Work Text:
Worlds don’t end in bangs.
Worlds don’t end in dramatic final confrontations and betraying the one person you’ve admired most in the world since you were old enough to know what a hero is.
These days, worlds don’t even end at the end of the world; worlds end in quiet hospital rooms and best friends telling you in broken voices they never want to see you again.
(That’s not true.
Kamala knows that’s not true.
But God if it doesn’t feel like it.)
The screaming in her legs as she all but sprints the eight blocks from the hospital to Grove Street, the burning air in her lungs, and the sharp stinging behind her eyes all tell Kamala that she’s still here, and the world hasn’t, in fact, ended; despite how it feels like the very ground beneath her feet is going to give way any minute now, because everything is falling apart so hard and so fast it wouldn’t even be a surprise.
Briefly, Kamala considers not going home. Because maybe if she just keeps running - keeps moving, keeps fighting - the events of the past three days won’t catch up to her, and she can still pretend everything is going to be alright.
But there’s nothing in front of her to fight, and nowhere left to run, and before she’s even realised it she’s ended up on Grove Street.
When she reaches her house Kamala pushes open the front door, stumbles out of the mismatched shoes she put on in blind hurry earlier, calls out a greeting that gets stuck in her throat and rushes up the stairs and to her room before anyone can stop her for questioning.
She doesn’t quite make it through the door before it hits her.
It’s as if all the strength has drained from her body, like she’s been using her powers non-stop for the past twelve hours. The moment the door is closed she leans back against it, slides to the floor, and starts crying.
Kamala’s been running on empty for a while now, she’s slept maybe four hours in the past 48. The weird out-of-body sensation reminds her of the first time she used her powers - everything feels wrong, nothing feels real.
It’s all spinning in her head on repeat like a broken record: Bruno’s words; the walls and the linoleum and the over-bright lights of the hospital ward as Kamala runs through it; Bruno looking at her with an expression that is neither angry nor sad, just empty; Bruno in a hospital bed in the ICU; the sight of his back, turned to her as Kamala stumbles out the room; the way he hadn’t looked back.
It’s stupid, but she thinks maybe she’s been operating on some misguided belief that as long as she worked it out, stopped the cadets and fixed her mistake, that it would all go back the way it should be - that that alone would be enough for Bruno to pull through and make a miraculous recovery and they could go home and laugh about it like all the other countless times Kamala’s made a stupid mistake. She remembers the doctor telling her, but none of it had really seemed permanent until just now, seeing Bruno at the hospital collapsing just trying to stand.
And it’s not like Kamala’s an idiot, she’s been a superhero for going on a year now - she’s run with the Avengers, seen disasters and world-shaking events happen right before her eyes. In this line of work, bad things happen, mistakes are made, and people get hurt.
But she still never really thought.
It’s different, getting to act the hero who swoops in to save people and then runs off to the next tragedy without having to deal with the aftermath.
It’s different, because it’s Bruno. It shouldn’t be, but it is.
She’s been through so much with Bruno, this past year especially - he’s kept secrets for her and has helped her out countless times and is willing to drop everything if she’s in trouble.
But maybe, she realises in a moment of long-belated clarity - maybe that’s the problem. Kamala’s gotten so used to leaning on him, because Bruno is amazing and knows more than she does about basically everything, she never really questioned whether she should, or if she’s been asking too much of him. She’s never really stopped long enough to notice that things have been bending for a while now; and maybe it was only a matter of time until they broke.
And now she thinks she really has lost him. Only not in the way she feared, and the thought of that should be a comfort, but doesn’t make her feel any less awful because somehow it’s so much worse than when they didn’t even know if Bruno was going to survive. It’s selfish and stupid and she hates herself for it, but she can’t stop crying.
A hesitant knock comes from the door above her, and Kamala startles. After a second Ammi’s voice calls, slowly, “Kamala beta?”
Kamala shoots to her feet and moves away from the door in an instant. “I’m fine, I’m fine, just-”
She’s about to tell her mom to go away - at least for now, at least until she can sort out a lot of things in her head, at least until it stops feeling like the walls are crumbling down around her - but the door swings open anyway, and instinctively her head snaps towards it.
Those words die in her throat the moment she sees Ammi. Worry turns to an emotion she doesn’t think she’s ever seen on her mother when she catches sight of Kamala’s tear-stained face; turns to fear; and it’s only at that moment that it really hits her, the sucker-punch to the gut of realisation that she’s not the only one who cares about Bruno.
Bruno and her have basically been inseparable since second grade, and Ammi and the rest of her family have known him for just as long. Every step of her life since then, every milestone and birthday and summer holiday and Eid, Bruno has been there.
(It reminds her suddenly of the over-polite and strangely detached way Bruno would talk to her parents sometimes, after they got older, before she’d elbow him and tell him to just be normal (and not so much of a suck-up, but she’d only say that sometimes), and the way that only after that would he really relax around them.
It reminds her of the way he’d laugh, over the dinner table at Eid when one of her Aunties caught him and went full on gossip-mode, and how Kamala would pretend to not be watching, but still keep an eye on him with an amused smile on her lips; the way he’d sit and watch cricket with her Abbu and actually listen when he explains the rules like neither Kamala or Ammi or even Aamir can stand to do, and how Kamala knows he remembered it all after the first time, but lets Abbu tell him everything all over again anyway. It reminds her of the way he’d explained his and Kamala’s joint science project to Ammi, years ago, and how Kamala knows now that Ammi probably had no real clue what Bruno was talking about, but let him babble on anyway because he’s always been happiest when thinking about science and talking about things that only he seems to understand.)
Bruno’s been just as much a part of her family’s lives as he has hers, and he almost died. Of course Ammi would care.
“He’s okay,” Kamala blurts out, her voice cracking over the words, because she realises that this, at least, is the news she has to impart lest Ammi assumes the worst from her reaction. “He’s alive.”
Kamala watches the relief that washes over Ammi’s expression before it morphs in turn to confusion.
“Kamala,” Ammi starts as she walks over. She catches Kamala’s face in her hands, and Kamala looks away because she can’t meet her eyes. “Kamala, beta, then what is wrong?”
And just like that, Kamala can’t keep up the fight.
She lets her head drop to Ammi’s shoulder, and cries. She doesn’t resist when Ammi guides her to sit down on her bed, her arms wrapping around Kamala's shoulders.
At the back of her mind it’s vaguely embarrassing, sobbing in her mother’s arms like she hasn’t done since she was a kid, but it mostly just hurts.
She remembers being upset after everything that happened with Kamran - the weeks of inability to do much anything, being paralysed by the pain and shame of proper teenage heartbreak like in the American movies Ammi hates.
But this is so, so much more. This isn’t some dumb teenage crush, this is Bruno.
(What that means exactly, Kamala doesn’t know, can’t think about it now. Bruno has always been a distinction, a class all of his own.)
This isn’t just heartbreak, either; this is serious.
This is something Bruno won’t ever fully recover from. This is the fact that he might not get to go to college, like he’s always, always planned; the fact that he cares more about that than anything else.
This is Bruno’s whole life; all because Kamala wanted to feel important and be taken seriously like a proper Avenger, even though all this time she’s been trying to live between two worlds, and picking and choosing only the parts she wants to deal with when it best suits her.
And it doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t fix anything, but the weight of her mom’s arms around her shoulders and the gentle rhythm of her stroking her hair is more comforting than Kamala could perhaps ever say.
After a few minutes Kamala’s sobbing lessens, if only because she has nothing left to cry out. Ammi draws back slightly, takes Kamala’s face between her hands again. “Now are you going to tell me what this is about?” she asks.
The tone in her voice curdles the guilt in Kamala’s stomach, because she and Ammi both know nine times out of ten the answer will be no.
But this time it’s different, because it’s not about her, and Ammi deserves to know.
“Bruno’s leaving,” Kamala chokes out, looking at a point somewhere over Ammi’s shoulder. “He’s leaving, Ammi, and he’s - he’s - it’s my fault-”
“Leaving? To go where?” she asks.
“Some school in Wakanda, I don’t know,” Kamala replies. “The doctors say he’ll have to learn how to walk again, if he ever does. And his arm, his hand… It’s my fault, Ammi, I should’ve done something, I should’ve-”
“Kamala,” her mom cuts her off. Her mouth draws into a thin line, and for a second Kamala is worried all she’s going to do is reprimand her - reprimand Bruno, even.
(God knows Kamala deserves it, but it’s still the last thing she wants to hear right now.)
But to her surprise, Ammi simply asks, “Did you force Bruno to do anything? Was what he did your idea?”
“What, no, I-”
“Then it is not your fault, beta,” Ammi says sternly.
But that’s not the full story, and at any rate Kamala doesn’t want to believe her, because she shouldn’t be allowed to absolve herself of anything so easily - if Bruno has to live with this forever, then so should she.
“It is, though. I didn’t listen to Tyesha, and I didn’t listen to Bruno or any of my friends-”
“Kamala,” Ammi starts, slowly, “I know it is hard for someone like you, who wants to bear the world on her shoulders, but you cannot blame yourself. You made your choices, yes, but Bruno is his own person, and he made his as well.”
There’s a sadness in her mother’s voice, Kamala thinks, as she brushes the hair off Kamala’s forehead and wipes the tears from under her eyes like she did when Kamala was ten years old and had fallen off her bike.
Kamala wonders what Ammi sees when she looks at her then, and whether the person in front of her has ever really grown up at all. Kamala was so sure she had - so certain she knew what she was doing and that she was capable of carrying the responsibility of being a hero.
But now everything’s messed up, and her best friend is hurt and wants nothing to do with her, and Kamala’s not sure of anything anymore.
“Bruno is going through something terrible, beta,” Ammi continues. “He needs time. As do you.”
But Ammi wasn’t there, and she doesn’t understand Bruno like Kamala does. She didn’t hear that tone in his voice, see the way he didn’t even look at her.
“I don’t think he’s ever going to forgive me, Ammi,” Kamala says. I’m not sure I would.
“Oh, beta,” Ammi mutters, and presses a hand against Kamala’s cheek again. “If I know one thing about that boy, I don’t believe he could ever truly blame you for anything.”
Something stirs in Kamala’s chest; it feels like hope, and then she wants to start crying all over again.
Ammi frowns at her as she continues, not unkindly, “Kamala, maybe it would be wise for you to stop… this, for a while.”
“Why, because everyone in this city hates me now?” Kamala fires weakly back, looking away. “Because Ms. Marvel sucks so bad she can’t protect anyone anymore?”
Ammi clicks her tongue. “Because it is unhealthy, this lifestyle. You are too young to try and take on these responsibilities.”
“You can’t stop me,” Kamala tries to protest, but she’s well aware how pathetic her words sound catching on a sob.
“I know,” Ammi concedes. “But I am your mother, and it is my responsibility to help you.”
Kamala doesn’t say anything, but the heavy weight of the guilt in her chest sinks a little deeper, if that’s even possible.
“For now, beta, you need to rest ,” Ammi says as she stands, pressing a kiss to the top of Kamala’s head. It’s simple, comforting, and eases the ache in her heart, if only a little; knowing that even when the world is splintering into a million tiny pieces around her, Ammi is still there.
She’d thought it was something she’d learned by now, and she’s certainly heard it said enough times by her mentors and teammates and all the others who seem to know what they’re doing infinitely more than her - that some fights you can’t win. But it’s a hell of a lot easier when it’s just that; a fight, a villain to defeat, even if you don’t succeed; a hell of a lot more complicated when there are no bad guys or clear cut rights and wrongs, just choices and their repercussions.
Kamala’s messed up, more times than she could count, she’s lied to the faces of those she loves, but she’s only ever tried to do the right thing.
But maybe that in itself is the problem - maybe no one person should ever be allowed to make the call on what is or isn’t right. Maybe Ammi’s right, and Jersey City doesn’t need the justice of Ms. Marvel.
After all, she’s lost her best friend; her mentor; and if they didn’t already, the entire population of Jersey City must hate her now.
What do you do when things are messed up so bad they can’t ever be fixed?
Where do you go when home isn’t home anymore?