"Steven, look! I just got an autograph from the Avengers!" Rose runs over to him with glee, excitedly shoving a poster to his face with Clint and Natasha's signatures on it.
"Oh, you should definitely hang this on your wall! I got it signed by Black Widow and Hawkeye! Isn't it amazing?"
"M-Mom! I don't need a poster from ━from a neighborhood security watch?" Steven looks at the twins questioningly then turns to stare back at Rose. "Wait. What did you just call them?"
"Oh, Steven. Don't be ridiculous! They're the most well known superheroes across the globe!" Rose's gem shone briefly, storing the poster in. Steven stiffens as she gives him a side embrace. "Well, don't just stand there! Go and meet them! I'm sure you can take a selfie with them right after your Dad has his back signed." Rose giggles, causing Steven to stare dumbfoundedly at his father as he gets his back signed by Agent Barton.
"This is so weird, man," Clint mutters after writing his signature on Greg's back with a marker.
"Are you kidding? This tattoo is authentic already!" Greg muses.
The familiar laughing track erupts and Steven is quickly reminded of this uncharted territory, supposedly created by Billy and Tommy's mother.
"I don't need an autograph," He shakes his head, and pulls away from Rose's embrace. "I…I need to find Billy and Tommy's mother."
Rose then looks at him in bewilderment.
"Oh! You met the Maximoff twins already?"
"Uh, hey…Steven's mom?" Tommy interrupts awkwardly, waving at Rose.
"Hello, Miss Universe," Billy adds hesitantly.
"Oh, look at you two!" Rose dove in and quickly scooped them both in a big hug. "Aren't they adorable, Steven? Have the three of you been hanging out this whole morning?"
"Mom put them down," Steven tells her warily, seeing as the gem lifted them both off the ground in her embrace quite effortlessly.
"Oh, sorry," Rose meekly says, immediately putting both boys down. "I'm just really excited to meet you both! Just as excited to be here in Eastview!" She waves a hand at the red magic constructing the newly manifested town. "Wow, your mother surely has a keen eye for details and everything."
"Wait," Steven butts in, turning to his mother with wide eyes.
"You can see that?" He points to the powerful magic, shimmering as the people around them are now looking fully complete.
"The red sparkly thing?" Rose tilts her head to the side. "Well, yeah."
Steven gawks at her in disbelief. "You're aware?! This whole time?!"
"Shtu-ball, look!" Greg calls him over, his back facing him as he points a finger to Natasha and Clint's signature. "Isn't this rad?"
"Dad! What the hell?" Steven covers his face with his palm in embarrassment.
"It is soooo rad, darling! The raddest rad!" Rose jumps in for support, but before she could go and check the tattoo on his back, Steven stops her.
"Mom! You seriously can't be serious right now!"
Rose turns to look down on him with concern. "Is everything alright, Steven?"
"Alright? You call this alright?!" Steven yells, hands expanding to show his frustrations. "You know we're somehow trapped here, don't you? And yet you act like you're━you're part of this weird and crazy fantasy or whatever."
Gone was the glee on her face as Rose faced her son, lips stretched to a thin line and brows furrowed. "What…What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about this!" He waves his arms, gesturing to the whole town of Eastview and the people around them. "You have something to do with this, I know you do! What, you hurt Billy and Tommy's mom before or something?"
"Steven━I…I don't follow━"
"Stop lying to me! Stop lying in front of my face!" Steven snaps. He's angry, so incredibly angry. "You've lied to the Crystal Gems! You've lied to the Diamonds! To Spinel! You probably must have lied to Dad too!" Tears start to stream down his face as he glares at Rose, who now looks incredibly puzzled and dejected.
And like switching off a light, Rose's expression changed.
"Everything I've done. Everything I did. It was all for them." She responds with a steely gaze, instantly acting nothing like before. She blinks, shaking her head a bit. Steven stares in confusion as she now looks back at him in complete shock.
"Ste-Steven?..." Rose mumbles, eyes watering as she regards him up and down. He watches her collapse, down on her knees and hands placed on her mouth as she cries silently. "Steven?" She repeats, still in shock. "Is…is that really you?"
Steven is silent as he watches his mom break down to a sob. His first instinct was to instantly comfort her, but he held back. He still isn't sure if his mom is making a show of herself or not. There's still the fact that she could have been manifested by the weird red magic as the rest of the people to fill in the town, but the more she cries and calls his name in desperation, the more it's making his head spin.
"It's me," He croaks out, wiping his tears with his sleeve. "But I don't know if it's really you,"
Rose stands up shakily, going over to him with a hand reaching out. He flinched at the display, so Rose immediately held back, hands now clasped together in her chest. They stared at one another in silence, ignoring the twins who were gaping at them awkwardly, or Greg, who was still raving about the signature of the two agents marked on his back.
She collapses to her knees again. "H-How…are we both here?"
Steven rubs his arm timidly, looking away. "That's what I've been trying to figure out."
"Is this…real?"
"I don't know,"
"Rose!" Greg calls out, now shirtless and with only his fitting pants serving as his piece of clothing. "Whoa, why are you two crying?"
"Greg?" Rose turns to him in disbelief. "Y-You're here too…wait━"
Steven watches her as she holds her head in her hands, her eyes briefly telling him that she was remembering something. She looks up to meet his gaze, a look that tells him she knows the answer to something, and briefly glances at the twins than to the two agents behind Greg.
Clint slowly poses in alarm, his hand edging to reach his arrows while Natasha steps ahead in front of him, eyes analyzing both mother and son.
"So it's not just him. It's you both ," The agent's eyes widened in realization. Barton swiftly breaks out two arrows and displays his bow, ready for an attack.
"Whoa, whoa━wait-" Steven held his hands up, alarmed by their hostile reaction. He glances briefly at Rose, who stepped in front of him and swiftly summoned her shield.
"Stay behind me, Steven!"
"Hold on a sec!" He eyes the two agents desperately, the red glow in their eyes overlapping the pink on Rose's weapon. "Just━Just…wait! Everybody, please, can we just━"
"Is that how you got in here?" Natasha spits venomously, side-eyeing Rose who only enlarged her shield to protect both herself and her son. "You got here through her?"
"I…I don't know what you're talking about━"
" Y̶͓͝o̴̮͑u̷̜͆'̸̞̍r̴͚͝e̵̼͝ ̷̝́n̶͉̿o̵͓͂t̶̻͛ ̷͓̾ŵ̶̫e̸̯͗l̴̟͝c̸͈̐ó̷̫m̵͙̈e̸̮͑ ̸̖͠h̶̡͌ė̶͔r̷̛̯ȩ̷͠,̴̨͝"
"Leave my son alone!" Rose shoves her shield forward, spinning it for an attack directly at Natasha. The agent jumps to avoid the gigantic disk whirling in the air and Clint looks back as it decapitates a tree in half.
Steven gapes as his former weapon dissipates, thinking for a second that the tree broken by the shield looked convincing enough to be real, only for the red magic to glitch around the spot and pop it back, apparently unharmed once again.
"Tell your mom to screw off! You're not supposed to be here, kid." Clint fires his arrows, the bolted weapons curving around the gem's newly summoned shield and instantly going off behind her in an explosion. Steven is sent blasting away a few feet in the air. He feels a familiar rush on his skin, seeing things in a haze until Tommy popped too close for comfort in his view.
"Dude, I think Mom's pissed at you and your Mom." He tells him grimly, setting him down on someone else's lawn. They both jumped at the sound of pistols firing off. A block away, Natasha and Clint were engaging with the gem, who had now fully recovered from the explosion and was adrift in the air.
"Steven?!" Rose calls out in alarm, head whipping back and forth. She swerves to avoid another arrow to the face and pops her bubble in protection as she lands back on the ground.
Steven quickly gets up and runs to where the fight is going on, ignoring Tommy's pleas. "Mom! Mom! I'm right here!"
Rose turns in his direction while still inside her bubble, relief prevalent on her face. She ignores the bullets bouncing off her rounded protection and yells back at her son in genuine fear and concern.
"Stay where you are, Steven! I'll come to you!"
Steven gasps as an arrow whizzes past his face and above his ear. To his horror, he feels a drop of blood trickling warmly down his cheek.
"̷̢̖͍̣̞̒̓̋Why do you come for her when you were clear that she was nothing more than a monster?̶̳͠"
The voice hisses inside his head, his chest immediately feeling tight as his mind begins to spin yet again.
Like Billy's, there was an immediate probing on his head. Several flashes of his memory as a monster played for him to see.
And it hurts.
"̷̢̖͍̣̞̒̓̋ I don't want to do this anymore, but you're forcing my hand."̷̢̖͍̣̞̒̓̋
It wasn't like how he remembered.
The gems had told him that he never hurt any townspeople when he got out of control as a monster in Beach City, yet, what he was seeing as memory has turned into a complete nightmare.
Piles of dead bodies were everywhere. Some rotting on the sides, while others are so dismembered that they are easily mistaken as clumps of meat. There were shattered gems too, and Steven is shaken to see what looked like Peridot, Bismuth, and Lapis' gems in pieces. He feels himself roar in his monster form, a horrifying shriek shaking the entire city. Eventually, the Diamond's ship looms above him but only White comes out.
"Having fun, Pink? Maybe killing your friends over your little rampage would be enough for you to finally come home." She smiles eerily, her hand inching closer to take out his gem in his corrupted form.
'No. no. no. no. Stay away! STAY AWAY!'
"STAY AWAY!"
"Steven!" He wakes up crying, hands over his head.
"Steven, it's alright! It's only me!" Rose exclaims, her arms wrapped around him protectively. They were both inside her bubble.
He looks around in fear, heart hammering in his chest. "W-Where…w-what?"
"...We're still in Eastview," Rose tells him gently. "I came as fast as I could. You just started screaming and fell holding your head in pain." Steven notices her eyes were wet with tears. "It seems like my healing powers worked just fine, for now." She sighs.
And then it hit him.
He eyes the placement of his gem on his mother's belly, seeing it glow for a briefest of seconds.
"That's…that's why it doesn't work," He whispers, turning his full attention to Rose. "I'm separated again…"
"What?" Rose stares at him in confusion.
"I was separated before," He tries to elaborate. "Before, I was dying when my gem was taken. B-Because I needed it."
He was rather chilled to the bone when he saw his mother's expression darken.
"Who took your gem?"
"T-That's not the point…" He mumbles nervously, trying to stay on track with what he's discovered. "I don't have my gem and I'm still fine. I'm…I'm fully human now. And you're here too, cause…whatever weird thing is going on, it managed to separate us without having one of us die."
Rose looks quizzically at him, unsure. "You mean to say…' Eastview' brought me back?"
"I-I mean…it could have! This place is literally creating things to be better! The people here didn't even look like people before and now look at them!" Steven spreads an arm to gesture at the bystanders creeping curiously around them outside their bubble. "There weren't any people before aside from us and the twins! Until they wanted some kids to play with and━ "̷̖͍̣̞̒̓̋
He stops himself.
"Steven?" Rose looks at him warily.
"Maybe I drifted off, or something else might have happened and when I got here…it managed to separate us the best way we could be separated."
He points to himself. "Steven Universe, your human son."
He then points to her.
"A-And…Rose Quartz, the leader of the Crystal Gem rebellion…and my mother."
He swallows grimly, feeling rather odd and disturbed in some way.
"Before you woke me, I felt like I was in a trance," Rose spoke quietly. "Like…someone was in my head. I don't know how much information you've learned from the gems but…it was like programming. Like, my sense of purpose was to be your cool super-powered mom fitting in with her human family that she loves so much, and I DO love you both so much." She tells him earnestly, giving him a small smile that he's not quite sure to reciprocate.
"That's odd," Steven replies. "I wasn't in a trance like you."
"Well, I'm glad you weren't." Rose kisses his forehead, causing Steven to blush from her sudden show of affection.
"I wouldn't want that for you."
"R-Right…anyway," He tries to change the topic and not be affected by his mom's loving side. "We're here because of Billy and Tommy's mother."
"Oh, I almost forgot. We were supposed to have dinner with them in a few hours." Rose muses, rolling her eyes. "I can't believe I was hypnotized to bake some delicacy for a fairly human dinner. Is that why we're here? To have dinner?"
"What? You don't know their mom?" Steven asks her, looking a bit in disbelief.
"No," She shakes her head. "Everything was a blur, though I do remember playing the role the voice wanted, I didn't actually see her or anything." She frowns a bit, eyes looking downcast. "All I felt was this…enormous pain and despair," Rose said bitterly, and Steven had a feeling that it reminded her of Blue Diamond's powers.
"Did she make you feel like that as well, Steven?"
"N-No…all I get are nightmares," He shivers, thinking back at the horrifying vision he'd just seen. "What I don't get is that she wants us to get out or something! She doesn't understand that we're trapped here!"
There was some loud banging outside their bubble. They both quickly look in alarm and immediately felt relieved once they spotted Greg's anguished face peering through them.
"YOU GUYS SCARED ME! WHY DID YOU FIGHT THE AVENGERS?!" He spoke to Rose particularly, still shirtless and with the signature on his back.
There were some giggles being heard in the background and Steven closes himself off once hearing it again.
"Do you hear that now?" He asks Rose hesitantly.
"Hear what?"
"The laugh tracks! I've been hearing them all day. It's so…unnatural."
Rose looks around as the giggles burst into light laughter, her face now looking uncomfortable.
"I hear them now, that you mentioned it━"
"HEY! CAN YOU TWO COME OUT! YOU'RE SCARING ME!"
Rose looks at Steven, in which he sighs and nods at her to pop the bubble. Greg immediately leaps to hug them both before pulling back and grabbing his hair in frustration.
"YOU BOTH NEARLY GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK!" He cries out, clutching his chest.
"Oh, not to worry! I can heal you just fine with my tears!" Rose beams down at him.
"Dad, where are Billy and Tommy?" Steven asks him in concern, looking around for the kids but only seeing unfamiliar faces.
Greg was breathing heavily, inhaling and exhaling at an uneven pace. Steven immediately grew scared for him and quickly licked his hand, patting his saliva to his Dad's head.
"GAH!" Greg recoils in shock. "D-Did you just…drool on me?"
Steven blinks, slapping his forehead as the realization hits him.
"Gosh, darn it! I don't have my healing spit."
"You have a healing spit?!" Rose turns to him with stars in her eyes. "Oh, Steven! That's incredible!"
"...and a bit gross," Greg mumbles, wiping his son's drool with his hand. "No offense, bud."
"Dad, where are the twins?" Steven repeats, now quite alarmed.
"Well, after Rose ran after you and ran somewhere far. Agent Barton and uh, Black Widow took them back."
"Back?" Steven pales.
"Back home, bud," Greg explains, successfully wiping off his drool. "You two almost got them in danger."
"That's not good," Steven turns to his mother for help. "If those kids got in trouble with their mom, it'll be all my fault. Our fault! We have to find them and talk to their mom. We have to explain things and━and…maybe, we can end all of this."
Rose gives him a look.
"We have to be careful. You're human now, Steven. I don't want you to get hurt."
"I won't get hurt." He tells her seriously, hands clenching into fists. "We'll have to work together. If I can talk down White Diamond, then we can talk down Billy and Tommy's mother."
Greg interrupts before Rose could give any semblance of a reaction to her son meeting White Diamond.
"Oh, boy. How are we going to their dinner without the fruitcake?"