By the time I reach his apartment, the sun is already peaking up over the horizon. It's morning.
Dylan Connors was my best friend. I loved him. He betrayed me. He tried to kill me. Then I died, and his life went on as normal. He graduated college, got a job, and has a little apartment in Manhattan. A fine life. One he doesn't deserve.
I sit at his small kitchen table, lounging back with my feet up. I wait for him to wake up, all the while seething with rage.
Finally, I hear him stirring and a few minutes later he lazily walks into the kitchen. He opens the fridge to look for some breakfast.
From behind him, I say a cheerful, "Morning, Dyl."
He freezes. I can practically see the chill run up his spine. He slowly turns around and sees me sitting there at the table, and his face whitens like he's juse seen a ghost.
I suppose he has.
"Ca-cassidy?" He says, and it admittedly throws me off guard for a moment that he sounds almost relieved to see me.
"In the flesh." I reply.
"I thought you were dead." He breathes out, sounding like he needs to catch his breath after he says it.
"Sorry to spoil your happiness, seeing as you tried to kill me and all." I snap at him, my words filled with all the venom and ice I've saved for Dylan this past year.
"I wasn't happy you died. I was devastated." He says, sounding honest, and I scoff.
I throw my legs off the table and stand to face him.
"Don't lie to me." I practically growl.
"You don't have to believe me, but you can't call me a liar. Your death crushed me, Cas." He replies, and my anger grows.
"Bullshit!" I scream, kicking down the chair I was just sitting in. Frustration oozes out of me. I wanted him to fear me, to beg for mercy, not to confess his heartbreak.
"Cassidy, I was wrong!" He raises his voice as well, not in anger but probably just so I actually hear him over the ringing in my ears from this sudden overwhelming anger.
I laugh a cynical laugh.
"After you died I snuck into the lab to snoop around, because my gut was telling me I never should have turned my back on you. I found out everything, all the bad things my dad did. You really were trying to help me, because he set up the hijacking himself. He told me you were insane now, and that you couldn't be trusted, and that if we let you go you were going to kill everyone I knew and loved. I am so sorry I betrayed you, but my dad he...he brainwashed me. He lied to me. I don't speak to him anymore, neither does the rest of my family. I just wish I didn't believe him." He spills out his little story.
I feel the most pure form of anger bubble inside my chest, like a glowing spehere that begins to spread through me and fill me with the most honest fury I've ever felt. The fury of heartbreak.
My heart aches because of him. I hate the feeling. I grew up loving him, and what he did to me tears me apart still.
"Stop." I warn him, with my fists clenched and tears welling up in my eyes.
"No, you need to hear me. Cassidy, I am so sorry. I was destroyed when you died. I love you, and seeing you here makes me so happy that-" He says, and the word hits me like bricks. No, not love.
Happy.
"Happy?" I cut him off, my voice low and trembling.
He doesn't keep speaking.
"I get death and rage and sorrow, and you get happy?" I say louder, my mind racing. "Your family did this to me. You did this to me! And now you get to feel happy that I'm back? You betrayed me. You tore my heart out and tried to shoot a bullet through my skull. I never want you to feel happy again! Not on my behalf! You once told me I was invisible Dylan. Well, you were right."
I phase out so I'm invisible, and with the raising of my arms everything metal in the kitchen raises into the air and begins circling around the room.
Dylan drops to his knees and ducks as a saucepan flies by his head. The drawers open and shut ferociously. Pots and pans smash into walls and knock things over, and cutlery whizzes around like a tornado.
"Cassidy, please don't do this. I'm sorry!" Dylan looks up through the chaos, hands covering his head. His final apology sets off an explosion of anger within me, and it's like I lose myself completely. I can't control myself.
"Sorry won't give me my life back!" My voice comes out low and muffled, almost demonic. "So how about I take yours instead!"
I scream, jumping in the air and whipping my arm around to launch one of the flying knives directly into Dylan's abdomen.
It sticks inside of him, and he lets out a chocked gasp, looking down at his stomach as red begins to seep onto his shirt.
Time, for a moment, freezes. Everything in the room that was spinning drops to the floor, clattering to the ground, including myself.
I phase back in.
An overwhelming fear sets into my stomach, and for the first time in over a year I feel like Cassidy Martin again. I am her again.
She crawls out of the depths of me, aching at the sight of her best friend hurt by her own hand.
I rush over to Dylan, all the anger gone from my heart.
"Oh my god, Dylan." I reach him, kneeling beside him as he stares at his wound in horror. It pulses out blood every time he breathes.
"Dyl, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to." I begin to sob right here in front of him, shedding my first real tears in so long, "I- I don't know what happened."
He looks up at me, and his eyes are wild with fear. Like a deer in the headlights.
He begins to waver slightly, and his eyes flutter shut as he falls back. I catch him in my arms, holding him to me. I shakily pick him up, which is difficult but easier with my powers because I use the metal in his body to gently levitate him. I hold one hand under his back and one hand firmly on the skin of his stomach around the knife, desperately using my powers to temporarily stop the bleeding and hold his blood inside of him.
I push off the ground and fly as fast as I can to the only place I'm certain will heal him if it's possible. The Avengers compound. Tony will know what to do.
Dylan groans and mumbles incoherently the entire way there, his head bobbing up and down as he slips in and out of consciousness. I sob and pull him close to my as we speed to Tony's.
I'm drenched in his blood.
I am a monster now. I feel nothing but shame and guilt and an unyielding hatred for myself. I hate myself more than Dylan will after this, and I deserve every bit of it.
I reach Tony's lab where I know he will be in the mornings and kick open the door, sending it flying off its hinges. I walk through silently as he jumps up in shock from the crash of the metal door.
I step towards him and he stares at me with wide eyes, looking at Dylan and the knife in his stomach. His jaw settles, and he gets that calm and steady look in his eye that I never appreciated until now. Tony rarely panics. He was always my rock in a crisis.
Tony and I look at each other for a moment, and I can tell he knows it's truly me again. He walks towards me, taking Dylan from my arms and immediately going to work on him.
I stand a few feet back, quietly crying in horror as he lays Dyl on a metal table after clearing it off with the sweep of his arm. His machines frantically buzz around, and Tony uses some sort of Iron Man glove to spray something over the wound.
He pulls the knife out carefully as his machines continue to spray and clean and close the wound. It looks like it's working. Whatever Tony is doing looks like it's sealing the wound shut.
My tense heart seems to relax ever so slightly with relief. Ten more agonizing minutes go by, and Tony moves Dylan to a more comfortable medical bed in the infirmary of his lab. He hooks him up to a fluid drip and sedates him so he can sleep and heal.
I lean back against the wall, watching him leave where Dylan rests and slowly walk towards me. I am more exhausted than I ever have been before.
A slow and steady trickle of tears slide down my cheeks. Tony stands in front of me cautiously, still at a loss for words yet looking at me with the fatherly concern I missed so much.
"Tony," I choke out and look up at him, "Get this stuff out of me."
Tony pulls me into his arms and I cling to him while I sob, as though he is the only thing holding me together.
I hadn't realized how broken I was, all this time, until I shattered.