Hope you guys enjoy this chapter, quite a bit happens in this chapter and we finally learn the extent of Tempest's backstory and what it really entails. There's also some angst and I believe this is the second or third to last chapter of 'Volatile,' so I'm pretty antsy. Also, as a side note, this chapter in 6,234 words alone, oh my god.

I've decided there is going to be an impromptu sequel - I'll call it 'Caim' and you can search what that's called on the internet. I won't post the details until the final chapter. Enjoy guys!

( Part Two )

Chapter Twenty-One

I'm not afraid of storms,

for I'm learning how to sail my ship.

- Louisa May Alcott

Storms that churn in her chest die down as her cheek splinters with hot heat, blooming down her throat and she sits, meeting fire-breathing eyes that split her in half. Sitting back on her hands, her mouth slots closed, ignoring the tears that tug their way down her face.

A pleasured, cracked smile pockets deception in the corners like wildflowers in spring, and he nods a head of reddened locks. "Good girl, now then - we won't go on with the pleasantries or what needs to be done, but what's going to happen is you're going to listen, and I am going to talk, alright, Miss Harlow?"

Recognition flutters across her throat like a moth in a cage, and she chokes on her lungs in shock, because it's something so intimate, yet she doesn't know why. Her head pulls up, a doe caught in headlights as Queen laughs around his words.

"W-What?"

"Oh my, this is truly glorious."

"What did you say?"

"You really don't know," he answers, and shuffles forwards and even though he's far away, even though he's on the other side of the raised circle platform, she skitters back, as far as he chains will allow - just like always. His hands play with the ring on his finger, twirling it and twiddling it until he pauses, feral teeth on show. "The girl, you were created from. I know you remember now, but you don't remember all of it. Do you want too?"

Anything for a name, she wants to whisper, to spit out in fury and to scream from the bottom of her soul but she's been told to be quiet, and Tempest is known for silent winds pulling her veins into knots. So she keeps her throat closed around dandelion words, and Queen merely shrugs, swinging on the wheelchair towards the cacophony of monitors that stretch into the metallic sky.

"You know you're not like the others - you aren't really human, if we're getting into technicalities," his fingers prod and dance across keyboards, the faint clacking setting her teeth on edge and her fingers diving into the folds of her uniform - the uniform he made her wear. So her hands pull away and try to rest anywhere other than what's deemed his, but then again, these hands are his too. "But what happened, is that she came to us as a sick little girl. She died at age eight because of miscalculations and the effect of her powers on her nervous system but, we were able to preserve her consciousness."

As he twists past, he presses two fingers to his temple, but all Tempest can see is the barrel of a gun against bloodied skin and he turns back to another monitor. "By preserving her consciousness, we gained her memories, her powers and her DNA. We created a clone, organic in most forms but in other parts of you, there's extraterrestrial coding that made you more...adept, at handling the procedure than the others. When she would've been twelve, the lab got flooded by agents and you basically, woke up and escaped. But, in all legalities and DNA results, you will be seen as Bonnie Harlow, a dead eight year old girl from Australia."

Bonnie.

Bonnie. Clandestine fingers curled like vines across her throat, over her lungs in a deafening embrace that clutched all life in fragile complexities. Something snapped like twigs in the dirt of her hips, in the seeds in her stomach and a forest, sprouted from sudden shock and relief, overwhelming in all words, grew until she could feel canopy leaves brush against the back of her teeth.

But the flowers wilted and the trees turned to autumn bare when she realized she was never Bonnie Harlow. The Australian girl, no matter how much of her resided in the folds of Tempest's skin, she was every bit someone else's child, someone else's friend - Tempest thought she was only given her powers back, not a child's entire being. Tempest and Bonnie weren't alike - she knows, because the memories she already had show Bonnie to be welcoming, open and brave, whilst Tempest wilted in the gaze of others and hid when scared. Bonnie was a child in the sun and Tempest was a teenager with a broken cobblestone trail of homeless shelters and borrowed lives behind her. Bonnie, I'm so sorry.

So she accepted tempest, tempest, tempest into her skin, accepted that the wind was hers and that Bonnie, no matter how much she was built from her, was never that little girl but she'd do right by her memory and hopefully, her eight year old self would be proud of her. She bit her tongue against her anger, and stared at Queen as he pulled up a file.

Staring back at her, was the same file she'd seen in the dream - her memory - in Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. It showed her in early developments, her growth until she reached 'prime examination,' with everything Bonnie held dear to her tucked into Tempest's design. But no more records were found by the time Bonnie would have turned twelve, and Queen turned back to her.

"You're the most astounding of the Ultimatum Project, since you took so well to the experiments, so here's what we're going to do," she doesn't bother trying to call the wind to her chest, to throw it out in a defense attack and blind his lungs in long strokes - the cuffs around her hands won't allow her too anyways, "We're going to leave SHIELD and transport you to a base and test on you, until we crack you open and shed you down to the very last atom, where we'll find out what really makes you so good at controlling your powers."

She doesn't fight when his fingers clutch her around the chin again, and force her to stare at him. An almost-ball of worry forms between his brows when he taps her cheek, but he only chuckles when she flinches back from the touch; sure she's still in the land of the living, and although her heart beats, she's a universe away.

"Seems I may have broken you a little bit. That's a good way to start cracking you open - form some fissures first."

"Where are they?"

He pauses at her gaze when he moves to wheel away, to leave her on her knees with this new information, and he quirks a smile. "Now I see how he knew you were like him, how stubborn you are," he chews on the edges of a bellowed laugh, spearing his eyes towards her, watching as her eyes round as even more information is placed in her lap, "Coulson always did have an eye for things."

"W-What?"

With the power he holds over her like a pendulum, and although he wheels away, he continues. "After the Captain gained his super soldier serum abilities, the government had to keep trying. Over and over again, and though it's true that it never worked again, they got some things right," he tucks away her expression, her sudden realization as she grips the ends of her hair, especially when he presses a button and throws up a picture of an electrified cage, with the passed out bodies of her friends in there, "The vastly delayed aging, the amazing reflexes and the magnification of moral fiber. Coulson's had those vintage Captain America cards since he was a little boy, in 1943. He was just like you, created by someone else's shadow."

But her eyes are processing Queen, and although she knows this information is important, that Coulson was just like her and he knew, he knew she was built from someone else, she can only stare at the screen. The cage hangs on a chain, and though it's wide and open enough for there to be a circle of space in the middle, the rest of her team has clumped together, slumped and unconscious from fights long lost. She can see the cuts and the bruises, and the tell-tale hum of electricity across the bars that cut them from the rest of the world.

So instead of falling prey to the need for power in Queen's voice, of even noticing that there was someone else like her that was on her side, she stands and lets fire bleed onto her tongue again, even though her cheek burns red and exhaustion hums sleepily through her chest. "Leave them alone! They have nothing to do with this!"

"Go to sleep and we'll wake you up when it's time to go home, Tempest."

"LEAVE THEM ALONE!"

And the door fell shut.

When the world blurs into focus, and Tempest can feel her mother's hands - Bonnie's, never mine - slipping away from her face to be replaced by dried tears but when hands shake her shoulders, she opens them.

Lying on her side, with her knees tucked up like a child in her chest, she just peers past them to catch a glimpse of blue eyes under a mess of blond hair. Scratches mark his face, but the savage warrior grins when she gasps and throws her arms around him, cracking just a little bit around the edges before pulling back, swiping tears from her own eyes. "K-Ka-zar. You're okay."

"Of course I am, sister. Our enemies cannot hold me for long; besides, I had my brother, Zabu," he remarks, and Zabu takes it as his cue to fold his large head between Tempest's arms like a child and she takes delight in pressing her face to his fur. Ka-zar laughs, patting the mane of gold that threads under her arms.

"H-How did you get out?"

"With the help of the iron bug and what he calls, his 'sonic blasters,'" and when Ka-zar gaze turns skywards just above her head, towards the door and a smile pulls at his mouth calmly, Tempest pulls out of her furry cocoon and finds her mouth stretching wide when Iron Spider and Squirrel girl bound through the doors first, the furry-tailed hero dropping unceremoniously against Tempest, wrapping her up tightly.

Behind her, Tempest can see the entire group of teenaged heroes filtering in quickly, and someone locks the door but she heeds no mind as the short-haired brunette tugs her closer, shoulders shaking with something that wasn't quite tears but wasn't quite fear, something pressed between. She collected her closer, tossing her a soft smile when she pulled back, sniffling.

"SG, shuffle a bit, would you?" comments a voice, and as she does so, Powerman drops down to his knees and holds out his hands, which Tempest deposits her wrists into like china resides dormant in her skin, something else she lost in the escape. He folds his hands around the cuffs, before pulling them apart like ripped paper, shattering the broken metal on the floor like wrapping paper. Her wrists are rubbed raw and the blood returns slowly back to her hands but she still throws her arms around him, letting the boy give her some of his insurmountable strength for a while.

"O-Oh God, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry for getting you into this, I -"

"Stop saying sorry and start getting up," comments Venom, hooking an arm around her upper arm and tugging her up, albeit slightly harshly but then again, she can't blame him - he's been stuck in a cage for over sixteen hours.

"But, the videos..."

"Basic re-wiring and breaking down some firewalls to get the video on repeat," chuckles Iron Spider, flashing his index finger which sparks with life and she's glad she can hear the smile in his voice. "Child's play, really. Now we have the element of surprise."

"Which we really should be using, because I need to go to the spider potty," jokes Spiderman, hopping from foot to foot, and she can taste the laughter that blooms on her tongue. Spiderman pauses when the silence stretches like a rubber band and he sighs, "You guys are totally heartless, that was funny."

For his sake, Tiger laughed and was spared a look from the group before something tugged them outside, something unanimous and gentle that pulled and said time to go. The door open silently, like a closet door hiding a child rather than the graceless thrown caress of an oven door. They followed the example, footsteps sliding soundlessly on the ground as if they walked on carpet from memories long-passed, long dead in the hollows of their spines.

Tucked between Cloak and Ka-Zar, Tempest pauses for a fraction of a second, feeling the marrow in her bones stir fitfully like a hurricane and she realizes, faintly, the air is hers to control again. But it's whipped from her lungs like a magic trick, when something thick and stretchy winds around her stomach, and she's thrown to the wall, along with Triton who was a few feet away from her.

The heroes turn with a swiftness quicker than their senses, and stumble upon a girl, no more than eleven, standing with an air of confidence that shouldn't belong to an eleven year old. Her mocha skin is tucked and snipped behind a plethora of silver armor, dressed like a knife and bred to be one too.

The only fabric that covers her skin, other than the finger-less gloves she wears, is a long hijabi that flows down the back of her clothes like a braid, but it does nothing to distract from the six black, tentacle like creatures that protrude from between her shoulder blades, the middle of her spine and the sides of her ribs. They look similar to Venom's, and he splutters around his words when he see's them.

They flex, an extension of herself, as she hangs a hip like a piece of string to a cat, inviting and teasing. She paused in time as Tempest and Triton pull themselves up, and she grins, fanged teeth on show. "I would've thought I'd have gotten hit for that, considering how much you all seem to care about each other."

Something embedded in the blown contents of her stomach makes Tempest crinkle slightly at the sudden trill of sorrow that pangs across the girl's words, dizzy and quick like a bullet and it's gone as quick as it came, when Nova's flame lights up brighter. "If you weren't a kid, then yeah, heck yeah you would, so you're probably gonna wanna disappear when we get really mad, princess. You don't mess with family."

Faintly, selfishness creeps across the girl's shoulder's and venom sits against her teeth, suckling for attention. "Contrary to popular belief, family isn't who you choose - it's what you're born into." As if a bell has been rung, the black tentacles from her shoulders shoot forwards, grasping Tiger and Venom by the ankles and spinning them in the wide hallway, enough to throw alarms into screeching terror and for windows to slam shut, metal folding over them like a child in fear.

"No more element of surprise then," comments iron Spider, before plunging the iron legs into the walls like daggers, scaling up them much like his namesake and throwing sonic blasts towards the Indian girl, who dodges them easily in the expanse of the wide hallways. But she seems overwhelmed, even though her body falls and leaps like a feather in the wind, even though she's graceful and pliant as she moves and attacks, cursing in her native tongue when she's hit and swallowing it almost immediately after, as if it never hurt. But it's a cover, and Tempest knows covers.

She throws the girl back with a thick hurricane that drops her towards the ground when she's distracted, and Spiderman webs the tentacled-girl to the floor, but she spins free with razored kicks and snaps a tentacle towards Tempest. She dodges carefully, and lands beside Dagger, as the girl warms her trademark weapon to life in her shaking hands, calming from the fear that had slipped like ice into her veins.

Iron Fist joins them, and peers over his shoulder as Tempest searches for an opening. "Dagger, calm yourself and cleanse the demons that rattle your bones. These creatures, these people, do not define you. Your fear can be conquered, that is the true measure of strength."

"You're going to be okay, Cloak's going to be okay - we're gonna get out of this and -" halfway through her words, the air is pulled from Tempest's chest again, and she's curling her fingers towards her throat, where a thick black arm curls harshly across her throat, closing her wind-pipe and she shudders in breathes like a ship splintering at the hull. Her eyes turn towards Dagger, whose building herself up one by one between her fingers, daggered teeth folding into place. "Dags, any...time now."

"I-I got it, I got it!" Dagger pauses before her fingers throw wide, four daggers in one hand and two in the other. She aims tightly and precise, taught well by the years she's been given, and a dagger each embeds in to the slithering body of the black, inked tentacles and one in particular slots through the writing body of the one that curls around Tempest's throat and it blows itself apart in a smattering of light. The girl hisses and screeches, retracting the tentacles closer to her body like a broken arm.

"Geez, what is it with bad guys and their tentacles?" jokes Spiderman, hanging upside down on the ceiling, unbeknownst to the lingering light.

The light that Dagger's weapon had given off had stayed, and had stuck itself to Tempest like glue, yet it enveloped her, warm and soft like a hug. When the light parted and shimmered away to nothing, Tempest blinked harshly, trying to push some of the light from her eyes, before a sudden breeze whipped at her from where the furious girl threw a tentacle, at her bare arms, and she shivered. But her arms hadn't been bare before.

She paused in her place, looking downwards, to find her clothes had been drastically altered, from the open shouldered sleeves to having no sleeves at all. The baggy trousers were swapped for navy blue, tight trousers with an array of pouches on belts running over her left thigh to her knee. Her shirt was now a thick leather, a slightly lighter shade of blue, that had a black design that ran across her torso, like the physical sight of the Doppler effect repeated. Her mask felt heavier around her eyes, and she realized it covered more of her face other than just around her eyes, reaching to the curve of her nose to high into her hair line.

"Dagger! What did you do? How did you do that?"

Dagger shrugged her shoulders at Powerman, dodging a blackened arm. "I dunno, it's a gift!"

Tempest flew back from a punch from a dark tentacle, and smiled around the blood that flowed from her mouth. "Well, I might as well use it," she answered, before her feet propelled her into the air, hovering above the girl and slicing downwards, fingers sharp and poised as a slice of wind cuts through the metal, followed by a thick nova blast from over her shoulder and Iron Fist punching deep into the clockwork of the metallic giant that wobbled under their feet.

The girl dodged, quick and easy and fluid like water, with a snakeskin grin on her mouth, and when she lifted an arm to dart a tentacle outwards, she paused. She snapped around the edges, shattering across her skin and slowly, like time has fell back around them, the black tentacles sag and retreat like frightened animals. She wobbles on her feet and slumps to the ground as the tentacles, that had been so alive and violent moments ago, drip back into her, only making small dark splotches on her skin, like scars.

Behind her, breathing heavily, was a familiar girl with hair the colour of pure milk, and eyes wider than dinner plates as she heaved her way out of her fear with each hurried gasp of air. The group however, remained poised and alert, waiting for any signs of attack. But she never moved, she only glanced around as she slowly, painfully slow, pulled herself from her memories and Tempest could only wonder, as Magenta stared up at her with fear in her eyes, if that was how she'd looked for months, for years. "I'm a friend."

"The heck you are," bites Nova, filtering ragged strength between his shaking hands as he lands on the ground, fists folding around it as if to keep it tight in his possession, as if he might lose it. The nova helmet eye panels flash a lightning blue, readying for attack, as if the girl before him had thrown out a fist wrapped in malice. "I don't trust anyone here, especially you - you're the girl that threatened to kill Tempest!"

"No, I wouldn't kill her, then or now," rattles off Magenta, robotic arms moving to place her hands in surrender, but all it seems to be is a red flag instead of white to the rage that beats a war drum for a heart in Nova's chest.

"Don't you dare lie to me," he rasps, knuckles turning white, and Spiderman drops beside him, stealthy and silent for once as he readies himself beside the Hispanic boy, but both pause when Tempest pushes between them, putting up her hands in the same gesture as Magenta - mirror images on opposite sides. Their shoulders relax, though she can see the sharp downturn of Nova's mouth when he see's her.

"She is a friend, I promise."

"Yes, but we do not sit down quietly in stranger presences," comments Iron Fist, standing beside his teammates and places a calming hand on Tempest's shoulder, and it relaxes under the familiar touch. His head lifts from her and with the air of a prince in his lungs, he gazes at the white-haired girl, nodding at her. "May I ask...Magenta, why you find yourself in the predicament of helping us?"

"Guys, we have to hurry," rasps Amadeus, sitting on his knees as he welds a particular piece of metal back into his design, recovering from a sharp kick to the abdomen that had ricocheted through his armor. The alarms still blared and if she listened, with everything inside of her, Tempest could hear the footsteps approaching. But Iron Fist lifted a hand to silence the metal-riddled boy, who obeyed instantly.

Iron Fist turns back to the dark-skinned girl, and as if on instinct, she pulls the goggles off her face and the bandanna from around her hairline, laying it on the floor at her feet, as an offering - as a sacrifice from the only life she's known. A clawed in eye blinks once, twice, until she speaks. "I-I...If I'm honest, I just...I don't want this, I n-never wanted any of this," fissures explode on her skin, worlds collide in her throat and the ashes of the fires that sprout inside her flare in her eyes. "Tempest s-said, she said that she could help. Please, I'm begging you. I don't want to be someone's t-toy. I want to live."

There's no beat of silence as the words sink in, there's no sudden grasp of palms to bring her into a desperate hug, but instead, White Tiger struts past with Triton at her side and pats the shorter girl on the shoulder. Spiderman feels a swell of pride in his gut like a balloon, when he hears the smile in his girlfriend's voice. "Well, c'mon then sis, we should be getting home."

Triton nods, and gestures an arm out as the alarms stop, due to Amadeus' handiwork, "lead the way, little ink-hand."

Magenta visibly inflates and a relieved smile crosses her mouth when Tempest squeezes her hand and with no warnings, she barrels down the hallway with determination set in her battered heart and they follow after her, knocking guards out of the way and even some more children like Tempest and Magenta.

Some snickers erupt from within the group, even in the limited breathing space of this sudden mission, when Amadeus groans as the alarms erupt again, set off by some guided soldier. Over the steady thrum of the alarm, a curious Ka-zar yelled out, "Magenta, where is the director and his colleagues? We have not seen them in our journey."

"They're the ones that actually tripped the alarm, not you, I was actually sent to go with the beta team," she answers back, pausing at an intersection, her eyes slotting closed and her one good eye snapped open, turning to the opposite tunnel than to the one she pointed at, "reds that way, follow me. They're throwing everything they've got at the tower to topple it."

"But we're inside!" shrieks Squirrel Girl, bouncing over a ridge in the ceiling as she skitters through.

"They don't know that, they think you've already been transported in the twelve hours you've been here!" Magenta turns another corner, to a wide hallway that spreads open like welcome arms, and she pauses, before shuffling forwards, blowing out the white strands that fall into her eyes. "There's no reds in this room, and there," she points upwards to where the ceiling rounds downwards into a slope to the split in the hallway, "is our way out. Can any of you punch a hole through?"

"Can and will," grins Nova, the familiar cockiness flaring up around him and he shoots forwards, like the rocket he was born into, towards the soon-to-be-hole, it dents and cracks, but nonetheless, stays completely whole - but then again, they are trying to break out of SHIELD.

Suddenly, a loud yell fills the room and a yellow and green blur crashes into the metal wall, and it ricochets apart, edges curling away from each other like scorched wallpaper, but other layers reside inside, enforced and thick. Iron Fist drops to the ground again, and dodges a piece of falling metal, jogging back to the group for Powerman to throw him again. One by one, each hero tries to battle their way through the onslaught of metal, and when the light peels onto the ground around them, and they can hear the guns and bombs throwing dirt up, they've never felt more free.

"Man, those pew-pew guns never get old."

"Just start climbing, web-head."

"I crawl, you climb. You."

They're climbing out of the newly ripped open passageway when Magenta suddenly drops to her knees, and panic splits his teeth across Tempest's heart as the electricity that had been sleeping under her skin, their skin, when the collars activation became physical, starts jumping and sizzling across her skin in electric blue smiles. She convulses on her side, eyes wide open and scared beyond anything as her fingers claw desperately at the collar, and the brunette can feel the infection of her powers reach out, but they only lick at her heels when she crumbles.

Tempest chokes on a scream as she gathers the girl up into her arms, and Squirrel Girl, Nova, Cloak and Venom curl around her as she cradles the girl, whose knocked out from the sharp voltages that had rattled her clean of any consciousness. So, Tempest isn't surprised when she peers up, to find Queen absolutely drenched in blood, holding the remote.

When the New Warriors move to dart forwards, to let fury fly from their fists, he waggles the remote and shrugs off the jacket that hung around his broken shoulders, to reveal layers of plastic bombs. "Now now kids, listen to your elders. I'll kill her if you lay one hand on me."

"Emphasis on elder - what do you want?"

She tries not to flinch at the harsh tone that bites and claws at Nova's usually soft voice - well, soft for her - like a rabid animal, scratching for attention. Queen narrows his eyes at the rocket incarnate, and smirks around the split in his lip, bleeding enough that it decorates his teeth pink - as if he's just had a meal to last him for years.

He angles the remote towards the brunette, who shrugs Magenta's arm around her shoulders, and smiles. "I want her."

Tempest stills, and the world blurs out of focus - Nova's angered yelling turns to white noise, Squirrel Girl's sudden intake of breath goes plastic in her ears and her heart drums harshly against her shaking ribs, against her entire skeletal structure, and it's the only thing keeping her rooted other than the arm that needs her around her shoulders. An entire lifetime flashes before her eyes, something she'd rather not reminisce, and she can feel the fear crawl up her throat like an old friend, whispering for comfort.

She wants too, she wants to hide so badly in plain sight, just like always. But Magenta needs her, and the doorway is open and inviting and so she shrugs the girl off of her shoulders towards Agent Venom, towards Flash, who collects the girl in his arms gently. Slowly, brokenly, Tempest peers up at him as Cloak grasps at Nova's arm to pull him back off the hooked edge he's dangling over in his anger. "Flash, get her out of here and get that collar off as soon as you can. This is ending now."

"Wait, what?"

She can sense the slow build of realization in his voice as he jostles Magenta for purchase, and she smiles almost sadly, almost lost in the darkness she used to call home. "Get home, and stay safe."

"What!?" Nova's voice is shrill and loud, but she can feel the fear blast her like a tidal wave, but she knows she's no longer talking to the hero when Sam's hands are on her arms, when Sam starts gripping her tightly like she's about to be lost at sea, swept out by the tidal wave. There's something nostalgic in the quiver of his shoulders, in the shake of his vocal chords that reminds her of a child scared of the dark, of losing something he can't find again, and she lets him hold on just a little tighter when he needs it. "We...we are not leaving you."

"Sparky -"

"Don't you dare ask that of us, of me," his voice cracks like glass in his throat, and all she can think is Sam, please don't cry for a ghost. But Sam is crying and Tempest is still just a ghost of a girl, and it's not making it better when the fear of losing something else, just like his dad, flares up for something that shouldn't even exist. "I'm not leaving you here to die."

"Sam, this is your home, our home. And he took it, in less than an hour. He broke everything - me, you, the team. That's not fair," she whispers, and she brushes some dirt off of his chest and finally, finally, see's him. See's the bruises that he fought so hard for, see's the child curled like a ball in the expanse of his lungs and can see the heart fluttering in fear behind the ribcage. She blinks around the sudden adoration that explodes like captured fireflies in her stomach and she doesn't know what to call it when her heart starts breaking even more when she grabs his hand, dirt mixing with blood on their palms. "I'm not dying, I'm just going away for a little while. I'll be home soon, but first, I've gotta defend it, and by myself. This is my fight, not yours."

"Tempest, please."

"Go," she murmurs, and Venom is the first to stumble back, perpetual silence crossing his vocal chords in an 'X' and Squirrel Girl falls behind when he webs to the door and shoots out of the lip of the battered Triskellion. Cloak drips away into the shadows afterwards, and Sam is still clinging, like a child to a toy to her fingers, the barest touch. "Sam, go, please."

"No."

"Sam, I'm doing this for you," it's sudden when she rips her hand from his and throws it out and for the first time - she means for the wind to smack Sam hard enough in the chest that he's flung, that's he's thrown like an unwanted piece of wrapping paper out of the screaming mouth of the Triskellion. It's not what she wanted to say, but it ricochets all the same like the volatile power that rests on her tongue.

Behind her, she hears him laugh. "Good girl."

Outside, when Nova recovers from the sudden attack, and when he's turning in mid-air to battle back in beside her, he's stopped by a powerful wind, a rushing tundra that shrouds the Triskellion from the head, to where the opening had exploded like a sore wound. He blinks in fear and his heart hammers like a jackhammer on his fury, and with sudden power, throws everything inside him towards the tundra that splits him from Tempest.

He punches and kicks and screams until suddenly, something else propels him back, something that isn't wind and it's hot and heavy and it creates burn marks in his costume but he couldn't care less, because he can hear the one sound that grates his heart to pieces.

The Triskellion slips, with the wretched sound of metal against metal and wires breaking and windows crashing as it topples in slow motion, away from him and downwards. He doesn't know if he yells or screams or stays silent over the sound of retreating and cheering from the SHIELD agents, until they notice the falling tower that reminds him of an apocalyptic day years ago. And he's paused in mid-air, like a slip of wind or a plane ready to join and he glides under, lifting a tower with two hands and terrified heart.

But it's not enough and he's slipping when something grabs him, something thick and web-induced and pulls him from under the potential wreckage, and his heart crashes when he hears the tower hit the water of the harbor and he hits solid ground, unlike the brunette still trapped in metal walls.

Vaguely, somewhere in the thrum and hum that sits in his ears, he can hear webhead berating him and Dagger pressing a motherly hand to his cheek as she tries to knock Spiderman from his lecturing perch, chewing on her lip. Fury approaches them, with a doctor beside him and Coulson on the other side.

"...I mean, this is absolutely ridiculous and where is Tempest? She'll knock some sense into the buckethead!"

Sudden deserved fury flashes across Nova's features, and he stands throwing a punch at Spiderman in anger as he floats in mid-air, dangerous and lethal. "She was in there! She stayed behind to save us, to give us a chance and I was trying to keep the damn building up so she could get out, so she could somehow save her-freaking-self! You fucking idiot!"

Spiderman pauses with the sudden realization and the group bristles and as if put on cue, water explodes in a volcanic eruption, as well as dust and ash and smoke from a fire below the water, where the Triskellion had fallen and Nova's erratic heart pauses, stops beating as he watches the tower splinter into pieces, along with a wind-riddled brunette.

Sam doesn't know when he stops screaming and begins searching.