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chapter fourteen
THE GIRL WHO
DROWNED
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+ trigger warning: somewhat graphic descriptions of death and corpses.

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LENA'S SCREAM PIERCES THE air the instant that Graham collapses to the floor, motionless, mouth parted in shock and frozen forever as the light leaves his widened eyes. She feels her entire world come crumbling apart while she moves toward him so slowly it's like time has stopped. Her knees slam onto the concrete beside him, but when she reaches out to touch him, he's overtaken with blue pixels and disappears from sight.

"No—" she chokes out, slapping her hand down where his body just laid, only to be met with the sharp sting of concrete against her palm. Heart crashing against her ribcage, she whirls around to see if he's elsewhere in the room, only to be met with emptiness. Peter and Fury are gone.

"Graham?" she calls, voice raw with confusion and sheer panic as her eyes whiz around frantically. "Peter?"

The drone shoots at her. Lena is quick this time, forming a shield with one hand and blasting energy at the machine with her other. It explodes on impact, only for another to come firing in her direction from thin air. She ducks into a roll and produces a force field around herself as she sprints out of the room. She doesn't even know where to go, only aware that she has to get out, out, out and find her damn friends.

Lena throws herself onto a staircase. It ends up being an illusion, disappearing beneath her weight and causing her heart to drop as she plummets for several stories. Her limbs flail around her for a moment before she gathers her bearings, shooting energy from her feet to prevent her from crashing to certain death. A fleet of white and green drones soars from the level she was on. Bullets explode from them, one narrowly scraping her shoulder and causing her to hiss. She uses her palms to shoot right back, covering her face from the shrapnel, sparks, and ash that rain down on her as they combust with an earth-shattering boom.

"Really, Lena?" Beck's voice taunts from somewhere she can't see. It echoes like it's surrounding her, twisting around her mind like a python that's squeezing its prey too tightly. "I thought we had a bond, you know. And then you go and betray me like this?"

"I wouldn't have to if you weren't such an asshole!" she exclaims, whirling around in mid-air with the jets still coming from her feet. The building appears to be completely empty. "Where are my friends?"

"Isn't that the million-dollar question?" he asks, appearing in full costume one floor below her. Lena doesn't hesitate before blasting him with a stream of energy. His figure dissolves as it hits him, destroying nothing but air and the wall that her powers end up striking.

She needs solid ground. But how can she possibly know where that is? Taking a chance, she reduces the flow from her boots and allows herself to steadily drop further down. Once she's almost on what she thinks is the ground floor, though, something invisible slams into her gut and tosses her onto the second story like a rag doll. She crashes onto the concrete, rolling several times before she manages to stop with a groan.

Beck materializes in front of her. She bares her teeth at him and swings her legs around to knock him onto his ass, only for her calves to collide with a cement column instead. A strangled gasp of pain bursts from her throat as shock travels up her bones.

"Face me yourself, you coward!" she cries, steadily getting to her feet. Her eyes water from the agony shooting up her legs, but she stays upright, bracing herself for what's to come.

"I'm the coward?" his voice sneers. Lena tenses, her world suddenly becoming doused in darkness so absolute she can't see her hand in front of her face. She reaches up and grasps the strands of her wig in frustration as his voice rises to a swirling echo around her, mimicking the sounds of a panic attack. "You want your friends because you don't want to admit that you can't do things on your own. It never was just you, was it? Lena and Graham. Havoc and Spider-Man. Why? Because when it comes down to it, you're just a scared, pathetic teenage girl, always crying for help."

Anger lights up Lena's insides like a roaring fire. She lashes out with her powers in the direction of his voice, only for the sound of a drone exploding to meet her ears. She jumps when a shard of glass twice her height and width slams to the ground in front of her. Her figure appears in it like a mirror, reflecting a girl dressed in a black suit with her silver hair astray, tears spilling down the front of her eye mask. Her face is blotchy and red around it.

"You can keep pretending you're a hero all you want, but I know who you really are. How can you expect to defeat me when you can't even accept your past?"

Lena's reflection reaches through the mirror and seizes her by the throat. She's yanked into the glass, tumbling into an endless void of darkness that swallows her whole. Her body instinctively ducks into a somersault to catch her fall. It allows her to pop back to her feet even though her head spins with disorientation. She has to shake her hair out of her face in order to see.

Her clone streams energy at her, which Lena can feel the heat of even as she raises a force field to deflect it. They meet in a blinding display of bright blue. The girl looks just like her down to every blemish, except there's an evil gleam to her eye and a quirk of her lips that suggests she's enjoying this. The real Lena certainly isn't.

Her reflection tries to knock her back down with an arching kick, but Lena swiftly ducks underneath it and moves to blast her. The girl vanishes, reappearing behind Lena with a fist raised to punch. They move in a dizzying array of strikes without seeming to gain any traction on either side. Every dodge and strike is futile since her mind knows it's not real, but her body naturally fights to stay alive.

"Dear old Mom and Dad weren't the best, were they?" Beck mocks. Her reflection dissolves, replaced by two figures a few meters away. Lena recognizes them from the file Tony had given her– her biological parents, the scientists who had given her powers for their own personal gain. "They killed your brother. And they almost killed you. You can try to make yourself a hero all you want, but you can't run from destiny, This is what you were made to be– what you will always be when it comes down to it."

"Shut UP!" Lena screams, throwing her arms out and expelling as much energy as she can from them. Everything around her trembles as the very building she's in shakes. Several invisible drones crash to the floor, but she's still trapped in this endless void, unable to run or fly because she may plummet to her death or slam into a ceiling and crush her skull.

She thought she'd known terror before. She thought nothing could be worse than the mind-numbing fear she'd felt when Thanos had turned her powers into nothing, wrapped her neck into his fist, and tossed her away like she was meaningless. But this... this is worse. The uncertainty of where she is. Her inability to trust whatever she can see and feel. The soul-crushing realization that Beck had deliberately shut her off from Graham and Peter, knowing they'd be stronger in numbers. He'd picked them out individually to mess with their minds.

But knowing none of it is real doesn't make it any less terrifying.

Lena can feel sweat gathering on the back of her neck as she puts up a force field against an onslaught of drones. However, they merely disappear before she can shoot them away, never having been tangible at all. Green smoke clouds her vision. She has the unnerving sensation that Beck is near, laughing while she jumps away from the smoke and promptly trips over a chunk of wreckage. She manages to catch herself before she can faceplant, but not before her hands are scraped on loose pebbles and broken shards of glass.

As if she's looking through strobe lights, the figures of her parents flash closer and closer. It takes her a second to recognize the syringe in her biological father's hand. His tanned face is twisted in a cruel sneer as he raises his arm up, ready to stab the needle into her arm, but she rolls away before he can bring it down.

She opens her eyes and finds herself strapped to a hospital bed. It shouldn't be possible, but the restraints clamped to her wrists and calves feel real— she can feel the nearly unbearable pressure of them, and when she frantically tries to struggle, they don't budge. Her throat begins to close with panic the more she writhes in place without the success of breaking free.

A blinding light shines on her from above. She squints against its brightness, struggling to see her parents working on another body on a cot beside hers. Something is wrong. While she blinks, her vision starts to adjust, allowing her to see the details of the body. It's a young man, but that revelation is only possible because of the smoothness of his arms. His face is a different story. It's charred in some places, angry red welts covering the other parts of his skin that are still smoldering and sizzling. Bile rises in Lena's throat at the gruesome sight; some of his skin is hanging off of his forehead.

It's not difficult guess of who this is supposed to be. Keanu.

His eyes flash open. Electricity crackles at his fingertips, causing their parents to stumble away from him in shock. Keanu rises like Frankenstein's monster come to life. Every movement is unnatural and jerky, lightning detonating onto his restraints and burning straight through them. He pushes himself up to a sitting position and looks directly at Lena. Her heart climbs into her throat, thundering against her chest as she struggles even harder against her bonds, breaths bursting from her lips in rapid pants.

Lena can see his skull beneath the strips of skin that are clinging to his face for dear life. The still-burning areas are pink and raw, pulsing as the nerves beneath are continuously fried. His dark hair dangles on his scalp in awkward clumps. With a flash of movement, he raises his hand and detonates a bolt of lightning directly at her, causing the entire bed to explode and for her restraints to snap free.

For a moment, Lena is weightless, suspended in mid-air as if she's some ethereal being exempt from the law of gravity. Then she falls. It's too sudden of a change for her to even gather her bearings before she lands in an ungraceful heap, every bone in her body thrumming with agony.

"Lena?" Graham's voice calls from somewhere she can't see, echoing around her. "Lena!"

"Graham!" she screams back, scrambling to her feet. She turns in a wild circle, but all she can see is the same absolute darkness smothering her. "Where are you?"

He materializes out of the dark. Lena is so grateful to see him alive, though clearly battered and bruised, that the relief nearly knocks her to her knees. A smile briefly pulls up her lips in spite of everything. They reach out to each other. But as soon as their fingers brush, he evaporates in a plume of green smoke.

No. Lena doesn't have time to absorb the shock of him not being real before she's being shoved from behind, forced to take several steps forward in order to stay on her feet. By the time she steadies herself, she's been transported somewhere else entirely. Instead of the pitch-black void from before, she finds herself standing on the battlefield at the Avengers Compound.

It's almost exactly how she remembers it. The entire complex of buildings reduced to rubble, smog covering the sky until no sunlight can peek through the thick black clouds. Thanos' warship looming overhead like a promise of death. The ground covered in blood, soot, and dirt that quickly cakes her boots. But there's one glaringly obvious difference.

Everyone is dead.

Lena's heart constricts in her chest as her eyes sweep over the mangled body of Steve, his shield tossed unceremoniously beside him. Then there's Bruce— or, the version of him combined with the Hulk, that is. He's been burned to a crisp by Thanos' jets. Thor's axe is buried in his gut.

She chokes on a sob, climbing over a pile of broken pipes and brick to scramble away. They're everywhere. T'Challa. Wanda. Doctor Strange. Shuri. All dead, all seeming like they had greatly suffered while they had passed.

Then Lena finds Peter.

For some reason, seeing him is what destroys her. He's lying on his back with a gaping hole in the center of his chest that exposes his organs. Blood stains his suit and the ground beneath him in a dark puddle that seeps onto her boots. His mask is off, revealing his empty eyes and his face that's as white as a sheet. God, there's so much blood. It also rims the corners of his pale lips — the only speck of color to be seen.

A splintering sob wracks her entire body. Lena doubles over with the force of her pain, hugging her gut as hot tears pour down her cheeks until her vision is mere streaks of color. A terrible ache blossoms in her head from the stress and force of her cries. Her knees buckle beneath her, but she refuses to give in, not wanting to splash into the puddle of Peter's blood beneath her.

"Hey."

The voice comes from behind. Lena's heart skips a dangerous beat, refusing to turn around even when hope cracks through the storm inside of her like a ray of sunlight after a hurricane.

"Hey, it's okay. It isn't real. He's just trying to get to you."

Lena squeezes her eyes shut against the sound of Tony's voice, another sob bursting from her lips as her heart twists. Then she feels a gentle hand on her shoulder and freezes. No, it's not possible. It shouldn't be possible. But some deranged part of her that's desperate for a bit of hope possesses her to open her eyes and turn her head.

A fatal mistake.

She's looking up at Tony Stark's corpse.

His unfocused eyes seem to stare into her soul, those familiar burns traveling up his face and causing his colorless skin to sag. The corners of his mouth are pulled down because there's no muscle to hold them up. Lena tries to leap away, a horrified scream ripping her throat raw. His grip tightens on her shoulder until it feels bruising and holds her firmly in place, fingers digging into her shoulder with incredible strength.

A wave of energy expels from her. The force of it yanks her backward, and then she's soaring through the air, blue bits of power emitting from her limbs at random as she futilely attempts to right herself.

"You see, Lena?" Beck taunts. "You're a harbinger of death. No matter how hard you try to fight it, it'll always be true. Your parents, your brother, Tony, Natasha, and even Steve's on his way up to those pearly gates. I think I have someone else who will join them soon."

The movement stops. Lena somehow lands on her feet with no help of her own, once again standing in the dark abyss of nothing. Except, this time, she's not alone.

Two drones are pointing green lasers at Ma and Pa. Her mother has tears pouring down her lined face, lips pulled into a line to stifle her sobs. Pa is trying to stay strong as always. Even though she can see the terror in his eyes, he stares at the drone head-on and reaches out to clasp Ma's hand with his own.

"No!" Lena cries, throwing out her hands to blast the drones to smithereens. Even as those ones combust, she can't get force fields around her adoptive parents fast enough. Two more appear out of thin air and fire several rounds into their bodies. Lena's shriek nearly breaks her, only to end in a choke when an invisible hand grabs her by the throat and lifts her off of her feet.

"Tony knew all of your greatest fears," Beck says.

The illusion cuts out. She's on the edge of a lake, staring into the remorseless face of Quentin Beck while he dangles her over the waves. Her hands instinctively claw at his, but his iron grip doesn't falter even though she chokes and pleads with her widened, tearful eyes.

"And now I do, too."

Then he drops her in the water.

Immediately, a wave pulls her under the surface. Lena's limbs begin to thrash in an attempt to bring her back up, but even when her head pops out, there's no time for her to suck in a breath that isn't full of water. She didn't think this would be what drowning would be like. There's no calling for help, no dramatic screaming, just sheer panic and a terrible ache in her lungs.

A projector turns on, dousing her in the awful darkness once again. She can't see which way is up. She only knows the pummeling of the waves that continuously drag her under and the way she's so tired. Everything hurts. Her throat feels like it's going to burst from a lack of oxygen, her lungs taking in water instead of air.

She's scarcely aware of something forming around her head as her body gives out.

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a/n:

this is also how i imagine lena reacting when graham is shot:

for those of you who haven't read chapter one in a while, the title is a reference to the poem that lena wrote which goes by the same name! it was a fun lil bit of foreshadowing that i decided to include :) well, not fun for lena...

please let me know what you thought of the illusions and if there's anything you need me to clarify. it was a huge challenge to write this chapter because it relies heavily on visuals, so i completely understand if you found anything confusing. and also let me know if there was any part you really liked in particular! i'm always interested in hearing your feedback!

also, if you're interested, check out this video that shows a breakdown of the special effects used in the movie (and, more specifically, the scene with the illusions)! i found it SO cool how they made everything look so real, even the car that peter got into in berlin.

https://youtu.be/yGHiCE2XlYo

we are nearing the end of part 3, folks! i anticipate only 4-6 more chapters left. i'm definitely going to be stretching out the end of far from home to include some of my own scenes like i did in the beginning of the book. this won't be the last part! since as of right now, spider-man 3 is still happening, the story will continue, but obviously i won't be able to plan & write part 4 until i actually see the movie.

—kristyn