Hang In There// P.P.

Chapter 42: The Darkness.

It has been five years.

Five years since the Mad Titan came to Earth and wiped half of us out. Five years since we lost those closest to us. I thought that I was coping fine, starting to slightly move on with my life, despite the fact that that day replayed in my mind like clockwork. But, I wasn't. It took a year of hearing absolutely no progress to finally push close to the edge. So, I took matters into my own hands. I started using black magic to try and reach the other side, wherever the others were. I searched for them, for answers, but found nothing. There was no way I could bring them back. Little did I know that using black magic would lead to unlocking a bigger evil.
The person who swore to protect those of New York became the person who set out to destroy it.

Of course, the Avengers were too busy trying to find a solution to our problem to realise that I had become New York's new nightmare. I had become the villain I had nightmares about all those months ago.

It was a Monday morning, the year: twenty- twenty three. People have noticed the change in my demeanour, Ned especially. He became worried, paranoid almost, that he was losing his friend yet again. It was a darkness that had taken over me and it was stronger than I ever was. There were moments where my true self would surface, but she would just supress and squash her back down.

That night the rain fell heavily from the sky, painting the city a darker colour. I sat upon the building that Spider-Man and I often would before the Infinity War.
I had a hunger for destruction.
I left my place upon the rooftop and made my way downtown, then upstate New York, landing myself outside the Avengers Compound. I felt an anger and fury towards them, maybe because nothing had been done in five years, maybe because this was perhaps their way of saying that they were gone forever, that there was no way to get them back.

I held the grenade tightly in my hand as I stood in the rain, letting it soak through my suit. I just stood and stared. There were a million feelings coursing through my body. As I was about to pull the ring, a voice stopped me.

"Sof, don't do it."

I looked up to see Steve Rodgers standing in front of me, him too falling a victim to the rain.

"You can't stop me, Rodgers."

He edged closer and closer to where I stood, making me become defensive and tighten my grip on the ring, holding it up so he could see.

"Stop moving!"

"Sof, this isn't you, okay."

"This is me! This is who I am!"

"No, its not. The person in front of me is not the same girl that walked out of here five years ago. You are the result of psychological and emotional torment. You're angry and you're scared, you're grieving and that's okay, Sof. Just let us help you."

I scoffed.

"Just like you helped Peter?"

Steve's eyes closed as he sighed.

"Sof, we're so close, you just need to give us time-"

"I have given you five years, Steve! FIVE! And nothing has happened!"

I could feel the old me starting to surface the more this conversation progressed.

"I need my family back, my life back, this isn't living, Steve, this is just surviving. I can't control my powers anymore, there's a darkness in me that has taken over and I can't stop it."

I couldn't stop the tears from falling as Steve stood only a meter away.

"Let us help you, Sof. We can fix this, I know we can. We're going to get rid of the darkness and we are going to bring back everyone who was taken from us. I promise."

I stared at my feet, the grenade still clenched in my hand.

"And what if you can't?"

I could myself starting to slip once again. I raised the grenade, ready to pull the pin when I felt a small pinch on the side of my neck as Iron Man landed beside me, keeping a hold of me as my vision blurred and my limbs became weak. I dropped the grenade as everything went into a blur, the sedative taking over and my eyes shut.

_____________________________

I woke up a few hours later, well that's what I assumed anyways. I didn't recognise the room around me as my eyes darted from corner to corner. The events leading up to this were fuzzy and I didn't really know how I got here in the first place. I went to sit up but found that there was a force holding down. I looked down at my wrists to see that I was strapped to the bed, unable to move. I pulled vigorously at them, panic starting to rise in the bit of my stomach. I stopped when Tony walked into the room. I looked at him with wide eyes. He said nothing as he walked over to sit in the chair beside the bed, my eyes never once leaving his form.

"Why am I here?"

"Because we need you."

"Mr. Stark, you guys are the Avengers, what use is a teenage girl to you?"

He leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Dr. Strange was our only way of knowing what was going to happen, or so we thought."

I furrowed my brows at him.

"What are you getting at?"

"I've had a lot of time to think these past five years-"

He got up from where he sat, making his way slowly over to me.

"-One thing that I couldn't wrap my head around how you knew how many outcomes we had in this."

His eyes burned into the side of my head as I focused on the ceiling.

"When we first met Strange I got this.....vibe...off him. I don't know how to explain it. I could tell Peter everything about him and I didn't even know the guy, the same thing happened with the possibilities, I just knew. Look, Mr. Stark, I don't know how I knew these things or what caused it but I do know that at the moment I am of no use to you."

"Sof, we're not sure what's going on with you but we want to run some tests. To put it simply, we don't need anymore problems than what we already have-"

He sat down on the side of the bed.

"- I already lost Peter, I'm not gonna lose you too."