New York feels different after the alley.
The streets haven't changed, but I have. The glow that sparked in my hand won't leave me alone. I tell myself it was adrenaline, a hallucination, a trick of panic. But excuses can't smother the truth burning under my skin. Something happened. Something real.
And now, the whispers don't stop.
They used to be faint nudges, easy to dismiss. Now they pull like strings woven through the city. Every honk of a horn, every shift in the crowd, every sudden shout lands sharper than it should. My pulse races too often, my instincts scream too loudly. I can't go back to pretending this is normal.
So I stop pretending.
I start wandering the city at night, letting the whispers guide me. Sometimes they lead nowhere, just neon-stained alleys or trash-choked side streets. Sometimes they tug me away from hidden danger: a fight breaking out where I would have been walking, a delivery truck roaring through a red light.
Other times, they pull me straight into it.
I save people without meaning to. A boy chasing a ball into the street. A fruit cart toppling until I catch it. A stranger stumbling off the curb and my hand snapping out just in time. Nobody thanks me, nobody notices. But the whispers hum inside me like approval.
Every night I come back to the apartment, chest pounding, fingers trembling. My notebook fills with more timelines, more desperate scribbles about canon events I know are coming. But the words twist on me, curling into phrases I don't remember writing.
"Balance.""Choice.""Tree.""Remembered."
The sketches return too. The cosmic tree spreads across the pages, roots twisting into stars, branches clawing into galaxies. I slam the notebook shut each time, but the whispers only grow louder.
And the dreams never stop.
The tree looms behind my eyelids, vast and luminous, shadows moving in its branches like half-formed myths. The voice is always there, calm and endless, asking the same question.
"Every universe remembers you differently. Which one will you become?"
I wake gasping every time, the words coiled in my chest.
I try to live normal by day. Stark Industries hums with rumors. Tony stays locked in his workshop, Obadiah smiles too much and seethes beneath it. I fetch coffee, sort papers, laugh at jokes I don't care about. But at night, the city calls, and I always answer.
This time, the pull is different.
It doesn't nudge me away from danger. It drags me toward it, heavy and urgent, like an invisible current gripping my ribs. My legs move faster, my heart pounds harder. I turn corner after corner until the smell hits me: acrid smoke, thick and biting.
The whispers surge.
Up ahead, flames lick out of a second-story window, sparks drifting into the night. A small apartment building, old brick, narrow stairwell. People scream from the street, pointing, panicking.
I freeze. This is not my fight. I'm not a firefighter, not a hero. I should walk away.
But then I hear it.
A child crying. Muffled, high-pitched, from inside.
The whispers roar, drowning every other thought.
Before I know it, I'm running inside.
The stairwell is already choked with smoke, heat pressing against my skin. I cough, covering my mouth, climbing fast. My eyes sting, vision blurring, but the whispers guide me unerringly: left, up one more flight, door on the right.
I kick the door open. Flames crawl along the ceiling, devouring curtains and wallpaper. In the far corner, a little girl crouches, sobbing, her face streaked with soot.
"Hey!" My voice cracks, rough from smoke. "Come on, we're getting out!"
She doesn't move, frozen with terror.
The whispers snap inside me, urgent. My body surges forward, scooping her into my arms. She clings to my neck, coughing into my shoulder. I turn back toward the hall.
And the ceiling groans.
A beam gives way with a thunderous crack, plunging down toward us.
I throw up my hand.
Golden light bursts from my palm, flaring outward in a sudden shield. The beam crashes against it, splintering to the side, scattering embers instead of crushing us.
The glow fades as quickly as it came, leaving my hand tingling, the air thick with heat.
The girl stares at me wide-eyed, too stunned to cry.
"It's okay," I whisper, though my own heart is hammering. "We're okay. Let's go."
The whispers guide every step back down the stairs, each turn clear even through the smoke. We burst into the street, and the crowd surges forward, paramedics pulling the girl from my arms.
She's safe.
Nobody looks at me. Nobody notices.
Which is good.
Because my legs are shaking, my chest burns, and my hand still glows faintly before the light finally dies.
I back away into the shadows, unnoticed, adrenaline buzzing through my veins. My throat is raw from smoke, but all I can hear are the whispers, softer now, almost satisfied.
I stumble home and collapse on the bed, the notebook waiting like a weight on the nightstand. I don't open it. I already know what I'd find. More trees, more words I don't remember writing, more proof that this power is real.
The MCU is moving forward. Tony Stark is building in secret. Obadiah is plotting. The Avengers are years away.
And me?
I just saved a life with power I can't explain.
The ripples are spreading wider.
And I don't know if I can stop them anymore
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Finally he is using his powers for good