It was hard to believe that just a few weeks ago, he’d been happy. Happier than he’d been in a long time. Happier, probably, than he’d had any right being when the world was in such a bad state.
Maybe this was the universe punishing Wanda, punishing him for having had such hope at his and Kamala’s wedding.
Peter didn’t heal as fast as he once had, but he still healed faster than most people. He hadn’t bothered going to La Nina after his encounter with Wanda. The bruises would fade by tomorrow. His shoulder – he thought he’d sprained it, maybe dislocated it – would heal within the week.
He stepped into the room he shared with Kamala and closed the door behind him. And then he stopped, leaned his back against it, and slid down, knees pulled to his chest, forehead resting on them. It wasn’t the physical pain that made it impossible for him to get back to his feet.
When Kamala first arrived, or at least in the first few months in this world, she so badly wanted her mother to be there. Which made sense considering she had only been sixteen. She missed her family greatly. Eventually, people of Vallo, people from her own world she had yet to meet had become her family. And then things got so bad that Kamala was actually relieved her mother wasn’t here to see it anymore. Even if it hurt not to have her at the wedding.
Still, it was a joyous occasion and despite the amount of people they lost during that first battle and the subsequent loss of homes and safe places, Kamala had been grinning like a lovesick idiot the entire time.
She would have been doing exactly that just then if her husband hadn’t come in looking utterly defeated.
“Peter?” She didn’t waste a second crossing the room and falling to her knees in front of him. “What happened?”
“Wanda,” Peter said into his knees, and then he forced himself to lift his head to look at his wife. He wasn’t crying, not yet, but his eyes shimmered with the unshed tears. “Wanda… Interitus took her. She’s been…” He caught his hands in his hair. “Wanda’s a thrall, Kamala.”
Kamala’s heart dropped into her stomach. Maybe past her stomach. To her feet or further. She never expected to feel her heart plummet the way it did not just for the woman who had become a surrogate mother of sorts to Peter as well as a second one to Kamala, but for Peter as well, who looked so broken.
“Oh,” she managed to breathe out. “Oh god.”
Peter reached out to Kamala and pulled her in close to him. He should probably get up. Do something. But right now, all he wanted to do, all he thought he was capable of doing, was holding his wife.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do. Wanda’s… Wanda’s powerful.” She was, possibly, one of Interitus’ strongest thralls. He knew that would make her a target for the Rebellion. Maybe they were right. Maybe it would be best if they took her out.
But Peter couldn’t let that happen, wouldn’t let that happen. “I’m going to get through to her,” he said after a moment, and then winced. No one had been able to get through to any of the thralls yet. But maybe science could do what sentimentality couldn’t. “At the very least, I need to stop her from hurting people.”
Kamala’s arms encircled him right away, a muscle memory at this point with how long they had been together. She knew he wouldn’t give up on Wanda, obviously, nor would anyone else close to Wanda, but it still sent a jolt through her heart. Wanda was indeed very powerful, and that’s why it shouldn’t have been surprising that Interitus aimed to turn her into a thrall working for the enemy side. The thought of that power in their hands meant that it was so easy for her to physically hurt others too, including Peter…
“We can’t go that route,” she said, despite the fear of losing her husband. “We can’t just decide to eliminate other people without trying.” Kamala hugged him just a little tighter as she spoke. “She could still be in there… right?”
“I didn’t mean…” Peter started, and then stopped. What did he mean?
Peter didn’t want to kill anyone. He went out of his way to make sure he didn’t. But if push came to shove, if it was a matter of needing to kill Wanda to save someone else… Would he? If killing the thrall that was Wanda meant saving Kamala, or Kate, or Dustin, would he do it?
He would. He thought he would, at least.
“Honestly, I don’t know if I can,” he said. “Like, physically. I think Wanda’s got me beat there. And I know she’s in there. I know there’s a way we can get through to her. There’s got to be. She’s not gone.” She couldn’t be gone. Peter had lost too many people in his life already. “But I won’t let her kill someone else, not if I can stop her. And I hope that means that I’ll, I don’t know, tie her up until I can get whoever it is away. My first priority is always going to be to save everyone.”
Kamala was silent for a bit, thinking along the same lines as him. Killing was last resort, and thankfully, she never felt like she had to do it, but things seemed to be worsening throughout the years that maybe there would come a time where she would have to make the decision: a friend who has been thralled for a loved one. She wasn’t entirely sure she would have the willpower to do it.
She leaned back slightly to bring her hands to Peter’s face. “I don’t know how it works… and hopefully, she’s in there. But I think if there’s anyone who can pull her out of it, it would be you. You would be one of the few with a better chance at it.” At least since Tommy and Billy had been sent away. But there was no telling if they would have been turned too if they had stuck around. Interitus liked his soldiers powerful, and they all were.
“I wish Billy and Tommy were still here,” Peter said. And then winced. “Well, maybe I don’t. Maybe they’d try harder than me, and maybe they’d get themselves killed, and then Wanda would have that on her conscience. Or maybe they wouldn’t, but then they’d have to see their mom like that. I wish Stephen were still here though.”
If anyone had the connection with Wanda and the powers to back it up, it was Stephen. He had a vague inkling that Billy might be able to manage it, but he’d never really learned the true extent of Billy’s powers before he’d been blipped.
He turned his face in Kamala’s hands to kiss her palm. “Thank you,” he said at last. “I should probably get off the floor, huh?” He managed a wan smile.
Kamala let out a slight laugh but it hiccuped and turned into a sob. “Sorry,” she said, unable to keep back any of it anymore. God, she missed them all. She wanted the days of their D&D games featuring trash animals back then, when they just had to worry about college classes and getting jobs, when the only reasons Kamala had to cry was because she missed her mom and dad and Aamir.
Now she missed everyone she lost. And her family back in their world. Everything was falling apart.
“Hey. It’s okay, I don’t have to get off the floor. I didn’t know it would upset you.” Peter knew that getting up wasn’t what had upset her, but it was easier to joke about it. He pulled her toward him, turning her gently as he did so so he could wrap his arms around her, could fit her like a puzzle piece against him, chest to back. “We can sit here all night.”
In between the tears, Kamala did laugh again. She let herself cry for a little while longer, holding onto him. When they subsided, she simply said, “I love you, Peter.” Because she didn’t know what would happen tomorrow, and she would hate for him not to have heard her say that even if he already knew it to be true.
“I love you too, K,” Peter said, planting a kiss in her hair. “Always and forever.”