ELY

It was difficult to know whether films, comics, or superheroes were to blame for such confidence in a New York long accustomed to letting the Fantastic Four solve its problems—an irony that could only be born from Ego.

Whatever the origin of this epidemic, it infected every mind that carried even a fragment of certainty. In its contagion, it had not spare you. You used to proclaim to anyone willing to listen that your years at the Baxter Building had toughened you and trained you for any eventuality.

If Reed Richards had chosen you as his laboratory assistant, it was because you possessed exceptional abilities, and above. The Fantastic Four surrounded themselves only with the best, la crème de la crème. ‘Fight or flight’ was not a conundrum when one worked in the private laboratory of the smartest man on the planet.

So, when a masked thief burst into that very laboratory one evening and pointed a knife at you, the answer seemed obvious.

New York was shedding the last remnants of its daily frenzy in fading car horns. Offices had emptied, plunging the Manhattan skyline into shadow. Only a handful of windows, here and there, still glowed yellow, drawing across the skyscrapers’ façades the constellation of the Night Owl.

You crossed your arms. Dark circles sharpened the glare you aimed at Reed, who mirrored your stance., The two of you had been locked in this ridiculous standoff, for fifteen minutes now. Neither willing to give in. You had been trying—with increasing insistence—to force him out of the lab after spending hours cooped up in it but the stubborn bastard refused to hear you.  

The day had been spent analysing local fluctuations of the cosmological constant embedded in Franklin’s DNA. They were minor—for now, the small voice in your mind whispered—but present enough to trouble his father.

A father who was currently refusing to leave his lab and was therefore missing precious time with said son—parental irony.

“I can write an analysis report in my sleep. You know that. Go join the others,” you had told him. “You’re already an hour late. Ben’s going to skin you alive.”

“I still need to—”

“Calculate his dimensional signature, I know,” you cut him off before he could come up with another excuse. “I’ll handle it. Now, out.”

He arched a brow.

“You say I work too much, yet you spend just as much time here.”

“I don’t have a partner. Or a child for that matter.”

“If that is the only issue, I know someone who’d be happy to solve it.”

Heat rose to your cheeks instantly.

“Shut up.”

Johnny Storm had become a forbidden name in the laboratory barely two weeks after your first day. Too distracting, Reed had ruled after enduring fourteen long days of watching his new assistant and his brother-in-law turn into blushing teenagers.

“Why don’t you join us tonight?”

You shook your head frantically. You felt at ease with the Fantastic Four, but you preferred not to intrude upon their family life. Your own parents had always taught you to separate your professional life from your private one. That was why they disapproved of your friendship with Johnny. That was why you refused to confess your feelings to the blond man.

“Don’t worry about me,” you dismissed with a wave of your hand. “Go eat. And sleep. Ten hours, at least. I’ll turn off the lights when I leave.”

You pressed the elevator button and physically guided Reed inside before he could protest again. His betrayed expression earned him a smug smile.

“Bon appétit.”

The doors slid shut.

You returned to your bench, satisfied, and immersed yourself in equations and multidimensional theory, trying to reconcile both to better understand the biology of a one-year-old toddler. Soon, only the scratch of chalk and the clink of test tubes echoed through the vast room.

You had just started humming when a dull thud sounded behind you. You frowned and set down your pipette.

“Reed? What did I s—”

You turned.

A man stood in the lab.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” he said, just before lunging at you.

His body slammed into yours, throwing you against the table. The impact stole your breath, but you recovered quickly. You rolled together in a shapeless but brutal entanglement of limbs. You managed to rake your nails down his neck. He growled and drove his knee into your stomach.

Air left your lungs in a harsh wheeze. You tried to double over, but his forearm crushed against your collarbone, holding you upright.

Then you saw it. The blade of a knife caught the cold fluorescent light of the lab. Your eyes widened. Panic flooded your chest.

He raised the weapon, which glinted in a morbid play of light, and brought it down.

Before it could pierce your throat, you grabbed the blade with your bare palm. Metal bit into your palm, slicing deep into your fingers. Pain exploded up your arm. You cried out as warm and sticky blood flowed between your fingers.

He pushed harder. You clenched your teeth to stifle an agonized scream.

He is going to cut off my fingers, you realized suddenly. You planted your feet and forced your full weight against him, twisting your wrist at the last second. With a desperate jerk, you twisted your wrist and knocked the knife sideways.

It tore free, taking flesh with it, and slid across the floor.

You did not have time to celebrate. His fist collided with your face.

You hit the tiles hard. White light burst behind your eyelids. Copper filled your mouth.

It took you two attempts to open your eyes. The ceiling swayed above you. The world had taken on a soft texture, but through your glazed vision you could still make out the man heading toward Reed’s computer.

He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a floppy disk, before crouching near the central unit. The very central unit that contained all of Reed’s research, Sue’s file and reports, Ben’s, Franklin’s.

Johnny’s.

You rolled onto your side, clamping a hand over your mouth to swallow the cry threatening to escape. The room tilted violently, but you dragged yourself up using the bench. Your blood smeared across the surface, blending into the red colour of the furniture.

You searched frantically for a weapon, eyes fixed on the stranger, who was already typing.

Your injured fingers brushed against the narrow neck of an Erlenmeyer flask. You grabbed it. The glass slipped in your bloody palm, but you tightened your grip and charged.

The flask shattered against his shoulder. Glass exploded into a thousand pieces. One shard grazed your cheek, but you did not linger on the sting. The only thing that mattered was that computer and the data it contained.

He staggered and dropped the disk.

“Fucking bitch!”

He turned around. A cold fury burned in his eyes.

You attempted to step back, but your heel slipped on broken glass. The man slammed into you and sent you crashing to the ground. Before you could inhale, his thumbs dug under your jaw and squeezed.

You clawed at his wrists, but your wounded hand slipped. Strength drained from you.

That was in that moment you realised you could scream, that that you should have done much earlier.

Your crushed throat protested, but you forced your compressed vocal cords to work. It is a matter of life and death.

A torn, hoarse, almost unrecognizable, cry ripped through the lab.

“Johnny!”

The name escaped without thought. You did not even register saying it, too busy clawing at the man’s hands. The veins in his neck seemed ready to burst through the reddened flesh that imprisoned them. You choked.

The door exploded.

Heat flooded the room.

You blinked as a streak, as orange as it was blinding, tore across the room.

Through the flames, you caught sight of Johnny’s enraged face before he tackled the man and vanished from your view. The impact was so violent that they tore through a metal table before crashing against the opposite wall.

Flames coiled up the walls and soon curled around the man, who began to scream. The acrid, unmistakable smell of burning flesh filled the room.

Johnny lifted him by the collar.

“Not so brave now, are you? How about I choke you, huh? See how you like it?”

The flames burned brighter.

Suddenly, an orange mass entered your field of vision—Ben, you realised with relief—and an invisible pressure bent the air, forcing Johnny to step back.

“That’s enough, Johnny,” Sue’s firm voice rang out as she rematerialized in the room.

The fire retracted with each word she spoke and eventually died out.

Johnny let the man fall to the floor and turned to look at you.

The rage vanished instantly. Without sparing a glance at the others, he rushed to your side, heedless of the shards of glass cutting into his knees.

“Darling,” he breathed out.

His fingers hovered at your throat. He swallowed at the sight of the finger marks already forming there.

“Are you okay?” he asked in a trembling voice, so far removed from his usual tone.

You tried to speak but managed only a hoarse sound. Your injured hand closed weakly around his wrist. You offered him a shaky smile and nodded.

“What was he even doing here?” Ben asked, holding the unconscious man in his fist.

You opened your mouth. Instinctively, you brought your hand to your throat—your fingers brushing Johnny’s—as the skin pulsed beneath your touch. When you tried to speak, nothing came but a rasp. The words remained stuck in your throat.

“I’ll grab you a pen—”

You shook your head and gripped Johnny’s forearm to keep him close. You needed him.

When you finally forced your voice out, it no longer sounded like yours: hoarse, veiled, reduced to a frayed thread that tore at your throat.

“He wanted your research and your personal files,” you managed to articulate. “I didn’t think to ask why.”

You attempted a weak smile. Ben laughed at your joke, recognizing it as a coping mechanism, but Johnny paled.

“And so you decided to handle him alone?” Reed raised an eyebrow.

“I was not going to let him take Franklin’s files.”

Reed’s face softened, and when you saw the gratitude in his eyes, you knew that you had made the right choice in stepping in.

Sue crouched in front of you and took your face between her hands.

“Thank you,” she said.

She helped you to your feet. Johnny allowed his sister to do so, though his hands twitched toward you whenever you gasped or whimpered in pain.

“Come on,” Sue continued in a gentle, almost maternal tone. “We’ll find you a pack of ice.”

Once seated on the couch, wrapped in a blanket bearing the familiar blue logo, your wounds freshly bandaged and your throat still aching, you suddenly felt very small in the vastness of the living room. Ben, Reed, and Sue had returned to the lab to deal with the attacker and prepare the press conference that would inevitably follow—a routine they were well acquainted with.

Only Johnny remained, but unlike earlier, he did not even look at you. He paced back and forth, hands in his hair, jaw clenched.

You watched him do so for long minutes, interrupting yourself only to sip the tea Ben had prepared. The warmth of the drink tore at your throat, but you said nothing. You knew that a single sound from you would cause the bomb standing before you to explode.

When Johnny began muttering under his breath, you set your cup down. You inhaled—and immediately regretted it when a bolt of pain shot through your trachea—to try to speak, but before you could utter a word, he turned toward you, anger flared.

“What were you thinking?”

Indignation rose instantly in your chest. You had expected everything except that.

“I did my job!”

The words emerged at an uneven volume, embarrassing you. You swore inwardly and clenched your fist.

“That’s not your job! Your job is being an assistant. Not a fucking hero. You were reckless! Why didn't you raise the alarm the moment you saw him? Huh? I would’ve flown here, and none of this would’ve happened.”

You did not answer. Determined to obtain one, Johnny stepped closer until he towered over you, and you had no choice but to tilt your head back to address him.

“Well?”

You looked away, lips pressed tight. It tore at you to admit it. The words tasted of bitter defeat.

“I didn’t think about it,” you muttered.

“What?” He leaned closer.

“I didn’t think about it! All right?” you exclaimed as best you could.

A coughing fit shook your chest. Air scraped against the bruised walls of your throat. You doubled over in pain. The abandoned tea on the table trembled with the violence of your movements.

Beside you, the couch dipped and a warm hand settled between your shoulder blades. It rubbed your back and did not stop until your coughing finally subsided.

“Next time,” Johnny began, “you call me. Okay? I can’t go through that again. I can’t–” His voice cracked.

When you straightened, he offered you a tender smile and, with the tip of his thumb, wiped the tears from the corners of your eyes.

“I can’t lose you,” he said simply.

It stole your breath.

“Johnny…”

“I can’t,” he repeated, eyes wild. “I love you. And I never told you because I didn’t know if you felt the same, but I don’t care. I’ve got to say it. You almost died tonight. All that for some fucking file. And I would’ve spent my entire life regretting that I’ve never—”

You grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him down to you before he could say another word. Your lips crashed against his, desperate and unsteady. For a fraction of a second he stiffened in surprise before melting into the kiss.

His hand came up to cradle your jaw, careful of the bruises, thumb brushing the edge of your throat as though to reassure himself you were still there. The kiss deepened, no longer frantic but tender. His other hand slid around your waist, drawing you closer without jostling your injuries.

When you finally pulled apart, his thumb brushed your bruised throat.

“I should’ve burned the bastard to ash,” he muttered.

“I mean, technically speaking, that bastard is the reason you are kissing me.”

He shot you a dark look.

“Don’t joke about that. How are you joking about that right now?” He ran a shaking hand through his hair. “You didn’t see what I saw. When I saw him on you, choking you, I thought that–”

“I love you too,” you cut him off for the second time that evening.

He froze and remained speechless for a few seconds, cheeks red, before abruptly closing his mouth and narrowing his eyes.

“Are you seriously weaponizing your love confession to get me to shut up?”

You shrugged.

“I am going to his house.”

Robin grabbed the returns basket with a sigh and, ignoring Steve, began scanning the tapes one by one. Movie titles flashed across the computer screen, each paired with its corresponding customer file. Blade Runner — rented by Mark Halloway. Apocalypse Now — rented by Linda Carver. Raiders of the Lost Ark — rented by Tammy Thompson (she nearly choked reading that one). Soon enough, the counter was stacked with blockbusters, all ready to be rewound. The tapes remained untouched.

Robin rolled her eyes and, for what had to perhaps be the fiftieth time since their meeting at Starcourt, cursed Dustin Henderson.

Contrary to popular belief, Monday mornings at Family Video were anything but quiet. If customers were indeed not roaming the aisles, shamelessly ruining the carefully arranged alphabetization, they were still eager to dump their Saturday night rentals into the return boxes.

It already took a full two hours to put everything back in order when there was two of them. What would happen if Robin had to handle all of it alone because Steve Harrington was too busy having a panic attack?

While scanning Risky Business, Robin glanced at the man in question. He was pacing the aisle between romance and horror movies, hands planted firmly on his hips. By now, the gesture was pure muscle memory: whenever Steve thought about his kids, he ended up looking like the exhausted mother he truly was.

“Or I could park outside his house and wait until I see him come out,” he muttered under his breath.

Great. Now he was talking to himself. A sharp mix of pity and irritation pushed Robin to jump over the counter. Maybe she could talk him into actually working in exchange for some sound advice.

She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.

“Do you honestly think Claudia Henderson goes a single day without knowing exactly where her precious son is? If Claudia—you know, his actual mother—is not panicking, then Dusty Boo is fine.”

“You don’t know that,” he shot back immediately. “The kid’s smart. Maybe he’s lying to her to protect her. That is what he's been doing since 83.”

Steve’s eyes widened.

“Oh my God. What if it's got something to do with the Upside Down? Robin, we have to help him. I am calling Hopper.”

Robin snatched the receiver from his hands and slammed it back onto the wall before the first ring could even sound.

“Did you ever think that maybe the kid just wants to be left alone?”

Steve stared at her as if she had lost her mind. Robin threw her hands up and went back to the counter, where the tapes had not moved an inch. Steve might not be willing to work, but there was no way she was staying late tonight. She could not miss orchestra rehearsal (read: the chance to see Vicky).

“No, wait. Forget Risky Business for like two seconds and listen to me.”

He yanked the cassette from her hands and tossed it over his shoulder. Something clattered in the store. She stared at him as if he were crazy.

Steve ran a hand through his hair.

“Robin, we have to find Dustin.”

“Dustin is fine, Steve,” she repeated for the umpteenth time.

“I asked Max, Will, Mike, Lucas, Little Sinclair. No one has seen him in days. I even called Munson and, between two rants about abusive parental authority, I figured he has not seen him either. Whether Claudia is panicking or not does not matter. Dustin is gone, Robin. Gone. And I will not relax until I find him.”

Robin sighed.

“What’s the plan?”

“We go to his house. We investigate. Now.”

“We’re at work, genius.”

“Tonight then.”

She shook her head.

“Nope. I have rehearsal.”

“Then tomorrow. Please, Robin,” he begged.

“What? Steve,” she protested immediately, “I am not skipping class to spend my Tuesday in your car, staring at the Henderson house and hoping to see the little shit at his window.”

The next morning, Robin found herself sitting in Steve’s car, with her arms crossed and pouting. The car was parked just down the street from the Henderson house. Steve, binoculars in hand, had not looked away in twenty minutes.

“So, what now?”

“We wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“I don’t know, Robin. Anything. A clue. You should be used to this by now. Did getting kidnapped by Russians teach you nothing?”

“Sorry I was too drugged to take notes. And besides, Dustin—”

But Steve was not listening anymore.

Robin slumped back against the seat with a sigh.

Two hours passed in silence.

Robin ate just about everything she could find in her bag—chips, chocolate bars, lukewarm soda—and tried to keep herself occupied as best she could, while Steve never took his eyes off the house, except to scold his best friend for her lack of seriousness.

When the front door finally opened and Dustin Henderson appeared on the porch, Steve gasped before tightened his grip on the binoculars.

The teenager looked around, then mounted his bike. Robin leaned forward to watch him, searching for a detail, anything at all. But she saw nothing unusual. He was still the same Henderson. Healthy. Nerdy. Completely Fine.

She rolled her eyes and gestured toward him with both arms at Steve, who still had not moved.

“There. Your kid is alive. Now can we g– Jesus Christ. What are you doing?”

Steve turned the key. The engine roared. Robin grabbed the door as he lurched the car sharply onto the road.

In front of them, Dustin was already riding toward downtown.

“I’m following him.”

“You’re what? Steve, we’re right outside his house. In a red car. He’s going to see us.”

“No, he won’t. And if he does, he won’t get far. I’ll get my answers.”

Dear God, help me.

Dustin Henderson had always wanted a sibling. When he was younger, he had begged his mother for one, but that dream had quickly been buried beneath the metaphorical trees of his childhood.

Good ol’ Walter had held the shovel in his violent hands and dug the hole with rage, leaving little Dustin no choice but to grieve something that never was.

The years had passed. Friendships had formed. But the idea never truly disappeared. It lingered while his friends complained about Nancy, about Erika, about Jonathan. They told him he was lucky to be an only child, but Dustin was never quite sure that was true.

One day, in Mr Clarke’s class, they had talked about phantom limb syndrome. That was exactly what Dustin had been feeling for years: the sensation of something that should have been there but was not. Someone.

For a time, he believed that someone would be Steve. Then Eddie. But neither of his older friends ever managed to fill that precise space, right next to his heart. The space that grew painful at night, when he came home to his large, empty, silent house.

His wish came true one October evening on Commerce Street, of all places. And it took root in pain.

His bike tire had blown out.

Dustin could already hear his mother’s scolding, and Steve’s too. Like everything that had nothing to do with the Upside Down, he had pushed the problem aside until it caught up with him. And it chose that night to do so, when he braked a little too hard while turning onto Commerce Street, his front tire bursting with a dull sound and sending him tumbling on the sidewalk.

“Shit. Shit. Shit! Fucking bike!”

He groaned as he wiped the blood from his knee with his sleeve, then kicked the cursed bike. The chain rattled in the black night. A crow cawed. Dustin lifted his head and looked around, a shiver running down his spine. Commerce Street, full of life during the day, was draped in nocturnal silence, its darkness pressing even against the lifeless shop windows.

Dustin squinted at his watch. When he finally read the time, he winced. He had not realized it was so late. He was coming back from Mike’s place. Their D&D campaign had lasted longer than expected. Again. He had remembered his mother asked him to buy milk and had taken a detour downtown, convinced some store would still be open.

He glanced once more at the inert street.

Clearly not.

“Fuck.”

Dustin looked down at his bike.

If he did not find a solution fast, his mother would kill him. Whether over the milk or his lateness, he did not know, and he honestly did not want to find out.

With a resigned sigh, Dustin started to walk toward the phone booth on the corner. Before he could even take a step, however, a bell chimed behind him.

“Hey kid, are you okay? I heard some noise.”

Dustin startled. His body reacted before his mind did. His shoulders tense. His fists rose to chest level, clenched so tightly his nails nearly pierced his palms. His heart pounded.

For a split second, he saw nothing but a silhouette. It moved and, for just an instant, he thought he saw a flower-shaped head.

“Are you okay?”

The voice cut through the fog. The Demogorgon’s head vanished. Dustin blinked, and reality slowly reclaimed its place. Across the street, leaning against the door of a shop he had never seen before, stood a young woman, worry written plainly across her features.

The first thing he noticed, almost immediately, was the sign above her head. The letters looked freshly painted. Streaks ran down from the P, stretching it into infinity.

HAWKINS BOOKSHOP.

Dustin frowned. That was new. Hawkins did not have a bookstore, only the sad volumes of the library, wrapped in yellowed plastic, thumbed, dog-eared, annotated, worn down to the spine by entire generations. Nothing like what he could glimpse behind you.

Through the window, partially covered by torn tarps, brand new books lined wooden shelves. Some were already full, others half empty, leaving uneven gaps. Dustin noticed cardboard boxes stacked around the shop, some open, colourful spines and crumpled pages spilling out.

“Do you need help?” you repeated.

Dustin shook his head.

“It’s fine, really.”

He took a step back, a reflex forged by years of extra-dimensional encounters, and only asked whether he could use your phone.

You smiled apologetically and explained, slightly embarrassed, that you did not have a phone line yet.

“Oh, but wait!”

You dug into the pockets of your jeans, pulled out three coins, and handed them to him, pointing toward the booth on the corner. Your gaze fell to the bike lying on the cracked asphalt, its front tire scattered across the road.

“Do you want me to take a look at that while you call your mom?”

You nodded toward the bike.

“You don’t have to,” he replied immediately.

Damn was this kid stubborn.

“I don’t mind if I am offering, kid,” you answered, raising an eyebrow.

He glanced at his bike and sighed.

“Alright,” Dustin finally gave in.

When he reached the phone booth, slipped the coins into the slot, and dialled home, Dustin had to pull the receiver away from his ear as Claudia’s shrill voice burst through the line.

“Dustin Henderson, you are in so much trouble!”

After several long minutes spent trying to calm his mother down—not without difficulty—they finally reached an agreement. Claudia would come pick him up.

When, a few minutes later, he hung up and headed back toward the bookstore, Dustin wondered—in retrospect—how he could ever have missed it. It was the only storefront still lit. A lighthouse in the night.

His bike was no longer where he had left it. It now waited patiently, leaned against a flickering lamppost, the wheel straight and its tire brand new. You watched his reaction as you wiped your grease-covered hands on an old rag.

“Had a spare tire in stock,” you explained.

“How does a bookseller know how to change a wheel?”

You rolled your eyes and did not bother answering. Dustin cleared his throat, suddenly embarrassed for reasons he could not explain. Dustin Henderson was never embarrassed. He was the embodiment of confidence.

“My mom is picking me up.”

You nodded, glanced over your shoulder, seemed to think for a moment, then turned back to him with your arms crossed.

“Do you want something to drink while we wait? My friends say I make a mean hot chocolate.”

“I thought you did not have electricity,” he asked, suspiciously.

“I do. Just not a phone line. Yet.”

Inside, you quickly handed him a steaming mug, topped with marshmallows. Dustin took it carefully, still wary, but his shoulders relaxed despite himself as his eyes drifted across the titles lining the shelves.

“Did you move here recently?”

“Yesterday,” you replied, nodding toward the cardboard boxes.

“Why Hawkins?”

You shrugged and explained it was more coincidence than choice. Your grandmother had died and left you the building, which had been a drugstore before you arrived. Dustin vaguely remembered an old lady and a cluttered shop. His mother used to go there often, he realised. Until Starcourt opened and the small downtown businesses died, that is.

He supposed the “fire” had done some good. Commerce Street had regained its life and its colours, far from the neon lights of the mall but just as beautiful. A bookstore only added to its renewed charm.

“And not having to buy an apartment has its perks,” you concluded.

Dustin nodded and continued sipping his hot chocolate in silence. In the corner of the room, something caught his eye. Near what would probably become the counter, a cardboard box served as a table, topped with a stack of books that were still poorly organized. The one on top looked familiar. He leaned closer to read the title.

Volume Three of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy by Donald Tuck.

Dustin’s eyes went wide. He nearly spit out his drink.

“Fuck, how did you get this?” He rushed toward the book, and you hissed as the wave of hot chocolate came dangerously close to the rim of his mug. “Do you know how hard it is to get this in Hawkins? I’ve been begging Ms. Marissa to order it for years. Eddie even tried to go to Indianapolis to get it, but it is always sold out there too.”

If you wondered who Eddie was, you did not say a thing. You simply took the mug from his hands before he could burn himself or, worse, stain the book.

“Not for sale, kid. That one is from my personal collection.”

The disappointed look on his face tightened something in your chest. Without being able to explain it, you now knew you would do anything to make this kid smile.

“But I could lend it to you, if you want, once I am done reading it.”

He beamed. You melted.

A flash of red broke the moment. You frowned and knelt in front of him, patting your thigh.

“Now let me see that knee.”

You disinfected the wound, covered it with an Ewok bandage, and lent him the encyclopaedia—making him promise not to leave with it—so he would have something to do while waiting for his mother.

At that exact moment, the old trees of his childhood grew. They took root again, their branches growing and slowly wrapping around you. Dustin adopted you without you knowing it or having any say in the matter. You had that same indefinable je ne sais quoi that Steve had, that Eddie had. And yet, you would be inexplicably more than either of his two best friends had ever been. He knew it.

So, the next day, when Lucas and the others suggested going to Family Video to rent a movie for the evening, he refused. Instead, Dustin took his bike with its brand-new tire and pedalled to Commerce Street, where he spent the afternoon helping you unpack and organise the rest of your boxes.

Very quickly, Dustin abandoned Family Video, the drama room, and even his own bedroom, to spend all his free time at Hawkins Bookshop.

Today was no exception.

Dustin barrelled onto Commerce Street, did not even take the time to lock his bike as it clattered onto the sidewalk, and shouldered his way into the bookstore while trying to pull a magazine stuck in his backpack.

The bell rang, drowning out his curse as the cover caught in the zipper and tore at the corner. You looked up, interrupting your conversation with Mrs Hopkins—one of your best customers—to smile at Dustin, before resuming as if nothing had happened. You were in the middle of recommending something that looked suspiciously like a Jane Austen novel. Ugh, boring.

Dustin dropped his bag onto the cushioned armchair beside the history books and waited as best he could, bouncing with impatience. The conversation felt endless. He nearly cheered when you finally scanned Mrs Hopkins’s copy of Emma and accepted her bills.

The second she stepped outside, Dustin pounced.

“You are not going to believe this,” he said without preamble. “Someone created a program that makes your computer crash when you open it. They’re calling it a virus.”

He shoved the magazine in your face.

“It’s already affected over a thousand computers. A thousand. That is insane. That means—”

He barely paused to breathe, eyes bright.

“Why would they do that, though?” you cut in, wrinkling your nose. “What do you gain from making a computer stop working?”

“Don’t know,” he shrugged. “It’s fun, I guess? Anyway—” He dropped the magazine onto the counter and hoisted himself up on it. You stepped back as his beaming face came very close to yours. “Is it here yet?”

You smirked and rummaged through your drawers before pulling up a copy of The Dragon in the Sword.

“Got it this morning.”

As his hand moved to grab it, you pulled it back. He groaned.

“What is the magic word?”

“Dustin Henderson!”

The door burst open. Dustin winced. You simply raised an eyebrow at his expression, the ghost of a curious smirk already tugging at the corner of your lips, and Dustin seemed to falter even more at the sight.

The Dragon in the Sword was quickly forgotten, left beside the cash register. Something else had become far more interesting.

Dustin and you turned toward the entrance at the same time.

Steve Harrington had burst into the small bookstore like a bull in a China shop. The ‘B’ section trembled dangerously. For a brief second, Dustin thought Kindred by Octavia Butler might fall on his head. He prayed for it, in fact, but Fate did not oblige, and Steve charged straight toward him.

“Do you have any idea how worried we all were—”

“Mostly you,” Robin cut in, because of course Robin was there too.

“All of us,” Steve repeated, shooting her a dark look. “You cannot just disappear like—Oh. Hi.”

Steve faltered when he realized Dustin was not alone. He ran a hand through his hair as his cheeks flushed.

Even if Steve was not his older brother, he was still his best friend, and Dustin knew the expression crossing his face all too well. When Steve bit his lip, eyes fixed on you, Dustin slid off the counter immediately.

“No.”

The teenager shoved Steve by the chest, pushing him toward the door, nearly knocking over a stack of the new Stephen King novel. The scene seemed to amuse you. When you giggled, Dustin felt Steve melt against his palms and cursed.

“No, no, no, no, no. Out. Leave. Don’t come back.”

Dustin’s voice snapped Steve out of it. He blinked and remembered why he was there. His expression shifted instantly. He planted his hands on his hips and glared at Dustin.

“You cannot just vanish like that, Dustin Henderson,” he started. “Do you have any idea how worried everyone has been?”

Dustin sighed and realised—with cruel and belated clarity—that he should have let Steve admire you a little longer. It would have guaranteed him peace and quiet, at least.

“I did not vanish. I’ve been here this whole time.”

“And no one knew about it.”

“Mom knew.”

“But I did not.”

You frowned and stepped closer, an apologetic expression on your face.

“I didn’t know people were looking for him,” you said, giving him a look that strangely reminded Dustin of Steve’s. The comparison made his skin crawl. “That’s my fault. If I had known, I would’ve asked him to call.”

Steve shook his head immediately.

“No.” His voice was too loud, and he cleared his throat. “No,” he repeated more calmly. “This isn’t your fault. It is his.”

Dustin made an offended noise, but Steve and you had already forgotten him. He turned to Robin and gestured toward you as if to say are you seeing this shit too? but she only shrugged, her innocence face ruined by the mischievous smile painted on her lips.

“Hey,” Steve said suddenly, “could I get your number? To call you if there’s an emergency with Dustin.” He rushed to explain. “Nothing else.”

“Steve,” Dustin growled. “You’re not my mom. And she doesn’t have a phone line anyway.”

“About that…” You rubbed the back of your neck. “The electrician came last night. So—”

Dustin stared at your shy expression in horror. Your gaze slid toward Steve. You grabbed a piece of paper from the counter, scribbled your number on it, and gave it to Steve, who accepted it with a blush.

Oh no.

Dustin blinked, but your eyes remained fixed on Steve. The boy went pale.

Oh no.

“This is a nightmare,” he muttered.

You were both whispering now. Dustin’s eye twitched when your shoulders brushed. Talking logistics and shared child supervision did not require physical contact. Why were you standing so close? Steve leaned in to hear you better, a soft smile on his lips. He held your number against his chest like a Renaissance painting: The Lovestruck Admirer, c. 1986.

“What have I done?”

A hand landed on his shoulder.

You had not eaten in two days, and the scraps you scavenged from the bottoms of Brooklyn’s dumpsters did little to fill the hunger gnawing at your gut—less painful, somehow, than the gaping, oozing wound hidden beneath your t-shirt. You did not know how much longer you would have to fight rats over food, how much longer you would have to swallow your retching just to bite into a slice of expired pizza.

Ahead of you, an old woman—her basket brimming with fresh produce, enough to make you salivate—grimaced when the greengrocer handed her an apple unlucky enough to be bruised.

With a wave of one hand, he dismissed her concern, tossed the forsaken fruit aside with the other, and offered her another one instead—redder, shinier, smoother.

You watched the damaged apple roll along the sidewalk with dull eyes, then scanned your surroundings before tugging the stolen cap lower over your head.

You did not think. Hunger drowned out reason and morality alike. You slipped a trembling hand from your pocket and closed it around the fruit without hesitation. Your dirty nails bit into the still-crisp flesh, and you savoured the sensation, already imagining your teeth doing the same.

The pocket of your jacket sagged under the apple’s weight, but you bore it gladly, thrilled at the thought of a proper meal after what felt like an eternity.

You walked away as your heart pounded in your ears, hot with embarrassment.

“Hey—you! I saw that! Get back here!” a voice suddenly barked behind you.

You quickened your pace. Soon you were running through the crowd, weaving past muttering pedestrians. You dared a glance over your shoulder and your eyes widened at the sight of the greengrocer’s furious face as he charged after you.

You cursed under your breath and darted down the first alley you found.

“Where are you, brat? Get back here! I’ll teach you some respect!”

You retreated deeper into the narrow passage until you collided with a stack of rotting crates. Rats scattered between your legs, nearly tripping you before rushing at the man, who swore loudly.

The apple clearly was not worth the trouble, for the man stopped.

Your heart hammered in your chest. You pressed a palm against it, trying to quieten it. All he would have to do was listen—hear it pounding—and your hiding place would be revealed.

“Whatever. I don’t have time for this shit.”

Crouched in the shadows, you watched him grumble for a while before turning back, still muttering to himself.

For a full minute, you remained frozen, afraid he might return. With help, this time. Then, when you finally understood that he was not coming back, you straightened and frowned.

His easy surrender triggered a familiar anger in your chest—one that had settled into your bones since your arrival here. If it had come to it, you would have fought tooth and nail for that apple. You did not have the luxury of giving up; your survival depended on it. That man could throw apples, oranges, and pears onto the pavement without a second thought, while you were left digging through trash because you had had the misfortune of finding yourself in the wrong universe.

Tears welled at the corners of your eyes, but you swallowed them down. Instead, you pulled the apple from your pocket and bit into.

Sweet juice burst across your tongue, a blissful distraction from your panic. You lapped greedily at the rivulets running down your chin, catching with your fingertips the drops your tongue had missed, and bringing them straight to your mouth.

You devoured the apple in five bites—core and seeds included, for hunger did not forge picky eaters—and almost immediately regretted your initial excitement when the last bite came too soon.

You nearly broke down when you realized you were not full. Worse still, eating had awakened sensations that hunger had numbed.

Your gaze drifted to the dumpster.

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand, then rubbed your palms against your grimy pants.

Already regretting the decision, you hauled yourself onto the edge of the dumpster and swung a leg over, dropping into the heap of reeking bags. Burying your nose in the collar of your shirt, you ripped open the first one and started digging.

You spent several minutes hunched over, hands filthy, searching for something else to eat—anything, please—but found only mouldy leftovers, soggy cardboard, and empty wine bottles. For a moment, you considered returning to the market to steal something else, but the memory of the greengrocer had left a bitter taste in your mouth.

The last thing you needed was to more raise attention.

Frustrated, you almost tossed aside an empty cereal box when your eyes finally caught on the cardboard. There, beneath the grime, was a face you now recognized. A spark of interest lit your gaze. Without hesitation, you tore the box apart, keeping only two pieces: the photo of the man in a blue uniform and the text underneath.

You let the rest fall to the bottom of the dumpster, climbed out, and hurried home.

Home was now an abandoned basement in a crumbling Brooklyn building. The few teenagers loitering in the stairwell, dealing in all kinds of illegal goods, left you alone as long as you did the same—a deal that suited you just fine. You nodded to them and descended the steps swallowed by darkness. There was no electricity in the common areas.

Once inside the cellar, you went through a now-familiar choreography: two shoulder blows to force the door open, three blind sweeps along the wall to find the switch, then four precise steps to reach the shredded armchair facing the fresco.

A single bulb, nearly burnt out, dangled from the ceiling, casting such a weak orange glow that you had to squint to make out what lay before you—the work you laboured over day after day.

Everything you had managed to gather about the Fantastic Four—you had learnt their name on the fourth day here—during your wanderings was assembled there. Newspaper clippings, battered magazine covers, fragments of stolen reports. All held together with yellowed tape, bent pins, and scraps of glue scavenged from the trash.

You immediately added the two pieces of cardboard to the rest. The drawn portrait of Reed Richards joined the other cut-out photos. Just beneath it, you taped the small block of text, still legible despite its creases:

Start your day the Fantastic way! Eat Fantastic Four Cereals and grow up smart like Reed Richards, the world’s greatest mind!

You rolled your eyes—burying memories of a certain captain and his equally ridiculous slogans—before collapsing into the chair.

Most of your nights were spent sitting like this and letting your gaze drift over the mural of clues again and again until every detail was etched into your mind. Over time, you had formed an idea of who these Fantastic Four were: heroes of a world that seemed far less shattered than your own.

Aside from one or two articles mentioning trouble around an underground city named Subterranea, this New York lived quietly. A few isolated crimes threatened the peace now and then, but nothing resembled the endless catastrophes you and the rest of the Avengers had grown used to.

A sob shook your chest, catching you off guard.

Without realizing it, your eyes had settled on a photo of the four superheroes—proud, smiling, united. Something cracked inside you. The image summoned other faces. Sam. Yelena. Wong. Bucky. Thor. Natasha. Steve. Tony.

The dam broke, and your loneliness poured out.

You curled in on yourself in the chair, one hand clamped over your mouth to stifle your sobs, the other pressed against your wound.

You wanted to go home. You wanted it more than anything in the world.

You had never thought of yourself as unlucky. Not even when you nearly died in the battle against Ultron. Not even when you lost five years of your life to Thanos. Not even when he tore away, one by one, the people you loved.

How easy it was for men to revise their worldview, to betray their own philosophies.

Your gaze slid back to the photo one last time.

Yes, misfortune was real. All that talk of destiny and karma was nothing but naïve invention. How else could it be explained that those who held the power to grant your dearest wish were also the very ones who wanted to see you captured?

The wound on your abdomen reopened during the night.

When you brought your hand to it, your trembling fingers came back sticky, and you were carried five days earlier, to your awakening on Liberty Island’s dock. As on the first day, the pads of your fingers played with the fluid, but this time, you did not recognize the viscosity of blood.

You straightened up with difficulty in the chair—each movement tearing a short breath from your lungs—to examine the wound. As soon as you bent forward, the world reeled, and you had to clutch the armrests to keep from toppling forward.

Under the nearly burnt-out bulb, blood mingled with a thick, yellowish pus. The instant its acidic stench invaded your nostrils, you pitched forward and vomited a bitter bile that burned your throat. Your body found itself trapped in a cruel dilemma you could not resolve: your stomach contracted with each retch, and each convulsion unleashed a fresh wave of pain that spilled from your wound through the rest of your body.

The agony surged into your back, your shoulders, your thighs. You groaned. Your heart raced. Your head rang. You let yourself collapse back into the chair, unable to remain upright any longer. The moth-eaten fabric was cold and clammy against your skin—a brief relief for your feverish body.

You eventually fell asleep, exhausted by a battle you already knew you would lose. The reprieve, unfortunately, did not last. Barely an hour later, the fever wrenched you awake. Violent shivers seized you, immediately followed by crushing heat.

“No. Don’t leave me. Steve,” you whimpered, half-delirious.

A vicious cycle began. You would fall asleep, then jolt awake, brutally torn from the arms of Morpheus by the fever, only to fall back into their embrace seconds later.

When you woke up for the third time, you dragged yourself—or rather, almost crawled—to a water tap fixed to the wall of the basement and lifted your shirt. What you saw nearly made you throw up again. The flesh around the wound was swollen, burning to the touch, and streaked with purplish lines that vanished beneath mounds of yellow pus.

You tried to clean it with water, but the gesture tore a cry of pain from you and nearly made you faint.

When you woke for the eighth time, your face pressed against the damp basement floor and your body wracked with uncontrollable shivers, you understood that you could no longer bury your head in the sand. The infection was spreading. If you did not treat the wound, you would die.

So, in the morning—while still weak and nauseous—you dragged yourself to the nearest pharmacy. Pain had finally outweighed fear.

You moved forward with your hood pulled low, teeth clenched, aware of the many eyes lingering on you. You could not find the strength to care. Did they not have anything better to do than stare at a staggering woman? This New York was clearly not accustomed to crackheads.

Inside the pharmacy, you wandered the aisles for a while, feigning the hesitation of an ordinary customer while you took stock of what you could steal: an antiseptic and an ointment, perhaps. Bandages would be harder to hide, but did you have another choice?

“Do you need any help, miss?”

Without lifting your head, you answered: “No, thank you.”

When the pharmacist’s footsteps faded, you slipped the items beneath your clothes, your hand hesitating over the large box of bandages before you finally took them as well.

Your gaze met that of a man. You immediately turned on your heel and fled, heart pounding, praying the stranger would take pity on you and not report you to the pharmacist. You did not have the strength to run.

It took you longer than usual to reach your building and, at last, the basement. In the stairwell, through blurred vision, you vaguely noticed that the boys who usually loitered there were gone, but the thought withered as soon as it bloomed. Your wound burned too fiercely for you to care about anything else.

The basement door gave way under your weight on the fourth shove of your shoulder, but the impact tore a groan from you and set your entire body ablaze, with—at the eye of the cyclone—your abdomen. It took no less than nine fumbling attempts to find the switch. As for the four steps to the chair, they became a staggering progression.

When you reached it, at last, you pulled your treasure from your pockets and started to remove your shirt, but a strange sensation stopped you short. Tilting your head, you gently let the fabric fall back over the raw wound.

As casually as possible, you crossed the basement to the tap. Water burst forth. Its splashing smothered the silence. You bent to wash your hands, letting the water pool on the floor and soak your shoes.

A blue reflection appeared in the puddle.

With a flick of your hand, you diverted the stream and hurled it at the mass lunging toward you.

Reed Richards recovered quickly from the surprise and stretched out an arm to grab you, but you jumped aside and raised a shield of water around yourself.

The superhero’s hand struck the wall.

“How did you find me?”

He clenched his jaw, as though speaking to you pained him greatly.

“There was a report,” he admitted. “Half an hour ago.”

The man from the pharmacy.

“Of course,” you muttered.

“We do not want to hurt you. We hope to resolve this issue peacefully.”

“Bullshit,” you growled immediately.

A bead of sweat trickled down your forehead.

You did not know how much longer you would be able to keep the water in a solid state. Already, cracks were appearing in your shield. In places, the water turned clear again and dripped to the floor. A voice in your head—one that sounded like Steve’s—reprimanded you for the opening you were giving to the enemy, but Reed, fortunately, seemed none the wiser.

Had you been healthier, you would have laughed at the irony.

“Aren’t there supposed to be four of you?” you blurted out, desperate to distract him. “’m almost offended. You paint me as a terrorist, yet I’m not even worthy of the whole package?”

“This is no laughing matter. Twenty-three people are dead because of you.”

Reed’s words snapped through the air.

Twenty-three.

You had not known. The number made you sway, and your shield liquefied a little more.

“I didn’t mean to,” you said weakly. “I didn’t want to—Let me go,” you finally pleaded. “This has never happened before. I promise it won’t again. I am not a murderer.”

I do not kill innocents, is what you wanted to say. Many Hydra agents had died beneath your waves, but you carefully kept that to yourself.

“I am afraid you give us no other choice.”

Reed’s fist struck the shield. The water shattered, pulverized into thousands of droplets that immediately rained down over you both. You turned to flee, but pain speared through your abdomen. You collapsed with all your weight, your jaw slamming violently against the floor with a dull crack.

You screamed in agony.

Reed did not hesitate. His arms stretched and closed around you, binding you in living chains. You struggled, but your body no longer obeyed. Every movement awakened the wound in your stomach; every breath burned your lungs.

You were spent. Your body responded only in jerks of consciousness. Your head was heavy. Each breath scraped your chest raw. Your vision darkened, and the floor seemed to vanish beneath your feet despite the hold that kept you upright.

Don’t tell me you’re giving up, Tideborn, Bucky Barnes’s flat voice echoed in your head. I’ve trained you better.

Reed’s arms continued to tighten around you. He was going to squeeze you to death, you realized.

You closed your eyes and focused on this warm body, so close to yours. You strained to hear the familiar sound of the ocean. People mistakenly believed it existed only on the shoreline or in the hollow of a seashell, but one did not need to go far to find waves.

Beneath flesh, beneath muscle, in the blood, everywhere, water moved. You clung to that current, to that great canal and its tributaries, and drew from the groundwater of the human body.

Suddenly, Reed’s grip loosened around you. The superhero brought his hands to his throat as an unprecedented flood poured into his lungs.

The moment he released you, you let go as well—you did not want to kill the man, only weaken him—and staggered toward the door.

For a second, the noise vanished around you, leaving only the pleasant sensation of your flesh knitting itself back together, atom by atom. When the stranger’s words finally clawed their way—seconds too late—through the chaos of your mind, your trembling fingers tried to feel for your abdomen, but the lightest touch sent shivers racing down your spin.

You rubbed your thumb against your index finger and gargled a curse as you recognized the texture now staining your fingertips.

Blood was nothing like water: viscous, silky, warm. Years—and the countless battles that came with them—had taught you to recognize it instantly.

Panic coiled around your throat and strangled you hard. Wet coughs jolted your chest but never made it past your trembling lips. The spasms stayed lodged in your throat, blocked by a clot of congealed blood.

Pain, on the other hand, did not need air or sound to exist. It thrived in silence, flowing in a carmine torrent that would have alarmed you, had you been more aware.

There was a gaping hole burning through your stomach, and you couldn’t remember why.

“Help me get her out of there!”

Several pairs of hands grabbed your jacket and hauled you onto a hard surface. The feel of wood against your back tore a silent groan from you. You parted your lips, trying to tell these strangers to leave you in the water—the only place where you could hope to heal—but no words came, drowned in blood and weariness.

“Don’t try to talk, ma’am. You’ve lost a lot of blood. But you’re going to be okay.”

“This seems like a suicide attempt,” a distant voice floated. “We think she hit the rocks. Right? Yeah, sorry. Liberty Island. The bay.”

Those four words gave you the strength to open your eyes.

You shut them again immediately, blinded by daylight. Strange, your last memory was of the night before. Had you fallen asleep without realizing it? And why were you on Liberty Island when, as far as you knew, you’d been in Avengers Tower, right in the middle of Manhattan?

Each unanswered question fed the panic swelling in your chest, until it burst and drowned out the pain. You pushed yourself up on your elbows, ignoring the hovering hands and their misplaced advice, and turned your head.

Your blurred gaze collided with the Statue of Liberty.

The sight alone, in all its grandeur, made the world spin.

You collapsed back onto the dock. The pain that water and adrenaline had kept at bay slammed into you full force. Not a single inch of your body had been spared in what now clearly was not just an accident. Even breathing was agony. You spat the clot in your throat before sagging back down.

Your cheek struck what you now recognized thanks to the stranger’s words as Liberty Island’s dock. You blinked once. Twice. Your gaze drifted for a few seconds over the onlookers gathered around you.

Then, through the din, something caught your attention.

“What the fuck?” you finally murmured, spraying blood. You did not even flinch at the sharp metallic taste spreading across your tongue.

“Miss, the paramedics are on their way. Don’t move.”

You ignored them and tried to sit up, fighting viciously when hands tried to stop you. Voices rose around you, but their words drowned beneath the pounding of your eardrums.

New York no longer looked like New York.

The Big Apple had been amputated and replaced with a parody, a twisted vision, a bastard child of The Fifth Element, West Side Story, and Metropolis—the last of which Steve had forced you to watch years ago. Towers too geometric, too bright, pierced cloudless skies stripped of their familiar pollution, while suspended arches coiled around a redesigned skyline. You could’ve sworn you had seen landscapes like this on old 1960s propaganda posters—space-race promises captured by government painters—or in the exuberant archival footage of the late Anthony Stark.

New York was not New York anymore, but a sixties dream filtered through a gaudy Huxleyan dystopia, where the new world was not brave but harrowing.

What the fuck? you repeated silently before, on impulse, starting to crawl toward the edge of the dock.

The wood snagged on your shredded clothes. The rough fabric of your t-shirt scraped against your wounds, tearing away the fragile flesh that had barely had time to regenerate in the water. Sharp splinters triggered waves of excruciating pain. You glanced behind you in agony, but the soaked planks swallowed any trace of blood.

When you finally reached the end of the dock—your last hope—you struggled to stretch a hand toward the water. The movement tore a rasp from your throat; your shoulder had to be dislocated.

“What are you doing?!” someone screamed.

“I need… Water,” you whispered.

The Hudson seemed within reach, but the dock, mocking in its height, kept you from the current and the jagged rocks below. One of them was stained red, stained with your blood, you realized.

How had you ended up here?

Tears welled at the corners of your pain-blurred eyes. You sniffed, defeated, and let your face fall against the soaked wood. Between the mouldy grooves, salty droplets lashed your skin and mingled with your tears in a yin-yang of temperatures.

A wave struck the dock. Metal clinked. You lifted your head and, through the haze, spotted the uncertain outline of a metal ladder bolted to the pier.

With great difficulty, you crawled to it and, with a trembling hand, grabbed the rungs.

You descended step by step, each one ripping a muffled groan from your burning shoulder and stomach, until icy water lapped at your calves and—finally—the Hudson pulsed beneath your fingers. The cold bite drew a shaky sigh from you, and the relief drowned panic and pain alike, leaving only one thing behind: answers.

40°41′24″N 74°2′42″W.

Familiar coordinates, but—like the skyline draped over the horizon—something was wrong. The water wasn’t the same as this morning. Not the same as yesterday.

The last time such a change had caught your attention, you’d reappeared five years later with no memory of what had happened in between.

At the thought, you froze, eyes wide, one hand submerged in the Hudson’s icy grip. Your flesh was already going numb. Your trembling sent ripples across the surface, ripples that soon became waves. You thought of the strange landscape behind you, and your breathing quickened. Air slipped away.

Where were you?

The question looped endlessly in your mind, each word hammering your skull as your hands clawed at the churning water.

“Ma’am, don’t move. They’re coming.”

“No!” you finally found your voice. “Let me go!”

Hands grabbed your shoulder, your hair, your neck, and tried to pull you back on the dock.

Panic surged and surged until the pressure became unbearable and exploded in your chest.

A deep rumble vibrated through the ladder, through your bones, through your skull. You groaned. The pain speared your thoughts; you couldn’t even think without suffering.

Where were you? Where were you?

Above you, a wave crashed against the dock and annihilated everything.

Distorted screams erupted then promptly vanished beneath the water’s own roar. Shadows swept across your blurred vision, flung free and torn from their place as the icy mass obliterated everything in its path.

Somewhere far away, a siren wailed. Its shrill cry pierced your skull and tore a whimper from you. You curled around the ladder—your lifeline in the middle of this nightmare—and pressed a hand to your erratic chest.

Deep breaths.

The Hudson calmed as quickly as it had risen, leaving behind a deathly silence, broken only by heavy lapping. Slowly emerging from your haze, you blinked and looked around.

Bodies floated on the surface now, drifting like debris.

Your stomach twisted.

You turned your head and vomited bile and water.

“Shit,” you muttered, wiping your mouth.

Near the water’s edge, a reflection caught your eye. At first you thought it was just foam breaking against the rocks, but the white shimmer vanished, then returned, brighter. You frowned. The Hudson’s polluted water didn’t carry light. And that seemed to be true even in this strange reality.

Then another flash appeared. And another.

Soon, a kaleidoscope fractured the water surface into artificial shards that stabbed at your already burning eyes.

A new rumble split the air.

An engine, you realized too late.

You looked up.

A fucking car was flying above you. You squinted, barely making out three blue-clad silhouettes inside.

Fear severed all hesitation.

Before you could even identify the threat, your body chose for you.

You let go of the ladder and threw yourself backward.

The opaque waters of the Hudson closed around you at once, embracing you like an old friend.

You cursed the late Tony Stark and his refusal to build anything meant to last. Planned obsolescence was a fucked-up thing to do.

Capitalist prick, you thought bitterly, glaring at your phone. Your soaked, dead, useless, phone. Not even able to make something that can survive a short swim in the Hudson. Some genius inventor you are.

You let yourself collapse onto the filthy, waterlogged concrete. Stagnant runoff trickled from the mouth of the underground passage and lapped at your aching ankles. You closed your eyes and, ignoring the foul stench rising from it, tried to find comfort in the familiar sensation of water grazing your skin.

But comfort never came.

After the dock incident, you had followed the Hudson on foot—hidden beneath the murky depths of the bay—for what felt like hours. Your steps had led you here, to this concealed sewer opening, tucked away from prying eyes in what vaguely resembled Brooklyn.

With a blasé face, you let your fingers stir. The stagnant water in front of you immediately responded, quivering at your command. For a while, you amused yourself by making it dance between your fingers, suspending it in translucent strands before letting it fall back into puddles at your feet. Just enough to keep your mind busy, to quiet the ever-present panic.

Once the shock of Liberty Island had faded, once you’d found temporary shelter in this makeshift refuge, you had finally allowed yourself to think.

Trapped in this pale imitation of New York, one theory had imposed itself quickly, terrifying in its plausibility. Doctor Strange had told you about the multiverse: overlapping worlds, infinite possibilities…The conclusion you’d drawn from that had left you sobbing.

You weren’t in your New York.

For reasons you still didn’t understand, you had been hurled across space and time and dropped into a parallel world. And while you lacked Strange’s intellect or Bruce’s to unravel the how and why, the outcome was painfully clear: you weren’t supposed to be here.

Worse, you were a cosmic anomaly.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared? Come on, let’s go left!”

“We’ve seen enough. There’s nothing interesting. Come on, James.”

“Don’t be a pussy!”

Voices—too close—pierced your bubble. Your fingers froze instantly, and the water fell still with a splash that sounded deafening in the sudden silence.

Your heart slammed against your ribs. You scrambled to your feet. As you hauled yourself upright, your palms scraped against the concrete in your haste, but nothing compared to the sudden, abominable pain that tore through your abdomen. Violent and burning, it ripped a hoarse groan from your throat.

The wound tugged beneath the damp, fragile flesh clinging to your stomach. It was only a matter of time before it became infected. You knew it, yet could not do anything to prevent it.

“Look! I think I saw something.”

Quick footsteps disturbed the stagnant water.

You clenched your teeth, refused to groan again—to give yourself away—and forced yourself forward. Without thinking, you plunged deeper into the labyrinthine depths of New York’s sewers, your unsteady legs carrying you away from the voices.

You walked for ten minutes before your body finally gave out, unable to go any farther. As before, you let yourself sink to the ground, but something at the edge of your vision caught your attention. You squinted, trying to make it out in the darkness.

A soaked newspaper, plastered to the grimy concrete.

You stood, peeled it from the sludge-covered floor, absorbed the water without even thinking about it, and watched the letters come back to life beneath your fingers.

It took several tries before you managed to read the front page. The words blurred, smeared by exhaustion and pain that refused to let go of you.

When you finally deciphered the headline, you paled.

They were reporting a tsunami on Liberty Island. A wave that had come from nowhere. No identifiable cause. A phenomenon that obeyed “no known natural order”.

You kept reading.

A man named Reed Richards—there were no photo of him on the page, only a panoramic shot of the dock in ruins—was calling on the public to remain calm, insisting the situation was “under control” and that the threat would be neutralized.

Your jaw tightened.

None of this boded well. Why were they calling it a threat? Nothing about the Liberty Island incident—tragic as it was—justified that kind of language. Nature didn’t always obey the rules desperate humans had invented to control it, least of all water—the wildest and most unpredictable of elements.

Rare, nearly impossible though it might be, a raging Hudson was still a possibility…

And there are no witnesses left alive to tell the truth, a sly voice whispered, making you flinch. To reveal that you’re the one who killed them.

You crumpled the newspaper into a ball and sent it flying across the dark tunnel as a cold clarity settled in your chest. You were in danger, and if you wanted to survive, if you wanted to find a way back to your own universe, hiding wasn’t enough anymore. You needed to find answers, instead of waiting for them to fall from the sky.

You glanced over your shoulder. In the distance, the mouth of the underground passage was still visible, daylight spilling in.

“This is a bad idea,” you murmured.

Ignoring your inner voice, you took a step toward the opening.

Daylight blinded you when you faced it for the first time in twelve hours.

Without sparing the sewer a glance, you headed into Brooklyn. You had to move fast. You ignored the heaviness of your aching limbs, the wet drag of your shredded clothes against your skin, the wound in your abdomen pulling with every step, ready to tear open again at any moment.

The streets unfolded before your wide eyes: red brick buildings, bright storefronts, and retro cars vying for your attention. This New York—colourful, luminous, too clean—eventually opened onto a deserted avenue, where yet another storefront caught your eye.

Behind a grimy window, a row of old televisions—bulky things, relics of another era—looped the same images over and over.

Satellite views of Liberty Island.

You stopped dead in your tracks.

On one screen, a figure descended a metal ladder. You recognized yourself instantly, despite the grainy footage. Then a wave surged over you—massive, wrong, unnatural in both shape and behaviour—before crashing violently into the crowd gathered at the end of the dock.

The camera zoomed in on the only body still moving.

Suddenly, your uncovered face filled the screen, broadcast to the entire city.

You went pale and immediately hid your face into the collar of your jacket, heart hammering in your ears.

Then, the image cut abruptly to four figures standing in front of a forest of microphones. They looked familiar, though you couldn’t place why. Camera flashes disrupted the picture, making it crackle every time they went off. You stepped closer to the window until your clammy forehead pressed against the glass. You strained to hear their voices, their words, their answers, but only the city’s noise answered.

You chewed on a nail. A soundless press conference was useless. You needed something else. A radio. More newspapers. Anything.

A subtitle flashed on-screen: DR. REED RICHARDS. The camera focused on a solemn-looking man. The one from the article, you recalled. You frowned, eyes locked on the television. He was answering a question. Even without sound, the gravity of his words was unmistakable.

Your portrait suddenly reappeared, this time in the corner of the screen. Reed Richards looked straight into the camera.

You spun around, the feeling of being watched suddenly overwhelming but, as you scanned your surroundings, you saw no one.

On the screen, Reed Richards vanished. All that remained was your reflection, overlaid with one single word: WANTED.

Fuck.