The New Avenger

Impetuous

Peter's POV:

"There's got to be something. There has to be something here." Mr. Stark is pacing. It would be a lie if I said I'd seen him more agitated, or even close to this upset. For all of his fancy scanners and gadgets and equipment we were still blind. Either we were blind or he was wrong.

"If none of your devices could pick up any sort of trap where does that leave us?" I ask but don't wait for a response, "She's either using something primitive enough for them not to register-"

"It would've registered." Mr. Stark's voice is so sure I can't argue.

"Well then it would have to be advanced enough for your machines not to recognize it as a threat."

Again Mr. Stark cuts me off. 

"Where would a teenager whose been on the run since she was 18 get the equipment and skills necessary to make something like that? It would have to be years, decades even, ahead of our time. And even so the X-rays would've picked up on any abnormalities." 

"Well then it's not here." But an idea is already formed, an idea misrepresented by my words.  

"It's here. It has to be here. There's nowhere else it could be. When something like this happens it's never good, it's a trap. It's always a trap." There's a hint of desperation in his voice. It's the desperation that comes with the thought of losing someone close to you. 

However desperate he is though, he can't be more desperate than me. Because I'm not going to walk out of this building. Not unless Aunt May is next to me. Not unless Percy's walking out. Not unless Captain Rogers comes too. I won't be another survivor, not unless everyone else is.

My life isn't worth half theirs. If I die, who will care? With DJ gone, with Matt gone, with Radi and Joy and Josiah gone, well, without them the only people who care even a little whether I live or die are in this building. If Aunt May doesn't walk away there's no point in my even trying. There is more than one way to die. Losing someone else, anyone else, would be a more effective way to kill me than a bullet to the head.  

"It is here. It just isn't here yet." I mutter, distracted.

"How could it be here but not be here yet?" Mr. Stark is confused, which is a bit of an achievement on my part. Even though I try to focus I can't because it's a trap. At any moment it could be sprung.

"She knew. She knew you could see any trap she laid out for you so she didn't set a trap. What's the range of your X-ray?"

Now Mr. Stark looks even more confused from the change of pace. To his credit he answers anyway, "It depends on the conditions, but it isn't reliable to far."

It isn't a descriptive answer, it isn't a specific answer. But it's enough of an answer.

"Look, if you were going to set a trap and you knew that your prey would have this type of equipment what would you do?" I pause, not long enough for him to answer, "You'd set a sort of trap that your prey wouldn't be able to see, right? For Remix this is personal, that much is obvious. So we know she doesn't want us to know she's here and we know she wants to do whatever it is she's going to do with her own hands. Isn't a logical assumption to make that she knows how far away she has to be for you not to spot her? Which means that the minute we go in there she'll be there. Remix isn't going to do anything stupid, she's going to make us fight her where she wants to be fought."

The body laying on the ground in there isn't  my aunt's. The lives on the line aren't my friends. I didn't just go through the murder of five of my closest friends. None of this has anything to do with me. We're just stumbling along, trying to save someone else's aunt. Because there's no reason for this. This is sensless. This isn't right. Nobody deserves this. Nobody deserves this.

And it's my fault. Because somehow it always is. Because Radi was supposed to save the world, become the future president through anime references and sarcasm. And DJ was going to become a billionaire and prove that we'd all been wise to invest in him. And Joy was going to learn how to chose between what she wanted and what everyone else did. Matt was going to finally learn to speak up, let the world see that he wasn't afraid. Josiah was going to grow up and change something, change everything. 

They were supposed to change the world. They were supposed to have a life. Beautiful, full, bright lives. Except now it's looking more and more like that life doesn't exist at all. Because how can anything be beautiful and full an d bright in a world with this much pain. How can the world be beautiful when peoples worlds are torn to the ground? How can the world be full when a guy murders his pregnant girlfriend? How can the world be bright when everything is so dark?

"Peter?" Mr. Stark shoves me just a little, bringing me back. Because they body on the floor is my aunts. Because these are my friends lives at stake. Because the five people closest to me were murdered. Because this doesn't have anything to do with me- it has everything to do with me.  "Peter, you don't need to do this. I can take care of it."

But I do need to do this. 

"We have to be united to get Remix and find the others." I shrug.

"Fine, alright. So I guess now we just go in." Mr. Stark smiles under his helmet. Even though I can't see his face I just know. Before I can tell him what a bad decision he's making he's already stepped over the thresh hold. 

A/N

Look, I'm sorry the chapter is really short, but a person from my school was found murdered on Wednesday which, as you can imagine, has sort of messed up everyone's week. And due to the nature of the crime the press decided that camping outside of the school and trying to stick microphones in our faces as we were going inside and leaving was alright. So yeah, it was a pretty bad day and it's exhausting, being around so many people who are so upset. It's just like people, don't murder your girlfriend. That's not good. Not good at all. And just for the record I hope her killer doesn't get killed in prison so he can live out the rest of his life in absolute misery, tortured by what he did. However, if he is not remorseful I hope he dies a long and painful death.

Anyway, that's why the chapter is crappy and short but I'm just happy I managed to update at all. Hope you lot are having a better week than me.