Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, and/or their otherwise respective owners.
Author's Notes: This story got a lot more interest than I was expecting, so after I caught up a bit on my WIPs (damn you, finals!) I wrote this up. Updates are still unknown with this story; I've got some ideas on how to churn it out, but I am also going to be working this summer so idk how much I'm going to get accomplished. Hopefully a lot, but we'll see. ;)
Anyways, I hope y'all enjoy,
~TGWSI/Selene Borealis
CW: Seizure
~to be forged~
~children of the damned~
~chapter 1~
September, 2014
San Francisco, California, United States
Beep. Beep. Beep. Bee –
With a groan, thirteen-year-old Peter Parker lifted his hand up to his alarm clock and turned it off. Without even having to look at the numbers, he already knew what the time was. It was 7:00 in the morning, as it was every weekday morning, because that was the time when he woke up for school.
From downstairs, he could already hear the signs that his aunt and uncle were up: Aunt May's lively chatter filtered into his room from underneath his door, while the sound of the coffeemaker signaled that Uncle Ben was preparing to get his daily dose of caffeine, probably as he worked on one of those crossword puzzles he loved so much in the newspaper. For a moment, Peter debated whether or not he should get up, or stay in bed for just a little bit longer until one of them came upstairs to get him.
But then, remembering what day it was, he grinned and opened his eyes.
Jumping up and off of his bed, Peter grabbed his glasses off of his nightstand and slipped them on. Hurriedly, he went through his morning routine of washing his face, brushing his teeth and hair, and throwing on his clothes and the chain necklace his inhaler and parents' wedding rings hung off of. Afterwards, he excitedly ran out of his room and down the stairs, taking them two at a time. He nearly slipped on the last one, causing him to let out a yelp as his feet landed on the ground with a solid thud.
"Peter, honey, are you alright?" the voice of Aunt May asked.
"I'm fine, I'm fine!" Peter returned with a roll of his eyes.
Walking into the kitchen/dining room combo of their home, he saw both Ben and May sitting at the dining table, which was positioned in the alcove that overlooked the city. With the exception of his uncle's coffee, al of the breakfast items were laid out: cereal, milk, fresh fruit, and his orange juice. Smiling, Peter sat down at the table and helped himself to the food. "'Morning, Ben, May."
"Good morning to you too, sweetheart," his aunt replied, a light of mischief in her bespectacled eyes. "What have we said about running down the stairs?"
Another eye roll. "Oh, come on, Aunt May – "
May reached over and playfully ran a hand through his hair. Huffing, Peter tried to lean away from her touch, but it was of no use. She got him anyways, messing up the style he had meticulously brushed into place. "Yes, that's right," she said teasingly. "We told you not to run down the stairs, unless you want to fall and crack your skull open."
"And yet, he does it anyways," Uncle Ben remarked, smirking. He stood up and walked over to the coffeemaker, having just finished brewing the pot, and poured himself a cup of the hot drink.
"I only do it sometimes," Peter corrected.
"Oh, three or four times a week is sometimes? Good to know. I'll tell Eddie as much the next time I see him," Ben retorted smoothly. When all that Peter did was scowl in response, his uncle chuckled and ruffled his hair as he moved to sit back down at his seat, causing him to squawk indignantly. "Relax, kiddo. You didn't do it today, so no harm, no foul. Next time, though, you might not be as lucky."
"And we'll be the ones who have to fill out the accident report," May finished for him.
Peter's scowl deepened, his face flushing. "I know, I know..."
The three of them went silent for a couple of minutes as Peter stirred his milk into his cereal, shoveling a few bites down. May watched him eat with kind, loving eyes, while Ben filled in a few words with a small smirk. "You looking forward to your field trip today, bambino?"
At once, Peter's grin returned. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"
"And what's it called again?" Ben asked, without looking up from his newspaper. "The Stanford University Gallery of STEM Alumni? Containing presentations from – "
"All the top leading STEM companies in the entire world, like Stark Industries, Oscorp, and Pym Technologies," Peter finished excitedly, before the way his uncle looked up at him made him realize what he had done. His cheeks reddened, again. "Oh."
May laughed. "Don't mind us, sweetie. We're just teasing you. Now, come on, finish up your breakfast: you don't want to be late!"
Peter did just that.
Twenty minutes later, he was out the door, his backpack slung across his shoulders and another smile on his face. The cool weather of San Francisco felt good against his skin as he made the now-familiar journey to his school, a private school designed specifically for STEM-oriented kids such as himself. Tipping his face up towards the sky, he closed his eyes for a brief moment and inhaled the slight scent of eucalyptus in the air. Even after almost two years of living in San Francisco, it was still so odd to him, still so completely unlike the air in New York City, where he had been born and raised. To be honest, he still wasn't completely over the fact his aunt and uncle had moved him all the way across the country, even after –
The sound of a car horn jolted him out of his thoughts: it seemed he had slowed his walking in the middle of a crosswalk...again. Shaking his head at his own antics, he opened his eyes and waved apologetically to the car driver he'd angered, then resumed walking at his regular pace.
"Sorry, my bad! Please don't run me over!"
Arriving at his school, Peter walked into the building and to his homeroom. His fellow classmates, all eighth-graders like himself, were a rambunctious sort, especially now since they would be leaving for the field trip as soon as the attendance was recorded. Grimacing, he made his way around or through the other chattering teenagers and towards the back of the classroom, where his assigned seat was. With a sigh of relief, he sat down, then glanced over at the girl sitting next to him a little apprehensively. "Hey, Michelle."
Michelle, in typical Michelle fashion, didn't even look up from the book she was reading, The Crucible by Arthur Miller. "'Sup, loser."
She didn't say anything else after that. Not that he had expected her to.
He took out a sheet of paper and doodled on it until it was time for them to go. His teacher led his class outside, where they and several other students were shuffled onto a line of buses. Peter, ever the non-confrontational person that he was, sat in one of the first rows of seats on the bus his class was put on. Michelle, ever the...kind of person that she was, too, sat next to him, her nose still placed firmly in her book. She hadn't looked up from it once on the walk from the classroom to the bus loop, and if he knew her half as well as he thought he did, then she probably wouldn't for the entire ride to Stanford.
...But, that was alright with Peter. It wasn't like he needed friends or anything. He'd learned all the way back in New York that, if given the choice between trying to make friends and getting bullied for it or not trying to make any friends at all, it was usually better to go with the latter.
And by usually, he meant always.
Peter got out his sheet of paper and went back to doodling. By the time that they got to Stanford, he had it pretty much full of drawings: little cartoon figures of Captain America and Iron Man, fighting side-by-side, with Black Widow and Hawkeye hanging over them from a ceiling vent and Bruce Banner holding a clipboard while Thor looked on with a grin. Surrounding them were flowers, ivy leaves, black spiders. Satisfied, he put the paper back in the folder he'd put it in and the folder back in his bag as he and his fellow students were shuffled back off of the buses and onto the college campus.
When they had all been gathered up, they were divided up into groups to be led through a tour of part of the campus – there was no way they would have been able to tour the entire thing, it was just too big. Michelle, since she always pretty much stuck to his side, whether he liked it or not, was placed in the same group as him. She didn't say anything as he took out his smartphone to capture a few pictures of the buildings and write down some of the facts their tour guide rattled off, but some of their classmates did. He overheard them with their hushed tones, their whispers of "the Parker dork" or "that freak."
Peter felt his face heat up at their words, but didn't say anything.
He knew a lot better than to.
After their tour, they and the rest of their school regrouped to have lunch outside, as provided by the university. He took his kosher sandwich, chips, and drink over to a spot on the grass where none of his classmates were congregating and sat down. A little mournfully, he unwrapped his sandwich and bit into it; it was good, but not nearly as good as the pastrami-on-rye he was used to, much less his signature sandwich from Mr. Delmar's. The number five with extra pickles, smushed down real flat.
God, he missed New York sometimes.
No, scratch that: most times.
The sound of footsteps approaching made him look up. "Oh, uh, Michelle," he said awkwardly, once he'd swallowed the food in his mouth.
"Nice spot," she said casually, sitting down next to him. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly. "You've got mustard on your face."
"Oh, sorry," Peter winced, wiping at his face with a napkin.
She shrugged. "It's cool, I don't care. Just thought you should know."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
They sat in silence for several minutes, neither one of them speaking. Peter made it a point to avoid looking at her, although he did glance at her a couple of times when he thought she wasn't looking. Unlike him, she had chosen the vegetarian option, the salad, to eat. It looked like it had sunflower seeds in it; he was allergic to those.
...Belatedly, he realized he should probably say something. Not about her salad, but. Something. Aunt May had always told him how important it was to have a good conversation with somebody. "You don't need to be friends with them,"she'd said, time and time again. "But talking with people goes a long way in this world, bambino."
"What...what do you think about this place?"
"Stanford?" Michelle questioned back.
It was a rhetorical question, he knew.
He nodded anyways.
"I think it's the same as the Ivy League schools, even if it's not Ivy League," she said. "Expensive, lackluster, and ostentatious, and so not worth the degree you'd get from it."
Peter blinked in surprise.
"And you?"
Another surprised blink, as he concluded she was asking him his own opinion – people didn't often do that, besides his aunt and uncle. Nervously, he set down his sandwich and wiped the excess mustard off of his hand with a napkin. "Well, the campus is beautiful," he said quietly. "But – I, um – I don't know if I would want to go here. There's a lot of students, and it doesn't seem like their STEM program is that great when compared to...others. But, college is still a long way's off, right? I've got time to decide."
Michelle hummed. "Culver sounds nice."
"MIT's the best, though," he replied, before he could stop himself.
To his surprise, she nodded in agreement. "That it is."
Neither of them spoke for the rest of their lunch after that.
The Gallery was supposed to take place in one of the biggest buildings on campus, which was a bit of a trek from where they currently were. Things were already in full swing as they entered the building: middle and high school students such as themselves, college students, professors, and alumni alike were intermingling, talking around presentations that were so incredibly mind-blowing he felt his eyes widen at the sight. In one corner, he thought, he saw what looked to be several cybernetic prostheses on display. In another, he saw a presentation about quantum physics by somebody now working at Pym Technologies. His mouth dropped open at the sight; quantum physics were so cool...
The guides that had led them said they were pretty much free to check out whatever they wanted, up until it would be time for them to go, as long as they had a buddy with them at all possible times. At first, this made Peter incredibly anxious, before he remembered Michelle was still at his side like a bird of a feather. She was looking at him expectantly, too, her head cocked to the side and her arms crossed, as if she was silently asking him, "What would you like to do first?"
"Uh...do you want to go check out the alumni who now work at Stark Industries?"
"You mean the company owned by one of the world's greatest superheroes, who only stopped said company from manufacturing weapons when it was no longer convenient for him?"
"...Yes?"
"Sure. Why not?"
Together, they walked over to the cluster of now-Stark Industries employees' presentations. Theirs were perhaps one of the most diverse agglomerations there. Grinning, Peter saw that one of them had made his whole career's work dedicated to hologram technology, while another was working closely on research of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge with the Jane Foster and Darcy Lewis. Fascinated, Peter trailed over there first, intently listening on the questions others asked of the alum and the answers that she gave.
"What is it like working with Dr. Foster and Ms. Lewis?"
The alum laughed, her fingers ghosting along the edge of her hijab. "Very entertaining. Dr. Foster and Ms. Lewis have a delightful banter, and it's incredible being able to work with them."
"Have you met Thor?"
"I have. He has quite the sense of humor."
"Do you think we'll ever be able to make a wormhole ourselves?"
"It won't look like the Bifröst, that's for sure, but I don't see why not. Three years ago, most would've told you that an extraterrestrial visit would have been impossible, yet now we've dealt with an invasion. Anything is possible, especially with advancements in technology."
"What about the rest of the Avengers? Have you met them?"
"Hawkeye is a prankster, Black Widow is nice once you get to know her, and Dr. Banner makes an amazing curry." The alum paused, a smirk twisting at her lips. "As for Captain America and Iron Man...well, they're a bit in their own world, most of the time. Don't tell them I said that, though."
Most of the people around them laughed.
"Wicked," Peter whispered. He didn't know what else to say in response to her.
Everything she had just said was so cool.
A tug on his arm broke him out of his train of thought. "Come on, loser," Michelle said, harrumphing. "Let's go look at something else."
Peter acquiesced to her, even though he very much wanted to stay and keep listening to what the alum before them had to say. He could listen all day to stories about the Avengers: they were his heroes, both of the personal and "super" variety.
After they'd visited most of the other Stark Industries presentations, they went over to the cluster of Oscorp employees' presentations right next to them. There was a marked difference between the two: while the SI employees all about the "Technology" and "Engineering" aspects of STEM, the Oscorp employees were all more focused on "Science." Specifically, biochemistry, biology, genetics, and etcetera. Peter, as someone who had always leaned towards engineering and physics himself, gazed at all they had to offer in a bit of wonder.
"Oh, wow, this is so cool," he breathed, in reference to a terrarium containing eight little ladybugs, all with eight black spots each. Their species had been created, genetically modified into being. "Don't you think these guys are cool, Michelle?"
"I guess," the girl said. She didn't sound all that enthused. "They are cute, at least."
Frowning, he turned to look at her. "What, you don't like them?"
"It's not that," Michelle replied, shaking her head. Tentatively, she reached out a finger to the glass. She didn't touch it, didn't dare to, but did smile faintly at how one ladybug trailed after her movements regardless, as if unusually interested. "Genetic experimentation is cool and all, in theory, but it can have disastrous consequences, don't you think?"
"...I guess," Peter admitted uncertainly. "But without genetic experimentation, we wouldn't have Captain America, would we?"
"Would that really be such a bad thing?" he was pretty sure he heard her mutter.
Peter ignored her.
Abruptly, another terrarium caught his attention from the corner of his eye. With a small smile and a light gasp, he ran over to it – or, more accurately, the spider within it. He had always loved spiders, ever since he was a little kid and his dad had told him the tale of Arachne as a bedtime story. And he especially loved this spider, he thought, looking at it, as a cursory glance at the plaque next to it told him that it was a created species, just like the ladybugs were. They had been designed by Dr. Olivia Octavius, aka one of the leading scientists of Oscorp.
"So, the octopus creates the spider, huh?" he mused out loud at the thought, quietly snorting. "Well, imagine that."
"Peter," Michelle said as she walked up to him from behind.
Peter ignored her in favor of reaching out a finger to the glass of the terrarium, just like she had with the ladybugs. Despite being a new species, it didn't look all that different from the one black widow species with the three red spots along its back. This spider's spots were darker, sure, but if you weren't intimately familiar with the differences like he was, if you weren't a major spider nerd like he was, then you never would have –
Suddenly, Peter let out a gasp.
His eyes widened.
He instinctively took a step back.
Later, he wouldn't know how else to describe it. One moment, his vision was fine. It wasn't perfect, that was a given with how bad his prescription was, but it was ordinary.
In the next moment, however, his vision was gold. All he could see, for as far as the eye could see, was gold. It went on and on, forever and ever, a great expanse of Infinity that was warm, encapsulating, beautiful.
Yet still nevertheless terrifying because, y'know, he couldn't see anything but the gold.
Shakily, Peter reached a hand up to his eyes, as if to see what was wrong with them. "What the – ?"
All at once, something inside his mind exploded.
It really was like a bomb had gone off inside his brain. Every nerve in his body suddenly felt the pain of a thousand suns, and he really meant every nerve in his body when he said that. And it was completely and utterly overwhelming: his eyes squeezing shut in a futile hope to shut out the bright expanse before him, Peter's mouth opened in a silent scream, and the gold began to rush into his body, permeating it, filling up every bit of it.
But the detonation did not just stop there. An eternity later, but also no time at all, as a hot, vicious, and thick red began to run through his veins alongside the gold, thousands of voices began to speak inside his mind. They called out to him in a variety of tones, pitches, and frequencies, or so he thought. He could not focus on one of them; if he tried to, even momentarily, the pain burning through his body became so much more pronounced it bordered on the edge of oblivion.
Vaguely, Peter felt his hands clamp themselves over his ears, as if that could stop the cacophony inside his mind. His legs gave out from underneath him, causing him to fall forwards into the spider terrarium he'd just been looking at, even as a familiar grasp tried to stop his fall. The terrarium clattered to the ground with a mighty crash!, the breaking of glass being heard – and this, this actually made him scream. He let out a deep, guttural cry which tore at his lips and made his own eardrums vibrate in absolute misery.
"Peter!"
"Step back!"
"Somebody call 911!"
Peter registered these voices speaking, recognizing one of them as Michelle's, but he didn't comprehend them. Between the pain and the voices inside his mind, he couldn't even begin to think. His thoughts, and the very concept of himself, abandoned him.
From amidst the chaos then, as if sensing how the onslaught was quickly becoming unbearable to the point of death, a strange, twisting coil of something appeared. It was gold, the same color that was burning his vision and his body from the inside out. Wrapping around him like a snake, it whispered into his ear. It did not speak in words, and yet somehow he still understood what it was saying, with its soothing and feminine touch:
(I'm sorry, darling. This was not supposed to be painful, but neither was this to be your gift, not originally. Adjustments...had to be made. The universe had to be corrected. Time and Soul are still rewriting your path a second time over.)
In anguish, absolute agony, Peter screamed for a second time.
He wasn't aware he had ever stopped.
The gold winced.
(I'm sorry. Just hold on for a little bit longer, darling. They are almost finished. Your pain will soon be over.)
Strong hands placed themselves on his arms, just as Michelle's touch vanished. They turned him around, putting him on his side. Peter jerked within them wildly, his eyes rolling back into his head. No, not jerked. Convulsed.
He was convulsing.
He was seizing.
He was having a seizure.
(I'm so sorry.)
Peter didn't know how long he stayed like that. It could have been seconds, it could have been minutes, it could have been hours, it could have been days. The pain kept on crashing against him as waves crashed against a cliffside during a storm; it changed his body, fixing his lungs, restoring his eyesight, and making him stronger than he should've been in more ways than one. He wasn't sure how he knew this, but he did. It the was only thing he knew, in this strange new world he was in, with the strange kind of red, the kind of magic that was rooting itself within him.
Eventually, though, from amidst the beyond, the Infinity, a figure appeared before him. Even with his eyes closed, he could see it, clear as day. It was the figure of a teenager, about eighteen or so, with brown-auburn hair and a gentle smile. He was wearing a dark, leather red jacket over an even darker red shirt and pants, with a crown of the same color framing his face. Beside him was standing a girl, and despite the pain Peter still felt shock, because that was –
(It's time. Take his hand, darling. Accept your destiny, forged through the death of another.)
Reaching out blindly, Peter did just that. His hand clasped the hand of the figure standing in front of him. The boy's skin felt cool against his own, and maybe that was because of the fire that was smoldering in Peter's bones, or maybe it was because the boy wasn't even real at all. He didn't know.
It didn't matter.
As soon as the boy's hand grabbed his, it all stopped. The gold, both the gold he could see and the gold wrapped around him, vanished, taking the pain and the voices inside his mind with it, as if they had never been there in the first place. The only sign that they had was the red that remained, crackling and crepitating within him, ready to use. No, ready to abuse.
Peter's eyes snapped open at the thought.
Above him, their faces backlit by the lights shining above, he saw two paramedics standing over him, as well as Michelle. She was standing a little bit away, her eyes shining with tears and a hand over her mouth. He stared back at her, mystified.
"Peter? Peter, can you hear me?" one of the paramedics asked, shining a light in his face.
Peter opened his mouth to say something, anything.
Only one word came out:
"WANDA!"
Word Count: 4,179
