The cafeteria smelled like old metal, boiled beans, and ammonia. The fluorescent lights above flickered like they were gasping for life.
Max sat alone at the corner of a stained steel table, swirling the slop on his tray with the edge of his spoon. He hadn't touched it.
Around him, prisoners cackled, shouted, bartered cigarettes and dried meat like kings trading gold.
But Max wasn't listening to any of it.
He was thinking. Or trying to.
"If I'm Quicksilver... then where the hell is the speed?"
Since waking up in this body, he'd felt it — the buzz. Like lightning rolling beneath his skin. But nothing worked. No superhuman bursts, no time-freezing rush. Just that quiet hum... mocking him.
"Maybe it needs adrenaline. Maybe a trigger. Or maybe..."
Maybe it was never his to begin with.
Then came the voices. Two tables down. Speaking English, mixed with Russian curses.
"Pure stuff, da? Not stepped on. Adrian smuggled whole kilo."
"From Colombia? Bullshit."
"You try snort it. Then say bullshit."
Max's ears perked up. The name rang — Adrian. Colombian cocaine, smuggled into this black-site Soviet-style prison?
His tray scraped the table as he stood, ignoring the stares.
Prison Gym
The gym was a gray, echoing slab of concrete with rusted weights and heavy bags that bled stuffing. It reeked of sweat and mold. A group of five inmates were gathered near the bench press.
Max approached, trying to sound casual.
"Hey. You guys were talking about Adrian? The one with the good coke?"
They looked at him like he was a pigeon asking for spare change.
Then one of them — a square-jawed man with tattoos across his scalp — burst into laughter.
"What's baby-face want?" he grunted in Russian, laughing with the others.
Max didn't speak Russian fluently — not yet — but the tone told him enough.
Mockery. Dismissal. Maybe threats.
He clenched his fist.
The largest of them — Makar, 6'4", built like a truck and with eyes that looked surgically devoid of empathy — leaned forward with a grin.
Max stepped forward.
Then he punched Makar in the throat.
Not the chin. Not the gut. The throat.
Makar staggered back, clutching at his neck and coughing violently. The others jumped to their feet — two lunging at Max.
But Max moved — not fast, but smarter. He ducked low, slammed a knee into one man's groin, then drove his elbow into another's ribs.
The gym descended into chaos. Guards would come soon.
But Max didn't care. He had one goal.
"Adrian. Cellblock 10," he growled, standing over the guy who'd first mentioned the coke. "Where is he?"
The man gasped, still recovering from Max's surprisingly tactical onslaught.
"You're f—fucked, man… You want Adrian, go to hell. Cellblock 10 is his."
Ten minutes later, bruised and bleeding, Max limped down the cracked corridor leading to Cellblock 10. Two guards shouted something in Russian behind him, but didn't follow. Either they didn't care, or they wanted to see him die.
He paused at a water pipe near the emergency sprinklers. The gears in his mind were turning.
"If I can get that cocaine… and dump it into the fire system… maybe it hits everyone during lockdown. Distract them. Mess up reactions. I could do anything during the confusion."
Then a darker thought hit.
"Or I land a cleaning job. Find bleach. Get ammonia. Mix it."
"If I can't run out of here... I can kill everyone in my way."
He stopped walking.
The thought scared him.
Because it didn't feel foreign.
As Max approached the heavy iron doors, he could already tell something was wrong.
Guards. Lots of them. At least eight, armed, flanking the cell entrance.
Shouting in Russian.
The doors to Adrian's cell were wide open. A gurney being rolled out. Screams echoed down the hall.
Max pressed against the wall, watching from the shadows.
Adrian was strapped down, seizing violently, his muscles spasming unnaturally. Blood leaked from his nose, ears, and fingernails.
His eyes — white, pupil-less — stared into the void.
One of the guards crossed himself. Another muttered something about a curse.
"He took his own product," someone said in Russian.
But Max saw the shaking. The lightning flickering around Adrian's jaw. Almost invisible — but there.
Electricity?
No. Something else.
Something familiar.
A chill ran through Max's spine.
"Is that what happens to people like me?"
"Or... was Adrian not normal either?"
Max sat on the floor, staring at his hand.
He could still feel the buzz.
The fight in the gym had ignited something. For one moment, he thought he saw time slow. Just a little. Just a blink.
Like the beginning of a spark trying to catch fire.
He wasn't Quicksilver.
He wasn't Max anymore either.
He was something being rewritten, moment by moment.
And if Adrian was the first...He'd make damn sure he wasn't the next to die screaming.
(AN: sorry if the story is fast paced or don't make sense im trying to build this Arc up before jumping straight into the MCU)