They're back.
Max backed away from the mutant's body quickly. Her hair and sweater were streaked bright red with blood. Nurses and doctors ran into the room and attempted to stem the blood flowing from the mutant's mouth, but they were dead before anything could be done.
It's starting again.
The words reverberated around Max's skull, getting louder and louder until she was clutching her temples, screaming. She breathed with difficulty and stood. her hand on the wall for support. With a final glance at the dead body of the mutant, she ran from the room.
"Max!" Steve called out after her. He reached for her arm.
"I have to leave," Max said, her voice frantic. "I can't stay here. I have to leave."
"What is going on?" He asked. Steve looked so sincere and wonderful, like he would fight anything that came his way, but this wasn't something he could do.
"I have to leave," Max shook off his hand. She walked down the hallway as fast as she could without breaking into a jog.
"Max-" Steve grapped her shoulder.
She turned around, her eyes blazing with anger. "You don't get it, Steve. They're going to kill everyone. I have to leave. I have to stop them."
"Who? Who is doing this?" He asked.
"We're all going to die," Max said. The colour drained from her face. "They're going to kill everyone."
"You keep saying that, but you're not making any sense." He stared her directly in the eye, his hands on her shoulders. "Who is going to kill everyone?"
"They're going to kill everyone!" Max shrieked. "Dead. Gone. Like the mutant in there. That's what they do."
Steve attempted to get more information out of her, but Fury approached from the room the mutant was being held in. Max turned to him, like a startled woodland animal.
"Maximum," Fury said. His voice always had such gravity to it. She hadn't spoken to him in a few weeks, but the sound grounded her. "It's time you tell us what is going on."
Max's heart rate began to slow. She nodded. "It's your funeral, Fury."
He grunted. "Let's go."
Steve was left in the middle of the hallway, alone with blood staining his fingertips and questions on his mind.
"You've come a long way since the last time you were here," Fury said.
He'd taken her to the interrogation room they'd stuck her in the last time she'd escaped. Max wondered for a second why she hadn't tried to do so again, but then she realized that she'd become complacent in her new life. Like a fat, old cat.
"How would you know?" Max asked. "You don't call, you don't write. Do you even love me anymore?"
"There it is," Fury said. "Now if you could cut that crap and tell me what we're dealing with, that'd be great, Max."
"You're dealing with the devil," Max said. "Once they figure out you took something of theirs, they'll come after you with all they have."
"Why didn't they come for you?" Fury asked.
"They thought I was dead," Max said. She took in a shaky breath. "It's name is Itex. They're a research institute that is trying to cover up their real operation: mutant manufacturing."
Fury's expression didn't change. "They created you? You didn't have the X-Gene?"
"Yeah. I'm a true blue test tube baby," Max laughed humorlessly. "2% Avian, 98% human, if you want to get really technical. I was born in a lab. They kept us in dog crates until we got too big for them, which they didn't really care about. We were poked and prodded every day; I have more than my fair share of scars to show you. I don't know what they were looking for exactly, maybe what our limits were, but they sure did love their torture. Water, fire, electricity. I think some asshole remade the rack for them. Then they started making weapons. Part-human, part-wolf, all evil. The little ones liked to call them Erasers because if you crossed them- poof! You got erased." She became more somber. "I escaped though; a while ago."
Fury produced a small recording device from his pocket and set it down on the table. He pressed the power button. The lights on the side went off.
"Wait, you're recording this?" Max asked.
"I need to make sure we remember everything you say so we can make a file on these Itex bastards," Fury said. "You do want to fight them, don't you?"
Max nodded hesitantly.
"So tell me how you know the mutant."
She paused and heaved a big sigh, trying to recall the details. "Three or four years ago I was in New York City. We were looking for something; food, a place to hide... I can't remember. Anyway, we found this huge underground facility run by Itex and decided to break everyone out of there. That's where they're from. At least, I think it is."
"Wait, we? Who else was with you?" Fury asked.
"I- I used to be a part of a small group. We were all tested on in the same facility and were all the same breed, so to speak," Max said. She smiled sadly. "Avian Americans, we'd call ourselves. Our own little flock."
"Where are they now?" Fury asked.
"Where all of us go when scientists get bored." She tapped her fingers along the recorder. "The big, flaming ball in the sky."
"I'm sorry," Fury said.
"Don't be. I hate sympathy," Max said with a snarl. "Now because you were stupid enough to pick up one of their pieces of property, they know I'm alive."
"I don't think it was us that tipped them off there." Fury tilted his head and slid a piece of paper across the table. It was a still from the security footage with the bomber from the diner frozen in place.
"He wasn't real," Max said. "They said I was hallucinating or something."
"After the attack on the diner SHIELD began noticing increased volatility in attacks," Fury said. "Specifically ones involving mutants crossed with animals."
"That'd be them." Max crossed her arms in front of her. "They love to roll out that welcome wagon."
"Then help us fight them," Fury said.
"You don't get it; they can't be fought!" Max stared directly into his eye. "You can only run from them. I've been running all my life, I know what it's like."
Fury kept a level expression. "So stop running."
Max leaned against the door to the living room, lost in her own thoughts, when a familiar voice floated in from just one room over. Hers.
"...kept us in dog crates until we got too big for them, which they didn't really care about. We were poked and prodded every day; I have more than my fair share of scars to show you. I don't know what they were looking for exactly, maybe what our limits were, but they sure did love their torture-"
The recording stopped playing as soon as Max slammed the door behind her. She saw everyone involved in the Avengers looking up at her with wide eyes. It made her blood boil.
"What are you doing?" Max walked up to the table and snatched the recording device off of it. She crumbled it in her hands with ease, the mangled bits falling to the floor. "Who gave that to you?"
"Max," Bruce began. "We're so-"
"What? Sorry?" Max punctuated her question by slamming her hand on the table. "None of you should have heard that."
"We just want to help-" Tony began. Max had her hands around his throat before he could finish.
"Help? Help how?" She cocked her head to the side. Tony barely weighed anything to her. "Like how you imprisoned me? Groomed me to be your little pet?"
Steve set his hand on her shoulder. "Max. Put him down."
She obeyed for a second, then turned on Steve. "And you. You were so interested in being my friend and then you clamoured for information about my past as soon as the opportunity presented itself."
"We needed to know who we were dealing with," Steve replied.
"Or what." Max scowled at him in disgust. "Because that's all I am to all of you. Some circus freak to marvel at. Screw you." She wheeled around the room. "Screw all of you! Where were the Avengers when my family was dying? You guys aren't real mutants."
She pointed at Bruce and Steve. "You got to decide what you became, not me. I was never given the choice. I have never had a normal life, but I'm so sick and tired of people treating me like a freak. Even with people who are supposed to get it; to fight for what's right, you guys are only interested in fighting for what makes you look good."
Tony made a noise as he massaged the bruises forming on his throat. He brushed Max's hand in an attempt to stand.
"Don't even get me started on you," Max said, edging towards Tony. "A two-bit has been; the greatest con man of them all. You can't even control security in your own building, let alone a daughter. I can see how afraid of me you are, every day the fear grows stronger. Should I give you something to be afraid of now, Tony? Something must have broken in you when that nuke exploded, because you aren't even a person any more." She bared her teeth. "Just a shell. An Iron Man."
"How do-" Bruce began.
"Know about the Battle of New York?" Max asked. "I've known for a long time. Darcy and I watched that stupid movie with you guys in it; I had to sit through three hours of heroics. And I'm glad I did." She spat on the white tile. "Now I know you guys are good for nothing except looking good in spandex."
She shoved her way between them on her way out of the room. "I have to go wash this blood out of my hair. See you all in hell."
Max stared at herself in the fogged-up mirror hours later. She grasped erratically at her hair, tugging the strands downward in an attempt to pull them out. She could still feel the mutant's hands on them, the blood. Even after taking so many showers her skin began to crack and peel, she still couldn't wash away the ghosts that this morning brought back.
She could smell smoke, but she wasn't sure if it was real or not. Her throat made a choked sound as she ran her hands over the kitchen sink and grappled with the cabinets. She needed it gone. She needed it all gone.
The door opened. Max stood up in a hurry and wiped her face in a poor attempt to cover up the tears that had been streaming freely. Natasha stood before her.
"Looking for these?" She held up a pair of scissors.
Max looked at her feet. "You haven't left yet?"
Natasha sighed and closed the door behind her. She sat on the top of the toilet seat lid. "I couldn't leave you alone with a room of men confused about your existence. Telling that origin story must have been hard enough, let alone telling it to a room full of scientists. Nice outburst there. I'd give it a 10/10."
"Yeah, well, that wasn't my choice." Max looked in the mirror, both of her hands on either side of the sink.
"I wasn't who you were expecting to come after you, was I?" Natasha asked. It was one of the only times Max had ever heard her voice her thoughts aloud without careful calculation.
Max shook her head, her careful composure beginning to break. She swiped at a few tears that rolled down her cheek. "No."
A tangible silence stretched between them. A name, unspoken, hung in the air.
Steve.
Natasha's demeanor changed and she stood, motioning Max to step closer the the sink. She picked up the scissors. "Come on. I'll cut it for you."
Max stood motionless and Natasha took it as a cue to being her work. As locks of hair stained red from blood drifted down towards the drain, for the first time, Max allowed herself to cry.
Short reminder that I will be gone next weekend, so there will be no update!