The helmet strap screamed under pressure as Max zipped down the cable like a steel comet, sparks flying behind him. His body whiplashed in the wind, teeth clenched, muscles taut. Below him, the prison yard was a vision of apocalypse—officers and inmates collapsing in clouds of chlorine vapor, sirens blaring across a poisoned sky.
The cable led past the wall, ending on a rusted comms pole embedded in the no-man's land beyond the prison gates. Max hit it hard, letting go at the last second and rolling into a ditch just outside the perimeter.
He lay there, coughing in the dirt.
Free.
But not safe.
Escape Begins
Max tore off the broken helmet and ran — legs aching, lungs burning, boots tearing into mud and rock. The prison floodlights flickered behind him, search beams carving across the trees like angry gods.
The world blurred — not from speed, but desperation.
He dove into the treeline. Thorns ripped at his arms. His vision tunneled.
Then—
FLASHBACK: The Real Pietro Maximoff
A memory clawed its way into his mind, unwanted but unstoppable.
Sokovia.
A narrow alley. Dust-choked air. A boy crouched beside a crumbling wall, cradling his sister's hand, bombs falling in the distance. Fear in his eyes, fire in his chest.
Pietro.
Just a boy — too fast for the world, too slow to save his parents.
"We wait for the world to care," Wanda had whispered.
"No," Pietro replied. "We make it care."
Years later — HYDRA labs, strapped to a gurney. Pain, electricity, experiments that peeled his humanity layer by layer until all that remained was acceleration.
But the moment he broke free — the moment he felt speed flood his veins like liquid fire — he wasn't afraid anymore.
He was alive.
Not a test subject. Not a survivor.
A force.
Present – Max Awakens
Max snapped back to the now — chest heaving, eyes wide.
The flashback wasn't just a memory.
It was his memory.
Not Max-the-prisoner. Not Max-the-reincarnated.
Pietro. The soul of a speed god caged in flesh.
And for the first time, he understood.
He had been forcing it — pushing his body to mimic something it already was.
He didn't need to grip the power.He just needed to let go.
(AN: I didn't know how to give him his powers without it being too much BS)
His breathing calmed.
His muscles relaxed.
The world around him slowed.
Not metaphorically — literally.
Raindrops froze mid-air. Leaves held mid-fall. The wind moved like syrup.
Max grinned.
Then he moved.
A sonic boom shattered the stillness.
Trees blurred into green tunnels. Dirt exploded beneath his feet. His vision adjusted to the blur as he zipped across the wilderness in streaks of silver and blue light.
He wasn't running anymore.
He was breaking through reality.
Aftermath – One Mile Away
He stopped.
Or rather — the world caught up to him.
Max stood on the edge of a hill, overlooking a valley lit by the faint lights of a distant town.
His heart still beat like a drum, but his breathing was steady. His body, soaked in sweat and blood, pulsed with a new awareness.
He wasn't Pietro.
Not entirely.
But he carried his soul. His memories. His speed.
And now?
He carried his mission.
"No more cages," he muttered, watching the prison shrink behind him.
"No more being a sheep."
Max tore off the guard armor he still wore and tossed it down the hill. He ripped fabric from it to wrap his wounds, leaving only dark prison pants and a shirt half-burned from the zipline sparks.
He walked barefoot down the hill.
Toward the lights.
Toward the world.
A storm was coming — not from the sky, but from him.