargazing and the book finally gets interesting

-

The joys of sleeping late into the mornings have always been lost to the faster half of the Maximoff family. As early as one o'clock, Penny was awake.

She knew sleep was a lost cause and instead showered and got dressed; blue t-shirt, dark blue sweatpants, the inevitable necklace and still no watch.

Penny automatically moved to the door, and had opened it before she'd realized it should've been locked at 1 am.

With a shrug she stepped into the passage, which was deserted as always. This time Penny had a goal; to go outside and see the stars. It was something she'd often do back at the orphanage if she couldn't sleep. She'd search for constellations, and now she wondered if the ones at the ADAPT base would look familiar.

In the elevator, Penny stared at the buttons. She knew the third floor was off-limits, because that's where the Avengers slept (when they weren't in the Tower, on a mission, or someplace elsewhere (like Asgard)). But the fourth floor wasn't included in the off-limits speech. And seeing as how it was the top floor, maybe she could see the stars from there.

She made up her mind, and pressed the 4. The elevator whisked her up to the highest floor in seconds.

The doors opened, and she stepped into a passage. The ceiling was made of thick glass, and she could see a few stars already. But she was determined to get onto the roof, with no walls around her.

The passage twisted and turned, with dead ends and forks and intersections. After a few minutes of walking, she still hadn't found a way out; the passage curved enough to be a maze.

Maybe it is a maze.

The thought struck her so suddenly that she stopped. There was a small section of relatively straight passage ahead of her, and then a T-shaped intersection.

She moved towards it slowly, wondering whether she'd be able to find her way back to the elevator. She could try retracing her steps, but she wasn't sure if she'd be able to remember it all. With a smirk she remembered that she had all the time in the world to find her way back. For now, Penny was going to at least make getting lost worth it.

And then she stopped for the second time, as someone turned into her passage from the intersection ahead.

He had white hair, light blue eyes, and wore a light blue shirt. She recognized him instantly, but it didn't seem to hit her. Who could it be but Pietro Maximoff?

He too had stopped when he saw her, standing as she was, motion- and speech- less.

Penny was sure she had stopped time. One hundred percent sure. The crickets had abruptly silenced, the stars no longer twinkled but looked frozen and cold, and, most definingly, her shadow wasn't moving. (Nor was she, but Pietro's shadow wasn't moving either.)

Yet, in a blur of blue and white, Pietro, a.k.a. Quicksilver, crossed the metres between them and stood before her.

"You are new, yes?"

Penny licked her lips, which had suddenly become dry, and nodded. She tried to think of something to say, but all she could come up with was 'didn't you die in Age of Ultron?'  and somehow that didn't seem like the greatest conversation starter. Not that she trusted her voice at all anyway.

As she began to wish that she'd asked more about the Hall of Heroes concept, she noticed Pietro gazing at her necklace with a confused frown. She realized she'd started fidgeting with it nervously at some point, and quickly stopped.