[ 01 - CHAPTER ONE ]

― cataclysm ―

At first, it was the voice of an angel.

Kane.

Whispering to him, breathing its revered breath upon the lobes of his ear. It resonated in his eardrums like the sound of a symphony, reminding him of a school trip he'd once taken to see the local orchestra. He'd started to fall asleep, as he had just now, and the tiptoe currents of the violins' songs had woken him from his light slumber.

Kane, come here.

As the melodies tugged on his eyelids, and the harmonies on his lashes, he realized it couldn't have been just the violins. It couldn't have been just one angel. It was a gathering - flocks of angel wings mingling in the skies, calling to Kane, begging him to ascend and dangling their gentle songs in front of him like catnip.

Come closer.

It was a drug to him.

I have to tell you something.

It rendered him a victim to his own sensations, immersed in ecstasy - just as all five senses had demanded - while the ethereal voice drifted near.

Listen closely.

It was his last taste of home.

Because after he'd awoken, after his eyes had fluttered open and expected heaven but had been greeted with hell instead, he'd been little more than a wanderer. A reluctant casualty of wanderlust, doomed to never feel as safe as he had in that moment - with the angels surrounding him and making their instruments bleed ichor, just for the pleasure of his mortal ears.

Kane used to tell people about the seraphim he'd heard that day. He used to describe, in his own futile manner, how glorious they'd sounded as they'd danced across the heavens, songs floating like a wisp of God on their breath as they built a utopia in his ear.

His tongue grew numb when someone told him what had really happened. When someone had ceased to look upon him, pity sprayed across their irises in scattered flecks, and keep the truth locked away with a key.

They won't be coming back, this person had whispered, empathy rumbling with a crack through his voice. I'm sorry, kid.

He didn't even know the name of the man that had unlocked that vault for him. He only knew his job, his title, the only things that seemed to matter in a wretched world such as the one he lived in. He'd been a firefighter. Kane remembered that much, at least. He could recall the yellow of his hard hat with such clarity that he sometimes wondered if the man wasn't in front of him now, if visions of Midtown had returned to him in a sort of fever dream.

Rather, visions of Midtown, New York as it stood in 2012, under the wrath of aliens and Avengers alike.

When he'd peeled his eyelids back that day, subjecting his doe-like pupils to the hellfire that raged before him, he'd thought he'd been hearing angels. He knew now that it had been his mother.

We'll be right back, she'd shouted. People need our help out there.

If only he could have remembered her as she'd existed then - mahogany tendrils of hair circling her scalp, bestowing her with a halo of her own. It was no wonder Kane had confused her voice with that of an angel. She was the closest to heaven, to happiness, that he'd ever gotten.

It was torment, then, that he scarcely recalled that moment. The way she'd appeared then, eyes flitting about, adoring Kane, grieving - it was but a gem on the outer rim of Kane's mind. When he'd held fast, striking the ground with his fists and pressing that moment into the soil beneath him, praying and begging for it to grow roots and linger, it had fled.

It was the only thing that made sense about that day. Heavenly deities were never meant to reside in the ground, much less beneath the feet of mortals.

So he was left with a devil. That was how he remembered his mother, not because of a malevolence that leaked from her fingertips, but because her death had stolen every ounce of innocence from the child's body. Every dream, every carefree laugh, every yearning to touch the dust of a star far away from the soil he was born on. It all settled just like the smoke and ash in the aftermath of the alien invasion.

But there wasn't one devil, lonesome and lingering. There were two, because it hadn't just been his mother that had perished, but Kane's father had, too. Dina and Alec Astor were cursed to forever be demons plaguing the mind of their own son.

These tear-tinted sentiments were the ones that Kane recalled when he passed the crowd on the streets. Citizens of every age, gender, and background were clustered in front of a shop window. Passersby tried to worm their way through, shoulders slamming into the stagnant group and hands reaching out to shove so they might be able to get to work on time, but all efforts were rendered fruitless. They all ended up conforming into the gathering crowd.

Kane ceased his march at the outskirts of the mass, just for a moment, so that he could glimpse what had captured the attention of so many people. This particular streetside store sold technology, and displayed TVs in its window. It was when Kane viewed the screens of the televisions that he realized...electronics really did turn humanity into zombiekind. At least, they did when they displayed news clips of an avenger.

The boy's eyes skimmed over the ABC News headline: Tony Stark discusses the future of Avengers amidst Sokovia aftermath.

And there he was. Stark himself stood on a podium in front of his consecrated tower, likely discussing how this battle was going to be good for him - for the avengers - when it had meant tragedy to so many others. Despite not being able to hear his speech, he knew enough about the man's speaking contingencies that he could practically recite his words.

It has taught us the importance of teamwork, Stark was saying. The devastation caused by this incident can serve as a lesson to us all. A lesson in how we, the Avengers, can better serve you. It has shown us our faults and we are determined to fix them. But it should also be a lesson to you.

At this point, he would turn his gaze to the camera, remove his wide-rimmed glasses, and fold them to be placed in his suit pocket. An illusion that the public had his undivided attention.

A slight deepening in the tone of his voice, when he announced, But it should also be a lesson to you all. Hold your loved ones close, because you never know what evil could be lingering around the corner.

He would say these things. Quote these entrancing phrases, stringing the words together and sprinkling them with pleasantries until they sounded like a lullaby. Yet, no real change would follow. It was all performative, and this was something Kane knew better than the sound of his own voice. The Avengers always promised restoration just to step back into the footsteps of their careless wars.

It was because of this that Kane saw himself in the man at the front of the crowd. His peers came together in an eruption of applause when Stark's speech came to a close, yet a scowl remained on this man's face. It lingered for a moment, then two, then three, until someone nudged his elbow and he erupted into applause, as well.

Kane knew this man, because this man was him. He used to go through the motions, too. A few months ago, it had been Kane's second nature to scowl in response to the avenger's lies, but it had also been his second nature to shift his frown into a grin. Into an expression of relief, because everyone around him was grateful for the avengers' presence and so that was what would be expected of him, too.

Kane had been lost, and now this stranger was, too.

But being lost would never be in the closing chapter of Kane's life. He wouldn't allow it. Whatever it took, whatever struggle he would suffer through, he would equip his strife as his only weapon against the universe, if it came down to it. The hand that wrote down the stars and their names would not doom him to be a wayward boy forever.

Strayed too far from who he once was, from who he once wanted to be. A hero, just like his parents had been, saving lives no matter the cost.

He was still saving lives. But he was no hero. Not as the world interpreted one to be, at least. He was a savior and a villain. Kane was certain it was possible to be both - to pull innocent beings from perdition with one hand, and to wreak havoc with the other.

Kane was a stray now, but he would not be one forever. He would find his home atop the graves of his enemies.

The Avengers.

He loathed them, and he would destroy them all. With an iron fist and a heart just as resilient, he would seek them out and approach them with his leaden steps that so closely resembled the poundings of his pulse. And, with a knife so pure that even the stars danced in the reflection of its blade, he would press his lips to each avenger's ear, whispering in stark lucidity the horrors they had committed. Announcing their convictions like a whisper passing from the lips of a sinner and cursing the ears of a reverend. A secret shared in a confession booth, a trespass turned over beneath the juries of the heavens, he would trace his blade across their throats.

Then he would kill them. And he would revel in the crimson that stained the lines on his hands.

Even if it meant his last breath would be shared with demons clothed in starfire capes, he would bathe in the blood of these men.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Hey guys! Not much to note here, except I wanted to clarify that the gif at the top is of a younger Colin Ford just for the sake of the flashbacks in this chapter! For the second half and most of the narrative of this story, he is in his teenage years! I'm not gonna have a seven year old boy running around with an obscene vengeance for 40 year old men aha.

Anyway I hope you all enjoyed, and I am so so excited to bring this story to you! Kane is one of my favorite OC's of all time, I just love him so much.