Chapter Text
When the time comes, and the worlds are ending, they are ready.
Ready, in a way that Walter and William could not predict, because for all their objectives, for all their claims that their work was for humanity’s sake, they forgot along the way that their soldiers were human as well. They gave them strength, and from that strength came, unforeseen, weakness. They gave them abilities, focused on their capacity for feeling, but they forgot their tenacity, their instincts. They could not predict their willingness for sacrifice.
They saw potential in a girl to lead them, and they focused on her, made her better, made her worse. They succeeded, and with success, the illusion of control ceased.
There was no predicting Olivia, and Olivia never cared for their plans.
Now the children, they stand in a circle at the point of convergence, off the coast of New York, Lady Liberty’s weight firm over them as they assemble below. Olivia stands at the center, their origin point. With her, the wildcard, the madman’s son, orbiting as always. He will remain until the end, not for the worlds that are his, one by choice, one by birth, but for her. She needs him there.
He stands before her, hands on her hips, cheek on cheek, his jaw rough on hers, her cheekbone sharp and smooth against his. He pulls back, makes the drag of skin on skin abrasive, deliberate. He looks at her. He asks, “You ready for this?” The tone of it is steady, it does not betray him.
“No,” Olivia says, a hand on his neck, thumb against the hollow at its base. She finds his eyes. “Peter…” she starts.
“Don’t.” He shakes his head with vehemence, knows what she’ll say, can’t let her. Spreads his palms on her cheeks, thumbs on each arc, below her eyes, every other digit cradling the shape of her skull on either side, as if the contact will physically stop the words from leaving her mouth. He says, “Tell me later. ‘Livia, you’ll tell me later.”
She chuckles, and smiles that smile that calls him, fondly, a fool. She touches her lips to his, and it’s short, and warm and it feels too much like goodbye. She says it anyway. Says, “I love you,” and she means it, and it’s the first time.
“Tell me you’re not going to die.” It’s a whisper, a whimper, a demand.
“I can’t.” She pets his face like you’d pet a lion, an overgrown kitten, firmly and with careful fingers. Fingers running against the end of his hair at the back of his neck, up behind the shell of his ear, down the slope of his jaw.
“Then lie,” Peter begs her. “Lie.”
Olivia takes his hands from her face, one by one, hugs him as tight as she can. In his ear, she breathes, “I’m not going to die.” Her chin on his shoulder, she finds Nick looking on, waiting. She nods for them to begin. Feels the fabric of the world tear and buzz and the fear build.
Before she fades away, she hears him say, “I love you, too.” Then a burst of light, then the void swallowing the light. A feeling like crumbling, like being torn asunder, of falling to pieces, of bone and blood and violent nonsense. Then nothing. And Nothing is a river, still, calm, deep enough to drown.
She doesn’t die. In a thousand ways, what happens is worse.
She saves them all.