I fly low to the ground of the large warehouse, weaving between rows of crates and shipping containers. Then I see him in the office on the second floor, my target.
I approach the door in the dimly lit warehouse, and make sure nobody else is around to see me slip inside the office and quietly lock the door behind me.
"Where is it?" I ask in a low voice.
The man at the desk jumps from shock, then springs to his feet and pulls out a gun.
"Who is there? Show yourself." He says in a thick accent.
"As you wish." I say and I phase in my body, keeping my head invisible, "Now let me ask again. Where is it?"
"Who are you?" He says, pointing the gun at my chest.
"Someone who won't ask a third time." I snap back. I see a large locked safe in the corner of the room. I begin to walk over to it, and the man shoots at me with his gun the second I begin to turn away.
The bullet doesn't hit me, of course, but it clatters to the ground by my feet. With the flick of my wrist I knock the gun out of his hand.
He gasps in shock, suddenly full of fear.
"Not gonna lie, that kind of pissed me off." I say as I lean to the side and send a kick flying square towards the center of his chest. He falls back and lands in his office chair, which skids across the floor.
I wave my hand again and the gun floats up in the air. I hold it in place with my powers so it aims right at the man's forehead, then I turn back to the safe.
"Is this thing rigged with anything? A bomb?" I ask him.
"Screw you, mutant girl." He says, spitting at me. I sigh and snap my fingers, and the gun goes off. I purposefully raise the bullet so it flies just above the man's head.
"Fine! No, the safe is clean. But not even I know the password." He laughs.
"Pity." I frown, and then I plant my feet and rip the thick safe door off of it's hinges with my powers, feeling the metal split under my hands.
Inside is exactly what I came for. I pull out a little red book full of writing and diagrams in a language I can't read.
"Give that back, demon!" The man jumps up and charges me, and I hold up my hand to send the detached safe door flying up. He slams into it and falls to the ground unconscious. I step over him, placing the book into my gear belt and flying off.
I make my way over to a small village a few miles away where I'm meeting my client. I give him the book and he thanks me on behalf of the Red Circle, whatever that is. I take my payment and fly away.
I think I'm in Belarus right now, though I might have crossed over into Russia. Either way I want to get the hell out of here. This time I find an actual plane to take me to New York, because I don't feel like flying all the way across the ocean tonight. I just hop into the baggage area and kick back on top of someone's suitcase.
It's been about a month since I visited the Avengers compound, and I feel more free than ever. I still feel anger towards them all, but I've come to terms with it. I accept my feelings for what they are, and I'm alright with them now.
I find a very uneasy slumber on the plane, and when I get back to New York it's just approaching midnight.
I'm exhausted, but I still fly home low and slow, watching the night unfold around me. I pass by my mother's house and see all the lights off. She always was an early sleeper.
I smile to myself at the thought of her peacefully sleeping in bed, hopefully not thinking of me at all.
I weave through a particularly bad neighborhood in Brooklyn that I usually find is the heaviest with crime, which is why I almost always go home this way. Just in case someone needs help.
"Someone help!" I hear a woman's high pitched scream. See? Someone usually needs my help around here.
I fly to the source of the voice like it's routine, and weave down a dark alley way. What I see shocks me. A woman stands with a knife in her stomach, bleeding all over the bed of a truck trailer. I don't know who hurt her or why she's standing on a trailer, but I know I can help her stop the bleeding. I fly down to her, but the second my feet land on the truck something happens.
I hear a whoosh sound above me, and the woman vanishes. After the sound is made I feel the same feeling I did when I was trapped in that glass cage. It feels like my chest is tightening, like I can't breathe, and like the air is heavy. I try to fly away.
My powers don't work. I run forward and slam into a glass wall. I'm in another container. I didn't see it from the sky because it had no top, and it's the middle of the night. It must have sealed shut behind me when I landed on the bed of the truck, and that bloody girl was really just a projection. A hologram. A trick.
A trap.
I begin to panic, trying to keep my breathing quiet. Mr. Connors has me again. He's going to kill me this time. I'm such an idiot.
My heart rate speeds up, and it feels like my throat is closing as I do everything I can not to start screaming and sobbing. Maybe he won't even know I'm in here, somehow.
Then my captor walks out of the shadows. He has his hands raised by his head, as though to calm me. It's not Mr. Connors.
"Cassidy? Do you want to show yourself for me?" Tony says, slowly walking up to the container.
My panic ceases once I know it's him. He won't hurt me. But the feeling shifts to anger. I'm angry at myself right now for being dumb enough to let him fool me again. This is what I get for not destroying his data on my patterns and movements that day at the Avengers compound.
"It's okay, I know you're scared." He says when I don't move, "I'm gonna take you home now. We'll talk there. Be careful, it could be a bumpy ride. I'll drive slow."
He gets into the truck attached to this trailer bed where I'm trapped and slowly drives forward. Without my flight or my powers to stabilize me, I may as well be on a roller coaster as I struggle to keep my balance. I give up eventually and sit down against the edge of the container, staying invisible so Tony can't see me or the few tears I shed on the way "home."
It's not my home if I have to be captured and dragged there, though.
Tony eventually reaches the compound, and he backs the trailer I'm on into one of the various facilities. The truck lowers my glass cage onto a slot in the ground that clicks and secures the cage into place. The truck leaves and the wall of the compound lowers, sealing me completely inside this large room.
It looks somewhat similar to the place I was held last time, to be honest, only less sinister. The walls are heavy duty concrete and metal, which I can't impact since this case neutralizes my magnetic powers. All I can do is sit here invisibly and sulk.
In front of me is a large rectangular window that stretches down the length of the room, only it's tinted so I can't see through it from this side. I know they're probably all watching from the other side though. I can sense them.
Then a door to the right of the long tinted window opens and Tony walks out. He's dressed casually, but I see a new mechanism on the front of his T-shirt that looks like the arc reactor he once wore. The metal plate sits on his chest, and I can only imagine that it must be some variation of his Iron Man suit, or at least the gloves. He didn't come here to talk to me defenseless.
"I'm sorry for doing this, Cassidy. I know being in a cage like this must bring back a lot of unhappy memories for you, and that kills me. But I had to bring you here. You need help, let us help you. We miss you." He says a little speech, but it doesn't phase me.
He essentially apologized for knowingly hurting me. If he didn't want to hurt me, he didn't have to. But here we are, and yet again I feel like a pawn under his control.
"Come on, kid. I need to know you're okay." He adds. I ignore the little pang in my heart when he calls me kid.
I don't say anything. I barely even breathe.
Tony sighs and turns to the glass, waving his hand once. The door opens a few moments later and Pepper walks out.
I almost smile at the sight of her. Pepper didn't do anything wrong to me, but she also didn't stop anyone else from using me. I do still have some semblance of fondness for her, or at least looking at her doesn't make me furious like it does with the others.
"Hey Cassidy. Are you in here? Please don't tell me Tony is pranking me. That would be cruel." She says and cracks a weak smile, "It just broke my heart when I heard what happened to you. You were family. You still are."
Pepper begins to cry as she speaks, and again an annoying pang goes off in my cold heart. I'm sorry Pepper, I can't show myself. I stay invisible.
Steve, Clint, Thor, and Natasha all take turns trying their hand at getting me to show myself, but they all give up eventually.
Then, after some time alone, the one person I didn't want to see walks in. Loki.
His eyes dart around the seemingly empty glass cage, but he sees nothing. He hesitantly stands at the edge of the glass and puts his hands behind his back.
"Um, hello." He begins in a small voice, "I don't entirely know what to say right now. You know, it's a bit ironic. The one time you're actually here is the one time I can't see you. Because I did, when you weren't around."
He pauses, and I realize he's staring to cry and choking on his words.
"I've seen you everyday since I thought I lost you. I see you when I wake up. I see you in every room I enter, and in every dream I have. You never left me Cassidy. I know what I did was unforgivable but...please forgive me." He's fully crying by the end of his speech, slumped forwards and holding himself up with his palm against the glass.
His speech makes me tear up as well, and I grow angry at how much hold he still has on me. I don't want to love him anymore. I don't.
He swallows hard, then as a tear falls he adds, "I love you. I still love you. I will always love you, Cassidy Martin."
Silence. I stand in the middle of the cage with my fists in balls.
He looks deep into the cage, as though he's trying to see through my invisibility. With a look of disappointment, he turns and begins to walk away.
There's too much I want to say for me to hold it in any longer, and the words burst out of me before I can think twice about them.
"Cassidy Martin is dead." I snap.
Loki stops dead in his tracks. He turns and runs back to the glass, pressing himself to it.
"Cassidy? Cassidy!" He shouts, banging a hand on the cage wall a few times and looking around frantically.
Everyone else runs into the room as well, gathering around the cage.
"You should have mourned her a long time ago." I add, and they go silent.
"Wha-?" Loki begins to respond, but I cut him off by doing something I promised myself I wouldn't.
I go visible.
I phase in with my back turned to all of them, so they all see is the back of me. I slowly turn around to face them, but I leave my face invisible. To them it looks like I have no face, long unruly blonde hair, and a much more bony and skeletal figure encased in all black.
They all look shocked, as I imagine I look nothing like the warm person they remember. My entire being and aura has shifted, and I'll be the first to admit that. Dying did something to me. It changed me.
I look different because I am different.
"Cassidy..." Loki breathes out, but his face is the only one that looks almost relieved rather than shocked. He nearly smiles. It makes me even angrier.
"You killed her. This is all that's left." I throw at him, and his smile fades to pain.
I walk up to the glass and plant my feet in front of them all. I let my face, tired and worn as it may be, come into view.
"It must be nice being on that side of the glass. Deciding you're worthy of your own freedom. I've been trapped since I got this stupid substance launched into my veins, and still you put me in a cage. I was a child! I was just a kid when you found me on the street, Tony! I was too young to be turned into a weapon. I didn't want any of this. All I asked was for you to help me, not plunge me into your world of good vs. bad. There is no such thing." I spit out at them in a fiery speech, and they stand in stunned silence.
A few hours ago most of them thought I was dead. Now I'm here screaming at them.
"You all used me. And then I died. Why are you doing this to me? Why reopen old wounds that I've long since forgotten? If I can let Cassidy Martin go, why can't all you people?" I snap at them.
"Because we don't give up on the people we care about." Cap answers in his usual confident and morally arrogant tone.
"Oh no, you don't give up on them. You just treat them like your prisoner, like an animal, because somehow you have the right to do that." I shout, "You're all cowards!"
"Don't blame them Cassidy. This is my fault." Loki interjects in a sad tone, and I walk over to stand directly in front of him.
I lean against the glass, and simply tell him, "You're right."
He nearly flinches at my words, but his gaze doesn't leave mine. If this glass wasn't here, I could probably feel his breath on my face. His wide eyes stare at mine, seemingly trying to soak up every bit of the sight of me.
"You were the first person I ever loved, in all my thousand years of life. And I'm sorry that I was so awful at it. I just didn't know how to love somebody the way I loved you." He says honestly, and I fake an emotional reaction.
I place my hand over his on the glass and say, in the sweetest voice my angry heart can muster, "If you love me, let me go, Loki. Please. It's the very least you could do."
I can see him considering it in his eyes. A way to pay back the unpayable debt he owes me.
"No, he won't be doing that." Cap says, hearing our conversation, and holds an arm out in front of Loki's chest. Loki sighs and nods, backing away.
Rage boils over inside of me when Loki denies me the one thing I ask of him. I died for him, he should be begging at my feet for a way to make it up to me.
I scream in anger and bang my fists against the glass, beginning to throw a fit. They all look on in mild horror at my seething rage, practically foaming at the mouth, and Cap ushers everyone out of the room.
I kick the glass as hard as I can, and the reverberation sends shock waves bouncing through the glass cage that make it feel like my brain is going to burst out from inside my skull. I drop to my knees in the center of the cage and hold my hands over my ears, screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs.
I don't know what's coming over me, but I stand and begin pounding on the glass with my fists, feeling my fingers and knuckles literally break and my skin split open raw before they quickly heal and I start all over again. All I can see is red.
I've never felt anger like this before, but looking at their faces...I wanted to hurt them. If I wasn't caged I don't know what I would have done to them. For the first time, my rage truly terrifies me. But I am helpless to it. It has taken control of me. The substance has taken control of me.
I go invisible and continue to scream bloody murder, but then all at once my rage snaps off. I gather myself, realizing screaming will not get me out of this. I'm escaping. I will not be Tony Stark's special project or lab rat again.
I clearly can't get out of this cage with my bare hands, but I remember how I escaped from Dr. Connors with that machine gun. I just need to be clever and get my hands on something a little stronger and harder than my fist.
I just have to lure one of them in here with what they really want: Cassidy Martin.
I grab my hair beside either of my temples and begin phasing in and out very quickly so it looks like I'm flickering. I scream, go invisible, and then turn back to visible just as I run forwards and slam into the glass cage by the windows where they all watch me from.
I press my body against the glass with the most terror and pain I can muster on my face.
"Loki, help me!" I cry, forcing myself to shed tears, "She's controlling me. She's inside of my head!"
I grab my own throat and begin to choke myself, then I go invisible.
I scream once, then I lay down on the floor and sprawl out so it looks like I'm unconscious. I go back visible, laying there unmoving on the ground.
"Cassidy!" I hear Loki scream as he bursts through the door to come to my aid. In his foolishness and haste, he pushes the button that opens the sealed door of my cage.
Everyone follows him, shouting at him not to open the door, but it's too late. I feel my powers surge back into me the second the seal is broken. I sit upright with a smug grin and throw out my hand, summoning Cap's metal shield to me before Tony can close the door again.
The door shuts just after the shield reaches me.
I stand and with all my might I hurl the strong vibranium shield at the glass, and it shatters. I go invisible, and I bolt.
I ignore their shock and protests, and I use my powers to lift the heavy iron door of the garage where Tony brought the truck in. Then I'm free.
I fly away with more fury burning in my heart than ever before. I'm angry. The scary kind of angry where even I don't know what I'm going to do.
These pretentious heroes already had me once, and now they want to try and pen me up like an animal? Like they own me? I told myself I was never going to be a prisoner again. I'll make them pay for this. I'll make everyone who's ever wronged me pay. Starting with the worst of them all. One name pops into my head, and suddenly I can taste revenge like hot iron in my mouth. Dylan.
I'm alive again. May as well come back with a vengeance.