Chapter Text
Jean doesn't know a lot about love, not really.
She's never had a lot of people to learn from, certainly not her parents.
She doesn't remember being loved by her dad. In fact, she doesn't remember anything about her dad - not his face, not his voice, not even a blurry outline in the fragment of a memory. By the time she was old enough to remember, he was gone.
She does remember being loved by her mom. She remembers that gentle voice and the lullabies it would sing, those Sunday afternoon trips to Central Park young Jean loved so much, and how she would sit by that dining table with the chipped leg, well after dinner was finished, just to listen to her and Sara talk about their day.
The shock on her face when she came through the door and found her daughters standing in the same spot where they'd turned to dust five years ago.
The tremor in her voice as she whispered their names, like she was afraid that the sound would ripple across the air and shatter the illusion.
How she held them so tightly that Jean thought she might suffocate.
How her disbelief turned into reverence, reverence into joy, and joy into ashes when she realized what her daughters could do.
How she thought that maybe her daughters didn't come back after all. Maybe her daughters really did die five years ago, and maybe what came back were monsters wearing their faces.
How the maybe disappeared a week later when Jean, who was fourteen and scared and just wanted her mom to stop looking at her like she was a monster, broke down. Whatever control she had over a power she'd neither understood nor asked for evaporated, and it wasn't until she saw Sara's pale, horrified face that Jean realized she was looking at her sister through their mother's eyes.
Jean flinched so hard she flung herself right back into her own body.
It took Elaine Grey a second to get her bearings, another second to see Jean, shaky hands clamped over her mouth, tear-stained face stricken with horror, crying I'm sorry over and over again like a prayer for forgiveness, and two more seconds to connect the dots.
Four seconds.
That was all it took for Jean's mother to decide she was a monster.
Jean ran away once. She slipped into a stranger's body to buy herself a bus ticket to Red Hook, then walked the rest of the way to her childhood home, practicing what she was going to say the whole way.
I'm still Jean.
I promise I'll be better.
Please let us come home.
"Mom-" She began.
"My daughters are dead." Elaine Grey said curtly and shut the door.
Jean stayed on the porch for hours, crying, begging for the woman on the other side of the door to remember that she had once been her mom, had once loved her and sung lullabies to her and taken her and Sara to Central Park on Sunday afternoons, but the door stayed shut.
Jean cried until she ran out of tears, until day gave way to dusk, then dark, and through it all, the door stayed shut.
Sara didn't say anything when Jean got back to the foster home. She just held her through the night.
"What would you do if you had daughters like us?" Jean had asked three and a half years later, right before everything changed again.
"I'd love them." Sara had replied, gentle yet firm, before her eyes glinted with mischief. "Especially the redhead one."
No, Jean didn't learn a lot about love from her parents. Not from the dad who never gave her a shred of that unconditional love a parent supposedly gives their child. And not from the mom who did give it to her, only to decide that it wasn't unconditional after all.
Everything Jean knows about love, she learned from Sara. Beautiful, kind, loyal Sara who had to learn how to be a mother to both of them when she was barely sixteen and suddenly imbued with a power she'd understood no more than Jean did.
"I call it a psionic wave," Sara had declared, after weeks of practice finally gave her some control over her powers. "Just picture your brainwaves. Now imagine you're projecting them beyond yourself. But don't try to hop yet. Just focus on projecting your brainwaves outward."
Jean managed to project a psionic wave maybe a foot. The air barely had the time to ripple before her concentration broke. A wave of exhaustion crashed into her, and her limbs suddenly felt weak.
Her knees buckled, her legs gave, and Sara caught her right before she fell.
"Woah, easy." Sara's arm found her waist, and Jean swayed once, twice, before planting her palm on the wall. The surface was real, solid and cool, and Jean breathed shakily through her nose until she decided she could trust her legs again.
"This is so hard," she had said, gasping, and Sara had laughed fondly.
"This is supposed to be hard, kiddo."
It came to Jean like a second nature, to let anger sweep her up like a current and feel the heat rushing to her head as her powers took over, unleashing a blast of psionic wave that slammed her into another body. Sara's powers never flared up like that. Control came to her much more quickly too.
"I think," Sara had said months later, while Jean struggled to catch her breath. She had been trying to push her projection beyond five feet for weeks without success, then, as frustration boiled over into anger, let loose a blast of psionic wave that flung her into the body of a woman thirty feet away. The farthest Sara had managed by then was fifteen feet, but she could slip into and out of any mind within that range like a pair of slippers. "You are much more powerful than me, or at least you are going to be much more powerful than me once you reach your potential, and that's why it's harder for you to learn control. I'm trying to channel a river. You're trying to direct an ocean."
They figured it out eventually. Sara forged ahead, pushing and straining her powers to discover the limits of what they could do and how to reach those limits safely before teaching everything she'd learned to Jean.
If you pushed too hard, you'd wear yourself out.
If you pushed way too hard, you'd get a nosebleed.
If you pushed way too hard, you'd pass out.
Sara never let her get to that point.
Sara figured other things out too.
They could hop into anyone within their psionic range, but only one person at a time.
They could hear the thoughts of everyone within their psionic range, but only surface thoughts. Memories, feelings, secrets - those stayed behind a locked door until they actually hopped into the mind.
They could stretch their psionic range with practice, but the absolute limit was 33 feet.
Sara was her anchor. Sara taught her everything she knew about telepathy. Sara loved her. Of those three things, Jean was certain.
Control still came to her much more slowly than for Sara, but by the time they sat down on that bench a year and a half ago, Jean's psionic shields were strong enough that Sara hadn't been able to hop into her for weeks. Her range had hit twenty feet by then, and she could hop and hold the connection longer every day.
Then Metzger's men came, and Jean felt how terrified Sara was from across the park. She took off running, calling out Sara's name. That familiar heat rushed to her head, and a psionic wave was already slipping out of her. Then Sara's eyes met Jean's from across the park, and a desperate determination that those men would not take her sister too surged within her. For the first time in her life, Sara Grey felt that heat rushing to her head, and a psionic wave exploded from her, so powerful that it blasted right through Jean's shields.
I'm sorry, Jean. Jean felt Sara's warmth in her mind for the last time. I have to keep you safe.
Then Sara took over and walked her away, holding the connection until Jean was safe, even as the men dragged her into the truck with her consciousness fading.
That was the last time they ever saw each other.
Sara paid the ultimate price because she loved Jean. She was the only one who ever really did, and Jean thinks that loving someone means staying because Sara did. Sara loved her, and Sara stayed. Sara was the one person who always stayed.
Loving someone means staying.
Jean wasn't thinking of those words when she decided to stay for Peter. In fact, it wasn't a conscious decision at all. Her hand was damp as it came away from Peter's side, and Jean stared, dazed, until she realized it was soaked in blood. Peter's blood.
"I'm okay," Peter said, but he was already stumbling.
For a second, Jean refused to believe it. Her hand was soaked in blood, Peter clutched at his side, and his body swayed like it would no longer obey his command, but Jean's brain refused to connect the dots and arrive at the conclusion.
It couldn't be true. It was too terrible to be true.
"Peter?" Jean called out to him, desperate for an explanation, any explanation that would rescue her from that terrible conclusion.
"I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay." Peter choked the words out, and Jean almost let herself believe him.
Then his legs gave, and it was all Jean could do to launch herself at him. Her knees collided with the floor, marble and unforgiving, but the pain barely registered in Jean's mind. Her arms caught Peter right before he hit the ground, and relief flooded Jean for half a second before reality came crashing back down.
Not him too. Please, not him too.
"Jean." Her name gurgled on Peter's lips, like it came from underwater, like he was drowning, and something twisted in Jean's stomach, jerked and ripped so violently that she almost keeled over. He would catch her, Jean thought. He would catch her even though he was lying in a pool of his own blood, even though he could barely breathe, because that was who he was. He caught people who stumbled, no matter what it cost him. "You gotta get out of here. They'll be looking for you."
Save your breath, she wanted to say, short and practical. Or You're going to be okay, reassuring even though it wouldn't convince either of them. I'm not leaving you was the kind of thing they said in movies, a dramatic declaration a younger Jean would have reached for. You fucking idiot, some angry part of her snarled. Why would you do that? Why would you do that for someone like me?
But there was nothing calm for Jean to reach for in her brain, nothing reassuring or dramatic or even angry. Just those same desperate words over and over again.
Not him too. Please, not him too.
"No, no, no. Please, just stay with me."
It was the desperate words of a desperate girl who spent months searching for her sister, who felt the world collapse around her when she realized her sister was dead, and who was hurting so much that she let herself hope, against her better judgment, that maybe she wouldn't have to be alone anymore when the boy with the warm brown eyes promised her she had him.
How cruel it was for the universe to finally give her a ray of hope, just so it could take it from her.
Is this the price for caring about me? Sara. Now Peter. Jean would wonder a little while later, Peter's life still hanging in the balance. Is this the price they had to pay for caring about me?
But in that sterile white room, with Peter prone in her arms, blood gushing out faster than her hands could stem, his breath shallow and increasingly labored, all Jean could think was, Not him too. Please, not him too.
Words were coming out of Peter's mouth, words were coming out of her mouth, but they barely registered in Jean's brain. For the second time that afternoon, Jean let go and let her powers take over. Her chest was swelling with emotions - anger, guilt, fear, pain, and sheer desperation - and Jean let them rise, let the current sweep her up and let the wave crest until she felt that familiar heat rushing to her head.
"Look at me."
Brown met blue, and Jean didn't hop into Peter as much as her powers flung her into Peter, the same way they'd flung her into her mother five years ago.
And that raw power, which once prompted Sara to prophesize that Jean would become much more powerful than her, and which Jean still understood frighteningly little, surged into Peter's nervous system. One pink tendril of telekinetic energy wrapped around his heart, squeezing and releasing just long enough to keep the blood flowing. Another tendril latched onto a damaged blood vessel, and another, and another, while a pink ring formed around the bullet wound and eased the damaged tissues forward millimeter by millimeter until the gap closed.
And while her powers held Peter's body together, all Jean could do was to hold his limp hand and silently whisper those same desperate words over and over again like a prayer.
Not him too. Please, not him too.
Breathe, something whispered back, and so Jean breathed.
Inhale.
Peter's chest rose.
Exhale.
His chest fell.
Inhale.
His chest rose.
Exhale.
His chest fell.
She couldn't undo Peter's injuries. She couldn't rewind time and make sure she was the one who took that bullet, but she could breathe for him. She could stay by his side and hold his hand and let her powers keep him alive long enough for the surgeons to stitch him back together, and so Jean breathed. Jean breathed for both of them through the night. Even after the pink tendrils withdrew because the stitches could now hold Peter's body together unaided, Jean breathed for both of them.
She let go just as Peter's eyes fluttered open.
There is a bus that will take her to another bus, which will take her to another bus, which will take her north, away from New York.
Jean isn't sure how far north she wants to go - maybe somewhere upstate, maybe Canada, or maybe just north enough for her to find another bus, one that'll take her somewhere in New England or the Midwest. All of which, Jean notes, would take her away from New York, away from Damage Control and the manhunt no doubt underway for her.
Leaving is the smart thing to do, the sane thing to do, and frankly, the only non-suicidal thing to do. Jean has gone over the bus maps a dozen times, planned out a route that would avoid all the surveillance hotspots, and been satisfied that her plan was foolproof.
Frank had brought her a coffee that morning, along with a wad of cash that Jean was too proud and too fucking angry to want to accept, but was nevertheless too practical and too survival-driven to refuse.
She uses that money to buy the tickets, then gets on the bus.
Somewhere between the Bronx and Yonkers, Jean realizes that leaving New York doesn't just mean leaving Damage Control and whatever other law enforcement agency that's looking for her behind. It also means leaving Peter behind.
Peter.
Don't get attached. Not to things, not to places, and not to people because attachment gets you disappeared. That had been Jean's mantra in the year and a half since Sara was taken.
She stayed on the move, never staying in one place long enough that Damage Control might find her, and never letting anyone become familiar enough to identify her from a photo.
Being able to hop into people helped, and Jean helped herself to whatever she needed to survive. Some cash here for a motel room, a key there to an empty apartment. It wasn't something Jean was proud of, but it wasn't something she was ashamed of either. It was simply what she had to do to survive, and she had to survive to save Sara.
She trained hard with her powers too. Without Sara there to make sure she paced herself, Jean pushed ahead at a punishing pace, pushing her psionic wave a little farther each time, inch by inch, until she finally hit 33 feet.
All the times she passed out from overexertion, Jean thought, were worth the satisfaction.
Between surviving, evading Damage Control, mastering her powers, and looking for Sara, there wasn't much time to get attached to people even if she hadn't decided that attachments were a liability.
But as Yonkers disappears from the rearview mirror, and the bus inches closer and closer to Greenburgh, Jean realizes that for the first time in a long time, she has something she doesn't want to leave behind.
It wasn't supposed to happen. She wasn't supposed to get attached to anyone. And she most certainly wasn't supposed to get attached to Peter Parker.
She's only known him for a few days, and spent most of that time trying to inflict grievous bodily harm on him. Her only saving grace is that she was never actually trying to kill him, which, Jean realizes with a wince, is hardly any better.
It wasn't supposed to happen, and it defies all logic, but somewhere along the way, somehow, Jean Grey became attached to Peter Parker.
Was it because he came back for her once he realized the truth about Sara?
Was it because he let her in, shared a piece of his soul with her, and told her she had him in that bedroom with faded green wallpaper?
Was it because he threw himself in front of a bullet for her?
Or was it because he did all those things even though he knew she was a monster?
Her mother had called her that a lifetime ago, as had Peter after she'd hijacked MJ's body, kissed him, and made him believe that the woman he loved remembered that he existed, and that she loved him.
What she did to Peter was monstrous. She knew it was monstrous before she did it, and she did it anyways, not despite that it was monstrous, but because it was monstrous. And if it wasn't monstrous, then she wouldn't have done it.
If that's not the definition of a monster, then what is?
She was right. The thought tore through Jean like a knife. I am a monster.
Her mother was right. She was right for the wrong reasons but she was right, and Jean thinks that may be the worst thing about all this.
Jean hates herself for proving her mother right. She hates herself for that more than she hates herself for what she did to Peter. And she hates herself for the fact that she hates herself for proving her mother right more than she hates herself for what she did to Peter.
God, Jean, you're selfish even when you're hating yourself. You really are a monster.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
She can still feel the ghost of Peter's breaths, synchronized with her own, a reminder that she'd breathed for both of them and kept Peter alive through the night. She's so used to using her powers to control or hurt people, and it feels almost strange to use them to help.
But she did. For once in her life, Jean used her powers for good, and Peter, the boy with the warm brown eyes who is kind and selfless and so so fucking good, is alive because of her. Jean isn't naive enough to think that saving Peter's life wipes out everything she did to him before, or that she is entitled to his forgiveness because of it, but Peter is alive.
Not him too. Please, not him too.
She'd whispered those words over and over again like a silent prayer to some cosmic entity, and Jean thinks she'd have done anything to save Peter in that moment.
If something had answered, and demanded her life for Peter's… Jean thinks that would have been an easy trade too. She hadn't lived since Sara was taken, hadn't had people she cared about or dreams she strived for or any of the things that made life life. She had been surviving, and she had been surviving only to find Sara. With Sara gone… what was the point of surviving other than for the sake of it? And what was the point of surviving just for the sake of it?
Every terrible, monstrous thing she'd done, she'd justified with saving Sara. But Sara died anyways, and all the people she'd hurt and all the havoc she'd wreaked was for nothing, leaving Jean with only a dead sister, a dying Peter, and a ledger drenched in red.
She would have done anything to save Sara, and it would have been worth it, because Sara was worth it. If she could have saved Peter, who was good the way Sara was, good the way Jean wasn't, then it would have been worth it too, because Peter was worth it too.
Aww, look at you, Jean. Peter is so good that he inspired even a monster like you to be selfless for once.
Jean yanks down the cord hard. Pain shoots through her fingers as metal digs into skin, and she welcomes it with relief. Her boots thud against the pavement, and it's not until the bus is pulling away that Jean realizes what has happened.
While she was indulging in self-loathing, her subconscious decided that she didn't want to leave New York after all. She might not have meant to get attached, but she did, and Peter Parker has apparently become someone Jean is incapable of leaving behind.
Survival instinct screams at Jean to hop into the driver, get back on the bus, and forget about Peter Parker - forget about the bedroom with faded green wallpaper and You have me and the childish notion that maybe she doesn't have to be alone anymore because of the boy with the warm brown eyes - and she almost listens.
The air ripples in that familiar way, and a psionic wave slips from Jean, pulsing halfway across the bus stop before she yanks it back.
Roosevelt Island hadn't rewired Jean's whole personality overnight. But Peter had promised her she had him and proved it by taking a bullet for her, and that means something. And Jean had stayed by his side and kept him alive, knowing full well that every minute she stayed put her in more danger, and that means something too.
Maybe she is being childish. Maybe the grief of losing Sara has made her so desperate not to be alone anymore, even for a moment, that she's throwing all caution to the wind. Or maybe in the cold light of day, Peter has remembered that she'd done unforgivable things to him, and that he'd called her a monster and meant it.
But Peter has become someone who matters to her. And Jean has apparently become someone who matters to him too, or at least she was for a moment on Roosevelt Island.
She doesn't want that moment to be the last time she ever sees Peter. She doesn't want to remember him as he was then, lying in a pool of his own blood, face pale and speech gurgled, pleading with her to run to save herself even as life drained from his body.
She will go back to Peter, thank him for saving her life, and apologize for everything she did to him. And if he wants nothing more to do with her in the cold light of day-
Jean forces herself to breathe through the pang in her chest.
Then that's okay too, because she'll still have seen for herself that Peter, the boy with the warm brown eyes who is beautiful and kind and good like Sara, hasn't paid the price for caring about her like Sara had.
Coming back was easier than leaving.
Damage Control and the NYPD were watching routes out of the city like hawks. They weren't watching routes into the city because no one was crazy enough to slip out of the city where they were the most wanted fugitive, only to walk right back into the lion's den.
Well, no one but Jean Grey.
Still, eighteen months on the run had drilled caution into Jean's bones, and she took a different route back into the city.
Four bus transfers and several hours later, Jean finds herself at Peter's door. She raises a hand to knock, then hesitates.
She knows Peter had promised her she had him. She knows Peter had proven that he meant it by taking a bullet for her. And she knows that Peter probably still means it in the cold light of day because he's simply too kind, too selfless, and too good not to. But still, Jean hesitates.
She is not used to kindness, not used to people other than Sara making promises and keeping them, and the five years since her powers manifested have been one long, painful lesson in cynicism.
She knows she has no reason to doubt Peter, but fear is learned much more quickly than unlearned.
She'd practiced what she was going to say the whole way back, first in her head then on a notepad she bought at a rest stop with Frank's money.
I'm just going to jot down a few bullet points to organize my thoughts, Jean had told herself, then a few bullet points became a draft speech, followed by another, and another. It's just to kill the time, she'd told herself, then, It's just so that I don't forget anything important.
By the time she got to draft number five, Jean had run out of excuses to hide behind, and the draft no longer resembled a speech. It began with Peter's name, ended with Jean's, and the pages were carefully torn from the notepad, folded, then placed in an envelope she'd bought alongside the notepad because Jean had known all along that she was writing a letter in case Peter slammed the door in her face before she could get a word out like her mother did.
It began with a thank you, continued into an apology, then ended with another thank you. Considering the emotional turmoil of the preceding 36 hours, the lack of sleep, and the bumpy bus ride, Jean thought her prose was decent, and her penmanship wasn't completely terrible.
She'd taken the letter back out and read it again before getting off the bus to remind herself of what she wanted to say, then again outside Peter's building, then again in the stairwell. By the time she reached Peter's floor, her hands were shaking so badly that Jean struggled to slip the letter back into her pocket. She stayed in the stairwell for a moment, clenching her hands into fists and willing them to stop shaking.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Four seconds in.
Four seconds out.
Her hands don't stop shaking.
Now that she's standing at Peter's door, Jean realizes she's not ready to face him at all. She feels the urge to reach for the letter again, or to turn back around and forget the idea of seeing Peter. He promised her she had him, and Jean knows he meant it in that moment. But that moment has long passed, shattered by Frank's bullet. What if he regrets it now, in the cold light of day? What if he remembers what she did to him and realizes that she doesn't deserve his kindness after all? What if he turns her away before she can get a word out like her mother-
Jean raps on the door before she can talk herself out of it.
No answer comes, and for a moment, Jean thinks that maybe Peter isn't home. The sound of footsteps gives Jean just enough warning to brace herself, then the door swings open and oh, there's Peter.
Peter looks objectively terrible, which is to say, infinitely better than the last time Jean saw him. His face is still pale, but no longer covered in blood and grime, and some color has returned. His eyes are tired but alert, his arms shaky but taut, and he is favoring his right leg, but very much standing.
Five drafts, four pages, and three double-checks, and Jean forgets everything the second she sees Peter Parker.
She stands there, mouth half-open, staring, and a vague thought about how stupid she looks would probably have formed in Jean's brain had it not short-circuited, followed by another vague thought of how equally stupid Peter looks, with his eyes wide and mouth agape, opening then closing like he's searching for what to say, finds it, only to decide that it won't do right before he says it.
Jean doesn't know how long they stood there, staring at each other, but a full minute must have passed before Peter finally rescued them both.
"Jean." Of course the first thing he says is her name, and of course he says it like that, breathing it out like a prayer. A warm, fuzzy feeling announces itself in Jean's chest, spreading down her stomach and into her limbs until her whole body is engulfed in a gentle glow. It feels like sitting by a hearth, warm, comfortable, and safe, and it's a feeling Jean will become all too familiar with in the months ahead. "You came back."
"I never really left." Jean has to clear her throat twice before finding her voice. Peter's gaze is part surprised and part questioning, and Jean meets it with a shrug, shifting her weight from one leg to another. Technically, she did leave city limits, but she turned around before she even made it out of the suburban sprawl. So she didn't actually leave, she just started to leave- the act of leaving was never complete, so she never left. Jean isn't sure why she's so keen to carve out that distinction, just that she really doesn't want Peter to associate her with the word leaving, not even for a moment. She wants him to remember that she stayed by his side when he needed her, and that she came back to him afterward. "I-"
A yawn interrupts her. Jean tries again, only to be interrupted by another yawn before she can get a word out. She shoots Peter a sheepish look, apologetic.
"Sorry." Jean mumbles. She has been riding on adrenaline non-stop since she woke up strapped to a chair on Roosevelt Island. Now that Peter is right in front of her, looking worse for wear but very much alive and very much like he doesn't plan to slam the door in her face, it's as if Jean's body realized she's finally safe now before her brain did. Fight-or-flight mode ends, adrenaline recedes, and Jean is suddenly feeling 36 hours of exhaustion all at once.
"No, no," Peter is already shaking his head. His eyes suddenly widen, and he jumps aside to make room for her in the doorway, wincing, which Jean assumes is a sign that he'd forgotten about his injuries and received a painful reminder from his body. "Gosh, where are my manners? Come on in. Are you tired?"
Peter winces again. He leads Jean into his apartment, limping, but otherwise steady enough that Jean doesn't think he'll fall.
"Stupid question. Of course you're tired. Here, make yourself at home. I've got pizza." He nods at the coffee table, which is currently occupied by a haphazard mess of bills and a large cardboard box.
Peter goes into the kitchen, and Jean hears more than sees him rummaging through the cabinets. He returns with two glasses of water and carefully sets them on the edge of the coffee table just as Jean peels the cover open.
Double pepperoni and still hot.
Jean lets out a hum of appreciation. "Nice."
"You like pepperoni?" Peter pulls a slice free and holds it out to Jean, who promptly takes it and stuffs it into her mouth. She means to say thank you, but her throat suddenly lumps when she realizes that no one has held out a slice of pizza to her or eaten with her or even sat down next to her on a couch since Sara was taken. Something swells in Jean's chest, and she feels a sudden surge of pressure behind her eyes. She blinks furiously, determined that she would not cry over a slice of pizza. Yet, even as her eyes threaten to tear, a fluttery feeling settles in Jean's stomach at that simple gesture from Peter.
That warm feeling from earlier has returned to her chest, pleasant yet confusing, and Jean is too tired to think much about anything right now, so she focuses on the pizza. The sweet smell of pepperoni and barbecue sauce fills her nostrils, and Jean doesn't realize how hungry she is until now. She'd gotten a chocolate bar at the rest stop, and Frank had brought her some mushy thing that vaguely resembled a sandwich outside the hospital. Before that… she doesn't remember when she last ate before Metzger took her, or slept, for that matter. Her stomach has mostly been filled with nerves and energy drinks since, which, as Jean is rapidly remembering, are no substitute for food.
She nods in lieu of a reply, her mouth filled with something greasy and heavenly, earning a chuckle from Peter as he helps himself to a slice of his own.
A comfortable silence engulfs them, interrupted only by the sound of chewing. Jean wolfs down three slices in no time, and Peter stops after his second slice, nudging the box toward her.
"I'm not hungry," he says.
Jean shoots Peter a flat stare, her face perfectly still, and pauses chewing long enough to say, "I can literally hear your stomach growling, Parker."
Peter caves after two seconds. "Okay, I'll have one more slice."
Jean doesn't let up, unimpressed, and Peter lasts a second longer this time.
"Two more slices?"
Jean nods, satisfied, drawing a small laugh from Peter.
"It's kind of scary when you do that."
That earns him a smirk. "I know."
Somewhere between Jean's fifth and sixth slice, the silence shifts from comfortable to tired, and the warmth of Peter's apartment starts to feel less like a hearth and more like a blanket.
The sudden feeling of her head falling startles Jean awake.
She jerks herself upright, blinking, and her eyes quickly scan her surroundings. She's still in Peter's apartment, still sitting on the couch, still holding a half-eaten slice of pizza, and currently being regarded by a pair of faintly amused brown eyes.
"You're sleepy." It's not a question.
"I'm not." Jean insists anyways, and is immediately undermined by a yawn.
"I stand corrected." The corner of Peter's mouth twitches, then he's getting up. "You want a blanket?"
"I-" Another yawn. Traitor. "Yes, please."
Peter is still walking with a slight limp, but he waves Jean off when she offers to go get the blanket herself, and Jean is too tired to argue. She pushes herself off the couch, yawning again as she stretches. Peter's apartment is much warmer than the bus, so she unzips her hoodie and shrugs it off. Jean catches her reflection in the window then, and her drowsiness vanishes in an instant.
She is still wearing the green Damage Control jumpsuit, Jean realizes, horrified and disgusted in equal measure. The sleeves are still caked in blood - Peter's blood, the legs are a horror of grime, and she is covered in so much sweat from head to toe, dried or otherwise, that Jean wants to scrape her skin off. For a moment, she's back in that sterile white room, pleading with Peter to stay with her as he bleeds out on the floor, blood gushing and gushing no matter how hard she tries to stem it with her hands.
"Hey-" Jean's head snaps around at the sound of Peter's voice, heart pounding and breath suddenly heavy. She inhales deeply, trying to ground herself with that familiar breathing technique.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Four seconds in.
Four seconds out.
She is in Peter's apartment. Peter is right here in front of her. He's not bleeding out in her arms. He's okay. He's alive. She saved him. He saved her and she saved him.
"You okay?"
Peter's voice is tinged with worry, his brows furrowing, and Jean forces her voice to steady.
"Yeah."
Her voice does not come out steady, and Peter looks even more worried for a moment before giving Jean a once-over. He reacts the same way Jean did when he realizes what she's wearing. His lips press into a tight line, his jaw clenches, and for the first time since she met Peter face to face, she finds no warmth in those brown eyes, just anger.
He's carrying a folded blanket and a pillow, and Jean nods at the couch, not trusting her voice just yet. She tries to conjure up a small smile for Peter, but all she manages is a grimace. Peter grimaces right back.
"I need to shower," Jean says after a few seconds, her voice tight, "and burn these clothes. Can I borrow something to wear?"
Peter gives a jerky nod and disappears into the bedroom again. He comes back out not long after, and Jean accepts the small stack of clothes without looking. She offers him what she hopes is a smile as thanks and hurries into the bathroom.
It is only when she is feeling hot water on her bare skin that Jean lets out a shuddering breath. The shower is scalding, but Jean doesn't care. She just lets the water wash away the grime and sweat of the last 36 hours, hoping that it'll somehow wash away what's accumulated beneath her skin too.
Jean doesn't know how long she stood in the shower, just that it was long enough for the water to go from scalding to hot and from hot to warm, and for the weariness to return long enough to seep into her bones.
She shuts off the water, suddenly exhausted.
Jean closes her eyes and imagines sliding down the wall and falling asleep there for a moment. Then, she towels herself dry and wrings water out of her hair, rough enough to hurt.
Sara would hate that, Jean thinks. Sara would declare that Jean is going to destroy her hair with her usual dramatic flair, then she'd gather those red locks in her hands and gently squeeze out the water. A towel would follow, then a routine that involved a hairdryer, a flat iron, hair serum, and lots of leave-in conditioner. All done, she would grin at Jean's reflection in the mirror and say, We should braid each other's hair.
Sara would really hate that. But Sara isn't here. Sara isn't here and Sara will never be here again because Sara is dead. Sara is fucking dead and all Jean is left with are memories of a warmth she'll never feel again, a smile she'll never see again, and a sister she'll never hold again.
The tears come without Jean realizing. She wipes her eyes furiously and throws on the clothes Peter had brought her. First a pair of boxers, then a royal blue Midtown Tech T-shirt. The logo is frayed from age, and the hem lands on her mid-thigh, but the fabric is soft and carries that musky scent with a hint of chemicals that just screams Peter.
Jean scrunches up a handful of the T-shirt and inhales deeply, and the smell is comforting enough that for a moment, she thinks she might be okay. Then she finds a hairdryer in the mirror cabinet, wraps her fingers around the plastic handle, and suddenly she's crying.
She clamps one hand over her mouth, the other hand still holding the hairdryer, and tries to muffle her sobs. The tears return with a fury, and they will not be blinked away this time, forcing Jean to try to take a deep breath, to try to steady herself and breathe through the sobs, but the tears keep coming.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Four seconds in.
Four seconds out.
Jean reaches for that familiar breathing technique, for that familiar feeling of her breath evening and her heartbeat steadying, but all she finds are more tears.
Sara had taught her that breathing technique too. Sara had taught her to focus on the simple act of breathing, one breath at a time, inhale, exhale, and repeat, four seconds in and four seconds out. Just… one breath at a time until her breath evens and her heartbeat steadies.
But Sara will never hold her hand and tell her to focus on her voice and help her breathe through her anger, her fear, or her pain again. Sara will never do anything again. Sara will never even breathe again because Sara is dead. Sara is fucking dead and there is nothing she can do to have even just one more moment with her and she never even got to say goodbye-
The weight of a dead sister, the weight of every person she'd chosen to use, every person she'd chosen to hurt, and every line she'd chosen to cross, and the weight of the knowledge that it was all for nothing in the end, demands to be felt at last, and it's all Jean can do to wrap an arm around herself and feel the sobs wreck through her body.
She's still holding the hairdryer, and Jean means to let go, but her fingers only clutch onto the plastic handle tighter. A button is digging into her fingers, and Jean presses into the plastic ridges with all her might. It hurts, and she presses harder.
Let her fingers hurt. Let the plastic ridges claw through her skin. Let them claw through her flesh too.
If her fingers are hurting, she's hurting from something other than the weight of losing Sara, other than the weight of every line she'd crossed, and other than the weight of her failure, even only for a moment, and physical pain is much easier to bear than the other kind of pain.
Give me pain, give me twice the pain, just a different kind of pain, please.
She's vaguely aware of the knock on the door. She's vaguely aware of Peter's voice calling out her name, worried and tentative. She's vaguely aware of the door nudging open, barely a gap at first, then wider, and the soft sound of footsteps as Peter's feet carried him into the bathroom, but her body is completely frozen.
She wants to look at Peter, but her eyes will not open. She wants to reply to Peter, but her mouth will not make a sound. She wants to reach for Peter, but her arms will not budge an inch.
The weight of everything she's carrying demands to be felt, and it's all Jean can do to let the sobs wreck through her body.
"Jean?" Peter calls out her name again, in that same breathy way he'd done when she showed up at his door, so softly and so delicately, like she's this precious thing he's afraid would vanish, and that finally gets through to Jean.
Her eyes open with some difficulty, and her head tilts up just enough to see Peter. Her vision is blurry, but Jean can make out the shape of his face. She can't see his eyes, but she knows they're that familiar warm brown, looking at her with all the gentleness his kind soul can muster, and a warm, fuzzy feeling spreads from her chest, settling into every corner of her body.
Words still won't come to Jean, but whatever Peter finds on her face is enough for him to close the distance between them and wrap his arms around her. Peter gently nudges her away from the vanity, and Jean goes pliant in his arms. All the tension drains from her body in an instant, and her legs finally give out. She barely has time to stumble before Peter catches her, his arms tightening, shifting Jean's weight from her limp legs onto himself.
Peter spins them slightly, finding ceramic with his shoulder. They are completely pressed together now, so much so that Jean begins to lose the sensation of herself in Peter's arms like she's melting into him. He's pressed against the wall, she's pressed into him, and Peter slides down slowly until they end up on the floor. One of Jean's arms finds the back of Peter's neck, the other his waist, and her face settles against his chest.
She can feel every beat of his heart, strong and steady, and something inside Jean loosens. She blinks slowly, once, twice, and her vision clears up just enough to see those brown orbs, warm and gentle like she knew they would be.
"I've got you," Peter mutters, and Jean lets her eyes close, feeling safe for the first time in a long time.
They stay like that for a while. The sobs don't stop, not for a long while yet, but they let up enough that Jean is no longer shaking with her whole body. Carefully, Peter maneuvers himself off the floor, slips an arm under Jean's knees, and lifts Jean into a bridal carry. Jean's arms are weak, but they find their way around Peter's neck all the same, one hand still clutching the hairdryer, and Peter nudges the bathroom door all the way open with his foot.
He's still walking with a slight limp, but his steps are sure and his hold on Jean never falters. They cross the small open space of the apartment, and Peter settles them onto the couch, Jean's legs across his lap, her arms looped around his neck, his arms wrapped around her back, and her face resting on his chest again.
Peter is alive, Jean reminds herself with every thud of his heart. Peter is real and alive and right here with her because she saved him. He saved her and she saved him and now they're both still here, still alive, and still breathing.
And that's everything.
They were enemies a day and a half ago. And now, Jean thinks she would do almost anything for Peter, and she thinks Peter would do almost anything for her too, even if neither of them says it aloud. They shared something in that bedroom with faded green wallpaper. It lasted only a moment, but it was enough for Jean to feel like she understood something deep in Peter's soul, and that Peter understood something deep in her soul too.
He'd taken a bullet for her, and she'd breathed for him when he couldn't breathe for himself. That means something, and the fact that they're both still here, still alive, and still breathing means everything to Jean in that moment.
Isn't it crazy how someone can become so important to you so quickly?
She's only known Peter for a few days, a day and a half, really, and he's already become so important to her. That confuses Jean. It scares her too. And yet, it makes her happy. She's gotten a glimpse of Peter's soul, and he's become someone who matters to her, and it makes Jean so happy that she has someone who matters to her again, and that that someone is Peter.
She had mattered to Sara and Sara had mattered to her, and as she feels the thud of Peter's heartbeats on her cheek, his arms wrapped around her gently yet firmly, Jean dares to let herself hope that she has someone who matters to her and who she matters to again.
A long while passes. Jean doesn't know how long exactly, just that her tears have dried and her sobs have stopped, and that she and Peter are still wrapped up in each other in a tangled mess of limbs.
When Jean finally speaks, her voice comes out small and hoarse, but it comes out all the same.
"Sara used to do my hair." She says slowly. Her eyes are fixed on the ceiling, but she doesn't need to look at Peter to feel those warm brown eyes on her. She's too tired to question when she'd developed a sixth sense just for Peter Parker's eyes. "She had this whole routine post-shower. And now she- she'll never- she'll ne-"
Jean doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't need to.
Peter stays quiet, and for a moment, Jean starts to think that he's not going to say anything at all. When he does speak, it's in a voice as gentle as Jean has come to expect.
"Can I do your hair tonight?"
If Jean wasn't so tired, she might have been surprised. As is, she's too tired to feel anything other than exhaustion, so she just nods and mourns Peter's warmth as he carefully untangles himself from her and disappears in the bathroom's direction.
He returns with a paddle brush and a bottle of what looks like heat protection spray, which is one more than the number of hair products she'd expected him to have. If Jean wasn't so tired, she might have teased him about it. Instead, she lets him help her up and ease the hairdryer from her fingers.
"Thank you." She says, small but real, and all she can manage in her present state.
Peter hums, gathering a handful of red locks and carefully running the brush through them. The brush snags as often as Jean expects, and he works through knotted hair gently, never yanking or pushing the way she is prone to, just brushing with the aid of his fingers until the knot gives way.
"I used to help Aunt May with her hair," Peter offers, answering the question Jean is too tired to ask. "Even learned how to braid and everything."
Jean thinks of that bedroom with faded green wallpaper then. She thinks of it often, but she's usually thinking of the boy with the warm brown eyes there. Now, she's thinking of the woman with the kind, motherly eyes who had told her she was beautiful and held her in her arms until there was no more anger left for Jean to hide behind. In that moment, Jean was just a girl who had loved her sister, lost her, and was left with the impossible weight of that grief.
I'm sorry about your sister.
I'm sorry about your aunt.
Yeah, you would've loved her. Just because we've lost someone… It doesn't mean we have to do this alone. I mean, we can't. Trust me, I've been trying. It doesn't work.
Would she and Peter have seen each other as they did then, two kindred souls who'd both lost someone they loved and were left with a grief too heavy to carry alone, if not for that memory of May?
Or would they have continued on that destructive path, colliding into each other over and over again until one of them broke for good?
Jean doesn't have to think too long to arrive at the answer.
She and Peter had been stalemated for days, both powerful enough to hurt each other, yet neither powerful enough to actually destroy the other. Jean's awakening on Roosevelt Island tipped that scale permanently, and Peter could not hope to stand a chance against her even with his own powers newly augmented. She would have severely maimed Peter or even killed him. The only question was whether Frank would have pulled that trigger before or after she struck the blow.
She and Peter would not have saved each other if not for that memory of May, and they would not both still be here, still alive, and still breathing.
"I wish I could've met her," Jean says, and the brush in her hair stills for a moment.
"Yeah." The brush resumes. "Remember when I told you that you would have loved her?"
Of course Jean remembers. She will forget her own name before she forgets one word of that conversation.
But she doesn't tell Peter that. She just nods instead.
"She would have loved you too."
Jean's whole body stiffens.
Peter notices immediately. The brush still again. "You okay?"
No. I'm not okay. She wants to say. I'm not okay because I don't understand how you could possibly think that someone as good as your aunt would have loved a monster like me. She would have hated me if she knew what I did to you, and I would have deserved it.
But she doesn't tell Peter that either. Instead, Jean forces her body to unstiffen with a slow exhale, and nods in lieu of an answer.
It's a stiff nod.
Luckily, Peter accepts Jean's nod and doesn't press her. The brush resumes again, and neither of them speaks again until Peter sets it down with a small, triumphant noise.
He picks up the heat protectant, shakes it a few times, then begins spraying it onto her hair. He tries to apply the spray layer by layer, but without hair clips, all he can do is try to hold her hair up one awkward handful at a time.
"Sorry," Peter mumbles, sheepish, and Jean chances a glance to see a light flush on his cheeks. His face looks lovely when it's blushing, Jean thinks absentmindedly. Her eyelids feel heavy, and she's fighting an increasingly futile rearguard action to keep them from shuttering. "I wasn't expecting to be doing this like, ever."
Jean hums.
Peter picks the brush back up and works it through her hair again to distribute the heat protectant. The brush glides through her locks almost effortlessly this time, and Peter swaps it for the hairdryer not long after.
He runs his fingers through her red locks, and Jean drifts off to the whirring sound of the hairdryer.
This feels nice.