"Come Undone"
Chapter One
By Darthelwig
*** I own nothing. I'm just having fun. ***
She was rage, red and raw and electric. SWORD had stolen her lover's body, her soulmate's body, and all she could feel was a burning hatred, a need to destroy the ones who had desecrated his corpse, whose disrespect and greed had led to him spread out across lab tables in parts.
Her power was a whirlwind of grief and pain, and she didn't have it in herself to care about the SWORD building coming apart around her or the screams of the people responsible for the horror that lay before her. Hatred fueled her power as it ripped apart the world.
She was screaming, straining with the immense power that flowed through her. It was uncontrollable, the sheer force of it tearing her apart at the seams, too much for her fragile human shell to house. She was dying, she knew she was, and she welcomed death with open arms as she sank to her knees.
And then it was over. Her ears rang in the sudden quiet, but she heard footsteps coming closer. She couldn't stand, couldn't face whoever was approaching. She stayed on her hands and knees, head bowed and defeated. The fire that had driven her before had been extinguished and all she could feel inside now was cold.
The person came very close, considering what she'd just done. She could see their shoes as they stood before her. "Well, what do we have here?" said a voice she'd never expected to hear again, and her head shot up, disbelief and hope vying for dominance.
And it was Vision, only… it wasn't. It was the face of his human disguise, only Vision had never looked so calculating, so confident, with a smug little curl to his lip. And the markings on his face…
He was staring down at her and she felt both trapped and enraptured by his piercing gaze.
"Who are you?" she said weakly, and his eyes widened as he slapped his hand over his forearm. He pulled his sleeve up to look at his arm for a moment before motioning to his guards. "Bring her," the man wearing Vision's face said, and rough hands grabbed her arms, hauling her to her feet. "Gently," he instructed, and Wanda couldn't look away from him, couldn't tear her eyes off his face. Even as she was dragged behind him, tired limbs unable to keep up with the brisk pace he set, she couldn't help but stare.
Wanda's mind only began to catch up when they entered a large, lavishly decorated room. Definitely not the cell she had imagined she'd be in after her actions. She was led to one of the posh couches near the center of the room, and the man, definitely not Vision, settled on one across from her, his posture relaxed but his eyes focused on her with an almost unnerving intensity.
"So sorry about them. They take their jobs as my enforcers very seriously and can be a bit… overzealous," he said as his guards took their places around the edges of the room. "We don't normally have guests show up unannounced." His eyes narrowed as he watched her. Her mind was spinning. How could this man sound so much like Vision? How could he have Vision's face?
"Who are you?" she repeated, the only question her mind could comprehend.
"Dryden Vos, my dear. And who might you be?"
"Wanda Maximoff," she said numbly.
"A pleasure to meet you, my dear. Now why don't you tell me how you did this?" He pulled his sleeve up once again, this time exposing the words to her gaze, a blood-red and vivid soul mark on his pale skin. Only then did Wanda pull up her own sleeve and look at her arm, at the mark that had somehow appeared without her noticing where there hadn't been one before. The mirror to the mark she carried of Vision's. Wanda's heart was suddenly pounding, deafening in her ears, and she thought she might pass out.
"I… I don't know how this happened," she replied, shock coloring every word.
"What is it?" he all but growled at her.
"It's a soul mark," she said softly. She tilted her arm so he could see his words scrawled across her skin.
"That's impossible. Those don't exist except in tales for younglings."
"Then how do you explain this?" she asked. "I don't understand it either. I already met my soulmate, and he's dead." Her throat tightened up at the words, and she choked back a sob. He stared back at her with eyes too cold to be Vision's but too familiar to be ignored. "You look just like him," she said, swallowing back the grief as best she could.
"Excuse me?" Eyebrow raised, he waited for an answer. Wanda took a deep, steadying breath.
"Your face… Vision, my soulmate, he was… he was a synthetic human. He didn't really look like everyone else. But he could change his appearance, and his human face looked exactly like… you. Well, without the marks." She was about to kick herself for being insensitive when he laughed.
"No wonder you look as if you've seen a ghost," he said.
"I don't know how this happened. I don't even know where I am. The last thing I remember is being at the SWORD facility and just wanting everything to be over, and now I'm here. I don't even know where here is!"
"Well, that I can answer for you. You're on my ship, the First Light, and while I'm not entirely sure how you came to be here, I believe the bigger question is what do I do with you now that you're here?" There was a darkness in his eyes that set off butterflies in her stomach, and she tried her best to ignore the feelings he was stirring in her. She looked everywhere but at him as her thoughts raced, unfocused and scared. How did she get here? Where was here? Who was he? Why did he have Vision's face? Why were his words now scrawled across her skin? How was this even possible?
She swallowed hard and tried to control her breathing, unfocused eyes fixed on the windows instead of him. Her eyes fell closed as she forced herself to count her breaths, to slow down her racing heart and mind. When she was feeling steadier, she opened her eyes and chanced a glance around at Dryden, who had moved to a table off to the side and was pouring himself a drink. It was only then that she realized what she had been staring at this whole time, and she gasped.
Dryden was visibly startled when she darted towards a window, and his guards raised their weapons towards her at the sudden movement, but she paid them no heed. She gaped at the sight before her… endless stars and the darkness of space. She felt herself start to tremble. It was too much, too much, too much. Where the hell was she? Blood was rushing in her ears, she couldn't hear anything past the loud ocean-rush of it. Dryden was saying something, but she couldn't tear her horrified gaze from the expanse of… nothingness before her. Her world was gone. Everything was gone and she was all alone.
Darkness was encroaching on her vision, and she let it take her.
