Playing with Fire

16. The Truth

Y/N's POV

I was back in my old house, the one I had destroyed. Was this just another flashback or was I dead? I looked down to notice I was wearing the same dress as the last flashback, however this time it was clean and untouched by any fire and soot. My vision panned the room like I was watching a first-person movie. I was in a messy office where a woman was scrambling around. She was beautiful with the same color hair and eyes as me.

"What's wrong Mommy?" Inside I felt like I wanted to break down since I only ever imagined what my mother might look like but on the outside, I knew I was just a little girl again re-experiencing something that already happened.

I must have caught her off guard because she stood there looking at me like a deer in headlights. "Why aren't you with Daddy," she asked as she got closer to me.

She knelt and put her hands on each of my shoulders as I responded, "He was talking to a man at the front door." Almost instantly she ran to the window and peaked through the blinds leaving me there confused. Her eyes grew wide and she ran right back in front of me, her diamond wedding ring catching the light as she put her hand back on my shoulder.

"Y/N, you won't understand this until you are older so you need to try and remember as much as I tell you okay?" I nodded as she continued, "I have always told you that you are special but you are so much more than that. Mommy works for people called S.H.I.E.L.D. You were too little to remember but you were involved in an accident at my work before Jakey was born. You shouldn't be alive but you are so special and strong that your body took that experiment and gave you special powers but you are too little to make them by yourself."

Before I could ask if we were playing pretend right now, we heard a gunshot come from downstairs. At the time, I just thought it was a loud bang because I was little and never heard one before but my younger self knew something was wrong immediately by the quick change in expression on my mother's face.

She slightly shook my shoulders to refocus my attention on her as she went on, "Y/N there are bad people here trying to steal mommy's work, no one knows that you are special so I need you to run away and hide."

"Like hide and seek?" I asked.

"Yes, just like hide and seek. You can't come out for anyone except for me and you have to stay super quiet." We heard another gunshot and both flinched. I still didn't know what it was but I knew that it was bad now. I began to get scared from seeing my mom so panicked and began to cry.

My mom hugged me tight as we heard glass break downstairs and said "I love you so so much." She pushed me back in front of her and said, "Now go and hide and don't come out okay?"

"But-" I said very quietly before being cut off.

"GO Y/N!" and she pointed her arm towards the door. We already heard footsteps coming up the stairs so it was too late for me to leave the house.

I ran to the door away from the office which led me to my parents' bedroom. I opened and then closed the sliding closet doors and crawled to the back behind a bunch of clothes. I silently cried as  I heard the banging on the other office door connected to the hallway.  Eventually, I heard it bang open and muffled yelling through the walls. While I was sitting there I noticed a soft orange glow peeking through the cracks of the closet doors. I heard another bang of a gunshot followed by a thump. I listened while it sounded like the room was being ransacked. I took a shaky breath as I noticed it was getting really hot in that closet and I heard the footsteps growing farther away now. I crawled to the door and cracked it open to get some fresh air however I was met with a room full of smoke. Half of the room was on fire and it was spreading. I ran to the office door away from the fire and opened it up only to be horrified by what I saw. My mom was laying facedown on the floor in a puddle of her own blood. The room had been ripped apart but at the time I was frozen in shock by the woman in front of me.

"Mommy?" The word barely audible as the fire crackled behind me. I heard another gunshot come from down the hall and looked up to find that the guy had aimed the gun at me and then ran down the stairs away from the fire that was consuming the other side of the house. Confused I looked down to see a growing, crimson blob on my chest, causing me to fall right next to my mom. It hurt but not enough to make me cry. I was already in shock and as I lay there, the pain slowly began to ease away. I turned my head to look at the room that was burning next to me. Even though I was young, I knew I was dying and the flames seemed to comfort me, they always have. My eyes were growing heavy but I slowly shifted my arm out on the floor to point towards the flames that were drawing near. I closed my eyes right as a tiny flame reached my outstretched finger.

After a bright flash, the memory ended leaving me floating in a black abyss in my current body to think about the flashback I just had. I was feeling so many emotions like the sorrow of losing my family all over again, the anger at Hydra for taking me away, lying to me about the truth, and killing my family but overall I was in shock at what I just re-experienced.

"Did I..I,... I just died?" I immediately put my hands to my chest and looked down only to find I was back in my uniform. Putting both memories together, I had to have just survived.  That injury was gone when I woke up with the house burnt down around me, I must have forgotten what had just happened at that time due to the shock I was in.

The explosion I let out at the factory also came flooding back into my mind. Was I dead right now? Right after I thought it two lights appeared in the black void I was currently floating in. A bright white light above me and a firey light below me. Right then and there I had to make a choice. If my theory about my full power is right, this fight isn't over yet. Like a moth drawn to the flame, I flew straight into the fire below.

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Published: 6/18/2020