The four of us sit in a car: Kai and I next to each other, Dylan and Mr Warner opposite us. My fingers are interlocked with Kai’s. He squeezes my hand.
“You sure you’re ready for this?” He asks.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. But I need to do this, you know?”
“Yeah, I get it.”
He doesn’t know what I mean by the statement.
“We’re here,” Mr Warner interrupts. “We’ll walk the rest of the way. Don’t ask why.”
The four of us get out of the car, and my suit covers everywhere but my head. The other three start to walk, but I float across the ground. I make sure to stay a little bit behind them: not far enough to be suspicious but enough so that I could silently communicate to Dad and them not see.
As we get closer to the true meeting side, I can see the others. I thought they might at least get Aunt Nat to help, but it’s just Dad, Papa and Peter. I make eye-contact with Dad and nod, then move to be in front of the Warners. My helmet covers my face and I float a little higher.
“How do you want to go about this?” Dad yells out, knowing exactly what to do.
“Well, how do you go about any old fight? You should know this, Dad. You were a leader of an army, were you not?”
“I’m guessing you’re gonna make the first move?”
“I suppose. But I want to say something first. To Peter.”
I turn my head to look at him. Sweet, kind Peter. I love him so much more than I thought I could love a person. So this is going to hurt both of us, even if I’m really directing it at Kai.
“I want to apologise for playing with your emotions. I hope you understand that I never actually loved you.”
I hold up both hands, getting ready to fire at Peter. At the very last minute, I turn around and shoot one at Dylan and one at Kai. I take the opportunity to shoot Mr Warner as well, then jet over to my family. I grab Peter’s hand as I land beside him.
“I’m sorry. I had to do it. You understand, right? I didn’t mean any of it.”
He squeezes my hand as if to reassure me that it’s alright. I’m so glad. I look towards the Warners to see Dylan standing up, an angry look on his face as he begins to walk towards me.
“You’re gonna pay for that, you fucking bitch!”
He begins running towards us, and before he gets too close Dad tackles him. They fight and I see Papa fly overhead towards Mr Warner.
“Let’s settle this like old men should, Chester,” I hear him say.
I then remember Kai, and I see that he’s not where he was. Where is he? I turn in time for him to land a punch square on my jaw. It knocks me to the floor, and Peter begins to fight Kai. I move to be on my knees and rub where my helmet was hit, glad for once. My vision begins to go black, but it’s not because I’m going unconscious. This scares me.
When my vision returns, it’s silent. I’m floating in an endless starry sky, hanging in the air. My suit has been replaced with simple clothes, though I never told my suit to go. It’s beautiful yet terrifying, with the complete silence and nothing around me.
Ground suddenly appears below me and the starry sky is replaced with my room in the Tower. “This isn’t right. Why am I here?”
I walk out of my room and into the hallway, looking around. “Dad?! Papa?! Peter?!” No one answers, so I make my way down the stairwell and into the kitchen. There I find both Dad and Papa eating.
“Dad? Papa? What’s happening? Why are we here?”
“Oh, why are you here?” Dad questions me. I’m taken aback.
“What...what do you mean?”
“We already told you, we want nothing to do with you.”
“But...you’re my parents.”
“And? The tower is for Avengers. People who can do stuff. You’re not special. You can’t do anything. We don’t want anything to do with you.”
“You...you can’t mean that Dad.”
Papa looks up, making direct eye-contact with me. “Of course we mean it. You’re no longer welcome here. Now get off our property before we call the cops.”
My breath catches, and tears well and fall. “No no no no you can’t do this! I’m your daughter!”
“GET OUT!” Papa yells. I stare at him for a few moments, not knowing what to do. Then I run. The ground beneath me disappears and becomes the starry sky, leaving me in perpetual silence.
I realise that my hands are shaking and I try to calm myself, taking deep but shaky breaths. Ground appears beneath me again, but the starry sky is replaced by the inside of my school.
It must be morning, as everyone is at the lockers. I look around and spot Peter and Ned. I sigh in relief and run up to them, wrapping Peter in a hug. He pushes me off with a confused look on his face.
“Um, what are you doing? Do I know you?”
“Peter...it’s me. Blythe. Your girlfriend?”
“No, my girlfriend is Liz Allen. Wait, aren’t you that Rogers girl? Iron Man and Captain America’s daughter?”
“Um...no. Sorry. I must have mixed you up with someone else.”
I run away, hoping that I might run into Mikayla. I do, but she’s nothing like she should be. She should be an adorable cinnamon bun, but even from a glance it’s clear that she’s a bitchy queen bee. She spots me and laughs to her posse.
“Well, well. If it isn’t little Blythe Rogers. Weren’t you just cast out of your family for not being like them? It’s all over the news.”
I back away, not wanting to face this warped version of my best friend.
“Oh, poor Rogers. Gonna run back to daddy? Oh wait! You can’t!”
She laughs along with her posse. I step back and lose my footing, falling back into the starry sky. I curl into a ball, crying to myself.
“It can’t be real but it feels so real. It’s not real. It’s not real. It’s not real.”
I begin to hear Peter distantly calling my name.
“Blythe. Blythe. Listen to me. It’s OK. None of it is real. It’s just Kai fucking with your head. But I need you to snap out of it. There’s only so much screaming we can take, even if it’s towards the ground. It’s deafening.”
Screaming...oh god I must be sonic screaming. That’s what Kai’s doing. It must be trapping me inside my worst nightmares. That’s why I’m seeing this stuff. But how do I make him let go of me?
“GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” I scream, and I’m snapped back to reality. I see that my scream has created a small crater in the ground, obviously because of the long contact. I stand up and aim the scream at Kai.
It pains me to see it, but the scream bursts his eardrums. He falls to the ground with his hands over his ears, blood trickling over his fingers. Peter jogs over to me and grabs my hand.
“You OK?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Just give me a few minutes to calm myself.”
He runs off to help Papa fight Mr Warner, and I take deep breaths.
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