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So it was finally happening now, of all times.
After nearly four years of fearing it – with an obvious five-year break in the middle – and imagining dozens of possible nightmare outcomes…only now, near the end of high school, the universe had finally gotten around to giving Peter Parker a class field trip to the Avengers compound.
Of course, the compound they were finally visiting wasn’t the same as the one in Peter’s early high school days. That one never converted its top floor as a house arrest prison for Peter’s closest superhero friend and her husband.
Maybe this was the price for not getting the “Peter embarrassed by the Avengers in front of his whole class” nightmare out of the way from the start. Now because the universe put it off until mere months before graduation, it fell months before Wanda and Vision’s release from their makeshift prison as well.
And because total transparency – to a point – was the only way Wanda and Vision had stayed locked up above the Avengers instead of under the sea in a Raft…if Peter’s class wanted to go upstairs and gawk at Wanda and Vision during their trip, and it seemed all but three of them did…there’d be no stopping it.
Off and on for four of his last living years, Peter struggled to prepare for the inevitable day when he’d have to keep his cool – and any hints of his other life – locked down in front of his classmates and his once and future teammates, all in one stressful, sure to be traumatizing afternoon. Even in the darkest days of the Civil War, the post-Blip and Beck eras, the multiverse sagas and the New York Hex, something – tingly or otherwise – kept telling Peter he couldn’t avoid such a day forever.
For three of those living years, Peter thought he’d prepared for every possible danger on that day. Or at least imagined enough nightmare scenarios to be scared of. There were dozens he could have written about on some highly encrypted fanfic account, if he had the time or the recklessness.
But of course, now that this day had finally come at the next-to-last-minute, one next-to-last minute challenge had become the most dangerous of all. Maybe the most insurmountable of all.
Seeing Wanda in prison with his whole class, and keeping a completely neutral face.
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Spider-Man was a known friend and advocate of Wanda Maximoff and her family. Peter Parker was not.
Spider-Man stood up and spoke highly of Wanda when so many others didn’t. Peter Parker didn’t have such a record.
Spider-Man knew Wanda’s twins, and was far more likely to be excited around them and play with them like they were his little brothers. At least more so than someone who had never been seen with them, like Peter Parker.
Spider-Man might have protested inside the compound, when his teacher made the official request for the class to go up and look at Wanda and Vision in their cells/separate halves of the top floor. It would have been a lot more suspicious and revealing if Peter Parker had done it.
For appearance and so many other sakes, Peter had to stay quiet. He’d spent over three years preparing to be quiet and far from spidery if any Avengers – the ones living then and now – singled him out for his internship work on this day.
Three years wouldn’t have nearly been enough time to train himself quiet for this. Let alone the mere week in advance he’d been given here. Yet that crash course would have to do.
It kept him stone faced as he marched with the rest of the class up to the top floor. It kept him looking like he was in his own little world and not paying attention to anything his classmates, or teachers, were saying about Wanda or Vision.
Merely looking like those comments didn’t phase him in the slightest…was the very best he could do. The only thing he could do.
If he forgot that for a split second, there was no telling what else it would lead him to do. Which was the entire crisis in waiting in a nutshell.
It was always inevitable that Peter would end up here with his class during a school day. Hopefully other…seemingly inevitable outcomes in here didn’t have to come true as well.
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Peter Parker was a well-documented nerd and science geek. He could afford to geek out over someone like Vision, just like everyone else was. Even if some of it was forced because the “wow” factor of seeing a synthizoid who’d come back from the dead, more than everyone else had, wasn’t as high for him.
Spider-Man had seen Vision enough times to stop being so star struck by such a miracle of science. And…other intangibles. Peter Parker, as far as almost all of the world finally believed again, hadn’t. Therefore, he had to look more amazed than he actually was, on the off chance this could be the screw-up that brought Spider-Man and so much else down.
But being happy to see Vision wasn’t something Peter needed to fake. Just tone down a bit more than usual.
This was the easiest thing he had to tone down around here by far, if only by comparison.
Vision also knew his part and had prepared for it extensively as well. Stand politely inside his cell/half of the floor, address the students with utmost punctuality and the most accurate answers to their questions, sidestep any of the more objectionable questions about him, Wanda and the boys, and not give Peter any more significant glances than he had to.
Vision played his part to perfection. Which made it easier for Peter to play his…good enough.
Whether that would really be enough to help him stay…good enough for the next part…
Well, after all these years, months and weeks, there was no more delaying the outcome either way.
No matter how embarrassing or horrible.
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As far as all but five people on this floor knew, Peter Parker did not know Wanda Maximoff.
Therefore, once Peter’s class arrived behind the glass of Wanda’s half of the cell, he couldn’t be seen looking at her. Not with anything but a still, impartial glance.
Most everyone else was looking at her with some level of awe, fear or downright hate. Students and teachers alike. But that was normal from people who didn’t know her.
If Peter looked at her like he normally did – a way that no one who’d never seen her up close before would – then that would open up far too many questions. Once he inevitably couldn’t answer them all, disaster and secrets that had finally been covered back up would pop out all over again.
So Peter couldn’t look upon her with any emotion at all.
No soft glance from his eyes to signal her that she wasn’t alone. No silent plea to look at him and see someone who cared about her, even if the glares from people who didn’t got to be too much. No secret little smile for her to hold onto, even if his classmates showed far more foul expressions on their mouths and faces.
Likewise, Wanda had trained herself not to show any emotion at all today. She was far more of a master at it than Peter, by necessity or trauma or otherwise. But like with most things regarding Peter, this required an extra effort for his sake.
So she couldn’t show any soft glances of affection either. No looks of pride or warmth towards someone she wasn’t supposed to know. No reassuring gestures to show him she was doing okay. No looking at him at all if she could help it, because Wanda Maximoff wasn’t supposed to know Peter Parker.
Most any look Wanda gave him, other than neutral, would have unraveled that lie almost instantly.
So they each played their part, as Peter was just one of a mob of teenagers looking at an imprisoned Wanda, and Wanda looked back at that mob as if one wasn’t more important to her than all others. To any teachers or other onlookers who didn’t know better, they still didn’t figure out anything new.
From this outside view, it was business as expected. Even to the point where Wanda started looking more uneasy the more the class studied her. Like she would at most any other time she was being watched by a skeptical, possibly hostile crowd.
That was business as usual for Wanda. But it wasn’t business as usual for Peter to stay quiet about it.
He knew how uneasy and uncomfortable it still was for Wanda to be looked at like this. A whole crowd looking at her like some kind of…experiment. Like something they expected to perform for them at any moment they chose.
But to most everyone in this room, Peter Parker wasn’t someone who knew that about her. He wasn’t someone who had any reason to hate how she was being made to feel this way again.
He wasn’t someone who knew about one of the few glaring exceptions either.
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To most of the world, Peter Parker wasn’t someone who would have cause to visit Wanda and her boys when they were staying at Kamar-Taj – before the return of Vision, the New York Hex, Agatha and Evanora Harkness, house arrest and all the recent rest.
To everyone else, Peter wasn’t someone who would stay on designated sidelines with Wanda’s boys before then. Cheering her on while she was learning new spells and magic from the Sorcerer Supreme and his fellow wizards.
He wasn’t someone close enough to her to know how Wanda felt like she was on display for HYDRA and Strucker all over again. Or close enough to see how Peter and the twins’ impromptu, barely clever enough cheers and rhymes made her see just how different this really was. He wasn’t close enough to see Wanda feel happy and proud to unlock new skills and magic, for once in her life.
She was just made to feel like an experiment whenever she did it at HYDRA. She was too busy trying to fit in and make amends with the Avengers to just feel proud of herself when training went well. And every other new skill and power she’d unlocked in recent years was usually attached to some kind of new unlocked trauma and loss too.
But as Peter, Billy and Tommy cheered her new skills at Kamar-Taj, and as Strange and the sorcerers gave her more muted but still fond praise, Peter had indeed seen Wanda feel something she almost never got to feel when she discovered something new about herself. And something she almost never got to feel when whole crowds of people were watching her.
Proud of herself and who she was. Not to mention happy.
But over a year later, Peter couldn’t even let himself think of those happier memories. Because to all but two of his classmates, he wasn’t someone who was supposed to have, or show, such emotions around a prisoner he didn’t even know.
And Wanda wasn’t supposed to know Peter well enough to look at him and think of such happy memories as well.
So their faces remained perfectly still in the present. Even if the past made the façade just a little less perfect.
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“Don’t gawk at her,” Peter’s teacher finally said. “You don’t want to make her angry.”
To most everyone in Peter’s class, the notion of Wanda’s anger was something to deathly fear. Years of clips and slanted media analysis had seen fit to that.
Maybe it wasn’t too suspicious if Peter remained stone faced, rather than afraid. It would be more suspicious if he showed another emotion, however.
Amusement.
But to the larger world, Peter wasn’t someone close enough to Wanda to find her anger funny. He wasn’t someone close enough to find her funny for any reason.
If Peter didn’t have to hide today, he might have pointed out what a shame that was. He might have been willing, with Wanda’s blessing, to argue that behind the so-called scary and witchy façade, Wanda was as funny and amusing as any Avenger who made quips as their second living. Just in a quieter and more subtle way around those willing to laugh with her, not at her.
Especially when she visited Peter’s house and let herself get caught up in games, amusements and activities her younger self never got the chance to play at. The kind of activities she wanted to get good at so she could play them with her boys, on the off chance they ever got to settle down and have that kind of life after all.
Peter loved seeing Wanda turn into the kid she’d never gotten to be on those visits. And she loved learning those skills from “the biggest kid I know.”
Which made it more amusing than scary when she was almost defeated by one of Peter’s favorite activities.
Wanda figured it would count as a good training exercise if she could put together Peter’s LEGO Death Star by herself, without using any magic. By using just her brains and other non-magical muscles, it would be fun and educational for her.
Which worked well and fine enough until the hours drained on and she couldn’t find a few pieces.
Wanda went from being excited to impatient, then from annoyed to outright frustrated. Yet even in her anger, she was still stubborn enough to insist she could finish – and find missing LEGO pieces – without any use of magic. Even when a few rolled underneath Peter’s drawer and she insisted on knocking it back out with a stick, instead of just magically lifting up the drawer by six inches.
“You really wanna test me right now, Parker?!” Wanda hissed when Peter broke her concentration a bit too much. Most anyone else would have run for the hills at that sight. But with Peter, only 30 percent of him felt like fleeing for his life at that moment.
Morbid curiosity, more than anything else, drove the other 70 percent. But eventually, both Peter and Wanda’s stubbornness was rewarded when Wanda clicked the last piece in place.
Wanda celebrated by jumping up and down with her Death Star. Acting exactly like the kind of girl who could see such mundane achievements as something average and commonplace. Not like someone who once could only think such everyday kid stuff was nothing more than a useless, distracting pipe dream. If she had the luxury to think about it at all.
At the least, she certainly wasn’t thinking when she spiked the Death Star on the floor and watched it crack back open into several hundred pieces again. All over Peter’s floor, under his bed and multiple drawers, and with a few pieces having flung into their hair for good measure.
“I think you can use magic to put it together now….” was all Peter could muster to say after a minute of silence, standing in the middle of the new LEGO pile around their feet.
“Good idea….” Wanda muttered as her anger and joy gave way to numbness. But out of embarrassment more than horrifying tragedy for once.
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Yet out of preservation for himself and Wanda, the Peter of the present kept himself numb, instead of thinking of that day for one more second. Thinking of better times than this might make him take action he couldn’t take if this got…far worse than that day.
But then again, it would still take a lot for this to be the worst day he ever spent in this compound.
Yet even that was too dangerous to think about at a time like this one.
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It was only a few months ago when Peter suffered the worst injuries in the worst fight he’d ever had as Spider-Man. They were the worst by such a high margin, he had to be brought to the compound immediately, instead of wasting time they didn’t have getting him to a hospital that didn’t have the tools he needed.
When they got there, he only had the energy and consciousness to make one request.
“Don’t tell Wanda….”
The man-made runes in Wanda’s cell kept her powers at bay enough to keep her from escaping, and to keep her from overhearing anyone’s thoughts. Theoretically. As such, that would keep her from hearing anything going on below her, and keep her from finding out anything they didn’t want her to know. Theoretically.
Yet even in the midst of the worst physical pain he’d ever suffered from a fight on his Earth, Peter feared what might happen to Wanda as much as he feared his own fate.
Because if it got bad enough, and if word got out to Wanda before everything was taken care of….in truth, there was nothing and no one that could stop her from breaking out, keeping watch over Peter although she wasn’t allowed to, and to take revenge for him when it wasn’t her job to avenge again yet.
All things that would extend her sentence, put her in a far more…hostile and supervised prison, keep her away from her family – all forms of it – or far worse.
With the last bit of strength he had before he was put under, Peter begged the other Avengers not to let that happen. Not to let Wanda throw everything away just for him, because he was too overmatched to see that guy coming….
The immense pain, and the fear of what future pain he might be helpless to stop, made it the worst night of Peter’s life where no one actually died.
And yet when the morning came – at least the next morning where he was awake – the first thing he heard was Wanda’s voice.
Singing to him. In Sokovian. From a tape recorder.
Once he was finally assured he wasn’t hallucinating – anymore – and was on the mend enough to hear about it, he learned that instead of breaking out and going on the rampage, the most Wanda did when she heard what happened was record Sokovian lullabies, to play for Peter while he was sleeping and recovering. Some of which he even understood, after months of spotty Sokovian language lessons.
Peter was so relieved in so many ways, he never even asked who ignored his pleas and told Wanda anyway. He never asked Wanda when he got healthy enough to come visit her, and they barely talked about the rest of the ordeal, out of their respective immense relief.
Peter didn’t die, and Wanda didn’t endanger her future freedom. So one of the most painful nights of Peter’s life ultimately had no truly awful harm done.
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“We almost died because she wouldn’t die, you know.”
As for this painful day…the outcome was still to be determined. And not looking any brighter now.
It was either gonna be Brad or Flash who said something like that. Unfortunately, it was Brad.
“You hear that?” Brad called out to the glass and to the woman behind it. “If you’d let the blonde witch kill you, they wouldn’t have launched a nuke at us! How does it feel to look at people you didn’t succeed in killing off?”
“Stop it, Brad!” Betty – not any teacher – called out. This…could work.
“That guy Bennett launched a nuke at us, not the Scarlet Witch! Evanora Harkness gave him cover to do it, not her! And Agatha Harkness Hexed New York in the first place, not her!”
Betty could say that stuff because she was a bystander. She could defend Wanda without going so far and so passionately, it would raise a lot of questions as to why. She could stand up for her without giving away way too much, because Wanda wasn’t excessively important to her.
“And if she’d killed herself in the first place like she wanted, none of that would have happened.”
Betty could have this argument with him because she wouldn’t…have to tamper every ounce of rage inside her after hearing that.
And not for the first time.
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To much of the world, Peter Parker didn’t know Wanda Maximoff. And he never got angry.
For all his losses, the general consensus was he never let them make him angry. And to a large extent, that was right.
The anger over his uncle’s death was directed more at himself than his actual killer, hence the creation of Spider-Man. Mitigating circumstances kept him from hating the Vulture, grief over Tony Stark drowned out any rage at the genocidal alien he sacrificed himself to kill – and who had killed Peter and trillions more first – and fear over Quentin Beck’s mind tricks and frame-ups drowned out much of the rage from his betrayal.
Agatha Harkness rubbed him the wrong way, but Peter couldn’t say he full on hated her – and she was Wanda’s nemesis, not his. But when the New York Hex ended, Wanda went on trial for Westview and her past crimes, and she testified as to how Evanora Harkness convinced her the only thing she was good for was to die…
Peter was furious at Wanda. For casting Evanora out of the woman she’d controlled for hundreds of years, before Peter could kill her himself. He sputtered almost all of that in between his fury, as he panted around her after her testimony was over.
When he finally gave out, only to see that Wanda – the one who actually wanted to die and actually just relieved that time in front of the whole world – looked perfectly alright, he quickly went from anger to embarrassment and then to his original emotion…shame.
“I should have been there,” Peter admitted. “You got pushed that far, and where was I? Outside, being frozen by Agatha, about to be thrown in there by Evanora…I should have been there a lot earlier. I’m sure acting out Agatha’s shows wouldn’t have been that terrible…”
“They absolutely were, trust me,” Wanda assured. “But it’s okay. I’m okay. Vision got me out of that…spiral. So did Susan, Darcy and Jimmy. Then you and the boys came…and you were there exactly when I needed you. You always are…”
Wanda sat herself down, now that Peter was drained of enough rage-a-hol to sit down quietly as well.
“Don’t tell yourself you weren’t there to stop me from…giving up. You already were. After I broke the multiverse…after I thought I’d finally killed us all and my boys were really never coming back…if Strange hadn’t been there…if you hadn’t been there…I might have gotten a head start and…left right then and there.”
“But you were there….and even though I’m right here now, I’m so so glad you helped me get here. And no matter how this trial turns out, I’m gonna stay glad. And I’m not gonna think of going anywhere anytime soon.”
“But if you do…” Peter started and paused to finish correctly. “Please…if you ever feel that way again…please call me. Let me be there and be on time to try and…”
Wanda instinctively understood. Understood exactly why someone who wasn’t close enough to save multiple family members before they died…why someone who lost surrogate family before they could do anything, once and then almost a second time…would ask this of her.
“I promise,” Wanda vowed solemnly. “If someone out there, or inside me, tries to make me…decide to go away again…I want you fighting them off right beside me.”
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But now, after all that, he couldn’t keep his end of the deal.
He could only stand there, pretending to be unaffected, as Brad was allowed to keep talking.
“All she had to do was die, then get her name cleared, and we wouldn’t have almost died with her! And she’s still gonna get out in a few months anyway?! She’s just gonna get us killed later because she won’t do the right thing and die first, again?!”
The teacher didn’t stop him, which was basically his endorsement. The actual endorsement of a few other classmates spoke a bit louder. All as Peter was trying not to scream in any way.
It probably didn’t help to remember the last time he tried – and failed – to keep his screaming at bay.
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Peter foolishly thought spending the anniversary of Ben’s death at the Avengers compound would do some good. It didn’t. Especially with Billy and Tommy around.
Two kids, born of two parents, who all did what Ben and Peter’s parents never could. Come back to life.
They all came back and got to be a family again. Yet almost all of Peter’s birth family remained dead and gone.
They didn’t get to be magic babies. Or robots with souls and a special kind of love that was good enough to bring them back – even though some humans’ love was still as good as any.
And they weren’t witches who could destroy cities and worlds, yet who still got their families back anyway. Even though some people who never did anything but fail to stop one robbery had to pay for it forever instead.
On any other day, Peter could push that aside and play with Billy and Tommy, or at least stand to be around them. This wasn’t that day.
On every single other day, Peter would never yell at them and tell them to leave him alone, no matter how persistent they were. This day was the sole exception.
On every single other day, the guilt of doing that would have made Peter apologize and come to his senses immediately. On this one, however, he was so desperate to not have one more thing to be miserable for, he blocked it out and doubled down on his anger and denial.
All the way to the next day, when he was told Wanda demanded that he visit her.
Both she and Vision had some choice, scolding and disappointed words for Peter when he came back that afternoon. But all those words did was unlock some harsh, suppressed words of his own.
Words he would never say to Wanda on any other day. Words attacking her for all the horrible things she did – things that still weren’t enough to stop her from getting her family back, while more innocent people by comparison weren’t so lucky.
He kept going on with a bitterness no one had ever associated with Peter Parker before. Yet for all his hateful words – or at least words he couldn’t stand to reflect any of his other emotions –only one word stopped him. And it was a word that wasn’t even said out loud.
“Peter!!”
The man-made runes inside Wanda’s half of the floor were supposed to keep her from invading other people’s minds. By and large, they could. But as long as someone was still close enough, she could still get in. She just chose not to for various reasons.
This was a very glaring exception.
So glaring it made Peter drop to the floor as soon as he heard it. After he realized he’d only heard it inside his head, and before he could ask any questions out loud, he heard another transmission meant just for him.
“Let. Me. In.”
Peter’s fury had gone down enough for him to get his other faculties back. Yet not down enough that the full impact of what he said and did had hit him. He used this window to turn his back to Wanda and the cell glass, as Wanda turned his back towards him and sat down as well.
Any onlookers would think they were ignoring each other and trying to calm down. Not that Peter was opening up a mental link for Wanda to get inside his head, as requested.
With that cover established in the outside world, the world of Peter’s mind opened up a bit more, in more ways than one.
Inside Peter’s mind, he was standing and only just starting to comprehend what was going on – in here and out there. In here, Wanda was marching towards him, having all the freedom to do what she couldn’t out there.
Which theoretically, could include slapping him or blasting him or telling him he couldn’t go near her family again.
Or…taking his hand and rubbing it soothingly. Like she was actually doing now.
That, more than yelling or blasting, drove home just how horrible Peter had been more than magic blasts ever could.
“You have every right to feel angry and cheated. And jealous,” Wanda said as Peter’s other emotions started crashing through. “But lashing like that, on people that didn’t do anything but want to help you, is not okay. You’ve known that for a long time, and it took me so much longer to figure it out…I don’t think it should take that long for you to remember again.”
It wouldn’t. Wanda knew that now, even as Peter was losing the power to get words out.
“And you owe the boys a massive apology. Normally I don’t always like it when they wrap you around their fingers – figuratively and literally. But they can do all the wrapping they want for at least a week, maybe more. Okay?”
“Okay…” Peter barely got out as the guilt and tears began to come down.
“Do you promise you’ll try not to take it out on them, or me, or anyone else who cares about you, the next time you feel this way?”
“I’ll try, I promise…” Peter shuddered out.
“Okay. Then I forgive you. Now come here…”
Just like that, she forgave him. Just like that, she gave him what he really wanted and needed all this time, but wouldn’t let himself break down enough to accept. What she couldn’t have given him in the outside world, thanks to some pesky glass she couldn’t let herself break apart.
Yet in here, at least until someone got suspicious out there, Wanda could hug Peter and let him fall apart – and then come back together again – without needing to blow himself apart.
Peter sobbed out apologies over and over between his tears. Wanda just held him closer and accepted them with soothing words in English and Sokovian. One sequence in Sokovian, Peter recognized and let himself accept through all his guilt, having already heard it more than any other phrase.
Enough to understand the translation “My little brother…”
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To the outside world, Peter Parker didn’t know Wanda Maximoff. But to the outside world, he wasn’t someone who lashed out, cried out his pain instead of keeping it inside so as not to be a burden, or showed people any public side of Peter Parker that wasn’t quirky, smart, rambling or overly eager.
Only a very select few people got to see anything else from Peter Parker when he wasn’t wearing a mask. Even then, he held out from showing that stuff to them as long as he could. No matter how many times they tried to make it sink in that he wasn’t burdening them by doing so. Nonetheless, they eventually managed to get in and see him.
In that context, Wanda Maximoff was one of the very very few who truly knew Peter Parker. And in return, he was one of the very very few who truly saw her.
Not just the hero, villain, witch, monster, mind controller, universe shattering, grief stricken, tortured version of her. But just as importantly, the Wanda who could comfort, play, love, and be heroic without needing one drop of magic. The Wanda whom the world had gone overboard to keep her from being for years, if not decades – yet had still survived all this time.
Anyone with an actual open mind could see it. Yet only a select few had dared to try.
In that context, Peter Parker was one of the very very few who truly knew Wanda Maximoff.
Yet he wasn’t allowed to show it to the world without wearing a mask.
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To hell with that.
To hell with whether standing up for Wanda now meant someone could take a wild guess he was Spider-Man. To hell with whether someone would figure out why he wouldn’t punch out or even talk back to Flash and other bullies when they targeted him, yet did it when someone attacked Wanda.
To hell with staying quiet, with or without a mask, when someone slandered Wanda – even though Wanda wouldn’t hold back to defend him. Her…creative fantasies about what might have happened if she’d gone to school and wound up in his class instead of being an Avenger were vivid proof of that.
To hell with how Wanda could defend herself and didn’t need him to white knight her – well actually, that didn’t deserve to go to hell. But she was staying quiet to keep the peace, or because she didn’t want Peter to get involved. Or because she didn’t think she deserved to fight back and defend her right to stay alive.
To hell with all that.
Secrets, identities, permanent records, didn’t matter. None of it was important as his friend…his big sister in all but blood by now…needing to see how much she was loved.
Loved enough for Peter to go over there, make that Brad shut up and knock him down to the floor….
A floor….
He was already on.
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“Say that crap again, I dare you!”
Those words didn’t come from Peter Parker. Rather, from someone that most of the outside world referred to as Michelle Jones.
Someone only a very very few could call MJ.
Whatever she went by, she was still livid after decking Brad right to the ground. And her fist was still cocked and ready to strike again.
“Say that again, and I’ll deck you much lower! And it’ll be the LAST time ANYONE goes that low on you again, for ANY reason! You hear me?!”
By then, Ned Leeds and Betty were making a valiant if not somewhat doomed effort to make MJ back away. By then, a teacher who had stayed quiet to this point, no matter what vile things Brad implied and suggested about Wanda, was up and about to admonish MJ for her methods in silencing him.
Few heard him in the uproar, however, as the class buzzed in one reaction or another, MJ kept ordering Brad to stay down, Brad kept groaning – for effect or not – over his decking, Vision voiced his stern objections to his little performance, and security started coming in to move the entire class out of the top floor.
Through all this, however, neither Peter Parker nor Wanda Maximoff made a sound.
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Transparency was a key reason why the Avengers, and not more hostile forces, were allowed to imprison and watch over two of their own. Such transparency could also be used as a bargaining chip.
Especially with video surveillance about how a visiting student was allowed to verbally attack a prisoner, without any adult bothering to stop her, until another student did it for them.
That fuller context and transparency – and the threat of showing such transparency to school boards – played a big part in MJ being let off with a mere week’s detention. And in Brad getting a week and a day of it – though they had to pull teeth just to get the extra day.
Nonetheless, once that was settled and the class trip was officially called off early, Peter and MJ sat together in the Avengers’ lounge area, waiting for the school bus to come for them sooner than planned.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Peter finally brought himself to say. “You didn’t have to punch him and get in trouble just so I wouldn’t do it. I would have been fine.”
“You were gonna do what now?” MJ actually said with a straight, surprised face.
“Wait, what? You’re telling me you didn’t see me get ready to hit him?”
“I was seeing too much red to see anything else! And not the spidey kind of red!”
“Then why did you do that? You get mad at people and attack them with snarky, withering words all the time, but you never hit them with fists! I never hit them with fists as me, but I was gonna! Why were you gonna?”
“Because!” MJ did a far better job of stopping herself here than a few minutes ago, then finished her answer more quietly.
“Because you’re not the only one here who cares about Wanda….”
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The night Peter got beaten to half-death was not the way MJ would have preferred to see the Avengers compound for the first time. But she wasn’t getting anything else she wanted on this night.
Including being allowed to sit outside the top floor, because visiting hours for Wanda and Vision were long over.
MJ knew – or vaguely heard in between every other horrible thing – Peter didn’t want Wanda to know what happened. But at the very least, getting some time to herself to start putting herself together, within far enough distance of someone else who loved Peter – yet someone she didn’t have to see cry and worry and fear the things she just couldn’t let herself fear right now….
That didn’t seem like such a big ask. But even that wasn’t happening. Of course not.
MJ could only head downstairs, sit herself at the bottom of the staircase to the top floor, and seclude herself with her thoughts and fears and possible impending back-breaking loss from there…
“Michelle? Michelle? MJ?”
By the second Michelle, and especially the first MJ, MJ realized her spiraling brain wasn’t making that noise up. Or creating it out of Wanda’s voice.
“Don’t say anything out loud. Your mind’s already loud enough. As far as they know, they don’t think I can hear it from here. I think we should keep it that way. Say yes in your head if you agree.”
Saying yes in her head was about all MJ could do. And it only distracted her from the other reason she could only do so much for only so long.
“…it’s Peter, isn’t it?” MJ heard Wanda broadcast in her mind.
“I’m not supposed to say,” MJ managed to say in her mind, before actively trying to block out any thoughts of tonight. For a brand new reason this time. But regardless of the reason, it probably still wasn’t working.
Still, MJ didn’t hear Wanda in her mind again for the next 10 minutes. Or hear or see her smashing out of prison. It stayed quiet, which was both a gift and a great curse, until a voice other than her own echoed in MJ’s head again.
“Of course they forgot about Vision. And how he can still look up anything. And how he’s calming me down from…thinking of seeing for myself. You can tell them that if you want.”
“I…I can’t face them right now. But when I can…” MJ stopped short of promising, letting the silence return in all its blessings and curses.
“I think we both need to keep ourselves busy,” Wanda offered. “So…would you mind if I talked to you about my brother?”
“I thought you gave me all your gossip about Peter already,” MJ recalled, remembering better times when Wanda spilled more beans about Peter than he’d approved of, in her last visit to the Parker house before she left Kamar-Taj – and as it happened, the last time Wanda saw Peter before the night of the New York Hex.
Thinking about the last time someone saw Peter was not ideal right now….
“I mean my first brother,” Wanda corrected. “Pietro. Thinking about everything he and Peter might have done if they ever met…it’s been one of the better ways I’ve killed time in here.”
“But…now they could meet for real soon. If you believe in that sort of thing…” MJ worked out. “How does talking about that help right now?”
“Maybe…talking about the things you’re really scared of….help make them less scary. It took quite a lot of work for me to consider that. Peter helped….in his own way by accident…last week too.”
“I guess he did,” MJ reflected on Peter’s rollercoaster behavior a week ago on Ben’s anniversary. Though from what she heard, Wanda saw an even bumpier ride through it. To think only last week that seemed like a rough crisis….
“Well…I really need things to feel less scary right now. So do you.”
Wanda was right. Peter always bragged she was right about a lot of things. Now MJ had the proof echoing in her brain, sharing fanfic-level theories about a Peter/Pietro crossover, making her laugh inside her mind about some very Peter-like antics from a younger Pietro – and about how much smoother Pietro was in certain areas, although there was still a case to be made for the adorkable rambling technique…
In any case, thinking about an unconscious Peter talking to a dead person wasn’t the total downer MJ feared it was. Not while being dreamed up by Wanda.
To anyone watching surveillance footage, MJ had been sitting on a bottom step for an hour, doing nothing but sit around and occasionally holding back some kind of noise. Anyone watching a live feed of the top floor would have seen Wanda sitting in the corner of her cell, still and not panicking like she was an hour ago.
In their respective minds, however, they were loud and full of noises other than tears.
“How do you do it?” MJ asked inside her mind when the laughter stopped and the harsher reality came back. “You lost Pietro, you lost so many people…and you can still reach out and get more. Like Peter. I never had anyone important die…they just decided they’d rather be dead to me.”
“But I barely got myself to reach out for Peter. If he goes, I don’t see myself trying again anytime soon. You had people die, some of them over and over again, and here you are still making friends and new brothers…what’s your secret?”
“Blind, dumb, stupid, barely deserving luck,” Wanda quickly echoed.
“There’s no secret or method to it. The closest explanation I’ve got is the one Vis gave me, when I was ready to…give up in New York. Even when you keep losing people and you can’t imagine someone else caring about you…or it just hurts too much to hope for it…someone eventually comes for you anyway. Whether it’s a family back from the dead, or a kid who…sees something in you the whole world either can’t or won’t…”
“They do that sometimes, huh?” MJ asked rhetorically.
“They do. And they don’t ever give up either. Whether they’re lighting up your dark days or fighting through the worst of theirs…and always surviving. Because they always do. So there’s no sense in not keeping up with them. Then before long…you might see the world, or yourself, the way they do too. Even when they’re not there to show you themselves.”
“That…doesn’t sound as bad as it might have before.”
“No it doesn’t. Then…who knows who else you might meet to keep you company on those dark nights? Or know a little better when you need it most…”
“Yeah…that kind of knowledge is never a bad thing.”
Such knowledge kept branching out through most of the rest of the night, until MJ really needed to sleep – and on a more comfortable resting place than a staircase. Yet Wanda broadcast one last request before she went.
“Please try to come up here first thing tomorrow. And bring a tape recorder.”
Once MJ fulfilled both requests, Wanda made her recording of Sokovian lullabies that echoed into an unconscious Peter for the next few days – and the first few days after he woke up as well. All while both MJ and Wanda stayed quiet about the exact making of those tapes.
Until a few months later at the impromptu end of a class field trip.
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“Wanda was my first superhero hero before Spider-Man came along. Maybe that, and the whole obviously patriarchal nonsense about women being jealous of their boyfriend’s girl friends, is why I didn’t get jealous of you guys when you got back to our world. After I stopped being star struck around her, I mean.”
“You weren’t that bad,” Peter effortlessly lied.
“You’re sweet to lie that well. That’s one of the few times I like that in a boyfriend. But like I was saying….once that was out of the way….I saw what you saw about her. I saw that meeting heroes doesn’t have to be a bad thing. And I saw just how unfair it is that there aren’t more people like us who see why she’s our hero. Not as many as there should be.”
“So that makes it all the more important for us to speak out now. To help the rest of the world catch up. Even if its just punching out someone with fists instead of devastating social commentary for once. Even if it might be something a superhero’s more likely to do than an average boy genius. Even if its something as small as shutting up just one misguided person out of millions, for a little while.”
“Still a drop in the bucket,” Peter admitted. “And it shut up someone who’s…far from the most misguided person she’s ever heard. And a lot more will pop up once she and Vision get out of here.”
“Then we’ll drown out the ones misguided enough to come near us. Or her,” MJ declared.
“It might be pretty exhausting.”
“Not to me. Or you. Not when it’s Wanda.”
“Well…look at Michelle Jones making friends. Super friends at that. Super friends she isn’t going on dates with…” Peter felt light enough to tease again.
“Well, you’re lucky it’s this world and not one of those other worlds where she dates humans,” MJ shot back, giving Peter memories of one of those other worlds he thought he’d finally blocked out.
But blocking out the Wanda of this world was a far different matter in every way.
MJ couldn’t quite make that connection when she saw Peter suddenly freeze up, then start to smile, close his eyes and look like he was in…sappy Peter hug mode.
It got a little clearer when she felt a sudden nudge in her mind – like the one she felt on a staircase a few months back – and started to get enveloped in…some kind of magical force.
One that almost felt like it was hugging her inside her mind.
Once she put the pieces together, MJ scrambled to keep some of her old rep intact. “Okay…I’m not quite sure we’re at the magical force hug stage of our friendship yet. I know Peter is, but I’m still a little harder to get…” she tried to shrug off, which seemed to work well enough to get her mind clear again.
By then, the school bus had finally arrived again, and their barely clear of being scandalized teacher was marching up to get the class together. So with that, the field trip that honestly could have been so much worse after almost four years of paranoid theories was over.
“Bye Wanda,” Peter whispered under her breath, though MJ kept her goodbyes inside her head. Both still at frequencies their hero could hear all too well.
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“Bye Peter. Bye MJ,” she whispered to herself in her cell, choosing not to broadcast on their frequencies anymore today. The day had already been enough of an ordeal.
But any day around two of the very few people who truly knew and loved her – however publicly they expressed it – wasn’t such a bad field trip.