The city still smelled like smoke.

Cars burned in the streets. Metal limbs of Chitauri lay scattered like broken insects. Sirens wailed somewhere far off, echoing between buildings that no longer had windows.

Lilly stood in the center of it all, chest rising and falling too quickly.

The energy she’d unleashed still shimmered faint under her skin — a pale blue glow, pulsing like a heartbeat that wasn’t hers.

She could feel it burning.

Her vision blurred at the edges. The world tilted.

She forced herself to breathe.

Not now. Not here.

Someone called her name.

“Lilly!”

Clint jogged up, bow in hand, cuts along his cheek. His eyes scanned her, quick and sharp.

“You okay?”

Lilly nodded. “Yeah. Just—tired.”

He didn’t question it. He never did. He just nodded back and ran off to help civilians.

She let out a slow, shaking breath and put a hand against the wall beside her.

Her fingers came away streaked in silver.

Blood. Except her blood didn’t run red — not since Loki taught her how to draw power from her own life-force.

Don’t show them. Don’t let them know. Because if they saw…

They would treat her the way he did.

A weapon.

A tool.

A thing.

She wiped her hands on her torn suit and forced herself to walk, step by steady step, before her knees could buckle. The world hiccuped again, darkening.

Just keep moving.

LATER — AT STARK TOWER

The team gathered in the common room, exhausted and bruised. Tony was talking — something about shawarma — while Steve forced himself not to collapse on the couch.

Wanda, Pietro, Bucky, and Vision stood near the windows, quietly taking in the city.

Lilly slipped past them toward the hall.

Wanda noticed first.

“Are you ok… Lilly?” Her voice was gentle, still tinged with Sokovian softness. “You do not look well.”

Lilly forced a smile. “Just need air.”

Pietro stepped closer, head tilting, eyes narrowed like someone who recognized pain because he’d lived with it.

“Your hands,” he said quietly.

Lilly quickly hid them behind her back.

“Paint from debris,” she lied.

Vision stepped forward, expression shifting — not concern exactly, but knowing.

“Your energy levels are destabilizing,” he murmured. “Your cells are undergoing strain from overextension.”

Lilly felt her chest tighten.

Not him. Not now.

Bucky leaned against the counter, watching her. Silent. Steady. The kind of gaze that didn’t push — it simply saw.

“You burned yourself out,” he said, voice low. “I know what that looks like.”

Lilly’s throat tightened.

“I’m fine,” she insisted.

She hated how small it sounded.

Wanda slowly approached, her steps soft as rain.

“You don’t have to pretend with us,” she whispered.

Lilly looked at them — these people who had been broken and put back together in too many wrong ways — and for a moment, she almost let the truth fall out.

But then—

She saw a flash of green in her memory.

Loki’s voice, velvet and cold:

If they know what your power costs you, they will decide you are too expensive to keep.

Her breath hitched.

She shook her head.

“I said I’m fine.”

And before anyone could stop her, she turned and walked out — spine straight, steps steady.

Only when the elevator doors closed did her legs give out.

She slid down the wall, clutching her ribs, heartbeat stuttering hard and uneven.

Her blood glowed silver again, dripping through her fingers.

She pressed her forehead to her knees and breathed through the pain.

Quiet. Hidden. Unnoticed.

Just like Loki taught her.