Boom! Another chapter of 'Volatile' at your fingertips, hope you guys enjoy. Gosh, I almost didn't update this week because I had to bounce to the doctors after - get this - some girl bit me. On the forehead. It's so funny oh my gosh, I'm the shortest person ever and she tripped into me whilst talking to her friends and...it's just funny. Anything happen like this too you guys?
Anyways, again, I hope you guys enjoy and thank you all for your lovely reviews and I wouldn't be adverse to seeing more (nudge). Thank you again, and have fun reading, wind-bearers!
Chapter Eleven
A whole stack of memories
never equal one little hope.
- Charles M. Schulz
Exhaustion trails weathered fingers, rough with callouses and pain, down the length of her spine, and it slides across her nervous system and untangles the knotted veins in her fingers, spreading the toxic ache across her muscles. She slumps tiredly against the wall, lowering herself until she slides gently to the ground.
Her opposite in many ways, Powerman drops like a brick to the ground next to her, rubbing rough hands over high cheekbones and sighing contentedly. "Man, if that wasn't a work out, I might just quit SHIELD."
Tempest's just lurches with a silent laugh, a smile smearing her lips wide like paint across her tanned skin and she cards a few fingers through her tangled locks, instability locking her joints together from the strength she has to use to do a simple task. She lays her hand over her shoulder, trapping the stray lock there from her forehead. "And to think, we've got patrol after this with Venom and SG."
"Oh sweet Christmas, as if those two aren't gonna tire us out even more," he remarks, lifting his sunglasses to wipe the sweat that collects around the bridge of his nose and lowering it again. He pulls himself to his feet, large form stretching tiredly, and holds out a hand for the small brunette to grab. "I'm gonna take a shower, meet you in half an hour."
She nods at him tiredly, and as they part ways through the labyrinth, the exhaustion she feels smothers the wounds and bruises together that she's collected over the training day and she's all but ready to sink into her bunk bed, and she waves a hand over the monitor to let her into the room.
The wide expanse of the bunk room flickers with lights and she pauses in mid-step towards her bunk, where she can see a figure crouched over the top bunk, leaning into hers with another body lay flat out on the top bunk, holding their legs. A brow lifts from on her sweat-covered forehead, the scowl that mars her face with a wrinkle and stretching the scar at the corner of her mouth only hums with amusement when a squirrel - Silly Billy, if she remembers correctly - skitters across the wall and onto the hanging body of the boy.
"Sam?"
The boy screeches in shock and surprise from the squirrel and Tempest's arrival that he kicks his legs free of his captor's hold, resulting in landing practically face first on the ground and flipping over, causing the squirrel to launch high into the air and towards Tempest. Her eyes widen and she throws her arms out, creating a cone of concentrated air in front of her, allowing the squirrel to drop into it unharmed and away from her until she lowers it into her palms.
A screech from the top bunk shocks her, makes her flinch back when Squirrel Girl bounces up. "Billy!" her agile body jumps from the top bunk, over the crumpled form of Sam, and racing on pointed toes to collect the small squirrel from between Tempest's hands. Over the weeks, though she'd gotten used to the loud nature that fell in waves from the hyperactive girls pores, she still jumped at the shrill sound of her voice.
Squirrel Girl chirped at the frightened animal that buried itself in her neck, sniffing out comfort, before delving into the bristles of her tail. Behind her Sam, dressed in civilian clothes, huffed. "Hey! You didn't stop to try to help the person you dropped?"
"You threw Silly Billy!"
"That's not my fault!" Sam, albeit slightly shakily, pulled himself to his feet, seething when he felt pain explode across his forehead and stumbled into a shorter body that steadied him with a hand to the waist. He turned down, finding expecting doe eyes staring up at him. Nervously, laughter rumbled in his abdomen. "Hey Tempest, how's it, uh, how's it going?"
"What were you doing?"
The curiosity chews at the base of her spine, and the warrior that slips in his bloodstream is taken down by the glow of brown eyes that question him. "It was meant to be a surprise."
A slanted jaw opens to reiterate her words, but the room is suddenly plunged into darkness and sudden fear tangles itself into her locks at the loss of sight. Her hand, loosely pressed to his side, curls further into the shirt, tighter like a chain and Sam, thankful for the darkness, lets an amused smile break on his features when her eyes, albeit wild with fear, turn to where her bed is and soften almost immediately.
Across the wall that it's pressed up too, and to the underside of SG's own bunk, green glow in the dark stars light up the corner of her room. Her jaw slackens and galaxies charge across her veins, prompting her to release herself from her anchor and step forwards in the dark, fingers ghosting like intangible clouds across the plastic bodies of the small five-studded shape.
When wonder creeps across her ribs, the lights flicker on and she's staring at a metallic wall as the stars fade into the colour of it, like camouflage. Turning, she spots the hopeful looks of the two teenagers and rises, careful not to trip over her confusion. "What...what is this?"
"We knew you didn't like the dark," starts Squirrel girl, the usual ball of energy wringing her hands like dish cloths, eyes downcast with a small, shy twitch of cherry lips, "you always stayed awake until the end and you'd ask someone to turn the light on if it was turned off."
Sam pulls at the roots of his hair, and she pretends to not acknowledge the red tint that decorates his tanned cheeks, "so we, uh, we sorta found some glow in the dark stars and we thought that you wouldn't be so scared if a bit of the sky was always out."
He grunts when her arms wrap around him, pressing her mess of dark curls into his chest and he's tempted to pick apart the knots with fingers like needles in her hair tenderly. But she pulls SG into the hug too, wind-curled fingers pulling her close and she shares a watery smile. "This means a lot to me you guys, thanks."
His heart gives a playful tug towards her, with a wide smile that is familiar only to his mouth and he pulls away from the group hug, wiping pretend dust from his shirt. SG snuggles into Tempest's shoulder, giggling when the girl lets her. "Yeah, okay, I've got to go, I've got a date, but don't tell any - "
"Because you've got a reputation, now watch it Sparky," her playfulness bats against his chest and throws him off-course, but he shrugs his shoulders and tosses a goodbye across his shoulders, leaving the two girls to chatter.
Although sleep evades her due to Squirrel Girl's constant talking - I wonder if anyone else speaks squirrelease, you know? - but Tempest reigns it in and soon, the time for patrolling the city arrives and she waltzes across the faded line of faking sick and taking responsibility, before allowing Squirrel Girl to pull her out of the room, tossing a goodbye to Dagger over her shoulder who works diligently over her revision notes for the reactor core test from the Whizzer.
Atop the Triskellion, Powerman and Agent Venom wait on top, and Venom whoops loudly to gain their attention, pulling SG into a tight hug on arrival. When he moves to collect Tempest, he hesitates and pulls his arm back, murmuring an apology when she flinches. The girl tucks her fear beneath her top lip and smiles, patting his shoulder in greeting. However, Tempest's brow furrowed and she wrinkled her nose with a sniff.
"Powerman?"
"Yeah?"
"...why do you smell like Cocoa butter?"
The teen superhero stiffened slightly, glaring at Agent Venom when he spluttered with laughter, hanging heavily on SG's shoulder to keep from falling. Powerman leveled a large digit at her. "I hate you and your damn wind powers. In my defense, a grown man can smell like cocoa butter if he wants too."
A wide smile tugged at her mouth and she shook her head playfully at him before they set off for New York, Tempest going back and forth for her teammates, laughing as she heard the jokes fall from smiling mouths - maybe you'll make Spidey fall for ya' too with that - and depositing an especially wide eyed Powerman - don't even joke about that man - on a rooftop finally.
It wasn't long before Fury's face lit up the communicators on their wrists, commenting on suspicious activity near them and the team set off, depositing their laughter for later. It doesn't take long to find the culprit of the suspicious activity, a shadow flitting about the belly of the city, breathing a cataclysmic storm with every sharp look that sends the lights in the street lamps bursting.
The New Yorkers run, a stampede of fear nestling into the ribcage of the city, and Powerman, the oldest SHIELD representative among them, bounces to the ground and brings the team with him. Before them, a girl with dark, thin hair that twists to her waist in an elegant braid, secured with a simple red band, stands like a soldier, as if a violin string was twisted through her spine. She wore a simple black jumpsuit that left her arms exposed and showing the array of long scratch marks that curled around her arms for all to see and Tempest flinched at the sight.
Connected to her front, a long black face mask came up to cover her mouth and stopped just below the tip of her pointed nose, showing cold brown eyes that narrowed on the four teenagers. Tempest shoulders the twinge of familiarity in her stomach at the glare, and lays it as the foundation for the city that cements her bones together. Venom nudges her, concern coating his posture and she shook herself free of the feeling, spearing a look towards the Chinese girl.
Powerman throws a hand out, two fingers twisted to fold in his palm and SG and Venom start to move, and Tempest moves in the opposite direction, subtly creating a circle around the girl that folds earthquakes into her hands like crumpled paper. He waits a moment, before straightening. "Listen, we don't wanna hurt you. So why don't you stop what you're doing and come back with us?"
"Loyalty lies in the veins as much as pride," she mutters in Chinese, a sickly sweet smile on her features and suddenly, her legs bend and springs lock themselves into the soles of her feet and she's lunging towards Powerman. Any reflection of humanity disappears off of the planes of her face and she's screaming, hurricanes pulling from behind her teeth as she punches wildly.
Powerman stumbles back, throwing an arm up to block the girl and shock embroiders itself across his skin on knots as he's sent back with another kick to the stomach. The Chinese girl is small and spindly, with bones that jut out of her skin like sharp knives and mountain ridges, but Powerman seems to be in physical pain when she kicks out at him.
She's blinded, only by Squirrel Girl lunging forwards, climbing the ridges in her structure to wrap her legs around the back of the girl's waist and bury her into the bristles of her brown tail. The girl screams as she loses her sense of sight, but grabs Squirrel Girl by the ankles that clutch her around the waist. Squirrel Girl freezes, like ice crawls across her veins and the action alone causes the girl to pull her off and throw her into Venom, who crashes to the ground like a brick.
They fall like dominoes, and Tempest freezes in fear as she clutches Powerman around the neck and he crumples like waste paper, falling against a limp Squirrel Girl immediately - a strange occurrence for the boy made of muscle. Tempest glides forwards and works to rouse the two heroes, who look to be no more than sleeping but when she feels something large fall against her, horror stitches itself across her shaking knees and shoulders as Venom's immobile features stare up at her.
He drops at her feet like a sack of potatoes and she looks up, shaking like a leaf at the animosity that curls iron claws around the girl's features. Her elegant braid has only one hair loose, her clothes are hardly rumpled or dirtied by the fight and she swaggers forwards, hips swinging with confidence and she finally speaks in English. "Wind Thief; it's a pleasure."
"Get away from them. Get away from me."
The iron that she'd fought to wring around her heart crumples and spits into the ground with her words, voice cracking on the splintered remains of her strength. The girl shakes her head, tucking the stray lock of hair away behind her pointed elf ear, her cheeks pulling wide.
"You shouldn't have run, Tempest," she murmurs, low enough for only them to hear and the laugh that strikes her across the face is harsh, "it won't be long until you can never walk, let alone run."
"Go away!" sudden power leaks across her metal-plated heart and it beats with revitalized energy, churning a tornado in her fingers and it explodes from her hands, a deathly circle of hot and cold air around her and the slumped heroes. It stretches high into the air and though the power saps her strength, she presses forwards. It throws up scattered remains of the street, splintered glass that swirls in a circle.
Wind-stretched fingers snap out at the Chinese girl from the tornadoes twisted body, and she smoothly jumps and swerves the attacks. She flies back from a particularly harsh punch of air that winds her, but when Tempest's energy is sapped and no-one has come to her aid, as if no-one had seen the cyclone of distress that had carried her screams into the sky, she slumps to the ground, breathing heavily on her knees.
In her daze, she turns to look up, only to have snake-like fingers press over her face and she unconsciously leans away from it, flinching harshly at the touch. Her eyesight disappears into a darkened palm and it leaks black at the sides, threatening the fall into subconsciousness, and she spits her fear into her hands as she screams when the girl speaks. "The psyche is only as strong as it's vessel," and she slumps against Powerman, tears trailing across her cheeks.
She doesn't open her eyes like normal. The world is black around her, dripping into nothingness when she rises and the hurricane girl feels pain stab across her temple, stretching like a darkened hand across her eyes and she stumbles, pressing into the ground.
Something gentle, like a flower bud of fury, rises and falls inside her as she tries to determine where she was before this strange place, why it seems slightly familiar but foreign to her own skin when the scenery flips and distorts into something new. It's stretched with grass and trees, a lake spread like blue paper across the far side of her vision and calmness pulls at her chest.
When she feels gentle and calm, something small barrels against her legs and sends her tripping backwards into the ground, but she remains standing to catch the foreign object. When she looks down, something small and slight is pressed to her knees, small, chubby arms wrapped tightly around her knees and her eyes widen when the small object lifts its head of closely shaven black hair. A gap-toothed smile greets her as the dark-skinned child stares up at her.
Just as she begins to piece the puzzle pieces together, the child disappears in a swipe of air and steals the scenery with him, leaving her in the dark for a moment once again. Her brow furrows, and her attention is then pulled into something else. A hallway, dark with a lamp light on at the end, surrounds her and the same child, tucked into pajamas, hangs around a doorway. His head pokes out from behind the doorway, peering curiously down the hall, as if he can see her ghostly form.
He's grown from the five second interaction she'd seen of him, taller and his cheekbones slope more defined, with tell-tale signs of a handsome face when he grows. But he's young, only ten, when she connects her eyes with him and the brown hues sparkle before they dip around the corner of the door again. The name that spills off of a woman's tongue and coats the hallway causes her to pause.
"Luke! Time for bed, baby!"
When the child - Luke, do I know that name? - disappears behind the doorway, the scenery once against disappears in the wide space, leaving her alone to clutch at straws. The shape of this world, that name, strings a chord tightly in her bird-bone chest; it hums to life in her ears, begging her to listen, but something deafens her against the song. The large space reminds her of something, but her mind wears thin as she's thrown into another movie scene.
The light bleeds forcefully into the hallway, and Luke scours the halls of the school, eyes downcast and shoulders hunched - and somehow, she knows, this is not ingrained into you - and she flinches when a loud crack of a punch fills her ears. Luke drops, slamming into the ground as a boy, larger than life, hangs over him, jeering slurs and nasty words into his ears and fury curls protectively in her fists.
But Iron Fist wouldn't be proud if you hurt him, her mind whispers discreetly, and she pauses. Wait, whose Iron Fist?
As Luke pulls himself up, the image distorts again and leaves no time for her to wonder as the world pulls her into another movie scene of a plane and the boy, grown older and larger in mass, though not by much, as he chatters to his parents. She can feel the gentle feeling that had rose in her suddenly turn violent, as the scenes of the boy's life had flickered by, and they reach their peak when the growl of a plane behind the one she holds onto permeates the air.
Panic bleeds toxic into the air, and the man - Walter, we need to get him out - steadies the pane though his hands shake and his eyes dart but he tosses a smile to his son. The woman - mom, what's going on? - drags her son behind a cargo plane and Tempest can feel her fists itch as violence that isn't her own bites into her shoulder blades, poisoning her nerves.
As a man, dressed like a scorpion flicks his tongue like it's venomous tail, Luke's mother presses a vial of blue liquid to his mouth, forcing the mixture into his throat and, with hesitation, violently pushes him out of the air craft and into the water below. The angle of the image shifts, as Luke's form flickers and fills out, creating the boy that she knew was wrapped in black and yellow, and he watches with a scream on his tongue as the plane explodes.
How do I know this? her mind hisses at her, spreading words across her skin that she begs to decipher, how she knows what it's like to be inside such an open space and why she shivers when she can feel the need to punch out lurch in her abdomen.
The scene flickers once more and it's only Luke and a blond-haired boy, their clothes dusted from battle and their sweat creates trails through the mud on their cheeks but their smiles are so wide, Tempest worries if their skin will blister. Their hands shake, formal against informal, and suddenly, the shorter blond boy is pulled into a powerful hug. She smiles, almost fondly, as if she knows who they are.
"Welcome to SHIELD, my friend."
The next few images show his interactions with his teammates as he meets them, until the movie ends on his smiling face, staring past her in a wide room, with floor-to-ceiling windows and jagged marks that run through the floor like open wounds. She turns, and her jaw slackens in shock.
The doors part open and suddenly, Tempest is staring at herself. Her eyes, doe-like in their innocence, are rounded in interest as she watches the room with eyes like a predator, her knees bending as she folds herself into a stance. Her face is gaunt, her cheeks hollow with hunger and her eyes sharp and slant as the years of survival creep upon her. Then, she's suddenly swept into Nova's chest, - wait, I know Nova - as he calls out to the watching eyes about her arrival and she's carted off to stand in front of Powerman and Iron Fist. Her past self stands beside her, and Tempest realizes with shocking clarity, she's held in the thread-thin wisps of Powerman's memory.
"Hey Tempest, I'm Powerman. You gotta remember me right?"
As his words crack, the environment around her - this is his head, this is where I was in my own head when I meditated with Iron Fist - shatters sharply, a large, jagged line baring it's teeth down the memory and she can feel the anger, the violence that had flared in her veins drip away when she feels the hands over her face again, although she knows they're not there.
"This isn't you, Tempest."
These hands though, they're soft and understanding, and the world cracks around them and her eyes open to the real world, to a place where hands rest over her eyes,when the black fades from her vision and Spiderman hangs over her, eyes-panels wide as his chest heaves with his breathing.
"This isn't you," she doesn't realize it immediately, but the words that sound soft and gentle in her ears are his and the hand over her eyes is his and Tempest feels safe as her hands, which had been curled into fists, slowly sink to her hips and her face, which had been curled into a nasty snarl, softens. "That's it, Temp. Come home to us."
The words he murmurs, so easy and strong, tangible and intangible resonate in her head, seem to soothe her and gently, the hurricane girl slumps forwards into Spiderman's waiting arms, which gather her up as she sinks into a dreamless sleep.
The world blurs into focus once again, and the blinding lights that flicker above her are marred by curious faces and worried eyes. She groans when she presses a hand to her head, a headache blooming rapidly and painfully behind he eyes and she vaguely feels water pressed to her hand.
She accepts it, swallowing tightly and wetting her lips. "O-Oh my god, did Rhino...punch me?" constrained laughter blooms around her, and Tempest finds a smile lighting her face when she see's the relieved features of her friends, masks off and faces exposed to the world. She vaguely notices the absent form of her own mask, but she doesn't worry any longer as Nick Fury slides into view and she can see the older forms of the parents she'd seen in the visions, and relief for this stranger of a girl shines on their faces. I'm home.
"Tempest, how're you feeling?"
"Like a truck hit me," she answers, rubbing a hand over her features and she can see out of the corner of her eyes, her other three teammates sliding up to listen, Powerman letting his mother smooth back the small buzz of hair and place a kiss to his forehead. His smile is so wide, it almost cracks with happiness. "What happened?"
"Oh, it was so cool, Temp," Nova glides up to her throwing his helmet off and it clatters on the edge of her bed as the green-eyed boy speaks over his superior, excitement flooding her features. He's been waiting to tell me this for a while. "You guys all switched powers, you had super-strength, SG bonded with the symbiote, Powerman was all crawling walls and swiping at Tiger and Venom had wind powers, though he kept flying into buildings so it wasn't that cool and - "
"Nova! That's enough," bites Fury, spearing a glance at the excited boy who shrinks back, having forgot his place in excitement and settled back in his spot, ducking a slap from Rhino. Fury sighs, and looks over the four confused teens. "Nova's correct, you switched powers and it was because of this girl."
At the foot of the bed, around the metal dome that covers their feet, it throws up a projection of a faraway image of the Chinese girl, and Tempest flinches violently at the animosity on her face, of the violence that pools in the bed of her fingernails. "We're calling her Psyche; she has mind-control powers that delved you into your teammate's minds and switched powers, which coincided with what she wanted you to do, causing you to attack your teammates. Unfortunately, she got away but we'll find her. Thankfully, Spiderman was able to bring you all out of your new state of being."
Spiderman, ever modest, shrugs next to Dagger. "It's what I do."
Medical checks are performed as they sink in the information, and Squirrel Girl at Tempest's left pipes up when her vitals are being checked. "So...who was in whose head?"
"I was in Powerman's," says Tempest, flicking a gaze to the dark-haired teen two beds to her right whose eyes widen, but nonetheless, answers her silent question.
"I was in SG's."
"I was in Venom's," she concludes, and they spear a glance to Venom, at Tempest's right and the boy hesitates, the symbiote having already peeled away to reveal his features which harden. Tempest feels her own shoulders tighten when, in one swift move, the blond-haired boy throws his legs out of the bed, eyes downcast and strides towards her.
She's plunged into a broad chest, large arms wrapping around her protectively and she can see the confused faces behind her, and how subconsciously Nova dips forwards to stop her from being touched. She flinches away at first but he folds her back into his chest, Flash pressing his mouth into the crown of her hair. Wide-eyed, the dark-haired girl pats his arm, a silent way of saying 'let go'.
He pulls back, still keeping his hands on her shoulders and holding her at arm's length, lowering himself to be eye-level with her and with softness that's not his own shudders over his words, as if the other teenagers aren't in the room. "You need to tell someone, Tempest."
Then, as if he hadn't crossed a boundary that had been set in place for years, that he hadn't torn down a wall with just the touch of his fingers, he sits back down on his designated bed, arms crossed and eyes averted, cheeks heating in slight embarrassment, but otherwise, silent. Tempest shakes her head, humming prayers for the blond under her breath after what he may have seen.
At the edge of the group, Nova swings his arms, huffing a breath. "So...who wants to go to the cinema after this?"
