Chapter Text
Peter’s mind was different from any she had been in. Jean figured she should’ve not been surprised, knowing that Peter, out of everyone else, was the only one to ever resist her powers. The only reason she was in was that he had let her.
A part of her had a feeling that she could have forced herself in if she wanted. If she was truly using her power, but Jean wasn’t sure.
Everyone’s mind was chaotic, weird, and was like floating in space with memories and emotions swirling around her like stars. To view something, Jean merely had to pluck it out and read it like a book.
Peter’s mind was more organised. More like a real world of its own. Jean walked into memories and feelings as if she had lived them. She had walked into his house, and into his room. Sat on his bed, watching the rays of sunlight illuminating a nice room that was clearly lived in and reflected its owner. And Jean was being hugged, after she was comforted with words, by a woman that she had never known, but now wished she had met a long time ago.
Aunt May. Peter’s Aunt May had embraced her as if she was her own nephew, her own child. And from the perspective of the memory, Jean, for all intents and purposes, was that. Aunt May smelled of vanilla and cinnamon and was as warm as the sun itself on a nice summer afternoon.
Jean had forgotten the last time she had been hugged like this. Maybe Sara did, but for some reason, the memories weren’t forthcoming. Her own mother was never nice to her or her sister, as if she always knew that her daughters were different. She had never hugged them for sure, Jean knew. So this warmth… this intimacy was something almost new and completely foreign to her.
How long had it been since she could feel something like this around anyone? No ulterior motives. No hate. Not secrets.
Just unconditional love.
Even still, it took Jean a long minute before she could return the hug and have her arms around Aunt May. Her shoulders shook, and Jean barely managed to stop herself from starting to cry. She didn’t know how long they stayed like this, but then the older woman pulled back. Jean wanted to see what she’d say or do next, but she seemed to pause in place alongside the memory.
There was a movement behind her, and she found the owner of said memory standing at the door, leaning on its frame as he watched her with a warm, soft smile on his handsome face.
He wore his Spider-Man suit, but with no mask in sight. He stood straight even while leaning against the door; his form strong, protective, and heroic. But his face showed how young he was. How exhausted, tired and just as broken as her.
Here in that moment, Jean knew she wasn’t seeing Spider-Man or Peter Parker. She was witnessing both.
The looks Peter was giving her were clear. He had seen her struggles, her loss, her anger, her vengeance and her loneliness. He had seen everything about her; seen the broken bird that she was, and yet he didn’t reject her now.
No. Peter looked at her with acceptance. He looked at her like he was offering her a hand extended to drag her out of the depths of her anger and fear. His whole mind basically screamed that truth to her.
“Hey.” He gently waved for her with a small smile, walking towards her slowly as if trying not to spook her. Jean knew that he wasn’t afraid of her, but rather afraid for her. “I hope you’re feeling better,” he said, sitting beside her on the bed. His weight on the bed was familiar and belonged there, and Jean found that she didn’t mind him sitting so close to her. “Look, Jean… I’m sorry about what happened to you and your sister.”
With his hazel brown eyes looking into her own green ones, there was no denying his sincerity. “T-Thank you.” She barely replied. “And… I’m sorry too… About what you went through… and about your aunt.”
Peter looked over his shoulder at his frozen aunt with a fond smile before turning to Jean. “Yeah… Aunt May was amazing; you’d have loved her for sure…” He looked at her, and his smile widened. “And she’d have loved you.”
Jean wanted to scoff. She wanted to laugh at him for suggesting that anyone would’ve loved her, but she had come to know May through Peter’s memories, and knew that he was right. Aunt May was amazing, and if there was anyone capable of loving a monster like her, it was Aunt May.
So she only ducked her head, avoiding his eyes for a moment.
Peter’s hand tentatively reached out for hers, and she let him hold them.
“Look… Jean. I came to learn that just because we lost someone, it didn’t mean that we have to spend our lives alone,” he said, using his other hand to touch her chin and lift her face so she was looking him in the eyes again. “Trust me. Being alone sucks, and it would never work out. You need to let people in.”
Jean said nothing for a long moment, absorbing his words before she softly said, “Even if it’s true… I don’t have anyone… not anymore. No one would accept me.”
Jean knew that she was a monster. A villain. A thing. She was a mutant; a freak of nature in human skin. She was the ph—
“You have me.”
Peter said so simply and so softly, and yet it completely froze Jean. For a moment, she thought she had imagined. That her broken, desperate mind had conjured the words that she so desperately wanted to hear from someone. That it was all an illusion.
But Jean knew that he really did say those words. She saw the truth and sincerity in his eyes. She saw that Peter really was willing to be there for her. To be her lifeline; her support pillar; her very rock in the storm of her life.
“Y-You…” For a moment she didn’t know what to say. Then, Jean did what she always did best. “N-No. You don’t mean that. Don’t you remember what I’ve done? What I tried to do to you? What I did to your…” She trailed off, both because she knew she didn’t have to say her name, but also because Peter didn’t lose his smile or change his expression yet.
“I know, Jean. I won’t pretend that you didn’t hurt me, but I don’t hate you, Jean; I forgive you.” She looked at him in disbelief. “You were hurt, lonely, and lashing out at the world. I can understand that.” His smile was gentle as he squeezed her hands. “I can’t just leave you when I know what you’ve been through. I can’t just abandon you. I wasn’t raised like that, and honestly, I’d be a shitty hero if I didn’t extend my hand for you… But it’s not because I’m Spider-Man… It’s because I want to be there for you, Jean…”
“You really believe that?” Jean was truly shocked that someone would say these words and mean them. If it was someone else, she’d have thought it was some cruel joke to get her to get her guard down, but Jean knew that Peter was nothing like that. The young man in front of her would never do anything like that.
Peter nodded. “I can’t say that our lives are exactly the same, but we both went through a lot. We both lost our place in the world. We’re both lonely. Don’t you think it’d be better if we stuck together?”
A small part, the part that was in charge for so long as a defence mechanism, of Jean wanted her to reject his words. To deny him. To call him a liar or that he had some ulterior motive. But Jean knew it wasn’t the case. She knew Peter was being sincere and truthful. She knew that there were no strings attached, and that Peter was willing to accept all of her even after everything she did.
It was like finding an oasis in the desert.
“You’ll abandon me? You’ll not leave me then?” Jean asked, hope rising in her chest for the first time in her life.
“As long as you’ll have me… I’ll always be there for you, Jean.”
Jean barely contained a choked sob. Somewhere deep in here, she had always hoped to hear those words from someone in her life, especially after she lost her sister. But could I accept this? Trust this? Wouldn’t he change his mind later? I…
“You can trust him, Jean.” A feminine voice pulled her out of her thoughts. Peter didn’t seem to notice it or react to it. “You can trust, Peter. Always.”
Jean looked over to where Aunt May was. She was the one who said those words, but her voice was different. Her hair was the same shade of Jean’s hair; that impossible red that made her stand out everywhere. Her eyes were two molten suns, and her face wasn’t that of Aunt May.
Who is that? Why does she seem familiar?
Before she could ask, Jean found herself being flung from her place. The world around her, the memory and Peter, shattered like glass as Jean was sent flying with a violent shake that came out of nowhere. She could feel Peter’s mind around her. It was in shock, weakening and struggling.
What’s happening? Peter!
Jean came back into the real world with a violent shove. She saw what happened before when she was lost in Peter’s mind and memories. A red laser pointing at her head. Peter throwing himself into the path of the bullet without hesitation, getting hit, and the force of the impact shoving him back into Jean. It all led to Jean on her butt, Peter between her hands, looking up to her with a smile as his face paled.
“Are you hurt, Jean?”
Jean's mind still struggled to make sense of it all before she noticed something staining her fingers where she had touched him. Jean stared at the red colour that was rapidly leaving Peter’s body for a painfully long moment, struggling to comprehend what it was until it hit her.
It was blood. Peter’s blood.
“No…” Jean could barely believe her eyes. Peter in her arms, mortally injured, and dying. Just after he had promised to always be there for her. “No. No. NoNoNONONONO!” Jean was shaking, trying to deny what she was seeing. The wound was wide, in a place that was dangerous to get hit. Her skin was rapidly paling, and blood was pooling in her lap and under them. “Peter! No, please!” Peter’s breath was going shallow and uneven like he was suffocating, struggling to breathe. Jean could feel the strength leaving Peter’s limbs.
“Please. Please, Peter, don’t leave me too.” She had lost her sister, and just when she thought she had gained an anchor, she was going to lose it too? “PleasePleasePleasePleasePeterPeter! Aaa…” Jean wanted to scream. She was screaming.
“J-Jean,” his voice cut her off, and she looked down at him. “You need to get away.” His voice was weak, strangled, and unlike either Peter Parker’s or Spider-Man’s. “They’ll be looking for you… They are coming.” Agents and what remained of the Hand whom she had lost control of. Even now, Metzger was somewhere near them.
He… He’s thinking of me when he’s like this. “No, I don’t care!” She didn’t care who came; Jean wasn’t going to leave Peter’s side. “J-Just hold on! Stay with me, Peter, I beg you.” She didn’t want Peter to die. She didn’t want people to die, well, aside from those that took her sister from her.
None of this was supposed to happen, but she hadn’t thought she’d find the likes of Peter. Ever. And now, she was going to lose him?
Fuck that!
Peter Parker wasn’t supposed to die. He wasn’t going to die. She couldn’t allow it because if it happened... If it were to happen, then down that path… Jean knew, instinctively, that down that path lay FIRE.
She used every aspect she knew of her powers to search his body to see what was wrong. She was no healer, and didn’t know how to heal. If only I could do something like that. But Jean was determined to find some way to keep Peter alive. I. AM. NOT. GOING TO LOSE PETER.
“J-Jean, please, just go,” Peter whispered weakly, knowing that she knew people were coming in. All, besides maybe one, were a danger to her. Metzger, who was in his chair, was scrambling to get up, and she knew he had a hidden gun he wanted to use. Angered. Pissed off. Jean reached into his mind. Into everyone’s mind.
Every DODC agent. Every Hand member. Every single police officer. Every civilian: adults, children, and even babies. The birds that flew above the state of New York; the animals that lived in it; and even the insects that scurried in dark crevices of the state. She was them. She was everyone who lived in this damned land, and she was the land itself.
And she used her control.
Those who weren’t in danger, like those driving or in precarious positions, simply snapped and fell unconscious. Drivers stopped their cars slowly and slumped asleep in their seats. The enemies she left them with bumps and bruises from falls before darkness claimed them. Birds, dragged from every corner of the state, blotted the sky.
Every gun and weapon used by the Hand and Agents were crushed like a child would crush paper.
And she didn’t really understand it, doing it unconsciously as all of her real focus was on Peter and no one else.
Jean saw that one of Peter’s arteries was cut alongside damage to tissues in the area. She had only recently learnt how to use her telekinesis, but she knew there was no chance to mess things up. As carefully as she could, she used her telekinesis to compress the artery and then “glued” the end parts together. It was tough; the hardest thing that she had ever had to do. A single mistake and she’d basically kill him with her own hands.
“J-Jean, y—”
“Ssh,” she gently put her finger on his lips; they were cold. “I’m here, Peter. I’ll never leave you.” There was possessiveness in her voice that she didn’t give any thought to. One arm held him close to her chest, and the free hand grasped one of his, interlocking their fingers together.
How could she leave? After he saved her from her own dark path? After he offered her his memories willingly? After he accepted her, regardless of what she did to him, and told her he’d be beside her? Jean knew that she couldn’t let go of her tether or she would no longer be the woman she was…
He was still weak. His breathing wasn’t good, and it looked like he’d simply suffocate if nothing was done.
“Step away from him.” There were sounds of heavy boots crunching something on the ground, and the metallic click of a gun. The one person she had let go; one who was willing to kill her if she stepped out of line, was there. “Step away from the kid. You have till three, or I’ll shoot.”
Jean turned towards him and saw Frank Castel take a step back. The hands that held the pistol aimed at her head wavered for a moment as he looked into her eyes. But Jean didn’t see him, not really, for she was focused on Peter, lost to the world. “I’m Fire…”
“What?” Frank was as confused as Jean would’ve been had she heard herself, but he yelped as the gun in his hand caught fire before it quickly melted, forcing him to let go of it.
“What are you?” He questioned, but Jean’s attention was on how she was going to try to save Peter, whose breathing had almost stopped. “Get away from Peter!”
The name snapped her out of her daze, and Jean looked at Frank, blinking at him, seeing him for the first time. “I can’t. I won’t… Never.”
“What did you say?” Frank pulled out another pistol from somewhere. “I said step away.”
“If I do, Peter dies,” Jean said, showing him the wound. “I’m barely holding him together. I…” Peter needed to breathe… She…
An idea came to Jean, and she slipped into Peter’s body, nothing stopping her now. She started breathing, synchronising his breathing with her. His was too slow. Hers was too fast. Come on. Come on. She slowed down her breathing and sped up his.
In, she thought, trying to figure it out, hold, then release. Repeat the process. She could hear her heartbeat alongside Peter’s, and she focused on it, closing her eyes.
Then… they breathed. Together, they breathed as one. Peter’s chest moved enough that he was no longer in danger as their heart beat at the same time.
Their observer seemed to have realised the gist of what was happening, his hand lowering the second pistol. “What’re you doing?”
“I’m keeping him alive,” Jean said, her eyes only on Peter’s form. “I won’t let him die.”
If he dies, then we bring him back.
The thought was foreign, and nothing like her own voice, but she was distracted from paying any attention to it by Frank. “You expect me to believe that?” He asked, though his voice was filled with doubt.
“I don’t give a shit what you believe,” Jean said, turning to look at him again, her emerald eyes like two pits of wildfire. “I’m doing everything in my power to keep him alive. If you want to make yourself useful, then grab a car and help me take him to a hospital. I can keep him stable until then, but I’m not a doctor. But if I leave, then he’ll bleed to death… and you won’t like the consequences.”
She saw Frank’s eyes go to Peter, and saw the guilt in his eyes, knowing that it was his bullet that put Peter like this. If he wasn’t aiming at her, and he was actually aiming at Peter, then he’d not be alive at that moment.
It took a couple of moments before he nodded, looking softly at Peter and holstering his pistol. “If you don’t keep your words… If this is a game… I’ll end you.”
You’ll try. “I won’t. I swear on my sister’s life.”
[0000000000]
When they neared the hospital, Jean reached out with her powers, awakening those who were still asleep, sending those who would help to the front door. Her powers made it so not a single person would be able to tell what her face, Frank’s and Peter’s looked like. Every one of them would give a different answer, and none would be the truth.
Peter was rushed in for emergency surgery, and Jean had to leave her hope in the hands of doctors. And for someone who trusted no one, aside from Peter, it was hard. So she reached into the doctors’ minds, removing any exhaustion or anything that may push them to make a mistake, and forced them to do their best to save Peter’s life.
With nothing else to do but wait, Jean walked in front of Operation Room like a caged animal. Her mind was reaching for Peter’s, waiting for any sign that something had gone right… or wrong.
“Why did you do it?” Frank’s question snapped her out of her daze.
“Do what?”
“Save the kid.”
“He’s not safe yet,” Jean replied, looking away. She hated how weak she was when it mattered. She couldn’t save her sister, and now the only thing she could do was hold Peter together long enough for others to save him.
Frank grunted. “You know what I mean.”
Jean considered not answering, but she didn’t want to be stuck in her own head either. “He saved me first.”
Frank looked down, strangely awkward, and guilt rolled off him. “Cuz he took a bullet for you then.”
Jean shook her head. He had saved her then, but no, that was merely saving her physically. “He saved me before that… mentally.” She looked at Frank. “If it weren’t for that… I’d probably have been simply shocked, but bolted the moment this happened.”
Frank looked at her for a long moment before nodding. “I can understand that.”
Jean doubted that, but she didn’t care to argue. She had no energy left for the moment, feeling the most exhausted she had ever felt in her life. She slumped down beside the door that separated her from Peter, resting her back on the wall.
Still… there was something left to do. If she wanted to stay beside Peter. If she didn’t want to be the result of a tragedy for him, then she could no longer be a fugitive and have people after her. She couldn’t invite that into Peter’s life. His was hard enough as is, especially while dealing with her. There was no need to make life worse for him.
With the last of her strength, Jean reached out again. She easily found the minds of the people she was after. Metzger was one, and she didn’t even need to slip into his disgusting body to be able to control it this time. It felt right; rather, it felt the correct way to use her power rather than the possession her sister had taught her. She had him delete every single file or date they had on her, her sister, and anything that might harm Peter. She did the same for the police, using a few officers before she reached out further into the mind of every person that was involved. Into every civilian, agent, police officer, and Hand ninja.
And Jean Grey no longer existed in their minds.
It wasn’t much different to the spell Doctor Strange did for Peter. Everything that happened during this period no longer involved Jean. They didn’t remember her name; her looks; her powers; or the existence of her sister. Instead, a girl that didn’t exist took Jean’s place in their mind while Peter’s heroics remained.
Jean made it so no one would come after her anymore. Not because she was afraid for herself, but because she thought that was the only way Peter could be by her side. Especially if she didn’t want them to go after him.
Only a few people had their memories intact: Peter, Frank Castle, DeWolff, the woman named Yelena, and Peter’s friends.
People Peter trusted and cared for.
It was exhausting… All of it. Jean felt someone shake, barely registering that it was Frank, and that she was talking to herself. Before she could black out completely, she reached out for Peter’s mind and sent all of her hopes to him to give him strength. Peter had to live.
“I’m life incarnate—”
Jean’s consciousness drifted away, not noticing the look Frank was giving her, dreaming of a massive web and at its centre, a massive fiery bird and a terrible spider danced.
[0000000000]