Remember, kids, its not nice to push people. Use your words, not your telekinetic powers.

Re-edited as of 10/7/14

Chapter Five

Caveat Emptor

Falcon headed to Tribeca, where the homeless man was reported to have lived before his Guggenheim stunt. It was unlikely he walked all the way to the Guggenheim and happened to run into a White Rose goon who just tossed him drugs and guns and pushed him into the Guggenheim.

She tried not to think about Mrs. Murphy ribbing her for skipping the entire day of school on Thursday without an excuse, so she got a detention that afternoon. A detention she didn't show up for. Friday was her next detention as punishment for both skipping Thursday's classes and imprisonment, with another two next week to make up for it. Falcon didn't go to her Friday detention, either, so she was probably going to be grounded in afternoon boredom for the next month. Falcon figured if she kept this streak up, she'd be set until summer break.

Falcon worked out some of her minor school-related frustrations by beating up some carjackers and guy armed with a water pistol trying to mug a group of college girls. Sure, she might've roughed him up a little more than necessary, but it made her feel better. And maybe next time those muggers and carjackers will think twice about committing crimes after having to recover from some broken bones in prison.

For the rest of the afternoon, on into the evening, and well into night did Falcon watch over Tribeca, hoping to spot some sign of the White Rose, anything that would give away their drug trade. How were they doing it? There were so many normal people here that it could literally be anyone she saw. If it was a store, which one?

It wasn't until midnight did she spot a man stumbling about in an alleyway, running into walls, falling down, then getting back up again. He seemed completely unaware that he was heading towards a dead end. Would he just bounce off the wall and continue going, like one of those robot vacuum cleaners?

Since the guy was already wiped out as it was, Falcon decided to go easy on him. She dropped down from above, more bat than bird, and scared the dude right out of his wits. He uttered a short, girlish scream before falling on his butt, scrambling back crab-style before getting himself cornered against a Dumpster. He raised his arms in defense as Falcon drew nearer, keeping her steps slow and menacing. The man begged, "P-please, don't hurt me! I didn't do nothing wrong, I swears it!"

Falcon didn't say anything to him. Instead, she picked him up by the collar and dragged him to the nearest lamppost on the street. As the yellow light washed over him, the man flinched as Falcon peered closer to look at his face. Yep, it was beet red, and his eyes were almost entirely bloodshot. His pupils were far too large. Even this weak light must be hurting him.

The man whimpered. "P-please, don't hurt me. I promise, I never hurt anyone. I would never hurt anyone. I was just trying to get my fix! God, it hurt so much, I couldn't help myself. I just needed it so bad..."

"Needed what?" Falcon demanded. Her voice came out scrambled and deep – she had recently gotten a voice scrambler that she installed to the inside of her helmet. She felt it would be better for her cover if no one could recognize her voice. She was lucky Spider-Man was her friend and hadn't put two and two together before the Venom incident. "Where do you get your fix? Who's selling it?"

"No-no one's selling it," the man told her, shaking in fear. He stared at her, wide-eyed. "They give it out for free."

Falcon's silence was one of surprise. Her gravelly voice came out, "You're lying."

"No, I swears it!" the man said, placing his hands together as though he were praying. His green cap was slightly askew on his head, revealing greasy brown hair that matched a beard that hadn't been shaved in days. "Look, the guy hands it out with every bag he sells. When I come in, I just ask for it and he gives it to me, no question! It's a freakin' miracle."

"What is it called?" Falcon asked, afraid to hear the answer. She already knew what it was before he said it.

"It's...it's flowery," the man made a face as he concentrated. He didn't seem as crazy as the gunman – maybe this guy had already built up a tolerance – but clearly his thought processes weren't all there. "Sweet, pretty. Like roses. Ah, Rosebud, that's it! It's the best thing I ever had. Helped me with my nicotine addiction, ya know."

"I'm sure your family is proud," Falcon replied in a deadpan tone. "Where did you get it? What store?"

"That one, right there!" the man jerked a shaky hand at a nearby storefront across the street. It was closed, but some lights were still on in the back. It looked like a butcher's shop. He looked at Falcon, absolutely terrified, "You're not going to destroy it, are you?"

Falcon looked back at him, glad her black helmet hid all emotion. "I'd go back to smoking cigarettes. For once, it'll actually make you live longer."

"Aw man," the man groaned, his head falling back against the metal lamppost. He held his hands up to the sky, as if addressing God himself. "Why do I have to be the one that gets an angry demon after it? Are you going to take my soul?"

"Do you know who I am?" Falcon asked, honestly wondering.

"Um," the man squinted at her in the dark light, sticking his tongue out as he concentrated for a moment. He held up a finger, "You're the Devil, aren't you?"

Falcon just heaved a sigh and took off into the air. The man held up his hand and shouted, "Thank you for not taking me to Hell!"

She burst into the store, bashing through the locked doors with ease. Sure, she could have unlocked them with her PK, but this felt much more satisfying. A man jumped, appearing from behind the register, gaping at Falcon in shock. "No! Not you!"

"You know why I'm here?" Falcon tilted her head to the side, watching the butcher in his bloody apron and thick arms as he scrambled back against the wall. For a man armed with thirty cleavers, he was utterly terrified of an unarmed assailant.

The butcher nodded, his three chins jiggling. He held up his hands in surrender, "Please don't hurt me! This wasn't my idea, I didn't have a choice! They said if I didn't hand it out, then they'd kill my family and burn down the store! Falcon, this is all I have. I can't lose any of this!"

Falcon considered this for a moment. She wasn't going to hurt the butcher so long as he didn't attack her first. But she didn't want the White Rose to kill his family because of something she did. She jerked her chin at the cash register on the counter between them. "How much do you have? Did they pay you well?"

"They come with a new shipment every week. I have a quota to fill, make sure my customers leave with a bit of the drugs," the Butcher nodded. He approached the register with jerky movements, flinching like he expected for her to shoot his knives at him. His hands smashed against the keys uselessly, he was so afraid. "I-I do my best. I think people just think they're candy, they don't actually know what it is. I mean, I hate that there might be kids eating this stuff, but what can I do? I have kids to feed."

The White Rose were smart, preying on people who would do anything for their loved ones. Blackmail and bribery, that was their MO, whether it was with politicians or the common man. It made Falcon sick. She raised her hand and the drawer to the cash register burst open, slamming into the butcher's gut. "I got it. Take half of what you got, then get the hell out of this city. Take your family with you, move to Canada. If you're afraid of them, go someplace where they can't get to you."

The Butcher froze, staring at her. It wasn't the best option, but it was better than facing the White Rose on his own and having his family murdered. "Are you...are you serious?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?"

"But-but what if they-what if they come after us?" the butcher demanded, slamming his hand on the wooden counter. "What if they want r-revenge or something?"

"I'm sure they've got plenty of other things to think about." Falcon told him. She motioned towards the door. "They just want the city, they're not going to hunt down nobody's like you if you're not going to pose a serious threat to their operation. Trust me, I know from experience."

Back in October, she had been terrified that the people who took her mother would come after her. But not once has Amelia Fletcher had to deal with any repercussions with the White Rose. They probably saw her as a helpless little girl who just lost her mother, weak and relying on the police to do their job. She was sure the White Rose had other people distributing Rosebuds. One establishment down would hardly make a dent in their work. "What do they gain out of this if they don't make you sell it, just give it away?"

"I don't know." The butcher just shrugged his shoulders, looking around as if their surroundings might offer up an answer. "That's the thing, they show up, they dump their load, and they leave. Sometimes they ask questions, like how much I've given away, but that's it really."

"How do they deliver it? When?"

"By delivery truck. It's painted to look like a bread company or something. They come every morning at eight o'clock."

Falcon hooked a thumb over her shoulder. "Leave. Now. I'll destroy all your surveillance equipment so no one will know it was me who busted you. The White Rose might kill you if they know we met. Get your family out of this city as fast as you can. The White Rose wants to make the city into their little hellhole anyways, so the sooner the better."

The butcher nodded his head, grabbed as much money as he could from the register, before grabbing coat and keys and running out the door. When she heard truck tires squealing off, she took the rest of the money from the register and headed to the back of the store.

There were a couple rooms, the main one filled with tables, crates, and ceiling hooks all carrying some form of meat. The place was small all together, so Falcon didn't have to look very hard. Just behind the boxes of sausages were at least three dozen bricks wrapped in plastic, showing their red, round objects inside. The Rosebuds looked liked Rosebuds, how poetic. She only knew one way how to destroy them.

Falcon found the camera and the computer it was connected to, and crushed each of them into smithereens. Then she found all the old surveillance tapes and shattered those too, for good measure. She found some matches in a drawer of the desk in the back room. She gathered some confidential files, dropped them in a pile on top of the Rosebud packages, and lit a match, letting it fall onto the paper. It caught immediately, built up in gusto. The plastic melted with the heat, revealing its candy-red insides.

FWOOM!

As it turned out, Rosebuds were highly combustible. Falcon made it out as quickly as possible before the whole back room could blow up. The store had no upper levels, so she quickly dialed 9-1-1 at the front counter phone, asking the operator to send a fire truck at this location.

"And what is your address, um, sir?" the operator said, sounding a little worried by the strange voice Falcon was using.

She just smiled and let the receiver drop. "I know you can trace numbers. Find out for yourself."

OoOoO

I knocked on the door to Luca Tomoni's office. When the door opened, smoke blew out of the room. Behind Luca was another poker game, being played by big men smoking cigars. They didn't even look up at me this time, ignoring the disturbance entirely.

Luca glared down at me. "What do you want?"

I smacked the wad of bills into his hulking chest. "Room ten-oh-three. Here's what I owe you, paid in full."

Luca Tomoni frowned down at this chest, picking at the bills like he wasn't sure what he was looking at. "You got all that cash in five days? How?"

I stepped back from the office, started heading up the stairs and away from the smell of nicotine. "Hey, I'm just trying to stay out of trouble. I wouldn't worry about it."

The man chuckled behind her, flicking through the bills with his thumb and waving them at her. "I like you, kid. You're a real New Yorker. Everyone should just mind their own damn business, am I right, fellas?"

There was a mumble of agreement from the poker room, the sound of clinking glass. Luca Tomoni shut the door, behind him. He didn't see how I had cracked the wooden banisters beneath my grip in my attempt to remain cool. I took a deep breath before letting go of the broken bar, and continued up the ten flights of stairs.

That attitude he congratulated me for was the same one that got my mother kidnapped. I didn't allow myself to start crying until I hit the fifth floor.

When I finally entered the apartment, I slammed the door behind me and rested my back against it. I clutched my face in my hands, digging my nails into my skin and wondering how the hell I was going to make it through the next week an emotional wreck. Meditating and hiding my feelings just didn't feel like it was helping me anymore.

Finally I spoke out into the darkness, "They're White Rose, aren't they?"

On my radar, Smoke appeared sprawled across the couch. He was eating one of my apples. Mouth full, he said, "How'd you guess?"

"I just get the feeling that they're everywhere at the moment," I said, dropping my arms at my sides. I looked up at him, licking my lips and wondering how I should act after a brief spell of crying. If Peter noticed, would Smoke as well? He wasn't really the kind of guy I wanted to expose my vulnerability to. "Like I can't win no matter what I do. I move in and they switch landlords. I rescue hostages and they hike up the rent. I find their drug trade and they kill innocents. I'm just lucky that I still have some of the public on my side."

"Yeah, I heard about the place you burned down." Smoke chuckled, chucking the apple core out the window behind him. Great, now my apartment was even colder. "Funny how it is. You call yourself a hero and yet you're committing vigilante justice, battery and assault, now arson? I don't understand how you can call yourself better than me when you're breaking just as many laws, dove."

"At least I don't do it for money." I shot back, crossing my arms and sticking out my chin.

Smoke didn't look convinced. He just smirked at me and said, "Yeah, and I'm sure you got that rent money in a completely legal fashion, right? You didn't happen to steal it from a certain butcher shop just before it was set ablaze, leaving behind no evidence of your appearance? You're lucky the White Rose isn't nearly as smart as I am."

"What else do you know then?" I asked, hoping to change the subject before he could call me out on anything else. "What happened to Charlie, the old landlord? I haven't seen him in a while."

"Who knows?" Smoke shrugged like it didn't really matter. "Maybe the Rose bribed him, maybe they killed him. Either way, he's out of the picture. That's the way they like it. You should really appreciate the irony, though – I mean, the White Rose have no idea they're housing Falcon's HQ on one of their own properties. They'll probably kill Tomoni as soon as they find out."

"And how long is that going to take?"

"Depends," Smoke said, getting up from the couch and heading into the kitchen to search for more food I did not invite him to eat. Not that there was a lot to begin with. After not finding anything, he slammed the last cabinet door shut and slumped against the counter, heaving a sigh. "I suspect Tomoni's gonna do his best to keep all his residents in line. At least you weren't dumb enough to kick up a fight about your old landlord the same way you did with that other guy."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I scowled at him, not liking the tone in his voice. What was he trying to say, that what I did was stupid? How dare he!

"Hey, I'm just saying," Smoke shrugged and crossed his arms, making a face that said he was trying to understate a matter. "I mean, you burn down a respectable man's business, break a twig off the Rose's network, and dislocated an entire family and force them out of the city, all for what? A working class security guard? He was a complete nobody."

"He wasn't a nobody!" I shouted, my fists clenching at my sides. I pulled away from the door, moving so quickly that I startled myself by how fast I stuck my nose in Smoke's face. "He had a family. He saved my life! He didn't deserve to die."

Smoke reeled back before I could hurt him. I hadn't made to do anything of the sort, but now that I realized it, I kind of wanted to.

"So? Good people die every day!" Smoke retorted, throwing his hands up in the air. He spun around me so I didn't have him cornered against the kitchen counter. I had seen that flash of fear in his eyes, a look he quickly threw off as he said, "And there's nothing you can do about that. You call him a good person, a family man you cared about – but you have honestly no idea who he really was. The funeral doesn't count; people don't speak ill of the dead. You're just turning a regular man doing his job into the tragic hero of the day."

"I was giving his family justice! The White Rose had to be punished for what they did!" I snapped back, throwing my finger down at the floor, as though I were accusing Tomoni and his various cohorts of the crime. "They just sit pretty and play poker while they make innocent people do their dirty work. Koppel didn't stand a chance against that."

"You don't know what he deserved, Falcon!" he shouted. It hit me that this was turning into a real argument – no more with the teasing, the nicknames, and the little jibes. We had met at a junction and neither of us was willing to cede our stance. I sure as hell wasn't going to back down. "People these days, they love a tragic death, so they eat this stuff up. They think what you're doing is right, but you just turned Koppel into a martyr for your cause. He's only special because you made it that way."

"No, I didn't!" I yelled back, my guilt all but cracking under this accusation. I had done this because I was guilty, ashamed of what my actions led to – not because I needed sympathy from the public. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"

"Yeah, right!" Smoke just shook his head and scoffed. We were circling each other in the kitchen like two snarling lions exchanging glancing blows, waiting for the other one to make the first real move. "You act like you're doing this man's name, his family a favor, but really you're just being selfish, you're just trying to make yourself look good so people won't hate you anymore!"

"Oh, because you're such a model of generosity!" I rejoined with a snort. I couldn't believe it. He actually didn't believe me. Did he really think I was that conniving? Instead of feeling hurt, it made me angrier. I threw a finger into his face and said, "Don't think you're better than me –you don't even care who gets hurt by the White Rose so long as you benefit from it. I'm trying to defend these people, fight for them! You're just a greedy, prejudiced opportunist who doesn't care about anyone who isn't important to the White Rose. Face it, if I wasn't Falcon, you wouldn't even waste your time with me!"

"You don't know that!" Smoke protested, looking surprisingly offended, but he didn't stand a chance.

I interrupted him before he could defend himself, "Oh, really? You're only here because I'm Falcon. You don't even care who I was before. You don't care what happened to Franklin Koppel and his family, or if the White Rose killed Charlie or not. Like you said, they were 'Nobodies'," I said, making air quotation with my fingers. "Be serious, if I were some average, normal girl on the street that you just happened to run into, would you even bother to give me a second look? Would you even care what happened to me if I happened to get mugged or attacked? No, you wouldn't, because if the White Rose doesn't care, then you don't either."

"The White Rose don't control me, no one does!" Smoke swiped his hands through the air, as though he were trying to eliminate the thought. He stuck a thumb to his chest, declaring, "The only one in charge of me is me. I don't care what they think. I don't need their permission to do what I want."

"Maybe not, but you'll still do what they say when they tell you to," I shot back. "I'm not an idiot; I know you got paid loads just to make me fall into that trap on Staten Island. I know you do jobs with the White Rose because you're too afraid not to. They let you think you're in control because other people hire you, but honestly, they're your biggest shareholders. If they call, you come running, like a little lapdog desperate to please his master!"

I emphasized my point by pushing him the chest. I wanted to fight. I just wanted to hit Smoke, even though no amount of punching would make him see my point. But I wanted to get a physical reaction out of him, too. And it almost worked.

Smoke stumbled back, catching the kitchen counter before he could fall. He raised a hand, almost as though he were going to hit me back, but after a second let it fall again. Smoke just shook his head and gave me a patronizing smile when he said, "I don't hit girls."

I AM NOT A GIRL.

That flash of red.

A sudden blindness.

My arm going up without me wanting it to. Fingers splaying wide, an invisible force building in my chest and leaving from the palm of my hand.

Smoke was thrown into the air like he just got tackled by a New York Giant. He hit the floor with a grunt.

I blinked, taking a second to realize it happened. Again. Only this time, I had used my powers.

I stumbled back, the look on my face the exact same as Smoke's: surprise, fear, horror. My back hit the counter and my knees collapsed beneath me. I dropped, breathing harsh and fast – when did it get so fast? – and my hands flew to my mouth. I could have hurt him.

Shaking. I was shaking all over.

It took Smoke a second to get up and brush it off, but I could tell I scared him. He leaned away as he backed off, rubbing his sore head and grimacing.

"Leave." I whispered.

"What?" He asked, hands raised.

"I said," whisper, then shout. "Leave!"

Wind burst in, knocking stuff off tables, rattling glasses, the windows flapping back and forth, my hair whipping around my face. I clenched my hands into fists, trying to force down the tears but not entirely sure it worked. Stop stop stop!

Finally, the mini-tornado died down, leaving two frazzled teens standing at opposite ends of the room. Smoke stared at me, as if finally realizing what happened. That I had lost control. That, in another universe, had he not been so lucky, he would be dead right now.

Smoke pointed a finger at me and said, "I knew you were messed up, but I didn't think you were a maniac. The Rose are going to paint the streets in your blood."

Then he disappeared without a single glance back.

I wanted to punch a wall. I did punch a wall, but then I felt bad about it. Great, how was I going to cover that up? Was this what it was like to be in control of my powers? By not being in control? I hadn't unlocked my full potential when I first got my powers, but now I wasn't so sure I ever wanted to get that far. What if full potential also meant utter lack of restraint? What if I lost my mind, like all those experiments before me?

Bruce had said it wouldn't happen, that I was different. I couldn't remember what he said now, but I was sure it wouldn't apply anymore.

After Venom, everything changed. My perspective was whipped around. The stress of hiding my secret, the stress of school and friends and Aunt May in the hospital – really tipped me over the edge, but I hadn't realized how much until now. Would I even make it to New Years without hurting myself, someone else? Even Christmas Vacation was starting to sound a little hopeful.

I wanted advice from Bruce, to hear his voice again, strangely soothing; but I had pissed off the only person who knew where he was. Great. I smacked myself in the head for not thinking ahead. That was another problem I had. I couldn't foresee the consequences of my actions. My temper just got the better of me and now I was stuck with no feasible way out.

For now, I had to pray I'd run into Smoke again. Until then, I was going to make the White Rose regret killing Franklin Koppel.