Chapter Text
Aunt May smiles as she twirls through the kitchen, her hair floating almost weightlessly behind her as she spins faster. Her laughs are loud and joyful, cookie dough flying off the spoon in her hand. Peter is laughing too.
He makes a joke about…something. Something funny and they both keep laughing. Probably about how Aunt May shouldn’t even be cooking. She’s never been much good at it.
Peter gets up and snatches the spoon from her hand, saving the walls and floor from more cookie dough splatters. Aunt May keeps spinning. Keeps laughing. He puts it back in the bowl before his hands are grabbed and he is twirled around by his aunt, homework laid forgotten on the table. He doesn’t stop her. Doesn’t want to.
When they’re like this, they don’t have to think about the bad. They can ignore it all for a moment. Not that it can go away. It could never go away. But a bit of joy is what they deserve.
Well, what Aunt May deserves.
Deserved.
No. Deserves.
No.
Peter stops spinning, head starting to pound. He drops his hands to his knees and leans forward to catch his breath, to let the room stop spinning.
Deserves.
No.
“Aunt May!”
She doesn’t stop twirling around the kitchen or laughing. Peter frowns. Did this happen? When did this happen? Is this happening right now?
No. Deserved.
Peter shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. What day is it? What was he doing?
“Aunt May?”
No response. The laughter continues. The spinning continues. Shouldn’t she be dizzy by now? Peter was dizzy. So, so dizzy. Nauseous, even. How long had she been spinning? Too long. Shouldn’t she know that she needs to stop? Aunt May is a nurse.
Peter raises his head, watching her continue to twirl. Pirouetting badly yet somehow never knocking into anything. Didn’t she knock over a glass when this happened?
When this happened?
Is this not happening?
Peter shakes his head out again, trying to clear it, but his head is still pounding, vision still slightly blurry. Everything is a shade of green.
A shade of green?
His vision clears but his head still pounds. The walls are dripping green now. The floor is green and rising. How is the floor rising?
It doesn’t matter now. He needs to protect Aunt May, it’s his duty as Spider-Man.
Spider-Man? He was never Spider-Man when Aunt May was alive.
No. No. no. no. no. nonononononononononono
No. Aunt May is alive. She’s right in front of him. Twirling still somehow.
“Aunt May?”
The green is up to his knees now. Something thick and viscous, like Jello, or that slime they use on Nickelodeon. He reaches out and pokes it, and the surface ripples. No, don’t get distracted, help Aunt May.
Peter rises from his slightly hunched position and moves through the Nickelodeon slime. It’s too thick, like mud from that lake Uncle Ben took him to once to fish. Every step requires him to unsuction his leg and move it forward. Maximum effort.
It’s up to his waist, still rising. Aunt May doesn’t seem bothered from across the kitchen. When did the kitchen get so big? So hard to cross? Their kitchen is small; it should only be a few steps until he reaches her. How is she still twirling so easily? Something is wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong
No. Almost there. The slime is up to his chest, still climbing. Aunt May is still spinning. Somehow. It doesn’t make sense and his vision is foggy again. If he can just reach out his arm…
Got her.
“Aunt May?”
With her arm in his hand, she stops her never-ending twirling. Her hair stops defying gravity and lays down her back, long and brown and green. Her head is turned away from him, face just out of reach. He shakes her arm.
“Aunt May, we need to go.”
He’s trying to pull her now. She won’t move. Where is his spider strength? He never had it while Aunt May was alive.
“Aunt May, we need to get out of here.”
He’s worried. Cold. Shaking. The slime is up to his neck. Almost up to hers too. He’s still pulling and she’s still turned away. Unmoving. Her skin is cold. Why is it so cold?
“Aunt May, please!”
The slime reaches his chin, and she turns her head. The relief he feels is pulled away instantly when he sees her face. Badly burnt, pieces of skin are missing entirely, muscle and bone underneath blackened. One eye is gone, the lid burned off and the hole gaping. Staring right at him.
Peter gasps and his mouth fills with the slime. Thick and bitter and choking him as Aunt May watches impassively. His limbs start flailing as he tries to keep himself above the green that fills his lungs.
“I’m dead, Peter.”
No. No. no, no, no, no. nononononononononono.
He wants to scream but the green is past his nose. He can’t breathe, can’t think.
The slime is too thick. Too green. Too green?
“Why didn’t you save me, Peter?”
Her voice is mocking. Why is it mocking? Aunt May would never mock him. He can’t see her burned face anymore to try and understand, can’t swim in this green that is trying to drown him.
“You didn’t save me. Didn’t save Ben. Didn’t save Wanda. Didn't save the universe.”
No. no. no. no. no. He did. Did he? He can’t think, it’s too green.
The gReen passes the top of his head and he drowns. Aunt May’s voice echoing in his mind and the world turns from grEEn to black. He didn’t save them. He didn’t save anybody. He
F
A
I
L
E
D…..
Peter’s eyes fly open to more green. It surrounds him. Cold, thick slime soaking into every pore of his body. He opened his mouth to scream, but the bitter liquid once again filled his lungs. He was drowning again; he had to get to the surface.
But where was the surface? He couldn’t see around him, the gReen was everywhere. He tried to move his limbs, but the slime was too thick. His lungs burned. Knives dragged themselves along his trachea as he attempted to cough out the slime. But where could he even cough it out?
He tried to stop breathing in the grEen, but it was too late. He was caught in a cycle of coughing and gasping. Choking on it. His limbs grew heavy as he tried to swim for the surface - if there even was a surface.
Black grew on the edges of his vision, taking over the GrEEn. The pain racking through his lungs was beginning to fade. It was colder now. Was the black colder than the green? He didn’t think anything could be colder than the greEN. Even his bones felt cold.
The black swallowed him, gReen and all.
Wanda laid next to him on the floor of their dingy apartment. The one in Ferizaj that they had managed to stay in for a few months. She had offered to use her powers to get them a better one, but Peter had seen her face at the thought of using them. He wouldn’t make her do that. He knew she was still scared of hurting someone after what happened in Nigeria.
Miss Romanoff had helped as much as she could with giving them emergency money and locations of several safehouses that nobody would find, and Peter was able to do odd jobs for money no matter where they were. He wouldn’t make Wanda use her powers if she didn’t want to. Mr. Rogers had tried to tell Wanda that she had saved more people than she had killed in Nigeria, that all the Avengers had made mistakes and failed, but she was still too scared of powers. Too scared of herself.
It was fine, though. Peter would be brave enough for the both of them. He was Spider-Man. Well, he had only gotten to be Spider-Man for a few months officially before he turned into a wanted fugitive, but still. Spider-Man.
After Mr. Stark had picked him up off the street where he was patrolling and brought him to Germany to fight Mr. Rogers and some of the other Avengers (and subsequently lose after changing sides once he figured out what they were actually fighting about), he had ended up on the Raft with Wanda and the others. When Miss Romanoff and Mister Rogers broke them out, he decided to stick with Wanda while they travelled the world (hid from the UN).
So, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man of Queens New York, Peter Parker, was turned into your friendly neighborhood (undercover) Spider-Man of wherever they were for the moment, Jovan Peshko. He wanted to be Petr (since that was his name) but Miss Romanoff and Wanda both said no. And he said no to Ivan. So, Jovan he was. At least until they needed to change identities again.
So, Peter Jovan and Wanda Aniya lay on the floor of their little apartment and taught each other what they loved. Peter taught Wanda about the computers he was fixing. And Star Wars, Star Wars was important. Wanda taught him Sokovian and Romani. And about Pietro, her brother that died before Peter had a chance to meet him.
Why are the walls green?
Peter looked over the circuit board of the computer he was working on, trying to figure out what the exact issue was. Their neighbor was paying him with Sarma, which he would gladly accept as payment. Miss Bytyqi made the best Sarma in the building and his mouth was watering just thinking about it. But first, her computer.
Wanda’s voice broke his stare down with the CPU, “You see.”
Peter blinked at the open computer, “plural?”
The CPU was fine. Maybe the GPU? Miss Bytyqi liked playing Diablo IV. For a random sixty-year-old lady, that was a choice. Peter wasn’t judging. Not at all. Just… an interesting choice.
“Singular,” Wanda corrected as she turned a page in her magazine.
Green started dripping down the walls.
“Dikhes.”
Peter wiped dust from the GPU, wondering if it would really be that simple. Heck, he dusted the whole circuit board very lightly, just in case. He couldn’t find anything actually wrong other than the dust, but Miss Bytyqi said the laptop kept crashing while she tried to game.
“I was seeing,” another page turned next to him. He glanced over at what Wanda was reading – something about dating. Ew.
“Dikhavas.”
“Dikhavas,” Wanda emphasized next to him.
“Dikhavas,” he repeated, copying her pronunciation.
He hit the power button, why was the screen green?, and moved the cursor to run Diablo IV. The whirring of the laptop slightly overworking was loud, but not as loud as it had been before. Miss Bytyqi really needed to buy a new one if she wanted to game so much.
Can you dream if you’re dead?
“Nice!” Peter cheered, “Sarma earned!”
Wanda snorted next to him, flipping to another article. Well, she would probably call it an article, Peter would call it an excuse to look at celebrity abs. Where had she even gotten a Teen Beat in Sokovian?
GREen started to creep into his vision. He shook his head. Why did he have a headache? He hadn’t had a headache in this memory.
It’s not a memory.
Yes, it is.
No?
Peter sat up, rubbing his eyes, trying to get the green out.
“…drop it off.”
The pounding in his brain was getting worse. When he opened his eyes again, Wanda was across the room, computer in hand and magazine abandoned.
What had she said?
Oh right, this was when she went next door to get the food from Miss Bytyqi and return the laptop.
“You sure?” Peter replied in Sokovian, “I can drop it off since I know enough Russian to speak with her.”
Wanda shook her head, smile bright upon her face as she whispered conspiratorially, “This way we get Sarma, and you don’t get dragged into another hour-long cat petting adventure.”
Peter groaned, flopping back onto the ground, ignoring the slime that started to rise, centimeter by centimeter off the floor, “That was one time!”
“Three times!” Wanda laughed.
Peter shivered and stood up, the grEEN was cold, chilling him to the bone. Why was it so cold?
Wanda turned back to the door, Nickelodeon slime unnoticed and she reached down to grab a pair of shoes. Her favorite socks, the pink ones with little cows on them, were green.
The pounding in his brain was getting louder, the cold getting colder. Could cold get colder? Wouldn’t it just eventually feel like nothingness?
The GReeN liquid was at his calves now, and Peter’s thoughts started to come into focus again. Why was the green here? It had never been green in the apartment. Only ever brown and red. And red.
Red.
Peter turned his eyes back to Wanda. She stood in front of the door, facing away from him and unmoving. It was like a scene from a horror movie, where the girl stands in a corner and ignores everything around her and she turns out possessed.
But Wanda couldn’t be possessed. That wasn’t how this memory went.
Memory?
No, this was real.
Is real.
Right?
“Wanda?” Peter whispered as he attempted to slough forward through the sludge. The acid gREeN Nickelodeon slime up to his thighs and climbing quickly. He had to get her out. Wanda didn’t deserve to die.
Wanda was alive.
“Wanda?”
No response. He tried again, louder, “Wanda?!”
The greEn was past his hips. Why couldn’t he move fast enough? Spider-Man was strong. Spider-Man had inhuman strength from that spider bite. Spider-Man helped people. Nickelodeon slime had nothing on him.
Peter threw his whole body into moving toward his sister Wanda. Why wouldn’t she respond? She always responded, even if it was just with a tiny smile when she was sad and trying not to think about whatever was hurting her inside. She was strong like that. Peter was strong like Spider-Man, Wanda was strong like Wanda.
“Wanda! We need to leave. Just open the door, I’ll be right behind you!”
Wanda made no movements, as still as a statue where she stood turned away from him. The slime was up to his chest now as he reached her. His hand grasped her arm and spun her to face him.
The glaive bursts through her chest as she screams his name…
Wanda was smiling. One of her tiny smiles she wore when she was thinking about Pietro or Nigeria or Sokovia. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, sinking into the GReen that was rising past her neck. He was almost as tall as her, growing every month they were on the run. He was almost fifteen. Not a child anymore. He hadn’t been a child in a long time. Neither one of them had.
“Wanda?” Peter tried to ask why. Why she let herself die. Why she let herself be distracted by him while on the battlefield.
That hadn’t happened yet.
He took the snap so she would live. Wanda deserved to live. Wanda deserved everything. She was the best sister in the world.
She was alive.
Is alive.
The red poured from her mouth as the grEEn filled his. He let it pour in this time. Let the bitter sludge fill his mouth and his lungs. Maybe it would be easier this time. He wanted to close his eyes, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t look away from Wanda. From the red. From the blood. He tried to save her, but she died before he could.
Why did children have to die to save the universe?
His vision swirled with greeN and red and black. Patterns and dots swam around his head and he choked brutally on the slime once more. He couldn’t swim in this, he knew that now.
Was he destined to drown over and over?
The pain was getting worse. He couldn’t help his fingers from clawing at his throat, attempting to get air that he knew wouldn’t come. The gREen was past his eyes now, but he could see that some of the red was his. Maybe his nails were too long. When was the last time he trimmed them?
The black grew stronger, taking over the red and the green.
His body felt far away. The pain felt far away. All he felt was cold. Cold and…warm? Was warmth just the absence of cold? Was cold the absence of warm? He felt like he should know the answer to that, but it was so far away. Somewhere not in the green and the black and the red…
Eyes once again opened to GREEN and Peter thrashed around. His arm hit something.
Was that glass?
Peter flailed more until he could hit it again. It felt like glass. Why was he in glass? He couldn’t see past the gREen, but glass meant there was something on the other side, right? He didn’t have to swim up to the surface if he could break through.
Spider-Man was strong. Spider-Man could break through glass. He just needed to reach it properly before he needed to breathe. Simple.
Except his lungs were already starting to burn, the green already felt like it was crushing his chest. Peter’s chest ached. It felt almost like his old asthma attacks when he was a kid, except he couldn’t try to get air. Air was too far away, and he didn’t want to breathe in the gReen again.
Fingers brushed the surface of the glass and Peter tried to ignore the pain. He kicked his legs as much as he could to get closer, letting the burning feeling in his chest move to the back of his mind and he focused everything on reaching the glass. He just needed to punch it. It didn’t even need to be that hard, Spider-Man was strong.
Spider-Man ignored the black that started edging on the greEn again as his hand reached out to the glass, this time his whole palm touched it. He curled his hand into a fist and tried to punch through the grEEn molasses that surrounded him. His fist moved ever so slowly to the glass, connecting with no sound. Could he even hear sound in the slime?
Nothing happened, but Spider-Man didn’t give up. He pulled his fist back more, even as the black creeped further and the burning grew stronger. The second strike landed, and he felt the glass crack. The tiny vibrations echoed through the slime and Peter breathed in.
Peter Breathed In.
The GReen came quickly, filling his lungs, and the pain got worse. So much worse. He started throwing his fist at the glass again, trying for more cracks before the black pulled him back under. He felt the vibrations of more cracks, but he couldn’t feel the glass break. It held, and Peter didn’t. His arms were growing heavier as he tried to fight the black and the green. It wasn’t working.
At least it wasn’t red this time.
!!!duck.left!!!
Peter was running. The sounds of battle rang around him; heroes fighting Thanos’s forces on the plains of Wakanda. He shot out a web and flung himself at a Chitauri, feet connecting with the alien and throwing it to the ground. Peter kept going, not looking to see if it got up.
He could see Wanda, she was with Vision in the trees, doing something with her powers.
She didn’t like to use her powers.
WiTh gReAT pOWeR ComEs GreAt rEsPONsiBiliTy.
!!!right!!!
A Chitauri slammed into him from the side. He was too distracted. He needed to focus. Spider-Man was strong. Spider-Man helped people. Spider-Man was in the middle of a war and needed to focus on fighting.
Why must children save the universe?
Spider-Man jumped up, slinging a web at the alien’s foot and whipping it towards himself. He pulled his fist back, and using the momentum, slung it directly at the Chitauri’s face. The alien crashed into the dirt several yards away, helmet and face slightly caved in. Peter knew this one would not get up.
!!!behind.duck!!!
Several more swarmed him, and Spider-Man lost himself to the fight for a few minutes. Webs slinging, punches and kicks throwing aliens across the field. He narrowly dodged a shot and pulled a Wakandan soldier out of the way of being crushed by one of the smaller ships.
He moved through the army, dodging and attacking, aggressive in his way forward, pushing to get to Wanda. Spider-Man had to fight, but Peter just wanted his sister.
He saw flashes of light from the trees where Wanda was and pushed forward harder. He needed to get to her now.
She didn’t like to use her powers.
!?!wrong!?!
His Spider-sense had been working overtime during the battle, helping him dodge and attack the best he could, but now it was starting to feel… weird. It was almost like it knew something was coming, but whatever was coming was something no one had ever felt before.
The grass was greener than normal. Was the grass in Wakanda usually like that?
!!?!wRonG.WroNG.!?!!
Senses flaring, he turned straight for Wanda and ran, sprinting across the grEen, dodging enemies and allies alike. One of his arms hung looser than the other, blood running down from his shoulder. When had that happened?
Blood ran down the back of his neck as he jumped a body, senses SCREAMING. He had to get to Wanda.
!!!?!WRONG.WRONG.WRONG.!?!!!
He reached the tree line just in time to see her fingers start to dissolve into dust. His body screamed in pain with every step he took, sprinting towards her. Wanda’s legs were sprinkling into the air; he could see each particle as they broke smaller and smaller.
Peter’s eyes filled with tears as he reached out for his sister. He tripped and fell, landing a foot from her on the green. His eyes rose to meet hers, just in time to see the tiny smile she wore when she was pretending she wasn’t sad. The smile was the last thing that was left a second later, and a second after that it was gone as well.
Peter broke. The pain in his body didn’t matter. The fact that he could feel himself dissolving molecule by molecule didn’t matter. He sobbed as his feet slowly dissolved, dragging himself over to where Wanda had been moments ago.
Dragging himself across the rising greeN.
His body fell to the grass as his fingers started going, minutes dragging on as his body fought to heal at the speed it was being torn apart. He was turning to dust as slowly and painfully as possible, but all he cared about was that Wanda was gone.
He lost the only family he had left.
The grEen started covering him, and he let it, slipping into the thick syrup as his torso started disappearing.
His Sister was Gone.
His Aunt was Gone.
His Uncle was Gone.
His Mom and Dad were Gone.
Peter should be Gone too.
The GrEEn rose above his face, and once more, Peter drowned.
Peter woke to GREEn once more, but this time he didn’t care. There was no swinging of fists, no struggle to reach the top he could never reach. Peter didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t open his mouth to breathe. He just…
existed.
The pressure in his lungs grew slowly, slower than it had when he struggled. Unsurprising. One of the important things for holding your breath as long as possible was remaining calm. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought about that earlier.
Hmmm. Probably because of the freaking out from drowning repeatedly.
Yeah, that’d be it.
He heard something.
Hm, maybe he could hear in the discount Nickelodeon sludge.
It was a voice, not just vibrations. Probably close by, but with the Jello surroundings, he couldn’t make out words.
Not that he cared too much. Everyone he loved was dead, why shouldn’t he be?
He didn’t remember his parents at all. Just remembered sitting on that stoop waiting for them to come home.
They never did.
Uncle Ben went to help after the Battle of New York. His department was looking for survivors in the rubble. He remembers the Fire Chief at the doorstep. He remembers Aunt May screaming as soon as she saw him. Sometimes, when he dreams, he can still hear those screams.
The apartment building burned down while he was on a school trip. Apparently, Aunt May was tired after too many shifts in a row and never even woke up to try and get out. Peter found out three days later when he woke up in the hospital after almost dying from a spider bite.
Peter saw Wanda die both times. First when she turned to dust, her little smile sitting on her face. The second when he snapped with the stones. She screamed just like Aunt May had when she saw the Fire Chief. She should’ve been screaming from the pain of being impaled, but Peter knew that scream. That was the scream of knowing someone you loved died. And she screamed while she watched him snap.
He only wanted to save her. To save everyone.
Why must children save the universe?
The pressure in his lungs grew into more pain, but Peter remained where he was. Maybe this time, the black would take him and not give him back to the green. He just wanted to see Wanda again. See his family. Maybe get a hug.
The sound was mixing with vibrations now, growing louder as whoever was speaking had started yelling and pounding on the glass. Peter frowned slightly. He didn’t want the glass to break. He could feel the black inching into his brain. Maybe this time he could reach nothingness.
The black shatters to green as he feels the glass explode around him. Peter is on the floor and the floor is greengreengreen.
But also, white.
Peter starts coughing, hearing someone speak above him, but the voice is everywhere and nowhere. The slime is in his ears and covering his body and he blinks away the black. His whole body is heaving in his attempts to get his breathing under control, hands and knees on broken glass on the ground, redredred mixing with the greengreengreen on the white tile.
His vision is fading in and out, and his hearing is still muted. Why is it muted? Spider-Man has enhanced hearing. Is there still green in his ears?
He can’t hear what the voices are saying, but there’s a small hand running through his hair, just the way Wanda used to, and Peter leans into it. Tears fill his eyes and blur the colors even more so he can’t.
!danger!safe.
Peter doesn’t know how to deal with the simultaneous feelings of danger and safety at the same time, and he’s too busy crying to care at the moment. He was ready for the blackness, and now it’s too loud and too bright and too warm and too cold. Even with his eyes closed and his ears muted, it’s still too much. He can tell whoever is above him has started arguing, and maybe also crying. He feels something wrap around him, arms and a sheet? of some kind.
safe.danger!
He’s sitting now, instead of kneeling in the glass, and he’s on someone’s lap? Everything is still too much, and his senses are screaming at him but it’s TOO MUCH.
“In a garden, in a shade,
Kalina is rocking a cradle.
A beautiful maiden
A singer from heaven…”
Peter can almost hear Wanda singing to him, the Sokovian wrapping around him warmer than the sheet he sits in.
“…The cradle is swinging
Kalina is singing.
Na-ney, na-ney, brother
Sleep, my little brother…”
Fingers continue to card through his hair and Peter can feel small droplets hitting his back. His senses are starting to come back, and he can smell the salt of tears. Can he also smell fear? And joy?
Since when can he smell emotions?
“…Slumber is calling you,
Can't you hear?
Slumber will give you
Presents, my dear…”
The hand in his hair is warm, and the arms wrapping around him are warm. Peter’s mind begins to drift, and he lets himself bury further into the body holding him, tucking his head into the chest and keeping his eyes closed. He can smell surprise from the body holding him and affection from whoever is petting his head.
“…Three dwarves are driving
A beautiful cart,
Horses with white wings
Are coming, my heart.”
When he’s like this, Pete can almost imagine Wanda singing to him as he buries himself in a cocoon of blankets in their apartment. She did it whenever he was sick, making him soup and letting him make a nest on the bed. He’d fall asleep with her voice drifting over him…
Wait.
That is Wanda’s voice.
Peter’s eyes fly open, and he rubs them aggressively with the sheet to get the slime and tears out. His head darts over to who’s holding him, and he ends up face to face with a teenager he doesn’t recognize. Tan skin and dark hair and greengreengreen eyes. He jolts back in surprise, pulling the sheet with him and falling into a second set of arms behind him. The boy smells of confusion and excitement, and Peter can hear his heartbeat pick up from severely-above-a-human levels to severely-above-a-hummingbird levels.
“Peter”
Peter whips his head around to the second person holding him, smelling relief and joy.
safe.safe.safe.
The girl matches the boy to the point that he’s sure they’re twins. Dark brown hair falling to her waist, dried full of green gunk, with a strip of white from root to tip in the front of her hair. Her skin is tan, and her eyes are vibrant greengreengreen.
She smiles just like Wanda. Not one of the little ones to hide her sadness, but one of the smiles reserved for joy. One of the smiles from when they were finally able to relax after escaping the Raft. Her eyes crinkle with the smile the same way Wanda’s do, cheeks full as if happiness itself could fill them. The eyes themselves are wrong, too green in the way the green rose in his dreams instead of the dark forest green of Wanda’s.
But she feels…right.
“Wanda?” he whispers, trying to hold down the hope in his chest before it can begin to bleed out like Pandora’s box.
“Peter,” she responds. In Wanda’s voice.
“Wanda!”
Peter begins to cry again and buries himself in the weirdly-younger Wanda’s arms. Sobs wracking his body as he clings to her. His stickiness has a mind of its own (or the same mind) and latches onto her as he wraps his arms around her. For some reason, he can’t wrap himself around her properly. And he can fit in her lap.
He’ll think about that later.
For now, it’s just him and Wanda, and his blubbering as he tries to figure out what’s going on.
“But…but you died,” snot is dripping from his nose and definitely getting all over her and he tries to pull his hand away to wipe his face but his arms have decided to remain stuck, “I saw you…I’m sorry, it’s all my fault!”
“It’s not your fault, Peter,” she whispers into his hair, one hand stroking his back as the other cards through his hair, “War is war, but you should’ve never been on that field in the first place.”
“What the fuck?”
The boy behind them, who Peter is now heavily considering might be Pietro since death is apparently optional, pipes up in confusion. He is shushed by Wanda, who stops rubbing Peter’s hair to lean over and drag him into the embrace.
All three of them sit in a pile on the floor, Wanda humming quietly and she strokes Peter’s back and clings onto Pietro with the other arm. Pietro in turn buries his head into her shoulder and wraps his arms around them both. Peter happily ignores the slime and glass and blood on the ground to bury himself deeper into the hug and the smells of content and affection and still a bit of confusion from Pietro.
They stay like that for what feels like an hour but is probably just a few minutes before Pietro starts to stir, evidently unable to stay doing one thing for a length of time. The teenager unwraps his arms and wiggles himself from Wanda’s embrace, standing and bouncing on his feet a few times before announcing that he’s “just gonna take a quick look around, no worries.”
Peter unsticks himself from Wanda while she yells at the already-absent Pietro. She shakes her head and starts muttering in Romani about useless, undead, older brothers while Peter starts an investigation of the room. After some finagling, he manages to rip the glass bits out of his feet and hands before the skin can heal over them and tightens the sheet while he stands.
“Peter, be careful! There’s glass on the floor!” Wanda scolds him in Sokovian, rising from the ground and moving her hands like she’s planning on physically moving him.
Hmmm… Peter doesn’t remember being this much shorter than her. Add to that that she was able to hold him in her lap, and she and Pietro both look like middle-schoolers, there could be an interesting situation on their hands.
“Wanda,” he starts, looking down at his own hands and finding them much smaller than he remembers, “how old do you think we are?”
Wanda’s hands falter in their approach, and she tilts her head in thought, “Well, Pietro looks like he did when we were fourteen? Maybe? And you are usually five years younger, so you should be about nine, but you look like you’re six.”
Peter groaned, putting his head into his now too-small hands. The skin has healed over, leaving them Christmas-colored with slime and dried blood.
left!safe.
Peter turns to the door as Pietro blurs through, stack of clothing in one hand, and papers in the other.
“Great news! Got clothes! Bad news! We are in some weird, abandoned lab and everything is in Russian! I don’t know any Russian.”
Pietro smelled like anxiety wrapped in satisfaction and was almost vibrating from the combination. He handed some clothes to Wanda, who Peter now noticed was wrapped in a lab coat in place of clothing.
left!safe.
Peter tensed minutely in preparation as Pietro blurred next to him.
“Here you go, little man! They’re gonna be way too big, but there was nothing smaller and anything has to beat that sheet.”
“Thanks,” Peter murmured, unsure how to act around Wanda’s brother. He had grown to think of Wanda as a sister, and he was sure she thought of him as a brother, but now that her actual brother was back, would she just want Pietro? And would Pietro think Peter was trying to replace him? They even had the same name.
Pietro ruffled his hair and started exploring the room, darting from table to table, expertly avoiding stepping on any glass with his bare feet.
“Ooh! More Russian! How exciting!”
Wanda sighed from a few feet away and started walking towards the door, “Pietro, are you sure there was no one here? And no cameras?”
Pietro’s paper stack had doubled, although Peter had no idea how he was choosing what to collect when it was all in a language he didn’t know.
“Yes, Wanda, I searched top to bottom. No people, no cameras. Just us.”
She hummed in response as she stepped through the doorway, “I will change and be right back. Watch Peter. Peter watch Pietro.”
“Hey!”
“Hey!”
Pietro and Peter turned to each other, Peter slightly wary. Pietro snorted.
“Now you see what I have to deal with! I’m the older brother, I’m supposed to be in charge, but no! Wanda’s in charge!”
Peter could smell the delight before Pietro’s smile changed. He raised an eyebrow in confusion to the chaotic energy practically pouring off the older boy.
“Now you’re the youngest. That means she will baby you instead of me! Oh, this is wonderful! Petr! This is great!”
hello!front.
Pietro sped forward, dodging glass, and picked up Peter. He spun him around in his arms, cackling as Peter squeaked at the manhandling.
“I am not a baby! Put me down!”
Peter wiggled in an effort to get away without having to use strength or losing the sheet he was wrapped in. His stickiness was helpful in that case, and for keeping the fresh clothes Pietro had gotten him in his hand instead of on the glass and slime covered ground.
“I’ve never had a little brother, this is like Christmas!” Pietro crowed as he continued to spin peter and ignore his objections.
“Pietro I will bite you,” Peter groaned as he started getting dizzy. The dizziness did not stop as Pietro suddenly did, halting in skepticism.
“...Do little brothers do that?”
“You’re about to find out,” Peter muttered, resulting in a quick deposit of him onto some relatively clean ground.
“Sorry about that, Petr,” Pietro smiled, completely unapologetic, “got too excited about having a baby brother.”
“Not a baby,” Peter immediately responded, ignoring the rush of warmth from Pietro’s easy acceptance.
“Whatever you say, baby brother,” Pietro laughed, “You gonna change before Wanda gets back? Otherwise, we’ll both get in trouble.”
“It’s your fault,” Peter grumbled as he shrugged the shirt on over his sheet. It reached his knees, and he let the sheet fall, pulling on what appeared to be adult men’s shorts, but looked like full length pants on him. The waist was too large, and he started looking around for something to hold them up with.
“Ah, but I’m the oldest. I’m the responsible one and therefore cannot be blamed.”
Peter didn’t even dignify that with a response, continuing to scan countertops before giving up and webbing a sort of waistband around himself.
Wait.
Webbing?
He looked down at his wrists, which now each sported a tiny hole.
“What the fuccccck,” Pietro whispered from nearby, stepping over and staring at Peter’s arms.
hello!left!safe.
Peter didn’t glance up at Wanda’s entrance, still too entranced with his NATURAL WEB-SHOOTERS.
He had SPINNERETS!!!
“What are you two doing?” Wanda made the room smell like affection wrapped in exasperation.
“You didn’t tell me the baby was a mutant,” Pietro excitedly buzzed in place, not even looking at Wanda.
“Peter? Are you okay?” Wanda asked as she walked over, stepping carefully around the glass.
“Look,” Peter whispered before shooting out a web at the opposite wall. The quiet THWICK echoed around the room as the three stared in silence at the wall.
“Well. This. Is. Amazing,” Pietro announced, “Three for three, our family is awesome.”
Wanda smacked him in the arm, eliciting a soft “oof” as she lightly grasped Peter’s hands. She turned his wrists over several times, studying the holes and checking for any injuries.
“Do they hurt?” she asked quietly, moving a finger over the nearby skin and pressing lightly.
“No,” Peter replied, still in awe, “I didn’t even notice.”
“Wait,” Pietro tilted his head, “Why does the baby speak Sokovian? I don’t remember him from home. Unless I missed something.”
“I taught him,” Wanda commented, now moving on to the rest of Peter’s body for her injury check, “You missed a bit.”
“Well, sorry for dying heroically,” Pietro joked.
Wanda rolled her eyes and threw a kick at his shin, which he dodged by speeding to the other side of the room.
Peter decided to test the waters. Pietro seemed to like him enough, but he needed to know where they stood.
“We both died heroically. Twice,” Peter announced, “You’re losing.”
duck!
Peter did not duck, receiving a smack on the head from Wanda, who turned him around to check the back of his head.
“You died?” Pietro asked, concern lacing his tone.
“How did you think we got here?” Peter asked, “Actually, that’s a good question. How did we get here?”
“Another question,” Pietro added, “Where is here?”
“Russia?” Wanda guessed.
“Well, maybe if we could read the notes we could figure…”
“Give them to Peter,” Wanda interrupted her brother.
“What?”
“Peter speaks Russian.”
“…What?”
“I speak Russian,” Peter affirmed, “English, Russian, Sokovian, Romani, and Spanish. Maybe a touch of Arabic but I haven’t been working on that recently so I’m probably out of practice.”
“….What?”
“Peter’s a genius,” Wanda smiled as she finished her check and started over to Pietro to repeat the process, “He’ll try to convince you he’s not, but the only reason he doesn’t have several college degrees already is because we were on the run from the UN.”
“I’m not a genius,” Peter grumbled as he shuffled over to the table Pietro had left the pile of papers on, “I just know a little about a few things.”
“But you’re like, six?” Pietro questioned before he was manhandled by Wanda as she checked for injuries, “Also what was the comment about being on the run?”
“I am nine. Ish. I think. And mentally I’m fifteen.”
“Still not old enough for basically having several college degrees,” Pietro argued as his head was pulled down so Wanda could check his scalp, “and can we get back to the on the run thing? I think we’re avoiding something important here.”
“So, after you got yourself shot…” Wanda started.
“Heroically,” Pietro interrupted, dodging another smack.
“…there was an… incident with the Avengers…”
“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, Wanda,” Peter interjected from his spot next to the table.
Pietro glanced between the two, noting the tension sitting in Wanda’s shoulders and the sad look on Peter’s face, “How about skip past that bit.”
Wanda sucked in a breath, “There was a fight within the Avengers because of the incident…”
“It was because of more than that, Wanda,” Peter said softly, “It wasn’t your fault.”
“Some of it was still my fault,” she whispered, tears collecting in her eyes.
Pietro pulled his sister into his arms, ignoring the soft smack on his bicep and rubbed her back lightly, “Whatever it was, it wasn’t your fault,” he whispered into her hair as he tucked her head into his shoulder. They were almost the same height, so he moved to reciprocate, making eye contact with Peter and gesturing him to come over before his own head ended up tucked in his sisters neck.
Peter placed down the papers he was organizing and walked over to the group. Tucking himself under Pietro’s other arm and wrapping his own around Wanda as much as he could.
“I killed twenty-six people,” Wanda whispered, body shuddering from her quiet sobs.
“You saved dozens, maybe hundreds more,” Peter argued quietly from his spot buried in her side, “and it wasn’t on purpose.”
“My powers…” she murmured.
Pietro tensed slightly, a slight stutter to the pattern he was rubbing on her back.
“Your powers helped save people,” Peter stated, “Mister Rogers and Mister Barton both agreed. They said that even Avengers make mistakes.”
Wanda hiccupped in the middle of her tears, and Peter could smell the amusement-concern spike from Pietro. It made no difference against the strong smell of despair clinging to Wanda like a second skin, so Peter stayed where he was. He and Pietro held Wanda as she quietly cried, ignoring the small hiccups that would occasionally burst from her chest. Peter ignored the way Pietro started getting antsy, the hand on Peter’s back starting to tap a pattern. He was pretty sure it was The Sorcerer’s Apprentice theme from that old Disney movie.
Two Disney songs later, Wanda’s sobs finally turned to sniffles, and she raised her head and wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
Peter just continued hugging her as Pietro muttered encouraging things in her ear.
“The UN wanted to pass accords that would regulate powered individuals,” Wanda started, absently tracing a pattern onto Peter’s back while staring at the wall behind Pietro, “Some Avengers disagreed, and there was a fight. Peter and I ended up in a high security prison called the Raft.”
“It sucked,” Peter muttered, “No Xbox.”
Pietro snorted and Wanda lost a bit of the tension in her shoulders.
“We were broken out by Captain Rogers and the Black Widow,” she continued, “Miss Romanoff then helped set us up with some resources, and Peter and I went on the run for a few years…”
“We travelled the world like college kids on a gap year,” Peter added. He earned another snort and a head pat from Pietro.
“Then the Avengers had to gather again to fight a new threat…”
“Big purple alien dude.”
Wanda moved her hand from Peter’s back to cover his mouth, apparently over the interruptions. Jokes on her, his interruptions were the best part. He raised an eyebrow, should he lick her hand? Wanda continued explaining while he zoned out to consider his options.
Her hand was definitely dirty, still having some dried discount Nickelodeon slime that she hadn’t been able to scrub off with the lab coat. He remembered it was bitter. Was it worth the satisfaction of the win? Yes. Yes, it was. Also, he had little brothering to catch up on. He wasn’t sure how long ago they died, either time, but it had to have been some amount of time. Probably.
Either way.
left!
Wanda screeched and smacked him, Pietro started laughing, and Peter started scraping his tongue with his teeth. It really was bitter.
“Peter!”
Pietro fist bumped him out of Wanda’s eyeline as Peter plastered a look of complete innocence on his face.
“Yes, Wanda?”
“That was disgusting,” she reprimanded, wiping her hand aggressively on her pants, “and there was definitely more of that green stuff on my hand still.”
“Well then why would you put it on my mouth?” Peter asked.
Pietro was holding onto the wall as he laughed, and Wanda was rolling her eyes, “You’re not actually nine, Peter, you don’t need to act like a nine-year-old.”
“I would just like to remind you that I acted like this as a fifteen-year-old and you were there to witness it.”
Pietro was flapping his hand at super speed to fan his bright red face after his laughter episode and still chuckling. Peter congratulated himself internally, he had obviously managed to make a great impression. Being hilarious was his best gift.
Wanda took a deep breath and looked back and forth between the boys.
“We should probably figure out where we are and where we plan on going. Peter, did you check the papers?”
Peter hummed and started walking back towards the desk, bitter green taste still sticking to his mouth.
“We’re not in Russia, and whatever was happening here was definitely not legal. I think we’re somewhere in America, but the city they named is one I don’t recognize – Gotham.”