Max_Striker
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The Chains We Choose
🕑 Added 2025-08-03 13:41:47 +0000 UTCThe apartment was darker than usual, which was saying something considering Jay's general aversion to overhead lighting.
He sat on the edge of his bed, still wearing the same clothes from the warehouse confrontation hours ago. His trench coat lay crumpled on the floor where he'd dramatically dropped it—because apparently even in private, he couldn't resist a bit of theater. The takeout container on his nightstand remained untouched, the Chinese food long cold and probably achieving sentience by now.
Outside, the city hummed its familiar night song. Inside his small space, there was only silence and the lingering smell of beef and broccoli.
He'd turned off his phone an hour ago, which was probably a new personal record for him..
Jay pressed his palms against his temples and sighed. The adrenaline had worn off completely, leaving behind something heavier. Not quite guilt—he wasn't ready to call it that—but definitely something in the guilt family.
He'd taken Kilgrave's power, and honestly? It felt gross. Like really, genuinely disgusting in a way that made his skin crawl. It was different from Tommy's healing warmth, which felt like drinking hot chocolate on a cold day, or Claire's protective instincts, which hummed pleasantly in the background like a well-tuned engine.
This new power felt like having food poisoning of the soul.
You could make this so much easier, it whispered in the back of his mind, sounding way too reasonable for something that was basically psychic roofies. ‘One word, and people would just listen. No more awkward conversations. No more having to actually convince people you're right.’
"Nope," Jay said out loud to his empty apartment. "Absolutely not happening."
He needed to deal with this properly, which meant doing that weird meditation thing where he talked to his powers like they were roommates he couldn't evict.
Rising from the bed, he moved to the center of the room and sat cross-legged on the hardwood floor. The position always made him feel vaguely ridiculous—like he was cosplaying as someone spiritual—but it worked.
Closing his eyes, Jay let his breathing slow down. He reached inward, past his surface thoughts and daily concerns, diving into the space where his abilities lived. The transition was gradual, like sinking into a warm bath, until the apartment faded away entirely.
The mental plane opened around him, and honestly, it never got less weird.
It was like floating in space, if space was also somehow cozy and well-lit. No up or down, just an endless void that somehow managed to feel homey. Jay's consciousness shaped itself into his usual mental outfit—jeans and a t-shirt, because apparently even his subconscious had given up on looking professional.
And there, arranged like the world's most dysfunctional support group, were his powers.
In the center stood his core ability—the Power Thief. It looked like a clear white light that pulsed steadily, neither demanding nor needy. Just... there. It was probably the most well-adjusted part of his entire personality, which was either reassuring or deeply concerning.
To the left, Tommy's healing ability bounced around like an excited golden retriever. It was roughly child-sized and glowed soft green, radiating pure enthusiasm for fixing things. Even now, it seemed to be eyeing a small scratch on Jay's mental representation of himself, clearly itching to heal it. The kid had been so determined to help people, and in a weird way, he still was.
On the right stood Claire's danger sense, taking the form of a no-nonsense woman in dark yellow. Her arms were crossed, and she was doing that thing where she scanned for threats even though they were literally inside his own head. She was like having a very paranoid bodyguard who never took a day off.
And in the far corner, looking like it had crawled out of a particularly unpleasant nightmare...
"Oh, come on," Jay muttered, looking at Kilgrave's power. "You couldn't even try to look less horrifying?"
It was purple and writhing, made of what looked like worms and viruses having the world's worst dance party. Unlike his other abilities, which mostly minded their own business, this thing kept reaching out toward the others with slimy tentacles, like that guy at parties who didn't understand personal space.
Just looking at it made Jay want to take a shower. With bleach.
‘I wanted freedom,’ he thought, trying to be philosophical about the whole situation. ‘But using this thing would just make me a different kind of prisoner, wouldn't it?’
The Kilgrave power pulsed, sending out another tendril toward Tommy's healing light. Jay could practically see what it wanted—to corrupt that innocent desire to help, to turn healing into control. Make people so grateful they'd do anything. It was like offering to help someone move, then stealing their couch.
"Yeah, no," Jay said firmly. "We're not doing that."
He raised his hands, and chains materialized around his fingers—rainbow-colored ones that looked like they'd been designed by someone who took both safety and fabulousness very seriously.
Working quickly, Jay wrapped the chains around the purple nightmare. The thing fought back, which felt like being slapped by a wet fish made of bad decisions.
"Here's the deal," he said, adding more chains. "You stay locked up unless it's literally life or death. And I mean literally.'"
The binding settled into place with a satisfying click, like a really good lock engaging. Suddenly the mental space felt less like a haunted house and more like his actual apartment.
Then his brain decided to dump some new information on him, because apparently this evening wasn't complicated enough.
Five powers. That was his limit.
"Five?" Jay said incredulously. "That's it? I can't even make it to a full half-dozen?"
The knowledge was annoyingly specific. His brain could handle five different abilities before things started getting messy. He currently had four, which meant one more slot before he'd have to start making tough choices about what to keep and what to let go.
Unless he could upgrade his hardware, so to speak.
Jay paused, struck by a thought. "You know what would've been convenient?" he said to the purple nightmare still writhing in its chains. "If you'd been the comics version. Mind control virus and Wolverine-level healing factor? That would've been one stone, two birds. But no, I get the discount Netflix version."
Physical enhancements came to mind—Luke Cage's unbreakable skin, Jessica Jones' enhanced strength. Maybe he could track down some of that Super Soldier Serum that seemed to pop up everywhere despite supposedly being a government secret. Seriously, for something so classified, it sure got around a lot.
‘If I'm going to keep collecting abilities like they're Pokémon cards,’ Jay thought, ‘I need to level up my base stats first.’
The mental plane began to fade as his concentration wandered—probably something to do with the Chinese food smell wafting through his apartment and reminding him that he hadn't eaten dinner.
He found himself back on his hardwood floor, feeling like he'd just run a mental marathon. His body ached in that specific way that came from sitting in an uncomfortable position for too long, and his head felt like it was full of cotton.
Jay flopped sideways onto his bed without changing clothes, because sometimes you just had to embrace the chaos of your life choices.
As sleep tugged at him one thought drifted through his increasingly fuzzy mind
‘Freedom wasn't just about breaking chains—sometimes it was about being smart enough to know which ones you shouldn't pick up in the first place.’ Tonight, he'd made his choice. Tomorrow, he'd probably have to live with the consequences, but hey, at least he could live with himself now.
Comments
elph
Its not a big deal, but this is the only chapter not labeled Chapter 13, but really enjoy your writing
