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Jean can sense the bullet before she can see it.
Tightly coiled tension, a shot that never misses– maybe there’s some part of Jean that doesn't think to move.
She’s scared and she’s tired and she misses her fucking sister but Peter Parker says that he has her and maybe, maybe that could mean something until a bullet comes towards her. For a split-second, barely a moment, Jean thinks it’s better that she doesn’t have to make that choice.
Maybe it’s better that wherever her sister has gone off to, Jean could just as easily join her.
That choice, like so many in the last few hours, is taken from her by the same man– Spider-Man moving quickly and taking the full brunt of a shot that was meant for her without a thought.
“Peter?” Jean hears herself say, but the words aren’t connecting– a ringing in her ears that wasn’t purely physical as Peter shakes his head, says he’s okay and then– falls right on the ground.
“Peter? Peter, stay with me,” Jean says or she thinks she does, the ringing in her ears reverberating so loudly that everything else is clouded.
“You should go,” she hears Peter say, if she could trust her hearing– eyes widening and feeling a panic that feels so foreign as a pool of blood gets darker, deeper, wider as it pillows around him.
No, she thinks or maybe even says, seeing Peter cough up blood and tell her to leave again.
Jean can’t– not now.
Jean runs but she can’t run from this.
“We need to go.”
“Huh?” Jean asks, Sara’s face barely lit up in the dark.
“Now, come on. Put your shoes on,” she says, holding up the faded sneakers that they’d lifted out of a donation box from a church neither of them go to.
Jean has questions but she does what she’s told– any questions she have held up in the implicit trust that she has in Sara, in her words, in the knowledge that Sara could just as easily force her to do what she’s told.
She doesn’t, because they don’t– not with each other.
They made a promise.
Jean is dressed, jacket over her head and shoes on though not fully tied– Sara leaning down and doing it for her because it’s quicker than Jean trying to do it on her own.
“Where are we going to go?” Jean asks, Sara lifting her head up– tears in her eyes and then a smile that in memories, Jean would wonder if it was real.
“Anywhere we want. Come on,” she says, tugging on her shirt and reaching for her hand as she stands.
Jean takes it, without question.
She’d follow Sara anywhere.
“You should go. They’ll come for you, Jean,” Peter gasps out, blood pooling out of his chest as Jean shakes her head.
“No, no, stay with me, okay? Peter? Stay with me,” she says, pressing her fingers into her chest once more.
There is a balance to holding life in your hands, not that Jean has had much practice with it.
Sara tried to teach it to her, but it didn’t take– not when Sara was taken from her and set her off on the path that led her to this moment.
Not when Sara broke the very same promise they’d made to each other.
It’s moments that she has with people now– constantly surrounded by them for the anonymity that they give without any semblance of the closeness that she once had with a person who doesn’t exist anymore.
She can’t do this, she can’t lose someone else like this– in this room– hands pressing into his chest as she breathes.
It was difficult to jump the first time afterwards.
Jean would feel it in her chest, her throat, the panic that she felt and the immediate longing for something safe– whether that was the people’s minds that she jumped into her or her own she didn’t know– dry heaving when she finally jumped out, grabbing at the trashcan that was beside her.
It was surprisingly easy to disappear considering who was after her but the jumping, that took a few tries to get right.
The first time she successfully jumps without feeling as if she was going to rip herself raw from it, it was to a little kid– holding his mother’s hand and looking up at her.
In an instant Jean was there, walking in his stead while also being with him in his memories– a similar one of being held by his mother as they walked through a park.
It only last a few seconds but it was enough, Jean jumping out and watching the little boy trip up and nearly fall.
Nearly, because his mother’s hand catches him– asking if he was okay as the little boy looks around in confusion.
The love she felt, the care, it wasn’t meant for her but it felt like it– almost.
Jean turns away before anyone notices that she’s staring.
“Where is he?” Frank Castle yells out, voice booming as he walks– nearly runs– into the room they’re in.
“Here,” Jean says, or maybe just thinks– feeling the way Frank orients himself toward him as Jean breathes– in, out, in out– doing everything she fucking can to make sure Peter Parker keeps doing the same.
“What are you doing? Get off–” he begins and she hears the gun click, Jean’s focus still on Peter as she tilts her head.
The gun clatters as it’s ripped out of Frank’s hands, Jean’s eyes still on Peter as says, “helping him. Come here.”
It’s a demand, or maybe a direction, Frank moving forward to do what he’s told. Jean’s too focused on breathing– in, out, in, out– to make sense of whether Frank was being forced to do this or not but it doesn’t really matter, not when all of Jean’s senses are wrapped up in the certainty that she won’t let Peter Parker die here.
“Get his mask,” she says to Frank, hearing the glass crunch underfoot as he looks around for it– knowing he’s found it when he brings it up closer to her. “Put it on.”
“He’s–”
“He needs help, from a hospital, not– I can’t fix him,” Jean interjects, voice cracking as hot wet tears threaten to fall. “Put the mask on.”
Whatever arguments Frank has or any pushback he could give is drowned out by the ringing still in her ears, the breathing– in, out, in, out, in, out– that she’s so entirely focused on as she watches Frank put the mask on. It’s rough, jerky movements that make her eyes flick up to his face– seeing the hardness of his expression giving way to something almost like concern.
Or maybe, just guilt– neither of them needing to say out loud that it hadn’t been for Peter’s quick movements, it would be her bleeding out in the same room her sister was murdered.
She scrunches her eyes tightly, refusing to think of Sara and her last moments now lest she breaks her focus– exhaling forcibly as she opens up her eyes again and nods to Frank.
“Take him to the hospital.”
“He’s not gonna make it to–”
“I’m helping him,” she says through gritted teeth– closing her eyes as she breathes in then out– and continues, “now go.”
Frank hesitates for a second before she hears him move, Jean grounding herself on the floor– feeling the cool linoleum and sparing the briefest thought of what her sister might’ve felt as Frank takes him up and out of the room.
“You should go,” Frank says gruffly, over his shoulder it sounds like as he shifts Peter in his arms– Jean with her palms flat on the ground, knees sticky and wet from Peter’s blood as she doesn’t move.
In, out, in, out, in, out.
Frank doesn’t say anything more, walking out and Jean being right along with him in her mind as she focuses on Peter’s breathing– on the blood that’s staining Frank’s clothes and leaving droplets on the floor. Her fingers press into the floor, eyes open as she looks at her own crimson reflection and gasps out as if she was in pain.
He can’t die, not here– not anywhere, she tells herself– seeing not her own eyes reflecting back to her but of May Parker– warm and comforting and speaking to her as if she was just as loved as Peter was.
“The people who love you will love you because of you who are, not how powerful you might become.”
It was simple, but effective– tears steadily falling as Jean thinks of where they are and of what this fucking room means– willing herself to breathe as she presses a hand directly to the blood on the floor.
The liquid shakes, vibrating at a frequency that she nearly can’t see until it starts to dissipate, Jean straining from the effort as it begins to evaporate.
He saved her, without any reason to– maybe because of the love he’d been given from a woman he too had failed to save. Jean refused to allow these monsters to come here and retrieve his blood, make even more weapons that could harm him.
There’s been enough death today, much less in this room.
Jean refuses to allow herself to be any more a part of it.
In, out.
“We’re losing him.”
“Charges set to 200.”
In, out. In, out. In, out.
“He’s bleeding from fucking everywhere.”
“Find where it is.”
“I’m trying to–”
In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out.
“Pressure’s dropping.”
“He’s in v-tach.”
“Move.”
In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out.
“We’re losing him.”
“Charge to 300.”
In, out.
In, out.
In, out.
In, out.
In, out.
In, out.
In, out.
In, out.
In.
“Come on Spider-Man.”
Out.
“Rhea–”
In.
“Charge again.”
Out.
“We should–”
In.
“Again!”
Out.
”This won’t-“
In.
“We got sinus.”
Out.
The bus rattles on, forehead pressed against the window as she breathes in, out, in, then out again.
Peter’s been in the ICU for a few days, now finally transitioned to his own room and breathing– not from a ventilator, not from her but breathing– Jean finally allowing herself the release from him that she’s had since the moment he hit the ground.
She opens her eyes, looking up and out to her surroundings– before settling back into her seat.
Peter is safe and more importantly, alive– the image of May Parker reverberating now in her mind like a ghost.
We love you no matter how powerful you become.
She isn’t sure she believes it but she has to– because he does, feeling all his pain, his guilt, his grief, his love– in a way that is so painfully reminiscent of her sister.
Sara is dead and so is May– the cruelty of how Sara was murdered conflicting with the sacrifice May Parker had given.
Jean is so, so angry still at the DODC but also at Sara– for breaking her promise, for leaving her, for sending out a message in her own agony that caused all this wreckage for nothing more than an empty room filled with broken glass and broken people.
She takes that anger and holds it, holds and so desperately wishes that Sara was still here as she sees May Parker in her mind– smiling softly and pulling her, Peter, into a hug that had felt so real.
There was no going back. There was no saving her.
Now on a bus far away from the city, heading towards a place she’d only ever seen in her dreams.
She feels unmoored, untethered, disconnected from any semblance of a family when she breathes– in, out– and thinks of Peter.
You have me.
Jean leans back, closes her eyes and decides that maybe, she can start with that.