Chapter 22

Salem sat in the New York Sanctum, legs crossed on the floor as she took deep breaths in and out as she tried to meditate.

Doctor Strange was across from her, sitting there just as still as she was as they meditated together.

"Take one last deep breath in, and let go…" He said, letting both of their consciousness leave this universe and go into another.

)()()(

The Dark Dimension was beautiful in all of its dark and dangerous glory.

It was less a physical place that Salem could feel, and more of a feeling that seeped into her very being and her inner self very happy.

She felt like she was home.

It was a beautiful scene. Hardly any proper matter yet there were planets and areas of land that could be touched and sensed. It was nothing like her universe, feeling the hunger and thirst for power under her skin disappear and be replaced by something much more delicious.

This.

This was the first time in her life, even before she found out about her powers, that she truly felt sated and ultimately whole.

There was nothing like it.

"Are you liking the power, child?" A trembling deep voice said, making her turn to the now appearing head.

"You're Dormammu," She said.

"Yes,"

She noticed the other person she had been with was missing, "Where's Doctor Strange?"

"He's here," Dormammu said, looking around randomly. "Somewhere…"

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "He was my guide here, I kinda need him to help me leave here too."

"Why so soon?"

"Because this place is kinda…" She looked around, sighing in longing as she caught sight of several different things. "I'll admit it's a little too tempting to stay here."

"The power, you mean," He seemed to grin in a knowing way, "The way you don't crave for anything because you're surrounded by power and energy and chaos,"

"Yes, that," Realising she didn't have to do the strange standing floating thing, she crossed her legs and sat in the air like she would on the floor. "So… I'm kinda surprised you're speaking to me. I'm not as important as I'd like to think. It's kinda like meeting the President or the Queen and have them want to speak to me."

"Why would you think you were not important?"

"Aren't there others like me? Other Darklings that have tried to contact you when they found out what they are?"

"Child, there are very few Darklings that are not part of my domain," He said, his eyes going around as other shadowy figures started to appear. None looked Human or at all humanoid, only shadows of Magic morphing and changing as it surrounded her and made her feel at home.

"For you to not be here, something happened," He continued, "You were never supposed to be born, but the embodiment of Dark Matter Energy rarely listens to laws."

"Rude," She snorted, waving a hand for him to continue.

"You should not exist. To be a Darkling born with Human blood, it means to have its vessel tainted and gifts no longer attainable. Magic lays dormant until death to the vessel and then you would come back to me at your full power," He paused. "It seems you refuse to listen to the rules."

"Starks rarely listen," She grinned. "Okay, so do I have a mother or what? Or is my other parent just, like, energy which decided to take my father from whatever universe and create me and send me to this one?"

"Perhaps. I use born and birth as a way for you to use your Human understanding to know what I mean," He said. "You were never born. You were never given birth to. You have no mother. Dark Matter Magic took your father whenever he died in whichever universe he was from and used his DNA as a base to create you."

She curled her knees closer to her chest as she floated, arms curling around her legs a little as she listened and understood. "There is no conception, only creation. What am I if I'm not Human and not a Darkling?"

"There are no Darklings, plural. There is only Darkling, the embodiment of Dark Matter Magic in Human form," Dormammu stated clearly. "There is no A or The in your title. There is only Darkling and that is what you are. You are Darkling. You are Dark Matter personified."

"Then why am I so weak?"

"Your vessel is damaged,"

"How? I'm fine, no injuries, no harm, no pain."

"Your mind limits you," He said looking up to a fog that appeared to the side, the fog changing colour to show off scenes from her universe.

She moved as if she would stand up, coming closer to the fog as she glared at it. "I don't want to see it."

"You refusing to acknowledge what happened to you, and what happened before, has caused a mental block."

"Fuck off! There's no mental block. Just because I refuse to relive what I've gone through doesn't mean there's a block."

"What about before HYDRA?"

"What do you mean?"

"Before HYDRA, your father caused undue trauma onto you unknowingly,"

"What the fuck do you mean 'undue trauma'?" She used quote marks. "You're telling me my dad traumatized me? No shit Sherlock! I've been traumatised since the day he became Iron Man, coming back home to find out that my father was missing for three months and then he comes back with a metal thing in his chest. So yes, I'm traumatized but that doesn't mean anything."

"It does when it stops you from accessing your abilities," Dormammu narrowed his eyes, his lips turning up smugly. "Who do you think sent Duke to you? Familiar to a Human? No God would tie themselves to a mere mortal. Duke is no mere snake, you will find that out in coming times. It seems your time in my world has come to an end."

"Wait! What do you mea—"

"Goodbye, Darkling,"

)()()(

"ASSHOLE!"

Both she and Doctor Strange came back to themselves, getting back into their heads and bodies with ease before Salem stood up and started to pace the length of the room.

"Did you call Dormammu an asshole?" Doctor Strange asked.

"Maybe."

"True, he can be," He laughed. "Right, you're going to be late for your training session at the compound. I'll pop you through a portal and you'll be there."

"I hate your portals," She said plainly, her face going blank. "As convenient as they are, I still don't like the way they mess with my Magic."

"Perhaps your Magic and mine do not agree,"

"Yeah, maybe," She frowned as he opened up a mortal. She saluted before going through.

)()()(

"GET BACK HERE, DELINQUENT!" Bucky screamed as he chased Salem through the halls of the Avenger compound.

"Out the way, people!" She laughed, dodging everyone easily as she ran.

People seemed to quickly just step out of the way and go straight back to work since they were used to someone running through the halls.

"Give me my arm back!"

She cackled as the door to the training room opened on its own right before she ran into the room. "Not a chance, Buckaroo!"

Instead of simply running into the room, she started to walk up the walls. Gravity didn't matter to her and physics didn't apply as she ran up them until she was on the ceiling and was standing upside down on it.

She sat down cross-legged, holding the metal arm at arm's length as it moved around and tried to grab her. She laughed at it, finding that the disembodied arm reminded her of the disembodied hand from the Addams Family.

"Stop walking on the ceiling!" Bucky yelled at her. "I can't reach you and you're gonna get tread marks all over the walls. Stevie Wonder is gonna have my ass for it if you leave lines."

"Better yours than mine," She dropped the arm before catching again, doing it to tease Bucky as she looked up her perspective to see him on the floor. "I did a good job, didn't I?"

"Yeah, and I'd like it back, chickadee,"

She stopped smiling. "Don't call me that."

"Then give me my hand back or I'm gonna strangle you,"

"How? You can't reach me," She grinned like a madwoman. "Want it, catch it."

She dropped the arm, careful to make sure he would be able to get it before it fell on the ground. Launching herself from the ceiling, she flipped until she was the right way up before landing with bent knees.

She started backing away as she saw the look in Bucky's eyes, taking steps slowly.

"If you're gonna grab her, better do it now," Natasha grinned as she came into the training room with a duffle bag over her shoulders.

"Nat!" Salem smiled, sidestepping Bucky before running up to the Widow with a similar grin.

They hugged.

"You've got white hair like me," Salem grinned.

"Well, mine is just bleached," Natasha tilted her head, letting the bleach blonde hair move. "I heard about Vulture. Nice work. You're one of us now."

"Well, I've been taken off probation and that means there's gonna be this gala soon,"

Natasha sighed. "Meaning United Nations, doesn't it? I'll have to act as a peacemaker between Tony and Steve. Those two are able to argue anyone out of anything."

"This time, all the Avengers are gonna be there," She said. "Or they're gonna have to be there, at least those who signed the Creed."

"So Spider-Man isn't coming?" Natasha questioned.

"Dunno, he didn't sign but he is a proxy so it's really up to him and Dad,"

"Fair," She nodded. "So, Buckaroo…"

Bucky groaned, walking over. "Not you too."

She laughed. "I've got some great news."

"What's the great news?" He asked.

Natasha took a moment to pause, centring herself before she let out a relieved breath. "The Red Room is gone. Dreykov is dead. There won't be any more Widows."

Salem made a face but didn't ask, thinking that this wasn't something she should be part of so she just nodded and excused herself.

)()()(

Sleep didn't come easy to her anymore.

If she couldn't sleep, she made it a habit to meditate and soon enough she was able to go to the Dark Dimension whenever she felt like it.

The void and abyss that was the Dark Dimension, she would just sit cross-legged with her arms pulling her legs closer and sit in silence. Salem just observed the moving shapes and planets, letting the unpredictableness of the dimension calm her mind.

If she watched carefully, with the desire for a supposed rock or slab to start to rise towards her, she could see the way it just wanted to do what she wanted. A rock, the size of her head or so, floated up from one of the random planets or planes around her, a deep grey-purple in colour. It stayed in front of her, floating in her sight as she tilted her head and wanted it to change shape.

And it did.

The matter of the rock morphed away from becoming completely solid until it started to heat up, glowing from within its core until it spread to the outer layers and began to melt. It dripped into her open hands, hot and moldable as she pulled it apart without ever feeling the blistering pain or smoke that came off the molten rock.

"You have started to play with the matter now," Dormammu appeared, speaking.

She shrugged, moulding and morphing the shape of the rock as she desired. "I can't sleep and I'm bored."

"So you decide to change the whole makeup of my world?"

"The way you say it makes it sound bad," She let the rock return to what it was before, no longer glowing or hot as it floated away to wherever it came from.

He smirked, "Only if you decide to destroy everything."

"Not tempted just yet,"

Dormammu brought out a dark, clawed hand, almost the size of a huge room to scoop her up and bring her closer as she now floated in front of him.

His menacing red eyes didn't scare her, hardly anything did anymore. There was a calmness in his eyes that seemed to reflect the unpredictability she was feeling.

"You retain your human form when you are here," He said, slow and cool as she nodded.

She looked down at her pale skin before scratching at her arm lightly, shrugging, "It's the only form I know so it's the only one I'm comfortable in. I would rather not test my abilities when I don't know if I can go back to normal."

He grinned. "I think this is the first time I have heard a Human want to be normal."

"Yeah, well," She said, sighing. "When you see the damage being not normal can cause, you begin to crave something relatively normal and predictable. All this, my powers, finding out about my origins, everything, isn't normal. I didn't want to become A superhero yet I became one."

"Normal is subjective." He said, tasting the words like they were poison. "What is normal to all other Humans is not normal to one such as you."

Her skin darkened.

But, unlike Human skin which used melanin and sometimes the sun to enhance colour, hers started to grey and darken to complete black. There was no colour, only darkness as speckles began to appear within her body and the edges of her skin started to fade into mist.

She was no longer corporal, her Human body turning to mist and darkness as far away constellations and stars appeared in her place.

It looked like a universe had replaced her, stars and tiny planets moving through the very vapour of her being and form. Every single mole she had once had was now a star that was the centre of an even larger galaxy within the universe of her body and being.

Lifting her hands, she turned them to look at her nails, seeing that they were long, clawlike and just as dark, if not darker, than the rest of her.

"Your eyes," Dormammu started, letting his face come closer to her until she was level with his own eyes. "They glow. A bright, powerful purple, a shade too bright yet too deep to be natural. Magic flows through you as you use it. You are Magic. You are my legacy. You are what I cannot be. While you are your father's daughter, you are still my child. You are created from the same Magic that fuels me."

"And that means what exactly?" She crossed her arms, staring at him. "Just because I'm apparently yours, does not mean what I want and what I desire shouldn't be taken into account. If anything, I can do whatever I want without you."

"Can you?" He laughed, the sound vibrating around the whole universe they were sharing. "Can you now? I'll let it slide due to teenage angst, but I will be getting rid of the pesky little mental block you have put on yourself so you do not have to deal with the trauma."

"What trauma you talking about now?"

He grinned, "All of it."

"You're an asshole,"

"Oh, I know,"