Shadows (Sequel to Rip My Heart Out)

Chapter 1

The sky was full of stars tonight. I was lying on the lawn of the Avenger's facility with my arms stretched out on either side of my body. Small tendrils of blue light were floating off the skin of my hands like smoke, forming elaborate patterns in the air above me. The light twisted and turned, intertwining with other strands, moving slowly further from my hands into infinity. The wisps of light were like branches of a never ending tree.

The thoughts in my head were more tangled and twisted than the patterns stretching towards the sky in front of me. It had been several months since the Battle of Sokovia, but the events of that day and the months leading up to it were never far from my mind. The faces of all those who were killed flashed through my mind. It was senseless, all of it. Violence that changed lives forever, but never should have happened.

I couldn't sleep, not since the infinity stone was put in my chest, but the images I saw played through my head like a nightmare, day after day. One image was always there, looming over me; Pietro falling to the ground, bloody and lifeless, his eyes drained of the spark that made him who he was.

I brought him back, but things would never be the same. Pietro was still himself, but we both felt something different in him. He was dead, and that isn't something that you can just forget about.

Too many times to count, I had watched him toss and turn in a cold sweat as he slept, mumbling incoherent phrases. It pained me to see him like this. I hated seeing him afraid, so much so that I had, once or twice, tapped into the power of the Mind Stone, and gently crept into his dreams, replacing the horrors that lay there with some of his best memories.

Vision could feel what I was doing. The Mind Stone was under his control, and even though I could tap into it's power, it didn't mean I should. Vision warned me of the dangers of messing with someone's dreams. I told him I was the last person on Earth who needed that warning, which was absolutely true. Wanda had messed with my mind a while back, stealing all of my memories, and that had changed me in ways no one could understand but me.

Wanda had tried several times to restore the memories she had stolen, but it was useless. Her and I both knew before she even started that they were lost forever, along with the person I was before the infinity stones began meddling in my life.

Steve had encouraged me to reach out to my parents, but I couldn't. I had this illusion in my mind that hugging my mother would send a feeling of warmth and love washing over me, and that my father's hand on my shoulder would make me feel truly safe and at home, but I knew deep down that if I did see them, I wouldn't feel any of that. Holding my mother's hand would be no different than holding a stranger's hand.

Maybe that was selfish of me, but I couldn't find it in myself to break that illusion. If I couldn't have my memories of them, I would hold on to the picture I had in my head of that picture perfect, loving family, and I would guard it with my life. No one could take that from me, not any more.

The blue trails of light stretched so far in the air now, I couldn't see the end of them, but I could feel them. Just like the patterns stretched out in front of me, my powers grew by the minute. My reach was further than it had ever been. I found it nearly impossible not to leave one of my shadows next to everyone I knew. If something happened to them, I knew, and if need be, I could be there in an instant.

It's not like I wanted that. In fact it was an inconvenience. With every new surge of power, it was increasingly hard not to take in sensory information from every last one of my shadows. I know everywhere Steve goes and everything he does, even when neither of us wants me to know. I'm never far from Pietro, and often times, even if I'm away from him, I can't help but to physically manifest next to him. Right now, in fact, there is a copy of me, living and breathing, lying next to him in our bed. He's snoring softly, and my copy is lying in his arms, following my same train of thought. That copy, at least, I wasn't trying to get rid of. Pietro slept better when I was there, and since I don't sleep, and liked to do other things than just lay in bed all night, my copy was useful.