The forest around the Roswaal property were untamed and dense, but there was for sure a spot about twenty yards inside of the tree line where the real think undergrowth began. Steve high stepped and carefully watched his footing as he followed Ram through the thicket.

While he had made sure to change out of the suit after his bath and actually was wearing something appropriate for stalking around the woods, Ram was still in her maid's ensemble.

"Come on, Captain. You're not afraid of a little grass, are you?" Ram asked.

He shook his head. "You didn't bother to change before coming out here. Aren't you worried you're going to get the white parts of that uniformed stained?"

Ram came to a stop and glanced back over her shoulder, her pink eye staring back at him from the part in her bangs. "These are the only outfits that Rem-Rem and I have," he said.

"Oh," Steve said stepping over a bush. "That's not odd."

Ram took a few more steps and pointed to something off in the trees. "See there," she said tracing a line through the air with her finger. There was a line of glowing green crystal like objects embedded in the tree line.

"What are those?"

Turning to head along a path parallel to the one made by the green glowing stones, Ram began to speak again. "These stones keep mabeasts or witch fiends from breaking through the protective line. Roswaal had them placed out here to keep the road and the nearby town safe."

"There's a line of these kind enclosing these, uh, mabeasts inside of the tree line here so that they can't rampage around?" Steve paraphrased to let her know that he understood.

Ram nodded. "You're not as dumb as you look, Captain."

"Just can't catch a break with you, can I?" Asked Steve as he jogged a little to catch up to her. "Would it be easier if we just came out here and hunted the things down to keep them from bothering anyone anywhere?"

Ram shrugged. "You could kill a mabeast, sure, but the kind that are around here have a potent bite—each one carries a curse."

"So you just die instantly?" Steve asked.

"Usually within hours, but you wouldn't even know it was in you until the thing activated," Ram said. She stopped near a spot where one of the crystals was out. "Master Roswaal could probably kill most of them if it came to it, but it would just destroy the forest and they would multiply back up in no time."

Ram moved over to the tree and began to dig the crystal out. She reached into a satchel she carried over her should and inserted the new crystal into the tree.

"Ram, ma'am?"

"What is it Captain?"

"I have something to ask you, Lord Roswaal said that your sister is being weird around me for—"

Ram cut him off. "My dear sister isn't used to new people, especially men who are polite to her," she said pocketing the spent crystal. As she glanced toward the ground she froze and bent down to pick something up.

When she stood back to her full height she held a small push doll up, the thing was stitched and made with care and what was more awkward was that it was the exact likeness of Steve Rogers.

"I take it you are trying to keep your little hobby a secret?" Ram asked raising her eyebrow.

Steve took it from her. "I didn't make that." He examined it closely. "Do you think it's a coincidence that it is right under the damaged crystal."

Ram sighed. "I want to hope so, but I'm afraid I know better."

Since it was a nice day out, Peter decided to crawl up to the roof of the manor where he could sprawl his suit out on a flat surface in full view of the sky. There were bits of the suit designed to recharge with sunlight and he could use them to keep his phone active for the time being. He wished that he had some way to construct real solar cells and get actual decent charging. At the very least the suit had over a day's charge in it running at regular levels and the 2.0 suit seemed to have an even more extensive battery, but more ways to use it.

He checked his cellphone charge, since he had put it in airplane mode it was holding steady at 70%. He remembered seeing a thing about how long a phone actually could go when there was no cell service or internet running through it all of the time.

Mister Stark had gotten him a better model than he once had, but even this one in this world was little more than a glorified camera, flashlight, and, in a pinch, calculator. Still, he thought it best to keep it charged. He would use the ports in the wrist of the suit to share its power to the phone as it charged in the sun.

At the same time he could do diagnostics from his phone to the suit, just to make sure that everything was alright. The problem of the suits electrical capabilities was far less worrying now than the problem of him making more web fluid. He knew that all of the things to make web should exist in some form in this world, at least theoretically.

The web fluid was just composed of chains of amino acids like glycine and alanine, which made it a type of protein. It didn't necessarily need to be the same kind of protein and it was possible that if he could get something to work with that had the ingredients he needed he could break the original things down until all that was left was the desired material.

He would need some containers to boil things in, something glass that wouldn't be effected by as many caustic substances. Despite the warnings about Roswaal, he could probably at least trust him for that. Once the web fluid situation was solved he could rest easier.

Peter slid back over to his phone and checked the status bar on the diagnostic. It was just passing the halfway point. He heard a slight knock downstairs. The vibration moved up through the ceiling and he could even feel it.

"Peter? Oh, you're not even in here," he heard Emilia's voice in his room below.

Climbing to the edge of the building he dropped down to hang upside down at the window looking in.

Emilia had been approaching it as he popped into view and she let out a startled shriek. "Peter! What are you doing out there?"

"Working on some things," he said with a smile.

"Upside down? Outside?"

"On the roof, want to see?" He asked reaching his hand through the open window.

Emilia took his hand with a slight caution in her movements. He responded by pulling her out to him and clutching her tight. Peter hit the window ledge and kicked off to gain more height to safely land on the roof. This world's lax gravity was beginning to grow on him.

This time Emila didn't scream, though they moved she did bury her face against his chest.

"We're on the roof now," Peter said.

Emilia turned to look at the items sprawled out. The cellphone and his suit with the little wires running between them.

"What is all this?" Emilia knelt down and ran her fingers along one of the wide. "Some kind of twine?"

"It's called a wire, it transfers information and energy between two things," Peter explained.

Emilia stared at the screen of the phone. "There's a little moving painting on here—wait is this one of those Conversing Mirror Metia?" She asked, her eyes going even wider than normal.

"That's a cellphone—what is a Metia?" Peter asked.

"Metia are things that allow the use of magic without having to use their gate. Most of the time they're used by someone who has no aptitude for magic, but some magic users will use them to augment their other abilities."

Peter nodded. "I guess you could call a phone a Metia then."

"What does a phone do?" Emilia asked.

"They're used to talk to people who are far away, use apps and mess around on the internet," Peter backed out of the diagnostic app and went to his photos app. "See," he held the phone up for her to see it.

Emilia's facial expression morphed into one of stunned confusion. "How did you get that in there? Where is this?"

"That's my friend Ned and May, my aunt," Peter said. "We're having the lamest Christmas ever there," he laughed and then added. "Christmas is an Earth holiday."

She nodded, still seemingly in a state of shock.

"It's easy to make these though, watch," Peter took the phone from her loose grip and got down next to her shoulder to shoulder. He triggered the front facing camera so quickly that the image sprung up on screen before the phone's live view had come on. "There."

For a split moment she stared at the phone and then she slapped her hands over her eyes. "Peter, please don't do that."

"W-what?"

"Turn the Metia away, please. Don't show it to me," Emila begged, her voice muffled behind her hands.

"What's the matter?" Peter moved to put his phone back on top of his suit.

Emilia was breathing heavily. "I just—I can't. I should have warned you, but I…" she trailed off shaking her head.

"Oh, I'm sorry if I did something wrong. I still don't know what I did, but let's forget that whole Metia business," Peter said.

For a long while she sat next to him silent as he awkwardly checked the suit progress and some other things. When he lifted his phone the picture of he and a confused Emilia was still there and he thought of deleting it, but he swiped down to save it. Maybe it was a little rude of him and he wouldn't send it to anyone else. He couldn't.

He just wanted to keep this first memory in this world.

"You said the twines transfer energy," Emilia said.

"Yeah, the suit takes energy in from the sun and then sends it to the Metia," he said.

Emilia nodded. "What does a suit need energy? Is there a magic barrier or…"

Peter grabbed his mask. "Oh, I can show you that. Put this on."

Emilia put the mask on, her long white hair jutted out of the bottom like straw at a scarecrow's neck. "I can see, but everything looks weird," Emilia said.

She turned her head to look around and Peter got in front of her.

"There's strange little runes floating around," Emilia said.

"That's Earth writing."

"You're so weird," Emilia said giggling.

"Karen, say hi," Peter said.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Emilia."

"Who said that?" Emilia screamed spinning around and looking for the source of the sound.

Peter chucked. "My suit said that, I call her Karen."

"Hello?" Emilia said.

"Hi again, did you have any questions?" Karen asked.

"Peter, you're walking around where this poor woman like skin! How did she get inside this suit?"

"She is the suit, when it was created she was created along with it to help it function," Peter said.

"Correction: when the suit was created I was an AI made to oversee the suit's machine learning and programming that was then transferred to the suit to continue the process of maintaining the suit's functionality."

"Right…ehh-eye?" Emilia wondered out loud.

"Artificial intelligence," Karen answered.

"It's a little crooked on your head," Peter moved forward to take her by the chin and straighten it out carefully pulling it down more.

"Blood pressure and heart rate levels elevated," Karen commented into Emilia's ears.

"How's that?"

Emilia nodded. For a bit they sat there while she looked around with the mask on just seeing what kind of different things would pop up in front of her eyes. After a while Karen spoke up again.

"Do you want to see something hilarious," she asked.

"Yes," Emilia said.

"Tell Peter that he has a handsome jawline," Karen said.

Emilia snickered, pressing her fingers to the front of the mask to stifle her giggling. "Hey, Peter," she said finally. He turned to look at her. "You've got an, uh, very handsome jawline."

He moved, taken aback for a second. His face began to redden and he touched his hand to his chin. "I'm not sure what to say to that, thank you?"

"That wasn't funny," Emilia complained.

"But you were thinking it," Karen said.

"Wait, what is Karen saying in there. Karen, cut it out, I'll reformat you."

Emilia pulled the mask off of her head, her hair was sticking up and puffed out on the sides from how the mask had compressed everything in. "That's probably enough of that," she said handing it back to Peter.

Her cheeks were red and her eyes looked slightly watery. "I have to apologize for her, she can be a bit weird."

"Like I just told you, you're weird," Emilia smiled. "Did you talk to Captain Rogers about what I told you?"

"I did while we were getting our tour earlier," Peter explained. "I did have one thing I needed to ask you about, since maybe you would know: have you ever heard of any kind of alchemist or scientist type people around here?"

Emilia pondered the question for a second. "Roswaal dabbles in all kinds of magic, he might know where you can find what you need if he doesn't have it himself."

"And it's safe to ask him?" Peter asked.

Emilia shrugged. "If you think it's worth the risk," she said. "You Earth seems to be on a completely different type of magic than here. I still don't know Roswaal the best and I am not sure what he could do if he got access to even more power or even what he is after."

"He is sponsoring you in the selection," Peter said.

"Even if it is for the sake of my favoritism on the slim chance that I win, it wouldn't grant him much more power than he has already," Emilia said. "I think that's why I am so unsure of exactly what it is he wants."

Peter sighed. "Then why accept his help?"

"There's something I need to do that only he can help me with. A promise I have to fulfill."

He sensed that she didn't want to say more, so he went back to poking at the diagnostic program some more.

"Are you going to be up here a while?" Emilia asked.

Peter nodded.

"Puck is busy with Beatrice and all, so it will just be me, but do you mind if I sit with you?"

"You can hang out with me as long as you like."

The afternoon passed swiftly, going from them spending time on the roof of the manor to Peter and Steve being measured to have more clothes made. That night there was a quiet dinner with Roswaal joining them a little late. He didn't seem to interested in the food although it was delicious. Peter thought it was odd how he ate almost out of obligation or need more than anything else.

After dinner he spent a little time sparring with Steve. Since he couldn't afford to waste anymore web fluid, it was mostly a match between them practicing actually fighting technique. Peter wasn't trained or anything, how could he be, but he was able to pick up some things from Steve was they worked through different moves and scenarios.

The night ended with him studying with Rem for a bit and learning the different I-glyphs. From what Peter could tell it was similar to Japanese where the glyphs represented a pair of letters or a sound that would be a pair of letters in the equivalent of English. Rem explained that these were the easiest to learn and they would allow him to read some simple fairytales made for children.

She seemed genuinely shocked when he he picked up on some of it rather quickly and she complimented him for his efforts before leaving him with the study materials to return to her own room.

Peter dozed off easily enough after retrieving his phone and suit from the roof where he had left them to finish charging when it was still light out. As he climbed into the bed, he felt a wight pushing down on him. It must have been because he had done quite a bit more than he first thought today, but the moment that his head hit the pillow he thought of his Aunt and hoped that she and his friends were home safe for all of the efforts that he and the Avengers had expended.

There was a fifty percent chance that anyone he knew had made it out of this whole thing alive, those seemed like decent enough odds right.

As Peter drifted into a deeper sleep he felt something cold envelop him. It was like fog or smoke was swirling around him, cocooning him. There was a voice that was so small and distant that he wondered if he was hearing something taking place down stairs or outside. It sounded like Emilia, but not.

Then it grew closer and he heard its soft pleading voice. "…you. I love you. I love you."

Peter tried to open his eyes, tried to move but the darkness was so overwhelming and intrusive that he couldn't tell if he was seeing the room that he had gone to sleep in or not. Oily blackness engulfed him and through it all the voice increased in speed and volume.

"I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you…"

Peter could see her now, molded out of the darkness itself with a purple and dark blue sheen accenting the curves of her body and glares of her hair. Her eyes were white voids hollowed out of her head and boring into him, though him. His tingle didn't trigger, maybe she meant the words she kept repeating and she wasn't going to hurt him?

Even then he still felt an intense danger resonating off of her, something that even the heightened sense of his spider powers couldn't contend with. At his deepest, most basic level, he was scared of her and what she entailed.

Why did she sound so much like Emilia?

The voice was mindless and devoid of personality besides this desperate desire and yet he could easily hear an audio quality that matched Emilia's there. The specter floating above him even resembled her some.

"IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyou…"

Her speech had become so rapid that had he not heard her earlier it would have taken him time to discern what she were saying. Peter didn't know this woman, this spirit or version of Emilia or whatever she was, he didn't want to. He wanted to cover his eyes, but were they even open. Was he awake or was this a dream.

Peter fought to move his hands, to lift his arms or sit up or anything. Something icy gripped his heart, tightening its hold until he froze. Time stood still around him and the white eyed woman. Her chant continued while he gasped and struggled, trying to do anything for whatever this was to release his heart.

He didn't want to die here. He couldn't die like this.

All at once the darkness vanished the woman's chant faded and Peter sprung up in bed to find the sun beginning to come up. He had experienced nightmares before, but not like this. He rolled over and in time was able to drift to sleep.

Steve wasn't used to living in the lap off luxury. He had grown up after the first Great War and lived through the boom and bust that was the 1920s. He'd seen one of the darkest times in American and World History, so when he awoke right at dawn to find his clothes pressed and folded neatly outside his door it was a bit much for him.

He dressed and stretched in his room and headed downstairs and out the front door of the mansion for his morning jog. The air was crisp and cool outside with a light fog hanging in it, the mist kissed his skin as he made his way up the main path out of the Margrave's property. No need to be coy about it, he opened up running at full speed hands straightened like knives as he swung them back and forth at his sides.

Running was easier here, just like Peter had said. Each step propelled him a little further, his heart had barely begun to speed up. He was out the front gate in mere seconds and down the road moving at a pace that would have made traffic in most major cities envious.

Steve was faster, by his estimate he might have been topping out at sixty miles per hour instead of his Earth forty. His feet pounded into the ground leaving divots, just how much could he push himself like this?

To test out this newfound lack of drag he jumped high into the air, almost reaching the tops of the trees and rolled over into a corkscrew parallel with the ground. It was one of his shield throw formations. While twisting through the air to gain more momentum he would fling his shield arm out to send the vibranium disc flying down at a large. They'd try to block high and usually it would be no use.

He landed in a crouch with very little recoil and resumed his run at a more even pace now. Now he wondered about all the physics of this new world. Would bullets move faster? How would this change the speed of sound? What about someone like Vision who could increase their density at will?

Vision.

Though he had known the Android for very little time it was hard to think about his gruesome death at the hands of Thanos. Death of an artificial lifeform, but a death nonetheless.

If Tony made it could he restore him? Could he and Thor and maybe Bruce make a new Vision that retained the old's personality and wit. And it's love for Wanda? What had become of Wanda? Even if she hadn't been reduced to ash would she be the woman she was before?

Something dark flitted across the road and then back at lighting speed. He couldn't judge the shape of it so he slowed down and came to a stop. The shadows at the side of the road moved again and a figure stepped into the road seemingly coalesced out of the early dawn darkness.

He could see her this time, though they had only met the once. Dark hair, shining violet eyes and a cloak that billowed out behind her. The braid of her hair whipped up behind her like a tail as she rushed him. He caught her in the chin with a kick and flipped back to put some distance between them.

"I knew I would find you here," Elsa said as she looked at him, blood trickling down over her right eye.

"The told me you were a hired killer. Did they add me to your ledger too?" Steve asked.

"This is less business and more for pleasure," she said.

She came for him again, no knives in her hands this time, just balled up fists. He blocked her strikes blow for blow and knocked her arms away every time she swung.

"I had to fight you again," she said. "Had to see."

Elsa dropped lo sweep his feet and he jumped. She punched for his chest after that and he let her hit land. It was like her fist hit a wall and he felt the bone shatter, and break.

She leaped back, her withered hand dangling at her side.

"What a thrill," Elsa said. He watched as her hand inflated back to life, he could hear the bones cracking and rebuilding themselves into their rightful places.

"Why do this?" He asked.

"Because the only warmth I can feel is inside of another person's belly," she answered.

Steve stripped out of his shirt, his chest soaked with morning dew, and slapped his six pack. "You're not going to get in here with those hands, take out those knives."

Her hands moved in a flash and she was holding three kukri: one in each hand and one between her teeth.

"You're the first man to ever offer me this kind of foreplay," she said speaking around the knife. Her cheeks were burning red now and there was a glint of desire in her eyes. Was she getting off on this?

This time when she closed the gap Steve parried her first series of blows and managed to knock the knife from her left hand. The next time he was blocking the right, she caught him with a punch to the chin that actually sent his head back a little. They traded a few blows and she took the punches while trying to strike at him and failing.

When he kicked her away this time she paced side to side, her chest heaving and her eyes bright.

"Why won't you hit me like before?" Elsa drew a fourth knife and flung it in his direction only for him to jerk his head to the side and let it sail by him.

"Pierce my heart. Here, I'll give you some help," she took the knife that she still had in hand and carved an X into the center of her chest between her breasts.

Steve shook his head. "I had a friend once upon a time named Tony and he gave me some advice: never stick your arm in crazy—I may be misquoting that."

Elsa rushed low, her arms out behind her as she charged in. Steve kicked her head to the side causing her to spit out her knife and some blood, but she recovered so quickly and swung for his stomach again, he dodged out of the way barely but stripped this final knife from her hands.

He had her by the arms now, with them stretched out to her sides to hold them. "How many more of those do you have?"

"A lady has a few extra hiding places," Elsa said.

"I'm not letting you go for anymore of them."

"That's not what I'm going for."

"I'm not letting you near Lady Emi—"

In a surprise move she lunged forward, dislocating both of her arms at the shoulder and pressing her mouth to his. The shock of the moment caught him so off guard that she was able to force her tongue in to his mouth for a second and sweep it around the inside of his lips. She bit down on his bottom lip a second later and drew blood, suckling at it.

Steve head butted her so hard that she collapsed to the ground in a heap, her shoulders healing themselves as she began to cackle.

"My first kiss," she said through the fit of laughter, tracing a finger over her lips. "It was everything I dreamed it would be."

Steve wiped the blood for his mouth. "Who did this to you?"

Elsa made no move to attack, her posture was different now with her fingers clutching the skirts of her dress like a flummoxed schoolgirl.

She finally replied. "Why did you stop trying to kill me?"

"Because you made that doll right? The one I found at the tree line?" Steve asked.

"You found my doll then?" She said, her voice small.

Steve nodded. "It was well made and I would like to think someone who can make something like that isn't all bad, but you're making my earlier assumption real hard to hold on to." Her mouth had been sweet and minty, he could taste her mixed in with his blood. Had she done this for him? Had she done all this for a kiss?

There was rustling out past the tree line. Steve followed the noise to see the grass moving from someone passing.

"Who ever you brought with you, call them off," Steve said.

"Call who off? I came alone."

Something leaped through the air, sailing right for Elsa. Steve hit it and sent it bouncing to the road before he could even judge what it was, but now he could see. An impossibly large dog with a raised back and gill-like glowing red slashes running down the side of its body. A mabeast, he guessed. It had to be.

"Not a friend of yours?"

Elsa shook her head.

It rushed and Steve dashed between her and it to catch it again, but this time it turned and clamped down on his shoulder. He forced the creature to the ground, his shoulder still in its mouth as it squirmed under him. Three hook bladed kukri slammed into the thing causing it to go limp.

He glanced back to Elsa right behind him, her face expressionless as she tore some of her cloak away and brought it down to wrap his arm.

"What are you doing?"

"Stopping the bleeding," as the blood soaked over her fingers she paused as if to savor the feel and a moment later she jumped back to stand a few feet from him.

"Why did you save me?" Elsa asked.

"You kind of remind me of someone, a crazed version of them. You're not a wild animal because you want to be—something happened to you."

"What happened to her, the woman I remind you of."

Steve sighed. "She became a friend, even planted a kiss on me unexpectedly once, but a good man once told me that if he had done the thing that was expected of him and taken the shot we would have never known what kind of woman Natasha Romanov would become. Sometimes the most important shots and orders in life are the ones you don't take."

Elsa turned away looking off into the forest. Then she looked back at him. "You should get that Witch Fiend bite looked at," she said as she began to move away from him.

That mabeast had gotten him good, the arm hurt to move and there was a rough pain with each step he took. "Think about what I'm saying. There's a chance you could become more than this, you could help people. You could even make someone smile with those dolls," Steve called after her as she left.

She turned to him, walking backwards for a moment. "Keep that tight stomach of yours safe for me," Elsa said before she dashed off into the woods and vanished out of sight.

Steve walked up the road a little ways and retrieved his shirt from the road.

"How was your run, Steve," he said imitating someone asking him the question. "Oh, you know the norm—I got kiss-bit by a crazy woman and then just normal bit by a wolf-man."

Gripping his injured arm in the other hand to keep it from moving too much, Steve made his way back toward the manor, moving considerably slower than he had to come this far.

It was going to be a long walk.