𝕻𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖚𝖑𝖚𝖒 - [𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗽𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲]

𝐨. 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄 — shattered

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 𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀 𝐂𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄 still couldn't quite understand how she got out of the explosion alive. Bruce, all big, green and protruding with muscles and rage... Well, his escape hadn't been a shock to anyone; but a woman with no muscle on her bones, and no mutation to help her... Everyone was left bewildered to find her soot free form amongst the rubble and ash that once resembled the lab.

 There were things that happened after the explosion, things that Emilia couldn't explain. Things around her seemed to break and shatter like the most fragile of things.

 She could recall being alone as she worked on whatever Bruce had left for her, the lights had been dim, a light breeze from the fan jostling her hair before she shrieked and almost fell from her stool as the sound of shattering glass erupted from behind her.

 Glass from a beaker laid on the tiles of the laboratory, shattered into a thousand pieces. It had been neatly tucked away on its shelf with the other dozen clean beakers, a layer of dust had grown on the glass for she and Bruce only ever picked the ones at the very centre of the shelf... so how it had fallen from its place after months of going unused was an utter mystery.

 There were other things too, pencils rolling to the floor and clattering beside her foot upon times that Emilia had been engrossed in her writing. Times where the droplets from the sink flowed faster than usual. Little things that caused Emilia to pause with furrowed brows, but ultimately ignore.

 Just as she did with that... feeling in the pit of her stomach before each little event.

 Nonetheless, despite the little things that caused the brilliant woman to jerk and shriek, she continued on. Her job, the thing she had devoted herself to was helping Bruce; he wished for nothing more than to rid himself of the green beast that threatened to overtake his body the second his heartbeat thudded a little faster than usual.

 This, however, hadn't deterred Emilia from publishing her books, not at all. She had published two in the time between finishing her education, and working alongside Bruce; The Basics of Particle Physics, and The History of Us: Our Genetic Ancestry.

 Royalties filled her bank account, as did the funding from the project she and Bruce had been working on; she was comfortable, more than comfortable.

 From publishing to lecturing, to working in the dimly lit lab from dusk until dawn... Emilia was happy; this was what she wanted. To learn and to teach, and to help her parents live happy and comfortable lives.

 She couldn't have prepared for the second explosion that occurred just eight months after the first.

 It had been raining, Emilia remembered that much, she'd been wearing joggers and a sweatshirt, her hair pulled into what resembled a nest upon her head.