InsaneJournal

WHO MK and Spidey.
WHAT MK's mutation stirs up trouble, and Spidey comes to save the day.
WHEN After the Oscorp blast.
WHERE Central Park.
WARNING language, minor sads. destruction of Central Park lol.


It was like trying to drive after a long vacation away from your car. The seatbelt felt weird on your shoulder, the seat must have been adjusted by gremlins while you were gone and the wheel suddenly seemed way bigger than you remembered. But, then you back up, you put on a blinker and just go.

Spider-Man didn’t take any practice laps around the city to get his bearings. He looked down at the web shooter attached to his wrist, took a deep breath and then his feet left the ground. Everything felt weird. His suit was a little tight (thanks pizza), the webbing had too much give and he was sure that he could do way more flips in the air when he rounded a city block. He knew he wasn’t in the best condition anymore, that sitting in the cube recovering from the stupid things Ock had done made him soft and suddenly it felt like the first time he put on the suit to try and save the day.

Real funny, universe.

Swing after swing, Peter was starting to feel like himself. Ock was still there somewhere, sure, but right now it was all Parker and to be that outside of the cube and swinging through New York afternoon air made him laugh. He might have even let out a little “WOO” while flipping over a construction site. The Spider-Man who released spider-bots across the city was gone and in his place was something good. Even if he was still kind of a menace.

Spidey. Senses. Tingling.

Spider-Man could smell smoke almost immediately after his senses went off like crazy. He shot out webs on either side of a building, used it to flip himself around and then swung off towards black smoke rising over Central Park trees. He was an urban spidey, bug boy no likey tree sap over his fresh costume. But, life’s rough as a superhero. Branches awkwardly snapped and bended as he hopped from one to the other until he perched on a sturdy Sycamore and looked down at the scorched earth below.

Next to him a worried squirrel chattered.

“Hey dude, I thought you’d like roasted nuts.” Spider-Man looked at the beady-eyed, bushy tail buddy.

Not funny, said the squirrel.

MK had been trying to make the best of a shitty fucking situation because being stuck in this door, in a world that wasn’t hers was a shitty fucking situation. But, she had her money and a condo in her name in Kips Bay, Delilah was still alive and well and with her, and while Adam had gone M.I.A., things were going to be okay. Right? Wren had said so when they first arrived, and Luke had told her not to panic. So, she tried her best not to. She didn’t even get wasted like she wanted, opting to chew on a Xanax or three when the walls felt like they were closing in. Delilah, enrolled in a public school near where MK’s condo was, was in after-school, a choice on her guardian’s part to let the little girl start to associate with more kids her age. It would make the transition easier, she hoped, even though the dark-haired little girl was so withdrawn, especially in the absence of Adam’s presence.

MK let Delilah stay there as late as possible, and had taken the habit of wandering around the city to reacquaint herself. Because fuck, did it look like her New York, but this wasn’t her New York. This wasn’t home. Nothing here was like home. Only her niece, and even then some days she felt like she might not be more of a burden than a help to the five year old. She thought it was a good idea to let the little girl expand her world.

It was those idle, aimless wanderings that found her near Oscorp the afternoon of the blast. She was in close proximity, and found herself knocked on the ground, a rush of warmth buzzing through her body and seemed to linger in her brain before a splitting headache reminded her of the fall. She groaned, sitting up to a rush of dizziness and slight confusion. The warmth turned into buzzing in her body, and she looked around the street at the destruction and the blood.

And suddenly, like a battering ram to her head, she could hear voices. Not her own voices cooked in her head. Panicked voices scrambling to make sense of what happened, pained voices aching over injuries. Just voices, voices, voices. But, there weren’t that many people around, and it didn’t feel like it was simply going through her ears. The voices were in her mind, bouncing back and forth, and nothing would shut the fuck up.

She screamed in the middle of the street, clutching at the side of her head as if it would muffle the sounds, but new voices joined in, ones wondering about the screaming redhead bleeding from the back of her head. Stray pieces of debris rose from the ground as she continued on, screaming and eyes squeezed shut. And MK just knew she needed to get away. So she stood up and she ran. Voices coming in and out like waves, and wasn’t it hard to tell a couple more cars were overturned after the blast, as she ran past, when several hundred victims were just knocked on their ass by a pulse.

A path of slight destruction kept people at a distance, and she eventually scrambled into the park. She was now in the middle of a slight clearing normally used for sunbathers and couples on picnics, completely losing control. The voices persisted, though dulled slightly through the pain and the fire of her fingertips. She didn’t even notice the burning sycamores surrounding her, or the black grass beneath her knees as she knelt in the middle of the once-green plain. Her panicked screeches subsided momentarily before kicking back again. A tree nearby was unrooted, and MK, clutching her ears, wailed up to the sky as if it could make it all stop.

The first plan of attack was to put the fires out. Spider-Man waved goodbye to the squirrel as it scurried off somewhere safe and was just about to change his canister to anti-flammable when he heard a loud screech. “Mr. Squirrel?” Spidey turned his head this way and that as the tree broke free from the soil and lifted up into the sky. He scrambled off the branch as leaves and twigs shook past him and tumbled off the tree to the burnt ground below (perfect landing, which no one saw).

Then, he saw the woman who caused all this fiery chaos as she screamed up to the heavens for it all to stop. And, Spidey’s heart sunk deep into his stomach. Here was enjoying that small taste of freedom when whatever happened at Oscorp was already ruining lives. Spidey switched out his canister, shot off a couple giant, stretching webs over the nearby fires and then ran over to her as fast as he could.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” He didn’t get too close yet because she might have Johnny Storm powers and those hurt in a hugging scenario. “Hey, I’m your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. I can help!” Spidey didn’t know if he actually could, but just saying so made him feel like it was more than possible. If she looked up at him, there was no doubt that he was The Spider-Man. Gone was the Superior get up in favor of the old school bright reds and blues.

Scattered patches of grass burned, abandoned food carts were overturned, the path surrounding the clearing cracked. Another tree cracked as if some invisible force sawed right through it. Green grass went crispy and dry. Leaves above burst into flames. And, the bloodcurdling howl filled the air as MK dug her fingers into her skull. She heard the thoughts in her mind before she heard his voice echo over her screeches, a boyish sorrow and panic amongst the others that worried and wondered and ran away from the redhead and her crater of destruction.

The screaming stopped suddenly, and the redhead looked down from the smoky sky above to the suited vigilante in front of her. Her green eyes were disarmingly sharp while somehow still clouded by an invisible burden in her mind. His voice sounded so familiar, and then the suit just sealed the deal. Her stomach plummeted, and she shook her head violently, a no no no no NO escaping her lips. More flames burst into existence, and a rock -- a very large rock, an almost boulder-like one -- rose somewhere in the distance and was tossed sloppily into a bench, crumbling the ironwrought seat underneath it.

“No, no, NO! You can’t be here! This isn’t real! Get out of my head!” She tugged at her red hair, fingertips sticky with blood, and she closed her eyes to not look at the vigilante again. Because boy, didn’t he look like her vigilante? He sounded like him, dressed like him, and that just wasn’t fair.

Spider-Man was no stranger to watching people get saddled with powers even he couldn’t imagine. Scarlet Witch, Ms Marvel, and (now hauntingly similar) Jean Grey. Some of them he knew really well, some not so much, but Peter knew the pain this woman was going through. He turned his head, watching as the building inferno circled them and tried to put as many out as he could. She was the one who needed to be saved, though.

“I know, I wouldn’t believe anyone was brave enough to go crime fighting in their pj’s.” He tried to joke and then stepped closer, stupidly, and dropped down to his knees in front of her. “But, it’s real. See?” He held his hands out for her, first turning them over and then leaving the palms up. “Focus on me, okay? Focus on my big head and how my mask makes it look like a balloon.” More jokes in a gentle voice like he was trying to coax a cat out from under a couch or talk a bullied kid out of his favorite hiding spot.

A tiny blast of energy pulsed from what seemed to be her when he knelt down. She could hear in his brain, and she didn’t want him near. Didn’t want anyone near. She just wanted to make it all fucking stop. Her nails dug into her skull, and she sobbed, begging and pleading and telling the spider no. She wanted the hallucination to stop. He had to be a hallucination, even as he insisted his existence. There was no other way he could sound just like her boy. Otherwise, this hotel was a goddamn cruel place. (But, she knew already that it was, didn’t she?)

“No, you can’t be here. Shut up, shut up.” She shook her head again, hands tugging at her hair as mounds of grass and dirt rose slightly in the air before bursting into flames and falling to the ground around them. She couldn’t control it, didn’t even know what was happening aside from the persistent noise in her head like a traffic jam that never ended. “Make it stop. Please,” she pleaded, finally looking at his hands. He had her boy’s colors, and her stomach lurched uncomfortably again, bile rising up along with the splitting headache and the blood staining her scalp. “I keep hearing--I keep hearing--they won’t stop.” She pulled on her hair again, eyes screwing shut.

The surge of energy made him shiver and the mix of earth lifting into the air and things suddenly catching fire sent his spidey senses crazy. He had been in worse situations, of course. It was just that the real force of her power was daunting. “You can hear thoughts.” Spidey, for how dumb he was with most things, could be quick on the uptake when it came to powers. “Here, focus on mine. I’m going to think super hard at you. Totally blocking out all the squirrels around us.” Again with the squirrels, Spidey.

Spider-Man reached out to try and tug her blood stained fingertips away from her skull to hold onto his gloved, webbed hands. “Just look at me or if the mask is too weird close your eyes. Okay? Super easy.” If she looked, she could see him focusing intently on her as if there wasn’t anyone else in New York and that gentle playfulness in his voice never wavered no matter how many fiery things fell around him.

Then, in his mind he started thinking at her. He told her about his Aunt May. How she wasn’t here anymore. He told her about how he didn’t know if he wanted to keep being a scientist once this was all over. He told her the names of all his favorite wrestlers. He told her dumb jokes. He didn’t stop brain talking because if there was one thing Peter Parker was good at, it was being a blabbermouth.

MK had started rocking back and forth as he connected the dots, and she still shook her head when he offered his solution. No, no, touching would make him disappear, make him not real, and as much as it was torture to have him around, the ache in her chest was bittersweet sadness and remembrance. Her body shivered, and the destruction around them bloomed for a moment. More fire, another tree cracked in half, benches bent into themselves. Shrieks of straggling eyewitnesses echoed through the chaos.

But, she didn’t fight his gentle grasp on her hands, and she did look at his face. As much as the sight of blue and red twisted something sharp in her stomach, she couldn’t stop looking at him. The grooves of webbing across his gloves grounded her in a way nothing else had been able to since the hotel had eaten her up and spit her in this comic book city with bright splashes of heroes versus villains. Her fingers slid over his, then up his palm, and she gripped his hand tightly to anchor her there as she focused on that boyish voice in her head. The shake in her body dissipated little by little, and he even earned a slight smile at the joke. The unconscious destruction turned less violent until it stopped completely.

MK did nothing but focus on the thoughts in her head that weren’t hers, green eyes sharp and still blooming with panic. But, the grip on his hands told him she was falling back to the ground, and he was helping. He was helping, and wasn’t that just like spiders to do that? Her boy would have been able to calm her down, too.

His hands held onto hers tightly as if he was the only thing keeping her from slipping off into some void of power-driven madness. A small sigh of relief when the destruction around them started to fade and she seemed there with him. “What’s your name?” He asked out loud after calm started to settle in. Spider-Man knew the mistake of making people he saved his responsibility. He knew it was illogical and maybe at the end of the day he couldn’t do anything for her. Peter had to try. He didn’t care about the risks or what the smart thing to do was. He only cared about the right thing to do.

He didn’t know what the next step was and she could hear his mind try to weave that particular safety net. Shield was a bust, but he trusted the Avengers. Maybe Bucky or Capt would know what to do? Bucky was waiting for him at Oscorp, after all. He could help.

The focus on his thoughts broke slightly at the sound of his voice, and the edges of other voices started to bleed in, but she didn’t start to scream bloody murder again. Scenery stood erect still, trees remained in tact, and her sharp green eyes dulled for a second. Pooling with the exhaustion and defeat that normally coated her life. “Maddie Kate,” she breathed, suddenly wiped out, and she sunk down to sit on the heels of her feet, tiny hands still gripping his like a lifeline. “Most people call me MK. Which must be weird for you, I guess.” A joke? She flickered a smile and tightened her hold on his hands. Because MK had a goddamn intimate knowledge of Spider-Man through the eyes of his redhead, though maybe not this particular red-and-blue spider.

And that didn’t even take into account how closely having him there hit home. She tried not to think about her boy or how he would make jokes just like that, and instead focused on the rushing thoughts in his brain about the next step. A shake of her head showed dissent. She remembered the Avengers from Adam’s talk of comic books, and the way he told it (as far as she remembers) skewed her opinions away from them. And she didn’t even know who the hell Bucky was.

He looked around the ruined park and then back at her. This was progress, though if she ended up like this he feared how everyone else did. “Well, MK, that is super duper weird.” Peter kept the positivity going. It usually pissed off about a quarter of his teammates. Luckily, a lot of people he rescued seemed to enjoy it. “Maddie Kate is a pretty name.” Spider-Man suddenly felt weird for saying so. He shook his head. “I mean pretty- awesome! So awesome. I bet you do skateboard tricks and...stuff.” Wow, tubular recovery there, Spider-Man!

Peter got to his feet without letting her hands go, keeping a hold on her to help her back up. “Okay, no Avengers.” He knew what the shake of the head was. “Can I take you somewhere safe? I’ll check on you, I promise!”

For MK, the positivity was familiarity, a salve and a stab to the heart simultaneously. “You remind me of someone,” slipped from her mouth before she could help it, her voice rough and raspy from the screaming. She smiled at the stammering jokes about her name, shaking her head again and pulling herself up off the floor. The destruction dissipated completely by now, but it was clear as day that the wrong word or action could tip her back. The redhead had an air of heaviness and trauma about her; even if Spidey couldn’t read minds, he could probably see that powers manifesting weren’t her only problems.

She rocked a little on her feet, leaning into his body as leverage, and the exhaustion was evident. The headache still pounded, and the blood was only beginning to congeal at the back of her skull. She was pale, purple circles beginning to grow more and more noticeable. “No Avengers. Adam--no Avengers.” The weakness didn’t really add to her argument, and the headache was so awful she was almost ready to agree to anything. But, MK was anything if not stubborn. “But Delilah. My niece--I can’t just…”

Spider-Man didn’t ask, he just picked MK up with one sweeping motion so she didn’t have to keep struggling to stand. He was going to swing her off to safety, anyway, so this wasn’t just for her health. “I hope whoever I remind you of was better at talking to girls.” He quipped. She was nothing in his arms. Like carrying a bag of groceries. “No Avengers. Don’t worry. Hmm. Somewhere quiet? Maybe the hotel? I’ve wandered around and there’s plenty of quiet places. And, it’s basically empty most of the time.”

If he was lucky, her powers would be muted out there. This hotel was magic, right? So, it wouldn’t let one of its dolls burn the place down. Comic book logic! “Your niece is under your care? Is there anyone else- this Adam dude? Who can look after her while you get all of this figured out?” Spider-Man was a little rusty at crime fighting. Taking care of people? That always came naturally.

There was a sound of protest, but her body was too weak for the effort of a fight. Her arms looped around his neck to steady herself, but she felt safe in his arms. Whether that was Spider-Man’s own reassurances or recalling how her boy always made her feel safe, however, was unclear. “He wasn’t, but that’s part of what I liked about him.” The past tense of that twisted another wound in her stomach, but the loopiness of her headache and the buzz of constant voices in her head made her more willing to talk about things than she’d been in months. Years, even.

She made noise at the back of her throat, appreciation for avoiding the Avengers (at least for now), and she had no argument for the hotel. That fucking hotel, the root of so many problems, maybe it would give her a break for once. A few hours of a semblance of sanity to collect her thoughts. “Yeah. Yeah, quiet is good.” She nodded before it melted into a shake of her head. “Adam is...he isn’t here right now.” Truthfully, she didn’t know where the fuck Adam was, and she had taken to hoping he would still come back to her at the end of the day. “She’s at after-school right now. I don’t--maybe she’s fine there.” Another shake of her head. She knew Wren and Luke were around, but why would they want to help her? “I can’t be around her like this. I can’t let her get hurt.”

“I’ll make sure she has a safe place to stay after school.” Spider-Man promised and boy wasn’t he making a lot of promises lately? “Hotel it is. I’ll open the door for you now and then I’ll message you once I make sure the city is safe.” That was all superhero talk. Save the girl, save the city, be home in time for dinner. All of it was clicking back into place so fast that he was a little afraid Ock would take it away the second he was starting to have his life back. He thought that made too much sense and imagined Ock actually trying to pretend to be him and had to do everything not to throw up in his mask. Super villains made him sick and now there was one in his head.

Spider-Man shook his head, grounding his feet back on planet earth and turned to look at her. “Ready?” And he was already fishing out his key to open the magical hotel door.