Chapter 1: Days of a Dying Present (3/4).

"How does it work? I never understood."

Nero was currently sitting down on a car with Jean and John Grey. A week has passed since the accident where Nero was run down by a car saving Jean from it. And also since that strange dream with the Phoenix. Jean kept her promise and actually came back to visit him, several times as a matter of fact.

"Don't ask dad about that or he's going to trap you for hours to explain it." Jean spoke inside his head.

The second time that Jean went to visit him. Something really strange happened, Nero could hear what she was thinking and so did she. Jean told Nero that since what happened, she was able to hear other people's thoughts. After hearing that from her, Nero then told her about the building incident.

What she did after hearing it was lecture him about being so reckless. Nero came to the conclusion that she was worse than Sister Maggie. But also something interesting that Nero discovered, was that the two could communicate even when they were far away, and for some reason, Jean could only do that with him. She told him that sometimes she hears other people's thoughts and sometimes even feel what they are feeling.

"But I'm curious." Nero answered her.

"Well, you see Nero, " Mr. Grey started to explain to him about Greek Fire. Unfortunately, he now understood what Jean meant by trapping him for hours to explain it, since they have arrived at the destination and he was still telling him about does it work.

Nero was finally released from the hospital and Mr. Grey offered Sister Maggie to drive Nero to the orphanage, saying that it was the least he could do after what Nero did for Jean. After a long explanation that Nero regretted asking for, he finally let Nero go.

"Bye Nero." Jean said as he exited the car.

"Bye Jean." He said in return. "Bye Mr. Grey, and thanks for the ride."

"It was no problem, I hope we meet again." Mr. Gray replied.

Nero nodded before making his way to enter the orphanage, as he entered, he saw Sister Maggie approaching him.

"What took you so long?" She asked him.

"Mr. Grey was explaining how Greek Fire worked to me." He explained to her. "Sorry, I lost track of time."

"Ok, then. How are you feeling?" She asked him.

"Fine, it's still a bit hard to move my wrist but besides that, it doesn't really hurt much anymore." He assured her.

"You never told me what exactly were you doing there to begin with." She demanded an answer.

"I was... visiting my friend." Nero answered.

"What friend? You never said you had a friend outside of the orphanage."

"His name is Frank Castle Junior, but I call him FJ." Nero told her. "As a matter of fact, do you mind if I call him?"

"No, go ahead but later we are gonna have a talk about this little trip of yours around the city." Sister Maggie addressed him.

Nero had an urge to slap his forehead in frustration, because he was sure that this lecture of hers was going to be long. He just nodded his head before making way to the telephone.

"Hey, you there?" He hears Jean voice in his head.

"Yeah, I'm here." Nero responded.

"I'm still sitting in the car with Dad." She told him.

It's fun to be able to talk to someone whenever you like. Nero didn't have a cellphone, so this was a good alternative. But, ever since he found out about this ability that Jean has, there was something that he was wondering.

"Can I ask you a question?" He asked her.

"Sure."

"How do you hear people's thoughts? Is there something you do or maybe a specific action?"

"Well... I just look at the person and concentrated on them, It's like when focused on reading a book." She explained to him. "Why do you ask?"

"Because... I was wondering if I can do it too."

"You think you can?"

"Maybe... Wait a second." He told her.

He arrived at the front desk of the orphanage, where the telephone was. Another Sister was in charge of it, Sister Vivienne. Nero didn't like her, at all. She was fat, smelled like cigarettes, and was constantly yelling at him and the other orphans. As he approached her, he attempted to do what Jean told him. He concentrated on her like he did when reading a book in a attempt to do it.

"Dammit, what does Carnby want?" He heard her thinking that.

That confirmed that Nero could do it as well. Which made him think something. "Do I have super powers?" He thought. Nero was already suspecting that, since he fell off the building. He was suspecting that he had some sort of fast healing ability or something, but now he just found out that he also posses telepathic abilities. He reads a lot of science fiction and fantasy novels, so he has a little of knowledge in this type of power but he still needs to know what is fiction and what is reality about this.

"What do you want Carnby?" Sister Vivienne bluntly asked him. "He's got to have some type of birth defect to look like that." Nero heard her thinking.

"Sister Maggie said I can use the phone." That was all that he said to her.

"Fine, but don't take too long, there's a lot of incoming calls." She stated to him. "Who would this little freak call anyway?"

Nero decided to ignore what he just heard and started to dial the number that FJ gave it to him. He waits for it until someone finally picks it up.

"Hello?" Nero hears FJ's sister Lisa on the other side.

"Hi Lisa." He greeted her

"Nero? Hi." She greeted in return. "We heard about your accident, sorry we couldn't visit."

"It's okay. Is FJ there?" Nero asked.

"Yes, hold on. Frank! Nero is on the phone!" He heard her yell.

"Hello." He heard FJ's voice.

"Hey FJ." Nero greeted him.

"Hey, is it truth that you got hit by car?" FJ asked him.

"Yes, I got released from the hospital today."

"Are you okay?"

"Some parts still hurt a bit, but yeah I'm fine." Nero replied to his friend. "Did your dad came home?"

"Yes, he's helping mom with the dishes." Nero noticed that FJ sounded happy on the phone.

"That's good," Nero was happy for FJ. He always wondered what having a father felt like.

"Hey, Nero... Do you wanna go on a picnic with us?" FJ asked him.

"The one on central park that your mother was planning?" Nero remembers that FJ mentioned the day of his accident.

"Yeah, mother said that I should invite you and Dad was okay with it."

"When?"

"Tomorrow at One PM." FJ explained.

"I'll ask permission for it and I'll call you later with the answer." Nero had to ask Sister Maggie this time.

"Okay, talk to you later." FJ then hang up the phone.

Nero puts the phone back into place and steps away from the front desk.

"Hey, Jean?" Nero called her.

"Yes?"

"I just found out that I can do the same thing as you."

"Really?!"

The rest of day was unremarkable at best. Nero had to hear a long lecture from Sister Maggie, but she did gave him permission to go on a picnic with FJ and his family. He mostly spend the day speaking with Jean about this new found telepathic ability that the two possessed. Nero explained to her what he knew from Science fiction novels, but he explained that he doesn't know if the information was reliable.

They spoke until it was late at night, she said goodnight to him and went to sleep.

After she did, Nero started to reflect on a few a things about himself. Mostly this discovery, he had already known that there was something off after the falling from the building incident, but telepathy, that was something really odd. He starts to think, what other things have happened that could point to this?

Nero then remembered something. The odd dreams that he has, with those two strange individuals. "Does it have any connection?" He asked himself. Unfortunately, no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't come up with a explanation.

Soon enough, it was really late and he decided to get some sleep.

Nero overslept, waking up later than he should. Eleven AM was the time he woke up. He put on some clothes; his navy blue jeans, a white long sleeved shirt and his white sneakers, which happened to be his only pair of shoes, he thanked god, that they weren't damaged on the crash. He checked himself in the mirror of his room. His hair was straight and he always kept it brushed down. It looked okay, so he decided to leave it like that.

Sister Maggie has offered to drive him to FJ's house. Nero tried to refuse but she insisted so much that he ended up accepting. She drove him on a van that was used to bring donations and groceries to the orphanage. She left him in front of FJ's house. Nero thanked her for the ride and she drove off since she had to grab something for the orphanage.

Nero went to the front door and knocked. He was greeted by a man. He was sure that it was FJ's father because of the resemblance between the two.

"Hello." Nero greeted him. He had a strange, haunted look in his eyes. His face had a few bruises as well.

"You must be Nero." He spoke with a deep voice.

"And you must Frank Castle Sr." Nero replied.

"Correct, Junior is waiting for you inside." He spoke while stepping out of the way for Nero to pass.

Nero entered without saying anything else. He saw FJ, Lisa and Mrs. Castle on the kitchen packing up the things for the picnic. When he approached, the first one to say anything was Lisa. "Did you get any scars?" Lisa asked him like it was the most normal thing to ask.

"Lisa!" Mrs. Castle yelled at her.

"It's okay," Nero assured her. "Not really, but I broke my wrist and a few ribs."

"Ouch." FJ said while cringing.

He sat down with FJ and waited for his mother to finish packing the things for the picnic. He told FJ and Lisa that he got hit by the car because a girl was walking towards the street to grab a ball that her little brother dropped, so he pushed her out of the way and the car ran him over. Then he told them about Jean and how she kept visiting him in the hospital.

Unfortunately, the moment he finished telling them, both FJ and Lisa started to tease him about Jean. Luckily, the tease didn't last long as their parents called them to go to central park.

The ride there was peaceful and calm. Nero and FJ kept playing Rock, Paper, Scissors the whole ride while Lisa heard music on some headphones. As they got closer to their destination, FJ won on the game on a score of 10-12.

As Mr. Castle parked the car, Nero helped Mrs. Castle on carrying the things for the picnic. They found a spot on the grass and sat down to eat. Nero eat some beef sandwiches that Mrs. Castle made. After they finished eating, him and FJ decided to play a bit of football. Luckily FJ brought his ball to the park, so they played for a bit, but then FJ just threw the ball really far away.

"Dammit." FJ complained.

"Come on, Let's see where it went." Nero replied.

The two friends then decided to go look for the ball that FJ tossed. They walked around for a bit, passing through several trees and some small lakes. Nero and FJ finally ended up finding the ball on top of a tree.

"Oh man, how are we gonna grab it?" FJ asked.

Nero looked around and saw that besides the tree, there was another one but a bit smaller. Nero decided to climb it and when he was high enough, he jumped on the other tree and grabbed the ball.

"You got it!" FJ happily said.

"Pick up." He tossed the ball from on top of the tree into FJ's hand.

As Nero was about to come down from the tree, he saw something strange on his left. It looked like a man, hanging upside down on a tree. Nero came down from the tree and went into the direction of it.

"What is it?" FJ asked him.

"I saw something from the top of the tree." Nero explained.

"What?" FJ asked but Nero didn't answer and just kept walking in that direction.

As Nero walks closer and closer with FJ following behind him. The two friends started to hear people talking.

"You should have just done what the boss told you to do, Blackrad." They heard a man with a strong accent speak.

The two got a little bit closer and saw something horrifying. They saw a man hanging upside down on a tree, bleeding heavily from what looked like knife wounds. With several black suited men with weapons in their hands standing around him. FJ nearly screamed when he saw the bloody man but Nero covered his mount quickly.

"Listen, I can still get it don-" The man hanging tried to speak but unfortunately, the man standing on front of him. Stabbed him in the leg before he could finish. "AAAAAAA-" The man tried to scream but the man with the knife, put his hand on his mouth to muffle the sound.

"It's too late for that now." The man with the knife was the one with the accent. It was either Italian or Russian but Nero didn't know which one.

It was a bald man wearing sunglasses.

Nero makes a hand sign to FJ, for the two of them to get out of there. This was not their businesses as they will be in trouble if those men saw them.

"Kids, what are you two doing?"

Unfortunately, the moment that Nero and FJ turned around to leave they see that the rest of the Castle family came looking for them. The moment that Mrs. Castle spoke, the man with the black suits turned their gazes towards them. Which the rest of the family noticed what was going on.

The moment that the bald man with sunglasses saw them. He pointed at all of them and gave the other suited men an order.

"Dammit, take them out!"

Before any of them could say anything. The suited men started to fire at them. Nero felt the bullets piercing through his skin as he fell on the ground as soon as the first projectile hit him. He could only watch in horror as the rest of the castle family got gunned down by those man. He saw FJ getting shot in the head, he wanted to scream but his voice wouldn't come out. Soon enough, he closed his eyes while still hearing the sounds of the guns.