Inferno [avengers: endgame]

8| years

I threw punch after punch against the bag. The bag shook and I pressed my hands deeper into it, feeling each throw on my knuckles. I grunted and hook the bag on the side, making it shake and go left. I lifted my leg and kicked the bag hard and stopped. I was panting and my body was slick with sweat. I shook out my hands and started to take the gauze that was wrapped around my hands off. In all reality, I didn't need the gauze because my hands didn't have any feeling anyway, the scars too thick to even recognize pain anymore. 

It's been five years. Five years since my father died. It doesn't even seem like that long. But as I look in mirrors at myself, the years didn't treat me very kind. In fact, I always managed to look like I got the shit beat out of me.

I dropped the gauze into the garbage can and pushed open the door out of the gym area. Cold air from the lobby of the hotel building brushed against my skin and I almost shivered. I was wearing a sports bra and a pair of shorts. The air was nipping at my exposed skin and I shuffled quickly to the elevator, brushing my hair out of my face.

I let my hair grow out to weird length. A couple of weeks after Tony left the compound so many years ago, I went through a bad phase. I dyed my hair, let it grow and I just stopped taking care of myself. Rhodey said it was just my "teenage phase."

My hair now was annoying and long. It was darker than before. Almost a honey blonde into a brown. The color was ugly to me, but I was too lazy to change it.

The elevator dinged and I entered it, pressing the top floor button while I walked over to the wall. I was the only person in the elevator and it slowly went up each of the three floors, creaking every so often. The noises didn't faze me and I picked at the tiny cut on my hand I had received a few days ago in Mexico City. The skin was finally starting to heal up. 

The doors opened and I walked out and down the hallway towards my room. The hotel was mostly empty. The only people I knew of residing in it was Rhodey, myself, and some family down on the first floor by the lobby. Rhodey and I have been here for a week and a half, searching for a man who now calls himself Ronin. Rhodey calls him Clint, but I don't like to call him that. It makes him seem more human. It's easier for me to imagine him as some murderer instead of a man with a family. At least, that's what Rhodey said he was. He was a happy man, but not anymore.

My fault.

I opened my room door and walked in to see Rhodey looking at a hologram of Natasha, Carol Danvers, Okoye, and Rocket. I dropped the hotel key on the bed and crossed my arms, surveying the other Avengers.

Carol cut her hair short, like really short. I smirked at her, liking the change of hair. Rocket looked more or less the same and Okoye just looked stressed to the core. Rhodey told me that she was apart of the Dora Milaje. They were a group of warriors who protected Wakanda. He told me that her leader was gone and dusted away with the rest of the unfortunate half. Every time I spared her a glance a tiny pinch would hit my stomach and I forced myself to look away before I puked.